A long overdue thank you and update

Thank you so much to each of you who helped make the fitness center project such a huge success!  I have heard from more than a handful of people who wanted to donate, but didn't get a chance before the project was fully funded.  I was also shocked by how quickly the donations came in!  Your desire to support this project means so much to me and I thank you from the bottom of my heart!

The new fitness equipment was delivered and installed in early April.  Since then, attendance at the gym has exploded!  Part of the increase was due to spring break.  There were lots of high school and college students back in Gyovren for the break who were excited to have a place to work out!  I still open the gym almost every evening for women who work during the day.  There's one group who comes in with their school-age kids. I entertain the kids with made-up exercise routines or Twister while their mothers use the fitness equipment and catch up on each other's lives.  I plan to post some pictures in the near future. 

I am quite happy that the weather is finally starting to warm up!  We had a LONG, COLD winter.  There was snow on the ground for the entire month of January so my walk to the library looked like this: 

In February the library was able to hire a part time librarian whose salary is funded through the program Global Libraries.  Sevgul is from Gyovren, but has lived in Plovdiv for the last 8 years attending high school and college.  She graduated from college with a computer science degree and has been so helpful and fun to work with!  We were able to do a second book inventory and finally got all the books arranged on the shelves by category and alphabetical order.  Yea!

In March I got a much-needed break from the snow and cold with a trip to Morocco!  I went with 4 other Peace Corps volunteers.  Here are some of the pictures: 

In April Gyovren hosted a school spelling bee whose winner will go on to a regional competition next week. The Bulgarian National English Spelling bee was organized by another Peace Corps volunteer last year and now a Bulgarian organization has taken responsibility for putting it on as an annual event.  Spelling in English is difficult for Bulgarian kids not only because they are spelling English words, but also because they have no need for learning how to spell in their own language.  The Bulgarian language is completely phonetic and the names of the letters are just the sounds that they make.  The practice sessions that I organized with the kids to prepare them for the spelling bee usually started out with games to review the names of the letters in the English alphabet and then activities to help them get comfortable spelling out loud.



At the end of March I attended our Close of Service conference.  That was the last time for our group of volunteers that arrived in country together (over 80 at the time!) to be gathered in one place.  Our leaving dates will be somewhat staggered throughout the end of June-July 20th.  My COS date will be July 11th.  I'm planning to come back to the states and travel around to visit family and friends.

I am happy to share with you that my next step is going to be teaching in a Disney English center in China for one year.  My start date is September 13th and I'll be placed in Beijing.  I am excited about this because I will be able to get my TEFL certificate through this program as well as another opportunity to live abroad and experience a new culture and language.