LG's Excellent PC Adventure

On Sunday night, Oct 17th, we had a Farewell Dinner for our Host Families in Saedinenie. We took over one of the small restaurants and had them cater a dinner. There was food, rakia and wine, and then music and dancing the Hora. That's a tradition at any Bulgarian gathering of more than three people. I have pictures and some video of that night and will upload them as soon as my cable is installed at home. Lindsay came up with the idea of taking a picture of each of us with our families and giving them the pictures in frames during dinner. Veneta was so pleased she started to cry. Stoil just had another rakia and then got up to join the Hora line. Here, men don't cry, they dance!

It was a busy week that began with cramming for my LPI (language proficiency interview) and culminated with signing a lease and moving into my home for the next couple of years. We took our LPI's on Tuesday and wanted to do well on them. There are several levels to the LPI and it's mandatory to achieve a level of Novice Mid in order to avoid re-testing in six months. My own personal goal was to get one level higher, Novice High, by the end of training. I took the test and had to wait until after Swearing-in to learn that I actually scored an Intermediate Low! It's hard to believe that scoring a Low in anything is good news, but I actually did much better than I expected and I'm really pleased. I headed home for lunch right after the test and discovered a party in full swing at our house. Veneta's lela (aunt), the fortune teller you met in a previous posting, had come by with some of her other relatives to celebrate my accomplishment. She told everyone that I did very well on the test before I even got home and they saw no reason to keep the rakia corked while awaiting the formality of my arrival. It's really handy to have a seer in the family.



We were all gathered together in Pazardjik on Thursday for a final day of admin meetings and instructions on beginning the process of getting our Lichna Carta's. Those are the Bulgarian equivalent of a Green Card and allow us to live and work here for one year. Then we'll have to renew them. It's a long bureaucratic process and I was told to begin it on the first day of work in Stara Zagora. The next morning we boarded a bus for Sophia and were taken to the gate of the PC Headquarters. Then,on Friday, October 22nd, 2004, Ambassador James Pardew swore into service the 56 of us who made it through training. The ceremony took place on the grounds of the PC Headquarters in Sofia and was followed by a brief Reception. After which we were all kicked out of the nest and sent to our permanent sites without the coddling and hand-holding we'd come to know and love as Trainees. Now I am a full-fledged Volunteer!! The ceremony itself was short and sweet and I have a video of it which I'll try to put on my website as soon as I get my computer back online. After the Swearing-in, we all milled around congratulating each other and one by one the new Volunteers drifted off towards the bus and train stations to begin their journeys to cities and towns spread all across Bulgaria. Sara, for example, had about a 12 hour journey to a small town on the Black Sea. I just picked up my overnight bag and hopped back on a bus to Saedinenie for a final night in my own bed. Veneta & Stoil were happy to have me home for this extra night and I felt like having another night of pampering before striking out on my own.

On Saturday they drove me to Stara Zagora, a trip that takes about an hour and a half by car and two and a half by bus through Plovdiv. We managed to find Petya, the Executive Manager of REDA (the Agency I'll be working for), and she took us to the apartment. Peace Corps wants our homes here to be safe and comfortable but not ostentatious. By PC standards, my apartment probably borders on ostentatious. It's on the 8th floor of an older building in a very nice part of town. My two terraces face south and east and I have two bedrooms, a living room, a dining room, a kitchen and one and one half bathrooms. The furniture and appliances are all old but clean and serviceable. I have about a five minute walk to work and ten minutes down to the center of town. Last night I took a chair out onto my terrace, lit a cigar and as I watched the night lights of Stara Zagora twinkle below me, I thought of all the PC Volunteers who revel in hardship and brag about having no running water or electricity. Then I switched on CNN on my TV and watched the news. Petya took me out to Metro (a store like Costco or Sam's Club) so I could pick up bedding, kitchen stuff, cleaning supplies, etc. I unpacked and on Sunday took all the debris down to the dumpster. I then went back upstairs and read a book for an hour. It was still nice out so I thought I'd go for a walk and nose around the neighborhood but I couldn't find my keys anywhere. I tore the place apart and finally realized that the only place they could possibly be was with the trash I'd thrown in the dumpster. I had to go back down to the street and crawl into the trash can to rummage through my own stuff to find the keys. As I was crawling back out, I saw my new neighbors and said, "Zdravete!", which is the polite form of Hello. They are really impressed with the new PC Volunteer next door!!

I started work this morning and have already worked on one small project. However, most of the day and most of this week will be spent in settling into my place and my office. I think I'll have a high speed connection at home before the end of the week, so I'll try to get some new pictures online then. For now, I've got to go off and do Volunteer type stuff, that's what they pay me for.