LG's Excellent PC Adventure

The first of March, in Bulgaria, is known as Baba Marta Den or Granny March's Day. On this day people give everyone they know a small decoration made from red and white yarn. These decorations are either pinned to the clothing or tied around the wrist like a bracelet. The decorations are called Martenitsi and they represent good luck, good health and happiness throughout the coming year. The white yarn represents the outgoing snow and the red yarn represents the sunshine of the coming Spring. The Martenitsi are worn until you see the first tree in bloom or the first stork, then you throw them into the nearest river so that your luck will flow like a river. If there isn't a convenient river nearby, you hang your Martenitsi on the nearest fruit tree to ensure that you will have a prosperous year. During the last week of February, the town center was chock-a-block with vendors selling Martenitsi. You'ld be amazed at the variety of small decorations that can be made from red and white yarn. Although it's snowing and cold today, I walked down through the center to see if there were any vendors left and discovered that this is probably their busiest day of all. Hundreds of people were buying last minutes Martenitsi for those awkward situations where someone you've forgotten about pops up and nails you with an unexpected wish for good luck! So there I stood, a foreigner absolutely festooned with red and white decorations looking somewhat like a walking Christmas tree, frantically buying as many Martenitsi as I could fit in a pocket. Today you wear all the decorations you've been given, but I'm told that tomorrow you can reduce the number to one or two and then begin looking for a leafing tree or a stork. For a grown-up man to be wearing delicate little red and white yarn tassles and bracelets might be thought to be embarassing, after all would John Wayne ever wear Martenitsi, but it's mandatory here and everyone has them and you wear them until you see a stork. Hey, look! Isn't that a stork?

March 3rd is Bulgaria's National Day. This year it falls on a Thursday so the government has declared a four day weekend and we all get Friday off as well. To make up for this missed day of work, we will all work a six day week the following week. People I've spoken with seem fairly non-committal about the Saturday so it will be interesting to see who actually goes to work that day.

Another tradition in Bulgaria concerns the celebration of birthdays. Your birthday, or Rozhden Den, is a truly special day and you kick off the celebration yourself by treating everyone around you to a party. You bring chocolates and cakes and wine to work and later you invite your friends home to help you celebrate. Of course, people give you gifts too, just like at home, but you don't hang around hoping someone will remember your day. I like this pro-active approach. Hey, it's my day and you're going to celebrate it!! Most Bulgarians also have a Name Day. There's a calendar of Name Days and you get to celebrate just as though you were having a birthday on your Name Day. Again, you kick off the proceedings and treat one and all to a party. Unfortunately, there is no Bulgarian equivalent of Larry, so I'm going to just have to pick a likely sounding name and use it.

Na Ghosti is a visit or more literally, guesting. So I'll go na ghosti to Veneta & Stoil's for a day over the long weekend. I haven't seen them since Christmas and it will be nice to just sit around and catch up. I call them or they call me once a week or so, but it's very difficult still for me to talk on the phone. I do better sitting face to face with my dictionary firmly in hand. I'm also planning a day trip up to Kazanluk, a town about an hour north of Stara Zagora. Kazanluk is famous for being the burial place for Thracian Kings and has so many burial chambers that the government has had to stop excavating them because they can't deal with the volume of archeological treasures that they have already uncovered.

Which reminds me, there's a Bulgarian saying I'd like to share with you; "kogato doide slapata nedelia, nay pita kakvo iskash." Which translates to, "When Blind Sunday comes, it doesn't ask what you want." Don't ask me, I don't have a clue but people say it often and in a wide variety of situations.

In the meantime, I'm the tall American covered in red and white yarn searching the skies for any sign of a stork!