LG's Excellent PC Adventure

Sunday was a beautiful day in Stara Zagora, the first really Spring-like day we've had this year. It was sunny and warm and people came out to walk through the town in their light jackets and shirtsleeves. Most of the cafes in the Center put their sidewalk tables out so Matt and I decided to grab a couple of chairs, order a couple of coffees and watch the local citizenry parade by. When the waitress came over to take our order, I decided I'd rather have a coke. Matt ordered his coffee and I asked for a coke. She brought back our drinks and gave me my coke in a bottle with a tall clean glass alongside. I then asked her for a glass of ice on the side. Ice in Bulgarian is "led" and is pronounced "let". "Mozhe lee let?" is May I have ice? She looked at me as though I were speaking Martian and bobbed her head up and down in a motion that means yes everywhere in the known world except Bulgaria. Nodding your head up and down here means No. Emphatically No. Shaking your head from side to side, which we have always used to mean No, means Yes. Anyway, she was bobbing away, emphatically, so I asked if they were out of ice and she got very annoyed and snatched my coke bottle from the table and stomped off. Stomping off is the same here as there, it means you're annoyed and, if you're a wait-person, will in all probability affect the size of your tip. She returned a few minutes later with a bottle of coke light, but no ice. I hate coke light. I surrendered and gave Matt the coke light and we discussed various new approaches I might take to get a regular coke with ice. I called her back over and said, very slowly in my best schoolboy Bulgarian, May I have a regular coke with ice. Ice. Water in Winter!! That did it and she looked as though she had just deciphered the Rosetta Stone and said, Oh, you want ice! And when she said 'ice' it sounded to me just like when I said 'ice', but nevermind. Tonight I'm going to take a shot at discovering where they hide the mayonnaise in my supermarket!

The point here is that as English speakers, we're used to having non-English speakers butcher our language and we are used to trying to figure out what the other fellow is saying. In Bulgaria, many people are prepared to hear only two things; perfectly spoken Bulgarian or some language that they don't understand at all. The concept of having a sympathetic listener is non-existent in many places here. Also, almost no one orders ice for their drinks until Summer. So there was that little cultural barrier to cross as well. Or, she might just have been a bad waitress!

Our Film Club had its second meeting on Tuesday. I had been told that there would be some attrition as we went along so I was curious to see how many of the original thirty kids would reappear on Tuesday. Well, forty-three of the original thirty showed up. Go figure. At least three of the new enlarged group also took time to explain to me that three or four of their friends would come to the next meeting but were busy that particular day. So figure fifty as a good round number, divided into groups of four or five, all writing scripts based on nothing but the limitations of their fervid imaginations. Then remember that we have exactly one small Canon video camera to share amongst us and you can see that this might become something of a challenge.

Next Friday we'll be conducting a Customer Service session for the employees at the Municipal service center. We'll put the final touches to the program on Monday and Tuesday. The Service Center is located on the ground floor of the Obshtina (town hall) and seems to be a model of efficiency. People needing to conduct business with the Municipality come to this one central point and take a number. They are waited on in turn and can come back at any time to check the progress of their paperwork on one of the self-serve computers. From my brief observations of the staff, I would conclude that they are professional, helpful and efficient. Naturally, these are the people I have to teach Customer Service to, not the surly waitresses at the local cafes. I intend to rely heavily on the "Well, what do you think you can be doing better?" method of facilitating.