Regional Spelling Bee

This past weekend the Regional Spelling Bee took place in Varna. Our school winner from Avren, the English teacher and myself traveled down to Varna on Saturday April 28th for the competition which was held at the Sports High School. There were students from other Peace Corps supported schools and independent entries. Two volunteers, Aaron and Sara, along with a Bulgarian who spoke English were the judges. The organizing foundations provided decorations, snacks, t-shirts, bracelets and certificates for every participating student. 

Avren Participant with her Certificate and the Judges

Dora with the school's participation certificate

Some of the kids got upset when they were eliminated, and one challenged his elimination, but all in all I would say that most of them had a good time. Its something that they never got to do before, and I think they are all motivated to do better next year. Which is good since they will have to learn more English in the process.

World Water Day and Spelling Bee

This year for WWD, March 22nd, two of the teachers from OY Hristo Botev Primary School took charge and planned a school wide event. Last year I used a water testing kit to show ph levels, turbidity and dissolved oxygen levels of local water sources. This year they planned some more hands-on experiments.

Presenters

Boiling Water

Intently Watching

Water Filtration

They also had information/diagrams up on the board for everyone to read, and a fill-in-the-blank game about the properties of H2O.  The students of 4th grade colored a water cycle coloring book and shared the stages with the group. I was really happy that these two teachers organized all this, the children found it really interesting and had a lot of fun calling out the answer for the game. I think they will continue to plan things like this in the future, which is awesome.

The next week we had our local spelling bee. In total 13 students competed, ranging from 4-7 grade. The project sponsors provided standardized rules for all the schools, participation and first place certificates, a notebook and a spelling bee patch for each participant. The words were chosen from the study list we had been practicing for about 3 months. In five rounds we came out with a winner, Jaylian from 5th grade. She will be competing at the regional competition in Varna on the 29th of April. The winner of regionals will get to travel to Sofia for nationals.

Practicing: unscrambling words and matching

Practice

Practice

Participants

Speller and Judges

Audience

First Place Winner

Group Shot

Participation Certificate

Participation Certificate

Everyone

Тодоровден and the Iditarod

At the beginning of March I took a trip to Southeastern Bulgaria, up into the rural mountain villages of Bachevo and Gorno Dryanovo. Bachevo sits on the cusp of 3 out of the 4 mountain ranges in Bulgaria; the Rila, Pirin and Rhodope. In this village on Todorovden; the day of Sveti Teodor (St. Theodore) and the name day for people named Todor or Todorka, there is a grand spectacle horse race. I arrived from Sofia around noon and meet the local volunteers from the area who had been there all day and we all hiked up a big hill to where the track was set up, a long strip of melted snowy mud.

walking to the track

There were a few food tables with grilled pork and drinks and picnic tables set up. It was definitely something people travel to see and a lot of people, more then I thought there would be. This year Todorovden was also the 3rd of March, Liberation Day from the Ottoman Empire ending 482 years of occupation, and as with all traditional Bulgarian there were lots of people in traditional Bulgarian dress. This time that included the horses.

warrior pose, thats a spear

red and white horse pompom

The race was split into brackets for different levels, we assume, but there was no announcing so it was a bit hard to follow. However, a girl did win so yay us!!

racing horses

 

made me want to going skiing really bad

relaxation spot

Afterward I traveled further south, in the companionship of the great Katie Leu to Gurman to meet up with Tracy to go back up into the mountains to Gorno Dryanovo to do some lessons on the Iditarod at the local school. I had the idea to do some lessons at the school in my village about the Iditarod since dog sledding is virtually unknown here and I thought the kids would find it interesting. Tracy is from Alaska so we teamed up and did it together in her village first since she could get materials sent from home. It went over well, we had brochures, coloring pages and word searches all Iditarod themed. I also downloaded the movie Iron Will dubbed over in Bulgarian since its all about dog racing and we watched it after school. I spent only two days there before I had to leave to head back home, which is very far. We spent the night in Gurman with Katie so I could get an early bus back to Sofia, and then on to Varna. Katie made lasagna noodles from scratch and we had the best lasagna I have had in at least two years, maybe more.

drive up to the village

fully operational

stone masonry

setting up projector after school

a baba's view in the early morning

'I dont know why this is sideways' best meal ever

Leap Year 2012

There was a local foreigners and friends get together in the nearby village of Trustikovo on February 29th. Many people from that area, down the hill, had birthdays around that time so they decided to just do everything together and go all out. A very extensive and tasty Indian food array; traditional singing and dancing from the local youth dance group; isle music with guitar, banjo and Irish flute; and karaoke. It was a good evening and a good mix of local and foreign cultures.

Singing

Dancing

Karaoke

The next day was Баба марта, grandmother March, the day when everyone passes out red and white bracelets and pins for health, happiness and a good harvest. The idea is that the grandma of March is an old and slightly bitter woman whose temper varies drastically and quickly, therefore explaining the crazy temperature changes and weather patterns of March. For instance there was snow this March, which is almost unheard of, but then it will be sunny and few days later and you can play with baby goats outside.

2 week old goats

News

Our weekend in Chernomorets was covered in the local news 'Burgas 24'. Translation:

A new initiative "Home for elderly people - Faithful Steward"

There is a new initiative of the NGO "Faithful Steward" - "Home for the elderly, faithful steward" in the town of Chernomorets. The initiative was joined by 12 volunteers from the Peace Corps for the renovation of a three storey house which will be adapted into a home for elderly people. This joint initiative was supported by volunteers from the Peace Corps, led by chief volunteer Kathleen James, who organized another 11 volunteers.

The association expresses its gratitude to Kathleen James, and all the volunteers who took part in the new project of the Association "Faithful Steward." The home for elderly people will be located in the town of Chernomorets, Municipality Sozopol.




As for me, I have been working at the school doing spelling bee practice everyday, except Friday, to get the kids ready for the local spelling bee, and the regional spelling bee to be held in Varna. Its seems that winter has finally broken, which means no more snow weeks off school and no more frozen water pipes. Spring is a very happy and welcomed season here.


This weekend my dance group will be dancing in the village of Priceltsi, also in the Avren Municipality, for the local Eastern Orthodox start to lent. After this Sunday locals do not eat meat until Easter. I guess its a good thing I dont really eat much meat anymore, it will make this much easier then last year.

Chernomorets Work Weekend

January 20-22 we worked on a guest house in the sea town of Chernomorets, a small town outside Varna's rival, the Black Sea coastal city of Brugas. The house was the home of one of Kathleen's colleagues growing up, it was then turned into a bed and breakfast, and this past weekend we helped in the process of turning it into a nursing home.

shared sleeping quarters

A total of 12 volunteers gathered to help, and we all stayed in the house over the weekend. Since there are so many beds we had free accommodations and rein of the kitchen and fireplaces. Saturday and Sunday we did a full sorting and cleaning; painted hallways, bedrooms, and the living room. We moved some furniture around too. Hospital beds are really heavy. There is still some work to be done before opening day, but we at least helped get it one step closer.

moving furniture

doing the trimming

MLK Day

For MLK Day this year I went into the school and gave a presentation to 1-4 grade about who Dr. King was, what he stood for and what he accomplished. Some of the teachers recognized the name but for the kids it was completely new. Since my village and school have a high population of the racial minority, the Roma, I think this was an important holiday to share with them.

I also shared with them the famous "I have a dream" quote. Then I gave them all a piece of paper and asked them to draw their dreams for the future. I collected all of them and then put them together in a sort of "I have a dream" quilt. I'm going to hang it up in the school for everyone to see. With them all mixed up you can't tell which drawing comes from who, and they can see how many of them are similar and that everyone wants something for the future.

Some of the drawings