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

Весели Празници

December was a fulfilled month of Christmas cheer. In early December I spent a few days in the village of Zavet at the truancy boarding school. The boys there are from about 10 to 18. In the morning we watched a concert that they had prepared for us and passed out new shoes and winter socks that we bought with funds raised.

Preparing to watch the concert

Singing

passing out presents

Then we held an intense ping pong tournament, brackets and all. This is when I met Emil, my new favorite, I accidentally beat him in round one.

watching ping pong

After ping pong we broke for lunch. When we returned we split into two groups, me and Suzie were with the younger kids doing crafts while everyone else was with th elder kids in the gym doing HIV/AIDS awareness.

coloring

After that everyone played volleyball. I did for a few serves, but this was a group of competitive adolescent boys, I was not good enough. They were kind to me about it though, they never asked me to leave the game, I subbed out on my own. We shared dinner with them in their dinning hall and then Raf, another PC Volunteer who had been on Bulgarian X-Factor over the summer, sang with his guitar in English and Bulgarian. Some of the boys sang and danced and they all had big smiles. It was a good day for all of us.

Raf singing

  In Varna, we had a Christmas mall day full of Black Sea Pirate fun with Santa. There was an outdoor Christmas village too, with rides for the children, hot food stalls, and mulled wine.

Merry Christmas from the Black Sea Pirate

In my village for Christmas, I was also really busy. I taught the 5-8 graders "12 Day of Christmas" for the school Christmas concert, and had a lot of dance practice myself for the concert we had on the 23rd for Christmas and the 110 year anniversary of the community center. Also, in the midst of all this, I had a visitor.

Zachary!!!

So I had to go pick him up from Sofia. Luckily he got in the day before the concert and he got to see me dance! When mom and dad were here they only got to see me practice, so I was excited about that. There were several performances and a bake sale of traditional Bulgarian Christmas food. 

Celebrating 110 Years

Bake Sale

We, according to Hilbers tradition, made sugar cookies; which we passed out around town on Christmas Eve. Christmas Day we spent in Varna. We went to the Cathedrale and the Black Sea before a dinner of two turkeys. Kerri made a turkey in the oven while the boys, Tim and Z, grilled one. It was a show down men vs woman. 

Black Sea in Varna

Turkey 1 going into the oven

New Years Eve I spent in Shumen, a city about an hour west of Varna. I have some good friends there who were hosting a party. We made party food and bought champagne.

food spread

 Shumen is a university town so there are a lot of young Bulgarians who speak pretty good English. I was a good mixture of people and a very good way to kick off 2012.

Currently I'm working on a presentation and artwork piece for the kids about MLK Day which is next Monday. We also have English spelling bee practice which starts soon. We will have a school wide bee, then a regional one, and then if one of my kids makes it nationals in Sofia.