A Summer in Bulgaria

ZAVET – My back ached and my leg was falling asleep as my four other Bulgarian friends and I raced along the bumpy, pothole-filled road in northeastern Bulgaria.

The ancient Russian car that we had taken to Ruse that day shook uncontrollably as the driver, Stanomir, weaved the automobile back and forth across the median line like a Formula One driver. Bulgarian heavy metal screamed from the stereo and my Bulgarian friends talked and talked while I looked out the window at the red and pink sky and vast rolling hills.

Then Stanomir wanted to sing English songs. He started with “Oh Susanna” then followed with “Jingle Bells”. Svetlo, who was sitting next to me, expressed his affection for Willie Nelson music and soon we were all singing “On the Road Again” in between honking the horn at every girl who happened to be walking along side the road.

It was then that I realized that I was experiencing the essence of a Bulgarian summer – long, carefree days filled with coffee, swimming, fresh cucumbers and tomatoes, and then followed by long, slow nights accompanied by gorgeous sunsets, friendly banter and cold beer.

That evening in mid-July we were returning from Ruse, the fifth largest city in Bulgaria that sits along the Danube River and a short swim from Romania. That day we decided at the last minute to go to the big city to do a little shopping and swim at the pool. The cool water had been a welcome relief from the stifling heat. I met a Bulgarian girl who spoke English and was headed for Norway in a few weeks. Later I introduced the boys to Honey Nut Cheerios and convinced one of them to buy a box. And later we drove back to Zavet, sunburned, tired, but happy.

My summer experience in Bulgaria has been memorable so far. I’ve seen so much in my short month here in Zavet that I can’t wait for next summer. Unlike some other volunteers in Bulgaria, I haven’t been teaching or working. I have a summer day camp that I will help run in late August, but most of my time has been spent getting to know locals, figuring out what this town needs and adjusting to living in Bulgaria.

My friends, most of them teachers and university students back home for the summer, have a lot of free time. We often get together in the evenings to have a beer at the restaurant. I workout at the fitness center each day too. I also have coffee each morning with a few locals. I’ve had a few unique experiences that help paint the picture of what summer in a Bulgarian village is all about.

THE NIGHT MATCH

When I first heard that the stadium lights would actually be on, I laughed. It seemed a town with so little money wouldn’t be able to afford to turn on stadium lights just to turn them on. But one night, my counterpart, Svetlo, told me to come with him to the stadium to play soccer. It was 9 p.m., and I was tired, but I wanted to see this.

We made our way through the dark, wooded area surrounding the stadium, which sits in a natural bowl-like hole. Sure enough, the soccer field was glowing under the lights and the locals were already warming up. Others had come to watch and surrounded the field. I suddenly got excited to play, even though I had probably played soccer only a handful of times since the fifth grade.

I was recruited to play for the skins team and we began the match. The ball whizzed up and down the field in a blur under the bluish glow of the lights. My team jumped out to a 3-0 lead, but soon we got tired and the score was 3-2. There were arguments, but tempers were kept in check most of the night. There was no half-time, just 90 minutes of straight playing. Girls from the stands yelled and screamed.

We lost the match 6-4. I’m not sure why the match ended, but after the last goal, people just started leaving. We left the field at 11:23 p.m. tired and sweaty. We made our way through the center of town, watching all the kids run to the store to buy liters of beer and more cigarettes. The cafes were full on that warm night, but I decided to head in.

TURKISH OUTING

One Sunday the usual crowd (a few girls and guys my age) and I went to the woods for a picnic. It was kind of a park about 10 kilometers from town and many families were already there when we arrived. Almost all were Turkish from neighboring villages. Chalga music blared from car stereos while horses, attached to their carts, munched on grass nearby.

Not far away some men had strung up two dead sheep. They carefully removed the skin and cut up each part of the body one by one, then carried them over to the a group a old grandmothers who stirred huge pots. I walked in and out of the groups of people as they sat in long lines around their food. One grandmother, an old, bent-over woman with narled hands and the traditional Muslim scarf covering her head, let me try some of the meat in the simmering pots. It wasn’t too bad.

Later we trekked down into a canyon to a Shiite mosque. It was a small, stone building with a creek running near it. Here, many people washed their hands and feet. Inside, people said prayers and a man held candles while saying something in Turkish.

Svetlo and the others showed me some interesting things outside. There was a cement slab next to the mosque where people who needed healing could go and meditate. There was a big tree that was growing next to the mosque. It was said that if a woman wanted to become fertile, she could take some of the bark and put it in food or tea, and then she could have a child. There were some stairs leading to the roof of the mosque. If you climbed up, then climbed down backward, your wish would come true. There also were pieces of cloth tied to the trees and bushes everywhere. This has something to do with prayers, but I’m not sure.

The most interesting thing was the two holes in the cement wall. They were about three feet apart and about five feet high. A person is supposed to get about 15 feet away from the wall, put his or her hands out so that your fingers will go into the holes. The person aims for a second, then closes his or her eyes and walks toward the wall. If the person’s fingers both go into the holes, it means they are without sin. If they miss, they need forgiveness.

My fingers didn’t hit the holes.

ZAVET DAYS

The first weekend in August, this town always has “Zavet Days”. This is similar to town fairs that we have in the U.S. There were fair rides, a flea market, cotton candy, concerts, etc. People, who used to live in Zavet or have friends in Zavet, all come back for this weekend. The cafes are full all day and night and another disco even opens just for that weekend.

I attended a local concert, a local theater production of Cinderella, a volleyball match and the big concert in the stadium on Saturday night. They brought in a real chalga singer. Her name is difficult, so I won’t write it, but she is a Turkish/Bulgarian woman who wore an alligator skin-type bikini top. She did a fantastic job lip-syncing her way through the concert (all backup music, no instruments whatsoever). People went nuts for her. Many people were drunk as there is no container law in Bulgaria (at least that I know of). So bottle after bottle of vodka was being passed around among the young crowd. I probably second-hand smoked about a pack standing among all the people. We all went to the discotek afterward and danced a long time.

The low point of the weekend, surprisingly, came during the bicycle races at the stadium earlier in the day. Young kids had organized races around the dusty, dirt track. During one race two boys accidentally collided in front of the crowd at the end of the first lap. One kid went down hard, but was OK. The other kept riding. When the the other boy had returned to the finish line, the hurt boy came out of nowhere and punched the other boy off his bike. He went flying and didn’t get up. The other boys started screaming at him. What followed was the most intriguing. Nobody went to help this little boy (a fifth-grader) who was on the ground crying. Everybody huddled around the other, who was crying a little now. Apparently, during the collision, his cell phone had fallen out and was smashed to pieces. That’s why he was angry. The boy was a ninth-grader and had just attacked an innocent little kid. The man running the event didn’t do anything and neither did any of the parents sitting in the stands. They all just sat and watched. It was one of the strangest scenes I have ever witnessed.