Mid Winter Bird Count.....better late than never!

So it has been almost two weeks since the mid-winter bird count, our biggest field excursion of the winter months, but I am only addressing it now. I have had a mild case of the winter blues compounded with some delayed-onset culture shock as I encounter more everyday situations. I think that my brain and my enthusiasm had frozen over for a short time, but they seem to be recovering nicely now.

To illustrate why I am experiencing culture shock I will provide a fun example of a completely alien everyday activity. Did you know that in Bulgaria to retrieve a package you must: 1st) Notice the absense of a log book in your PO box 2nd) Stand in line in the PO box office window to inquire about it and then sign to receive an "invitation" to retraieve your package 3rd) Go stand in line in the parcel office that has it's own separate entrance from the other side of the building in order to be issued a payment slip for a small fee of undetermined origin. 4th) Go to the payment office (yes, another seperate office) on the second floor to pay and have the slip stamped to prove payment. Oddly enough the parcel office does except payments for stamps on outgoing mail, but not for this particular procedure. 5th) Return to the parcel office in order to submit the properly stamped payment slip, so that you can fill out a form with your national ID number and signiture. 6th) Receive the package! Even more perplexing, is that this procedure has been DIFFERENT every time depending on the weight of the package, whether it fits in the post box, who is working that day and possibly the angle of the sun. Again, this is not to criticize Bulgaria as a whole, but it does take a lot of energy to negotiate these wrinkles of being in a new culture, when the wrinkles so often seemingly come out of nowhere. To paint a fuller picture, all of the various ladies behind windows were extremely patient with me in my confusion, and helped me jump through these various hoops. It seems though that I am the only one confused by the existance of the hoops in the first place.

It is high time to get back to the birds. It was one cold day, although very interesting. We saw pelicans, ducks, cormorants, eagles and buzzards! It was extremely exiting to see all this, even in our limited visibility. We were in quite a cold snap at the time, and so many of our small local wetlands had been frozen over. The mighty Danube was mostly clear (although we had some concerns leading up to the day that icebergs which had been spotted upstream of us might arrive), so birds were concetrated there. Even with the cold, we were lucky to be out there. So many potential logistical snafus could have reared their ugly heads, but Emil managed to make it happen. Some of these said snafus: if the roads would be clear to get the boat to the river and allow a jeep to transport our other team along the banks of a smaller river, whether we would be able to see any birds at all in the fog, whether the Nature Park staff would be able free their boat from under the snow in time, whether the engine could be coaxed into working in the cold, which volunteers were crazy enough to come with us and no doubt, myriad other details that were lost in translation.

On the boat ride, we actually were doging floating ice. As you can see, it is an open boat, so it was not the warmest place I've been. It was also not the coldest (having grown up skiing in New England), and I should have been quite comfortable in my absurdly warm ski gear, except for the fact that I needed to go to the bathroom for about half of the duration of the trip. Anyone who has worked outside in the cold knows that "holding it" is about the most cold inducing thing you can do. But what could I do? I was a girl on a rapidly moving open boat accompanied by all males!

In the end though, it was a sucessful day. I was glad to be a part of it, and glad to help compile our data afterwards. Is it weird that I find data entry relaxing? In any case, I am continuing to learn a lot and am looking forward to our next field opportunity.

Bulgarian Christmas and a METER of snow

I appologize for the delay in writing about the holidays, but I will do my best to make it worth the wait. I spent Christmas with my host family in Southwest Bulgaria, along with another Peace Corps Volunteer (Magi, second from left)who lived with them (previous to me). My host family really went out of their way to make us feel welcome, and kept referring to us as "the kids." Here we are on Christmas Eve: Eli is between Magi and I, Bobi is on the far left and in the background is Stoil senior with the ever important wine pitcher.

And next, we have the men of the family: Stoil senior, Stoilcho the teenager and Vasco. Bulgarians tend to skip generations with family names, so there is a distinct possibility that if Soilcho ever has a son, he will be called Vasco as well. Stoil senior still has his wine pitcher; as you can see, he takes his glass filling duty very seriously.


One of the most touching moments for me was Christmas morning in church. It is tradition in the Bulgarian Orthodox church to write the names of your family on a small piece of paper,

and then the priest prays for everyone by name later during the service. Our host grandma (Baba Bobi) included us on the list too, right after the grandkids. Being as this was my first holiday season spent away from my biological family, it felt good to be part of an adopted one.

In Orthodox tradition, Christmas Eve is considered a fast day, which means that no animal products or any kind are eaten. So, Christmas Eve dinner is completely vegan, much to the delight of some of my vegetarian friends. Also Christmas Eve dinner in always eaten on the floor, which must have some sort of symbolic or theological meaning, but I don't know enough to conjecture about it here. As you can see it wasn't really a fast. We had mashed beans, peppers and cabbage leaves stuffed with rice, sweet and savory banitsa (the national pastry) and ceremonial bread with little slips of paper baked into it with "luck" written on them. It was almost like a Bulgarian fortune cookie (not the flavor, the luck).



I also got to visit with the goats, who some of my loyal readers will remember that I befriended. It turns out that my host family has a sheep now too. The goats are named Maya and Galla. The sheep, rather ominously, is not named. Magi, Stoil senior and I took them out for a lovely stroll through the edge of the forest.

After Christmas, I came back to Svishtov for New Year's . Bulgarians do not stop with a simple Happy New Year. They continue on to wish you health, wealth, luck, happiness and a long life. But that is not the big story. On New Year's Day in the evening it started snowing, and really has not let up much since! Today it accumulated to over a meter. The roads out of town are closed, and the sidewalks are just piled high with snow. Many regions of Bulgaria are in offical states of emergency. My power is on and everything, so I am quite comfortable, but I have heard of some power outtages in the villages. We're expecting to be shut in for several days, so I have been buying a little extra food.

Here is a row of parked cars in front of my block.






















Here are people walking down the middle of what normally is a very busy street.















Here is the walking park in the center. It is a nice place to walk, but not an absolutely essential walking corridor. I think it is pretty awesome that someone cleared a path through it for the sole purpose of enjoying the snow.