Not knowing what I am singing

So, I have joined a choir. Not just any choir but "The First Bulgarian Choir," meaning the first choir established in Bulgaria to sing Western and Central European style classical music. We also sang a Christmas concert in "The First Bulgarian Chitalishte." Svishtov, as I've mentioned before is first in a lot of things, and Svishtovlia (the unofficial term for people who live here) like to remind me and each other of these first as often as humanly possible. Here is the recently and quite classily renovated interior audotorium in said "First Bulgarian Chitalishte."


The program consisted of mostly traditional English language carols translated into Bulgarian. The one exception was one verse of Jingle Bells, where the English words were transliterated into the Bulgarian alphabet. Luckily, I, like most Christmas celebrating Americans, had studied these lyrics extensively in my youth (AKA, I sang it over and over with my little friends). More exiting is that I will continue to be in the choir in the new year. I hope to make some new friends, and maybe improve my Bulgarian pronounciation with all that singing! I will keep my readers posted, of course!

I know you are jealous

...but I have what is unquestionable the coolest security door ever. It actually used to be on the door of another environmental NGO in town. My friend, Georgi, who works there actually made it!

Also FYI, the Bulgarian translation of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" just came out. It is literally "Harry Potter and the Gifts of Death."

Visiting the neighbors

Last weekend, I baked the Swedish cardomom recipe that my family always makes at Chistmastime. I figured it would get me into the holiday spirit and I also baked enough to give some away.

On Monday evening, I knocked on the door of my elderly neighbors with a massive loaf in tow. They, of course, made a HUGE fuss and ushered me in to have dinner with them. Dinner was toast, with a variety of toppings to choose from. Special for me, was an addition of "ketchmak" or a sort of polenta-esque, but sweet Bulgarian cornmeal concoction served with walnuts on top. We had a long conversation, and I understood a fair ammount of it. They were very patient and helpful in helping me understand new words.

Just as we have all seen Americans shout slowly at non-English speakers in English, some Bulgarians do the same to me. This elderly couple didn't though. They seemed to assume that I am intellegent and capable of hearing normal speech, even if I don't have the language skills to prove it yet. I think they also are a bit lonely and isolated. The woman has trouble going down the 6 flights of stairs from the apartment, and so does not go out very often. Consequently, they both seemed really happy to have someone new to talk to.

Our conversation (or what I could understand of it) was pretty interesting. From what I could understand, they were both university educated here in Svishtov, where they met (love at first site, according to Mrs.). I got a thourough introduction to the history of Svishtov, which has proven to be an almost inexhaustible topic with most locals. In addition to being the first city to be freed from the Ottoman Empire and posessing the first Bulgarian chitalishte (community center) , apparently Svishtov was the location of the first piano in Bulgaria as well as the first western style ladies' hat (if I understood correctly), couretesy of trading partners upstream on the Danube. I also got to hear about the couple's travels to Kiev and Lenningrad (today St. Petersburg) with the erstwhile state run "BalkanTourist" travel agency. I even spooned sugar out of one of their souvenirs!

I've been thinking about them a lot over the past few days. Their whole world was turned upside down by the fall of Communism. They used to be middle class, vacation taking, souvenir buying people with jobs. Now they are living on what ammounts to a pittance of a pension and having toast for dinner in an old apartment with a broken elevator. So much of the development work going on in Bulgaria today has to do with building the skills and confidence of youth, which is extremely important work. I only hope that someone remembers the elderly, who are far too used to a system that rewards silence and compliance to speak up for themselves.

Feeding the Birds (a bit)

So, last week I took part in my first (drum roll please) educational activity with local school kids. We (two other BSPB-ers and myself) went to a biology classroom, where we made bird feeders with several classes worth of students. I was mostly an observer and sort of bopped around the classroom speaking cavewoman-esque Bulgarian to them. Right now my strategy building relationships with Bulgarians (including kids) is to attempt to make really lame jokes in Bulgarian, and then smile and appologize if they don't go over well. I employed this along with shaking my head yes* and smiling a lot.



So the lesson went like this. One of our superstar teenage volunteers presented how to make the feeders and why they are especially helpful during winter months. Students made the feeders out of plastic bottles they has brought, and put bird-seed in them. Sunflowers are a pretty major agricultural crop here, so sunflower seeds are a common snack (and sunflower oil, rather than olive oil the cooking/ salad oil of choice). The problem is the students brought snack sized bags of seeds....and mostly 1-2 litre bottles. So everyone had an inch or two of seeds in the bottoms of their bottles. Then we went to the forest nearby, where we hung the bird feeders. Kids were up in trees, running around and generally running amok, but we had a great time. The forest at the edge of town looks a little funny with all these nearly empty bottles hanging in it, but the kids got outside and are at least thinking about birds. I am lobbying for a spring clean-up to retrieve the bottles.

It was nice to meet some kiddos here in town. I have an interview this Tuesday with a 7th grade reporter from the school newspaper. I was actually recently interviewed for local television as well. I haven't seen the segment, but apparently everyone else in town has. It is a weird experience being interviewed in a language that you have only been speaking for 4 months! If I can get a copy of it, I will post it.

*A footnote for western readers. Nodding and shaking of one's head have opposite meanings of what we do in the west. I heard once that the gestures originated among Bulgarians during the days of the Ottoman Empire, seen as a dark period in Bulgarian history. The idea is that Bulgarians would nod their heads "no" in a secret gesture of defiance when talking to Ottoman officials, who read the gesture as "yes." I have not been able to verify this, but it would be a logical explanation.

Watching Birds Instead of Eating Them

I have been doing quite a bit of bird watching lately, which I am really enjoying. We are in the midst of a monitoring project for wild wintering geese. The flocks or literally thousands of geese are really very impressive. Our monitoring project focuses on counting the geese as they fly over (we count by 10's, or sometimes just plain estimate), noting locations and times that the flock settles to feed and searching for the endangered red breasted goose in the midst of mostly white-fronted geese. There are a number of larger greylag geese in the flock as well.

Here is a shot of my counterpart, Emil, looking for red-breasted geese amongst the flock last Satuday.

The goose monitoring is an important project, as it will help determine the management plan for this particular protected area. Counting birds, it turns out, is not quite as simple as one-two-three. The geese come in such thick numbers that the one by one approach is impossible. I usually count by 10's or so, but sometimes even that is difficult. Also, if we set up our equipment in one particular area, oftentimes the geese may decide to land in a different field from the expected one. "Ah, the geese have surprised us again!" says my counterpart.

Call me touchy feely, or a nature freak if you like, but I not-so-secretly enjoy when the geese are unpredictable. I draw great comfort from the fact that there are still wild creatures in this world who do not always behave as we expect or desire them to. I understand the importance of getting numbers for our study, but would be very sad if nature always "cooperated" with us. This morning, for example, we went to the field to attempt to look for red-breasted geese. As you can see from this photo of two of our young volunteers, the weather prohibitted looking at anything further away than about 20 meters.

Despite not being able to see, hearing the geese break the frosty silence as they flew low through the fog in ever increasing numbers was a truly magical experience. We stood there listening to the honking and even the swoosh of air through their wings. And every once in a while, we would catch a glimpse, if only for a few seconds.