Name: M. Marble
As the title suggests, this is a chronicle of my changing times. I currently live Arlington, Virginia and I go to graduate school at ESIA at GWU. I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Haskovo, Bulgaria. Now I'm what's called a RPCV. I see this as an open diary of where I was, where I am and of course where I hope to go. It's a record of the daily trials, tribulations, successes and distractions of my journey. I hope you enjoy it. Welcome to a slice of my world.
I'm also obliged to say that this is not an official Peace Corps website and the views and information presented here are my own and do not represent official Peace Corps views.
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visited *loading* times
It's been a busy 12 days since I returned home. In that time I've been to DC twice, met many future classmates, found an apartment in Arlington (very excited about the deal I got), spent time with my family, including my two nieces, did a lot of busy paperwork type tasks, and began to apply for jobs up in DC. A lot is going on, but I still have a lot to do. Generally I'm feeling very positive about everything I've managed to get done. Feels like it's all coming together. Now just to get that job...
Taking a break from the introductions just long enough to realize that I've been in Spain three weeks and never managed to find enough time to blog about being here. After a great weekend in Madrid I'm off to America again tomorrow morning. It's really weird to be going back. On one hand I look forward to it and to the future I've worked so hard for, yet I'm also dreading leaving Europe to head back Stateside at the same time. I should have the final update up on the introductions and then a few notes on Spain and Salamanca. Along the way I hope also to have some time to reflect on this time in my life as well. Of course all of this while moving to DC (I head there this at the end of this week to start pulling things together) so I should be a really busy time. In the meantime I'll leave you with a picture of the Plaza Mayor in Salmanca in the early evening. Enjoy!
The first person is my friend Pauna’s father, Penko. In many ways he served as a host father in Haskovo. When I wanted to hang a whiteboard in my apartment but didn’t have a drill, he showed up with one for me. My favorite memory of him was from when my parents came to visit last spring. We had a na gosti at their apartment and my father and he got along famously both ending up more than a bit tipsy before the night was half over. Even though they didn’t speak the same language (my father speaks about as much Bulgarian has Penko does English) it didn’t stop them from having a wonderful (legendary in my family) night.
These are my friends Jen Hoover and Rachel Westropp, fellow PCV’s. Both are extraordinarily intelligent, good conversationalists, and just fun to be around – yet both are very different. Jen had a number of problems in her original site and had to move after a year. She ended up leaving early to pursue a Master’s of Int’l Business in Switzerland. Rachel, a fellow Cleveland native, is going onto Law School in DC and will certainly be around the next few years while I toil there. In retrospect, I saw quite a bit of them during the last two year, but it never seemed to be enough. Both are good people that I consider myself lucky to know and count as friends.
Liz, another PCV, had her time in Bulgaria cut short do to a career opportunity that came up which she just could not pass up on. She honestly had a rough go of it being placed in a town, Ivailograd which was pretty much horribly far from everything. Being a vegetarian, she simply wanted access to fresh vegetables on a regular basis – something that just was not available. She did live in a beautiful region of the country, in the mountains next to a huge reservoir which was gloriously picturesque. The ride to see her was less than desirable and left more than one person sick, but if you could avoid the car sickness the scenery was phenomenal – especially in the fall.
Vili and Anelia are two students at the university in Haskovo. Anelia and I had a falling out this past year, which was unfortunate, but was my fault. She is exceptionally kind and I’ll never forget her being one of the 4-5 friends who keep vigil on me when I got horribly sick and spiked a fever the first winter I was in Haskovo. Vili is a supportive friend who always had kind words. She is by far the most superstitious person I’ve ever met in my life. Yet she also has the ability to tell your fortune by tarot cards or a cup of coffee. While I don’t put a lot of stock in this type of stuff, it was good for the evening’s entertainment. I’ll miss her and her random test messages of encouragement.
Alex and I were in choir together – the very first night I showed up for choir he asked me to join him and a few friends out for a drink. He’s very earnest and good guy, what you see with him is what you get. In this picture we went to Kenana Park and sang songs while he played his guitar. He’s worked last summer (and will work this upcoming summer) in Alaska in a fish factory. Out of everyone who tried to help me learn Bulgarian he was among the most patient, always willing to repeat things over and over again and making sure I pronounced things correctly. I hope someday that I run into him in the states.
And I’m to another person who is difficult for me to simply write just a little bit about. This is Pauna, someone who has become like family to me in many ways. We met when she was looking up universities in the America using books in the SAC Library. Somewhere along the line she called to ask for my advice and we hung out a few times and the rest was history. She and her family became my family in Bulgaria and I spent all the major holidays such as Christmas and Easter with them. When she found out that I was bummed about missing another Thanksgiving, she gathered her family and dragged me out to the family village where I helped cook a proper Thanksgiving meal complete with a (FRESH!!!) turkey, mash-potatoes, broccoli, and all the fixings. This is a picture of her in Rome when she traveled with my choir on our Italy tour. She’s headed to London to study English in the next month or so, and I wish her all the best.
This is a picture of Marcy and Emily – both more PCV’s. Emily is a nice girl, but I became fairly close friends with Marcy. Funny story about her is that she is dating the PCV who served in my site prior to my coming there (the ever famous Greg). It was weird that she ended up coming down and meeting me, becoming friends, and actually getting along pretty well. She helped me pull together my Grad School applications putting the finishing touches and proofreading them before I sent them. She also strangely enough went to George Washington for graduate school, although for a different concentration, and owes me a list of things to do in DC.
This is Hristina, Pauna’s sister and part of my family in Bulgaria. I didn’t get to see as much of her as I would have liked since she studies Tourism out at the coastal town of Bourgas and works in Sunny Beach during the summer. But it has always been great spending time with her. This is a picture from last summer where I took her and Pauna to play miniature golf for the first time. I was trying to explain to her that she had to learn how to speak “Ball” in order to get it to do what she wanted it to. Another interesting story about her is that she helped with the “English” translations for when Sting had a concert at Sunny Beach last summer. I’m not jealous of her at all – nope!
This is Maya, a Bulgarian I met last fall on the Italy choir tour. Although she lives in Sofia, we hit it off really well and have since met a number of times in both Sofia and Haskovo when the opportunities have presented themselves. Besides sharing a love of playing cards, we also both have a love of older movies and she’s now been indoctrinated into such classics as “The Sound of Music” or “Mary Poppins” or “The Wizard of Oz” and “Ben Hur”. She’s also expanded my literary side by giving me a copy of Hermann Hesse’s “Siddhartha” – a wonderful book ya’ll should read.
This is a picture of Gina Gonzalas, yet another PCV, and I with Haskovo in the background. Gina lived on the far side of the country and we almost never managed to hang out together, yet she’s good people I truly wish I’d had more time to see. Well, it’s probably better that I didn’t see her more because I always seemed to be losing bets to her, mostly due to my own stupidity and actions. Regardless, she’s fun to be around and is headed off to graduate school this upcoming fall up Boston way. I wish her luck. By and by, that's Haskovo in the background.
Virge and I met when we both went to set up the “Dance Across Europe” Hungarian Youth Exchange last summer. Funny enough, neither one of us were actually going to lead the groups that we were setting things up for. Her group from Estonia went without her while she headed off to Western North Carolina, of all places, on a 6 week church exchange. I ended up in Italy with my parents during the exchange. We just hit it off talking during the planning visit and kept in touch afterwards. She enjoys traveling and does so at every opportunity. We decide to meet up in London this past February and had a wonderful time touring around and seeing the sights. I’ve been meaning to write this for a while, but I find it rather sad and difficult to write. Let me introduce you to some of the people who have made the last two years of my life in
Kellen Failor is one of the more unlikely friends I have from PCV’s. We were in training together in Septemvri and ended up staying friends afterwards. He saw a number of my more infamous moments in Peace Corps at conferences, many times as my roommate. I’ll never forget being his wing man as we first explored the disco nightlife in Septemvri. I love how women find his style of dancing cute and seem to flock to him. I was glad that I got out to see him in his town at the seaside on my last trip within Bulgaria after he managed to come see me in Haskovo a good 4 or 5 times. He always loved trying to push my buttons by asking what many would find impertinent questions which I happily (stupidly?) answered. He’ll probably be around DC somewhere working, so I doubt I’ve seen the last of him.
This is a picture of Dilyana, Keri (my original sitemate), and Little Lily. Dilyana was the older sister of one of my students and friend of Keri’s who I ended up hanging out with a decent amount given she lives and studies in
This is Elena (with her son) from my host family in Septemvri. She had lived in the
What can I say about Petya? She is a great friend; always ready with a smile and a laugh. We had a series of abortive attempts at possibly dating, but for endless reasons we never ended up together – almost definitely for the better. She’s the only person I know who could go to
This is Ethan, the PCV who lived 20 minutes north of me, and a friend of his who I don’t remember. I think it’s fair to say that circumstance brought he and I together, that we became close by spending time together since we came in at the same time and didn’t really know anyone. We traveled together a few times in BG, usually out to the seaside. I made the mistake a number of times of mistakenly slipping up and saying things in broader company that he had told me intending to be private. Honest mistakes that they were, I still think that damaged our friendship a bit. I honestly think over half of the PC rules I broke during my time were done with Ethan present somehow or another. What I think I’ll remember him most for is his endless search for the perfect duner (or Gyro for those back in the states).
This is a picture of Mitko and Diana – both teachers at my school. Mitko was my original counterpart and will forever be know to me for a number of things. First, the 13 large draft beers he had the day he brought me to Haskovo. The next was his seeming lack of knowledge about the town he had been born, raised and lived in most of his life. But I’ll mostly remember him for his humor and sincerity. He’s a good teacher. Diana had the joy of sharing some of her classes with me for two years. I felt that she looked down on me many times as a colleague, which is understandable since I really was untrained in many ways. But she was always kind and accommodating to my questions or problems.
Olivia is a PCV, still in BG thanks to getting married to another PCV who had more time than she did, and one of the people I relied upon in many ways. She always told me straight to my face what she thought and called me out on questionable actions more than once. She listened to what I said and when I didn’t live up to what I espoused she let me know about it. In many ways I thought of her as my moral compass in BG - not just with regards to what I was doing but also by having long talks about what type of people we wanted to be and what was the most important. The simplest and most straight forward thing I can say about her is that she’s good people.
Margarita is the chair of the English department at my school, a role I believe she relishes. I tried to be as direct with her as I could be and she often times bent over backwards to help me out. Many times I felt like she saw me as one of her sons (I believe I’m of similar age) and she tried to mother me sometimes, but yet always kept her distance. She’s probably the best teacher in the department, yet sometimes I think she takes on more than she should which keeps her from doing everything she could. I’ll always remember that she wants to own a house on a peninsula so that she can have windows on three sides looking out at the water.
This is Jeremy and Erin from our trip to
What can I possibly say about Kalina? She is my best friend from BG and my most enduring friendship there. I met her quickly upon arriving in Haskovo and we remained friends throughout my time. Just about everything that went on in my life she knew about and offered advice – and the reverse also. It’s been great watching her develop from a Goth-Rocker into a much more mature woman she’s still becoming. It’s simply impossible for me to imagine my time in BG without her. The stories I have with her are legion but I just say that I’ll remember her hugs the best. Well, that and the fact she lost a bet and STILL owes me a dinner.
The last person for today is Pancho. I met him through Barbara, someone I’ll mention later. He’s a good hearted man, just a bit lonely and wants something different in his life. His true passion is photography and he went from an old Russian film camera to a nifty Nikon Digital SLR during my time there. He’s constantly practicing and taking pictures and I’ve seen marked improvement in what he takes. I wish I would have gone out with him more to take pictures because it was always a fun thing to do. This picture was partly his idea – an attempt at being artsy at the beloved (original) KDK.
That’s it for one day. There are just too many people to mention in one post.
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