Summer is by far the best time in Bulgaria. The winter has it's own beauty and I suppose depending on where you live it can be an amazing time, but in Bourgas nothing is better than the summer. I've never been much of a beach person. I don't mind vacationing there but I never thought in a million years that I would ever live there. Even coming into Bulgaria I was hoping that with it's seven mountain ranges and knowing that one of us would be an environmental volunteer we would have a pretty decent chance of ending up in or near the mountains. But alas when placement time came it was to the beach we went. We visited the water off and on through out the fall and winter, but after the umbrellas are packed up and all the cafes and restaurants close the beach is just that... a beach - and a natural ashtray and dumping ground for trash. It isn't until May comes around that it begins to wake up a little.
The winter (as I eluded to before) is awful. We don't get the snow that other parts of Bulgaria get since our weather is tempered by the sea but what we do get is a lot of мъгла that's right - fog. It settles over the city making even the most optimistic of souls think that spring will never come and the depression will never lift. It's not helped by the fact that for most of the winter you have to contain yourself to one room where you eat, sleep, and watch movies, sometimes never getting out of bed at all on the weekend - because why would you? It's too cold to cook in the kitchen and your little radiator only makes the room heat up to 63 degrees anyway. But in May, after you have already sworn to yourself that being this miserable just isn't that worth it and thinking maybe you should just take a job in the states, things pick up. Even though the greenery begins to seep back into the landscape at the end of March in time to discard your baba marta bracelets and you notice the trees have begun to "puff out" in April, May is the month where you begin wondering where the heck all these people were in the winter and how much more crowded the streets are going to become because tourist season hasn't even arrived yet.
The end of May is when school ends for the year and the official summer begins for me - and what a good time it's been. In fact, I can't believe its just three weeks before it all ends. School starts for the teachers on the 1st of September and the kids will be back on the 15th. Don't think it's been all fun and no work though. The Peace Corps wants you to stay busy and to my amazement I have been. Weeks before school was about to end I wandered around the city doing my "I will be an out-of-work volunteer" spiel in hopes that someone would take pity on me and employ me for the summer months, but as it turns out, it was quite unnecessary. Bulgarians have a phrase "Има Време" (There is time) which doesn't sit well with most Americans who worry and plan in advance. But in typical Bulgarian style it all works out in the end - and this is the case with EVERYTHING. In fact most of the time it's not really worth planning or having your heart set on a particular schedule because things don't really turn out how you plan anyway. So needless to say. I have had work, which has been a huge relief.
At the end of June (after we got back from Turkey) I started working on a SPA project for my school. SPA is Small Project Assistance and was a program funded through U.S.A.I.D. when Bulgaria still qualified for funding. This was the last possible project cycle since they lost their funding as a result of joining the EU, so my school was very eager to submit an application one last time. I couldn't be more thrilled - one because writing grants is a really good experience for everyone to have and two because the school wanted to write a project for energy efficiency! Given my green building background I was thrilled, but even more thrilled that the idea was initiated from the school. The plan is to install regulators on their old style water radiators so that they can control the temperature. Last year we did energy monitoring but because of the old system we have no way to regulate the energy usage and the temperature inside the school. The energy improvements (including updated light fixtures and bulbs) would be coupled with energy conservation education at the school that will include monitoring and presentations and eventually sharing these materials with other Eco-Schools in Bulgaria. We won't know for a bit if we are funded but we do know this last round is going to be really competitive. This project would start in October and run through the end of the next school year.
Other projects I have been working on through the summer have been translating and editing for Wil's work and working with a fellow PCV from Macedonia who came to Bourgas for two weeks with a bunch of kids. It was fun to practice American style games with the kids and it gave us the opportunity to make contacts in Bourgas which will hopefully make the next year more bearable. For this last month I will be doing trainings for the new group of volunteers on the other side of the country and working with Wil at the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds environmental brigade. On the weekends you can find us reading and relaxing under the umbrellas at the beach and wishing, as always, that the summer would never end.
The winter (as I eluded to before) is awful. We don't get the snow that other parts of Bulgaria get since our weather is tempered by the sea but what we do get is a lot of мъгла that's right - fog. It settles over the city making even the most optimistic of souls think that spring will never come and the depression will never lift. It's not helped by the fact that for most of the winter you have to contain yourself to one room where you eat, sleep, and watch movies, sometimes never getting out of bed at all on the weekend - because why would you? It's too cold to cook in the kitchen and your little radiator only makes the room heat up to 63 degrees anyway. But in May, after you have already sworn to yourself that being this miserable just isn't that worth it and thinking maybe you should just take a job in the states, things pick up. Even though the greenery begins to seep back into the landscape at the end of March in time to discard your baba marta bracelets and you notice the trees have begun to "puff out" in April, May is the month where you begin wondering where the heck all these people were in the winter and how much more crowded the streets are going to become because tourist season hasn't even arrived yet.
The end of May is when school ends for the year and the official summer begins for me - and what a good time it's been. In fact, I can't believe its just three weeks before it all ends. School starts for the teachers on the 1st of September and the kids will be back on the 15th. Don't think it's been all fun and no work though. The Peace Corps wants you to stay busy and to my amazement I have been. Weeks before school was about to end I wandered around the city doing my "I will be an out-of-work volunteer" spiel in hopes that someone would take pity on me and employ me for the summer months, but as it turns out, it was quite unnecessary. Bulgarians have a phrase "Има Време" (There is time) which doesn't sit well with most Americans who worry and plan in advance. But in typical Bulgarian style it all works out in the end - and this is the case with EVERYTHING. In fact most of the time it's not really worth planning or having your heart set on a particular schedule because things don't really turn out how you plan anyway. So needless to say. I have had work, which has been a huge relief.
At the end of June (after we got back from Turkey) I started working on a SPA project for my school. SPA is Small Project Assistance and was a program funded through U.S.A.I.D. when Bulgaria still qualified for funding. This was the last possible project cycle since they lost their funding as a result of joining the EU, so my school was very eager to submit an application one last time. I couldn't be more thrilled - one because writing grants is a really good experience for everyone to have and two because the school wanted to write a project for energy efficiency! Given my green building background I was thrilled, but even more thrilled that the idea was initiated from the school. The plan is to install regulators on their old style water radiators so that they can control the temperature. Last year we did energy monitoring but because of the old system we have no way to regulate the energy usage and the temperature inside the school. The energy improvements (including updated light fixtures and bulbs) would be coupled with energy conservation education at the school that will include monitoring and presentations and eventually sharing these materials with other Eco-Schools in Bulgaria. We won't know for a bit if we are funded but we do know this last round is going to be really competitive. This project would start in October and run through the end of the next school year.
Other projects I have been working on through the summer have been translating and editing for Wil's work and working with a fellow PCV from Macedonia who came to Bourgas for two weeks with a bunch of kids. It was fun to practice American style games with the kids and it gave us the opportunity to make contacts in Bourgas which will hopefully make the next year more bearable. For this last month I will be doing trainings for the new group of volunteers on the other side of the country and working with Wil at the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds environmental brigade. On the weekends you can find us reading and relaxing under the umbrellas at the beach and wishing, as always, that the summer would never end.
