Ok this is an actual TODAY Post

It’s another cold day in the Rhodope Mountains. I woke up this morning to plan on cooking some breakfast and some hot chocolate (Swiss Mix…Thanks Mom). This is however not the case. My water is frozen. The electricity is out, as it has been doing every 2 days and stays out for days on end. Even my phone says there’s no coverage…I am truly a hermit on this day. I love it. In addition I awoke to about 18-20 inches of snow and it continuing to snow. I don’t know if I will even make it into the office this morning, if there’s no electricity…I might as well just type/write a few letters and emails here before getting internet back. Perhaps I will read and start drafting a project as well. I’ll have enough to keep me busy. The last couple of weeks have been busy. Last week I was in Sofia for a week, a few days for the staff retreat, a meeting with my program manager, meeting with tourism companies, and I ended up meeting with some Albanian Peace Corps Volunteers working in the same program as me; tourism development.

First the staff retreat was great. It is very interesting to learn exactly how yearly budgets and requests go through the whole process. The two-day process went from the smallest details of what volunteers need to what staff needs. Taking into consideration the larger groups planning on being introduced here a lot of factors get taken into consideration. I would like to point out that Peace Corps Bulgaria ranks 7th worldwide for Peace Corps programs participating in the WWS program. This program is where volunteers write to a school match back in the states and set up a pen pal per se. I think that’s great. I do think we can do better as well!

I then had a great opportunity to pick some Albanian PCV’s (Peace Corps Volunteer) brains about what they have done for tourism development. What I learned only solidified my push for creating an opportunity for other PCV’s to connect with our regional brothers. As PCV’s we can and should use each other as resources. Especially in Eastern Europe where the economical landscape is consistently changing due to the accession of the European Union. We can share with other PCV’s in other countries what has worked and what has not. Creating and sustaining this connection will only strengthen our skills as well as our creativity. We will see hopefully we can have more continued talks here in the efforts to connect with PCV’s in the region.

Lastly I talked to my program manager about helping set up some sort of tourism technical training. It was an overall great meeting and it was good to squeeze in some talking time. I also told him about my first true business related success. I know I know 10 months in. It’s normal.

So the success story. Now granted a lot of people are still trying to get a feel for me in my village. Perfectly normal. There’s one individual that totally wants to learn. He is a tour guide at the cave. He is the only one that gives the English tours to English speakers. The catch? He only knows English from watching TV. He doesn’t even know the alphabet. He wants to learn to read and write. So I casually gave him a time to come to my office for his classes. I had forgotten about it because most people say they will do something and then don’t show. Again pretty normal. Well he came with his wife! I was so excited. My first adult class. His assignment is to write out (to the best of his abilities) what he says on his English tour. We will go word for word helping him structure it and create pamphlets for the other tour guides and for the tourists if he is on another tour. English and tourism development…one class. My success story! It doesn’t seem like much but it’s the way that it should be. I should be the facilitator, the change agent, and the catalyst for change, not the person doing everything. I have a feeling I will be working with this individual quite closely for my time here. As he WANTS what I want. In a town of 400 give or take. This is like finding a golden nugget in a river.

I couldn’t be happier.

I hope you all are enjoying yourselves.

B-26ers, anyone?

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February

It’s February. Unbelievable. Winter has been pretty mild. I’ll say that. Only 7 weeks left. It’s currently raining right now. I just finished working on a tourism table to compile all the places of accommodation surrounding my area. This week I will go and collect the information. This is just another piece of work that has helped me watch time fly. Hopefully this information will be used for the future website and other forms of communication to tourists. Tomorrow I have a meeting with director of the school. I am proposing that I split the kids (I currently teach about 15 kids ranging from 1st to 8th grades…definitely difficult) into 3 classes so that I can have better control. This will also give me the opportunity to teach the kids that need the most help and help me push the kids that ‘know’ what they’re doing. I also have made posters for the art club and environmental club. I’m hoping with tomorrow’s meeting I can persuade the director to allow me the 2 hours out of the week for these small projects. I mean why not? Art is a healthy and fun activity and with the environmental club I can have the ability to also teach some science and earth friendly courses. We will see.

I’m also trying to plan some sort of small weekend get away to either Thessoliniki, Istanbul or Skopje, Maybe Belgrade…..Not sure. Any suggestions? I’d love input! I am also currently looking a planning my trip back to Cyprus because I miss it too much