Good Morning Blog,

Quick morning update, things are going well here. It is February now and the January blues are wearing off. I am travelling at the end of the month back to Holland for another family reunion. My parents will not be there this time around, but my cousin Sam will be. I am so excited to see everyone! 

Work continues to be an adjustment. But if I expected anything else I should not have joined the Peace Corps! I am teaching English and trying to get a few other projects going. I have started tutoring a few more people which I always enjoy because it means making some new friends and being part of another family.

My emotional state is following the Peace Corps Volunteer emotional health chart freakishly close! There is actually a chart that shows where the "average" volunteer starts to feel down and when that starts to go back up.  Now that I am past it I can talk a little more in depth about the harshness of the first 3 months at site. It was a really dark time for me. If you are reading this and you didn't know, don't feel bad. I let very few people know. I would call it my "personal crisis" stage. You know the, what the hell am I doing, stage. There are a lot of ways to make it through that stage. Everyone has to figure it out for themselves. I relied heavily on a few friends and family, and other than that kept my head down and kept going. One foot in front of the other you keep going and then somehow you make it through. I am not saying it isn't hard, I am not saying I didn't fight the urge to blow this popsicle stand, but I also know that I didn't leave so much at home to pack it  in with out giving it all that I could.  I picked myself up after that and kind of re-focused on what I was doing and did really good for the next few months. January was a bit of a blue month, but I think it is for a lot of people, volunteers or not. But again I am focusing back on things and trying to push myself. I am really looking forward to visiting some volunteers and spending time getting to know them better and seeing more of this beautiful country.  

 I woke up to this beautiful view this morning and could not resist taking this picture.

This is a stray dog that I have started to feed. I have named her Penelope or Penny for short.

Talking Blog: "Road to Nowhere"

Surva Festival in Pernik, Bulgaria was the last weekend in January. It is also called the Kukeri festival. This festival is celebrated in villages all over the south of Bulgaria. This particular festival is said to be the best and it did not disappoint. There was a huge bonfire and firework display for the "opening ceremonies", and all day Saturday is a competition and parade of different Kukeri groups. 

Here are some pictures:

Each group competed in the competition by performing a skit, and also by the look of their costumes and how traditional they are.

 This is a good picture to display the bells that almost every Kukeri has around their waste. They are very loud, they dance around hitting the bells, slamming things together and banging on drums. The tradition is based off of warding off evil spirits and cleansing for the new year, and of course all the fertility traditions that come along with every pagan holiday.

 I was intrigued by the little kids who participated. The Kukeri scared me so I couldn't imagine being this young surrounded by people in these type of costumes.

 This was our AMAZING view from the hotel. Elena did awesome making our reservations. We had a great view of everything going on. This was the before picutre

And this is as close as I got to after picture with all the people (we were outside at the festival pretty much all day). There were a lot of people, and it was a lot of fun. If you are thinking of a visit, I would recommend aiming for this festival. 

 Every group has different costumes, some have huge hats that make them look 8 to 10 feet tall, and some of them just paint their faces. It depends on the group and the traditional outfits that the people in their region or village wore before them. The costumes are very interesting and some are very intricate.

Auld Lang Blog

So Christmas and New Years came and went, here are the pictures to prove it. Hope you had a wonderful holiday season!

These guys go around town and sing, like morning carolers. Then the women of the house give them the rolls of bread that you see stacked on their staff and also a piece of candy. There seems to be some debate on when they come, in my village they came the morning before Christmas. However when my language trainer asked she balked at the idea of them coming then. Apparently it is normal for them to do it, Christmas morning or the morning after. I just thought it was cool to see a really old tradition being preserved.

 Christmas morning in our pajamas! Jen and Brit were staying together so I hiked over to their place on Christmas morning which considering how much was drunk the night before was really a Christmas miracle in itself. It was well worth it to spend Christmas morning with the ladies!

 It was actually pretty warm and no white Christmas. Now of course these mountains are covered in snow.

We did stockings. Actually we did a stocking chain. I got Brit a stocking, Brit got Jen a stocking, and Jen got me a stocking!

My Bulgarian family on Christmas Eve. It was a wonderful Christmas! One of the best in fact.