Guess this makes me a blogger....

Well, after creating my account in March planning to update on my awesome trip to fabulous Istanbul, I have finally decided to jot a little something down for all my family and friends who have asked back home and maybe occasionally my bg pcv buddies of mine if they decide to take the time to mossy on over to my two cents to view and keep up on all the "excitement" that goes on over here. (bg=bulgaria, pcv= peace corps volunteer - this is the beginning of the constant and ever so "necessary" acronyms so try and keep up :)

Quick background...I've been placed in the big metropolitan city of Plovdiv, just under 400,000 peeps, in south central Bulgaria since Oct. '06. Though I am Youth Development I have been placed in a school so makes my assignment a little out of the norm in comparison to other YD's. I work with Roma (gypsies) youth. I live and work in the same neighborhood, which gets quite the remark from other Plovdiv Bulgarians when they find out where I live. This particular neighborhood predominantly consists of the two different types of Roma groups so is pretty much avoided by any Bulgarians that don't already live here. I live/work on the "Turkish" Roma side which is also mainly where the youth I work with live on as well. The other side is Roma. These two groups sometimes don't even like to interact or at least make it known that there is a definite difference between the two of them. The Turkish Roma, referred by Bulgarians as Gypsies, say they are Turkish and actually speak Turkish as their main language. Most of these kids don't learn Bulgarian until and if they go to school. Anyway, I really like working with these kids and am daily entertained by them somehow. By now most if not all of them know that I am either a "teacher" or that I am American or that I know English and when passing them I get "Здрасти Госпоза", "Hi Miss" or "ах Англиски, здрасти", "ah English, hi"....i know doesn't quite translate right, but they say this because they know I teach some English. So yeah, I'm at a school and am teaching some English to students who want to learn when they're not in their scheduled classes, so it's good, small, informal English groups. This won't be all my work though, next year I plan to do a classroom pen-pal with some of the younger English classes with a couple of classes from the states and I'm going to do a anti-drug campaign and get more info into the school and to the girls and boys even about prostitution, anti-trafficking and safe migration. So, that's a little bit of an overview for now. Some of you have asked and I'll have pics of my humble and definitely cozy abode soon....it's a mess right now.

Well, summer is here meaning school's completely finito in two weeks, bought my high class air conditioner (nice 40 leva osolating fan), I have a trip to Italy to look forward to in July and then frequent weekend trips to Burgas to hang on the Black Sea beach. Oh and of course I'll be working, not to worry, but it's gonna be quite споко (relaxing). I'll meet with some of my 7th and 9th grade girls to play volleyball during the summer...i want to teach those who don't know how and coach the one's who know. I hope to try and make a team of them during next school year but it would have to be a league team possibly since there are no girl teams at my school.

Last week was my first major project/event...I had a week long day camp for 3rd and 4th graders. Those kids are soo cute and soo easy to entertain. We had an awesome week of games, crafts, face painting, water balloon fights, ya know the works. I had some other volunteers offer to come to Plovdiv for the week and help me out with the kiddos and they did great, we got a lot of laughs, hugs and good times together with the kids! The picture I included is of me and two of the kids, my counterpart on the right and Patty who lives close to Plovdiv in the village Trud....give me some time to figure all this blog shiznat stuff out so I can include more pictures.

Well this week is being spent getting ready for our next week long day camp with the 5-8th graders, so far we have 24 kids signed up and should definitely be interesting and entertaining again!! I have a woman from an organization in Sofia coming to speak to some of the kids about trafficking and safe migration, though waiting to hear back from her on exactly which day, ugh i hate waiting till last minute to know some of these details, especially since it's my tail if it doesn't happen in the end.

Last night I walked into the center to go with Emily, one of my 3 site mates, to her museum she works at for a concert. Apparently, her museum has been doing this month long, every night concert series for 43 years. So we went, sat over to the side with some of the other staffers out in front of the museum and listened to classical music for an hour and a half in Old Town Plovdiv. Her museum, like just about all the others in Old Town, was once a home to some kind of Merchant or Trader. Beautiful homes!! Before it started some woman came up and asked "who are these pretty girls" and if we could present the bouquets to the musicians at the end. It was nice so we'll be going back a lot within the next month since it's free and there is different music every night. So, after it was finished I set out for my 40 min walk home again but this time in the nice cool nighttime. It's a win/win situation, save bus fare and get some exercise in!

Okay, that's long enough for now, I'll be back soon.....be sure and keep me filled in on all the happenins back home!!! (note: my short visit home is in t-minus 113 days!!!) BRING IT ON!!!
Don't forget to not forget about me and keep up to date!! :-)