We’ve been in Bulgaria for six weeks now and gone from home for almost seven. It’s been 14 months since we applied for this adventure. All this time we’ve wondered just what the Peace Corps had in mind for us and we’ve certainly wondered WHERE?? Half of the where question was answered last March when our names came up on the list for Bulgaria. But Bulgaria is as large as Tennessee and ranges from sea level to 9,000 feet, so the where question has been hanging over us until this week.
Last Monday the four of us in Sapareva Banya traveled by bus 25 kilometers to the larger town of Dupnista. There we were joined by 24 more fellow trainees traveling in from six other satellite sites. Our original group of 30 has been reduced by two young women who decided to return to the states for personal reasons.
All 28 of us marched down several blocks to a local high school and upstairs into the gym. There a large outline map of Bulgaria was marked out on the floor in masking tape. The map was so large it took up the whole basketball court. Inside the map were 27 pieces of paper, with town and village names, placed at the proper location on the map. Twenty-seven locations for 28 people. Maybe somebody remembered that there was a married couple here. Perhaps there was hope for a ranger and an accountant tired of playing bachelor and bachelorette.
The Peace Corps Country Director began pulling names of trainees out of a box and finally the where question was being answered. As each name and location was announced, the trainee was escorted to the proper spot on the gym floor map and given a long-stem carnation in congratulations. Shirley’s was the 4th name called and she was escorted to the center of the map to a piece of paper labeled Копривщица. Several more names were drawn out of the box until someone called out, “Don’t you think Richard ought to go to the same town?” Common sense prevailed and the ranger got a carnation and an escort. Soon all us were standing on the Bulgarian map on the gym floor. Now we could all see where we were going in relationship to our classmates.
But just what is Копривщица? It was just my luck to get a town with a name ten letters long including the letter “щ” which is not to be confused with the letter “ш”. The former translates in English as “sht” while the latter is “sh”. If at first you don’t see the difference in the two letters, look for the small downturn on the right-hand end of the letter. The letter “щ” is one of the two most confusing letters in the alphabet for me. The other is “ц” which translates as “ts”. This one is easy in the middle of a word but difficult for starting a word. And Копривщица contains both letters.
I guess that I should have counted my blessing that Копривщица contains only ten letters in Bulgarian. In English the town name has 13 letters, Koprivshtitsa. Try saying that ten times real fast. After three days I am still trying to say it right every time. To get the accent right say Ko-PREEV-shtit-sa.
To introduce us to our new home each of us were given a packet of information. Some people got only a single sheet of paper. It was hard to say much about their village of 200 or 600 people. Shirley and I were luckier. Our packet included a full color booklet and three brochures and all bilingual. We were headed for a tourist destination in Bulgaria that had printed brochures in an attempt to lure even more tourists.
Now with a town name and a small information packet, we all reconvened for a Peace Corps session on travel logistics and what to do when we first met our local counterparts from these towns and villages because in just two hours we were going to meet them.
When we left Sapareva Banya that Monday morning we each carried a suitcase or backpack with clothes for six days without being told where we were going. The Peace Corps loves surprises. We knew only that we were spending the first two nights in a nearby hotel for conferences and then we would be traveling to our new sites, with our counterparts, for a two-day look-see and meet-and-greet. So there was soon to be an actual place to go with the name Koprivshtitsa and the booklet and the three brochures. But first we had to meet our counterparts who were in the lobby of the hotel.
Just as we had come to Dupnitsa that morning not knowing where our permanent sites would be, so the local counterparts came to Dupnitsa not knowing which Peace Corps volunteer was coming to their town. They knew nothing about the prospective volunteer, not even their name. As I said the Peace Corps loves surprises.
So each of us walked into the hotel looking for someone from our new town identified by a name tag with location listed. We were nervous. Would our counterpart speak any English? Some don’t. Our new counterparts were equally nervous. Who was coming to their town? Could they communicate in Bulgarian? Shirley and I found Milena from Koprivshtitsa and started a three-way, bilingual conversation. We hit it off and all is well!
A full day of conferences followed for all of us. (You don’t want to hear about conferences.) Then on Wednesday it was time to go for our site visit, traveling with Milena. Of course we are going by bus. With gas at over $8.00 a gallon the bus is the cheaper option.
Leaving Dupnista, we traveled north to the capital city, Sophia, for an hour and a half. The fare was 5 leva, a little under $4 per person. In Sophia there is more than one bus station so we have to travel from the Ovcha Kupel Bus Station to the Central Bus Station. Usually one would take a trolley car (called a tram here) from one station to the other but we have three large bags and one small suitcase plus my daypack and Milena’s small bag.
All of us trainees brought two large suitcases to Bulgaria. Most of the contents are for later in our service with things such as winter clothes that we don’t need yet. So to avoid having to take all the bags later when we make our permanent move to our new site, we were advised to take one of our large bags now and drop it off at the new site for later. Shirley and I decided to take three of our four large bags now while we had an extra person to help.
So now we had too many bags to transfer to the other bus station by trolley. We needed a taxi. There are many taxis from many companies in Sophia and all are yellow. We were advised that a reputable taxi company was named the OK taxi company. They are reliable and have cheap rates, 0.59 leva per kilometer.
That’s all well and good but in this land of new and often unregulated capitalism there are three or four taxi companies that use some variation of the word OK in their logo and they try in every way to mimic the reputable company, except in price. Some will charge 2.49 leva per km. Or 4.90 leva or even 5.90 leva, ten times the price of the original OK company. All prices are legal so they are not violating any law. The only saving grace is that the law requires that the price be posted in the right hand corner of the windshield. So one must look carefully. The unwary will see 5.90 leva and forget that the good price is 0.59 leva. We had to search through 20 different taxis at the bus station to find the right one. Then it was a matter of putting a large suitcase, two large duffels, a small suitcase, a daypack, a small duffel, two trainees, and one counterpart in one small taxi. Oh yes, the driver has to get in there too.
We made it to Central Bus Station and the total bill was only 6.80 leva, a little over $5. I don’t know why it was so cheap. We were told by the Peace Corps to expect 10-12 leva. In any case it was much cheaper than the 60 leva ($48) that the unwary might be charged.
At the new bus station there was the chance for a sandwich (ham and cheese) before catching another bus for Koprivshtitsa. That town is only 110 km. (70 miles) from Sophia but the bus takes 2 ½ hours while stopping at small towns along the way.
Hooray, we made it! I’ll tell you about Koprivshtitsa in another posting. This one is too long, just like our bus rides. I’ll just say that we had a wonderful visit for two days and three nights.
Then came the kicker. We had to travel back to Sapareva Banya but this time by ourselves with no Milena to help us. We now got to use our Bulgarian language and knowledge. So it was back on a bus to Sophia, back across town to the second bus station, back on a bus to Dupnista, and then on another bus to Sapareva Banya. All told it was 5 ½ hours travel to come back. But here we are “back home” ready to start our classes again. We have another 4 ½ weeks of training to go.
Next time the beautiful town of Копривщица.
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