Well, this will be my first post since I became an actual PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEER! :) Almost two weeks ago, all 62 of us B-25s swore-in as official Peace Corps Bulgaria volunteers. I'd like to give a big "Congratulations" again to all of us - training was no picnic! It really was a nice ceremony they had for us in Vratsa. There were a few speakers, including the U.S. Ambassador to Bulgaria, Nancy McEldowney; our country director, Lesley Duncan; and our B-25 representative speakers, Jared and Nat. They all did a great job! After the ceremony, one of my counterparts, Pauli, and her family were waiting and ready to take me to Aytos! It really was sad to leave the people who had become my close friends over the past two months, and to leave my host parents who I had been living with, but it's time to move on to doing what I came here for! Although I'm sure I'll be making a few visits here and there to see everyone :)So... I've been living in Aytos now for almost two weeks, and besides coming down with a terrible virus this week, everything has been going pretty well. The day after I moved in, I went on a little camping trip in Shkorpilovsti, a town on the coast about 20 minutes south of Varna. It was really a lot of fun. We camped in a forest that is right off of the beach, and I got to see the Black Sea for the first time! I can imagine I'll be spending a good amount of time there over these next two years.
Besides the camping trip, I've just been focusing on getting settled in to my new town and my new apartment... getting things I need, learning where places are, meeting people, etc. I know it's an ongoing process but I'm getting there! I also started working on Monday, I taught a couple of classes at the Hristo Botev school. One class was for the teachers who wanted to learn English this summer, and 15 of the teachers came! I was really impressed. I guess Aytos is becoming sort of a touristy town because it's so close to the coast, so that's their reason for wanting to learn the language. Another class was of some sixth grade students. For the teachers, since they were mostly beginners, I started with the alphabet and phonetic sounds. And for the students, I acted out some dialogues with my counterpart, Brani, and played the "alphabet game," which is pretty much a spelling exercise. Both of the classes went pretty well. Then, unfortunately, I've had to take these past couple of days off due to my being sick. Apparently it's a virus that's been going around the country, my counterpart came down with it as well. So at least she understands!
Next week, since I'll hopefully be back at 100%, I'll be teaching and playing with kids from both schools. They have the days split up for me so that two days I'll be at one school, the other two at the other school, and one day I'm split between the two. Hectic, I know, but hopefully I'll be used to that kind of schedule once the school year starts.
I apologize for it having been so long since my last post, but hopefully you're all updated on what's been going on over here! Will post again soon... довиждане!
