Teaching English (ESL) in Bulgaria and other questions

I get a lot of questions from readers who are interested in teaching English in Bulgaria. I'm re-posting my answer to one such question that I got on FormSring, I hope it helps.

Question:
I want to teach English as a second language in Bulgaria but I don't know anything about the standard of living there nor if they need English-Bulgarian speaking teachers. Can you give me some advice or just your thoughts on the matter?

Answer:
I don't know much about this but I have an idea. Why don't you contact Berlitz? The school has a great reputation in Bulgaria (and worldwide, I believe). If they don't need teachers at the moment, they might be able to point you in the right direction. You can email the Sofia office directly at sofia@berlitz.bg. Also, you can search for other ESL teachers in Bulgaria online (both for standard of living/professional questions). You'd be surprised how many blogs you'd be able to find. Here are some of my favorite:

• Window to Bulgaria: MY FAVORITE. Check out his Baba of the Week series. Peace Corps guy.
• Karolinka in Bulgaria: English teacher at The American College in Sofia, I believe.
• Bulgarianna: another Peace Corps blog. She doesn't update very often but every entry is a treat. Check out her recent story about her little friend learning Bulgarian. So sweet!
  

If you are a not a Bulgarian and are moving to Bulgaria soon AND have questions about what to expect, please don't hesitate to ask! If I can't answer your question, I'll try to put you in touch with someone who can.

Which reminds me that I recently discovered that in an attempt to be better organized, I've been stashing how-to-marry emails in a separate folder of my email account that I FORGOT ABOUT! If you wrote me an email and never heard back from me, PLEASE FORGIVE ME! I wasn't being rude. I just spaced out. I am working through all the emails and you will be hearing from me SOON.

Be good! Be kind! Support Sofia Pride 2010!

Most of the time, I try to keep politics out of the conversations we have here. I know we all come from such different backgrounds, that it's impossible to agree on the BIG issues: sex, politics, religion. All that being said, I also know that despite our differences, we all agree that everyone has the right to live a fulfilling life and that it's up to them to define what that means.

In less than a month, a group of 300, maybe 400 people will go out on the street in Sofia and politely ask Bulgarians to let them be. They will be supported by a small number of foreign diplomatic missions (USA, France, Germany), some local non-profits, some bigger European LGBT rights groups, a handful of bloggers. The local media will cover the event in a mostly sensationalist manner. Very few Bulgarian politicians will comment. The ones that will, will mostly make homophobic remarks and you would wish they never spoke. The Sofia mayor's office will do the bare minimum to support the event and will discourage the organizers from turning the event into a celebration. They will do a good job of providing enough cops to secure the route but they won't do much else.

So, today I ask you a favor.

Please support Sofia Pride 2010. It's only our 3rd one, so it's small. It's not going to be like anything you might have experienced in Paris, Berlin, or New York. It's definitely NOT San Francisco. But it's a lot more controversial and even more IMPORTANT. It's happening despite resistance. On the day of... it will be scary for some of the participants but they will be there because despite the grimness, there ARE people in Bulgaria who Love Equality and Support Diversity.

Currently, the organizers are still trying to raise funds to put together the best possible event they can. They need less than $4000 and we can help them meet that goal. Please make a small donation via PayPal and share this request with your friends on Facebook and Twitter. If you are planning to make a donation, please make a pledge at the bottom of this entry!

I know we are all cynical and disillusioned in many ways, but kindness, solidarity and compassion still go a long way. Be good. Be kind. HELP!

Bulgaria: what you love. Or not.

I keep forgetting about my FormSpring account but you guys keep sending me cool questions. Here's a response to one of them.

Q: Are there any particular aspects of Bulgarian culture, attitude and behavior that you dislike? What Bulgarian peculiarities do you like? Do you consider yourself a typical Bulgarian and in what way?

A: I dislike Bulgarian cynicism. I think that more often than not Bulgarians are unnecessarily pessimistic. I don't think that there's absolutely no ground for it but I think we push it to an extreme. I know I do and I am working on getting over it.

What I really like about Bulgarians is our complete disregard for personal space: we are nosy neighbors, tell people how to raise the children, take a lot of group trips, talk to our parents several times a week, show up uninvited, pick fruit off any tree that's within our reach. When I am in Bulgaria, I feel very connected. I love that.

I don't know if I am a typical Bulgarian. What I like about myself the most is that who I am has been influenced by two cultures that I like.

P.S. A dear friend of mine (name starts with N, has a popular Bulgarian blog wink-wink) is considering moving back to Bulgaria from NYC and I kept thinking of him while responding to this question. I am really curious to hear what y'all have to say about this, especially in the context of considering relocating back to the Motherland.

Jokes about Bulgaria

My friends often poke fun of me for being from Bulgaria. It's all in good spirit, of course. In those jokes, Bulgaria is always a poverty-ridden, dusty place, where people have no consumer choice, are afraid of politicians (especially after dark) and spend hours waiting in line for bread. Not entirely unlike what Bulgaria was like under Communism (but that was 20 years ago).

I find this endlessly entertaining because it always leaves me wondering... this really is a joke, right? they don't really think we are that backward, right? they don't really think that about Bulgaria, right?

However that conversation goes in my head, it always ends the same.... Wait, wait... maybe they DO!

You know you are Bulgarian when...

Miss Biliana painted a custom fashion print for me. I don't know which one but I hyper-ventilated over my first Marc Jacobs bag a few weeks ago and I'm guessing she might have picked up on that. Anyway.

Here's our email exchange from earlier today:

Miss B: Just a quick note to ask if you received your drawing, I sent it about ten days ago. I hope you like it if you did!

Petya: No! It's not here yet! How did you send it?! Shouldn't take that long...

Miss B: Hmmm, I sent it regular mail. It is not very big, I put it in a magazine. Let me know, the post office here said it should take about 5 to 8 (!) business days, so this sounds about right. Let me know, I wanted you to get it for Valentines Days since it is red....

As this was going on, I realized... shit, I'm responding in such a Bulgarian way to this. Don't you see it?! I panicked that the postal worker might have kept my package!!! When I shared my realization with Biliana, she said: I would panic the same way, this is why I am writing!

You know you are Bulgarian when anticipating a friendly package in the mail makes you anxious.

Is positivism childish?

Recently, one of the fashion bloggers I follow posted a Code of Comments in an attempt to discourage negativism on her blog. She asked people to keep comments positive which had everybody and their mother telling her whether that was good or bad. Jessica ended up modifying her request by pointing out that there's a difference between feedback and being critical (I think she meant "being bitchy") but the debate kept going and going. If you have a little bit of time on your hands, I encourage you to read the whole discussion on What I Wear because it's the first one of its kind, I think. The entry prompted a series of very thoughtful comments on fashion blogging in particular but also, more generally, about the nature of internet dialog and the commercialization of blogging.

The reason why I bring this up here is a comment by Rosemary MacCabe I noticed, which pointed out a difference between Americans' and Europeans' attitudes toward criticism.

As for all the people going "haters are just jealous", to me that's just a really funny, American way of looking at things. Americans (wild stereotype here!) are so much more positive than Europeans - and that's not an insult - so any disagreements are often construed as being negative, when they're not; they're just disagreements. I think Europeans are much more cynical and less insulted when people disagree with them, probably because we disagree with one another a whole lot more!

I find myself in agreement with the comment: there IS a difference. And I do agree that the Americans in my life have, in general, have been way more positive and optimistic than the Europeans I know. Kyle and I actually had multiple arguments because of that when we lived in Bulgaria. (It's my fault, I slip back into general cynicism when I'm home). I hate cynicism and the I-can't-be-fooled attitude that I find so prevalent in Bulgaria. That's part of the reason why I've temporarily abandoned my feminist blog. Every time I brought up a topic there I was first accused of being naive for finding a certain case of discrimination unjust and stupid for expecting things to change. Every time I gave a reason why neither was the case, I'd be insulted (stupid, dumb, Americanized, naive, frigid, etc.).


I know that hope and positivism are really out of favor right now but I strongly believe that in the grand scheme of things staying positive and encouraging respectful constructive dialog is both easier AND more productive. What do you guys think? For the Bulgarians among you, do you agree with my observations about Bulgarians being generally cynical and pessimistic? Does that drive you nuts?! It drives me up the fucking wall.

Remembering the fall: a story of the aftermath

Here's a little story I meant to share with you last week but never got around to posting it. It does not directly involve my memory of the fall of communism but has to do with the aftermath of the Fall and the way it affected my family. The story is an excerpt of my short story We don't eat shrimp that I wrote for the Harvest Baskets anthology that I mentioned a few months ago.

Mom lost her job in 1992. She had been working at the same electronics plant for upwards of ten years, so it came as a big surprise to her. She had really liked it there. It was a state-of-the-art facility producing knock-offs of Western micro-electronic components that would then be exported to other countries within the Soviet bloc. It was a good use of her degree (she had studied chemical engineering in the university) and she got to wear what looked like a white ninja suit. She liked her job because all her co-workers were engineers like her, and they got their monthly salary direct-deposited into their bank-accounts. Most other Bulgarians had to stand in long lines to get their salary in cash and, after they had waited for an hour, the cashier would tell everyone That's it for today, come back tomorrow. Mom also liked her job because she made a lot of money doing it. She made more than Dad who was also an engineer but worked in a different plant. When she lost her job, she cried for weeks.

The Unemployment Bureau sent her to a continuing education course to learn about Microsoft Word. There were no computers in the classroom at the learning center, and the instructor drew command buttons on a blackboard with chalk. Then he would dictate orders of operation. You make a selection and then you click on the "cut" button, that's right, the one with the scissors that I just drew. That will remove the selected text from your document and make a copy of it on the clipboard. What is a clipboard? Well that's a little bit hard to draw now, isn't it? And so he would continue. When the computer course was over, she had no job, a husband with an average salary, two daughters, and no knowledge of Microsoft Word.

***
I am no longer seeking out stories for this series but if you still want to share yours, I would be more than happy to post it. Also, if you will, please become a Follower of this blog. It helps me keep track of who's reading and provides a fun way for you guys to get to know each other!

Remembering the fall: Maria Vassileva, Cambridge, USA

This week we are remembering the fall. If you would like to share a story, please send me an email at petya.kirilova [at] gmail [dot] com. Life in the Trenches will be back next Wednesday.


I am twenty months old in that picture, and this is my dad holding a sign that says "Nov. 11, 1989, The next, please!"; my mom is probably behind the camera. We're all in a little rented apartment in either Mladost-3 or Druzhba-2.

I am twenty-one now, and it's really embarrassing how little I know about everything that happened before I was born, and then before I learned to read and remember. I know I should work on getting my questions answered. I could address them to the library next door instead of my parents, since my parents always change the topic. (One upside of going to school so far away from them is that I don't have to see how they ignore this anniversary that is none.)

A few days ago, on the 9th, I was talking to a friend from Estonia about the power outages that seemed like so much fun when we were five or six years old. And about the times when there was no hot water, or no water, period. (But that's the mid-nineties already, and those anniversaries are yet to come.) We were waiting for our friends - one Czech, one German - with whom we wanted to grab a beer and celebrate the fall of the Berlin wall. The plan fell through because we all had
too much work to do, but it still felt nice and festive, and important to all of us. It didn't occur to me to celebrate the next day, except to upload this picture and scratch my head a little.

Writing this, I'm tempted to veer off and talk about all the things that gnaw at me in Cambridge, MA, because I miss Mladost-4, but dread going back in December when it will be at its darkest and dirtiest. So I'll just end here - look, cute baby picture! Babies are so happily oblivious. And my dad had to go and ruin it all.

Maria Vassileva, Cambridge, MA.

Remembering the fall: Alexandra Grashkina-Hristova, Boston

This week we are remembering the fall. If you would like to share a story, please send me an email at petya.kirilova [at] gmail [dot] com.

On November 10th, 1989 I was at home in our one-bedroom apartment, on the fifth floor of a gray cement building in the Sofia District "Mladost" ("Youth"). The phone rang and a close family friend said to my mother, "Congratulations, we have a new secretary general." The secretary general of the Central Committee of the Communist Party had been, for over 30 years, the dictator Todor Zhivkov. My mother paused and said, "Stop telling me political jokes on the phone." In fact, we had known that for several years someone listened to our phone conversations. My uncle's phone was tapped, too, and so was my grandma's. All because none of them were members of the Communist Party. Not being a member, at the time, had cost them a lot of sacrifices, but it meant they stayed true to their beliefs, morally and politically. I don't think that my family had the courage to voice their hopes that Communism will fall. But I know they had such hopes. For years before November 1989, my grandma liked to quote a relative who was a prisoner at the Belene concentration camp and said, "The economy will collapse and so will Communism." When she talked about this, she lowered her voice.

We also secretly went to church on Christmas and Easter but suspected we were being "watched." Christianity was not a good thing during communism. I had repeatedly asked my mother why I can say "Merry Christmas" to her and to my dad but not to my second grade teacher, Comrade Kostova.


So how will I myself remember Communism? Well, I remember it with the one and only time my mother had to slap me. We were at a friend's house and I had blurted, "You know, uncle listens to BBC radio." I had given out what was almost a top secret: that we listened to Western radio station. That one slap was the only repression I have suffered. But even though I was 9 on November 10, 1989, I know what it feels like not to be allowed to speak freely. Being able to compare the 1980s in our gray apartment building with the years that followed is nothing short of priceless. I know and acknowledge that November 10th did not change Bulgaria overnight, with the move of a magic wand. Nor did it necessarily make everyone more happy. Yet, for me it is enough that the people who I love the most in this world don't have to whisper and hide anymore.

To brighten up this memory, I am attaching a picture of District "Mladost," no longer quite so gray, about 10 years after November 10, 1989. It features me and a purple trabant on the day of my high school prom and a couple of months before I came to the United States for my college studies.

Alex Grashkina-Hristova, Boston

Remembering the fall: Biliana Velkova, Canada

This week we are remembering the fall. If you would like to share a story, please send me an email at petya.kirilova [at] gmail [dot] com.

On the day the Wall fell, I was coming home from school, at that time I was in grade 8 at the Fine Arts High School in Sofia (Hudojestvenata Gimnazia). The streets seemed strangely deserted, it was already dark, and I just wanted to get home to my grandmother's stuffed peppers. Back then we all lived in an old Sofian apartment, three generations on top of each other, plus our small dog Gigi. I remember my mom pulling me inside the apartment and excitedly but quietly telling of what had happened. We had to be quiet back then because "even the walls have ears". I didn't really understand the importance of the event but I could feel it was of great significance as all of my family members were quietly celebrating. The news of the events was on TV, very short and to the point as most of the news from the West was reported back then. Sofia was dark and quiet but on TV we could see fireworks and people cheering in Berlin. I didn't know it then but this event changed the fate of my family and myself and all of the world, really. Two years later, we left for Vancouver, Canada. I still go back to Bulgaria fairly often and to this day, my hometown is frozen in those days for me. My Bulgarian friends tell me that I have a great memory, but I think it is because this is all I have. My memories are forever time-capsuled in that dark, cold Sofian evening with the fireworks flickering from our black and white TV.

Thank you, Petya for letting me share these memories. I am including a photo from those days (maybe a little earlier).


This is from a class trip to the Archelogical Museum and I am in the middle, bottom row. I remember getting in trouble because I was wearing white clogs, which did not go with my Pioneer's uniform.

Biliana Velkova, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

***
P.S. For the record, please note that none of the kids are smiling.

Remembering the fall

Let's spend the week reflecting on what happened 20 years ago. You know, THE Wall falling and all that. Where were you then? Where are you know? How's your family done through the transition? For the non-Bulgarians among us, does the fall of communism hold any personal significance to you? Email me your stories and pictures and I would be more than happy to share here on the blog. I hope this would be a post-heavy week.


The picture above was taken in Berlin this past summer. My dad is headed towards the crosses that mark the death of East Germans who tried to swim their way through to Western Germany. It's a horrifyingly peaceful site. My dad, however, was more interested in testing the settings of his digital camera.

Anniversary?! Whose anniversary?!

Do you guys celebrate anniversaries? My parents have been married 30 years and have NEVER celebrated. When I called them to congratulate them a couple of weeks ago, Mom was reading the paper and Dad was sleeping on the couch, "watching TV". When I asked my mom about what they'd had for dinner, she said, Petya, let's talk about something interesting. No party, no candle-light dinner, no fuss.

It has nothing to do with their relationship. I am not sure if they are in love anymore, but they definitely show a lot of love and respect for each other. Also, they are still very silly around each other... which, in my book, is a pretty solid sign that things are not half bad. In the picture below, for example, my dad is pretending he's not listening to my mom's looooong story and she's pulling his ear to make sure that he DOES listen. That's just how they are.


But that anniversary thing... I just can't get over it. It's really strange. And now that I am thinking about it, I can't remember any of my immediate family ever celebrating a wedding anniversary... Not my aunts and uncles, neither pair of grandparents, not my cousins. I never celebrated anniversaries before I met Kyle and ours are kind of tame.

What is this about? Are all (older) (Bulgarian) couples like that or is it just my family? Help me figure this out.

Racism in Bulgaria: continued

My entries Black in Bulgaria and Bulgarian Guantanamo have been picked up by a couple of online publications. Black in Bulgaria was translated into Bulgarian and published by e-vestnik. Veronica Khokhlova referenced both entries over at Global Voices Online. Global Voices peeps also translated Veronica's note in French and Spanish.

I am only letting you all know so that you can follow the conversations there as well, if you are interested.

Bulgarian Guantanamo

Thank you all so much for your comments to my post on racism in Bulgaria. The stories you share a horrific but, I think, it'd be worse to leave them untold. I was especially shaken after I read an anonymous comment by someone who said they were talking from experience and described the experiences of black people in detention camps in Bulgaria.

Until I read that comment, I had never heard of anything like it so I started looking around for more information. I contacted Yana Buhrer Tavanier, freelance journalist and Bulgarian Activist Alliance member, who, turns out, actually wrote a story on the Busmantsi Detention Center that my Anonymous Reader was referring to. The piece was published in June 2007 and paints a pretty gruesome picture of the Busmantsi Home for Temporary Foreigner Residence. One of the people she interviews for the piece (a non-detainee), actually, describes Busmantsi as the Bulgarian Guantanamo.

Basically, the "home" is supposed to serve as temporary residence for illegal immigrants or people whose application for refugee status was rejected and are waiting to be deported. That's all fine and make sense BUT unfortunately, there are many problems:

• People are supposed to be taken into the detention center only as last resort: when a person has committed a crime, when they are a security threat, etc. Instead, locking people up is pretty much the norm.

• People are supposed to be held there only temporarily while their respective country representatives prepare their deportation papers. In most European Union countries that period is about 60 days but human rights groups are pushing for a one-month maximum wait period for obvious reasons. Well, in Busmantsi people are held for YEARS (1, 2 or more). No explanation why or for how long.

• Not knowing how long they are going to be detained, people begin to demand information. Officials cannot provide it. People protest and to gain control over them, officials put them in solitary confinement. Reminder: this is NOT a prison.

• MANY detainees turn to self-abuse and even try to commit suicide. One person sewed their mouth shut. Another wraped himself up in his sheet, then tried to set it on fire with his cigarette. Another person wrote "Where is my freedom?" on the wall of his solitary confinement cell. In his own blood. When asked about suicide attempts, the Director of the Institution responds: There have been no suicide attempts. There have been provocations in the sense that they (detainees) make demands and if their demands are not met, they harm themselves. But suicide attempts: no such thing. For real.

If you are Bulgarian, you should Yana's piece: Моят дом - моята крепост. For everyone else who doesn't read Bulgarian, you should read the brief note on this in this past year's Amnesty International Report on Bulgaria and this conversation with a Bulgarian Migration Officer in The Sofia Echo.

In the meantime, I am trying to figure out what to do with all this newly acquired information. What's really sad is that if Yana's piece should have been enough to put an end to all this but judging from the Amnesty report and the testimonies here, that seems not to be the case. Pathetic and sad.

Black in Bulgaria

I was looking through my site stats earlier today when I noticed that people have been coming here after doing multiple Google searches about "black people in Bulgaria", "being black, marrying a Bulgarian" and other variations on the subject. My heart sank.

There are things about Bulgaria that I love and other things that I don't like so much. I don't think that's unusual, most of us have mixed feelings about places we know well. If we think a place is all good or all bad, we are simply not honest with ourselves. There ARE a couple of things about Bulgaria(ns), though, that drive me up the fuckin' wall and racism is one of them. There is nothing you can say to convince me otherwise, it really is THAT BAD.

The kind of racism that I am talking about is of the variety where you tell your 3-year-old child that they should finish their meal or you would give them away to a Gypsy woman. Or you finally get home after a long day of work and say that you should really take a shower so you'd feel like a "white person". Or, if you happen to be a Roma (Gypsy) child, you should expect to be seated at the back of the classroom where usually bad students sit. Or, if you get on a public bus you will inevitably get elbowed by your friend as means of telling you to keep an eye on your purse because a couple of Gypsy women just walked in and, well, they must be pickpockets. If you are a white person, you have most likely never shaken hands with a Roma person or a black person in Bulgaria. You most likely don't interact with a non-white person on a daily basis. It's the kind of racism where if you are a black person, you should expect that everyone on the street will stare at you, especially if you are walking together with a white person. They might make monkey sounds behind your back. In certain neighborhoods and at certain times of the day, you may be physically attacked. It is gross and disgusting and you-have-got-to-be-fucking-kidding-me SO BAD. It really is. It is old people and young people, poor people and rich people, old people and young people... heck, even people of other minority groups... RACIST.

I don't have much to say in terms of WHY that it is the case. I also don't mean to say that this would be your experience with every single Bulgarian you meet. I guess, I just wanted to say...you know... hi... and... I worry about this with you... and... if you are black and are marrying a Bulgarian... congratulations you guys and please be strong for each other. Please, drop me a line if you ever come back to this site!

Rawi Hage in Bulgaria

I am reading and LOVING Rawi Hage's De Niro's Game. The book is set in Beirut during the Civil War and follows a young man whose life has been torn apart by bombs, death, crime, confusion and a nagging sense of unbelonging. Hage is a magnificent writer. His style is sparse but vivid, paints his characters' inner-worlds in such ways that you don't always understand but accept nonetheless. For his work on De Niro's Game, in 2008 Rawi Hage received the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, which is "the most lucrative literary prize in the world."

When I was in Bulgaria a couple of weeks ago, I attended a book party for De Niro's Game, at which Rawi Hage himself was present. The party was held at a coffee-shop and the author remarked that he was used to drinking wine at readings but loved the venue anyway. Hage is originally from Lebanon but immigrated to States and then Canada. When I asked him whether the book was autobiographical and how his family responded to it, he said that his mother read the novel and said, "Son, you have a great imagination."

In Bulgaria, the book was published by Janet-45, the most exciting and most progressive publishing house in the country. Janet-45 will be publishing my first book (co-edited with Yana Buhrer Tavanier) some time this fall. So, when the Publisher (Rawi's and mine) asked me if I would be willing to accompany Rawi Hage to a radio-interview and interpret for him, of course, I had to say YES. What I should have said was YES but also THANK YOU FOR THE HONOR.

Only in Bulgaria do we, young aspiring writers, get to rub shoulders with the Great Ones. Only in Bulgaria do we get to crack up about the amount of drinking that we'd been doing in the last couple of days. Only in Bulgaria do we spend an hour talking about Civil Wars, and Death, and Immigration and then hop on a cab together and share a ride to our respective bar engagements. Only in Bulgaria does HE get to thank ME.

That's what Bulgaria is like. Things happen to you and you wonder if it shouldn't be the other way around.

Gay pride in Sofia and Memphis

In Memphis, yesterday:

South Main becomes Castro Street tonight during the monthly Art Trolley Tour. LGBT-supportive businesses in the arts district will be proudly displaying rainbow flags, thanks to the Center City Commission. In honor of Gay Pride Month, the commission passed out small flags to gay-friendly businesses. The trolley tour runs from 6 to 9 p.m. along South Main.

In Sofia, today:

The second ever gay pride parade boosts a smashing 300 people marching. The crowd, twice the size of last year's, is guarded by city police and private security guards. People are wearing hard-hats for protection but also as a satirical move to show that all participants are working hard to change attitudes in Bulgaria. They are running, rather than walking, because they are afraid of attacks from neo-nazis. Last year neo-nazis threw a Molotov cocktail at us, at this point there are no reports of actual physical violence today. The event is supported by 10 foreign diplomatic missions, several international human rights organizations and only two local political parties.

***

I am happy that I am heading to Memphis, sad that things are still so different in Bulgaria, but also proud that so many of my friends participated in the Sofia event. Things can and WILL get better.