Summer Storms

           It is a stormy night here in Bulgaria and I am sitting at my desk watching the curtain dance from the air the rain is pushing into my room as it makes it’s way to the earth. Every minute or so my room is illuminated by the bright electricity striking in the distance, which is followed by that sound that never fails to make my soul quiver a little every time it hears it. I can’t help but remember an evening of the same caliber not too long ago; only this one was in New Mexico. I could not of been older than 10 and I remember lying down to sleep when a storm rolled through as they often do that time of the year. At this time I had a hard time sleeping without a light on in my room, so when this particular storm knocked out the power and left me lying in total darkness I could not help but feel slightly panicked. I remember sitting up thinking that I had to cross the house and get the sanctuary that was my parent’s room. With my hand against the wall I slowly groped my way to their room, but I did not get very far when my path was completely illuminated by a flash of light and I stopped dead in my tracks. The sound of the rain pouring against my roof, the sweet smell of wet dirt, and the earth shaking from the powerful bolts completed this scene and it made me feel so alive. It was a moment that is so engrained in my memory, not because something significant happened. It was one of those moments that you see or feel something so beautiful and you begin bursting at the seams because your body cannot contain how big your soul becomes.

I feel this now, but not because there is a storm of the same magnitude but because it is bring forth many memories of home and the people who are there. As I mentioned it reminds me of my childhood and the nostalgic sensations of summer storms, but it also brings forth a flood of other precious memories with people whom I love. I remember getting caught in storm under a porch with my best friends, I remember my dad pulling my brothers and I out of the house and into his truck so we could watch a storm. I remember being in Philadelphia running through the streets soaking wet looking for an umbrella. The point of all of this is that even though I am very far away and in a foreign place I am still surrounded by things that remind me of where I came from and who I left behind. My mind is always looking for something that can reconnect it with the world it left behind and this is one of them.

Say What?!

 I am not a stranger to taking foreign language classes. I have had several Spanish classes throughout elementary school and high school. In college I also took some French classes. Unfortunately none of it really stuck in my head, so I was really excited that joining the Peace Corps would mean that I would learn a new language and that I would really learn it because it would be an important part of my work in the country. Here I am two months into living in Bulgaria, two months into intense language lessons and... I still feel like I hard hardly know anything. I still cringe when I buy something and the seller says something outside the normal, simple script that only involves ‘hello’ and ‘how much.’ Most of the time I just throw down more money then is needed because I don’t understand what is said when the total is told to me. I get so frustrated when my Bulgarian friends try to help me and I understand nothing they say because I have learned everything they are saying before but it gets so mixed up in my head and what comes out is a mixture of French, German, Bulgarian, English and whatever else is floating around the depths of my brain. I know I will learn more as time goes on and that I have only been here two months. I have a strong desire to learn Bulgarian so bad that it blinds me to the progress I have made. I just need to remember 'споко' (relax)