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)

Where I come from Part II

 

South of Albuquerque

         Nob Hill/UNM area Albuquerque

White Sands. Southern New Mexico

Outside Taos, Northern New Mexico

 Mountains in Northern New Mexico

Highest Peak in New Mexico 

13,161ft/ 4,011m above sea level

Buglarian dinners.....

I can honesty say that until I came to Bulgaria I forgot about how wonderful sitting down for dinner with my family was. Eating dinner in Bulgaria is an important event, one that every member of the family is required to attend. I don’t mean this in the negative sense because gathering for dinner is something that is looked forward to and is by no means a dreaded mandatory occasion. It is a time when the family collects together and discusses, argues, and converses about anything and everything important in their lives. Lately when I sit down for dinner with my host family I am reminded of days long ago when I sat down with my own family for dinner to do the same.  Looking back I never really valued these times and I regret that. Until very recently I could not identify with any part of my family. I felt this to the point that I didn’t see any physical resemblance or feel any emotional obligatory identity with these people. I imagine that I had the same connection to my family as an adopted child feels to his or her family. I don’t mean this because I was neglected or mistreated by my parents. On the contrary, I could not of had a better up bringing. Even though my parents split during the first years of my secondary education there was never a vacuum of attention or love. I had, so called, internal demons to deal with that hindered my emotional development beyond the shelter my family could provide in the current society, but the important thing is that they were there and that is more then a lot of people can say. The problem was that I was the one who couldn’t be there, at least with my true self. To a great degree I still feel this, the very few times of the year that we do gather around a meal I cannot be myself. I feel that I can never walk into our Christmas gatherings with my own family and be on the same level as my brothers or cousins, and it hurts. It hurts so much that I recoiled and to the best of my ability disconnected myself from it all.

Bulgarian society pretty much slapped me in the face with that nostalgic feeling of family and meal times with them. I remember a time when I felt on equal footing with my brothers and didn’t feel that dread deep down difference with them. I remember a time when we all sat around that table eating and laughing and just being simple. I don’t think life will ever feel that simple again but at the very least I can spend time with the people who I can call family and melt into a place sheltered from the trials and tribulations life constantly volleys towards us. I know I just got here but I can’t wait to gather with my family after my service in Bulgaria and settle into a meal where the conversation will quickly be forgotten but the warmth from the familiar interaction will live on for so long that it takes a foreign event to recall that nostalgic feeling of belonging to a loving family

Growing pains perhaps

 

Today was the first time that I thought, “what am I doing here?” My first attempt at teaching an English lesson did not go well at all, my lack of Bulgarian was made painfully obvious, and I found myself craving a hamburger. Normally in situations like this I could always find solace in the fact that it is temporary and that I will be returning to my normal routine eventually, but today I felt that is not going to be the case this time. I am not going home soon and that suddenly seemed very real. Before I crashed and burned teaching that lesson I considered myself to have a great grasp on teaching and that it would transfer Continents with the same ease as the rest of my luggage. Don’t get me wrong I was never under the impression that it would be easy but somewhere deep down I thought that I would be good at it and that I could rely on my profession as the corner stone of my time in Bulgaria. I am sure I felt this because everything around me would be different but I knew that classroom dynamic of teacher/student would be the same or at least familiar and I could find a home in that but when it came time for it, that dynamic felt as foreign as the grocery stores here.

Today I also found out that one of the other volunteers in the group I came over with decided that he had enough and would be going home and I felt a bit envious of him. I thought, “soon he will be back to his life, to his family, to his friends, and to what felt comfortable.” That is when the stronger half of myself spoke up and said there is a reason you left that comfort, that normalcy, and it was so you could grow and be a stronger person. It is suppose to rain tomorrow, that always cheers me up

Time to get real

 It has only been a week since I left home and headed off for my big adventure. It has seemed like it has been longer because the bonds I have made with the 39 other people who came with me to Bulgaria as been not only made, but solidified in the stress of traveling to a completely foreign world, under the idea of promoting peace and cooperation. We left our mountain retreat this morning, the last bastion of normalcy we had left, and have been fragmented into groups of five and placed with host families in small villages throughout Northern Bulgaria. In route to our home for the next 3 months we were able to see more of Bulgaria than we had before, and on this cross-country trek it really became real for me because after coming down that mountain I finally saw Bulgaria. Bulgaria really is a beautiful place full of amazing and proud people, but it is clear that it is not like it’s Western European neighbors. I fell truly honored to be invited here and I hope to help this country in everyway I possible can.

But before I can do this I need to not only be trained on how to speak Bulgarian, understand their culture, but also how to teach English as a foreign language. This is why we have been fragmented, separated, and placed in a home with a Bulgarian family. I have been placed with a family of four. Two middle aged parents, who both work, and their two children, one boy and the other a girl. They have generously housed me in a cottage behind their house with all the amenities a person needs to live comfortably for three months of intense training, not to mention feed me delicious Bulgarian food and drink. I almost feel bad because I am cared for so well by my host family and also Peace Corps, I only hope that I will be able to repay this hospitality to my host family, their country, and to mine for sending me here to help make this world that much better. I hope my fellow volunteers have been made as comfortable in their new homes as I have.

Leka Nosht e Dovizhdane.

A stranger in my own head and a bitter-sweet goodbye for now.

 

In only a matter of hours I will be embarking on a journey the farthest outside my comfort zone possible. This has left a bizarre feeling in my mind; a kind of feeling that is beyond my ability to explain in such a way that it does justice to my skewed state of mind… but I will, of course try.

To me New Mexico has always been a prison; a place that I have always dreamed of escaping but always had a hold on me. Growing up I never felt that I belong in the desert southwest, despising sunshine and the stress-free living, I felt like I was an alien.  I mean what person longs for a place where traveling across town would be an adventure of colorful characters and countless aggressive encounters? I saw myself yelling, “I’m walking here,” to a car that come uncomfortably close to me as I cross the street, or being in a place where I am the only person who knows English for more than, a comfortable, hundred miles.

With the Peace Corps many of my life long ambitions are coming true, so then you may ask, why am I not jumping for joy only being a few hours away from my life long dreams being realized? Well I am right there with you in your bewilderment. Faced with the prospect of leaving, suddenly I realize how beautiful the Sandia Mountains are, or just how nice the sun feels against my face as it emerges from behind a large cloud. Moreover, I realize how important my family is to me, but that is a whole other can of worms that I will have to open another day.            

I once heard this radio program about the strange affects larger-than-life concepts have on the human mind. They used a story about how an extremely stoic man becomes a sobbing mess while in an airplane. He talked about how when he an atypical emotional moment in a movie or in an interaction around him, he would uncontrollably start to cry. He deduced that it was because he was in the mist of experiencing something that the mind could not wrap around (in this case it is the act of flying in an airplane at an extremely fast speed and an unimaginable distance from the earth) has some adverse affects. Now, I know what you may be thinking, “it is human nature to long for things it suddenly does not have,” but I do not think that is the case in this instance because my disgust for sunshine and how I view the same unchanged landscape has not change. I think that my mind is unable to comprehend what is about to happen and that is why I have this bizarre feeling.

There is only thing that I do know for sure. I am going to miss all of the friendships that I have established in my life. Every single person I call a friend has brought a their own light to my life and I know that the light my family has brought to my life is by far the brightest and I feel guilty that I realized this so late in my life.

Cheers,

Jacob

Where I come from

This is Cuervo, New Mexico.  Where my grandma was born and it's where I spent many of my summers growing up