Last post of the year!

Welcome to the last post of the year. Over the past month since my last post, many a wonderful merry things have happened. First thing and biggest thing is that my PCPP (fancy term for the track team project I've been working on) is fully funded! Thanks to the kind donations from my friends and family, we raised over $4,500 to purchase equipment for the track and field team here in Koynare. The team currently has very dated uniforms, only a few pairs of running shoes, one or two starting blocks, three hurdles and they are lacking much more. But this money will be able to purchase all the necessary equipment they need to actually have a successful team! We are all very excited here to get the money so we can see this project to the end. I am especially excited because I know that the benefits of this will pay off for these kids and the town for many years.

Second most awesome thing is that in a couple days I am going to be headed back to the states for the first time since May 2009. I am going to be in Chicago for 2 weeks with family and friends for the holidays and I can't wait! I am just not really looking forward to the long flight and I will miss Cveti a lot while I am there, but other than those two things, I am really excited to see everyone and spend some time with them! It has been a long time and everything will be wonderful. I hear that we will even be able to catch a Chicago Bears game... :)

So for Thanksgiving we celebrated again this year at my apartment. However, we did not need to find a live turkey as we planned a little bit more in advance and Dan was able to purchase a frozen turkey from Pleven. Cveti and I hosted Dan and Kari who are two other volunteers and in the spirit of Thanksgiving we invited Plamen and his wife to celebrate with us. Plamen is a teacher at the school who has been like an uncle to me here. He has helped me with countless problems and is the main leader of the Scouts group that we are starting here. He is a guy that I am very thankful to know and that is exactly why we invited him to Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving was something amazing this year. We had such a good time. Everything was American except a couple very Bulgarian twists. We cooked turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, creamed onions, deviled eggs, and had apple crisp for desert. The meal was served buffet style which is very strange here, but I insisted on it. So until this point it was dead on American. But instead of eating a big dinner meal at like 4 or 5pm like we usually do, the dinner started after the guests arrived at around 8:30pm. Plamen, being the hunter he is, brought some fresh cooked pigeons that he had shot recently. Pigeon is kinda delicious. At least now I know that if I live in Chicago without work, I can find food. He also brought some Bulgarian homemade rakia and a salad for us. So we sat and started with salad and rakia. Traditional Bulgarian start to a meal. Then around 9:30 or so, we started on dinner. We ate and ate and ate. Everything was great and my Bulgarian guests LOVED the food. Well, after plates were empty, or close to empty,  and we had been sitting for an hour and a half or so talking, I asked if Plamen and his wife were finished eating so I could clear their plates. I thought I was being polite. They said they were still eating and everything was ok. Later, Cveti explained to me that it was rude of me to have asked that since the meal had just started! I swear we had been at the table for close to 2 hours at this point. Well we waited a few more hours, told jokes and stories and enjoyed each other's company until around 11:30 before we put the dessert on the table... And at midnight we lit up a hookah that I got for my birthday and passed it around. It also happened that at around 12:30am we called my mom to wish her a happy birthday. At this point we were all pretty jolly and it was a lot of fun to talk to her on skype. Finally at around 1:30-2am, dinner was over and everyone went home and we went to bed. Literally a 4-5 hour Thanksgiving dinner spent saying thanks to the people that have helped me the most. It was wonderful. Absolutely the best.

Here is a link for some pictures of the night. http://picasaweb.google.com/Roryjnolan/Thanksgiving2010?authkey=Gv1sRgCI38hKPDqcjzOw#

So we also did a really successful HIV/AIDS day of activities with the kids here. We had like 20-25 kids that showed up and all day we did games and activities to teach them about HIV/AIDS. It was a lot of fun and a huge success. I must say that if Cveti wasn't there to help me, then it would not have been even half as successful as it was. It was a great day. Here are more pictures! http://picasaweb.google.com/Roryjnolan/20101206#

Ok, that is all for now. I will be going home soon for a few weeks and after that I'll be sure to write.

Thank you to everyone that donated to my project too! And I wish you all a happy and safe holiday season!

Rory