Orientation – The Unintentional Explorer

Community and Commiseration

Several weekends ago I met up with the entire Fulbright crew in Sofia for part two of orientation. In some ways, and if I were to a bit dramatic, I would say it felt like going home.

There’s something profoundly comforting to return to a place (in this case, a community), where people speak your language. Literally and metaphorically.

History museum — An old-fashioned classroom at the National Historical Museum in Sofia.

National Historical Museum, Sofia, Bulgaria

We could be loud together. Speak English together. I could order a burger and fries and onion rings and a beer AND a milkshake, and not be judged because these things are worth missing (well, I don’t miss beer in Bulgaria, but the rest of it…). We could go to an Irish bar together, because that’s what large groups of expats do, and it’s ok. It was a chance to shamelessly indulge in our American-ness because the rest of the time, we are alone among Bulgarians.

One of the best parts of my experience so far has been this community of Fulbrighters: English teaching assistants, researchers, and professors on exchange. We were getting to know each other even before we arrived, via a Fulbright Bulgaria Facebook group. Such a thing would not have worked so well if I had been going to a country with only two or over 100 positions.

There’s a range of experiences among us. Some have Masters degrees, others have a couple years of teaching experience. I have my Bachelors in writing, and only a small amount of experience with high school students from this past summer.

The Fulbright community on Facebook has been an invaluable tool for me as I flounder in the classroom and navigate a foreign school administration. Even if we can’t find all the answers to classroom discipline, we can commiserate and know that we’re not alone with these issues.

In some ways, that seemed to be the theme for Orientation, Part Two. We had an informal session of questions and answers, but for many of our questions, there were no answers. It turned into a cathartic release of the conflicts and frustrations built up over our first two weeks of teaching without training.

And then we let it go. We drank over-priced cocktails and watched a jazz performance. We took a walking tour of Plovdiv. We ate fried frog legs and cheese balls and salads bigger than my face. We drank in the park and attempted to brainstorm solutions to our various problems, like unkind mentor-teachers or the space between students and friends.

Being around these people gave me back some of the energy I founnd depleted by culture shock and language barriers. It made it harder to come back here to Smolyan, leaving me homesick all over again.

But, we’ll always have Facebook.

Highlights from Fulbright International Summer Institute

– Meeting the awesome Fulbighters who will also be in Bulgaria. Rooming with them. Eating meals with them. Playing Cards Against Humanity with them. Wobbling with them.

Culture exchange = teaching Bulgarians & Americans the Wobble. — Two of the Fulbrighters leading the rest of the group in the Wobble at the closing dinner of the first week. So good that they played the song twice during the closing dinner of the second week!

– Our Bulgarian class. “Do you prefer pencils or knives?” At the very least, we all looked stupid together.

BulgarianLanguageClass — I think the favorite word was “pochivka” (break). Our teacher, Diana, was great. She put up with us when our confusion turned into nervous hysteria.

– Our excursion to Saeva Dupka cave.

– Watching “Miss Representation” with a remarkable Fulbright Alumna/OU professor who moderated a post-movie discussion in a room of Americans, Bulgarians, and Pakistanis.

– The Mozart Festival. Why did that even happen?

– A panel of Bulgarian journalists (print, radio and television) who talked about the state of Bulgarian journalism, the public distrust of journalism, and the corruption of the industry.

There are things that could’ve gone better. I wish our Bulgarian course had been more “Survival Bulgarian” than “Crash Course in Bulgarian Grammar.” I wish we had some degree of teacher training in those two weeks. I wish we had time to do some of the logistical things together as a group, with the help of the Bulgarian Fulbright Commission staff (getting cell phones, setting up Bulgarian bank accounts should we need one). But even so, If you put 30+ awesome people in a ritzy hotel for two weeks, it’s hard to have a bad time.

Learning български

Today marked our 7^th lesson in Bulgarian language. I still don’t know much Bulgarian, but whatever I know now is an improvement!

Before I arrived, I taught myself the Cyrillic alphabet and Bulgarian pronunciation. That much allowed me to sound out words on the plane and at the airport, and has helped considerably in our Bulgarian language classes. We spent almost no time on the new alphabet, which led to some confusion for others the first few days.

What we’ve learned so far are greetings: Здравейте! (zdraveyte- hello), Здравей! (zdravei- hi), Добро утро! (dobro utro- good morning) and the like.

I can introduce myself (Аз съм Ариел Блумер — Az cym Ariel Bloomer) and explain where I come from and where I work in Bulgaria (Аз съм от щтатите, но работя в смолян – Az cym ot Shtatite, no rabotya v Smolyan). I can ask if someone speaks English and explain I don’t speak Bulgarian (Говорите ли англиски? Не говоря български. – Govorite li angliiski? Ne govorya bulgarski.)

We’ve learned mostly nouns, struggling with the three gender system and attaching articles to the end of words. We’ve learned some verbs and conjugations. There are no infinitives for verbs, which differs from Italian and French. I can speak a bit about myself, and my family. There’s no word for “single,” only “not married” or “not yet married.”

I can now count to 100 and we learned the cardinal directions today. We learned interrogative words. We have seen a past tense verb but never really learned how to use it, and today we learned how to use will/will not in front of verbs to make them future tense. All in all, it’s a good start, but has been focused more on grammar than I’d personally prefer for a “Survival Bulgarian” course.

My school has offered me 50 free Bulgarian lessons over my grant period. I plan to take advantage of these and learn as much as possible during my stay. Of course, I’ll have better opportunities to practice my Bulgarian in Smolyan as well. This is exciting and concerning, especially since it took us days to master a simple thank you. When my mentor teacher was here in Pravets, I asked her about these lessons and she said that yes, one of the teachers at my school could arrange to meet with me once or twice a week to practice. She continue on, however, that I wouldn’t ever really learn Bulgarian, it being such a hard language, and people in Smolyan will speak passable English and so I shouldn’t worry about it or really need to try. The subtext seemed to be: why bother? Her attitude may just be part of the ubiquitous pessimism we were warned about in our cultural difference seminar.

I’ll be trying regardless. I’m hoping to follow this method once I’m on my own and self-studying, and I’ve begun making a flashcard deck in Anki. I had originally ordered Ronelle Alexander’s Intensive Bulgarian text book, but I guess they keep so few new copies in print that my order was delayed for several months and I had to cancel it. For class we’re working out of a textbook called “Learn Bulgarian the Easy Way” with two audio cds, and I have “Teach Yourself Bulgarian”, also with two audio cds, that I brought from home. Bulgarian isn’t popular enough to be offered by Rosetta Stone. We were gifted a Bulgarian phrasebook and Bulgarian-English pocket dictionary in our welcome packet several months back. These should keep me busy for quite awhile. I’m hoping to be at a B2 level of speaking and understanding by the time I leave in 10 months, but this will have a lot to do with how much time I devote to language learning versus writing and reading in English.

English Teaching Assistant Training

While the Fulbright International Summer Institute is all training in some way, teaching us language and customs, we had a full day of training specifically for English Teaching Assistants (ETAs). Unlike ETAs to some countries, we did not have a summer orientation in Washington DC. Most of our information is gained upon arrival here from the Fulbright-BG staff, who have been wonderful and sweet and very forthcoming with information… when we ask the right questions.

Our mentor teachers came from across Bulgaria to be introduced and go through this full day of training with us. Training included an introduction to the Bulgarian educational system, which was put into the context of the changing political realities of the last century. We will all be at foreign language schools where students arrive as 8^th graders with almost no previous English language knowledge. By the time they graduate, most have achieved advanced levels and some go on to universities outside of Bulgaria, either elsewhere in Europe or in the United States.

We were given small presentations on teaching methodologies, and expectations for our new roles. Each ETA will be doing something slightly different, as the roles are prescribed by each school according to its specific needs. Fulbright Alum Sophia Kleinsasser gave a great presentation on the variety of possibilities and gave us ideas and tools for use in our classrooms. Her blog has been a great resource, and meeting her in person to hear her perspective was a concretely useful part of orientation. Bulgarian teachers also gave presentations on the finer points of administrative hierarchies and the Bulgarian grading system, before another returning ETA shared his experience and perspective from a year of teaching.

Bulgaria is the only country I’ve heard of renewing Fulbright ETA grants for a second year, which is apparently a competitive process for those wishing to stay. And even after Fulbright, some stay in Bulgaria to teach English for years after. That in itself speaks highly of the country.

While the trees and mountains seem familiar, there are, as always, strong cultural differences. The Bulgarian teachers and Fulbright staff were quick to acknowledge that Bulgarians are a tad pessimistic. This negative worldview is perhaps a hold over from communism, but the room agreed that Bulgarians are overwhelmingly hospitable in spite of this. There is less personal space between people. Punctuality is not a virtue; deadlines are not deadly. In fact, their philosophy is precisely that time is NOT money. One of the Fulbright BG coordinators mused aloud “I think we are sometimes bad at planning” and the ETAs in the room nodded in agreement after what felt like months of little detailed information about our Fulbright grants.

Over the course of the day I went from scared and uneasy, to excited and back to terrified. The more information I have, the more I tend towards excitement and away from fear, but I am sure the color drained from my face when the Bulgarian presenter talked about the lack of planning and said “you just have to go with the flow.” This, I expect, will be my biggest cultural challenge.

Fulbright International Summer Institute

This year marks the 10^th anniversary of the Fulbright International Summer Institute(FISI), a two-week academic program organized by the Bulgarian-American Commission for Educational Exchange and funded in part by the America for Bulgaria Foundation.

RIU Pravets, the location for FISI 2012.

As part of my Fulbright grant and orientation, I am here at FISI in Pravets, Bulgaria. These weeks offer me a chance to get to know my fellow Fulbright ETAs, as well as those receiving Fulbright research grants and Fulbright Visiting Scholars, American professors who will be teaching for a semester at Bulgarian universities. Other FISI attendees include Bulgarian and American graduate students (a sizeable contingent coming from the University of Michigan business school), and a handful of attendees from as far away as Kazakhstan, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The opportunity to interact with such accomplished and interesting people is really what makes the experience here at FISI. Whether that means having a conversation about the link between spirituality and happiness with the brilliant Dr. Julia Stefanova, Executive Director of the Bulgarian Fulbright Commission, or chatting and lamenting the difficulty of Bulgarian pronunciation with journalist and Fulbright Visiting Scholar Nancy Bartley, I know that I am in good company here.

The courses, which are mostly interdisciplinary and taught (or team-taught) by Bulgarian and American professors, include Negotiation and Conflict Resolution, International Human Rights, Writing Bulgaria in English, and Creative Leadership. This first week, I’m occupied with Introductory Bulgarian Language in the morning, and Bulgarian Culture in the afternoon. For the last few nights there have also been Bulgarian Folk Dance classes in the evening, but jetlag has me asleep on my feet from five o’clock onwards.

Our hotel, RIU Pravets, is quite swank and geared towards the upper crust of Bulgarian society and foreign tourists, as far as I can tell. For the first few days we shared these halls with the Bulgarian national soccer team, but they have since been replaced with towering volleyball players. The buffet has been a blessing and a curse, and most attendees are trying to impose some semblance of self control after days of gorging on sautéed mushrooms, fresh watermelon, lamb stew, Bulgarian baklava and yogurt topped in pine honey, honey with oregano, or even raw honey drawn straight from the honey comb.

Not me, though. After all, I’m here to represent America. And self-control is just not what America is about.