Leaving Bulgaria

My five week stay in Bulgaria (minus four days in Malta) has come to an end, and not a moment too soon. It’s not that I regret going back to visit, not at all. It’s just that when you stay somewhere for five weeks, it stops feeling like you’re visiting a place and starts to feel like you’re living there. And I’d forgotten how hard it is to live in a foreign country. It is really freaking hard.

In the past few years I’d started feeling intensely nostalgic for Bulgaria, the place where I spent two formative years of my life. I longed for the sense of excitement and possibility I felt when I set out on that adventure right out of college. I daydreamed of the idyllic little village where I lived, the beautiful mountains surrounding it, the welcoming neighbors and fresh vegetables gifted to me from various village gardens, the close bonds formed with other volunteers on the same journey. Part of me wanted to have a piece of that experience all over again.

How could you not miss this place?

How could you not miss this place?

I did feel a warm rush of nostalgia and excitement the first week I was back. I explored the familiar streets of Plovdiv, ate fresh tomato and cucumber salads every day for lunch, read all the Cyrillic signs with relish, and asked for directions in my dusty old Bulgarian. It was nice, vaguely comforting, but nothing like it was being here for the first time as a bright eyed 22-year-old.

It didn’t take long for my jaded 30-something self to remember all the not so beautiful things about this part of the world. The gray communist bloc apartments with their sagging balconies and crumbling, graffitied plaster. The unreliable public transit system with rickety trains that leave an hour behind schedule. The stray dogs, limping along, always holding one battered paw up off the ground. The shop owners glaring, arms crossed, from the doorways of their little stores. (I’ve never understood this tactic. How am I supposed to go in and look at that shiny silver sweater with rhinestones that read “I AM Princess” if you’re blocking the doorway?) The clouds of cigarette smoke everywhere, and I do mean everywhere, you go. 

Even with all the doors and windows closed, the acrid smell of smoke would fill my apartment in Plovdiv at odd times, usually as I was cooking dinner. The place was right next to an elementary school, which was directly across the street from a high school. Each time I left I would walk past crowds of students puffing away. I can only hope they were from the high school and not the elementary school, but I wouldn’t put money on it. 

The point is, if you stay somewhere for a week, you can observe these things at distance, not get involved with them, withhold judgement. After five weeks, the distance gets harder to maintain. Things start to wear on you. After two years, they can drive you to the brink of madness. That’s the part I’d forgotten, the part where two years in a foreign country, two years away from home, two years in the Peace Corps (weirdly they’re each kind of separate, but overlapping experiences) drove me to the brink of madness. It was a good reminder. 

The day I was most looking forward to and simultaneously most dreading on this nostalgia tour of Bulgaria was the day I went to visit my old village, Chavdar. I thought a lot about how I would return to that place after so long, about who I’d like to contact. There were many people I wanted to see, but it all seemed like too much work. If I contacted one person, then I’d have to contact so and so also. If I reached out to one of the teachers I worked with, then I might have to visit the school and see everyone again. I didn’t want my visit to snowball into a full on homecoming, complete with a banquet and a crowd of people asking rapid questions in Bulgarian like when I first showed up in town. Being the center of attention like that, the foreigner that everyone gawked at, was always one of the worst parts of living in that tiny village. 

In the end, I only reached out to one person, a girl who’d been one of my favorite students. She’d graduated eighth grade the first year I taught in Chavdar and went on to an English language high school, so I knew we’d be able to communicate easily. She’d always enthusiastically come to my English club after school and we’d remained friends on Facebook. She met me outside the elementary school where I used to teach on a sunny Saturday afternoon, as cheerful as ever, and we spent the afternoon exploring the village. 

The place was almost unrecognizable. It’s still quaint and picturesque, but in a much more manicured sort of way than it was when I lived there. The village center, once the main street where dudes would race past in their European hatchbacks, is now chained off into a pedestrian area and paved with yellow bricks. There’s a new cafe next to the old grocery store and a large, rustic chic hotel and restaurant that certainly wasn’t there in my time. What used to be a lawn between the mayor’s office and the park now features a blue-tiled fountain and paved walking paths with bridges crossing over manmade waterways. The field in front of the school, previously black asphalt, a little bit of grass and several dumpsters, is now a Japanese garden. Seriously.

My old stomping grounds, with a new facelift.

My old stomping grounds, with a new facelift.

Chavdar always was an anomaly in this way. Most small villages in Bulgaria are disappearing, losing their young people to jobs in the cities or abroad, but Chavdar has always flourished. I remember it being something of a sticking point when I was living there. I always wondered why they needed me when they seemed to be doing so well on their own.

I commented on the new grandeur of the village and my former student/tour guide reminded me that Chavdar gets money from the gold mine in the neighboring village. I said that they were very lucky. My tour guide agreed, but added that they got money because the gold mine dumped their “trash” in a lake above the village. I asked if the “trash” got into the water supply. She said yes. I suppose every place has room for improvement. 

After eating in the new hotel/restaurant we drove up the hill to a spot overlooking the village where I remembered there being a small church and a picnic area with covered tables across from a stage for special events. I’d walked up that hill many times with the school students on field trips and “Anti-Bullying” days. 

The church at the top of the hill, just as I remember it.

The church at the top of the hill, just as I remember it.

In addition to the church and picnic area, the hill now has a sort of children’s activity park with a rope course and climbing wall you can pay to use, plus a jungle gym and funhouse mirrors that don’t actually distort your image all that much. Apparently the complex is a big draw for families who come out from the capital city of Sofia to spend the day. Not only that, but a few years earlier, I learned, archaeologists had unearthed some Neolithic artifacts near Chavdar and the mayor’s office had built a museum for the items, complete with a little village of huts recreating what it was like to live in that ancient time. There are four huts that you can actually rent out for the night, but as my tour guide said, “My friend did it and was bit by a snake,” so you probably wouldn’t want to.

One of the Neolithic huts you might not want to spend the night in.

One of the Neolithic huts you might not want to spend the night in.

As we were walking back down the hill from the church, past the picnic table and stage filled with kids having a sort of crazy-limbed dance party, I heard someone call my name in the oddly emphasized way that Bulgarians pronounce it.

"KA-ren?!"

It was Valya, a woman who had worked at the school where I taught, the one person I’d wanted to contact most and was most nervous to see. She and her husband, Kiriil, had taken me under their wing the entire time I’d lived in Chavdar. They’d invited me over for every holiday and taken me to explore all the neighboring towns. They always asked me to come along when they made trips to the giant Metro grocery store in Sofia because they knew I’d want to buy peanut butter and American brand cookies. My family and I had dinner at their home when they’d come to visit one summer. Valya had done so much for me and all I’d done (in my mind) was take all her hospitality and then leave Bulgaria sixth months before I was supposed to then not even keep in touch after I left. I was afraid of how she’d react to my coming back. 

I smiled and waved at her and she immediately rushed over and gave me a tight hug and kissed me repeatedly on the cheek, smushing my face into hers. I was so happy I could feel the tears stockpiling behind my eyes.

Eight years ago, once I had officially decided to leave Bulgaria before my Peace Corps term was up, I remember going over to Valya’s house, sitting down on the couch across from her and the director of my school and bursting into tears. The only thing I could get out in my broken Bulgarian before the emotional dam broke was, “I’m sorry. This is hard for me. I’m shy.” It was a pitiful explanation. What I’d really wanted to say was that I missed my family and friends back home and the ease of moving through a world that’s familiar and comfortable, a world where you speak the language and know the customs. I wanted to say that I hated my partner teacher at school and always felt like the biggest Peace Corps volunteer failure, like I had accomplished nothing and made no impact on anyone. I wanted to say that I’d been wrestling with depression and social anxiety and self medicating with food and alcohol to dull the pain. I wanted to say that one of my closest Peace Corps relationships had become toxic and was dragging me down faster than wearing a fur coat in a swimming pool. All I could say at the time was, “This is hard for me. I have to leave.” 

Seeing Valya again so many years later felt very much the same as that night and also completely different. I wanted to tell her so many things that were just too hard to convey, even with my favorite student/translator, even now as I sit down and write them all out. I wanted to tell that her support to me during those two years was everything, even when it was hard and awkward because we barely spoke the same language. I wanted to say that the simple kindness of welcoming someone into your life, even if they’re hard to understand, and so different from you, was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever experienced. I wanted to tell her that I’d stopped being so hard on myself and if I could do things all over again, I would have stayed until the end. I would have appreciated her love more. The thing is though, I wouldn’t actually do it all over again, because I’ve already done it. That time has passed, and it was how it was. 

So, I didn’t say any of that. Instead I told Valya that I was happy to see her, and that she had been my “Bulgarian mother.” I updated her on my life and my family, much of which she already knew, she said, from watching me on Facebook. That made me feel better about not technically keeping in touch. I told her that I still planned on honoring the insistent request she always used to make which was that I invite her to my wedding someday. "I definitely will," I told her, "should that day ever come." And I meant it. She told me to come back to Bulgaria some day and stay with her and I smiled and squeezed her hand, knowing that day probably wouldn’t come. 

My Bulgarian lifesaver.

My Bulgarian lifesaver.

Leaving Bulgaria this time, I have a strong sense that I’ll never be back. I don’t mean that in a harsh way, but I realize that it’s not really the place that I’ve been pining after. Bulgaria is lovely in many ways, but I’m not particularly enamored with the history or the food or culture or the landscape. I was just missing a period of my life that was so filled with excitement and discovery, a time when I legitimately believed that I could save the world. I missed being on an adventure that I knew I would remember forever, whether good or bad. I missed the strength of the bonds that are formed in such intense and strange situation. I’m glad I was able to return and honor that time in my life, but I no longer feel the need to cling to it. I’m on a new adventure now, on my own terms, with a little more wisdom, and hopefully a little less madness. I'm so grateful for the road behind me, but I’m glad to be moving on. 
 

Onward.

Onward.