“Bulgaria? Uh, yeah, sure. I met a guy from
Bulgaria once. Or was it Bolivia? Nice guy…”
Eastern Europe. Bulgaria. Do you know about it?
Beautiful mountains, fertile fields and old Soviet-era apartment bloks.
Ancient ruins, tired cities, intricate music and folk dances. Scattered
remnants of the old industry struggle for survival, glimmers of hope among
rusty abandoned factories.
“Grim, huh?”
No, that’s not it! More like awakening. Exciting.
Big changes going on. Stirring, sweeping changes. New ways of thinking, new
opportunities. School hallways ring with the laughter of bright-eyed, eager
children, and young people go to discos and wear fashionable clothes, drinking
coffee in sidewalk cafés for hours, exploring ideas. All around them,
politically and economically there is tumult and change. Everywhere there are
entrepreneurs in a newly free society with apples and cabbages for sale from a
cart or a table by the sidewalk. Democracy too, with whatever that will bring.
Determination and hard work define what is needed in everyday life.
“So, what’s in the book?”
This Peace
Corps memoir is about people. Strange customs, unfamiliar assumptions and ways
of thinking, austerity and living close to the earth, sure, but really about
people. Friends and neighbors who loved their country and its proud heritage,
and were sometimes a little sensitive about its place in the world.
Warm-hearted, giving, curious, practical people.
Hardy and resilient, the
Bulgarians traced their history back to the fair Thracians, then through
the Roman and Byzantine empires, and the powerful Slavs. Then the Ottoman
Empire, “five hundred years under the Turkish yoke,” finally ended by Heroes of
the Revolution, reverently remembered.
And it’s a love story. The volunteers’ own
story had a dramatic turn of events, one that took determination and hard work
to overcome. The heroes of this story are many, and courage is proved in
adversity.
About the Author:
Bruce McDonald was an Air Force pilot, then an international subcontract negotiator for an aircraft manufacturer. After a fulfilling, though hectic, career in industry he asked the question, “What next?”
The answer, for him and his wife together, was the Peace Corps. As it always does, the Peace Corps enriched their lives beyond measure.
(bron: http://bulgariastories.com)
(bron: http://bulgariastories.com)
