A Bulgarian Easter 2009 - A Joyful Family Occasion

There are so many things to write about this last weekend I am really quite confused as to which should preside. Perhaps just a run of events might just fit the bill this time round.

It was a sulky Lada that stood in the street last Friday as I mounted my bicycle to ride the 37 kilometres to the village farmhouse just to water the crops, get a rat trap and bring some gherkins seedlings back. The ride was fantastic, why I don’t ride more often it a complete mystery! Without Galia who was preparing for the Easter weekend it was a night on my own with howling wolves no longer scaring me as sat outside well beyond sunset before retiring to a rakia and well earned sleep.

The next morning, another bicycle ride, this time slightly faster than the day before back to Yambol. There is an increasing amount of traffic on the roads these days. Three years ago I could have travelled 20 kilometres and not passed any cars, maybe an occasional horse and cart. Now every few minutes a car zooms past, it is quite a depressing thought that this will get worse as each year goes by.

Many of these vehicles are 4x4 motors and of these many are expats or Brits on holiday here right now. The only problem I had with traffic today on the bike was the inconsideration of a Brit driver that came too close causing me to have to swerve into the grass verge. What I normally do in these cases is spit on their car window screen as they go past, it make me feel better that a message has been delivered. It may sound disgusting, but for me their total disregard and inconsideration for me is far more disgusting – A worse thought was that they must have thought it was only a Bulgarian cyclist.

That aside I got back to Yambol safely and the gherkins and rat trap intact. Oh yes, the rattrap is for a rat that ran across my feet as I entered the garage for my bike the day before. It had been eating our stock of winter potatoes. The trap is now set and we hope to drown it at some point in the future.

Saturday evening and barbeque mackerel was on the menu. The reason for fish was that today was meant to be the 50th and last day of fasting from meat (fish not included) as tomorrow spring lamb was planned to be eaten by most Bulgarians to celebrated the end of the fast and Easter.

Sunday, and a walk to the St Nikolai Church with Galia and Baba (pictured) to light candles, say a prayer and pay our religious respects to the occasion. You will find that most Bulgarian families attend church on these special religious days and a queue to get in is quite normal. As we purchase the candles and get blessed by the priest as we enter the grand church.

We went for a little stroll through Yambol after church and treated ourselves to a little ice cream from a stall. This is something we don’t normally do so it was a very special moment sitting in the flower borne park with an ice cream. There were many little stalls open today with bouncy castles, balloons and sweets as this was a weekend of Easter family celebration with many families out walking the city centre after church on this warm and sunny day.

We arrive back home to find that family guests were waiting outside out yard gate and we had the keys. From there on it was a further nine hours that elapsed with eating drinking and talking throughout. I am tempted to get on my Bulgarian food wagon again and detail the menu that was made up this evening, but will leave that for another time in another post. We had the egg knocking competition and one family member had brought his own decorated eggs that had been treated with varnish – He of course won with an unfair advantage. Within this time we also saw Everton knock Manchester United out of the English FA Cup as Ivo, Galia’s son (a Manchester United fan) and I commiserated together as Arsenal were knocked out by Chelsea yesterday.

A well-slept Sunday night led to today where this evening we are due to go to another house to spend the evening with friends instead of family. There will be another long session of eating drinking, berr and Skalitsa rakia and talking. In these instances you just can’t get enough of a good thing.

As I pause slightly between each celebration, I reflect on my past in the UK and the total lack of activities such as these. Family and friend gatherings, no expensive gifts expected, no commercial chocolate eggs, no need to entertain children who are well behaved and do as they are told. Food and drink that is all natural, homemade and produced locally. Simple things are the answer here, things that are not swayed by commercialism and high expectations. But the biggest joy here is the family unit where you can communicate on all levels, talk about anything and everything, there are no secrets in the family here. Nothing is held back and nothing taboo in conversation and this applies to all four generations that attended the celebration.

It really is a privilege to be here and be accepted as part of this family. It has opened my eyes to so many things I never knew existed in family life and I’d better stop writing now before I start breaking down with joyful emotion!

The Worms That Turned To Bulgaria

When I first decided to move to Bulgaria it was never my intention to just have a home there as a holiday home. What is the point of having a farmhouse with land for crops and animals just for a couple of weeks a year - Totally impractical, many others people do though and it has brought about major headaches and inherent problems which I plan to talk about in another post.

In my case all that knew me in the UK thought this was a crazy idea and that I should carry on teaching, then retire like any other normal person. The thought of delaying this for another ten years was not something I felt that I could have managed. I knew within myself that reaching pension age and remaining sane and in good health was bigger risk than taking my chances moving now.

With this view there was only one or two close friends who knew that knew I had to do this. Everyone else, including most of my family thought differently the my closest allies. The idea of buying a home in the Bulgarian countryside was mad, even a ridiculously low prices and to actually move the permanently was even crazier.

The decision was made and I was effectively 'blacklisted' and labelled a 'madman' by many. Funnily enough though, all the strongest critics where those who knew nothing about Bulgaria let alone have been there.

'What the hell are you going there for? What happens if you're ill? How will you survive without money? You can't speak Bulgarian! You're be back in a few months, wait and see! These were some of the comments made to me before I left. Yet one of my brothers is an expatriate in Cyprus and that was considered a wise move. It wasn't the fact that I was moving abroad that was wrong to many, but moving to Bulgaria was wrong and that was judged purely on ignorance!

The worms that turned is the only way I can described what happened once I was here. Most people who have had the courtesy to come to Bulgaria to see me have now seen what I saw and dreamed of. Some of my most fierce family critics have now bought homes here both in neighbouring villages and in my home village of Skalitsa. Two of my brothers have bought houses in the same street, one is now a direct neighbour of mine and they both want to live the home growing village life next to me.

It is so strange that now I have family from the UK that want to live right next to me, this is how much they were impressed with the lifestyle and the people here. They have also seen a changer in me, less stressed not only from a good woman by my side but the slower lifestyle. Before I moved to Bulgaria, some of my family were hardly on speaking terms with me, now we may be living as a bigger family unit here in the near future. How strange it has come to this and Galia is part of that reason.

Apart from some of my family who are so narrow minded that they think that unless you have money you are no good, they all love Galia to bits. They often tell me how lucky I am to have her and how unlucky I was with money oriented and material based women in the UK in the past. My previous partner I realise now, didn't really care for me, but just the money I earn to maintain an unsustainable flamboyant lifestyle.

Well the die is cast and my thoughts turn to whether I want my family living next to me here. I didn't leave the UK to get away from family that's for sure, so I'm quite at ease with that. It's not as if Galia and I are going to be living with them after all. We will just have to see how it goes.

Photograph from http://12121.hostinguk.com/

Why Move To Bulgaria? - World Blog Surf Day

It is World Blog Surf Day today (28th March) and Golden Prague has organised just that. A series of blogs written by expatriates especially for this special day. Essentially a world surfing tour from many expat bloggers telling why they are where they are.

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Why did I become an expatriate in Bulgaria? This is often a question asked and not an easy explanation either. There are so many reasons that this happened, but the main reason was perhaps running away from a previous life that had made me ill. It has taken some time to work out that answer and many other expatriates if they are honest with themselves will own up to that fact.

To know what I see and have now found in Bulgaria you really need to know the yearnings of the past so forgive a little history into why I live in Bulgaria

Every since I was a kid aged 6 or 7 years old I'd see a hill in the distance and I wanted to go to that hill. Later as a teenager in London the 70's, green living got a hold of me and the combination of wanting to be somewhere else and self-sufficiency was a pipe dream.

It wasn't until I was 46 that the opportunity came to pass. Owning and working a smallholding I thought was an impossible dream. England was too expensive, then Wales and Scotland became beyond my means and finally France, which was affordable during the 80's and early 90's was left too late and we were priced out there as well.

It was now 2004 and eBay was being surfed, a house was being auctioned and there was only 8 hours to go, and the price was under £2000 with no reserve. I thought it was a scam or a joke and followed the auction through. The house with land was sold for just over £2000! I didn't believe it, but did after I looked into other property in Bulgaria going for roughly the same value It was quite a revelation and an affordable opportunity that I thought had hit a brick wall.

Within 3 months of seeing this site I had done masses of research on Bulgaria, visited it and actually bought a farm smallholding online! Within 6 months of viewing that auction and indeed knowing where Bulgaria was, eBay I escaped the financial and rat raced rut that I was was living in the UK and was living as an expatriate there. It wasn't panic or a mid-life crisis, but a sudden realisation that Bulgaria and me just clicked.

Now there are many things I regret in life, many based on not acting quickly enough, but moving here was the best solution for me and my lifetime ambition. I have sacrificed more than most can ever imagine to get here and many said I was crazy to make the move. To me now on reflection the poverty and simplicity of live here is the great appeal, it was only poverty based and a complex life based on mortgages and credit through a material based culture in the UK.

Many other considering it may prefer more 'up market' countries to move to. Bulgarian life is very rough at the edges for most people here, the infrastructure here is quite unstable. Politics is corrupt in the main and a sense of helplessness from the everyday Bulgarian know there is nothing they can do about it. Mafia infiltrated industry is the only reason it survives as it does here. There is four levels of living here, the rich, mainly Mafia based businesses, the town folk who work for a living and the old pension people in the villages. Then of course there is the gypsy community were in the main live on the fringe of Bulgarian society. Please excuse the generalisation, but that is how I see it here in a snapshot.

Bulgaria is it's own monster and you live and get on with the monster or you try and fight it from your foreign perspective. I gave up fighting the monster quite early on after meeting it face to face everyday.

The Bulgarian countryside is beautiful if you ignore the rubbish that is thrown everywhere. The wildlife and nature excels here and is a major attraction along with the Black Sea Coastal resorts, not totally spoilt from over development yet if you look around. And then there is the skiing resorts if you like skiing and can afford it.

The people seem to be very cold initially, but once you get acquainted you will have a friend for life who can't do enough for you. All you need to do is talk and the thaw starts straight away.

Finally, I am indeed luck enough to now have a Bulgarian partner whose family I know live with. This truly is the most Bulgarian of adventures one could get. A very simple life now is led day to day as that is how most Bulgarians live, on a day to day basis.

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Please now can you consider surfing onto Ricky Yates Weblog. He is an Anglican clergyman who moved to Prague to become Chaplain to the English-speaking Anglican Episcopal congregation in the Czech Republic. A great insight of this Chaplain Brit now living and working there. http://rickyyates.com/