A Peach Of An Idea For The Bulgarian Village Farm

Peach Tree Blossom

It was a great idea today that sprung to mind when slaving away on the sticky mud trying to prepare the soil for the cold season that should have been on us, but the winter has been delayed for some reason with the warm weather that is set to continue this coming week.

Over the last few years the stress of living in the town and playing catch up in the village at weekends during the growing season has been something I have tried to eliminate. Growing crops that don’t need water every day was a tactic that didn’t work. I needed the help of my neighbour to bale me out in the really hot weather and they had their own crops to take care of. This was another stress I could do without.

So, today the thoughts were all about how to overcome this and trees were the answer. Peach trees were the answer to be exact. The area in which the produce is grown each year could take nine peach trees and of course they need no daily or bi-daily attention. Spaying is needed and of course keeping the jungle down around them, but this could easily be done each weekend without the need for assistance from neighbours.

Peaches are common in Bulgaria especially in this area and are eaten fresh, as a conserve in winter and used for rakia. The need for weekly watering in the summer is essential and they will be planted within reach of the well water so no worries there either, Once they are established after around 3-4 years, the shade they provide will quell the undergrowth and less maintenance is needed. The fruit will also be that much bigger.

The thought of planting vines took hold for a while, but event though the area is perfect and they are easily managed the cost of setting this up was too expensive for use. This made our decision so much easier, alongside the birds that would steal our crop each year with us not there for five days of the week.

We will seek advice from peach growing maestro when we get back to work as they have them there, newly planted last year. We hope to get some saplings soon and of course cheaper than what they retail for in bazaars. This is the Bulgarian way.

Working With Bulgarians For Bulgarians - And Happy To Do So

For an expatriate to work in Bulgaria it is common to assume that they are working for an expat owned company and therefore serving an expatriate community. I would say from experience that apart form the retired fraternity the vast majority of expatriates that come over here to make a living a re doing so on the profits out of other expatriates that are here or have plans to live here. It is a recently created economy in Bulgaria that is completely isolated from the real Bulgarian economy and to be quite honest is self destructed on the first sign of a recession.

The idea of coming over here and reaping profits from other expatriates is a plan that is doomed for failure. Only the poorest expatiates come to Bulgaria as a rule and they do so on a tight budget that doesn’t cater for services other than cheap Bulgarian prices even at inflated rates for expatriates.

Having worked for expatriate here a few years ago, Galia and I knew after a short time that this doesn’t work as greed and exploitation of our services at Bulgarian rates was taken advantage of and contract were not honoured on many occasion and we lost out financially. Basically we could not trust the expatriates that we worked with, moreover there was no one we could trust. So working away from expatriates was the only solution. We were only after an income for a basic living and as we knew right from start that this was the only way to live in Bulgaria.

So, I now work for a Bulgarian company catering for Balkan clients at a Bulgarian minimum wage and not an expatriate in sight. It is physical work and my workmates are all Bulgarians who don’t speak a word of English, but we work as Bulgarians do. You need to be here to know how they work of course. We sweat out a 45-hour a week and this really makes the weekends a real treat and relief. My hands are raw and sore from the manual work I am faced with, but somehow I feel the need for pain with work here, after all, all the other workers must have the same pains why should I feel sorry for myself and be the only one to complain?

The air of redundancy looms over us all the time here. Only yesterday two employees were shown their card die to lack of orders on the products we make, they were taken on after me as it is last in first out, I’m the next to go if this continues. We live on a knife-edge with our jobs here, but we are luckier than most who don’t have jobs.

For now we will work with and for Bulgarians at least you know where you stand with them. There have been lots of new experiences taken on board in this vocation something that I feel very fortunate to be a part of. I hope it continues for a while yet, but work could well end here at any time with the ways things are at the moment.

Another Bad Experience From Expatriates In Bulgaria

I bumped into a couple of expatriates the other day and just couldn’t avoid it. Normally this doesn’t happen as if a see an expat or expat couple I just keep my mouth shut and like ships in the night that pass by unnoticed. This normally happens in supermarkets where expatriates normally shop, I know an expat straight away by the contents their shopping trolley therefore I am forewarned. I will give you an example of an expat shopping trolley contents that I saw only yesterday and yes I do have a photographic memory, but I forgot the cuddly toy!

• 10 kg Pedigree Chum
• 3 x Tins of tomatoes
• 3 x Tins baked beans
• Countless Amounts of crisps and crisp type snacks
• A variety of English Tea
• Frozen chicken
• Frozen mince
• Tomato sauce (Heinz)
• 2 Boxes of tinned beers (Becks)
• A couple of bottles of wine (Bulgarian)
• Three loaves of bread (two for the freezer)
• 10 sachets of instant soup (Maggie/Nestle)

This was the I have no grievance or hatchet to bury with most expatriates over here, but when I see things like this in their shopping trolley I wonder why the hell they are here. Cheap comes to mind straight away, they certainly have no desire to eat Bulgarian food other than the wine (which is cheap as well.) The thought was that apart from the wine, everything was what you could buy in Sainsburys or Tesco in the UK and even here it is roughly the same price and not a comparative equivalent! So the food is the same price as the UK in that respect.

The people I met had seen me a few times working in a Yambol office as a website administrator and they approached me and I just couldn’t avoid them even though I knew they were British. Like I said, I don’t have anything against expatriates here, some I know are very nice people, but I am here for Bulgaria not expat communities. As long as they respect where they are and don’t try and force their own culture on Bulgarians here that's fine. I was approached without any introductory politnesses being passed. The first introduction comment was “I know you, you’re English aren’t you? Why haven’t they got PG Tips here?"

Well two questions put to me and not being one for being rude I answered both calmly with “Yes” and “Because this is Bulgaria,” respectively. They took offence with this ssecond answer and began their attack on everthing here not adapted to the English culture, food, services etc.

I wanted to get away as I knew what was coming and I was right. Next, all I got was complaints and moaning about how Bulgaria is way behind the times and it was not good enough for Brits coming over here. It was as if they were blaming me for the lack of progress here as they commented on the work I did promoting the country to potential expatriates in my work, then letting them down when they take the bait as it wasn’t as perfect as is was made out to be. Far from wanted to argue with this aggressive couple, I was with Galia and out of a kind of respect for this couple didn’t talk Bulgarian but gave a signal that I “wanted out” here. She took the signal straight away and pushed our shopping trolley forward and on beckoned me to move. I made my excuses and followed her willingly. “Blagodahriya Gal,” were my next words as I thanked her for getting me out of the situation. Oh how I hate people like that was the instant thought in my mind and no matter how hard I tried to block it it was there fermenting all evening.

I just wish we didn’t have to shop in supermarkets, but we have to in our financial position, as certain things that are on promotion are far cheaper than elsewhere. That is the only attraction for us both here and of course it is directly en route to the way home from work.

Another very short moment in Bulgaria spoilt by non-Bulgarians. I will carry on my policy of non-communication with the expatriates I see here.