HUBs 3 and 4
Trip Start
Apr 14, 2006
1
23
102
Trip End
Jul 2008
Dupnitsa,
Bulgaria
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
01. map of bulgaria
. And we learned how to use our new bank debit cards, which is the way peace corps will give us our stipends for the next 2 years.At six o'clock that night we met our Bulgarian counterparts. The counterpart is someone who works at our school, helps us out, gives us advice and feedback, and is just generally supposed to be there for you. My counterpart's name is Teadora (Dora.) We didn't talk much at first, she was a bit shy talking in English. We went out to dinner in Dupnitsa with 2 other volunteers and their counterparts. Dora spoke mostly to one of the other counterparts and seemed really nervous about talking in English. Also, she told me she taught primary school, and I'm a highschool teacher. So, I was feeling a little nervous about these things but still optimistic.
HUB 4, the next day, was the counterpart conference. The day started out really badly. The first session we had was on some cross cultural bullshit. We talked about differences between Americans and Bulgarians and what we think of time, optimism vs. fatalism, and some other stuff. Not only did I think it was stupid, because we have 2 years to learn about eachother and have cruss cultural discussions, but it was also really bad for Dora. In our small group discussion she didn't say a word
02. waiting
. I could tell she felt really self conscious in front of the other counterparts who spoke really good English. And when other counterparts presented their discussions to the whole group it was even worse - they spoke perfectly, and used big words like fatalism, continuum, and much more. After that Dora completely shut down, didn't speak English to me and was actually avoiding me during the next break. I tried to invite her to a show that night (some primary TEFL PCVs had kids in a dance competition) and she just said 'ne razbiram' - I don't understand. So not only was I worried about that, but I was thinking why did they send me a primary teacher, is the secondary teacher really against me coming and is going to be uncooperative or something - I just didn't know.So anyway, I decided to take matters into my own hands, and asked my language trainer Desi (who is totally amazing) to have lunch with us and to translate for us. I wanted to ask Dora important stuff about the school, like class size and stuff. So lunch went really well. She seemed to be well informed about the secondary classes and about the class books, and about summer projects the principle is interested in me doing (probably teaching summer classes to highschool kids and maybe some teachers.) We also established a good relationship, about how communicating will be a challenge but we are both up for it. She also repeated some things she had told me the night before in English - I was like I understood you before, don't worry so much!! I also found out later in the afternoon, while Iskra was briefly translating, that the reason my counterpart is a primary teacher is because the only secondary teacher lives outside the town and always goes home after class. So I would much rather have someone who is around, wants to be with me and show me around, even if we have to struggle a bit to communicate. So the day ended well.
