More Iskar pics, Graduation in Bulgaria and our Bulgarian Language Class

So it has been a while since Ive blogged but man have I been busy! I have lots to tell everyone about what has occured (email to follow in the next day or so), but for now I have some more pictures to share of Iskar, the graduation protocols in Bulgaria and even a few of our Bulgarian classes. Enjoy!

View over Iskar in the evening from another volunteer's host family's house.

The monumnet just off of the town square. Every town and city has monuments, many left over from the time of Communism. Many also are there to remember how Russian soldiers saved Bulgaria from the Ottoman Empire.

The obelisk in the city park. You can't really see it in this picture, but the park is overgrown and has been left unmaintained for the most part since communist times. Now, people take their cows and horses there during the day to graze.

Adam's host family payed a few Leva to have a message put up for us on TV during folk music videos. This station plays them all day long and you can call in and have them put up any message you desire. Here it says "A Welcome for Adam, Patrick, Anna, Leo and the entire company! From Grandma Siyka and Grandpa Strahill."

On the day after the seniors finish exams (a month before everyone else), they stop going to classes and make as much noise as possible with whistles, screaming the numbers from 1 to 12(grades) in unison, play loud folk music in front of the school and dance Horo for two hours. Class pretty much comes to a standstill for everyone. Celebrations like this happen at nearly every school in Bulgaria.

They also have a Ball, like a prom in the US. The difference is that the whole town and family from other towns come to watch them arrive at the school in as expensive cars they can get a hold of for that night. Some might rent them because we saw Porsche, Mercedes, Ferrari, etc. Also, that is the entire senior class of Iskar this year.

This is just after a ceremony where the seniors that are the color guard for the school hand off the job to 3 juniors for next year. That is the director/principal of the school standing with the new color guard.

Here is the classroom just for the Peace Corps to do our studying and lessons. That's Adam and Chris after class enjoying a bit of down time.

We have a laminated map that we have fun drawing on with dry erase pens. The red lines are all of the rail lines of the country.

This is a picture showing the different types of pronous you have to use in  the Bulgarian language for different circumstances. This is one of the most difficult things to learn in the language. There are muntiple ways to say 'me', 'you', 'them', etc for different prepositional pairings. Tricky yes, but there is time.

Here is an example of how different verbs change from Present to Future to Past. Sometimes they only change slighty, other times it looks like a completely different word. Oh yeah, dont forget that each tense also has 6 different ending for each of the infinitives here, to match the pronoun(I, you, he/she/it, we, you(s) and they)-just like French, Spanish, etc.

The view from our classroom window out over the schoolyard. The center of town is near the back of the photo.

So that's it for now everyone. Life is good here in Bulgaria but the workload is much. I have so much more to post but I'll get to it sometime this week. Look for an email about my Permanent site, my time in Vratsa and Shumen and further details. Ciao for now!