We find ourselves in Bulgaria, in a city alongside the Danube River, the border that separates Bulgaria from Romania. It is, we are told, the poorest city in the whole of Bulgaria. And, we’re also told, Bulgaria is the poorest country in the whole of the EU.
“So what does this month look like for us?” I hear you wondering.
Well, our contact, Yavor Kostov, is a Rock Star (at least he looks like one):
So that’s cool.
The first thing I can note about that is that the ministry is based out of a youth centre called Vertical Rally, where one of the regular things that they do is teach music lessons. They have a couple of guitars and a bass and also a drum kit (which is great because I haven’t played on one all race and have been able to mess around on it a bit and remember everything I learned on it before). And so one of the things I have been doing is masquerading as a guitar teacher. Mondays and Tuesdays are guitar lessons and so I was teaching a bit about musical theory (who knew) and teaching some new chords in various keys. Sounds like I know what I’m talking about 😛
We have also been a couple of times now to an adult day care nearby, for adults with disabilities or special needs. It’s a great place and they always look so happy to see us. Each time we go in we usually do a couple of songs which I lead on my guitar, or there is one beasty guitar there that I tuned as best as I could and used once. They do a lot of crafts there, which they really enjoy, and the first time we went in there they gave each of us a gift of something they have made. The cards that they make are sold and the money goes into the work of the day care centre which is cool, so I may try and buy a few before I leave.
Today the rest of the gang, whilst Miche and I were teaching music, went and helped out at an orphanage where they were helping clean the outside by clearing a lot of the leaves from the playground area and so on. They also got to play with some of the kids and we are going back to do some more work for that in the morning.
We have had the church service on Sunday, and on Saturday we came to the centre to watch a Russian movie set during communist times to better understand the area. Friday passed we had a small youth event that a handful of the young people came along to.
So that’s some of what we’ve been doing. We also have some visits to Roma communities coming up and who knows what else, so expect more updates on what we’ve been doing to come 😀
