They never said it would be this hard! Oh wait.....

I feel like a hermit at night and a deaf mute during the day--Difficult way of life and not one I envy.

Growing up in Bulgaria with my 4 other brothers and sisters in Kravoder was a fantastic childhood. Our childhood was filled with education and loving parents that fed us too much and even washed our clothes. Our sensei, Lazar, raised us to be Bulgarian imitators with such fine language skills that people would think we are average Bulgarians. We had many field trips to the big city for extended family get togethers. We were able to play soccer with kids our own age (8-16). We felt like we would do wonders for Bulgaria......Flash forward 3 weeks past "elementary school graduation" ceremony.....

I am not going to speak anything profound here because I know my fellow volunteers feel the same way. I am just going to try and put it my own words.

They never said it would be this hard! Oh wait.....

All throughout the PCV training we were made well aware of how we would feel isolated and slightly ineffective, and that to break out of this padded room/straight jacket of community integration we would have to really discover who we are and go out and be a true PCV. This true PCV at first is kind of annoying, and I mean this in the kindest way. Annoying in the fact that, for example:
We ask the same questions over and over.
We don't answer questions correctly.
We have to be told where to go and what to do.
Etc. Etc. Etc.
A true PCV needs to be outrageously outgoing. They need to listen and do what they are told probably more than they want to be. They need to fend for themselves as far as food and shelter are concerned. They need to somehow need to overcome a language barrier that, at times, seems like the Great Wall of China. They need to cure this unwanted deafness and muteness. (is that a word?)

Yet the funny thing is, these "symptoms" or whatever they might be considered, slowly melt and become less problematic tasks and more of a joy of being a PCV. The experience alone of having this be your day to day life for weeks, or months, or even years is something I was not expecting to love as much as I do right now. I had my "debbie downer" depressing days where I felt like going home so I could just be more "comfortable"....whatever. I would trade 2 years of potential daily awkwardness and frusttration for any previous day of comfort and safety in the states.

So when people said, "for the first couple months you are going to go feel useless and like you are in a fishbowl and like you want to leave..." Well that is all true, and we are all experiencing that. But that is what makes it sweet. I love the feeling that I know that I am one among many experiencing this same issue. I also like the fact that all my friends and family back home might not exactly understand the fact that I really don't do a whole lot yet, that I kind of just sit and let things come to me right now...and that is all I am expected to do, but that I will do more in the future when I get rid of my concrete blocks on my feet and pop the bubble of isolation and actually integrate fully into my community.

So ya...They did say that it would be hard. I heard the PC staff and current volunteers. I heard them loud and clear...I just didn't listen to them. Now that I have experienced exactly what they said, I think they are plain honest and super folks...haha

Just always remember!
Ima Vreme, Ima Vreme (There is time, There is time)

Lets spend it awkwardly!