Pavel Banya

I’ve just come back from visiting Pavel Banya, my permanent site. It’s a very small town, about 3100 people, right in the center of Bulgaria, in what’s called the Rose Valley. It’s known for its mineral hot springs, which supposedly have some kind of healing properties. There are, I think six or seven public swimming pools, all naturally heated. Though the land is mostly flat in the town, the Stara Planina (Old Mountains) sit along the northern horizon. Very pretty. There’s a large public park along the edge of town, about two blocks from my future apartment. Kazanluck, population ~70,000 is about twenty minutes away, and there are a couple volunteers working there.

Despite its small size, Pavel Banya is a pretty bustling place, with ten or so restaurants and cafes. There’s a toy store, a few clothing shops, and a yarn shop! Yesterday after school, I sat on a bench and watched the kids play in the park. Very nice.

As for school, I don’t know. My counterpart (the Bulgarian English teacher I’ll be working with) seems very nice, but she doesn’t really speak that much English. She works directly from the book because she pretty much has to – she doesn’t have the resources to improvise or do more interesting lessons. I wanted to teach the second graders a song, and she told me “There aren’t any songs in this lesson”. Well, of course not! The lesson is entirely from an insipid textbook! But I know lots of songs and games that could make learning more fun! She told me that the kids don’t remember things from one lesson to another, and honestly, I can see why; the teacher isn’t able to make English interesting or memorable at all. It’s not really her fault – every English teacher I’ve met so far in Bulgaria is at about her level of fluency. Her English is about as good as my Spanish, basically. She can hold a simple conversation, but anything complex is impossible, and she can’t understand me at all when I speak at normal speed. (I read a text to the fifth graders yesterday and had to read it absurdly slowly for them to understand at all. Even at a normally slow speed with careful enunciation was too fast. Good luck trying to get a native English speaker talk like that outside of a classroom.) I want to introduce new, more fun ideas into the classroom. I hope my counterpart isn’t too averse to that.

My apartment is…not really ready to live in. It doesn’t have plumbing yet, but they assure me it’ll be finished by July 1. So I had to use the Turkish toilet. Ewwww. Not a fan. I think it’ll be nice when it’s finished though, and it’s very close to everything.

Oh, my school has both a primary and high school in it. I sat in on the eleventh grade English class, and I have to say, am so glad I’m a primary teacher! The high school English teacher (who doesn’t speak any better English than my counterpart) didn’t even attempt to control them. They seemed like good kids, but didn’t pay her any attention at all, even making phone calls in class! To my horror, she described the ethnic background of her students to me right there! At least now I know there’s an ethnic Turkish village nearby Pavel Banya.

At the moment, I’m in Dupnitsa. I took a bus from Pavel Banya to Sofia this morning, then another bus that stopped here en route to Blagoevgrad – the bus driver basically let me off on the side of the highway, yikes! But I made my way to the Peace Corps office, where I found mail waiting for me! Yay! Thanks, mom and dad! Then I hit the internet club, so I could write this while it was still fresh in my head.

Will update again when I can.