(Most of) my 4th graders.

From left to right: Aicel, Teodora, Evalina, Isabella, Ani (giving herself rabbit ears), Saihan, Usman, Slovena, and Ivo.

Evalina's mom is the postal worker who's worried about my electricity bills.

Ah, small town life.

First of all, I am having a gripna vakantzia (flu vacation). There is a nationwide flu epidemic and lots of schools are shut down because so few students are showing up and the ones who do come are making everyone else sick. My school's vakantzia started on Friday and was supposed to end tomorrow, but it got extended til next Monday.

Anyway, today I went to the post office to pay my electricity bill. For reasons that escape me, the post office is Bureacracy Headquarters in Bulgaria. I can't imagine this is really more efficient than mailing bills and pensions (ESPECIALLY pensions, I recently had to go to the post office to pick up a package and it was absolutely jammed with elderly people picking up their pensions; very chaotic and inconvenient) and such, but that's the way it's done. The lady at the post office is the mom of one of my darling little 4th graders. I asked her for my bill. She digs around, and finds it.

"Oh, Kyla!" she says. "It's so expensive!"
"It is?" I ask. "How much?"
"How are you heating your house?" she wants to know.
"I have two little electric heaters...but I don't use them very much, it's not cold!"

Shaking her head, she gave me the bill. It was a lot. Because I didn't know how much it would be beforehand, I didn't have the money. I went out to the ATM and got the money, returned, and paid the bill. The Peace Corps reimburses me for this stuff, but until payday on the first, I'm pretty poor. I think this bill covered the short period last month when it actually was pretty cold.

And by Friday, I can guarantee you everyone in town will know that I'm the person who spent 163 leva on my electricity last month.

My exciting vacation!

I'm kidding. I just had my winter break, but I didn't go anywhere. I wanted to be in Bulgaria when we entered the EU, so I stayed here in Pavel Banya and went to all the town festivities. It was fun and low-key. New Years Eve was funny because we didn't have any kind of official countdown - according to my cell phone's clock, it was 12.05 when the band began to play, and everyone in town danced horo together. It was a blast, even if we weren't really sure what time it was.

I'm planning to go to Sarajevo for my spring break, though. I'm excited to see more of the Balkans.

Here are some pictures! These are of the part of Pavel Banya that the tourists don't visit.



See what I'm talking about with these cement apartment blocks? They're hideous.