Still alive!

Yikes, I haven't posted here forEVER. Sorry.

I spent the first couple weeks of the summer teaching English at a conversation camp in Blagoevgrad. It was a lot of hard work, but also a lot of fun. Probably about a third of the kids were Bulgarian, most of the rest were from Montenegro, and there were also kids from Serbia, Russia, Kazakhstan, France, and Italy. It was so neat to have an international group - I learned a ton about their countries, especially Montenegro. (Montenegro is the world's youngest country - it's only been independent from Serbia for a little over a year, and the kids are all really patriotic in an endearing way. They were all happy to show us pictures and tell us about life in their country.) All of us Volunteers who worked at the camp want to go to Montenegro now.

Then I came back to Pavel Banya. It was crushingly hot for awhile, that wasn't fun. I started up my summer classes for my kids and I've been working on a grant proposal to remodel a room in my school. Last weekend I went to Veliko Turnavo, which I'd always heard was one of (if not the) most beautiful cities in Bulgaria, and I must agree! It's absolutely lovely. Of course I forgot my camera. Oh well, an excuse to go back. I met up with some other volunteers there and we had dinner and that was nice.

The new group of volunteers, the B22s arrived on Monday. The next group that arrives, next spring, will be the group to replace MINE! That seems almost impossible.

Today my stupid cat tried to run out the door when I opened it and I reached down to grab him and pulled something in my back. It's fantastic. I'm getting a taste of what it will feel like to be a baba, I suppose.