Jill Rees: Welcome Press

Yesterday I arived in class to see the normal teacher battling with the naughty kid Boris, a tiny 8 year old, and shouting at the others to be quiet, as they do here. I have been preparing for the show, which this week is called ‘Pirates of Sofia’ although they wanted to call it Pirates of the Caribean. Anyway they are the ships mates and take it in turns to be captain who calls orders, they all salute and say ‘Aye aye Captain’, which took me three days to teach them. The hard bit was getting them to line up, which is the first thing kids learn in English schools. but not here. Of course the teachers don’t have the high standards of teacher training we do. Seeing everything was somewhhat rowdy, I called out, ‘Captain says line up’. The kids immediately all lined up, saluted and called, ‘Aye aye,Captain’. I then called ‘Scrub the deck, Bristol fashion’ and they crouched down and started cleaning the floor, much to the teacher’s surpirse.

I asked her if I could take the children out, but she didn’t understand and just hung around, so I stayed in the classroom. We were just climbing the rigging when suddenly the light on the ceiling exploded and set light to the polyester tiles. The word ‘Asbestos’ crossed my mind as sparks flowed down onto the children. The teacher started screaming and waving her arms around, so the children started screaming as well and ran round in circles. I reached over the teacher, covered my hand with leather and turned the lights out.  ‘Keep a look-out’ I called, ‘Aye aye captain’ and order was restored.

This does happen to me a lot. Constance says it’s my raised Buddha state that sets everything alight. I believe it is protection. After all, the light would have exploded at one point, and it was lucky I was in the room and could put it out.

So another irritating day at the office in contemporary Bulgaria.

The good news today was that I ate bob for lunch at school! Bob is spicy bean soup, delicious. I went up for seconds and the cook was thrilled to bits. They are so kind, much too kind and so annoying and cloying. They keep bringing us chocolates with out coffee, I mean all day. Today I said ‘No more chocolate!’ very sternly. They were shocked but brought sweet baklavas instead. They are irresistible unfortunately.

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Tags: Asbestos, bob spicy bean soup, Bulgaria, fire, Pirates of Sofia, school.

Dinner tonight was a slice of cucumber and half a potato. I kid you not. Lunch was a plate of yogurt soup with a bit of cucumber and a tiny plate of potatoes.I went out to look for a kebab but unfortunately they use the cyrillic alphabet here and I can’t read it very well, couldn’t find any kebabs. I found a restaurant but didn’t have enough bulgarian money for a meal and didn’t understand the menu very well. I suspect a certain ripping off of tourists. This hotel, the Panorama, in Sandinski Bulgaria, is charging 70 euros odd for full board, when living costs are extremely low here, and only feeding us tiny and insufficient food. Strongly advise against this place!!!!!!!! Also they save on other bills, such as heating and hot water. However the cold shower did wonders for my hair. Other great thing is the spa water which you walk down the hill to get in the spa park, a huge park with exotic trees.

Bought two carrots, which we shared among us back at the hotel. Living off Turkish delight. It’s like an upside down Narnia. Without the lions. The others went to swim in the spa pool and one of them got touched up by a Bulgarian man.

Nevertheless going back to SThis travelling does have its down side. The teaching is great, especially as the kids have flu bugs so half the class is missing. hurrah!!!!!

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Tags: Bulgaria, cucumbers, Panorama Hotel, Sandinski.