Bulgarian Halloween

This year I celebrated Halloween in my new primary organization, Center for Social Rehabilitation and Integration (CSRI), and things went much better than I could've expected. On Monday and Tuesday the children, staff, and I carved pumpkins which went great, and the end product looked nice too. For the majority of children and staff it was their first time carving pumpkins, so everyone was excited to roll up their sleeves and get a little messy. On Wednesday, the children made a variety of different masks for the Halloween celebration, and they helped me create some Halloween-themed mosaic window treatments for the computer lab. For the finale on Thursday I organized a Halloween celebration for children in the community. There were games, food, and a film, and the local news media showed up to cover the event. Everything went off without a hitch and I have to accredit that to my colleagues and the volunteers that came to help, because they implemented the program, I only organized it. Overall, I think the Halloween activities for the week were fun and interactive and everyone enjoyed the experience - click on the link under My Photos to see more pictures from the Halloween celebration.

I should also mention that on Thursday we had a little snow pass through Tryavna, which left me kind of disheartened. It is only the end of October so to see snow was not a welcomed sight for me, to say the least. After my experiences from last winter I'm not too enthused about snow this year, let alone in October. All is well though because this past weekend saw sunshine and warmer temperatures, so that helped brighten my emotional state.

So Halloween is finished. I guess now it's on to the next holiday celebration - Thanksgiving or Christmas? Since Thanksgiving is a traditional American holiday I haven't decided if I'm going to push to have a Bulgarian celebration for it. I'll definitely talk about it with the children and staff, but celebrating might be a bit much. Personally, I will celebrate Thanksgiving with some other PCVs, so hopefully I'll get my hands on some turkey and dressing somewhere! I'll most likely start putting my efforts towards a Christmas celebration, because if there's one holiday that has to be celebrated it's Christmas. I'll keep everyone updated on how that goes...

Quotes of the Day:

"Choose love and peace will follow. Choose peace and love will follow." - Mary Helen Doyle

"To be rich in admiration and free from envy, to rejoice greatly in the good of others, to love with such generosity of heart that your love is still a dear possession in absence or unkindness - those are the gifts which money cannot buy." - Robert Louis Stevenson

Beat on Repeat:

"Stir It Up" - Bob Marley

Peace, Love, and Understanding...