Bulgaria, my first workcamp

 Like I said, this blog will mostly be about my travels-- past travels, since I seldom have the time & money to go far abroad (other than going home) anymore. This is partly to remember all those moments I cherish from my 20s, and also to think more about the act of travel itself. :)

My first trip abroad, apart from my stay in the States as an exchange student in 2002, was a workcamp in Bulgaria. The choice of Bulgaria was rather random-- I had been poking around online, looking at different projects offered by different NGOs, and it just so happened that an organization called KIVA sounded cool, and they had a project open during the time I had planned to travel. So, I just went. Oh, and just to clear things up a little-- the workcamp had nothing to do with my religion (I'm Roman Catholic, but I hardly every go to church/ I'm not really interested in any kind of missionary work. In fact, the greatest thing about this project in Bulgaria, is that it didn't have anything to do with religion whatsoever!). The sole purpose was to get out of my hometown for a while, and to persuade my reluctant parents, I had to come up with a good excuse. Doing good work in a small town in Bulgaria, sounded nice enough-- and yes. They bought my argument. I would make friends and do good for others--how could they say no?

 The town I went to, in Bulgaria, was one called Rakitovo. It's far away from Sophia, Bulgaria's capital, so I had no choice but to take a train from the airport, then a bus. The town was, I remember, a quaint little place inhabited by people with 3-4 different religions-- I know this, because they emphasized the fact that religion did NOT get in the way of harmonious living in their town. They were very proud to tell the group of volunteers that the town was comprised of Muslims, Roman Catholics, as well as Christians, who were all respectful of each other's beliefs. Oh, and by the way, I found out AFTER I got to the town, that the town's population was mostly gypsies and our group would work with them. Huh. Ironic! Before I went, I was often warned by people who had the preconception that gypsies are dangerous. They are vagrants wandering about the city, pick pocketing. They take your bag in trains. You'd better chain it up to your seat if/when you take a train in East Europe. People said. And here I was, facing a group of gypsies, all friendly, all settled down in a beautiful (if poor) town, eager to work with us to improve the condition of their school building! You never know what will happen in life....I think I thought, then.

The young man painting the wall is one of the locals we worked with. His name was, if I remember correctly, George. But he told us his "gypsy" name, which was MeMe. Meme was 18 (in 2003, which was when I was in Rakitovo), and sadly, I don't remember much of what he was like or the life stories he told us. But I do remember that he was quite a jolly fella, always following us around, offering help and jokes, although he didn't speak much of English. If we said something, he would either answer with "no problem" or "small problem" or "big problem"...but you know what? it didn't really matter. He was right, it was either a small problem or a big problem, or, we had been worrying about nothing at all!

What did we all do in Rakitovo? The primary job was to touch up the school building, which was at the time not being used because it had become to shabby. So, we painted pictures, we painted the walls. The work wasn't too much, or too bad, at all. Later, the gypsy leader of the project told us that he had hoped, by having international volunteers in town, to open up the chance for the gypsy children to realize that there is a world outside their little towns. To learn to want education, to want to learn English, and so forth. The purpose, I guess, wasn't really to renovate the town, but to have a few new faces in town so as to energize the town. I'm not sure if anything changed at all after we left, but at least during our stay, the children did intermingle with us quite often. They would bring books which we would read to them, and they would falteringly "practice" on us, the little English phrases they knew.

I got attached to a little boy during this stay in Rakitovo, and since he was five at the time, he would be...what, about 15, right now. I wonder what happened to the boy. If, meeting these volunteers in his early childhood changed anything at all. I handed him a little postcard that said something like, "I hope you grown to be a smart young man" or something really trite like that. (I was young!!!) And although I just said that the letter to the boy was trite, I still hope, that he has become a smart young man.

After I came back from this trip, I continued on with my studies. I didn't hear from them, although we had exchanged addresses. They were probably busy with life, as was I, back in Seoul, the bustling city with lots to do. But, I do still think of these people, and also about the devoted leader of the camp who, every summer, would take a few days off from work and work for various projects with youths from all over the world.

I don't really know where to go from here-- I might talk about the ethics of travel, the problem of short-term work camps that can't really make material/tangible changes in people's realities, perhaps. But, because this was one of my most memorable travels abroad, I can't really analyze it the way I would a travelogue written by some other writer. So, I will just leave it at this. Now, back to my books and work. Back to the present reality, in West Lafayette, my cozy little town far, far away from Bulgaria, Rakitovo.

2013.2.1