A Farewell to Bulgaria

Soon after completing our installation in Ivancha, it came time for us to leave UFO Studios and make our way back to Krushevo. Solemnly, we packed our bags and said goodbye to the animals, the space, and to our host, Margaret, who we'd grown close to and come to know as a friend. It was a long bus ride back to the Rhodopes in the southwest, and full of thoughts of what we had left behind in the rolling hills and fields of the north.

Upon arriving back in Krushevo, we immediately fell back into the space we had inhabited before we left, only this time we were greeted by the presence of two other workawayers - Anne-Lene and Elisabeth from Berlin - with whom we quickly made friends. Within a week of our return, all of us were invited to another wedding. However, on this occasion we were guests of the bride, and the wedding was to take place in a nearby town called Debren. Much like the wedding before, we had a lovely time dancing and feasting on the usual Bulgarian cuisine.

We were also fortunate to be greeted by wonderful weather in Krushevo, which allowed us to quickly get to work on Lily and Yan's cordwood building. In just a few days work, we managed to finish off a few of the walls by an interesting method somewhat similar to slip-forming (but without the rocks). With two pairs of extra hands around it was quick work, and we enjoyed the practice in natural building techniques.

With Thanksgiving approaching, we decided to treat our hosts and housemates to an authentic American holiday meal and set about gathering ingredients (many of which proved to be difficult to find). When the discussion of a Thanksgiving bird came up, Lily and Yan remarked that four of their chicks had grown into cockerels and were now at an age where they would begin to compete and fight with each other, as such they suggested the largest of them might make a good turkey substitute. The day before Thanksgiving, Lily walked us through the procedure and together we dispatched and prepared our first bird - it was a grim experience, but one that made us appreciate the offering of meat in a new light. Catherine prepared the meal almost single-handedly while the rest of saw about other tasks around the property, and it turned out to be one of the best meals we'd had in all our travels.

Photograph by Anne-Lene.

With the weather holding up, and the date for the girls to move on approaching, we decided to take a farewell hike together through the nearby hills. Careful not to disturb the flocks and guarding karakachans, we spent the day exploring forests and meadows. Towards the end of the hike we found a frozen waterfall which doubled as an excellent (although somewhat terrifying) slide, which ended up injuring all of us in various ways. It was a worthy price.

It was tough to say goodbye to the girls (though made easier by their convincing us to buy tickets to visit them in Berlin), though not long before we were met by some new workawayers in Luke and Lainey from the UK. Just like it's supposed to be, Roy and Luke bonded over chopping wood, while Catherine and Lainey bonded over knitting and making jam.

In the fews days before leaving Bulgaria, Catherine painted a couple murals for people in the village. One, life-size, in the living room of a woman's house, depicted a tropical island with her two grandchildren playing in the sand. In return for the painting, she stuffed us with traditional Bulgarian dishes and gave us bags full of terlitsi, socks, walnuts, and other beautiful things she had made by hand. Catherine also painted a tree of life mural on the door of the village shop, as a way of giving back to the store-owner, Angelina, who would always give us free coffees and beers whenever we stopped by.

Our last evening in Krushevo was spent around the small wood-stove in the village store. We all sat around it in a circle, and used our usual combination of minimal Bulgarian vocabulary and enthusiastic charades to say our goodbyes and recount stories from our stay in the village. Catherine was finishing off a crocheted sweater for her niece, and during the evening she was given more handmade clothes to send back for the baby girl. Fatme, the pattern keeper and master knitter, had made an amazingly intricate hat with leaves curling up the sides, as well as a beautiful pair of cabled terlitsi. We gave out chocolates to everyone who came into the store, as is tradition in Bulgaria when one is making an announcement, and were given blessings of fortune and health in return. At the end of the evening, we said another hard goodbye to the small community that had taken us in and given us so much.

The last difficult parting came in the morning, as we hugged our generous, long-time hosts and new friends. The goodbyes were short and to the point, as one would expect in Bulgaria, but no less heartfelt. Yan drove us to Gotse Delchev, where we would catch our final bus to Sofia.

Krushevo

We left Sofia on a southbound bus headed for Gotse Delchev. The ride was four hours of ever-changing and astounding landscape ranging from farmlands, to mountain slopes, to steep gorges. As soon as we got off the bus, we were greeted by our new hosts - Lily and Yan. Leaving their life in the United Kingdom, they had moved to rural Bulgaria to live full time about four years ago, now using Workaway as a resource for workers interested in learning about natural building techniques. We all introduced ourselves and piled in to their four-wheel-drive (the only one in Bulgaria with zebra stripes!) to drive on to Krushevo, the small village where we would be staying and working. Upon arriving in Krushevo, Lily gave us a quick tour of their property, which included their small strawbale home, a cordwood volunteer building currently under construction, a caravan with an attached room and workshop, and various other buildings - all of which have been built by Lily, Yan, and helpers. She also introduced us to their two dogs, Bella the English sheepdog, and Bozdag the Karakachan.

Krushevo is a Muslim village of only 250 people set in the mountains near Bulgaria's southwest border. Although not cash-wealthy, the residents of Krushevo live well, practicing traditions and living techniques that have persisted through centuries. This, in part, leads to Krushevo having an extremely tight-knit and supportive community. People primarily grow their own food, and every house in the village owns a cow to provide fresh milk every day. The village mainly functions as a gift economy, and there is very little exchange with money apart from at the sparse village shop (where one can buy coffee or soda for 25 cents, or a beer for 75). If someone needs something they cannot provide for themselves, they let it known and it is provided for them by whoever in the village has that resource, and in return a gift of some kind is reciprocated. Often the women of the village give hand-knitted traditional slippers (terlitsi) in varying shapes, styles, and colors.

Beehives!

Tobacco hung out to dry.

Thus far, our work has taken place primarily in the old village schoolhouse, which is now part storage space, kindergarten, and soon to be bookshop/local crafts space (run by Lily and Yan). Before Lily and Yan began work on the kindergarten renovation, only half of the space was actually usable, due to large holes in the floor and various other hazards. By the time of our arrival, Lily, Yan, and a small team of village men had already re-roofed the entire structure, patched the floor, replaced the window glass, and painted in some areas, but there was still a lot of work to be done and we got started almost immediately. After a little over a week of hard work, we managed to replace the linoleum, re-plaster (using a natural mud, topsoil, water, chopped straw, and wood shavings mixture), paint, fix various non-functioning things, re-build and paint furniture, deep clean, along the way finding many interesting papers, photographs, and books from the Communist Era. Towards the opening day for the kindergarten, we were informed by the schoolteacher that it had been well over twenty years since the last renovation.

One day during work two friends and fellow workers invited Roy to go hiking with them that evening. Eager to explore the mountains and get to know the villagers better, Roy met them a few hours later and they set off along a trail curving along the mountains, accompanied by five braying hounds. After some labored communication, Roy pieced together that they were actually going hunting for mountain hares, and that was why they had brought the dogs. The three of them hiked for a few hours, somehow managing to communicate relatively well along the way, despite Roy not speaking Bulgarian, and them not speaking English. They explained the local stone and tobacco businesses, which employed many of the men from the village and were vital economic factors in Krushevo. With only a few yards to go before arriving back at Lily and Yan's, and the moon rising, the dogs pounced on something in the grass with an eruption of braying and barking. It turned out they had surrounded a Southern White-breasted Hedgehog (Erinaceus concolor), which had now assumed the typical defensive posture of balling up and exposing its many quills. Roy scooped up the terrified creature and brought it back to show Catherine and photograph it, before releasing it the next day.

The first day of school, we woke up very early so that we could surprise the kindergarteners with the unveiling of the classroom (along with a bunch of balloons). One by one, the children arrived with their mothers, each of them carrying a gift for the schoolteacher, and quickly dove into playing in the new space. All us of were relieved at finishing the project just in time, and excited with the reception.

Some paintings Catherine did for the renovated classroom