Sozopol

Yavor, the son in law of my host family in Kravoder, met me at the Sofia bus station. Getting my luggage to his car in front was a challenge. Once in the car, he informed me that Gabi and he would be taking me to stay at their friend’s apartment in Sozopol for my remaining days. Awesome surprise! I never had the chance to make the trek across Bulgaria to the Black Sea and regretted leaving without doing so. Going with Gabi and Yavor was way better than I could have hoped to plan on my own. I was grateful for time with them, and time to relax, reflect, and recharge.

 

Our trip to Sozopol was perfectly timed. The weather was warm enough for the beach, but not too hot. Tourist season doesn’t begin until the end of May, so we had the beaches and restaurants to ourselves. Their friend’s beachfront apartment is very nice and we went out for super fresh seafood at ever meal. It really was the perfect weekend to end my two years in Bulgaria.  

 

Sozopol is an ancient city located on the southern part of Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast. It has been inhabited since the Bronze Age and has been ruled by Byzantine, Bulgarian, and Ottoman leaders. Greek settlers established the current town in the 7^th century BC and many streets still bear Greek names. Ruins of an ancient necropolis are located near the beach and new findings are common. Near our apartment a part of the soft sandstone ledge broke away revealing a skull and ceramic urn from Roman times. The archeologists onsite let us get close and take pictures.

 

At the end of the trip, it was hard to return to Sofia. My Bulgarian was at its best and I’d had a great time with great people in a beautiful place.

I had a day of logistics, paperwork, and more goodbyes at the Peace Corps office in Sofia. Raf, a fellow PCV and friend, was also in town and walked back to Gabi and Yavor’s with me. Gabi returned from work around 8 pm with a large cardboard box, medical tape, gauze, and plastic (she’s a doctor). We worked to consolidate my checked luggage until after midnight, hauling them down to the vegetable and fruit market nearby to check the weight on their industrial scale. Finally succeeded with two suitcases and one box all exactly packed to weight! (And they all arrived without problems in the US!!) Gabi is a pro at packing. I was super impressed by the handles fashioned out of braided gauze.

Checking three pieces of luggage on an international flight is expensive enough, without her help I probably wouldn’t have managed getting out of a cab, would have had to buy a new suitcase, and I’m sure had to pay overweight fees. The flights were non eventful, I even had a row to myself on the Paris – Atlanta leg. 

Saying goodbye to the other volunteers

Friendships in the Peace Corps are different than in those made in other environments. Without easy transportation or geographical proximity and only one or two conferences a year, maintaining relationships is inconvenient. But having friends who understand the ups and downs of life in Bulgaria you’re enduring makes the distances and times unimportant. The intensity of Peace Corps service, when everything is new and foreign and often difficult, builds tight bonds among volunteers. I was especially close with volunteers in my training group. After three months with them in Kravoder, I felt like I’d known them for years.

Training groups, the four or five people volunteers spend their initial three months with, are based on about an hour of demonstrated language potential during the first 72 hours in country. They don’t always get along and some training groups have serious personality conflicts. My group in Kravoder had a lot of strong personalities and it’s share of discord, but I also love them and care about them like family. Would we all have been friends had we been in college together? I don’t know, probably not. But we went through a special period in our lives together and saying goodbye was hard. Way harder than I expected.

Saying goodbye to my Peace Corps friends marked an end to our shared environments and closed the basis of our intensely honest experiences. We’re from different states and are pursuing different paths. I know we’ll remain in touch (thank you facebook), but it will never be the same. This makes me sad. I’ve never grown so close to a group of people so quickly. We’re so different and regularly irritate one another, but it’s like with family, even if they drive you crazy, you still love them.