Pen Pals: From Colorado to Chiprovtsi and back

The first round of letters from the 6^th graders in America arrived for their penpals in Chiprovtsi! So excited!!

 

Under the Paul D. Coverdell World Wise School program, I was paired up with a teacher from Ellicott Middle School in Colorado. Coverdell World Wise Schools is a program for volunteers to share their Peace Corps experience with classrooms in America. PCVs can request or are paired with a teacher and they decide the best way to work together. It's an easy way to integrate global issues and cross-cultural awareness into the classroom. Plus, I think teachers get access to a bunch of free resources. Here's the link to the program's website: http://www.peacecorps.gov/wws/

Anyways, I’ve been emailing with Colleen, the 6th grade teacher in America, since before I arrived in Bulgaria. In November we decided to pair her class with the 6th grade students(with a few from 5th-8th to make the numbers work) here as pen pals. It worked out great since the 6th  grade homeroom teacher in Chiprovtsi is also the English teacher. 

The letters from both classes were mailed in early December. I expected the first batch from Colorado to arrive after a week or so, similar to the postal time frame for postcards from my parents. However, this was not the case, they took over a month. From the appearance of the large envelope that eventually arrived, I’m assuming they were transported by foot and donkey across America and Europe and perhaps stuffed into a dry sack and swum across the Atlantic. Bad storms in Europe and America and the holidays also added to the delay.

I was anxious the letters had disappeared in transit. The kids here asked about them often. What if they get lost? How disappointing would that be? When the letters finally arrived, I felt like I was getting a second round of Christmas presents. But opening the big envelope and passing out the letters in class was even better. The kids’ faces were priceless. Yesterday, the teacher in Chiprovtsi and I helped with the 6th graders write replies. 

As a side note, if you know any 10-12 year olds in America that would like a pen pal, please email me.  There are more kids here that would like to write with them.