Bulgaria, Monday by Chloe

Today, we woke up earlier because we had to get to school to begin teaching our lessons. For breakfast we had egg, cheese, tomato, ham and bread; some of us made egg sandwiches with this too.

After breakfast and getting our belongings for our activities for the day, we set out for school in cars and taxis. Once we arrived at the school, we had a talk from the headmistress, the deputy mayor and from Helen. After the talks, we ate some bread which had been by the school children as a welcome gift.

We went inside the school and some of the children performed for us. Some sang and some danced; they were really good. After their performance, we got taken into a room with food to eat and we were shown a powerpoint about the school.

After the powerpoint we went to the sports halls ready for our games lessons to commence. In our games lesson, we stood in a circle and said our names and ages, and then we did relay races of running, jumping and hopping. The children seemed to really enjoy it.

For our second lesson, we went to a different class with different children and we asked the children to draw their favourite superhero – this could be a real hero or a made up one eg batman, superman, their mum etc. They also had to say why that person was their hero. At the end the children took it in turns to tell the class who their superhero was, so they got to practice some English speaking as well.

Our third lesson consisted of drawing around their bodies and then labeling them in English and Bulgarian. They struggled a bit at the beginning but we taught them ‘heads shoulders knees and toes’ and then they got the hang of it all more.

I think the children thoroughly enjoyed the lesson of the human body. At the end we tested the children to  see what parts they knew and they remembered a lot of body parts.

We finished at the school and set off to the youth centre where we had lunch – banana and a sandwich-type thing made of a thick pita bread with filling.

After lunch we travelled by foot to the Roma community, which was quite a walk, but it was very enjoyable. We hiked up the hill, nearly to the top and had a walk around. It was amazing but it was shocking scenery. I couldn’t believe that these people could live in the conditions they are in. They mostly use horses and carts for traveling and the houses are very poorly made by broken bricks, rubble and roof tiles that are very displaced.

The children in the area were very interested in us. They spoke to us in English and they were mesmerized about us being there.

We walked back to the youth centre and sat down inside talking about our next plan of attack tomorrow. We got invited into the dining room where we were told we were going to make bread. The lady showing how to make it and was saying we need love and emotion in making the bread. We all had fun doing the mixing and the kneading of the dough, and shaping the bread.

After the bread making we sat down in a conference room and they told us about the heritage of a bread making network which started in Bulgaria and now it is dispersing around the world. Also Keely and Mollie talked in front of everyone on why we are here and what our plans are.

After the conference we ate dinner. We ate the bread we made which was soft and fluffy. There was salad (tomato, cucumber, onion) , delicious kebab sausages, peperoni, cheese, Turkish delight and small bits of bread with sauce on. After dinner we headed back for a debrief and planning.