Memorial and Forgetorial Day

There is a Bulgarian shoe company called Bulldozer. The shoes are not very durable but they’re simple and comfortable and if you think about your feet while walking your feet tell you that they’re doing fine and that you shouldn’t worry about them. I’ve got three pairs in black but it’s getting warmer and I woke up the other day thinking about white ones. How can I get white Bulldozers? I talked to someone who talked to someone and someone else drove my size in from another town.

I went to get them at a little store in my village and in the store was this really nice girl. I told her that I was going to walk up the mountain and ride one of the horses and that I wanted her to walk with me. We walked and talked. I couldn’t convince her to ride a horse. She said that she was scared of horses and when I stopped to pet a cow she stepped back and said she was scared of cows. It struck me as strange; I just didn’t get her fear.

Then I asked her, “How is your love life”? She told me about a guy she likes who hasn’t returned her text message and she doesn’t know why. She was a little slow with the details but they came and I broke down how I could imagine he was feeling and then told her that maybe she is a horse or a cow and he is scared to touch her. So corny, I know but I’m not a Bulgarian speaking pro yet.

I said goodbye and turned off the main road towards the farm. When I arrived though, no one was there. I figured I’d wait and began doing pull ups on a bar the farmer made to practice gymnastics. 50 was my goal. I haven’t done pull ups in a while so it took a lot of sets to get to 50. An 11 year old girl wandered by, wanting to ride a horse too. She laughed at me because at this point I was struggling to do 2 pull ups in a row but I got to 50. After we’d waited for an hour she asked me whether I wanted to come to her house and see her new baby goat. ‘Of course,’ I told her. A baby goat is my new favorite animal after playing with three of them last week.

We walked through a small forest, saw a mushroom that looked exactly like a mushroom from Super Mario Bros. It was red and white. I’ve never seen a colored mushroom before. That was awesome. Before seeing the baby goat we walked into her house and her mom was sitting at the kitchen table starring out the window. We hung out and talked a while and then went into the girl’s bedroom. She wanted to show me her posters. She had about 40 posters of horses on her walls. Her mom and I and her talked some more and I was remembering kids’ rooms from when I was 11.

We saw the goat and all of her hens. One was separated from the rest because another one didn’t like it and pecked out one of its eyes. It was a clean peck and the hen lives.

Across the way I saw an older couple who I really like. They were working in their garden. I said bye to the girl and her mother and went to talk to the couple. I picked strawberries from their garden and rinsed them and we ate strawberries. The man pulled out a garbage bag full of tobacco leaves, diced some of them, laid them in the sun to dry for a few minutes and then began rolling cigarettes. I smoked a cigarette and then ate a soggy cookie that was offered to me. We sat around watching Turkish soap operas and then my favorite guy came through. He is 58 and he goes to grade school. You have to have graduated from 8th grade to get a driver’s license in Bulgaria. He has a motorcycle and wants to do some work that requires having a driver’s license. He needs to be official.

We were way up in the mountains, staring out at the mountains in Greece and my phone rang. It was my brother. I told the man to sit next to me and listen to me talk and tell me what words he understood. My brother gave me the update on my nieces and sister-in-law and we shared some stories. Afterward, I had to give the man a ‘D;’ he only understood, ‘hello.’ That’s a start.

My friends gave me spring garlic and potatoes from their garden and I began walking home before it would be too dark to see.

I ran into an old woman with four silver teeth on the bottom and no teeth of any sort on the top. She was probably 60, very slender, had a soft yet striking face and she was carrying a load of hay on her back. We talked for a while and as she turned one way and I continued straight. I met a baby. I helped her put her coat on. I’ve never helped a baby do anything before. Then I ran into a girl’s dad who is in my 6th grade class. He walked me to his garden and plucked some lettuce and parsley for me and I got home just before a heavy rain. I ate all my food and needed to zone out and not do anything for a minute so I punched the keys.