Sunday, January 6, 2008

The Price of Brie-dom

Since it has been almost 5 months since my last update, there is alot I first want to brag about. Deep breath, Go. In the past 5 months I've visited Poland, Athens, Istanbul (twice), and several places inside Bulgaria such as Sapareva Banya (to see the host fam), Bourgas (for thanksgiving), Veliko Turnovo (for halloween), Apriltsi, and of course, Plovdiv.

But what I really want to talk about is this:


and, of course, this:



The former being the new Mall of Gabrovo, and the latter being, well, brie. I don't want to specifically talk about brie, but I fear if I was just talking about cheese you wouldn't take me seriously. So seriously, let's discuss.

For you detectives out there, you may already have figured out that Gabrovo is my peace corps site, the town in which I live and work here in Bulgaria. It's a sizable town that stretches several kilometers. Well, about 7 months ago an old movie theater near the center of town was demolished to make way for, you guessed it, a brand new mall. What you see in the picture above is post-demolition/hole-making for a foundation/pre-construction of this new mall. There are pictures up around the construction site about what the new mall will look like, and I will try to post a picture of that picture soon. As luck would have it, the construction is, let's say, 'close' to my apartment.

Your first concern would be for my health and safety. "Is Joe getting enough sleep with all this noise? Is he breathing alright when bits of rubble from the demolition phase spontaneously combust sending fire and smoke in the air?". Honestly, none of that matters now. Because of the famed 'proximity rule' (mostly used in college dormitories to quickly determine who will answer the door or take out the trash), I have decided I am able to take full credit for what will be called the grandest peace corps development project ever, a f*ing mall. All this simply by living near it. This bastion of american consumerism is the least I can do for my town.
What kind of compensation do I get for my work/illegitimate credit taking? Well, it certainly isn't monetary... which brings me to brie.

As a peace corps volunteer, I'm certainly not rolling in the Aleko's. Sigh - a joke I must explain. Aleko Konstantinov is a Bulgarian writer who is on the 100 leva bill. Absorb. Laugh.

To seemlessly throw out a possibly innaccurate figure by couching my statement in vague language: the price of some food staples in or around Bulgaria have gone up between 15-20% in 2007 alone. Cheese did not escape this fate. Cheese might not come to mind as a 'staple', unless you are a lover of Bulgarian 'bahnitsa' or devoted to shopska salad. I am these things.
What was different about 2007 you ask? Would you like to explain it by mere virtue of Bulgaria joining the EU on jan. 1st 2007? Plausible. It's not for me to decide. I couldn't tell you how much the price of brie has gone up, since I don't remember buying it even though I'm tempted each time I pass it in the store. I spend the extra money I pocket away on the rarer beast - cottage cheese, which finds its way to our stores only on occassion.

But enough about my personal life. What am I working on? Kind of a ballsy question to ask since I already told you I am personally building a mall/shopping center/kingdom *where people will fly for the first time ever*, piece by piece from scratch with my own two hands. But yes, I have other work going on too. My park and I just got a project grant through USAID and Peace Corps to train park staff and a group of high school students in monitoring species of birds of prey in our park and elsewhere around our town... so, we got that going for us. And here is where I will abruptly end.

I hope to not wait another 5 months to make my next entry.
*credit to Mike Clark for unknowingly contributing to my joke*

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