The Day of Thanks

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. Is it because of the copious quantities of hella good food that come out of the kitchen? Maybe it’s because you get two days of work and it makes for one heck of a good Wednesday night out on the town. Is it because you get to see your family and friends from home, get to play a little tackle football in extremely cold weather and then go to a home town bar and have weird, almost scripted conversation. For me, I think it could be because I don’t have the stress of buying gifts for everyone I know. Don’t get me wrong, I love the holidays but always get stressed out with the present giving thing. Will they like it, What size should I get, Would they use it, Would I even use it, How much should I spend, Will they be able to return it? These are the types of questions that make the Christmas season stressful, and why I enjoy Thanksgiving so much. So with that said, Happy Thanksgiving to all my family, friends, co-workers, government officials, priests, the Cubs, bums, stray dogs, Oprah, Moe from Chicago, and to you.

Nice watch Jimmy-

As most of you know (if you don’t know, please refer back to 4^th grade), Thanksgiving is an American holiday thus is not celebrated here in Bulgaria. The week of Thanksgiving was pretty busy for me and my coworkers. One of the organizations I work for put together an International Youth Forum and took place this week. The Forum consisted of two other countries besides Bulgaria: Vigonza, Italy and Hajdusamson, Hungary. This was a very good forum that focused on youth action in civil societies. Its purpose was to allow the youth of the European Union an opportunity to build ideas from scratch and present them to other countries. Some of these ideas focused on a festival that encourages youth participation, environmental awareness amongst the youth, and sports programs to decrease crime and vandalism within the communities. This was good experience for me because it allowed me to hear good ideas straight from the mouths of the youth, not filtered by an adult. It was also entertaining to me to hear Italians, Hugarians and Bulgarians speak English to communicate their thoughts. There were two days of meetings and then culture trips to Veliko Turnovo and Pleven. I met some real cool people from both countries and hope to visit them in the future.

Some Pictures from the Forum.

The English speaking group-

The Bulgarians-

The whole group, I am on the bottom by the flags-

So, I was unable to celebrate Thanksgiving on Thursday and decided to join other volunteers near Starza Gora for the weekend. I left Belene a little before 11 on Friday. Just so you guys at home get a picture of what it is like to travel in Bulgaria, let me tell you the details of my trip. First off, by no means am I trying to say that Bulgaria is the worst country to travel in; I know there are countries that have worse transportation then Bulgaria. I am simply comparing Bulgarian travel to the States travel. I arrived in Starza Gora around 6 oclock. About a 7 hour, 300 km (186 miles) bus ride. All in all not a bad ride. The scariest part of the trip was going up and then back down the mountain. The road is two lanes and very curvey. The crafty Bulgarian drivers seemed as if they have watched Fast and the Furious way to many times. They were passing freight trucks around 180 degree bends. I almost had to change my underwear a couple of times because of this. I made it to Starza Gora safe and spent the rest of the night enjoying the big city life. For the sake of the people involved, I will not describe the events of the night.

Below is a picture of Bulgarian style bottle service on ice. (Top that SoBe)

The next morning, we headed to Anita's house for dinner. Anita is probalby my favorite person in the Peace Corps. She is a retired woman from Texas, who has lived in the Middle East for a time, and settled down in Florida. She has a daughter that was in the Peace Corps and she herself decided to try it out one day. She reminds me of my grandmother. The nicest person in the world. Any way, she was hosting about 18 other volunteers in her apartment. A lot of people and even more food. Some how Anita got her hands on 2 turkeys, so it was on like Donkey Kong. It was a fun time, and a good break from work. Below are some pictures.

Check that table spread. Paper plates and Plastic cups full of boxed wine.

Eat your heart out Martha. Mom, check out the carrots on the right, I had to use honey instead of maple syrup.

So with all of this, I would like to give my thanks: To my parents, brothers, family, friends, coworkers, ESPN, Fantasy Sports, peanut butter, SoBe, Moe's, Ditka, The Art of Pizza, Q-tips, Bake Rolls, Sports of Chicago, and you, the tax paying Americans that are financing all of this.

Again, I hope you all had a great hoilday. Take care and Stay Classy.

Chase

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Lets first start with the haircut.

Sorry for the gap in Blogs. My internet has been out of commission for the past week.

So I suppose I will start with my first haircut in Belene. I have had many hair styles throughout my lifetime some of those include the comb over, the karate kid spike, the flat top spike, the Vanilla Ice zig-zags (and lightning bolts), long hair, pony tails, dyed hair, shaved head, and the current "business" cut. I suppose that is what I will call it. With that being said, I believe I have spent my fair share of time in that strangely uncomfortable barber chair and feel good about my overall "sense" of what a haircut is.

Well, I decided to break in my new town with a честито (nice) haircut. I was accompanied by my counterpart, whom has a better grasp on the Bulgarian language then I do. The haircut started at 12:30, and continued...and continued... for about 1 hour. My hair is not that long, nor that fragile. No curls, no cowlicks?, no bald spots (yet), no gray spots to hide (Pete), and my hair is not greasy (do I have to say the name?). Why so long? Don't get me wrong, it was a fantastic haircut. The conversation was fantastic..... for my counterpart. I just smiled and said "ДА" for an hour. I think each hair on my head was cut, individually and repeatedly. I think I passed out at one point. All in all, the haircut was fantastic, 5 leva, and only took an hour. In the business world, you might say that the barber, though mastered in her craft, has not learned the meaning of efficiency and turn over. Good stuff.

Here are some pictures of my apartment.

My kitchen

My Living Room and My Balcony (with a great view of the “Block” style apartments

Things are going really well here. I am meeting as many people as I can and stumbling around with my Bulgarian language. I can honestly say that I will never feel ackwerd in any conversation in America again. I have had a perment blank stare on my face for the past 3 months.

My first Na Gosti!!

I did have my first successful Na Gosti this past weekend. You may need to refer back to previous post for a discribtion of what a Na Gosti is. Anyway, I planned to have the dinner at 5 oclock on Sunday. I woke up at 930 and preseeded to spend the next 4 hours visiting 5 different stores for materials. I was going to make 3 and a half dishes for the visit. Good ole American style Pasta salad, Bulgarian style cabbage salad and the ever inspiring vegetarian style lasagna (thanks to the Sappy Ban group). Everything came out well, and the apartment did not burn down.


The lasagna



The guests (starting from the right and going left. Counterpart from the Municpality, Boss from the NGO, Husband of my Boss from the NGO, Counterpart from the NGO, Counterparts ladyfriend)



Great evening full of food and drink.

Thats all for today, I have more that I will post in the coming days.

You stay classy Chicago, Read more!

Look..... Your on TV!!

Just a little something for everyone out there to watch. This was taken from our swearing-in ceremony in Sofia. Very nice ceremony, led by Mr. Eddie Shim. The two interviews are of Eddie and Rajun. They are 2 of the 3 best bulgarian speakers in our group and represented us well. I, being one of the top 3, was stricten last minute with a sore troat and was unable to give an interview. ( Just kidding, my Bulgarian lanauge skills rank somewhere in the range of slim to none, Lets just say if I went to a resturant to order a tomato salad in bulgarian, i would problably get a baked rosemary chicken with mashed potatos.) Enjoy the video clip.

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Two Words.....DEEP PURPLE

Yes, that's right. Deep Purple made its presence felt in Sofia on Thursday evening, in front of a sell out crowd. Mullets were rocked and the smell of leather was in abundance. Who would of thought that I would have to travel half way around the world to see one of the pioneers of heavy metal. The last band I saw play was The Police at Wrigley Field. Any who, I was invited by a group from the Община (Municipality) to attend. There were about 80 people that made the 4 hour trek to Sofia. I was without my counterpart that speaks relatively good English, but did however have a couple of people that spoke some English and wanted practice on the way. We finally arrived in Sofia, after multiple smoke breaks and slow moving traffic, and to much of my surprise there were a ton of people waiting for the rock legends. If was pretty amazing to see so many people. We grab a cocktail at a local drinking establishment and preceeded to the show. Once inside, my coworkers and I rushed to the floor area. I haven't felt this rush of excitement since the Offspring show in 98 at the Pavilion(man, I am old).

The lights dimmed and the music started. I braced myself for the madness that was sure to insue. I looked around at the people in the crowd and the age range was from 14 to 70. Pretty diverse group. Please take note, that I have never seen Deep Purple and was only vaguely familiar with their songs. Out came the band and everyone cheered. I was thinking, "Dang, this is pretty awesome, Bulgaria, Deep Purple and a cigarette burn on my pants." I started to pump my fist as the song played. I was hoping to hear "Smoke on the Water" first (Probably because it was the only song I knew the title for) but instead heard the blond haired lead singer say something that was in a language not familiar to me. I listened more closely to the lyrics and thought I heard some Bulgarian. Heck, it wasn't Deep Purple, it was a Local Bulgarian rock band. I felt like an idiot because 1) I am from America (though Deep Purple is from England) and felt i had a responsiblity to know what the band looked like and 2) I kept shouting "Deep Purple, Deep Purple" to a random Bulgarian band. No worries though because as I looked around I realized that no one really cared and maybe they thought the same as well.

The show went on and Deep Purple eventually came out and rocked the house. I was surprised on how many songs I recognized. There were several things that crossed my mind as the concert went on. I was thinking that Bulgarian rock shows aren't that much different then rock shows in the States. Here are a couple of things I noticed:

1) Bulgarian Bands' lead singers have long wavy rocknroll blond hair just like ours.
2) The random shout out to the crowd from the band, no matter the language, always insures a roar of a response.
3) Steve Morse is a pretty darn good guitar player.
4) The 250 pound person standing next to you doesn't smell of sweet roses whether you are in Sofia or Chicago.
5) People at concerts all over the world tend to stand as close as possibly to you, so much so that your clothes pick up sweat from the person in front, behind, and side to side.
6) The universal rock symbol, is truly universal
7) Any slow rock ballad requires a lighter and raised arms that go side to side.
8) The lead singers voices is much better then the crowds, that’s what he is paid to do.
9) The line for the bathroom is long, always.
10) The rule still applies that you don't wear the t-shirt of the band you are going to see, Period.

All in all, I had a great time. The 4 hour bus ride home was a bit challenging when the seat only comes to your mid back and you are comfortably wedged between a window and a man, but hey, what’s better then passing out at 4 in the morning and going to work at 8 the next day.

Happy Halloween,

Take care and remember You stay classy, Chicago! Read more!

Update

Wow, it has been a while. Almost 2 months. Sorry to all. I feel bad that i have not be able to keep in touch with most of you but I have been very busy the past 2 months. I will make you a promise for the future, I will update at least once a week from now on. If I don't, you can punch me when I get home.

So...... This is a quick summary of the last two months.

Last time I left off I was busy with my language studies, living with my host family, and working on a community project for my village. Well, the language stuff went good. I passed, which means I am a Novice High in Bulgarian. I know what you are thinking, HIGH. Yeah thats what I thought too until I found out that Novice High is the lowest you could get yet still become a volunteer. The people in my group were way better. Living with my host family was fantastic. I could not of asked for a better host family. As for the project, we worked together with the school children to put up Educational and funny signs up on a Eco Trail. This was an awesome project that we embarked on.

I was sworn in as an official volunteer for the United States government. I even got to say the oath of office (the one the president says...... As well as every other government employee). I then headed to my permit site in the North Central part of Bulgaria, Belene.

Thats it for now, I will update you guys and gals as the days go on about work and Belene.

Swearing in














My group from Sapareva Banya




Between two countries



Our Group Project with the School Kids



Thumbs up for Safety!!



Above the clouds on the Rila Mountains



My new Permit Site



More to come later and remember, you Stay Classy Chicago. Read more!

Address

Make sure you write the cyrilic way and the latin script. Write it exactly like i wrote in Bulgarian.

Please write on the Box, "Used clothes not for resale value", or "Used goods, Not Salable (I don't know if that is a word"

Also make sure you value the box at less then $50 dollars other wise you get charged as well as me.


Chase Morgan
Municipality of Belene
35 Bulgaria Street
Belene, Bulgaria

And


Чейс Морган
Община Белене
улица. "България" Номер. 35
Град. Белене, България - 5930

Just moved into my town, More to come later.

You stay classy Chicago! Read more!

The Family

Hello there!!! Sorry about the long time in between post. I have been so busy with things here in good old Bulgaria. Any way, I think I left off last time talking about meeting my family for the first time. What a big event! I have been in Bulgaria for about 4 weeks now and have been leaving with my family for about 3. Man, time does fly. I can't believe I have been here that long already.

Well, I guess I can start off talking about my host family since it has been so long. My host mother's name is Cameila. She is a wonderful person that loves to work in her garden and loves to cook. She is a Bulgarian teacher at the local school, which affords me the great opportunity to always be corrected at home on my grammatical errors. She is a very fun person who loves her cats. Yes that is right cats. For those who don't know, I am very allergic to cats. No worries though, I get tons of free meds from the PC office. My father's name is Rosen. I don't get to see him much because he is always working. He works on the mountain top as a cook in Panichiste. He is a really good cook. That is good because I love to eat. He is very proud of his homemade Rakeia (our equivalent to moonshine). This can be made of pretty much any fruit etc.. Plums, Grapes. It is pretty strong stuff; the proof on the alcohol can vary from 50% to 80%. It tastes like brandy. It is tradition in Bulgaria to have Rakeia at most meals where people gather to visit. This is called Na Gostie. There is no word close to this in English. A Na Gostie is something that people do when they visit other peoples house. They sit around for hours ( and I mean hours 4-5) eating and talking about different things going on in each others lives. These "na gosties" happen several times a week and I think they are great. It really does allow people to talk and build strong relationships within the community. Any way, Rosen is great. I do have a brother as well. His name is Nikolus (Niki for short) who is 18 years old. He works as a car mechanic somewhere in the area. My room is right next to his and he loves to blast techno music. I feel like DJ Tiesto lives next door. I did feel at home though the other day when all of a sudden I hear," Quit Playing Games with My Heart!!!" from Niki (who doesn't speak any English) singing along with Backstreet boys. I was laughing because I remember when my roommate Jeff (DLO) would do this before we went to Moe's. That is my family. Oh, I forgot the other members of the family.First the dogs, Jackie, "the dog that barks at 5 in the morning for about 30 minutes straight", and the new addition, 1 month old Gina. The two cats, the 4 rabbits and the one huge Pig (From what I can understand, is going to get "fired" in October) We all live in the quiet village of Sapareva Banya. There are about 4,000 people leaving here.



















So I guess I give you a run down of my daily schedule. On a normal day, I have language class from 9 until 2. After that, our group gets together and works on our Community Development projects. About our community projects, we currently are being posted in a small community for 3 months. Here we will get our language training as well as prepare the necessary technical tools for when we are assigned to a permanent site by ourselves. All the assignments for the community development project are aimed at showing us what to do to evaluate needs and provide solutions with limited resources. For example, the other day, met with the Vice Mayor how is in charge of European Integration (a person responsible for intigrating there community into the European Union way of doing things) and talked about projects that she may have in the pipeline that we could bring to the surface and work on. We interview people for the community and get a gage for what is going on in the village (Needs based Assessment). Tomorrow, we have a meeting with the town folk. We listen to what they feel is wrong with the village and work together with them to come up with a solution. There is more details to the Community development project but will not share all of them. After that, we all go home and study with our home stay families. All in all, there are long days. It's not a nine to five but more like a 24 hour work shift.


Today I had my site placement interview with the PC business staff. It is the last interview I have before I find out where I am going to be place for the next 2 years. I have reviewed some of the potential job descriptions and I am pretty excited. I would of never of thought of some of the potential jobs entail. Raising privatized funds from sources abroad and providing management training to small and medium size business. This are things I never would expected to be doing in the Peace Corps, but I am really excited to get started.

Ok I have to go. There is a ton more to talk about but I will do this later. Cubs are 2 games up on St. Louis and the Bears are having a good preseason (minus Lance Briggs trashing a 300k car and leaving the scene of the crime, real smart). I have attached some random pictures (the Rila Mountains, some of our training group, My bed room, and a picture from a Bulgarian Dance concert (Its no SoBE).


Let me know how you all are doing. I would love to hear from you guys and gs.
And remember, You stay classy Chicago (Lance Briggs).

Oh by the way, I have a cell phone.

011-359-884-973-220

If you guys do want to talk to me (who in the right mind wouldn't) you should get SKYPE. You can download if for free of the Internet and cost about 3 cents a minute to call a cell phone internationally. Read more!

Meeting the host family

Do bur Den!!!

My official Pre Service training has begun. We spent 3 days in Philly doing some staging stuff. Paperwork, security training and other stuff. It was a really good time and it was comforting to know that there were 40 other people that were about to embark on the same journey as myself. Everyone is really cool and everyone has their own uniqueness to them. I think that we all get along pretty well. Maybe it is because if we look around, we realize that these are going to be the only Americans we can talk to for the next 27 months. We departed NYC at around 6 o'clock and were headed off to Frankfort, Germany. I have never flown Lufthansa before in my life but I have a feeling I will again. Though we tried to sleep on the plane, a group of 40 Americans in a plane for 8 hours just doesn't afford you the opportunity to rest. All of us were trying to get to know each other as much as possible. I think we ate about 3 times on the plane and the flight attendants kept walking around giving out free wine for everyone. I think a few of us took advantage of this. We finally arrived in Frankfort at about 10 o'clock in the AM and prepared to board a flight to Sofia, Bulgaria. We were all very tired but could not find any time to sleep. The excitement maybe was just to much. We kind of made it a game to not let each other sleep. As the clouds parted in the sky we finally saw it, Bulgaria. The place we all would be spending the next 27 months together. It was a little overwhelming. We landed down in Sofia about 1 o'clock and was greeted by the wonderful Peace Corps staff on hand in Sofia. I was really impressed in the way that Peace Corps was organized. Signs everywhere. We all piled on the bus and started to head off to Panichite, a mountain resort in the Rila mountains. Though the day was pretty rainy and cloudy, we were able to see the Sofia surrounding areas. It was very surprising to see so much construction going on in the city. High rise condos going up everywhere. For those that do not know, Sofia has been accepted into the European Union. There will be a lot of opportunity for the country of Bulgaria in the future. We readied ourselves for a 2 hour bus ride to Panichite. The ride up the mountain was quite an adventure in itself. Imagine a huge bus trying to navigate up a one way road. I thought a few times we were going to fall off a cliff. We finally reached the resort and were greeted by Bulgarian women in tradition dress. It was really kind of neat. All of the staff was there. The women gave us a welcoming tradition.

They gave us some bread and we could either dip it into a salt and pepper mix or honey. It was a pretty good feeling to know that here you are, an American that knows no Bulgarian, someone that is strange to this land and you are greeted like this. I was really happy.




The next 3 days we had a lot of intense meetings. Medical meetings, Security meetings, Community meetings, and last but not least Language meetings. The 3 days enabled us to come together more as a group and let us try to get adapted to the new surroundings. The language lessons, WOW, I didn't think it would be as hard as it is. Imagine that you have 3 days to learn as much as you can about Bulgarian before you meet your host family that speaks little to no English. It is intense. Every word you try to memorize but there are just too many. The language teachers were great though. Very patient and very helpful. We were first separated into two groups: Youth Development and Community and Organization Development. My group was Community and Organization Development (COD) and was again split into 3 groups: COD, Evironmental Education and mine, Econmic Development. There were 20 people in each group which made a total of 40 volunteers. It was very exciting learning about what you were going to be doing for the next 27 months.







A picture of the a mountain pass in Panichite.




On the last day we were split into groups based on what village we were going to live in for the next 3 months. I was blessed with a great group: Elizabeth (from the Boston Area), Thomas (from Penn) and Rajun (from North Carolina). We (along with our language trainer Nina) were off to a town called Sapareva Banya. This village was just down the mountain in the valley. We were all excited. So this Friday (08/10) we prepared to load the bus to go and meet our host families in Dupnitsa (our HUB site). I was probably the most scared/nervous I had every been in my life. Think about it. It would be nerve raking enough to be moving in with a host family in the states let alone a foreign country. I think we were all pretty nervous and also excited. We arrived in Dupnitsa and grabbed are bags and walked towards a Cafe that had tons of people, along with a news crew.

So here goes nothing. I walk up to women named Carmelia and say, "Do bur Den" and she says "Do bur Den". Then I freeze. All of that language material I been studying for the past 4 days just vanished. Nothing. I felt like a complete idiot. You should of seen the look on my face. BLANK. After a few phase and a lot of pointing, we headed to the car. Carmelia is a very nice lady. Very, Very patient with me which is good seeing how every time she points to something and says what it is, I forget 10 minutes later. We arrive at a beautiful house on the side of a mountain. This is amazing. As I walk into my room there is a bed, desk, closet and couch all for me to use. Awesome. I get settled in and head downstairs for dinner. Chicken (Pila), Tomatoes (Domati) and Bread (Hulb). I started to show pictures of my family and then I met the rest of the family: Rosen (the father) and Nikolia (the son who is 18). The warmly greeted me. I am so grateful to this family for taking in a complete stranger and treating me like one of there own. We headed down to the center to see some of the sites. Sapareva Banya is a beautiful city. It is know for its geyser which is in the town center. There is a mineral bath (Turkish style bath) that is in the city. I don't know how I feel about that now, but I will probably go later. Well, that is all for know. There will be more later. Thanks again to all for the emails back, I appreciate them very much. Oh, I just found out that Sorinano is hurt and Ramirez my be as well. Hopefully the Bears are having better luck.

Thank you and You Stay Classy Chicago. Read more!

First Entry

Hello to all!! This is my first attempt at trying to maintain a blog page and to be quite honest, I don't know how well it is going to hold up. I used to hate writing "journals" for class assignments. As you all may or may not know, I will be departing for the Peace Corps on August 3rd. I will be participating in the Business Advising program. There are 38 other volunteers that are going along with myself. We are going to be heading to Philly first for a "staging" event. It is a 3 day orientation. After the staging, I fly off to Sofia, Bulgaria for 3 months of Pre-Service Training. This includes living with a host family, intense language classes, and technical training. Our final site location is not known until after the 3 month PST.

Only one week of work left and less then two weeks before I depart for Bulgaria. I am getting pretty excited about the upcoming departure. This past weekend was my 24th Birthday. One year closer to the quarter of a century mark. I can believe that I have to stretch before I play any sports now. I am an old man. Anyways, one of my roommates, Pete Costa, is also making a move away from home. He recently took a job in San Fran as a Urban Planner. He is going to be moving in mid-August. With that in mind, my roommates and I decided to have a joint going away party/b-day party on Saturday. I won't go into too many details (this is a family show), but in short it was a huge success. It was good to see so many people wish us luck and send us off.

Things at work are starting to wind down. My territory has been split between two other AEs and my renewals are pretty much taking care of. I have been running around making my final visits to agents. I am kind of bummed out about leaving work because of the job, people, and coworkers, but I am ready to start a new chapter in my life and super pumped to be joining the Peace Corps.

Well Hope that wasn't too much. Hopefully I will get the hang of this. 11 day until I leave.

Til next time, Stay classy Chicago. Read more!