Bulgaria

Bulgarians have a story or a proverb for pretty much everything. One thing I have appreciated about spending time with our translators when we're in Bulgaria is the little bits of Bulgaria they are able to communicate to us through these stories - they are very effective carriers of the intense national pride and serious determination that the Bulgarian people carry.

A creation story (retold from memory in my own words):
In the beginning, when God created the earth, he gave each country something unique, a defining characteristic that was their own special feature to be proud of. Egypt has the Nile, Switzerland has the Alps, etc. Well, at the end of the day, God was just wrapping up when the Bulgarian people spoke up, "Hey! What about us? What do *we* get?" Turns out he'd forgotten about them, but had a great solution. "Tell you what - I'll just take a little bit of the best of all of the other countries and give it to you, and that will be your country." So that's what they got - a great river in the Danube, mountains, in the form of both ranges and solitary specimens, fertile plains, incredibly beautiful landscapes, coast on the Black Sea - some of the best of everything.  It is truly a beautiful country.

And this last time, I heard one about Bulgaria's women, too:
At the beginning of time, God was distributing a few especially beautiful women to each country of the world. Drop a few here, a few there - nobody is left out...except (guess who) - at the end of the day, somebody noticed that they hadn't dropped any women off in Bulgaria. "Why?" they asked him. And the response? "Well, where did you think we're getting them all from??"

I hear stories like this, and feel like it gives me a tiny window into who my oldest daughter is. Unlike Krassimir and Tsvetomira who were marginalized to the extreme - even "marginalized" seems too generous - it suggests that they were still on the "inside" of society, even if pushed to the very edges of it. I can't even give them that; they were impacted by Bulgarian culture, but not a part of it.

Part of my developing mental picture of the people of Bulgaria is that they feel somewhat forgotten (we met a man in September during our layover in Paris who almost proudly shared how when he told people he had met on his trip that he was from Bulgaria they asked him if that was somewhere in South America!) but have a hard-core stubbornness and determination to just hunker down and hold on that is something to be admired. (For those of you who have read for a while, you'll know that we call Krassimir our "Determined Bulgarian" very early on in getting to know him!)

Bogomila, although definitely marginalized because of her disability, is very Bulgarian. She fills her days, much like any teenager, with her music. Dyado (Grandpa) helped her get all of the music she had collected on the iPad during our week in Sofia onto an mp3 player that is always with her. One of her first purchases with the money she brought from Bulgaria was a pair of headphones, though she will also often play her music with the speakers that come with the player. We all know her favorite songs, though in Bulgarian, so we don't have any idea what they mean! 😏

There are a few that she and I listen to almost every night when I am helping her in and out of the bathtub. With some of these she has tried giving me a sense of the translation, and asked me the other night to actually look up the lyrics to get the full song translated. At her request, I am sharing them here.

Avi Benedi, Boge Pazi
 

We have not learned to be better.
Sell ​​their souls for money!
And she-earth groans under our feet.
Can not take away our sins ..
And no one can put an end to it.
And this greedy game continues.
The rich destroys whatever God has given them.
The poor pay under heaps of mud.

God Save! Do not suffer our children, keep!
Unfair to pay with their lives for the mistakes of the greedy.
God Save! Only you, you, you left us.
Give us faith, come back! God Save the children of Bulgaria!
God Save!

He died the hope of an entire nation.
Lost faith in a stream.
And the poor will pay for the mistakes again.
While the guilty have sweet, sweet sleep.
And no one can put an end to it.
And this greedy game continues.
The rich destroys whatever God has given them.
The poor pay under heaps of mud.

God Save! Do not suffer our children, keep!
Unfair to pay it with their lives for the mistakes of the greedy.
God Save! Only you, you, you left us.
Give us faith, come back! God Save the children of Bulgaria!
God save us! Our children God Save!

She has told us that she prefers sad songs. There is a definite hopelessness and despair in this song that I believe resonates with her.

And then there's this one. On many levels (including the woman in the video who is dancing in the snow - see the above creation story! - that doesn't really seem to have any connection to the lyrics), this song captures the intense Bulgarian loyalty that Bogomila holds very tightly.

Fiki, Bulgaria
 

Nobody chooses the country
where to breathe its air first -
someone is born in a poor, another - in rich,
one sails raised and on the road
chasing your life dreams
second home looking elsewhere ...
But my heart chest
second homeland nowhere!

Chorus:
Without choosing it myself right here I was born,
I choose to stay, to stay in Bulgaria!
In good times and bad, to be here for life -
all a million reasons for this are named "Love"

Have another more beautiful
and happier place on earth -
It has no place a favorite,
my blood is not water!

The sentiments in these songs are not lost on us. This oldest daughter of ours is clinging fiercely to her Bulgaria. It is so terrifying to her to let go of her past that it is often hard for her to reach out and embrace her future here. At the same time, as much as we long for her to grab a hold of her life here with both hands and push forward, we recognize that her past is who she is . She needs time here to learn how to blend the two, how to figure out who she is NOW, and that she can do that without turning her back on her past.

But figuring out who you really are is a tough job for any teenager, even when you've grown up your entire life with supportive parents, and don't have to deal with a language barrier, an international move, and a turning upside down of everything you've ever known. Bogomila is having to weather that road without any of those benefits, and she's got a tough road ahead of her. She DOES now have parents who love her very much, but it's going to take more than a few weeks for her to be able to really trust that.

In the meantime, though, I hope you take a read and a listen to these sounds of Bulgaria for the sake of our oldest daughter who requested that I share this music with all of you figuring you've never had the opportunity to listen to the quality of music that is produced in Bulgaria.

***As with most of the longer posts that I may (or may not!) get up in the upcoming weeks, this post has been a good week or two in the writing, and since these two she has shared lyrics to a song or two almost every night, giving me further opportunities to learn a little bit more about her and understand her moods.