Rabid Dogs

Next week I will finish training and move to Bratsigovo, my permanent site (Oct. 24th). I can't wait to start my assignment and be on my own. I was able to visit my apartment in Bratsigovo last weekend. It has a great view of the city and mountians. I really like it. It's the first place of my own. I also had the chance to play soccer with kids from an orphanage and do some hiking. I really lucked out on my placement. It's a great little town and my apartment is really nice. Many of the other Peace Corps Trainees (PCT's) are jelous of me. And when I hear about their apartments and the cities they have been placed in, I can't blame them. LOL.

The weekend before last I went on a trip to the Pirin mountains with about 25 (Peace Corps Trainees)PCT's.

( High up in the Pirin Mountains of Bulgaria)

The bus ride up was scary. The bus driver, like a lot of other drivers in Bulgaria, drove crazy. They say it's best to go to sleep on the buses but I can't bring my self to do it. I keep picturing the bus rolling down the side of the hill.

At one point we pulled over at a rest stop and as we were about to leave we saw a huge black stray dog grip its jaws around the neck of a small white dog tied to a bench. The owner of the small white dog came over screaming and tried to pull the big dog off. We all sat there dumbfounded unsure of what to do. We didn't want the big dog to turn on us if we intervened. Finally a big Bulgarian guy came up and ripped a big board off of the bench the little white dog was tied to and slammed it down on the big dog three times, really hard, breaking the big dogs back. The owner grabbed her little white dog and left. I am sorry to say I don't think either dog survived. It was a very odd and morose scene. One of the PCT's went back to being a vegetarian again. The rest of us joked that now we knew why all the wooden boards were missing from the benches in Bulgaria.

We slept in a nice little chalet that night and drank all the beer they had. Sunday morning we woke up early and went on a very intense 5 hour hike. The mountain was very steep at points and the trails were not marked very well. Some of the volunteers who took harder paths higher up the mountain encountered snow and parts so steep they had to slide down on their butt.

Today I finished a community project for the city of Peshtera. We made an informational brochure for the local caverns. You can see some pictures of me and the Caverns if you click here ---> http://brettnet.net/other.asp Thats the site of another PCT. He updates it pretty regularly and adds new photos. He's also has some pictures posted of Churches in Sofia. He took some pictures inside the churches too, which you are not allowed to do.

http://www.moriahabroad.com/ <----- Thats another good site

-Nasdrave