The Grants' Bulgaria Blog.

I can’t believe it’s been 3 months already! Of course, we sometimes think I can’t believe it’s only been 3 months! but I think the former is my usual feeling. I’ve reached the stage where certain memories of home give me a rush of Oh, yeah! We used to do that! On the flipside, some of the things which seemed really weird to us when we first experienced life in Bulgaria seem completely normal now… Still haven’t eaten шкембе (tripe) though.

Homesickness: I definitely experienced this differently to Elly. I never had any sudden realisation that we were ‘stuck somewhere uncomfortable for 12 months!’ – for me it’s been more of a gradual piling up of things that I appreciated at home. The fact that the pile is growing probably means that I’m missing home more now that at any other point of out trip, but really, I’m not yearning to get back. For the most part, I’m finding our lives here quite enjoyable – and in the times that I’m not, I’m at least enjoying the challenge of it. Don’t get me wrong; no one enjoys being out of their comfort zone, but I suppose I have the knowledge that God put us in this crazy situation, and he’s in the habit of putting those who follow him into circumstances where they can be challenged and grow.

Language: it was fantastic to start actual Turkish lessons two weeks ago with a lovely Millet believer named Mirem. I was initially dreading the amount of time Dave suggested as a minimum for language learning: 15-20 hours a week’ – and less and we wouldn’t make much progress. I really couldn’t see where we’d find the time and energy but we’ve managed so far. I think the reason for that is that learning something you can use and benefit from straight away (eg. by communicating with our teacher who has almost zero English!) is very rewarding. Chances are that our spoken Turkish will remain fairly limited (ie. slow and stilted) by the end of our time here, but already we’re enjoying the novelty of being able to follow Dave and Kathryn’s ‘secret’ conversations. Mwah ha ha!

Teaching: this had been going quite well. I think in the last month or so we’ve been getting a bit frustrated with the material – or at least its suitability for Aydin, who requires lots of repetition. Catering it to him is hard work, but we’re getting better at it. I think we’re doing a good job – and so do Aydin’s parents! The student himself… generally enjoys school, but certainly isn’t afraid to tell us if and why we’re boring him!

Free time: at first we spent hours on the laptop corresponding with home, fine-tuning the blog, keeping up with websites we frequented at home… This was a natural reaction to the initial culture shock, but it began to feel a bit shallow and we started to feel bad for not getting more involved with our lives here.

So we threw ourselves into some of the things Dave and Kathryn were doing – various forms of visiting people and/or walking through the mahalle. This was all 100% Turkish language stuff usually on very hot days. And it exhausted me immensely! I suppose on reflection that I’m the kind of introvert who get tired out by social interactions even in my own language and culture, and some of the extended times we spent with people – completely voluntarily, I should point out! – left me tired out and headachey for several days. Sounds wimpy, I know, but give it a go and you’ll know what I mean! We had a good chat with D+K one Sunday arvo and I decided to be more realistic with the amount of intense cross-cultural stuff I volunteered for.

Elly and I both started writing bits and pieces of fiction. This was something I had resolved before we left to get into the habit of doing while in BG and I’m very pleased that I’ve managed to. I’ll tentatively consider putting something on the blog for your perusal at some stage in the future (was that non-committal enough?).

We’ve also spent a lot of time listening to music. One of Elly’s birthday purchases was a nice set of speakers. It’s incredible how good music can sound out of real speakers when all you’ve had for 3 months is laptop in-builts!

The future: we’re looking forward to October when Humf comes to visit us. The plan was to jump in a Lada and drive around BG as well as Turkey, but since Elly and I witnessed a nasty car accident last month we’ve been less keen to drive ourselves (buses are good, here). However we travel, it’ll be awesome! The long, mountainous train journey to Bansko (ski resort) is on the menu – for the scenery rather than the skiing. Lots of planning to do!

Aydin and Kathryn will be visiting Australia in that time to visit lots of specialists and generally to gauge Aydin’s progress. There’s the possibility that D+K will need to move back to Australia for Aydin’s sake. That would be a huge decision – they’ve been here for 12 years.

Elly and I are here to help D+K but also to work out for ourselves what we want to do next. At this stage we’re not feeling drawn to long-term mission – which was one possibility for our future – but we remain open to it. We really admire Dave and Kathryn as well as all the other families we’ve met who are doing amazing work here. We are sure that God is using this time to grow us and that we’ll be more able to engage with whatever he has planned for us when we get back. That’s in May next year, by the way.

Signing off (and handing over to Elly),

Cheers,

Stu.

Tags: culture shock, holidays, language - Turkish, music, prayer points, School

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