Sunday June 14
We are having such a great time at Rose Valley camp! I am really getting into tambura class and Bitov ensemble, and I love dancing and singing classes in the morning too. The first two days we had a fun dance teacher called Mitko he taught us Irino Irinke, Itmar, Selsko Shopsko, and Sandanska Ruchenitsa. The Selkso Shopsko he taught had a fun shouting call that says “Der se zhemo Shopte gazi!” which means “watch out ground, the Shopes are gonna stomp on you!” Saturday and today we had Petur Iliev who I love! He is so fun and such great energy to start the day with. He taught learned Mashko Shirto, Kukuneshko, Sborenka, and Liasa and they were all super fun and energetic. I have great memories of his Bulgarian dance class at Balkan Camp too, when taught me Petrunino and Eleno Mome which are still two of my favorite Bulgarian dances!
Today we woke up early to take a walk with some of the other campers and it was really nice. We got to see storks and their little babies in the nest at the top of a a power line pole and they are so beautiful! I also did a little interview with really cool woman Yana who is doing research on Bulgaria’s transition from communism to democracy and how music and dancing creates community, and it was really great to talk with her about my experience growing up in the folk dancing community and how important it is to my identity and my life, especially in times or isolation like during the pandemic. We also talked about the interweaving of feelings of happiness and joy with pain and sorrow in folk music and dancing! Yana also has a little girl who is really bonding with Sophie which is so nice because Sophie actually gets up in the morning! 🙂
Monday June 15
Today we had dance classes with Velizar Vasilev who is a very beautiful dancer and so strong and manly but beautiful and graceful at the same time. He did a great warmup at the beginning of class which I really appreciated because we are all getting tired and sore! He taught very nice dances, Polovin Ruka and Nazlun Tudorke/Nazlunkino. In tambura class we learned 2 new parts of the kjustendilksa ruchenitsa tune and reviewed the pirin melody. Then me and Caleb took a very very very long nap and slept all the way through Bitov ensemble! I also finished my drawing and thank you card for Lily, Donka’s sister who is cooking all the delicious food and making so many accomodations for all of our different dietary restrictions. At the evening party, we enjoyed an outstanding performance by amazing high schoolers from Shiroka Luka National Folk School, which is where Donka and Nikolai went to school and met and fell in love! They even sang some of the songs that Donka recorded on the National Radio, and she joined them and sang a verse of a song. Also Nikolai said the gadulka player’s great grandfather gave Nikolai his first gadulka!
Wednesday June 17
Yesterday we had our last full day of class. We learned two new dances from Velizar, Dobruzhansko Pravo and Ruka from Kalipetrovo. He told us that he is working on his doctorate and these dances are part of his research and dissertation! We also learned two more songs in Donka’s singing class, Jabulchitsa v Gradinchitsa, a happy song about girls picking apples from a heavy leaning tree, and Ah Zapas, a kind of funny and a little bit lamenting song from the perspective of army reserve ex-soldiers getting called back into draft and kvetching about the poor conditions and hard work and saying “oh man, how did you find me in my house!” We had our last tambura class and reviewed the Kjustendilksa ruchenitsa, and in our last Bitov ensemble class and reviewed Medenik ruchenitsa and Megdana something, and threw in Makamliisko for fun. We did a little student concert at the dance party after an amazing performance from the Karavelovo Youth Singing Group. Caleb and I played a medley Kjustendilksa ruchenitsa and Pirin melody with tambura Nikolai. Then for Bitov ensemble, Caleb played tapan, and I played tambura for Makamliisko and played and sang on Trugnala Rumiana/Tsufnalo Tsvete Shareno. It was fun and we had a great time learning all this new material, and we will keep practicing it and learning more! After the dance party we hung out in the dance hall and outside looking at stars and finding constellations. One of the village guys was hanging out with his friends and playing accordion, and I joined in and sang a song and it was cool!
This morning we got up at 7 and packed up our bags and had breakfast at 7:30, and I gave my special card to Lily and she was so happy and she was showing everyone! yay 🙂 We had such an amazing time at Rose Valley camp and we learned so much. We learned lots of amazing new dances and songs and I learned my first two melodies on tambura! I met cool new people and made friends with this girl from the village Plamena even though she doesn’t speak English and I don’t speak Bulgarian, we were just dancing together every night and having so much fun. We drove together with Nikolai back to Sofia airport and he told us a lot of stories and explained a lot of stuff about Bulgaria and Macedonia relationships which was really valuable to learn from. We made a pitstop at a gas station and I got some sour gummy worms and a dark chocolate kinder bueno bar which was super yummy. We said goodbye to everyone at the airport in Sofia and went our separate ways. We got the subway back to our “Heart of Sofia” apartment and settled in, and then Caleb and me and mom walked to the women’s market looking for a nice traditional Bulgarian folk embroidery shirt for Caleb and we found it! The shopkeeper Elizabeth was so nice and excited that we love Bulgarian folk music, and she showed videos of her son who is a gadulka player! Then she brought us across the street to another shop and her husband Georgi and Caleb got a nice embroidered cloth for muting his tupan, and Georgi insisted that I choose a small ceramic bowl as a gift! We went back to the apartment and I took a nap and Caleb went out to get a Bulgarian sports jersey. Then we all went to nice Bulgarian dinner at Manastirka Magernitsa. We got a Grandma’s appetizer plate with roasted eggplant, roasted peppers, feta cheese, yummy dips, and Caleb and Aba ate the sausage. We ate it with the pitka fluffy bread with chubritsa and it was very good. I got a veal with mushrooms, Caleb got red deer, Aba got wild boar casserole, Mom got lentils, and Sophie got fried chicken bites. Caleb and I went inside the restaraunt to look around and they had all this cool Bulgarian stuff like costumes and books, and barbies in Bulgarian costumes. They were playing Bulgarian music and we did a little dance and one of the waiter guys was suprised at us dancing and said “I did not expect to see this!” Everything was great and it was a nice traditional Bulgarian restaraunt experience for our last night in Bulgaria!