Where Am I Going?

My son phones me from school.  He has left his swim stuff at home and can I bring it to him. I am a stay-at-home mom, so I can't really say I'm busy. But I'd rather not have to take a taxi all the way out to the school.  Jon suggests I take the metro and walk.  "It will be a nice walk through the woods!"  He has done it, but it isn't my sort of thing.
Twenty years ago I found myself walking to my teaching job at AAS each day because Jon went by car to his job at the American College. The route took me down a back road through the woods, across  a field and through some village houses. I was also pregnant with my first child.

I could have dealt with the distance, the smells and the icy path in winter, but what got me were the dogs!  Sometimes I met a pack of them crossing the field.  Others were 'guard dogs' that came out of houses, barking and nipping at my ankles. I couldn't avoid them and tried walking with a big stick to beat them off. Jon bought me a can of pepper spray.  The Bulgarians told me to carry rocks in my pocket.  It made more sense to throw rocks at them before them got close enough to bite. Kicking out at them was probably the worst idea.
I put up with this harassment for over a year, before I finally asked for help. The school arranged for me to be picked up by one of the drivers.

This time, the location of the school has changed, the area is more built up, but I have heard there are still the same dogs.  I took the metro to the last stop, got my bearings, and headed towards the mountain.  "Where am I going?" I asked Jon on the phone.  He directed me onto a path across the field, and sure enough, there was a dog coming along. Fortunately, I didn't have to resort to stone throwing, the dog left me alone.

The "walk through the woods" turned out to be very similar to my walk to school 20 years ago.  The only person I met was a man and his horse clearing the path. I suspect he was illegally helping himself to wood, so I didn't interfere.  I recognized the "Bell Park" with the bell tower, so I knew I was close. A stream had to be crossed, and then I was in a housing complex. The guard dogs were contained behind high walls and I only heard their barking.
Some things in Sofia have changed greatly in 20 years, but others remain the same. It is still full of new experiences.

I laugh when people ask me for directions along the way. I barely know where I am going myself!  You would think that by this point in my life I would be more settled, but I find myself still on the move, and not knowing where I will end up. It does make looking back on the past interesting. And my favorite part is reconnecting with people who shared those experiences with me over the last 50 years!

Here is a shout out to all those wonderful people Jon and I taught with in Sofia 20 years ago, and I am still in contact with today. Many of them are still overseas and still on the move!  Just today I made contact with a past director of AAS who was responsible for building the campus in Knyazhevo all those years ago... but that is a subject for another blog.