I've seen a lot of commentary recently about the tragedy in Bulgaria.
(CNN Story)
Please remember, Bulgaria is a safe country. Iranian terrorists attacked innocent Israelis in Bulgaria because they knew they were more likely to be successful. Israeli defenses are strong, and although attacks do occur in Israel, they need to be more sophisticated. You might remember in the 1990s, Osama Bin Laden was behind numerous attacks against American embassies in Africa. Washington Post- Bin Laden
I saw recently, a blogger reported hearing gunshots while in Sofia. This is very unlikely, it was probably fireworks. Bulgarians do not own guns at the same rate as Americans. In fact, few countries have the gun ownership per capita and ease of obtaining guns legally as Americans do.
As with any other country, there are outlier Bulgarians who are hateful or insane, but Bulgaria is an overwhelmingly peaceful country.
Most Americans are not aware that many Bulgarians stood up for Jews during World War II. The Orthodox Church leaders and many politicians spoke out against the deportation of Bulgaria's Jews to concentration camps. As a result, the Jewish population of Bulgaria remained constant through 1945, though more than half of Jewish Bulgarians choose to emigrate to Israel by 1948. Fate of Bulgarian Jews. They were successful in protecting Jewish Bulgarian citizens, but antisemitism was prevalent in the country and the national leadership was joined with Hitler in the Axis of Evil. Jews in then Bulgarian regions of Thrace and Macedonia were not saved.
The international community- EU, USA and Israel have all stepped in to help Bulgaria make sure the people responsible for this terrible act are brought to justice. My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families.
Monday, July 23, 2012
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Working for the weekend
One of the biggest perk of working for a school district is the summers off- and all holidays, basically you have the same schedule as your kids. This summer I am taking a vacation from vacations. I have picked up a few jobs to add to our adoption fund.
I have to part time gigs with my school district. I am working summer school for special needs kids. This position is an easy one; I am doing my regular school year stuff and I am in an air conditioned space (it was 105 outside today). This job is only 3 hours a day, once a week. I also picked up a curriculum position with my district. This one is a pretty sweet position. I am working with a team of teachers, librarians and technology specialist on a project for the 5th grade curriculum. Only 2 weeks long, air conditioned again and a good team of people.
I also found a babysitting job through SitterCity.com. This is a great way to find a babysitter and free to military families. Anyone can join, but non military families pay a fee, the sitters can join for free. Sitters create profiles, their educational background, work experience, availability, etc. Parents post jobs and sitters can apply to them. Parents have the peace of mind because they can have sitters background checked. And this is a much safer options for sitters than posting on Craigslist or something like that. A few days of week in July, I am picking a little girl up from camp and bringing her back to her home.
I am also babysitting my Bulgarian neighbor's daughter. This is completely coincidental, but worked out well for me. The grandma was watching the child, but got sick and can't anymore. The parents applied for a daycare placement, but are on a waiting list. This has worked out great for me, and the family because they have only been speaking to her in Bulgarian. She's 13 months and we've requested a child under 3 put preferably around 18 months. With the institutional delay our child will have, she's right at the level our little one will be at when he comes home. Since babysitting her, I've realized there are a lot of Bulgarian words I don't know.
Here's a bit of what I learned:
kolichka- stroller (literally just cart)
beberon- pacifier/ dummy/ binky (they don't use these in the orphanage)
morskovo zvezda- starfish (why is this important? She's got a little starfish toy)
I've also learned the animal sounds- remember pigs don't really say "oink" and every language has a different way of expressing these.
So if my posts are infrequent this summer, remember: I've had a long day and its really, really hot here! :-)
I have to part time gigs with my school district. I am working summer school for special needs kids. This position is an easy one; I am doing my regular school year stuff and I am in an air conditioned space (it was 105 outside today). This job is only 3 hours a day, once a week. I also picked up a curriculum position with my district. This one is a pretty sweet position. I am working with a team of teachers, librarians and technology specialist on a project for the 5th grade curriculum. Only 2 weeks long, air conditioned again and a good team of people.
I also found a babysitting job through SitterCity.com. This is a great way to find a babysitter and free to military families. Anyone can join, but non military families pay a fee, the sitters can join for free. Sitters create profiles, their educational background, work experience, availability, etc. Parents post jobs and sitters can apply to them. Parents have the peace of mind because they can have sitters background checked. And this is a much safer options for sitters than posting on Craigslist or something like that. A few days of week in July, I am picking a little girl up from camp and bringing her back to her home.
I am also babysitting my Bulgarian neighbor's daughter. This is completely coincidental, but worked out well for me. The grandma was watching the child, but got sick and can't anymore. The parents applied for a daycare placement, but are on a waiting list. This has worked out great for me, and the family because they have only been speaking to her in Bulgarian. She's 13 months and we've requested a child under 3 put preferably around 18 months. With the institutional delay our child will have, she's right at the level our little one will be at when he comes home. Since babysitting her, I've realized there are a lot of Bulgarian words I don't know.
Here's a bit of what I learned:
kolichka- stroller (literally just cart)
beberon- pacifier/ dummy/ binky (they don't use these in the orphanage)
morskovo zvezda- starfish (why is this important? She's got a little starfish toy)
I've also learned the animal sounds- remember pigs don't really say "oink" and every language has a different way of expressing these.
So if my posts are infrequent this summer, remember: I've had a long day and its really, really hot here! :-)
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
"Some Days We Don't Let the Line Move...
...we call those weekdays" Selma (or Patty) Bouvier.
Wow, did you think a place on earth existed where the employees were even more disgruntled/ inept than the DMV? I have news for you: there is! It's called the New York Department of State and you can find it on Christopher Street in NYC. Now that I've said it, I'm sure it will be a top attraction in the Big Apple.
"Worse than the DMV, couldn't be" so you say, go ahead, entrance is free!
After waiting many weeks for my birth certificate to arrive, I headed up to New York for the apostille. I should clarify, this is not my regular birth certificate- not the one my parents got when I was born, I have that and its easier to get. In New York, they call it the "long form," this is what you need apostilled for your dossier. I wasn't born in NYC, so I though I could have my birth certificate apostilled at my county clerk's. The county clerk was the courthouse, so after going through several sets of the most sensitive metal detectors on earth (seriously my wedding band set them off) I found the clerk's office. They were very understanding, but no, this was a state form and had to be done in NYC or Albany. They even gave me directions to both locations (really? we were only about 35 minutes from NYC and 4 hours from Albany) and how to get the apostille.
I left the clerk's office and hopped on a train to NYC, thankful that my phone has a GPS and a data plan. It's been a while since I've spent time in New York and I always get lost in Lower Manhattan where the streets aren't a grid.
I found the building and walked in, as I approached the elevators a man started screaming at me "where are you going." You know how Walmart has greeters? Well this man's job is to set the tone for the building. And he excels at his job. "I'm here for an apostille. I've got these directions (thank you county clerk) and I'm heading to the 19th floor." Well to put it politely, he loudly informed me that in fact the office had changed to the second floor.
You might be asking yourself, who is at the NY Dept of State and what are they there for? A lot of people are foreign and trying to get apostilles on the American marriage licenses or the child's American birth certificate so they can get the documents sent back home. So a lot of non-native English speakers. Do you know what is universally understood? No, not the international "I'm chocking" gesture. Loud, angry English. Yup, everyone understands that.
Just a few short hours and $10 later I had my apostille.
On the flip side, I did find that Canal Street has the most efficient (notice I did not say polite) Post Office in the United States. And off our documents went to Washington State.
Wow, did you think a place on earth existed where the employees were even more disgruntled/ inept than the DMV? I have news for you: there is! It's called the New York Department of State and you can find it on Christopher Street in NYC. Now that I've said it, I'm sure it will be a top attraction in the Big Apple.
"Worse than the DMV, couldn't be" so you say, go ahead, entrance is free!
After waiting many weeks for my birth certificate to arrive, I headed up to New York for the apostille. I should clarify, this is not my regular birth certificate- not the one my parents got when I was born, I have that and its easier to get. In New York, they call it the "long form," this is what you need apostilled for your dossier. I wasn't born in NYC, so I though I could have my birth certificate apostilled at my county clerk's. The county clerk was the courthouse, so after going through several sets of the most sensitive metal detectors on earth (seriously my wedding band set them off) I found the clerk's office. They were very understanding, but no, this was a state form and had to be done in NYC or Albany. They even gave me directions to both locations (really? we were only about 35 minutes from NYC and 4 hours from Albany) and how to get the apostille.
I left the clerk's office and hopped on a train to NYC, thankful that my phone has a GPS and a data plan. It's been a while since I've spent time in New York and I always get lost in Lower Manhattan where the streets aren't a grid.
I found the building and walked in, as I approached the elevators a man started screaming at me "where are you going." You know how Walmart has greeters? Well this man's job is to set the tone for the building. And he excels at his job. "I'm here for an apostille. I've got these directions (thank you county clerk) and I'm heading to the 19th floor." Well to put it politely, he loudly informed me that in fact the office had changed to the second floor.
You might be asking yourself, who is at the NY Dept of State and what are they there for? A lot of people are foreign and trying to get apostilles on the American marriage licenses or the child's American birth certificate so they can get the documents sent back home. So a lot of non-native English speakers. Do you know what is universally understood? No, not the international "I'm chocking" gesture. Loud, angry English. Yup, everyone understands that.
Just a few short hours and $10 later I had my apostille.
On the flip side, I did find that Canal Street has the most efficient (notice I did not say polite) Post Office in the United States. And off our documents went to Washington State.
Monday, July 16, 2012
Its been 1 year
It has been 1 year and 8 days since this:
Its been quite a year, but we look better than we did 1 year and 9 days ago!
The first picture is the same room, the baby-to-be's room. Nice to have a ceiling/roof again! We were back in the house 4 months after the fire, a lot of progress has been made since then.
There's no place like home...there's no place like home.
There's no place like home...there's no place like home.
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