B22 Blogstars

What is your name, age?
Roger Schrader. I am 23 years old.

What led you to join the Peace Corps?
It is a long story but I will try to keep it short. During my senior year in university I decided that I wanted to do my Masters in International Affairs/Relations. The schools that I had looked at wanted applicants to have at least 9 months of overseas experience. My university has a program where you can work overseas for a year teaching English. I looked at this and at the Peace Corp. I asked a poli sci professor who I have a good relationship with what she thought and she said “If you join the Peace Corp you can write your ticket to any grad program and any job.” This was a nice ringing endorsement, and, after looking at the Peace Corp a little more closely, it appeared that the Peace Corp would be a good match with my background as well as humanitarian leanings. I applied, got in and now here I am.
Have these desires been met? Do you feel that your Peace Corps experience is fulfilling the reasons you wished to join?
As of now, yes. I am learning a lot and the experience, although tough at times, has been good. I have learned much more about myself, what I can handle for example, than I ever thought I would. I feel I am gaining experiences that I am going to be able to apply to the rest of my life.
What were your initial reactions to hearing you would be going to Bulgaria?
My first reaction was “It is about time they told me where I was going”. This was closely followed by: “Bulgaria. That sounds familiar. Where is it again?”.
Where are you from? How is it different from where you are now?
I am from Owego, in Upstate NY, population, ummm I am not sure. I have been telling people it is about 3000. However, it is really small. Where I am living now has a little different feel than my hometown. For one there are more young people here than my hometown, but like my hometown there are not a lot of people my age around.
This is not the biggest difference. That would be the mountains. Where I live now is at the base of one of the Bulgarian mountain ranges. Upstate New York has hills and nothing close to the mountains that I see every day.
What exactly do you do?/Where do you work?
I work at a small youth NGO. We have a strong focus on exchanges with youth from other parts of the EU and Turkey. In addition, we have done projects covering environmental issues and AIDS/HIV awareness.
Are there any projects you are working on at the moment? Tell us about it.
Currently I am preparing for a youth exchange Turkey, the theme of which is body language and cross-cultural communication. We have two other projects in the works; one addressing violence in the schools and another on traffic safety, as well as another youth exchange in Lativa at the end of this month. On May 10th we are having American Culture Day. Kids from the language school Intellect are doing projects on American culture, some of which will be displayed. There will be a guest from the American Embassy as well as a food display. In the summer, plans are in the works for a youth conference on ATIP in S
What do you eat?
Lots and lots of banitsa. There is this stand in the center that sells if for 0.80st a piece and we are not talking small pieces either. These things are about the size of a slice of pizza and not personal pan pizza either. It is some of the best banitsa I have ever had. Rice is easy to make so I have that a lot a long with mixed veggies or chicken. Fruit is still fairly cheap so I try to get my lazy self to the bazaar regularly enough to have fresh fruit on a regular basis. O, I almost forgot. Princeska sandwiches. These things are heart attacks on a slice of bread but they a very easy to make and lately I have been eating a lot of them.
I cook most of my meals if you want to call them meals. But for lunch I usually get bantisa or a hot dog or go to the Stol. Good food for reasonable prices. I cannot argue with that.
What do you do in your spare time? If you read, what book are you reading now? Would you recommend it?
Are there any hobbies you sought out here that you didn't do in the states?
If these questions had been asked about two months ago, I would have told you it was playing Tomb Raider on my psp. I put that away as it was proving far too addictive and replaced it with reading and watching Stargate (yes, I am that geek). Currently I am rereading James Clavells Asian Saga. I had read the books in high school and I had remembered that they were really good. The Peace Corp library had the one that I was not able to read then so around Christmas time I snatched it up ad read it. Then it was just a matter of reading the rest of them. Right now I am on ‘Gai-Jin’.
It is a great book with good story lines and complex characters. The one thing that really appeals to me about these books is that, like I said, the characters are complex. It is hard to say that there are bad guys and good guys as everyone has their own competing agendas. Something that I have been meaning to do for a long time is to get back into some sort of an exercise program. I eventually was able to track down some guys that go to the gym on a fairly regular basis, so a few times a week, after work I have been going there. I end up being rather sore the next days but it is great times. They are great guys and I it might actually be making me healthy :D