Week 19: Cookery & Kukeri

Because my time in Bulgaria just couldn't get any more interesting, I had the pleasure of attending Surva, an international masquerade festival in Pernik, which featured 'Kukeri', an assortment of costumed individuals carrying large bells around their waist. The idea is that the Kukeri come together in their masks, and costumes to scare off the evil spirits! To much dismay, they couldn't scare me away (ha ha ha ;))

Anyways, the tradition is particular to the Balkans, but there were teams participating from all around the world. During the festival, groups would come forth and perform for a short time, and circle back around in a continuous parade. Watching the performers going around nonstop was exhausting in its own right! Some of the first Kukeri included dancers surrounding chained spirits (portrayed above right as monsters or animals which were often led by an old woman) and, as in many ceremonies in Bulgaria, there was a priest blessing the passerbyers. The event was quite a spectacle and being surrounded by 20 other ETAs just made it better! Of course, we can't forget about 'Horo', the traditional Bulgarian group dance which Anna Kate, Hannah, and I killed as pictured in minute 1:19 of Balkan Insight's delightful coverage below. Thanks to everyone for an awesome weekend :D

The link for the Balkan Insight's video is here! You need to log into Facebook unfortunately to access it. I'll see if I can find it sans FB. My own video will have to do in the meantime!

Balkan insights also took way better pics than I here which can also be found here: Pictures!

In other news, the semester will end/ended (depending on when you're reading this) February 2nd, and I spent the last week COOKING up something real SAUCY in the classroom. Based off the 'Marshmallow Challenge', I decided to demonstrate the concepts of superlatives and comparatives in an unusual fashion. Using 10 pieces of spaghetti, 5 pieces of paper, 4 paper clips, and 1 sticky note, I had students--in groups of 4--build the tallest tower imaginable which could hold 1 Lev: the equivalent of a US quarter. They had 15 minutes, and the results were incredible. Here are some pics!

Overall, I was super proud! Students were enthralled and the towers were impressive. If you're a fellow educator, I highly encourage you to try something like this. Engineering might not seem compatible with English, but the skills--critical thinking, teamwork, and creativity--are born from these projects! Great work PGEE and Hristo Botev students!

This site FulbrightBlogaria.blogspot.com is not an official Fulbright Program site. The views expressed on this site are entirely those of Keegan Scott and do not represent the views of the Fulbright Program, the U.S. Department of State or any of its partner organizations.