Tuesday 1st October 2019

Meet the neighbours.

I've been staying up at my new place for over a month now, and, being in a prime location right opposite where the bread man parks his van three times a week, have had a great opportunity to see the locals up close and personal. The encounters began literally the day after I got the keys to the place, when I went up by myself for the first time to have a proper look around and to start the long process of clearing out the rooms.

I was just walking across to the house from my car when I noticed an old guy approaching. Hello, I called, in my best cheery Bulgarian. This elicited zero response from the man who just carried on marching steadily in my direction without even a hint of acknowledgement. Hmm, maybe he's hard of hearing, or blind, or... I scuttled indoors and quietly locked the gate.

Not long after I heard voices from outside. It seemed that at least two people were sitting on the wall outside my gate having a chat. Maybe they're here for an unsubtle nosy at who had bought the place, I thought, and promptly unlocked the gate to greet them.

Hello, I called... nothing. Undeterred I continued. I'm the new owner of this place... one guy briefly glanced up but that was all, they just continued their conversation and ignored me. Time to retreat back indoors feeling very puzzled. Why were they sitting outside my place, and why wouldn't they speak to me? Even in Gostilitsa total strangers would at least smile and say hello. Could it be that I'd chosen to move to a village populated by raging xenophobes? More minutes passed and then I heard yet more voices from outside, this time female. Biting the bullet I once more headed out armed with smiles and hellos.

Success! This time one of the women actually made eye contact and said hello back. I introduced myself and she told me her name was Baba Bona and that she lived in a house in the square just up the street and that about 36 people live in the village. The other three were at least looking as if they were listening and so I asked of they wanted to come in for a coffee. They chuckled and politely declined, leaving me still feeling confused as to why they'd all chosen to congregate outside my place. Moments later the mystery was solved as the bread man arrived. They'd merely chosen my wall as a convenient sitting spot so as not to miss him.

Baba Bona told me that the bread man comes three times a week, and carries other things apart from bread, and will even take orders if there's something particular you want. That'll come in very handy if ever I can't get into Gabrovo for shopping. This initial encounter turned out to be the hardest as all the other people have been much smilier and have often knocked at the door to introduce themselves and to find out about me. Phew, I'm not going to be the village outcast after all! Here's a little run down of some of the others I've met:

Eftim is a mechanic who lives a few houses up from me. He's lived in 5 countries apart from Bulgaria and was married to a Russian for 30 years. He has a son who speaks English apparently though I've yet to meet him. Eftim kindly pointed out that I was parked dangerously close to a bend, and then later that my car was now parked where it might get smashed by falling plochi slabs from the gate roof. I've yet to admit that I was once a driving instructor.

Next door to Eftim is the house owned by Asen, Tsvete and their daughter Alexandra who has just started in the 9th class. They actually live in Sofia but are here all summer and for holidays such as Christmas and New Year. I'm not sure but I think they might be teachers. When they went off to the coast for a week they gave me a bunch of fresh veggies to use up, along with a slab of very nice cheese which is made by the guys at the dairy about a mile away in Velkovtsi. You can't buy it directly from the dairy but they told me the shop in Lesicharka sells it.

Dyado Gencho collared me in the street one evening and spent a good hour running through every detail on how to successfully obtain workmen for doing my roof. Use the old maistors, he said, get lots of quotes, question them on everything, make sure they study the walls to see what they're made of, contact the mayor in the next village to order the construction materials direct from the forestry people, make sure the workers put a 'belt' round the house before they remove the old roof to stop the walls collapsing... The advice went on and on as the sun began to set. I didn't have the heart to tell him I'd already booked the work to be done, and planned to hide indoors during construction if I saw Gencho outside seeing all his good advice being ignored.

Plamen briefly said hello as he was passing in his car. His is the fourth house up on the right, the one with the satellite dish apparently.

Pisho has been around several times asking for work. He says he lives further up the street, but I mostly see him walking between Mezhdene and Velkovtsi, or occasionally sitting in the bus shelter randomly shouting things when he's had one too many. Once the official work is done for this year, then I will get Pisho to do some general tidying up such as stacking the old beams from the roof, as long as he turns up sober and doesn't expect silly money.

Simeon (Moni) lives in the house pretty much opposite mine, and his son is Venko who plays cricket for the Gabrovo team. I remember him from when we played a visiting team from Sofia a couple of years ago. Venko lives in Gabrovo with his wife and two young children, but visits his dad each weekend, especially now I guess as he unfortunately lost his mum 6 months ago. When I saw them they were harvesting the grapes for wine and rakia. I only want my grapes for eating, and there are dozens of bunches, so I told Venko his dad would be welcome to them if they wanted any extra. Simeon seemed a little gruff so any conversation mostly happened via Venko, but I was pleased the other day when Simeon ventured over to my place by himself, even if it was to ask what I was doing with the heap of rocks outside my house as Venko was after some for a wall he was doing.

Pencho is a jolly guy who lives here all the time. He retired 5 months ago and has a son who works in Gabrovo and the daughter-in-law works at the hotel at Etara. Pencho and family are off on a bus holiday to Turkey soon, I think down to Kusadasi on the coast, and he was pretty excited about it. Whilst he was there I asked him about the owners of another house very close by, as I'd yet to see any signs of life. Did they only come for holidays? Oh no, he said, there's a woman of about 70 who lives there all the time, but she pretty much only uses the downstairs part. Her children unfortunately live and work in Cyprus and Greece/Italy, though I did catch a glimpse of a young guy with a car visiting there the other weekend, maybe a grandson who still lives over here.

And that's about it so far, apart from a few other faces I see when Ivan the bread man comes, including the woman who steadfastly reminds me of my manners by replying 'zdraveyte' to my far too casual 'zdravey'.