I arrived back in Canada on the 15th of September.
It is interesting to see the switch when you immerse yourself in a culture. How your consciousness changes depending on your surrounding. How from almost entirely non smoking environment you get used to entirely smoking environment. How from worrying about garbage and religiously recycling, reducing and reusing you stop even flinching at the fact that nothing is recycled. You let go of the concept of a reusable to go cup (Mind you I do live within the more progressive circles in Canada).
In Bulgaria brand new flashy recycling bins beautify the streets, while nobody recycles because they believe (and as far as I can tell are right) that the country doesn’t actually have facilities for recycling. According to my friends the bins are there just to create habits. When people believe the material in them ends at the garbage dump they don’t bother to separate and put anything in the bins. It is a bit like the chicken and egg dilemma. I have to admit, after the first few times I asked why don’t they recycle I just let that one go. It is not that people here don’t care. It is just that there are lots of other things higher on their list and somehow those everyday details of environmental protection are far beyond the importance of the other priorities. It is easy to criticize from the outside, so I choose not too.
In Bulgaria people are more concerned with the fast pace of building. Everyone I know complains about it and dislikes it. In the Bulgarian edition of National Geographic an article about the fast growing capital Sofia reads ‘It grows but it doesn’t get greener’. In some cases the growth is accompanied with loose laws, lack of infrastructure to support it, badly planned decisions, little respect for the environment, corruption and the complete decline to what was once one of the most prominent agricultural counties in Europe.
As agriculture declines construction is becoming Bulgaria’s biggest economic force. The country is importing food that was typically Bulgaria’s pride to grow. I love our tomatoes, they were what made me the tomato addict I am. Now at the farmer’s market you mainly see tomatoes from Greece and Turkey.
Little resort villages, which had kept their charm for decades are now getting developed at a fast rate. But unlike Canada density here is very high. High density here is creating the opposite problem. Apartment buildings often spur up in the little available space between other apartment buildings. When we were filming this playground, for example, concerned neighbors asked if we are doing it for some kind of construction interest and were worried if an apartment building will replace the playground.
But it might seem I have a negatively attitude towards my home country. No, I love it in an interesting way. I am internally less upset about its state then I get about things in Canada. Maybe I don’t try and change it as much as I want to change things in Canada. I somehow accept the chaos and the craziness, and even find it charming sometimes. I will leave you with the story of when I got into a bus for an 8 hr trip from the Black Sea to Sofia. I had the first seat right behind the two drivers (for a long trip like this they have two drivers on the bus instead of switching). The signs clearly read that smoking in the bus was forbidden. So the passengers of course didn’t smoke. But the two drivers did. It made me laugh inside. It had that endearing Bulgarian flavour.