 |
 |
When I first visited Bulgaria, little did I know, that I would be here forever. I must admit that I was very, very naive in that I didn’t understand Bulgaria at all and I never will understand the treatment, that I am getting, from my own government!!! I am on Disability Social Security and had to quit work, at age 53 years old, because of health problems. Now I am 68 years old and have a Bulgarian wife, who is a doctor and we have a child who was born June 21, 1996. Our child name is Sophia (Sasha) Alexandra Maynard, and is one very bright child.
When I first came to Bulgaria, I thought that I was coming just for a visit. Since I can’t work, I thought that I would visit as many different countries as I could, within the confines of the limitations of my physical disabilities. I didn’t know that I would like the Bulgarian people so much and that I would also like the nature of the land in Bulgaria. The nature in Bulgaria is very pretty. There are beautiful mountains all over the place, with lots of trees and rivers. Bulgaria would be the ideal place to live, if it was not for the fact that up till 1989, Bulgaria was under communism for 50 years. So the people have a very different outlook on life. What a American would find intolerable, the Bulgarians find normal!!! The Bulgarians put up with all kinds of hardships that would drive a American nuts.
 |
 |
| A couple of views from inside Vratza. | |
Anyway, I fell head over heels in love with this Bulgarian doctor, who is just a very good person and needs to be, as who could put up with a American, who is use to all the amenities that America has and complains about everything. And the average Bulgarian, has very little for comfort in life.
Let me tell you a few things, that as an American, that you would find hard to believe. First the average wage is $100 dollars a month, this means some people are getting a little more and some people are getting a whole lot less. The doctors are really suffering, in that there is a new Health System and it is not working very well at all. Remember that I said my wife is Bulgarian and a doctor, and so she has three strikes against her right from the start. The biggest strike is that she married a American who is rather poor, in that the only money he has is his pension from Social Security, and that is low. But that’s life. The other two strikes have to do with being a Bulgarian. One is that the language is very, very, very difficult to understand and can’t be used for international business. The other is that the government in Bulgaria is very, very corrupt. Unless the language is reformed, Bulgaria will be forever poor. And the same goes for the government, as the Mafia controls almost everything, including the police. Even you could say that the word police and Mafia, in Bulgaria, are the same word, well almost!!!
My wife, the doctor, does not receive enough money, from her practice, as a doctor, to even pay the bills that she has each and every month. You know, rent, electric, water, telephone, security guard, cleaning lady. Heat in the winter. She must pay a nurse, and don’t forget taxes. All of this is to be paid out of the money she receives, which is about $275 dollars a month. Can’t be done. So I must help her out, as the law in Bulgaria says she can’t quit, (Except under certain conditions.) and even then she must try to buy a EKG machine and surgical instruments or pay a big fine. A cheap EKG machine is a little over $1000 dollars and the Surgical instruments are about $500 dollars. So it is easy to see the impossibility of this, so called Health System, here in Bulgaria.
When Bulgaria was under communism, the Health System was so bad that if you didn’t live in a city, you didn’t get any emergency health care, at all. There was just not enough money to have any emergency service in the villages and you must know that 30% of the people of Bulgaria still live on the land, even in the year 2001. Also most of the people who live in the cities, have a little (Almost.) house and a small, small piece of land in a village. The roads to these areas are so bad, they are little more then, ruts in the fields. This policy of no emergency service, carries over in the government, even today. I personality know of one case, where a older husband and wife were out in their village and the husband had had a stroke. Because the wife doesn’t drive and they don’t have a car, there was no way to get the man to a hospital. This could only happen under a former communism country. As everyone knows, communism is a failed policy in any country that was stupid enough to be under this type of political system!!! I know some countries didn’t have much choice of the type of government that they got, coming out of the second World War. This was the case for Bulgaria!!!
This new health system is only one year old and may change a lot in the next few years. Before the government of Bulgaria paid the doctors, but the government is right out of money and left the doctors hanging out on the line all by themselves. The doctors formed group associations of three-four doctors that work together, or the system would of collapsed completely by now. I don’t have enough money to continue helping my wife with her business bills, as a doctor. My wife could quit work, but then she would have to pay a $1000 fine and that is a lot of money for us. But, my wife takes her job as a doctor serious and the patients like her.
The Bulgarian government then made so many new regulations, that the doctors can’t get all the paperwork done, even working several times a month, all night long. This affects the health of the doctors, and in turn the health of the patients. The government doesn’t care as the only thing that they think about is getting reelected. If the Health System fails, the communist will more then likely win reelection, in the next election. And then Bulgaria will really be in trouble. The last time the communist were in power in 1996-97, they mismanaged the government so bad that at one time the inflation rose 100% in one day. The people of Bulgaria began to riot and in Sofia they broke into Parliament and the communist gave up power at that time. The country was very, very close to anarchy and the government would of collapsed, completely in a few days time.
The doctors pay was worth about $5-10 dollars for the month at that time and I recall that I had to take a plastic bag to change my American money and being a little bit afraid, as I was the only American in Vratza and everyone knew who, Gene was. My money was o.k., as its value rose with the inflation and was not effected. In a few days after the communist gave up power, things went back to normal and things have been stable, not good, not bad, just normal for Bulgaria, that is!!
It would not be so bad, living in Bulgaria, if we would of not had a child in 1996, but we are so glad for Sasha, it is hard to think of life without her. We never thought that we would have a child, as my wife, who’s name is Yura, had never been married before, and so we were not thinking of having children. But see what God had in store for us!!! Yura was 40 years old and I was 61 years old when we married on September 10, 1994. So Sasha was quite a surprise, too say the lease!!!
Let me tell you a few things that drive me crazy, here in Bulgaria. The food stores are as small, as a one car garage and that is a very small car in this case, as most Bulgarian don’t even have cars, and then if they do they are in the most cases, small. So here we have all these garages that would go too waste, except the Bulgarians are not dumb and they use the unused garages as food stores. I can’t stand up straight in these little, little stores, as the ceilings are so low. Also how many different things, can a person get into one of these little stores, to sell. If there are three people inside the store, the rest of the people must stand outside to wait their turn to buy something. Which more then likely they will be out of when it becomes a persons turn to buy whatever it is that you want to buy. There is one decent store in Vratza and even that one is fifty times as small as the average food store in America!!! They are also out of things, that the people need to live. A person can’t buy peanut butter in Bulgaria!!! Now how can a person raise children, without peanut butter and jam, I ask you??? Even you can buy peanut butter in Outer Mongolia, and there are many, many other things that can’t be bought in Bulgaria!!! Like pumpkin, in the can. If a person wants some pumpkin to make a typical Bulgarian desert, he must take a whole pumpkin and cut it into small pieces and then peel the pieces and then grate the pieces on a hand grater. This takes about three hours, depending on the size of the pumpkin. In America you just buy the canned pumpkin when you are at the food store, as you know. Why doesn’t Bulgaria have canned pumpkin, no one knows???
Also since the Bulgarians don’t have much money, so a lot of them can’t afford to heat their apartments, in the winter time, except maybe one room. I as an American, can afford to heat the whole apartment, but that does not make me feel very good about the situation, for my Bulgarian friends. The Bulgarian people in most cases are very nice people and as I have said, put up with a lot from their government. So I feel very bad for them. My Bulgarian friends here, don’t seem to be resentful that I am a American, and so I try to help them when I can. Bulgaria has lost one million people in the last 10 years, to immigration. And I don’t blame them for immigrating, when they can!!! I help out with advice, when they ask, just what it is like to live in America and other general questions that they have.
About 95% of the Bulgarians own their own apartments, because they inherited them from their parents. The average Bulgarian apartment building looks very sad on the outside, but not so bad on the inside. They are not up to American standards for building codes and are rather small, but sure better then nothing.
 |
 |
As can be seen from the two pictures above, (Looks like Kosovo) the average apartment building doesn’t look so good on the outside. The picture on the far right is of a new building, but you must remember that this is Bulgaria. This apartment building is right next door to where I live and they have been building these apartments for over 10 years now and you can see that the building is still not done. The way things work here, in Bulgaria is that the building contractor builds the outside walls, the inside walls, roof and nothing else. Now the person who wants to buy a apartment in this building is only buying the walls and must finish all of the inside as and when they have money, which is a long, long time. Even sometimes never!!! Some of the apartments don’t get finished for 10-20 years. In the mean time they look terrible and even when finished on the outside, still look bad in most cases.
There is a big problem in some cities in Bulgaria with the water supply, which includes Vratza. The communist used real cheap water pipes and they are all the time breaking and so the water must be shut off, so they can repair them. Also because the pipes are so bad, over half of the water that is sent to the customers never arrives. So twice a day, every day the water is shut off from eleven-twelve noon to 6 P.M. and again from about ten-eleven at night until 6 A.M. in the morning. Makes for a difficult time, as a person must be home to do all the normal water things, at the time that the water is here. And this shutting off and on is not always at the same time. And don’t forget that the average person must be at their work, if they are lucky enough to have a job, and then the work doesn’t pay much, anyway!!
Many Bulgarians, even with double university degrees are without work. Could only happen in a former communist country!!! There is not any real opportunity here in Bulgaria and will not be for 20-30 years and this is what I am getting at, for all the info that I have given to you, so far. A high percentage of the young men are committing Suicide, as they know there is no hope and if they don’t want to spend the rest of their lives selling newspapers or don’t even have enough money to buy a bus ticket out of the country, they feel there is no choice except suicide. Even when a Bulgarian does retire and starts to collect their pension, the money is almost worthless, as they receive about $35-40 dollars a month, and even some people, much less. . Don’t spend it all in one place, kind of thing. The government can’t help a person, as there is not very much welfare type of programs, from the government. The government, again, is out of money, and so everyone suffers.
My wife and I have this 5 year old child and as I say very bright, and what will she do in 13-15 years??? My family is stuck in Bulgaria as the U.S. Consulate says that we must have a sponsor and a job waiting in America for my wife. Sasha and I are both U.S. citizens, but my wife is still Bulgarian, and so must follow the rules. It seems so hard on us, in that the U.S. Government makes so many exceptions for so many other people, yet here we are, as a family, two-thirds American and if I was to take Sasha to America, I would have to leave my wife here in Bulgaria. But who says that life, is fair!!
I really would like to take my family to America, but I am unwilling to separate as a family. It would be very hard on Sasha, if we were to do this. I can’t ask my brothers and sisters to sponsor my wife, as they are all retired and don’t have that much money, themselves.
Yura, my wife can’t be a doctor in America, unless she was to go back to school for three years and not work for that time. I just don’t have enough pension, to have what the U.S. government requires us to have to live on, before the government would let us immigrate. And yet many, many people from Bosnia, Kosovo and other places, go to America. These people have no money, yet we can’t get permission to go to America!!! So Yura would have to work and if she did that, it would mean, never getting to be a doctor in America. Yes we can stay in Bulgaria forever, but that means taking a chance with Sasha’s future. These are hard choices, wouldn’t you say??? Another thing that stops us, is the fact that Yura is now 47 years old, and must make the right choice or she will not have time to try, try again.
So I am stuck between a very large rock and a very hard place. By the time Sasha is old enough to go to university, I will be 81-83 years old and there is no guarantee that I will still be alive. Sasha will always have the right to go to America, as I said, she is a American citizen and can walk into America, kind of thing, when she wants too. But by then all my brothers and sisters will also be very old and so there is no one to help her with all the problems that, will go along with starting university. I don’t have any answers and if you do, you can e-mail me at [email protected], please only sent serious answers, as this is a serious problem!!! Thank you.