Is it a party??? No...it's first day at school!!!

This morning mom wore her nice new jacket, put make up on (yes, indeed!) and headed to school for her first day.

The first surprise was that people were holding flowers. An odd number, of course, since in Bulgaria an even number of flowers is appropriate only for funerals.

As it turns out, all the flowers were for school purposes. There's a lot of flower giving on the first day of school. Students give flowers to teachers, students to students, teachers to teachers (but no teachers to students).

The second surprise was the atmosphere at school. Flowers aside, there were two giant speakers on the building entrance, which transmitted a mix of Bulgarian and Anglo-American pop music.

Mom thought she came to the wrong place at first, but soon she was informed that "this is the way it's done here". Waiting for the ceremony to start, she watched the school yard from the vice-principal's window:



Next surprise was the abundance of vegetables on the ground, mostly carrots and peppers. A teacher explained that the vegetables are for the freshmen. Huh? Well: in Bulgaria, freshmen are called 'rabbits' (I guess like 'fish' in the U.S. and Greece?). So, on the first day of school, older students bring food for the rabbits. Makes perfect sense, no? The fun starts when the 'feeding' turns into a carrot war, at which point you have to be ready to duck unless you want to end up with a carrot in mouth (or eye). The custom is so well-established, that a freshman representative officially accepts food for his class during the ceremony.

After some student performances, songs and recitals, it was time for the students to enter school. Not a simple affair, as it turns out. The senior classes meet the freshmen classes in the middle of the yard, give them a present (can be a flower, a welcome balloon, or rabbit food). They each tear a piece of bread held by specially selected students, dip it in a ground thyme mix and eat it. Apparently, bread-eating is a typical welcome/good beginning custom. Then, each senior takes one freshman by the hand, and they enter school in pairs. After the senior and freshman classes have entered, it's free for all.



Last, but not least, some dancing!


Needless to say, mom came home dumbfounded. She never imagined that a first day of school could be so much fun. In Greece it was always about registering, finding a good place to sit in class, and suffering through boring speeches. In the U.S., from what she heard from friends who teach, it's like admission to prison. Metal detectors, sitting charts, and other fun stuff. Here there are flowers, bread, dancing! Not to mention all the former students who graduated but came to the opening ceremony nevertheless because they missed the school! How cool is that????

This is not to say that school in Bulgaria is just about partying. One can say that the purpose of the first day of school is to welcome but also encourage students for what's about to come. Mom is not sure whether this is the case in all Bulgarian schools, but in this particular one, there are standard entrance exams. Not for freshmen only, but for everybody. So the next couple of weeks are going to be rough. Good thing a great time was had by all!