St. George's Day

In the fall, the American and Canadian teachers of ACS throw a Thanksgiving party for the Bulgarian teachers of ACS.

In the spring, the Bulgarian teachers of ACS throw the St. George's party for the American and Canadian teachers of ACS.

For those of you who don't know, St. George is the Bulgarian patron saint of victory. According to legend, there was once a small mountain village terrorized by a dragon. The people could not fight off this dragon, so they were forced to sacrifice one child per day to him, leaving the child alone and afraid by the lake. One day, as a beautiful young maiden sat awaiting her doom, a handsome young man rode in on a white horse. It was St. George! He slew the dragon and rescued the maiden, and became the patron saint of victory. So goes the legend, which was vividly and hilariously acted out for us at the party.

We celebrated with homemade bread and roasted vegetables, wine, grilled meats, and cherry-chocolate ice cream. Every table had a traditional Bulgarian plant in the middle - the name, roughly translated, is "health", and every Bulgarian house outside the city has it planted in the garden. Our assistant head of school - Maria - told me her mother folded some of the plant into her Bulgarian-English dictionary when she first visited The United States, and she didn't find it until twenty years later!

After dinner, the entertainment committee organized funny games for the international faculty - telephone (with Bulgarian phrases), a floral wreath-making race, a milk-the-sheep race, and more. Everyone won prizes, and every contest seemed to be declared a tie.

You can see pictures of the festivities by clicking the link below. These are my friend John Stephens' pictures, and they heavily feature his young boys. I tried to just pull a few of the photos to post, but for some reason it is impossible. The boys are really adorable though, so oh well.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/isogloss/sets/72157619294653168/show/