Growing up in the Mountains
A question I am frequently asked is: “Why Bulgaria?” and there is a section dedicated to this question within the main pages of the site. However, I thought it worth providing my personal perspective on this, which is a little more than just the attraction of the country and its culture.
This is the first post in a series that I will add to the blog pages progressively, because there is so much to share on this subject.
So there are a number of reasons ‘Why Bulgaria’ some more significant than others and some that have proved quite a challenge, while others have already offered huge rewards. It is now a little over 4 years since we moved to the small mountain village of Leskovdol and if you were to ask me for the one thing that validates that choice I would have no doubt in saying it has been watching my two boys grow up there.
Although I would not argue that the education system in the UK is one of the best in the world, according to ‘modern’ standards, I would disagree that the pressure put on children with tests and assessments is productive or justified. So for me the fact that the Bulgarian education system starts at age 7 was a big deal.
Growing up in Bulgaria has meant my boys have spent most of their time playing outside, where they have the freedom to run around the mountain meadows, almost unrestricted. This has been the source of great pleasure to me as I have watched them playing in the woods, climbing trees, jumping in puddles, building dens, turning what ever they find into something to play with.
Laykan my oldest is the artistic one and I am sure will one day be a sculptor, because he collects all sorts of things and organizes them into shapes and structures. His imagination takes him places that only he can see and he brings back his inspirations that given life to his drawings and sculptural arrangements.
Sam is a little over a year younger than Laykan, but you would not know it, because he has court him up in size and they could easily be mistaken for twins, although they are very different in form and character. Sam is the practical one and has always been so. He has been playing with my tools since before he could walk, having started with my hammer, at 6 he is now very handy with most of my power tools.
As a parent it is often a challenge stepping back and watching as your children explore the world for themselves. The feeling of responsibility is huge, it is so easy to project parental fears and anxieties onto our children that only serve to limit their expansion as they interact with the world around them. Taking risks is an essential part of this and many of those risks will test the capacity of their parents more than the child themselves and believe me the boys have tested me to the limit on numerous occasions.
The first 6-7 years of our lives are incredibly influential, because our learning skills are on hyper-drive as we literally download information from the world around us. Our relationships and interactions during this time are the foundation for the rest of our lives. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to share this with my boys, because I chose not to be the work away dad and to create a life were I worked on and in the family home, where my boys grew up seeing me every day.
This has been a priceless experience for me and this is only a brief introduction to a subject I will cover again and again in future blogs, because it is a topic that is very close to my heart and has been without doubt, and continues to be, my greatest reward from the decision to move to Bulgaria.
The post Growing up in the Mountains appeared first on Harmonic Alchemy.