Tampons and toilet paper

Here’s more about my time in Bulgaria in 1990. If you’ve been following the journey so far, a dozen of us spent three months travelling through Eastern Europe as part of a YWAM Christian missionary program. We entered Bulgaria on 11 July and spent eight days in Varna, on the Black Sea coast, before heading south to the provincial port city of Burgas.

This city of more than 200,000 sits on the edge of Burgas Bay, the westernmost point of the Black Sea. According to Wikipedia, Burgas is the centre of the Bulgarian fishing and fish processing industry. Our group spent five days here, hosted by a fractious local church. The congregation was deeply divided between two camps. Our group spent much of its time promoting unity in an attempt to reconcile the warring factions.

I don’t recall the cause of the schism. However, it wasn’t all that unexpected. Protestant denominations were subjected to relentless persecution in Bulgaria during the Communist era. For example, when the Communists came to power in 1946, a law curbing foreign currency transactions was introduced. At the time, many Protestant churches were funded by international donations, and many of their ministers had been trained in the West. As a result, these foreign ties were treated with suspicion, often fostering deep divisions within many congregations.

On 24 July, we headed inland to the city of Plovdiv. In many respects, we’d saved the best for last. The church that hosted us proved to be one of the strongest contacts we made throughout Eastern Europe, second only perhaps to the church we met in Debrecen, Hungary. Much like Debrecen, the church in Plovdiv boasted an active and energetic youth group that quickly took us under its wing.

For six days, we delivered daily open-air performances of our dialogue-free street drama to large and engaging crowds. The church also took on a day trip to a nearby village to share the gospel with a fledgling congregation it was sponsoring. Above you can see Dean Keiller and me with Jimmy, a member of our host church. Jimmy was simply enamoured by our group and its activities. He followed us everywhere, and we welcomed him with open arms for dinner and a laugh at our campsite more than once. That’s our campsite in the image that opens this post.

Plovdiv is Bulgaria’s second-largest city. Its greater metropolitan area is home to more than half a million people. It’s also one of its oldest cities. There is evidence of habitation in the area dating back to approximately 6000 BC. In the millennia since, it has been conquered and ruled by the Greeks, the Persians, the Celts, the Romans and the Ottoman Turks.

As a result, Plovdiv is rich in fascinating history. One afternoon, our hosts took us to visit the city’s beautifully restored Roman amphitheatre. The Roman theatre of Philippopolis (Plovdivski antichen teatar) is one of the world's best-preserved ancient theatres, and one of Bulgaria’s most famous monuments. It sits within a natural saddle between two of the city’s historic Three Hills. It is divided into two parts, each with 14 rows, separated by a horizontal aisle, and could accommodate up to 7,000 people. The first image above is mine, while the second was pulled from the web.

One final anecdote from our time in Bulgaria. Shortages of basic goods were a common occurrence wherever we travelled in Eastern Europe. However, each country had its own peculiar supply challenge. For example, in Romania, toilet paper was scarce, while in Bulgaria, women’s sanitary items were hard to come by. As we travelled through Bulgaria, the women in our group were constantly approached by locals asking for a spare tampon or sanitary pad.

During our final days in Bulgaria, the women in our group donated their surplus sanitary supplies to several grateful women. Although, if I recall correctly, in Sofia, the nation’s capital, one particularly well-heeled woman cornered a group member in a toilet. She offered a hefty sum of banknotes for a handful of tampons. We later joked that had we been better prepared, we could’ve funded our trip through Eastern Europe by simply stocking up on toilet paper and tampons.

On 30 July, we packed up our outreach camp for the last time and made our way to Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. Here, our group split, with half of us returning to Switzerland, while the rest of us headed for Greece. You can learn more about our time in Greece here.