Introduction

There's a side of me that very few see
What do people know about me?
I am a mystery.
No one understands me-really.
Because I'm different
My life seems normal
To the people in the community
I have a husband, kids,
Work and grocery shop, weekly.
Little do they know I'm an alien
From the Planet Bulgaria
And that I dance rachenitsa
On Friday nights.

copyright K.D. Brown March 2009

Alien means different, foreign and sometimes strange.  I am a reincarnated Bulgarian peasant, born in New York City and raised in a Puerto Rican family.  My upbringing was bilingual and bicultural, and I have been to Puerto Rico. Although my genetic roots are there, and I like their music (especially reggaeton), I never had a burning desire to go back. I always felt out of step (pardon the pun) with most of my relatives and have had the urge to travel since I was young. 

When I was young we didn't have the Internet, although I owned a shortwave radio, and listened to the foreign language broadcasts on it.  Everyone thought I was weird.  There was something I was searching for on that shortwave radio, but I didn't know what it was.  What I was looking for took many years to find.

I always knew I was different, and found myself when I took up Balkan dance in the 1980's.  The purpose of this blog (a.k.a. mission statement) is to entertain and inform about Balkan, and especially Bulgarian folklore, for which I have a deep admiration.

Although I've traveled extensively in Europe and the United States, I've never been to Bulgaria.  I lived in Germany four years back in the 1970's, and my husband was in the military, and the line of work he was in would have made it extremely difficult to travel to an Eastern bloc country.

Bulgaria is alien to most Americans and it's a place they know little about.  One day I will go and find out the mystery of this country for myself.

In the meantime there's always the Internet.