Our family has lived in Bulgaria legally since 1995. Naturally, our 15-year-old daughter has gone to Bulgarian schools and has many Bulgarian friends.

She attended a local Bulgaria school up to fourth grade, was in a Bulgarian national dance group for five years and currently plays basketball with a local girls basketball team.

Yes, she enjoyed Bulgarian school as well as travelling and performing with Sinchets, the dance team. Of course, she loves playing basketball for her team.

However, now we find her unwelcome to play with the team she has been a part of for the past six years.

Why?

There is no problem with the coach or her team mates. They are happy to have our daughter on their team. However, another city's team recently lost a close game with her team. The coach noticed that she was a foreigner, and complained to the league officials in Sofia.

These officials called up her basketball coach and told her that because she was a foreign citizen, she was no longer allowed to play on the team. Both the coach and our daughter were very upset.

The league officials have known from the beginning that she was an American citizen. Each year we have to give the coach her passport, of which she faxes a copy to Sofia.
For the past six years, there has been no problem. That was until they beat their rival team to qualify for zone competition next week in Sliven.

Thankfully, our daughter's coach pleaded her case and the league officials said that they would allow her to stay on the team until the regular season is over. However, IF she wants to continue to play with her team, and probably the zone competition, we must pay 1000 leva to the league officials in Sofia!

We were outraged. And our daughter was heartbroken.

For four years I was a high school basketball coach in California. We had a Mexican national on our team. So what? Another team in the league had a Cambodian citizen. Big deal! Yet, another team had a Filipino kid on their team. The league and the coaches could not have cared less.

So, why does Bulgaria have to discriminate against our daughter? First, it is the fact that the opposing coach's team lost the game. Yes, a classic case of sour grapes. "If I can't beat them, then I will hurt them," he thinks. And it certainly is not because our daughter is a star player. She is just average.

Secondly, and more obviously, it is greed. Virtually everyone wants money from foreigners here. Being a legal resident of Bulgaria with foreign citizenship makes us a cash cow to be milked dry.

When I was a high school student in the early 1970s, the star swimmer on our swim team was an exchange student from Italy. He won several medals in swim meets and he was not punished for being an Italian citizen. Again, the swim league could not have cared less even if he was a citizen of Mars.

It is high time for Bulgaria to stop treating foreign residents like dirt. I know for a fact that no American would treat a Bulgarian expat living in America so poorly. Especially a child. But Bulgaria? Well, the answer is obvious.

Four years ago, our son was enrolled in a public school here in Stara Zagora. We loved the school and teacher, helped the school with everything from taking free class photos and providing transportation to actually preparing lunch for poor students whose parents could not afford to buy lunch for their children. Our family paid for poor students who did not have money to go on field trips with the class. We even donated a computer to the school.

Just before the start of first grade, the principal called my wife in to a meeting. This director very harshly told her that we would have to pay 850 leva a year, or our son would not be able to attend school anymore. We immediately withdrew him from the school and put him in a private school on the principle of the matter.

That was the thanks we received.

Yes, no good deed goes unpunished here in Bulgarian.

Sometimes, the Bulgarian Government and various bureaucracies should stop and think before they bite the hand that feeds it. The American and many EU governments have given millions and millions of dollars and euro to help build Bulgaria. And what thanks do they get for their generosity?

Nothing.

That is, except to have their children kicked off of sports teams and kicked out of school because of greed.

Regardless of what the league officials decide regarding our formerly basketball playing daughter, we will never pay the 1000 leva. But we will remember this.

And the next time we hear of America or the EU wanting to give money to Bulgaria for anything, we will write a letter objecting to it. When a Bulgarian sports team tours the US, we will write letters to their hosts objecting to their presence there. And, when a Bulgarian choir is to sing in the States, we will ask their sponsors to not let them sing. After all, they are not American citizens now, are they?

What is good for the goose is good for the gander.

We are tired of having our hands bitten.
 
Cordially,
Keith W Brown
Marguerite C Brown