New arrivals in Bulgaria have inevitable problems negotiating bewildering bureaucracy and the Cyrillic alphabet. What are all these "pectopahts" everywhere?

While employment offers instant camaraderie and help avoiding pitfalls, non-working wives may find the going tougher. They can feel disconnected if they choose to stay home alone with only women in supermarkets, with whom they share no common language, for company.  

The IWC, formed 20 years ago as an organisation for women in Bulgaria whose husbands work, provides support for its members. The IWC offers everything from language classes to baby groups for mothers with young children.   

Although it has Bulgarian members, most of the IWC’s 230 to 250 members are from overseas - representatives from 45 countries in fact - a veritable melting pot. They could be wives of bankers, diplomats or officialdom posted on secondment, or simply those who choose to make Bulgaria their new home.

IWC member Debbie Crittenden has been in Bulgaria for four years. "The IWC has greatly enhanced the pleasure of my time in Bulgaria," she tells me. Marie Halbherr, a French member of the IWC who has been here for seven years, found the language assistance in particular to be invaluable.

The IWC, with its monthly meetings on the first Tuesday of every month, helps women integrate into Bulgarian life and fend off initial disorientation.  

Food, glorious food
Perhaps the highlight of the IWC’s calendar is its festive season charity bazaar, held this year on December 6*. Any event boasting 8000 visitors in one day must be special. Milling through the crowds last year, salivating over the likes of mince pies, scones, gingerbread, Christmas pudding and lemon curd jam at the British stall, I suddenly felt a surge of patriotism rushing through my veins.

Never had I felt so good about being British! All my cumulative deprivations - alleviated only occasionally with token offerings of pickle and bona fide McVities digestives from visitors - were suddenly catered to. It was like locking the late Jeffrey Bernard in a pub overnight.

And lest the event triggers guilt among those gorging on the delicacies on offer, rest assured that all proceeds go to charity. Last year’s bazaar had 47 country stalls among a total of 60 stalls, raising a staggering 370 000 leva for good causes.

"The bazaar is an immense collective effort, the product of much behind the scenes work. There’s great spirit among all those involved," Crittenden says. The business community also gets involved.

"The country stalls solicit the generosity of their country’s respective business firms based in Bulgaria, and even outside of Bulgaria, for financial donations or donations in kind," Halbherr says.

Contributors are asked to bring typical foodstuffs from their own countries. The result is a kind of United Nations gastronomic festival. It’s not just food, though. Last year I returned home armed with an impressive array of children’s books and enough miniature hotel toiletries to keep the entire family smelling sweet throughout the winter - and all at rock bottom prices. Secondhand clothes, handicraft items, bric-a-brac and children’s toys as well as some more eccentric items, such as clothes brought in by bTV presenters, are also available.

In spite of the economic crisis, Crittenden says that last year’s takings were the IWC’s best ever. And omens for this year are also positive. "We have 69 stalls registered so far and 50 of those are country stalls. This is nine new stalls in total, including seven new ‘country’ stalls," she says.  

This year, however, some countries have chosen to amalgamate. There will be a Nordic and Baltic countries stall, for example, featuring Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Iceland and Lithuania. Likewise, there’s a Latin-American stall, featuring Argentina, Chile, Columbia, Cuba and the Dominican Republic.

Good causes
The IWC was able to support 20 different charity projects last year, including the orphanage at Petrova, the ongoing work of the Cedar Foundation and the Karin Dom Institute in Varna.

In the light of bad publicity about state-run care in Bulgaria, the IWC, like other organisations, is focused on de-institutionalising care and replacing it with private provision. Hiring babas (grandmothers) to help look after some of the children - a scheme at Karin Dom and other places - has proven successful and the IWC has contributed to this.

Debbie says that the emphasis of charity work is no longer on one-off donations but, rather, imparting life skills to recipients and continued after-care. "We want to move away from short-term support to long-term projects," she tells me. The current economic crisis does pose a threat. "We are worried about budgetary cuts, that some directors of orphanages are having to buy food on credit for the children," she says.  

Another notable IWC-supported project is a scholarship Programme that awards stipends to 110 bright but socially disadvantaged children, including some from children’s institutions. This year’s scholarships will be presented on November 5 at Sofia University.

*The 2009 IWC Christmas bazaar will be opened by the Speaker of Parliament, Tsetska Tsacheva, at 11am on Sunday December 6 at the Inter Expo & Congress Centre on Tsarigradsko Chausse. Volunteers are needed on the day as well as on the Saturday before the event to help set up stalls. Please contact Debbie Crittenden for more information about contributing to the event. Her email address is decrittenden@hotmail.com