Sylvia Dimova-Alharthy and Teodora Dimitrova-Torres
Teachers, Cape Cod Branch
Snejana Iovtcheva,
Program Coordinator, Boston Branch
The Saturday School in Cape Cod celebrated the Bulgarian holidays in the month of March with a wonderful spring concert that brought together and excited young and old. The long-awaited concert took place on March 30th at the West Barnstable Community Center in Cape Cod.
The celebration began with the performance of the national anthem of Bulgaria by the students with teacher Teodora Torres. Everyone rose to their feet, and the music and the lyrics made their hearts flutter - there were even moist eyes among our guests. "One mother told me that she hadn't heard the Bulgarian national anthem for years and was very moved!” shared Sylvia Alharthy, teacher of the youngest students in the children's group. "The anthem of Bulgaria, performed by the students, not only motivated them from the very beginning to learn it extremely quickly, but also somewhat to my surprise, proved to us how seriously the students can take a project that somehow intuitively caught their attention with its significance. The children showed interest from the first auditions in class and their performance showed the respect they put into presenting it to the audience. We can only congratulate them!” added the students' teacher, Mrs. Teodora Torres.
After the national anthem, the group of the 5-year-olds performed on stage poems about Baba Marta, March 3rd and March 8th. The wonderful performance of the song "Mama" by Angel Bashev, especially touched the mothers in the audience.
Based on the picture tale "Under the Mushroom" by Vladimir Suteev, Silvia Alharthy created a play for the youngest students. With the help of the assistants Adam Alharthy, Yana Kichukova, Gabriela Torres, Joana Dokleva and Martin L'Heureux, The youngest students recreated the plot of the play with great artistry, colorful sets and fabulous costumes. This was the first play in Bulgarian for these young children in front of a large audience. Their performance showed a great desire and motivation to perform flawlessly and their results made them really happy.
After the forest story, the class of the older students performed the poem "Mimeto" by Asen Bosev. A cheerful and original story about a spoiled girl called Mimi, who manages to subjugate all members of her family with her whims. The humorous side of the story managed to grab the audience as well. All of the children knew their text perfectly and presented the comedy professionally.
Another March holiday that was presented at the concert was Sirni Zagovezni (The Great Lent). The grandmother of one of our students, grandmother Maria, told the students and the audience about the traditions in the different parts of Bulgaria, related to Sirni Zagovezni, the meaning of forgiveness and the tradition of the kukeri. She also gave a demonstration of the "hamkane" custom by tying a boiled egg on a red thread and told the students how people in Bulgaria jump over fire for cleansing and health.
To make it cheerful and fun, each child got to jump over an improvised fire and received a small Bulgarian flag as a token. At the end, everyone sang the song "Our flag is tricolor".
"The mood of all the children, parents and guests was extremely festive and cheerful. Some parents have told me personally that they are really impressed with how hard we, the teachers, work and how we put into learning all this with the children, despite the limited three hours we have on Saturdays!” shares Mrs. Alharthy. We also thank the administrators from our central branch in Boston, who have sent us t-shirts for all our students with the name of our common school. This way everyone felt like part of one big family.