In the far northwestern part of Bulgaria is a city called Vidin. It lies on the southern bank of the Danube River. Very close to the heart of the city, an eleven-year-old girl named Venka lives in an apartment with her mother, grandmother, father, and two cats. Because the apartment faces the north and is on the fifth floor, Venka can see the river as well as the land beyond the river. The country across the river is Romania.
Sometimes Venka’s grandmother told her stories about the people living in Romania. That gave Venka a special love for the country and she often dreamed up little stories about it. She’d never been there because when her family had any free time they went to visit relatives and none of them lived in Romania.
Venka always wished she had a sister or brother. She didn’t know why her parents never had any more children but when Venka was seven, she created a story about a little sister her parents took to Romania to live. She named her pretend little sister Rosa and dreamed up an aunt to take care of Rosa. Each evening before she fell asleep, Venka would imagine her made-up aunt reading stories to Rosa and tucking her into bed.
Sometimes she dreamed about her father driving Venka and her mother over the wide River Danube (as they called it in Vidin) and going to visit her imaginary aunt and little sister. Her mother would bring some banitsa, a phyllo dough meal that was filled with pumpkin, cinnamon and walnuts. On these made-up trips her mother would also prepare roast chicken and rice mixed with walnuts, mushrooms and onions. Her grandmother would also make some clothes for Rosa’s doll, just like she once made for Venka’s doll when she was little.
Each night Venka would look out her bedroom window toward Romania and say “Good night Rosita. Sleep well little sister!” Sometimes she would bring the family’s cats into her room and tell them about her pretend little sister. “You cats are so lucky, you are sisters and you get to live together all the time. I wish I lived with my sister. She is so sweet and I want to play dolls with her every day after school and read her stories every night.”
During the summer, Venka liked to walk down to a park along the River Danube. There was a path along the river with signs that describing different aspects of the history of the area. There were restaurants by the river and a few that were on big barges. On special occasions Venka’s parents would take her and her grandmother out to one of those restaurants.
“I would like to swim across the Danube someday,” she once told her family as they were eating on the porch of a restaurant that was next to the river.
“What would you do if you got there?” her father asked.
“I would walk up and down the streets and look at the stores and homes to see how the people live over there.” Venka didn’t tell them about her made-up sister or pretend aunt. But if she swam to Romania, she would find the apartment building where she imagined they lived. She also thought she’d find a tall building where she would climb the stairs and look out a window at her family’s apartment from the Romania side of the river. She continued to think about what life was like across the river when her mother asked her a question.
“How would manage in Romania if you can’t speak Romanian?”
“Oh, I hadn’t thought about that. But couldn’t we go there some time and just look around?”
“There are enough places to see in Bulgaria and we understand Bulgarian. Why go somewhere that another language is spoken? Besides, Bulgaria is a beautiful country. I don’t want to travel to any other country. Why don’t we plan a trip to Sofia?” Venka’s father asked.
“I’ll stay with the cats,” Venka’s grandmother said.
A few weeks later they went to Sofia. They walked in the park in the downtown area and went to the folk museum to see how people lived one hundred years earlier. Venka was surprised how girls her age lived, doing housework and helping with the harvest. They also had to learn to embroider and make the towels, handkerchiefs, and tablecloths for the family she would someday have. When she got home from their trip she’d ask her grandmother about those things. Venka started dreaming about living one hundred years earlier.
For days afterward Venka was thinking about her family living in Vidin one hundred years earlier. In those make-believe stories she had a lot of sisters and brothers including Rosa but in those stories she didn’t live in Romania with the pretend aunt. In her stories, her siblings did a lot of work and she got to boss them around. She felt a little guilty about it and changed them to teaching her sister how to embroider pretty flowers on tablecloths and making stew for the family for supper after a long day harvesting their crops.
Venka’s stories changed when the family went on a trip to the southern part of Bulgaria. They spent a lot of time in the countryside and had a picnic by the River Sturma.
There were many flowers in the area and a few storks as well. After they finished eating her father started talking about his life when he was a boy. His parents lived in a rural area and he often went fishing in a river near their home. He told Venka about all the games he played with his brother and his friends. When he described some of the things he pretended to be and do, Rumyana smiled because she realized where he got her imagination from! It also made her feel better about making up stories. Like her father, she realized it was fun and entertaining. One day, perhaps, a dream just might become a reality!
Activities
A Puzzle about Rivers and about Venka’s story:
Fill in the blanks for each description and then write the word the letters in the boxes form when you read them in the vertical column they form.
This is the river the Israelites crossed
when first entering the Promised land
(answer can be found in Joshua chapter _____ ______ ___x___ ________ ______ ______
3). It is also the river where Jesus was
baptized (Matthew 3:13).
River where Moses’ mother put him after
she placed him in a basket (Exodus 2:3). _____ __x____ ______ ______
The name of the city where Venka
lives with her parents. ___x___ ______ ______ ______ _____
The river near the apartment building
where Venka lives with her parents.
It lies between northern
Bulgaria and southern
Romania. ______ _____ _______ ______ _______ _____x___
This river is in southern Bulgaria where
Venka and her family went on a
vacation ______ _______ _______ __x_______ ________ __________
What word is formed by the column of boxed letters? ____________________