Today, when the healthcare reform and the adaptation to it are among the main problems of the people, you have done a lot for the improvement of the psycho-climate, especially among women through your meetings with them. You opened the eyes of many people how to live healthy, how to look after themselves. You have played a great role in the popularization of the breast cancer awareness campaign and of the health screening in general. What do you think we have to do in the future?
Our eyes are open and we all know what living healthy is. Everyone knows the health foods and we know what health screening means. A woman knows what she should do to preserve her health and the health of her family. What she doesn’t have is a pathway to access that healthcare and it’s very difficult economically to transport say a woman form the Rhodopes to Smolyan and then from Smolyan to Sofia when they have a critical health problem. We talked about screening programs and yet these programs are not set up properly. There is some resistance, I think, to setting that up. We need cooperation with institutions to set up these screening programs. We need the cooperation of everybody.

What advice would you give to the women of Bulgaria?
The information is there for women – even in the villages. We visited so many villages and we left information. The Peace Corps, the Bulgarian Red Cross and the Bulgarian Family Planning have the information. Women need to be advocate for themselves, be pushy and active. Advocate with your politicians, with your ministers – of health and social policy, all those ministries that have something to do with the quality of your life and your heath. Women need to ask and write letters and gently say – don’t forget us out here. Women need to make noise. We cannot sit back anymore and just trust the luck that we are going to stay healthy and that our families are going to stay healthy.

What will happen with the Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign in the future?
We should invite people from every aspect of women’s lives – clothing, beauty shops, any place a woman goes to join us in this campaign so that we are more visible. We should encompass other health concerns that are connected with breast cancer, osteoporosis, diabetes, that are practically epidemic here in Bulgaria and you have to address them. The Health Fair at the Embassy was a real success. Many women employed at the embassy brought their mothers, they brought their daughters. So you see how the circle grows and before you know it people are being screened and people are more aware.

Healthcare was not the only sphere you have been quite active in. Tell us about the effect of another initiative – art in the embassies?
The idea of mixing arts and antiquities from Bulgaria and America, has become a good idea even in other building sites here in Sofia. We wanted to mix Bulgarian and American art since we know many Bulgarian artists and we count them as our good friends and I think it turned out beautifully.

We are taking home some nice pieces, representative pieces of Bulgarian sculpture.

What is your favorite piece?
I guess we always get back to the horse. Emil Popov does beautiful horses. He is doing one now for our son who got married last year. We have never given them a wedding gift because we didn’t know what to buy. So after a while they said they would like to have a piece of Emil’s so maybe for their first anniversary we will finally give them a wedding gift. But there are just so many authors! We had sculpture exhibits in the house and it was such a joy! Where else would I be able to do this? This has just been such an unusual treat for both of us and for our friends from the US who visited us. They said that they enjoyed visiting Bulgaria but the sculpture exhibit in the house and meeting all the artists was the crowning touch of the trip. I was writing an e-mail to a friend who was here for the poetry reading a couple of years ago and I was answering some questions about Gueni and how much we all miss her. And I have been going through books and rereading Gueni’s poems and Blaga Dimitrova – I like her poems. It’s hard to part with books. There are some books that I read every year – “To Kill a Mocking Bird”. I am not reading the whole book sometimes when I am packing – I am reading bits and pieces before I put them in the box. And, of course, when you are reading Gueni the wound is still open in your heart so when I’m reading her I am also crying. Art is not just music or poetry or literature – it’s just people, all of them have been very special.

Describe Bulgaria in one sentence.
Bulgaria is rich! Start with your people – beautiful minds, clever, they work hard and then think about the country itself – it is gorgeous. So I can only say Bulgaria is rich I would have many, many Bulgarians arguing with me on that statement.

Are you planning to come back in Bulgaria?
I will come back. We will probably not come back real soon after we leave because we will have to be getting settled with our next place and getting accustomed to a new environment. But I would like to come back and I would like to bring my younger son here. I think he would enjoy the music and the southern part of the beach area. I would like to revisit some communities that I am very fond of and see people that will always be very special to me. So I will come back. I would really like to come back for the campaign in October but it’s time for me to go and it’s time for somebody else to make it their campaign and make it live for other.

Juliana Tomova