An Extraordinary Person Living an Ordinary Life|Maria Pencheva
Pink spiked hair, overly large combat boots, bizarrely colored glasses, and a bright smile that radiates happiness drew me to the AUBG’s Panitza Library, second floor, in search of Maria Pencheva, widely known as simply “kaka Mareto.” I couldn’t help but wonder what this lady had to say to me, as I was very interested in getting to know her, but to my surprise, once I entered her office and briefly introduced myself and the reasons I was visiting her, holding my pen and notepad tightly, she turned around and said, “My life is not an extraordinary one.” Now, I’m not going to lie: something in me was telling me that there should be a story worth writing; after all, kaka Mareto was completely defying my idea of a typical Bulgarian librarian. Despite knowing not to judge the book by its cover, Maria didn’t quite fit my picture of a person sitting behind a computer screen for eight hours a day for a living.
Maria is currently undergoing training to replace her soon-to-retire colleague as the chief cataloger at AUBG’s Panitza Library. She is now assigned the tasks of an assistant cataloger, which will be very similar to her job after she is promoted to the new position. Maria joined the Panitza team over 10 years ago as a member of the circulation desk, which she refers to as the “bartending of the library.” “I enjoy engaging with students, and the circulation desk is the best place to do it. The library used to have a lot of students studying all day and night, reading books and just using it as a working station, but we can feel the difference now because of the pandemic,“ kaka Mareto recalls the days when students would come to the library just to share their thoughts with her and her coworkers. She continues, “I had the feeling that I was a psychologist. Students confided in me about their concerns, and I appreciated their trust in me.”
Kaka Mareto grew up in a normal and loving family. She was a calm child who excelled at school. “It wasn’t until I was in my teenage years that I started experimenting with my style, and my personality began to shift,” Maria explains.
She grew up with her brother, mother, and grandparents, whom she regards as her rock and with whom she keeps frequent contact. “My father hasn’t been in the picture since I was in fifth grade; he had a severe drinking problem, and my grandparents compensated for his absence,” Maria says. Maria spent most of her life in Blagoevgrad, where she frequented local bars like All-Stars with her friends. She met her husband, Vladi, and her best friend, Maya, there. Maya Vukovska, an AUBG alumna and current freelance journalist, admits, “I didn’t like her at first. I considered her annoying and noisy at first, but I soon discovered she was cool and kind. Mareto is one of the few people who have remained in my close circle of friends over the years, and I know I can always count on her for support and companionship. She has a big heart and never passes judgment on others.”
During her undergraduate years, Maria studied English and worked as a teacher in Blagoevgrad. She would go on a work and travel program in the United States over the summers in the early 2000s, and she even worked for a while in a WAT agency, where she met a number of AUBG students who were J-1 visa applicants. She began to consider relocating to the United States as a result of the lovely Cape Cod summers she had experienced. Her brother moved to Chicago after a few summers as a student, and Maria and her then-boyfriend, Vladi, decided to try it out and go on this new journey. “I can’t say it was a spur-of-the-moment choice; we’d obviously been thinking about it for a while, and it wasn’t until the middle of our final WAT summer that I called my family over Skype and delivered the bomb,” Maria explains.
Vladi worked as a cable guy for a company that would later become Netflix, and she worked as a cashier and a babysitter. They were aware from the start that they would only be there for a few years before returning home. “ In the United States, I felt no judgment; no one cared how I looked or what I did with my life. That appealed to me,” Maria says. According to her, “The US is a country where, if you have the potential, you can do anything. Unfortunately, this is only conceivable if you have had some form of US education; otherwise, you will always be a foreigner working for others.”
Maria’s years in the United States were vital for her realization “Being adventurous is a matter of time. Rebellion is only a matter of time.” She started considering the future, and she desired stable employment and a setting in which she could raise a family. Her tight bond with her family added to the temptation of returning to Bulgaria, and she and Vladi decided to fly back home.
“We worked for a while, then packed our stuff and came home,” Maria recounts, smiling as she looks through her pictures from the years spent in the US.
Maria, who now has two children and what she describes as a stable work and a stable life, continues to apply for the green card lottery every year, claiming that she hasn’t given much thought to what she would do if she won, but that the main reason to return would be for her children’s future.
“I often joke about the lottery and people ask me what I would do, I don’t know, I will think it over when I win,” she laughs, “ But if I am ever to take again such an adventure, it would be solely for the sake of my children, as I want them to have opportunities in life.”
Kaka Mareto sees working in AUBG’s library as not just satisfying her passion for books and knowledge, but also as her only viable option. Maria, who studied librarianship because she didn’t want to be a teacher, says she can confidently state that this is the best option in Blagoevgrad: the most prominent institution she can work at. “I don’t have the patience to put up with idiots. Unfortunately, that would be my daily task if I worked in Bulgarian schools. I simply lack the necessary tolerance.” Despite not fitting my impression of a typical Bulgarian librarian, she claims that American librarians are these vibrant young people who simply adore books and that they are far from the stereotype of a middle-aged woman with glasses who constantly hushes library visitors.
“My job can be a little boring at times, but that depends on how you look at it, and I try to keep it interesting, especially now that I’m training for this new position. Everything is new and exciting,” says Maria who now spends most of her days in the office. “I really liked the circulation desk but the shifts are not very convenient for me, now that I have children. I still take some shifts, however, as I miss being around students,” she adds.
Her main responsibilities now include keeping inventory of all the printed and online books that the library catalog holds. She inputs every new book into the computer, creating a MARC record, which is a specific coding language that provides information about a book. The code that she inputs is according to US standards classification and she needs to keep up to date with the librarian language. Her day is usually filled with webinars that she follows in order to make sure that she is up-to-date with the international librarian standards. “I try not to be too stressed out because I recognize that human lives aren’t dependent on us,” she chuckles. “I can make mistakes, but they aren’t fatal.”
I kept recalling our first meeting and her words, “My life is not an extraordinary one.” As I spent more time with Mareto and got to know her, I couldn’t help but think of Mareto as a truly remarkable individual. The way she presented herself, the way she talked about her life, and the fact that she never takes herself too seriously made me think she’s an amazing person. A person who makes the best of any situation and never appears to have second thoughts about their life choices.
Despite the fact that I was in this familiar setting of AUBG, where I found her, I leaped into listening to the stories she told me about her wild earlier years and life in the United States. I kept thinking that Mareto could have gone down numerous pathways and ended up staying in the United States or embarking on another adventure, but the Panitza Library seemed to be the place where she belonged. I wasn’t sure what to anticipate when I walked into her office, and the librarian responsibilities didn’t pique my curiosity, but something kept telling me that this person, who had only lately turned from a complete stranger to me to a favorite AUBG staff member, deserved to be heard. For whatever reason, it felt like a tremendous magnetism that drew me, and all I wanted to do was talk to Mareto and discover more about her.
Mareto chose to remain in a situation where she would be classified as the odd one out. She isn’t your typical librarian, mother, or individual. Her visage is emblazoned with the word “different,” which she embraces. She’s managed to surround herself with like-minded people and go with the flow not only in life but also at work. She willingly selected the stable path, not the adventurous one, and she does not regret it. She is as real as a person can be, never thinking too highly of herself or making a great deal out of her existence, but always optimistic and smiling at the unknown, the strange, for this is where she belongs. For me, Kaka Mareto is an extraordinary person living an ordinary but happy life. And that in itself makes it an extraordinary life, in my opinion.
