Working away from ones home country does not necessarily make one alien to the celebrations ones homeland has. Neither to the traits that characterise national identity. Australias special events calendar is especially busy in January. As if Australia, the country whose name carried the first letter of the alphabet, has decided to set the holiday tone for the world.
On the eve of the Australian Open finals, the opener of the Grand Slam tennis tournaments, one Australian is preparing for a different type of festivity.
The country of Peter Dolinsky, the head of the Sofia office of pharmaceutical company Sanofi-Aventis, is marking its national day early in the year, on January 26.
This day has been celebrated as Australia Day since 1808 when British convicts created their first colony and then gradually displaced the indigenous people, the Aborigines.
The Aborigines still remain a marginalised group of people whose re-integration into the multi-ethnic Australian population remains a challenge. Probably because governmental policies for the intergration of Aborigines are still to be properly tailored to their lifestyle. For centuries, Aborigines would migrate and they were hardly elated over the governments housing projects. That negative association related to the displacement of the Aborigines, however, has long given way to the holiday mood a national day brings.
Dolinsky smiles when he recalls the Australia Days he spent in his home country. Australians use the opportunity to go out, he says. As if this urge to be outdoors spells the urge for freedom that the heirs of the freedom-longing convicts that landed on the pristine beaches in early 19th century inherited.
Dolinsky has this urge in him, too. It transpires from his shirt, whose top two buttons would be loose. It shows from the open-door environment he insisted on having when first stepping into the Sanofi-Aventis office in September last year. It shows from his smile that predisposes subordinates to be open, communicative and feeling like his friends.
Back to Australia. Dolinskys co-nationals would go out for a barbeque with the meat pies inalienable to Australian national festivities, for a drink of home-grown wine (that is lovely not only to Australians palate), for a small chit-chat in the scenery.
Happening in the heat of the summer, the holiday predisposes many to opt for basking in the sunshine all day long.
Dolinsky is no exception. Though spending years away from his country, hes never forgotten to celebrate the national day at home. Being a part of the open and fun-loving Australian community, he has carried these national traits throughout the world and to Bulgaria, too. He will transpose them when celebrating the holiday with his family, when his son will colour his cheeks, when his wife will bake those meat pies and when the entire family will head outside to devour the snow that is so atypical for his home country.
Though he is still inspecting Bulgaria and has been checking off his own experience, he has found Bulgarians mainly his colleagues as convivial and fun-loving, just as Australians are. Though maybe a bit more reserved as a regular co-national would be. In this sense, Bulgaria would help Dolinsky garner from the local surrounding the mood that a special day as the Australia Day needs.
Bulgarias beautiful wines, which he believes are so little promoted worldwide, for Dolinsky to make their discovery here, will also necessarily be present on his table.
