She worked, and worked, and worked. And she got her Miami vacation.

For the second summer in a row, Elisaveta Tomova traveled from Bulgaria with friends to take a job at the Rangeley IGA. The grocery store gets so busy, and local help is so hard to find, that owners hired five women, all recent Bulgarian accounting school grads.

Tomova worked 12-hour days in the deli, on a register and in produce, only half joking when she says she was disappointed the manager didn’t make it 14. The goal: Earn as much as she could to cover the exchange program’s $2,000 fee, save for grad school and pay for a trip at the end of the season.

They did all that, Tomova said. She shoved off on a weeklong Miami cruise last Sunday, with stops in Jamaica and Key West. The friends will return to Rangeley then leave for Bulgaria Wednesday, hoping to stuff all their gifts and keepsakes in two suitcases each.

In the break room the day before their last shift, Tomova and Neli Dimitrova, another of the five women, said they were tired and ready to relax.

They won’t be back to Rangeley next summer.

“Everyone here is going to miss us,” Tomova said. And she’ll miss them. The manager feels like their American mother.

“It’s very quiet here. It’s good for rest.” Then Tomova paused and thought about it. “Actually, we didn’t rest.”

Dimitrova chimed in: “That’s what the people say.”

– Kathryn Skelton

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