Sheki Visit

July 16, 2007

This weekend was our site visits. We all got go visit a volunteer at their site and see what their normal routine as a PCV is like. As I write this I’m hanging out at my Volunteers office while he gets a few things done. I got lucky and got to go up north to Sheki which is at the foothills of the mountains. Things are much cooler up here and yesterday and today it actually rained! It was nice it felt a bit like home other than the fact I’ve heard you guys have been in the middle of a heat wave.

I came out here with two other volunteers who are staying with someone who lives on their own and then I’m staying with a guy that still lives with a host family. The marshrutka ride was interesting I’ll have to dedicate an entire blog one day describing a marshrutka ride just think of a van smaller than a 15 passenger with about 17 people and their stuff with no AC. It took 5 and a half hours to drive the just under 200 miles with two scheduled stops and one stop because a boy vomited a two rows in front of us. When we got here we were greeted by the two sheki volunteers and were taken to one of their homes where we had a wonderful dinner of taco salad!!

The next day I my host volunteer took a few boys from his youth site and me hiking up above the city which was amazing. We first went to an ancient Albanian church called Kish and then we hiked up to an old abandoned fortress called Gelerson gorison, which was built by the sheki khans in 18th century. We met up for tea with the girls and another American who is doing a 2-month internship with an aid organization. Then we went to awesome hotel, which had Cheese Burgers!! After the burgers we went up to another fortress, which was built by Genghis Khan’s Grandson and had a couple of beers in a really neat outdoor bar.

I’ve really enjoyed coming out here to see how things are on a day to day basis and I think it’s defiantly a motivation to keep working hard on the language. It’s amazing how well they speak only having been here a year.

Tonight we’re going to a concert to hear real life country music. I guess some band is in Azerbaijan touring on a cultural experience tour and we are lucky enough to be in the town they’re stopping in! I can’t even believe my luck a cheeseburger one day and a country concert the next! Yeah buddy someone’s living right!