Sumguyat

July 1, 2007

Today I woke up well rested. I had worried that I wouldn’t sleep at all the first night. However I fell right to sleep and then never woke until a few minutes before my alarm went off. After waking I went out and my Ana (mother) had breakfast waiting for me. It was the same spread I’ve eaten every morning here. It had bread, hard-boiled eggs, tomato, cucumber, basil leaves, cheese, and tea. I really like it and it was all fresh from the garden or freshly made. After breakfast my host brother walked me to school.

At school I met up with the other four volunteers in my site and we jumped on a bus to go to Sumguyat to get some supplies and a cell phone. It’s interesting how in many areas of Azerbaijan they don’t have running water and electricity 24 hours a day but they do have cell phones and satellite television. The new technology has leap-frogged the need for some of the infrastructure. Peace Corps has made it mandatory for each of us to get a cell phone, and while I was proud I didn’t have one while I lived in the states I am actually happy Peace Corps provides it for our safety.

Sumguyat is great it’s the second largest city in Azerbaijan and a suburb of Baku the largest city. In the bazaar you could get just about anything just in a different way then most people in the US are used to. For those of you from the Portland area think, Saturday’s market but huge and with things you actually need on a daily basis rather than just things you would give away as gifts. It’s a bit overwhelming at first but I think after getting your bearings a city like this would be fun to live in someday.

We first went to the cell phone store, which our LCD Vafa got us to before the rest of the AZ5’s (Azerbaijan class 5) she rocks. We got our phones and then headed to the Bazaar where we got power regulators, shower shoes, money exchanged and saw all sorts of cool little shops I want to go back and explore through. Then we headed to the Internet café, which I only had the chance to leave my address here and send a quick email to my mom. I had written my last post but as I was copying it to my memory stick my battery died. After that we went and had lunch and then headed back to our town about a half hour away.

When I got back I had another great meal and played real life charades. I really feel fortunate to have been placed with such a great family. We have no idea what each other is trying to say but we all have a good laugh.

As for the address and mail please don’t feel obligated to send anything it’s kind of expensive, but if you have nothing else to do, a fair bit of cash, and would like to send me something from home there is a flat rate box you can get that costs about $34 and you can send anything you can fit in it up to like 70 pounds (kinda funny because when you look at it, even if you filled it with lead it probably wouldn’t weigh 70 pounds) I haven’t been heard how much it costs to send letters but I’m sure much cheaper so feel free to send just a note or even an email would be great just to hear how everyone is doing back home.

I hope all is well,

Donny