“I’m about to go eat a bologna sandwich!”

September 2, 2007

Last Sunday was probably my worse day thus far! I’d been going through a little mini slump in my motivation. I thought I had sent some subtle hints in emails and the post previous to that day, that my attitude was not as rosy as it was when I left. I hadn’t been to the internet café for a week and as I was going there all I could think was how I was going to have so many emails because I hadn’t been there in so long. So when I opened my email and all I had was junk mail I was devastated.

I pasted the post I had previously written which explained even further how I was having a hard time. I sent the email letting all my friends and family know that I had updated the blog and was about to leave, but then said no wait a minute I’m going to need to prod a little more if I want to get their attention. So I sent a second email mainly explaining how excited I had been and how if I had just had one email not even saying anything important just a simple, “I was online nothing new has changed just wanted you to know I was thinking about you” how that would have made my day that day! Classic guilt trip stuff.

Well as you can imagine my inbox 3 days later was stuffed full of all sorts of emails. I got the “keep your head up”, “you inspire me”, and the “don’t worry this will pass” emails. But my absolute favorite and the one that totally made my day was from my best friend Dave it was in a string of completely random emails he had been sending each time he got online and it only read, “I’m about to go eat a bologna sandwich”. Nothing more nothing less and that was enough to totally make my day! I even think a few azeri’s got a kick out of it as they were laughing at the crazy American who couldn’t stop laughing at his computer. Thank you all for the encouragement and happiness you have brought me this last week.

I don’t know how to describe the feeling someone goes through when they leave their family and friends and life happens while they’re gone. When you’re away you feel as if everything has stopped and all people are doing is sitting around wondering what’s going on with you in Azerbaijan. You don’t think about how when you were back in the US a week or month went by without every realizing it.

This experience is really humbling in understanding how much a person really depends on friends and family. I know there is no way I could ever do this without all of your support. I also know there are many of you reading this who have children, siblings, parents, or friends who here with me. As much as I want you to read this please open a new window and send them a little note even if it’s as simple as “I just ate a bologna sandwich!” They will love every word of it and it may just make their day!

This last week as I said has been much better. We had a hub day where all the trainees came together for a day of lectures. Our language teacher shook things up a bit, which was good. She split our class in two. For two hours she works with the more advanced then the next two hours she works with us that need a little more attention. Then during the other two hours she has us sit in a separate room studying vocabulary.

Then yesterday we had a cultural day where we tried to share parts of our culture and then went and had a great traditional meal followed by a fantastic demonstration of Azeri dance. The part we shared had to do with environmental awareness. The main hub city we all live in and around is ranked by the state department as the most polluted city in the world. There just isn’t any infrastructure to deal with all the trash yet. So as most people would do they burn garbage here. Yesterday we tried to educate university students and anyone else that would listen about the harmful effects of plastic and then told them about the new plastic recycling plant, which is opening this month. Then we all went out to the beach and picked up hundreds of bags of plastic water bottles. It was great when looking at the truck seeing how much we were doing but really disheartening when looking at the beach and realizing we had only walked about a half mile. We have to just keep reminding ourselves that these are baby steps but you need to take those before you can run.

So things are starting to wind down here in training. This next week we have our last language test. Then we have two hub days next week learning about transitioning into service and then later next week we’ll have our swearing in ceremony and the next day move to our permanent sites! Thanks again to everyone for the flood of emails.