Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Photos
Here are some new pics. the first is of me holding a mirror pond that my wonderful sister sent me!! then the other three are of the pig roast.
Thanksgiving
November 26, 2007
Being away from home always seems to make you appreciate what you are thankful for more than when you’re around everything you’re thankful for. This year on thanksgiving I spent the entire day on a bus going back into Baku. I was asked along with a few other volunteers to go into the PC office for a meeting to help further develop our youth development program. The meeting was on Friday so I had to spend all day Thursday traveling into the capital. When we all did get there we all went out for a meal of nachos, which was amazing but still didn’t compare to a lazy day of watching football, napping, and eating my moms home cooking.
The day after the meeting I headed down to visit a few volunteers in a town called Ali Bayramli who were cooking a small thanksgiving feast complete with a couple of chickens, mashed potatoes, candied carrots, cranberry sauce, gravy, and pumpkin pie! It wasn’t moms and I didn’t get to see all the family but it was very nice to be around others who understood and were in the same situation.
As I was riding the bus into town on thanksgiving I was thinking about what it is that I’m thankful for and realized I’m most thankful for my family, and the things that have happened in my life to allow me to do the things I’ve done and am currently doing. It’s an amazingly humbling experience to live with people who have so much less than we have in the US but are just as happy. It really confirms what I learned on the trail which is all you really need in this life to be happy is one warm meal in your belly a day and a semi dry place to sleep. Everything else just gets in the way. We tend to get lost in the rat race thinking we need to have this and that to be happy but why? Will those things really bring you happiness? I think its just more stuff you’ll need to sell or ask to store in your moms basement to collect dust when you leave on your next life adventure?
I really hope you all had a wonderful thanksgiving and that you had an opportunity to share with someone what you are thankful for.
Oh, I almost forgot I have to make a special note that I’m thankful for the best sister in the world. The day before I left to Baku I received a package from my sister with all sorts of goodies and as she knows me best she sent me three bottles of Mirror Pond Pale Ale and a note saying I was thinking you could use this about now! Thank you, thank you, thank you Becky! You so rock. I did the best thing I could and took them to the thanksgiving celebration and shared them with everyone there and they are all so appreciative of the kindness. There was even a fellow Oregonian who could appreciate it not just as great beer but as a little taste of home.
Being away from home always seems to make you appreciate what you are thankful for more than when you’re around everything you’re thankful for. This year on thanksgiving I spent the entire day on a bus going back into Baku. I was asked along with a few other volunteers to go into the PC office for a meeting to help further develop our youth development program. The meeting was on Friday so I had to spend all day Thursday traveling into the capital. When we all did get there we all went out for a meal of nachos, which was amazing but still didn’t compare to a lazy day of watching football, napping, and eating my moms home cooking.
The day after the meeting I headed down to visit a few volunteers in a town called Ali Bayramli who were cooking a small thanksgiving feast complete with a couple of chickens, mashed potatoes, candied carrots, cranberry sauce, gravy, and pumpkin pie! It wasn’t moms and I didn’t get to see all the family but it was very nice to be around others who understood and were in the same situation.
As I was riding the bus into town on thanksgiving I was thinking about what it is that I’m thankful for and realized I’m most thankful for my family, and the things that have happened in my life to allow me to do the things I’ve done and am currently doing. It’s an amazingly humbling experience to live with people who have so much less than we have in the US but are just as happy. It really confirms what I learned on the trail which is all you really need in this life to be happy is one warm meal in your belly a day and a semi dry place to sleep. Everything else just gets in the way. We tend to get lost in the rat race thinking we need to have this and that to be happy but why? Will those things really bring you happiness? I think its just more stuff you’ll need to sell or ask to store in your moms basement to collect dust when you leave on your next life adventure?
I really hope you all had a wonderful thanksgiving and that you had an opportunity to share with someone what you are thankful for.
Oh, I almost forgot I have to make a special note that I’m thankful for the best sister in the world. The day before I left to Baku I received a package from my sister with all sorts of goodies and as she knows me best she sent me three bottles of Mirror Pond Pale Ale and a note saying I was thinking you could use this about now! Thank you, thank you, thank you Becky! You so rock. I did the best thing I could and took them to the thanksgiving celebration and shared them with everyone there and they are all so appreciative of the kindness. There was even a fellow Oregonian who could appreciate it not just as great beer but as a little taste of home.
Luau and Thanksgiving
November 20, 2007
So I got an email from my sister with a guilt trip just as bad as the one I sent to all of you when I hadn’t gotten an email in over a week. It made me realize if I want to keep the support coming from your side I better keep up my end of the bargain and keep this thing posted more often! I couldn’t believe it when I looked at it and realized I hadn’t posted an update in 20 days!! I’m deeply sorry and I thank you Becky for keeping me honest!
Well let me try to recap what has been happening the last few weeks. After Halloween my host brother left to go to Baku for training for two months. He is going to be an air traffic controller at the new airport they are building in our town. The significance of this is that he is fluent in English so now a whole new host family dynamic has started. Before he left I’d get frustrated because my parents talked to me through him and when I tried to speak in Azeri they would look at him. I had asked him over and over to try to talk to me only in Azeri and he would, but really fast and if I asked him to slow down he would repeat it in English rather than slower. So now that he’s gone I miss him because he’s a really great guy and I’ve realized how much easier life was with an interpreter.
Now around the house there’s a lot more charades and laughing while shrugging the shoulders as my family and I try to communicate. I’ve learned that instead of getting frustrated when we can’t get a simple point across it’s much better to laugh and give my mom a big bear hug. I think she thinks I’m nuts and I haven’t yet figured out if when she’s laughing, she laughing with me or at me, but there’s rarely a dull moment when we talk.
The weather has gotten substantially colder the last few weeks. It’s not really that much colder than the weather in Oregon the difference is that there just isn’t any insulation. So it just feels much colder. We brought the heater in and set it up a few weeks ago and the room it’s in is really warm, when the gas is on, but when you head into any other room you either hurry to get back or start putting the layers on and jump under the sleeping bag. I’ve actually got two bags. I brought the one I hiked the PCT with and then Peace Corps gives us a massive subzero slumberjack bag that I mostly sleep on as a mattress but on the really cold nights I crawl into it as well.
The room I hold my conversation clubs in is really cold. It’s in a really old building and during the day it is actually colder in the room than it is outside. I’ve tried to talk my students into having class outside but when I mentioned it they looked at me like I just stepped out of a spaceship or something. The Room is actually just what I wanted though. I was talking to another Peace Corps Volunteer the other day and we were discussing how each of our conditions, yet different from each others, were just what we had imagined in our romantic vision of what PC was going to be like here. I have two oil lamps in my classroom that we use for light (we don’t have any electricity in the room) but also to stay warm. They smell really bad because they don’t have oil for the lamps so we use diesel. On the really cold days we all gather really close and act as if the lamps are a campfire.
My weekends have been pretty busy lately. I went to a city called Ganja two weekends ago for another softball tournament and the PCV’s who hosted it put on a pretty good show. After the games we went back to one of the guys houses where they had a luau themed party. The day before they went out and bought a pig then all day while we were playing ball they were roasting it! This was good in so many ways. First anytime you eat an animal you can still see what it is while eating you have that cave man like feel of manliness. Then the fact that this country is Muslim and they don’t eat pork made it to where I really craved some and it was one of the best meals I’ve had! After the meal when the food comma wore off we decided to have a dance party that lasted until the early hours of the morning when it was just a few of us rocking out in the kitchen in nothing but our underwear? Not sure how that happened but it was good fun!
This last weekend we had a thanksgiving party in Baku at the house of the DCM of the Embassy (he’s the guy that is second in command to the ambassador). It was a really nice event, which everyone looks forward to and gets all dressed up for. PC works with the embassy to find us Americans who work at the embassy to host us in there completely western houses. Our host was completely amazing. She gave us the key to her place with a fridge full of beer and let us have it for the weekend. She came in Saturday afternoon to check up on us to see if we needed anything and then left us to just completely relax in a real western home! We even had a few English news channels!
Well this year because of budget issues the dinner was not catered as it had been in the past. Our country director threw in for a few turkeys and everyone signed up to bring something. My site mate and I, probably because we were relaxing so much, waited until the last possible second to get ready and prepare our meal. Well as it turned out we didn’t have the pots we needed to cook the things we had planned so we hit the market to see if there was anything we could substitute. Unfortunately we didn’t find anything and this put us way behind schedule. We decided to go without and be a little late rather than really late.
We got out of the cab and followed where the directions told us to go. As we turned down a shady unlit alleyway we thought we must have turned the wrong way so we asked someone if there was a barber down the street (which the directions said as across the street from the house) and the person said no the barber was out on the main road. (It should be noted that Azeri people are so nice they will still give you directions rather than tell you they don’t know). Well, we were not smart enough to investigate for ourselves and went back out to the main road and walked down every other alleyway. We decided we must be lost and thought we should call someone to find the way because now we were about 40 minutes late. None of the three people we called answered their phones so we thought it must be so formal that everyone has turned their phones off. So we decided rather than show up to a formal party late with no food it would be better to skip the party. As it turns out we just called the wrong three people. The party was tons of fun and it wouldn’t have been a problem if we had shown up. We ended up walking all the way back to where we were staying, which was about a two hour walk and completely missed our thanksgiving feast. We did end up meeting up with everyone after it was over and had a good time but really wished we would have just walked another 100 meters down that alleyway.
So I got an email from my sister with a guilt trip just as bad as the one I sent to all of you when I hadn’t gotten an email in over a week. It made me realize if I want to keep the support coming from your side I better keep up my end of the bargain and keep this thing posted more often! I couldn’t believe it when I looked at it and realized I hadn’t posted an update in 20 days!! I’m deeply sorry and I thank you Becky for keeping me honest!
Well let me try to recap what has been happening the last few weeks. After Halloween my host brother left to go to Baku for training for two months. He is going to be an air traffic controller at the new airport they are building in our town. The significance of this is that he is fluent in English so now a whole new host family dynamic has started. Before he left I’d get frustrated because my parents talked to me through him and when I tried to speak in Azeri they would look at him. I had asked him over and over to try to talk to me only in Azeri and he would, but really fast and if I asked him to slow down he would repeat it in English rather than slower. So now that he’s gone I miss him because he’s a really great guy and I’ve realized how much easier life was with an interpreter.
Now around the house there’s a lot more charades and laughing while shrugging the shoulders as my family and I try to communicate. I’ve learned that instead of getting frustrated when we can’t get a simple point across it’s much better to laugh and give my mom a big bear hug. I think she thinks I’m nuts and I haven’t yet figured out if when she’s laughing, she laughing with me or at me, but there’s rarely a dull moment when we talk.
The weather has gotten substantially colder the last few weeks. It’s not really that much colder than the weather in Oregon the difference is that there just isn’t any insulation. So it just feels much colder. We brought the heater in and set it up a few weeks ago and the room it’s in is really warm, when the gas is on, but when you head into any other room you either hurry to get back or start putting the layers on and jump under the sleeping bag. I’ve actually got two bags. I brought the one I hiked the PCT with and then Peace Corps gives us a massive subzero slumberjack bag that I mostly sleep on as a mattress but on the really cold nights I crawl into it as well.
The room I hold my conversation clubs in is really cold. It’s in a really old building and during the day it is actually colder in the room than it is outside. I’ve tried to talk my students into having class outside but when I mentioned it they looked at me like I just stepped out of a spaceship or something. The Room is actually just what I wanted though. I was talking to another Peace Corps Volunteer the other day and we were discussing how each of our conditions, yet different from each others, were just what we had imagined in our romantic vision of what PC was going to be like here. I have two oil lamps in my classroom that we use for light (we don’t have any electricity in the room) but also to stay warm. They smell really bad because they don’t have oil for the lamps so we use diesel. On the really cold days we all gather really close and act as if the lamps are a campfire.
My weekends have been pretty busy lately. I went to a city called Ganja two weekends ago for another softball tournament and the PCV’s who hosted it put on a pretty good show. After the games we went back to one of the guys houses where they had a luau themed party. The day before they went out and bought a pig then all day while we were playing ball they were roasting it! This was good in so many ways. First anytime you eat an animal you can still see what it is while eating you have that cave man like feel of manliness. Then the fact that this country is Muslim and they don’t eat pork made it to where I really craved some and it was one of the best meals I’ve had! After the meal when the food comma wore off we decided to have a dance party that lasted until the early hours of the morning when it was just a few of us rocking out in the kitchen in nothing but our underwear? Not sure how that happened but it was good fun!
This last weekend we had a thanksgiving party in Baku at the house of the DCM of the Embassy (he’s the guy that is second in command to the ambassador). It was a really nice event, which everyone looks forward to and gets all dressed up for. PC works with the embassy to find us Americans who work at the embassy to host us in there completely western houses. Our host was completely amazing. She gave us the key to her place with a fridge full of beer and let us have it for the weekend. She came in Saturday afternoon to check up on us to see if we needed anything and then left us to just completely relax in a real western home! We even had a few English news channels!
Well this year because of budget issues the dinner was not catered as it had been in the past. Our country director threw in for a few turkeys and everyone signed up to bring something. My site mate and I, probably because we were relaxing so much, waited until the last possible second to get ready and prepare our meal. Well as it turned out we didn’t have the pots we needed to cook the things we had planned so we hit the market to see if there was anything we could substitute. Unfortunately we didn’t find anything and this put us way behind schedule. We decided to go without and be a little late rather than really late.
We got out of the cab and followed where the directions told us to go. As we turned down a shady unlit alleyway we thought we must have turned the wrong way so we asked someone if there was a barber down the street (which the directions said as across the street from the house) and the person said no the barber was out on the main road. (It should be noted that Azeri people are so nice they will still give you directions rather than tell you they don’t know). Well, we were not smart enough to investigate for ourselves and went back out to the main road and walked down every other alleyway. We decided we must be lost and thought we should call someone to find the way because now we were about 40 minutes late. None of the three people we called answered their phones so we thought it must be so formal that everyone has turned their phones off. So we decided rather than show up to a formal party late with no food it would be better to skip the party. As it turns out we just called the wrong three people. The party was tons of fun and it wouldn’t have been a problem if we had shown up. We ended up walking all the way back to where we were staying, which was about a two hour walk and completely missed our thanksgiving feast. We did end up meeting up with everyone after it was over and had a good time but really wished we would have just walked another 100 meters down that alleyway.
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Halloween
October 31, 2007
This past weekend I went down to the southern region of the country to the city Lankaran for a Halloween party. The country is only the size of Maine but because of the roads it takes 12 hours to get from where I am in the north to the cities in the south. The morning I arrived a group of us went hiking in a village to the east called Lerik.
The drive to Lerik was really beautiful and reminded me of driving in the Oregon coastal range in the fall. When we got to the village we walked around looking for some socks that they make there that are supposed to be really neat and unique to the area, but they said they wont start selling them until it snows. Then we saw some hills above the town we wanted to walk to, to get a great view of the area.
It was pretty comical walking through the town some of the looks we got you would think that we had just stepped off of a UFO. When we got to the top of the hills the clouds had rolled in and we were in an eerie fog that was really neat. The land up there was a rolling pasture land that was all green. We’d wished we’d brought a Frisbee. We wanted to have a competition to roll down the hills but because of all the cow pies we decided just running down yelling would suffice for the childlike urges we were having. We also saw fresh wild saffron growing on the hillsides. I tried to get some close-ups of the flowers with my camera but my photography skills were lacking. The saffron flower is really pretty. It is a purple flower, which has a bright yellowish orange center, which my friends said was what they use as the spice. After playing around up in the hills like kids we decided to head back to get ready for the Halloween party.
The party was pretty surreal. There was probably about 40-50 of the volunteers in country that came. And it ended up being just like any other college party in the states. The next morning when I woke I decided I’d experienced enough and didn’t think my body could handle another night of it so a few friends and I decided we’d head back a day early. When we got into Baku we found that there weren’t any more seats on the night train (and we can’t travel the roads at night for good reason) so we talked to Peace Corps and they allowed us to stay the night in the capital. Lucky for us there was a volunteer who was in town for a dentist appointment so we were able to crash in her room and didn’t have to spend the big bucks for a room.
The greatest thing about being in Baku is the food! Out in the regions there are very few restaurants and when there are they are usually all the same Turkish food, which is good but lacks variety. So that night we first headed to the Thai restaurant where I had one of the best curries I’ve ever eaten. For dessert we went to McDonalds where I had a happy meal with a chocolate milkshake! Oh, was that heaven.
While we were in McDonalds we all got a text telling us they uncovered a terrorist plot to attack on the US Embassy and other western buildings in Baku so as a precaution the office would be closed the next day. It turns out that they got everyone before anything happened which makes me feel safe that the authorities have a pretty good handle on what’s happening but it was a little unsettling realizing those feelings are here. Which when really thinking about it there are those feelings and threats anywhere in the world you travel. But now that I’m back in my city 8 hours from Baku I feel just as safe if not safer than walking down the street in any city in the US. The news covered it pretty well over here and the next day as I was talking to people in town everyone’s reaction was the same telling me how bad those people were and how happy they are that I’m here. So thank you to everyone who saw it on the news and sent me an email. There is no need to worry however as living in this small town way up north is probably much safer than being in most cities in the US.
This past weekend I went down to the southern region of the country to the city Lankaran for a Halloween party. The country is only the size of Maine but because of the roads it takes 12 hours to get from where I am in the north to the cities in the south. The morning I arrived a group of us went hiking in a village to the east called Lerik.
The drive to Lerik was really beautiful and reminded me of driving in the Oregon coastal range in the fall. When we got to the village we walked around looking for some socks that they make there that are supposed to be really neat and unique to the area, but they said they wont start selling them until it snows. Then we saw some hills above the town we wanted to walk to, to get a great view of the area.
It was pretty comical walking through the town some of the looks we got you would think that we had just stepped off of a UFO. When we got to the top of the hills the clouds had rolled in and we were in an eerie fog that was really neat. The land up there was a rolling pasture land that was all green. We’d wished we’d brought a Frisbee. We wanted to have a competition to roll down the hills but because of all the cow pies we decided just running down yelling would suffice for the childlike urges we were having. We also saw fresh wild saffron growing on the hillsides. I tried to get some close-ups of the flowers with my camera but my photography skills were lacking. The saffron flower is really pretty. It is a purple flower, which has a bright yellowish orange center, which my friends said was what they use as the spice. After playing around up in the hills like kids we decided to head back to get ready for the Halloween party.
The party was pretty surreal. There was probably about 40-50 of the volunteers in country that came. And it ended up being just like any other college party in the states. The next morning when I woke I decided I’d experienced enough and didn’t think my body could handle another night of it so a few friends and I decided we’d head back a day early. When we got into Baku we found that there weren’t any more seats on the night train (and we can’t travel the roads at night for good reason) so we talked to Peace Corps and they allowed us to stay the night in the capital. Lucky for us there was a volunteer who was in town for a dentist appointment so we were able to crash in her room and didn’t have to spend the big bucks for a room.
The greatest thing about being in Baku is the food! Out in the regions there are very few restaurants and when there are they are usually all the same Turkish food, which is good but lacks variety. So that night we first headed to the Thai restaurant where I had one of the best curries I’ve ever eaten. For dessert we went to McDonalds where I had a happy meal with a chocolate milkshake! Oh, was that heaven.
While we were in McDonalds we all got a text telling us they uncovered a terrorist plot to attack on the US Embassy and other western buildings in Baku so as a precaution the office would be closed the next day. It turns out that they got everyone before anything happened which makes me feel safe that the authorities have a pretty good handle on what’s happening but it was a little unsettling realizing those feelings are here. Which when really thinking about it there are those feelings and threats anywhere in the world you travel. But now that I’m back in my city 8 hours from Baku I feel just as safe if not safer than walking down the street in any city in the US. The news covered it pretty well over here and the next day as I was talking to people in town everyone’s reaction was the same telling me how bad those people were and how happy they are that I’m here. So thank you to everyone who saw it on the news and sent me an email. There is no need to worry however as living in this small town way up north is probably much safer than being in most cities in the US.
Weekend Photos
Here are some pics in Lerik. The first is while driving there. The second is of main street. The Third is of us having fun in the fog. The last is a house that reminded us of Borat.
A Day In The Life
October 24, 2007
Many of you have asked me in emails to try and describe my normal day. It seems like that would be a pretty easy task but everyday here seems to be a little different from the last. Then, when I try to put it into words it doesn’t really seem like I do that much, yet the simplest things in life take so much more effort and time here. So here it goes this is what my life looks like on this side of the world.
I wake up every morning around 5am to the lovely sounds of the prayer call. My neighbors in the apartment above my room get out of their beds and I listen to them pray. Then I sit there and think about how I should get up and run but so far it’s only been a thought. I usually end up talking myself out of it with the excuse that if I do run I’ll get so skinny that I’ll end up disappearing. Then I roll over and fall back asleep till about 8:30. I get up go into the bathroom to light the water heater. Mine is actually much nicer than others, some people have to build an actual fire ours is gas so the only bad thing is when the gas is off or the fear of the thing blowing up. After the fire is lit I need to wait an hour so I usually eat breakfast while I wait.
My breakfast is usually bread with salty cheese, butter, honey, and sour cream with a cup or two of sweet tea. Sometimes my brother will try to cook me some eggs but he hates them and the way he cooks them I’m not surprised. They have this stuff here called super sun that they call butter (but they also called the grease I spooned out of the beef for tacos butter) and my brother puts about a ¼ cup of the stuff in a pan and then beats two eggs just enough to break the yokes and pours them in. The eggs are so greasy even with hot sauce they are almost inedible and I think I can eat anything with hot sauce.
After breakfast I boil water and wash the dishes. Then go and take a shower under the trickle of water. I have absolutely nothing to complain about because some people only get showers once a week if that in some cases and then sometimes they aren’t showers but bucket bathes. I only want to let you understand the time it takes to wash lathered soap off your body with such a small trickle of water it takes five minutes just to get wet enough for the soap to lather.
After the shower I usually try to study my language for about an hour, but often times get side tracked in some conversation with my brother. Then it changes depending on the day. On Mondays and Wednesdays I go to my tutor for an hour and a half. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I go to my conversation club with my first Teachers University club for an hour and a half. Then I get home at 12:30 and start to make lunch. Lunch is normally bread, grease soup from the night before, fresh chopped tomatoes and cucumber from the garden, and then sometimes fried potatoes. Grease soup is a staple here it is a soup base with varying spices, potatoes, sometimes meat, and enough grease to allow you to hold it over your head upside and shake vigorously when you get it out of the fridge. (This is not an exaggeration we did this one-day and we shook really hard.) After lunch depending on the day I plan my lessons for an hour on Mondays and Wednesdays then go to my conversation club with kids from the college followed by my awesome girls club. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I plan my lessons for a half hour after lunch and then have my second club from the Teachers University followed by a club made up of middle aged teachers which is actually really enjoyable I always try to help them see the crazy things their daughters are wanting to do are just the same as the crazy things they wanted to do that there parents wouldn’t let them do. After this club I hang out for an hour and then I have a club with educated but unemployed guys that are all economic majors. These lessons seem to be lessons of me trying to remember what I learned in micro and macro Economics nine years ago.
So on Mondays and Wednesdays I finish at 6 and usually read or take a nap until dinner. Tuesdays and Thursdays I finish at eight and without fail my Ana is putting dinner on the table as I walk in the door. After dinner is over I usually hang out with the family watching Azeri TV or just drinking tea. Sometimes (and I want to get in the habit of doing this more) I go guesting. Guesting is really just going over to someone’s house to drink their tea, but it is really neat and everyone loves it when I come to their house. I get tons of invites everyday just walking down the street. Then when I get home or get tired of the TV and retire to my room next to the TV room put my headphones on and try to read. My family is usually watching TV till about 12:30 – 1:00 so I’m up until then and as soon as it’s off I go to bed.
Then I have my Fridays where I head to work for about an hour and if anyone shows up I sit and talk to them about anything but work for an hour if not I sit there and wait and then leave after that hour. I’ve left my Fridays open from conversation clubs so that I can actually try to use that time to plan some youth activities. Right now I’m trying to put something together where I will help the youth in my conversation clubs plan and run a weekly Saturday activity where we lead a round robin of games with purpose with an attempt at trying to teach life skills through play.
My Saturdays and Sundays if I’m not traveling for work or play right now I try to get caught up on all the things that get put aside during the week like laundry and cleaning. And I usually use a bit of time to read a bit more. I’m reading more now than I ever have before and I’m really enjoying it. If any of you come across any good books throw them in the next package I can always use something to read, and they say it only get worse as the winter and darkness set in.
I hope this gives you a little bit of an idea what things are like over here. Kristin if you’re still reading or any others that may be coming next year please feel free to email me or anyone else over here directly and we can give you even more details and answer any questions you may have. If your anything like I was you’ll be full of them.
Many of you have asked me in emails to try and describe my normal day. It seems like that would be a pretty easy task but everyday here seems to be a little different from the last. Then, when I try to put it into words it doesn’t really seem like I do that much, yet the simplest things in life take so much more effort and time here. So here it goes this is what my life looks like on this side of the world.
I wake up every morning around 5am to the lovely sounds of the prayer call. My neighbors in the apartment above my room get out of their beds and I listen to them pray. Then I sit there and think about how I should get up and run but so far it’s only been a thought. I usually end up talking myself out of it with the excuse that if I do run I’ll get so skinny that I’ll end up disappearing. Then I roll over and fall back asleep till about 8:30. I get up go into the bathroom to light the water heater. Mine is actually much nicer than others, some people have to build an actual fire ours is gas so the only bad thing is when the gas is off or the fear of the thing blowing up. After the fire is lit I need to wait an hour so I usually eat breakfast while I wait.
My breakfast is usually bread with salty cheese, butter, honey, and sour cream with a cup or two of sweet tea. Sometimes my brother will try to cook me some eggs but he hates them and the way he cooks them I’m not surprised. They have this stuff here called super sun that they call butter (but they also called the grease I spooned out of the beef for tacos butter) and my brother puts about a ¼ cup of the stuff in a pan and then beats two eggs just enough to break the yokes and pours them in. The eggs are so greasy even with hot sauce they are almost inedible and I think I can eat anything with hot sauce.
After breakfast I boil water and wash the dishes. Then go and take a shower under the trickle of water. I have absolutely nothing to complain about because some people only get showers once a week if that in some cases and then sometimes they aren’t showers but bucket bathes. I only want to let you understand the time it takes to wash lathered soap off your body with such a small trickle of water it takes five minutes just to get wet enough for the soap to lather.
After the shower I usually try to study my language for about an hour, but often times get side tracked in some conversation with my brother. Then it changes depending on the day. On Mondays and Wednesdays I go to my tutor for an hour and a half. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I go to my conversation club with my first Teachers University club for an hour and a half. Then I get home at 12:30 and start to make lunch. Lunch is normally bread, grease soup from the night before, fresh chopped tomatoes and cucumber from the garden, and then sometimes fried potatoes. Grease soup is a staple here it is a soup base with varying spices, potatoes, sometimes meat, and enough grease to allow you to hold it over your head upside and shake vigorously when you get it out of the fridge. (This is not an exaggeration we did this one-day and we shook really hard.) After lunch depending on the day I plan my lessons for an hour on Mondays and Wednesdays then go to my conversation club with kids from the college followed by my awesome girls club. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I plan my lessons for a half hour after lunch and then have my second club from the Teachers University followed by a club made up of middle aged teachers which is actually really enjoyable I always try to help them see the crazy things their daughters are wanting to do are just the same as the crazy things they wanted to do that there parents wouldn’t let them do. After this club I hang out for an hour and then I have a club with educated but unemployed guys that are all economic majors. These lessons seem to be lessons of me trying to remember what I learned in micro and macro Economics nine years ago.
So on Mondays and Wednesdays I finish at 6 and usually read or take a nap until dinner. Tuesdays and Thursdays I finish at eight and without fail my Ana is putting dinner on the table as I walk in the door. After dinner is over I usually hang out with the family watching Azeri TV or just drinking tea. Sometimes (and I want to get in the habit of doing this more) I go guesting. Guesting is really just going over to someone’s house to drink their tea, but it is really neat and everyone loves it when I come to their house. I get tons of invites everyday just walking down the street. Then when I get home or get tired of the TV and retire to my room next to the TV room put my headphones on and try to read. My family is usually watching TV till about 12:30 – 1:00 so I’m up until then and as soon as it’s off I go to bed.
Then I have my Fridays where I head to work for about an hour and if anyone shows up I sit and talk to them about anything but work for an hour if not I sit there and wait and then leave after that hour. I’ve left my Fridays open from conversation clubs so that I can actually try to use that time to plan some youth activities. Right now I’m trying to put something together where I will help the youth in my conversation clubs plan and run a weekly Saturday activity where we lead a round robin of games with purpose with an attempt at trying to teach life skills through play.
My Saturdays and Sundays if I’m not traveling for work or play right now I try to get caught up on all the things that get put aside during the week like laundry and cleaning. And I usually use a bit of time to read a bit more. I’m reading more now than I ever have before and I’m really enjoying it. If any of you come across any good books throw them in the next package I can always use something to read, and they say it only get worse as the winter and darkness set in.
I hope this gives you a little bit of an idea what things are like over here. Kristin if you’re still reading or any others that may be coming next year please feel free to email me or anyone else over here directly and we can give you even more details and answer any questions you may have. If your anything like I was you’ll be full of them.
Tacos In The AZ
October 17, 2007
For this post I must first profusely thank my Mom, Dad, and sister Becky for being so absolutely gracious for sending me supplies to make these tacos!!
Today I had the best meal of my life! Since I’ve been here I’ve craved nothing more than a taco the way my mom used to make, and today that craving was finally satisfied. (For the next few hours at least.) This conquest began two days ago when I made salsa from the great fresh produce we have here in our bazaar. I let the salsa sit in the fridge for two days to allow the flavors to completely merge. Then last night my brother and I pulled a Kilo of beef out of the freezer, took it outside, and ran it through the hand grinder. This morning I woke up like an excited little boy on Christmas morning. Luckily I had a few errands to run this morning otherwise I would have eaten them for breakfast. When I got back I started the beans and paced the house. When it was finally lunch time I browned the beef, grated the cheese, sliced the lemons and tomatoes, and started to heat the oil for the real CORN TORTILLAS my sister sent from home.
We have something here called lavash that is kind of like a flour tortilla but… different so it was absolutely amazing to finally have the real thing. Ever since I can remember my mom made us tacos this way where she takes a corn tortilla and fries it in corn oil just enough to cook it but keeping it flexible.
Like a symphony all the parts came together perfectly the tortillas were ready just as the meat finished cooking the veggies and cheese were prepared as the meat was started and my brother and I sat down and enjoyed complete ecstasy.
Here are some pictures to show how great tacos in the AZ look!
For this post I must first profusely thank my Mom, Dad, and sister Becky for being so absolutely gracious for sending me supplies to make these tacos!!
Today I had the best meal of my life! Since I’ve been here I’ve craved nothing more than a taco the way my mom used to make, and today that craving was finally satisfied. (For the next few hours at least.) This conquest began two days ago when I made salsa from the great fresh produce we have here in our bazaar. I let the salsa sit in the fridge for two days to allow the flavors to completely merge. Then last night my brother and I pulled a Kilo of beef out of the freezer, took it outside, and ran it through the hand grinder. This morning I woke up like an excited little boy on Christmas morning. Luckily I had a few errands to run this morning otherwise I would have eaten them for breakfast. When I got back I started the beans and paced the house. When it was finally lunch time I browned the beef, grated the cheese, sliced the lemons and tomatoes, and started to heat the oil for the real CORN TORTILLAS my sister sent from home.
We have something here called lavash that is kind of like a flour tortilla but… different so it was absolutely amazing to finally have the real thing. Ever since I can remember my mom made us tacos this way where she takes a corn tortilla and fries it in corn oil just enough to cook it but keeping it flexible.
Like a symphony all the parts came together perfectly the tortillas were ready just as the meat finished cooking the veggies and cheese were prepared as the meat was started and my brother and I sat down and enjoyed complete ecstasy.
Here are some pictures to show how great tacos in the AZ look!
Taco Pics
The first is cooking the tacos on the stove. The second is the spread. The third is of one great taco. Ane the last is some corn chips i made!!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)