Sunday, April 13, 2008
Photos
Here are some photos. the first is my bedroom. the second is my cool western toliet that i can actually flush toliet paper down! (most toliets here you have to either use the red flower watering pot that's next to the toliet or have a bag for dirty paper which can be pretty smelly). the 3rd and 4th are of the best packages i've gotten! my mom managed to fit all this into the flat rate boxes that you can send for 37bucks. if any of you need any ideas look at these photos and see the randomness. i asked her to go to the super market and just look for fun small things you would never normally buy spices to make things with here are awesome!!
Photos
Here are some photos. the 1st is the dinner i made for my girls club, a few PCV'S, and my brother. the second is of my new house from the road. THe third is my house form the yard. the forth is my kitchen. The last is my living room.
Spring Is Here!!
April 13, 2008
Hello everyone. I can’t believe how much the weather can brighten a person’s attitude! This last month and a half has been pretty exciting. We had our annual Peace Corps prom in Baku, I moved out on my own, and spring arrived.
Over one weekend the weather went from winter to spring and now everyone is outside and happy. Today I went for one of the best runs in my life. We had a thunderstorm last night with tons of rain then when I woke up this morning there wasn’t a cloud in the sky but all the roads were still wet and clean. I ran down toward a great village called Danaçi which has all these little village country houses spread out along this long straight road that has tall cottonwoods on the sides spread out enough to still see the fresh snow on the mountains from last night. I had my ipod playing some great music and felt like I could have gone on for hours. (Then I turned around and realized that feeling of being able to go on forever was aided by the fact that I was running on a slight down slope that I had to run back up at a much slower pace.)
Our prom was all sorts of fun. Volunteers have been planning a prom in at the end of February for a few years to have something to look forward to during the hard winter. This year the theme was high society and everyone dressed up really nice I however decided to do it high society redneck style! I had been growing my hair out since our swearing in ceremony in September which was fun but time for a new look so I had one of my friends cut it into an awesome looking mullet complete with lines on one side and a lightning bolt on the other! Then I had my mom send a tuxedo t-shirt which unfortunately didn’t arrive in time (something about accidentally being sent to Thailand?) So I took a white t-shirt cut off the sleeves and made my own which turned out to be even better. Then I got a brown bag from our medical staff and bought some beer in pounder cans from the store next to the bar and drank cheap beer form a brown bag all night. My camera was acting up that night so you’ll have to wait a while longer before I can send you some pics of all my sexyness in a mullet!
A month ago today Peace Corps let us move out of our host families and into houses of our own! I thought the process would be really crazy and interesting after I asked my brother how I could find a place and he said we would just walk up and down the streets asking people if they knew of places for rent but it turned out to be easier than that by using my conversation clubs. I sent everyone home with the assignment to find me a home. They came back with all sorts of places but two actually were cheap enough to meet the PC requirements. One of them was nice and relatively new sharing a courtyard with a family but the family said the only way they would allow me to live there for that cheap was if I would teach their kids English. The other place which I took is really old but huge. I have three bedrooms a huge kitchen an indoor western toilet and an indoor shower. The first story has a divorced old lady that people say is a prostitute and who has a key to my house and has stolen food and clothes from me living in it but other than that and the fact that I have very sporadic water and wont have any in the summer and winter the place is great. I’ve realized being here how much Americans myself included really pride ourselves on our independence. Even with all the issues living in this house have and will produce it is still so nice to have a place of my own where I can cook my own food, wash my own dishes and laundry, wear socks only when I want to, and not have someone constantly hovering over me.
Moving out has also produced some great topics of discussion for my conversation clubs. It is unheard of here for people to move out of their family’s homes until they get married. I have some students who are in their late 20s to early 30s, who for some strange anomaly because people usually get married early here, are still living in their parent’s homes. Then there is the whole topic of how I eat and take care of myself without a mother, sister, or wife to take care of my eating, tea drinking, and cleaning needs. In the last two weeks I’ve had two of my clubs over and I cooked dinner for them. They were more than astonished and not only at the realization that Chinese food isn’t made entirely of weird looking bugs. When I met with my girls club the next time I realized how much they liked the experience when they (who are all between 16 and 22) all told me it had been the best day of their lives. Then this last Friday I cooked for my teachers club which is a bunch of middle aged women who are used to doing all the work over here and it was funny to watch how much nervous energy they had sitting there watching me do all this work for them. They kept getting up trying to jump in and help but I wouldn’t let them. It turned into a great cultural sharing experience as we sat over dinner and I explained to them how men and women share household responsibilities in most US families.
In all things have really been going really well and I’ve been having a great time. There are still the moments where I sit in my big empty house all by myself on a Friday of Saturday night and go to bed at nine o’clock because there’s nothing else to do and think about how long these 27 months are going to be, but the good times are still overwhelming making up for some of the long nights.
Hello everyone. I can’t believe how much the weather can brighten a person’s attitude! This last month and a half has been pretty exciting. We had our annual Peace Corps prom in Baku, I moved out on my own, and spring arrived.
Over one weekend the weather went from winter to spring and now everyone is outside and happy. Today I went for one of the best runs in my life. We had a thunderstorm last night with tons of rain then when I woke up this morning there wasn’t a cloud in the sky but all the roads were still wet and clean. I ran down toward a great village called Danaçi which has all these little village country houses spread out along this long straight road that has tall cottonwoods on the sides spread out enough to still see the fresh snow on the mountains from last night. I had my ipod playing some great music and felt like I could have gone on for hours. (Then I turned around and realized that feeling of being able to go on forever was aided by the fact that I was running on a slight down slope that I had to run back up at a much slower pace.)
Our prom was all sorts of fun. Volunteers have been planning a prom in at the end of February for a few years to have something to look forward to during the hard winter. This year the theme was high society and everyone dressed up really nice I however decided to do it high society redneck style! I had been growing my hair out since our swearing in ceremony in September which was fun but time for a new look so I had one of my friends cut it into an awesome looking mullet complete with lines on one side and a lightning bolt on the other! Then I had my mom send a tuxedo t-shirt which unfortunately didn’t arrive in time (something about accidentally being sent to Thailand?) So I took a white t-shirt cut off the sleeves and made my own which turned out to be even better. Then I got a brown bag from our medical staff and bought some beer in pounder cans from the store next to the bar and drank cheap beer form a brown bag all night. My camera was acting up that night so you’ll have to wait a while longer before I can send you some pics of all my sexyness in a mullet!
A month ago today Peace Corps let us move out of our host families and into houses of our own! I thought the process would be really crazy and interesting after I asked my brother how I could find a place and he said we would just walk up and down the streets asking people if they knew of places for rent but it turned out to be easier than that by using my conversation clubs. I sent everyone home with the assignment to find me a home. They came back with all sorts of places but two actually were cheap enough to meet the PC requirements. One of them was nice and relatively new sharing a courtyard with a family but the family said the only way they would allow me to live there for that cheap was if I would teach their kids English. The other place which I took is really old but huge. I have three bedrooms a huge kitchen an indoor western toilet and an indoor shower. The first story has a divorced old lady that people say is a prostitute and who has a key to my house and has stolen food and clothes from me living in it but other than that and the fact that I have very sporadic water and wont have any in the summer and winter the place is great. I’ve realized being here how much Americans myself included really pride ourselves on our independence. Even with all the issues living in this house have and will produce it is still so nice to have a place of my own where I can cook my own food, wash my own dishes and laundry, wear socks only when I want to, and not have someone constantly hovering over me.
Moving out has also produced some great topics of discussion for my conversation clubs. It is unheard of here for people to move out of their family’s homes until they get married. I have some students who are in their late 20s to early 30s, who for some strange anomaly because people usually get married early here, are still living in their parent’s homes. Then there is the whole topic of how I eat and take care of myself without a mother, sister, or wife to take care of my eating, tea drinking, and cleaning needs. In the last two weeks I’ve had two of my clubs over and I cooked dinner for them. They were more than astonished and not only at the realization that Chinese food isn’t made entirely of weird looking bugs. When I met with my girls club the next time I realized how much they liked the experience when they (who are all between 16 and 22) all told me it had been the best day of their lives. Then this last Friday I cooked for my teachers club which is a bunch of middle aged women who are used to doing all the work over here and it was funny to watch how much nervous energy they had sitting there watching me do all this work for them. They kept getting up trying to jump in and help but I wouldn’t let them. It turned into a great cultural sharing experience as we sat over dinner and I explained to them how men and women share household responsibilities in most US families.
In all things have really been going really well and I’ve been having a great time. There are still the moments where I sit in my big empty house all by myself on a Friday of Saturday night and go to bed at nine o’clock because there’s nothing else to do and think about how long these 27 months are going to be, but the good times are still overwhelming making up for some of the long nights.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Photos
Here are some new pics. The first is of the front of my host families apt. in the snow. The second is loking up my street with the mtns above town. The third is of the street of the college where i hold all my clubs. Then the last is the sun rising over the caspian sea after the superbowl.
Trucking Along
February 10, 2008
Hello everyone sorry it’s been awhile since writing last it’s become more difficult to blog as my life has settled into more of a routine. I struggle to find new and interesting things to write about. It’s interesting how the things, which would have stopped me in my tracks with amazement 8 months ago, now seem completely normal. I noticed that the other day when I was walking down the street on the shoulder of the road passing a butcher with a head of a cow hanging on a hook and a car driving the wrong way on the same shoulder I was walking on came up behind me honking for me to get out of his way and instead of thinking wow there is a dead cows head and here is a guy driving where the pedestrians are forced to walk moving in the wrong direction and he’s honking at me! Instead I just casually moved to the side with all the other people walking so he could speed past us just inches away at 3 times the posted speed limit splashing slush all over us and didn’t really think much about it other than how it was funny that I now think of that as normal.
Other than the normal near brushes with death from the crazy drivers (Don’t worry I’m slightly exaggerating this mom) things have been going really well. It has been cold and water has been causing problems with most volunteers but I’ve been really lucky with my family and my host brother in particular who has been able to maguyver a way to have water almost constantly. I could complain about the week we went without water and thus a shower but the other volunteers would be really angry since many of them haven’t had water since the 1st of the year. So, understanding it’s cold but could be so much worse keeps my outlook positive.
My language is coming along slowly but surely. There are many volunteers who are learning it much faster than I am but I did realize that on Super Tuesday I was able to sufficiently explain to my host mom what Super Tuesday was and how the primary elections work in the US. I’m sure it still sounded like a 3 year old explaining it but the concepts were transferred?
I was able to go into Baku and see the Superbowl! A big group of us went in and one of my friends was able to talk a bar owner into keeping the bar open from 3 to 7:30am for us to watch. Up until it was over and I realized it was 7:30am and the sun was up it was good fun.
Everything else aside my work is going really well. Last week I met with the head of The Azerbaijan Scouts and learned that there really is no program so he and I are going to work together to create the advancement curriculum for Scouts!
I’m in the process of trying to find a new home! Here in PC Azerbaijan we stay with a host family for the first 2 ½ months during our training. Then we move to our sites and stay with a family for an additional 6 months. At the end of this 6 months (March 13th) we have the option to move out on our own. The theory of us living with a family for this long is to help us integrate into the community and culture better. There is an on going debate between volunteers and our Country Director about the significance or lack there of for this, but for now it just is, and it will be ending in one short month. I will keep you posted to how this process of finding a house or apartment in a country where it is almost certain to be an entertaining process that makes no sense at all, but will find some way to work itself out.
Hello everyone sorry it’s been awhile since writing last it’s become more difficult to blog as my life has settled into more of a routine. I struggle to find new and interesting things to write about. It’s interesting how the things, which would have stopped me in my tracks with amazement 8 months ago, now seem completely normal. I noticed that the other day when I was walking down the street on the shoulder of the road passing a butcher with a head of a cow hanging on a hook and a car driving the wrong way on the same shoulder I was walking on came up behind me honking for me to get out of his way and instead of thinking wow there is a dead cows head and here is a guy driving where the pedestrians are forced to walk moving in the wrong direction and he’s honking at me! Instead I just casually moved to the side with all the other people walking so he could speed past us just inches away at 3 times the posted speed limit splashing slush all over us and didn’t really think much about it other than how it was funny that I now think of that as normal.
Other than the normal near brushes with death from the crazy drivers (Don’t worry I’m slightly exaggerating this mom) things have been going really well. It has been cold and water has been causing problems with most volunteers but I’ve been really lucky with my family and my host brother in particular who has been able to maguyver a way to have water almost constantly. I could complain about the week we went without water and thus a shower but the other volunteers would be really angry since many of them haven’t had water since the 1st of the year. So, understanding it’s cold but could be so much worse keeps my outlook positive.
My language is coming along slowly but surely. There are many volunteers who are learning it much faster than I am but I did realize that on Super Tuesday I was able to sufficiently explain to my host mom what Super Tuesday was and how the primary elections work in the US. I’m sure it still sounded like a 3 year old explaining it but the concepts were transferred?
I was able to go into Baku and see the Superbowl! A big group of us went in and one of my friends was able to talk a bar owner into keeping the bar open from 3 to 7:30am for us to watch. Up until it was over and I realized it was 7:30am and the sun was up it was good fun.
Everything else aside my work is going really well. Last week I met with the head of The Azerbaijan Scouts and learned that there really is no program so he and I are going to work together to create the advancement curriculum for Scouts!
I’m in the process of trying to find a new home! Here in PC Azerbaijan we stay with a host family for the first 2 ½ months during our training. Then we move to our sites and stay with a family for an additional 6 months. At the end of this 6 months (March 13th) we have the option to move out on our own. The theory of us living with a family for this long is to help us integrate into the community and culture better. There is an on going debate between volunteers and our Country Director about the significance or lack there of for this, but for now it just is, and it will be ending in one short month. I will keep you posted to how this process of finding a house or apartment in a country where it is almost certain to be an entertaining process that makes no sense at all, but will find some way to work itself out.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Happy New Year
January 3, 2008
Well Happy New Year and Merry Christmas! This last month has been really busy with all the things I’ve been doing and seems to have slipped right by. I hope you all were able to enjoy everything the holiday season has become in America. Being this far away has really made me miss all the little things.
They teach us many things in training here and one of the most important is about ourselves. They taught us that our service would be full of emotional peaks and valleys. This last month has been one of those valleys for me. I don’t know if it’s because of the holidays or just the fact that up to this point I really haven’t had a valley yet but I really missed home friends and family this past month. Now that the month has passed and it’s the start of a new year I can feel myself climbing the hill again and hope to be at that peak again soon.
The biggest event of this last month was our IST (In Service Training). For this all the volunteers in my class, the AZ5’s, went into Baku and spent three nights in a hotel and had trainings during the days. It was really pretty nice how they scheduled it. They had us all come in on Christmas day so that night we were all able to be together. We had an entire floor to ourselves so in the large common area we moved all the sofas and couches and almost all 50 of us ordered pizzas and sat around catching up with each other. Things like this are always kind of bitter sweet. It is all sorts of fun to be back around all the friends I grew so close to during our training, but then it’s always much more expensive than the money PC gives us for our Per diem. Then to be back around all those Americans again it can remind you of home that much more.
During IST I had my LPI (Language Proficiency Interview) During my training some of us didn’t score high enough so a few others and me had to retake the test during our IST and this time I passed. It was a great relief since before the test sometimes I was scared that I was going backward in my language skills but as it turned out I was able to go in there and relax and just have a normal conversation in Azeri. I still sound like a what talking to a three year old sounds like not getting all of my tenses correct in each sentence but I am able to understand and communicate.
The other exciting event of this past month was going to one of my student’s homes for dinner. I have this amazing student who is also my Azeri tutor and she just really has things figured out. So a few weeks ago I learned about this opportunity for youth to be involved in something called the youth fund where they are given the responsibility of distributing grants to different projects youth apply for. To be on this committee would really increase someone’s opportunity to be selected for other programs here to study in other countries. She wasn’t able to attend so I got the video and some applications and told her roommate to let her know I wanted to come over after dinner that sometime that week to tell her about these things. Well, her roommates English isn’t as good as I had thought and she didn’t understand so she told her that I was coming over but didn’t know why but thought I wanted her to cook me dinner. So when I got over there she had this huge meal prepared that she and all her roommates had worked on all day long. When I got there I was able to explain it all and we had a good laugh. After getting the through the language barrier we all had a great time and it was the most fun I’ve had with host country nationals since I’ve been here.
Just in case some of you have forgotten my address, here it is again : -)
Donald Stevens
Məzkəzi Poçt
Tələb Edilənədək
Zaqatala, Azərbaycan
Az 6200 Azerbaijan
note: i just looked at the address and the upsidedown e"s did not appear. anywhere there is a square put an upsidedown e.
Well Happy New Year and Merry Christmas! This last month has been really busy with all the things I’ve been doing and seems to have slipped right by. I hope you all were able to enjoy everything the holiday season has become in America. Being this far away has really made me miss all the little things.
They teach us many things in training here and one of the most important is about ourselves. They taught us that our service would be full of emotional peaks and valleys. This last month has been one of those valleys for me. I don’t know if it’s because of the holidays or just the fact that up to this point I really haven’t had a valley yet but I really missed home friends and family this past month. Now that the month has passed and it’s the start of a new year I can feel myself climbing the hill again and hope to be at that peak again soon.
The biggest event of this last month was our IST (In Service Training). For this all the volunteers in my class, the AZ5’s, went into Baku and spent three nights in a hotel and had trainings during the days. It was really pretty nice how they scheduled it. They had us all come in on Christmas day so that night we were all able to be together. We had an entire floor to ourselves so in the large common area we moved all the sofas and couches and almost all 50 of us ordered pizzas and sat around catching up with each other. Things like this are always kind of bitter sweet. It is all sorts of fun to be back around all the friends I grew so close to during our training, but then it’s always much more expensive than the money PC gives us for our Per diem. Then to be back around all those Americans again it can remind you of home that much more.
During IST I had my LPI (Language Proficiency Interview) During my training some of us didn’t score high enough so a few others and me had to retake the test during our IST and this time I passed. It was a great relief since before the test sometimes I was scared that I was going backward in my language skills but as it turned out I was able to go in there and relax and just have a normal conversation in Azeri. I still sound like a what talking to a three year old sounds like not getting all of my tenses correct in each sentence but I am able to understand and communicate.
The other exciting event of this past month was going to one of my student’s homes for dinner. I have this amazing student who is also my Azeri tutor and she just really has things figured out. So a few weeks ago I learned about this opportunity for youth to be involved in something called the youth fund where they are given the responsibility of distributing grants to different projects youth apply for. To be on this committee would really increase someone’s opportunity to be selected for other programs here to study in other countries. She wasn’t able to attend so I got the video and some applications and told her roommate to let her know I wanted to come over after dinner that sometime that week to tell her about these things. Well, her roommates English isn’t as good as I had thought and she didn’t understand so she told her that I was coming over but didn’t know why but thought I wanted her to cook me dinner. So when I got over there she had this huge meal prepared that she and all her roommates had worked on all day long. When I got there I was able to explain it all and we had a good laugh. After getting the through the language barrier we all had a great time and it was the most fun I’ve had with host country nationals since I’ve been here.
Just in case some of you have forgotten my address, here it is again : -)
Donald Stevens
Məzkəzi Poçt
Tələb Edilənədək
Zaqatala, Azərbaycan
Az 6200 Azerbaijan
note: i just looked at the address and the upsidedown e"s did not appear. anywhere there is a square put an upsidedown e.
Saturday, December 1, 2007
GO DUCKS
Here is a photo of me with the duck stuff my mom sent. She got me duck Crocks, a stuffed duck that quacks, and then a that shirt before i left. i'm wearing this around all day today in my show of support! Read the Civil War post below and then go get changed! GO DUCKS!!
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