two months at site

Let me begin by saying that Matt is in the lead in the competition by being the only one to guess thus far. He also pointed out there are missing people I added them and they show up if you click on the time stamp at the bottom of the post entitled 'oh my god you read this thing' the one directly beneath this. there are three more pics so I am giving Matt another chance, if you want to take it. Cause fairs fair

now on with the post...

Two moths at site!!!
Well Sheki, aka the land of fairies has been very good to me. I have heard from many of you that your favorite on of these has been my entry about the “well dressed Azeri Lady”. So I feel, like going back to the beginning, so I will include this old email, I may have sent to all of you, or none of you. Can’t remember. But call it a bonus feature, if you will and imagine that my blog is a dvd. And you lucky people stumbled on a note from the past. When I wrote it I had only been in training about a month.


Well I have decided that the email situation isn’t working out effectively and maybe for the time-being I should give in and set-up a blog or post open letters- whatever you want to call it.

To all of you whom I haven’t been able to contact personally, I am sorry. My access to the Internet is usually about a ½ hour a week or so. I am living in a small settlement called Saray (pronounced sar-I). There is a main road that connects it to other places, which is paved. The other roads in town are decidedly not paved. There are wandering animals a cow here, dogs, sheep being walked. Saray is not the place where an Internet café would be, if Saray were that big a settlement, women would not necessarily be allowed in. Therefore, I get to email about once a week when we go to the city for “hub days”. “Hub days” are what the Peace Corps calls days where we all meet to discuss things (they call that debriefing) and talk about our projects. So when we break for lunch 45 people all go to eat and use the Internet causing a bit of an over-crowding issue. Anyway enough on that.

I do like living in Saray, it is small. It is like living in any small village, people talk. So I do have to be aware of where I am and what I say in front of whom, even if very few people speak English. But then there are the perks of being the new people in the village and everyone wants you to come over for dinner or tea or just wants to meet you. I had two such situations like that just yesterday. I was told by my younger host sister that it was time for lunch, she speaks no English so that is lunch or any meal is indicated to me by her knocking on my door and telling me to eat. Upon getting to the kitchen I see food still being prepared and four of her friends are outside waiting to meet me. I oblige. This consists of me sitting and being asked the three or five things they know in English, I answer what I can in Azeri. What is your name? Men adim Maqdalenadir. Why are you here? I am studying Azeri? What does your father do? Menim atam hekimdir? They tell me that their father’s are doctors too! Having exhausted the amount of language we have in common they scamper off—lunch was about 35minutes later. Later that night I was invited over to the home of one of the other girls in my class. We had chicken and beef kebabs, bbqed over a fire on what looks very much like dull swords, girls kept coming in and out of the party to meet us talk to us and ask why are we in Azerbaijan. I tell them that I am here to learn the language. Rikki’s (the Peace Corps girl) family is very musical so the evening turned into an exchange of music. We sang ‘O beautiful’ they sang an Azeri folk song, we sang Amazing grace they played the piano and sang another song. It was quite cool.

Another great aspect of ling in Saray is this; there are three groups here. Of the 45 (we started 47) people in our group there are 16 here. My group lives about 30 minutes by foot from them and we have decided to meet up twice a week to play football (soccer) Americans vs. Azeris. We played on Thursday and tomorrow (Tuesday) will be the second. Let be take this moment to mention how spectacular this game was. To be able to run and play, when in training in Azerbaijan there are a lot of rules all day. Don’t smile at men you don’t know, be home before dark, no jeans in school. In football the rules were basically the same if you are a boy or a girl, if you are American or Azeri. Last time only one other girl played, and she did much better than I, but we both got in the game. This week I one of at least one person busing in to play with us and the other girl from our group will play too. It is a dirt field with glass on it (as it is almost everywhere here) vaguely outlined boundaries and two goals. Last week one of the locals rode his horse to the game and left his horse just off the pitch. I took a picture one of the times the horse was in the game. The first game was so much fun that I hope everyone will return with the additions and there is already some talk of having volleyball days at our school, there is a net up and everyone seems to play at home in over their laundry lines, so I think it is very do-able.

So that’s basically where I am at right now, trying desperately to learn Azeri, so at the next viewing session, when they come to look at least I can say more than My name is, How are you, My family is, cause after that all I can do is start naming fruits and vegetables. I have made friends, I hope to … ironic side note, just got interrupted by another viewing session. I guess I will rap this up with the satisfaction that at least this one went better than the last.