magda's travels

After a year at home in San Diego I picked up and moved to Tanzania, so I thought I would dust off the old blog again so I could keep people up-dated on my life. But as always its content is not a reflection of the U.S. government, Peace Corps or anything else.

Sunday, October 22, 2006

BEST FLU SHOT EVER!!

Well, because Peace Corps likes healthy volunteers, I went in for my flu shot this weekend. Meaning, free trip to Baku- baby. So pretty much everyone, except Maria and joy came in for flu shots and fun!! A great time was had by all, we got travel in and out covered, and hotel rooms too. And due to the crazily busy travel for the holiday typically abandoned trains were sold out hours in advance--- so we had to spend another night in Baku. Not at all my plan, but I am not gone say that I wasn't happy to sleep in a bed instead of a train!

Baku is great, it is fun to come in with a big group of people dance and have good food. It reminds you that you can do those things here, even if only once a month. A lot of us newbies are still getting our barings and get easily lost here, taking hours to walk something that may take a normal person 20 minutes. Tom and Ashley, i believe got lost in every nook and cranny of Baku this weekend, always fun to spend the day wandering about lost on two hours of sleep! Although, I didn't fair much better, I in may eternal spiral down and down into true idiocacy achieved a new low! I may have mentioned before that I am truly the WORST text message sender ever, trust me when I tell you this is uncontested. I often forget to include key words like nouns that would give the reader a hint into what the heck I was trying to say. Well I planned an event that is near enough to Kasey's birthday that I was going to also have a surprise birthday party for her, great idea. Checking too make sure the only person I had mentioned this too new it was a surprise. I text Rachel, asking if kasey's birthday party during that event was still a surprise, I of course then failed to actually send the message to Rachel and send it to Kasey!!! I believe that actually beats the fact that Tom managed to play me like a well tuned fiddle convincing me that he and Ash already had the picture of me they are trying to get, and just sitting there and I went off in my amazement that they got the picture, how no one has it. Except these three people and who they are and where they live... ah yes it feels awesome in my land of gullibility. You should visit sometime!

PS I just spell check this Kasey not being a word it knew recommened I use gaseous instead!

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

magda's travels


Ohh by the way ashley's blog address is http://ashsazeradventure.blogspot.com

He has pictures and stuff, and many more funny stories. And his request still stands that any of my friends or family contact him. Feel free, I believe that he will fail is his goal, but I like the to see the effort!

magda's travels

Interesting, you may notice that the two posts below are entirely identical-- that's true. I offer you no explanation except this, you should see how bad I am at text messaging, I mean really ask any of my friends here, especially Kasey Ashley or Tom. But anyone of my friends have their own stories about my special brand of sms or texting retardation!

I am a live and well and you should be content with that!

on second thought

Well cats and kittens I may have exaggerated a bit when I called Ash a big fat jackass. I only assumed he was trying to embarrass me! Ashley I sincerely apologize and you know that I meant jackass in the nicest possible way right?..

It’s raining Again! And my family began winterizing the house. I have a radiator in my room and an oven in my living room so the upstairs apartment is quite cozy! Also grand news in my life, the toilet works- sweet day in the morning- I can shower and pee inside, where it is warm. Those of you who have ever had to run outside in monsoon like ran to use a Turkish toilet in the middle of the night, can imagine my glee!

The only other big news is that I finally gave Charlie a much-needed haircut, which the host family found interesting to no end. And then they, laughed and laughed at the joke that he finally looked like a boy! However, of all the moments with my family this weekend the one I liked the best was my host sister demonstrating how to get out of extra helpings at meals by summoning a Scarlet O’Hara-esque pout and then swooning over her bowl guarding it from her mother, saying that she was full, and then breaking character to look at me and say that’s what I needed to do! I just about peed my pants it was awesome, to bad right then the phone rang, and she got up and left her bowl defenseless, I guess mothers everywhere have the last word!

A new feature I would like to add to this is my Josh moments! Josh is an amazing guy, who keeps me entertained constantly. Josh’s curiosity knows no bounds, and it has an unusual predilection for minutia. Here’s why Josh is great and endlessly fascinating he knows a lot about things I never even knewn were topics, and assumes you do too, in fact he assumes you know almost everything and so he asks you…

Some classics Josh moments are:

1st week we lived in Azeribayjan at dinner. Candice comments that Josh has a great smile (Josh almost always smiles). His response smiling (without a drop of sarcasm) is, thanks, it took three surgeries!

Or upon arriving in Sheki, with Josh he turns to me and asks –what’s that building, when was it built?

This weeks Josh moments are:

I was discussing flasks with Josh and Charlie, and Josh turns to us and asks, “Wait what’s a flask?”

Monday, October 16, 2006

a bit of a retraction

Well cats and kittens I may have exaggerated a bit when I called Ash a big fat jackass. I only assumed he was trying to embarrass me! Ashley I sincerely apologize and you know that I meant jackass in the nicest possible way right?..

It’s raining Again! And my family began winterizing the house. I have a radiator in my room and an oven in my living room so the upstairs apartment is quite cozy! Also grand news in my life, the toilet works- sweet day in the morning- I can shower and pee inside, where it is warm. Those of you who have ever had to run outside in monsoon like ran to use a Turkish toilet in the middle of the night, can imagine my glee!

The only other big news is that I finally gave Charlie a much-needed haircut, which the host family found interesting to no end. And then they, laughed and laughed at the joke that he finally looked like a boy! However, of all the moments with my family this weekend the one I liked the best was my host sister demonstrating how to get out of extra helpings at meals by summoning a Scarlet O’Hara-esque pout and then swooning over her bowl guarding it from her mother, saying that she was full, and then breaking character to look at me and say that’s what I needed to do! I just about peed my pants it was awesome, to bad right then the phone rang, and she got up and left her bowl defenseless, I guess mothers everywhere have the last word!

A new feature I would like to add to this is my Josh moments! Josh is an amazing guy, who keeps me entertained constantly. Josh’s curiosity knows no bounds, and it has an unusual predilection for minutia. Here’s why Josh is great and endlessly fascinating he knows a lot about things I never even knewn were topics, and assumes you do too, in fact he assumes you know almost everything and so he asks you…

Some classics Josh moments are:

1st week we lived in Azeribayjan at dinner. Candice comments that Josh has a great smile (Josh almost always smiles). His response smiling (without a drop of sarcasm) is, thanks, it took three surgeries!

Or upon arriving in Sheki, with Josh he turns to me and asks –what’s that building, when was it built?

This weeks Josh moments are:

I was discussing flasks with Josh and Charlie, and Josh turns to us and asks, “Wait what’s a flask?”

Sunday, October 15, 2006

one month at site and going strong

First and foremost, to my loyal readers, I'm guessing there may be two or you...
Let me start with this, Ashley is a big fat jackass. and if you go to check his blog you'll see that I have reason to believe that he is scheming against me, for to tarnish my birthday no less. Well that's fine Ash- cause you will never succeed! I will still recommend that you check his site for pics because, despite my glorious city being far better than your southern city. The electricity often cuts out when I want to post.

Ok on to other matters, like the recent openning of the fancy pants hotel on my street which serves.... drum roll please fresh coffee, and hamburgers... I am living no less than the high life baby!!! And certain unfortunate matters that I will not go into have been resolved so I am free to walk to work again. Meaning that my mountain paradise has become a proper fairyland again!! Hurray.

A brief list of all the things that make might site amazing!

1. misty mountains surrounding us, and keeping us full of fairiness
2. mochas
3. frenchfries
4. josh and charlie ( my sitemates)
5. my host family who don't mind that I have guy friends, are cool with them eating over ALL the time, and let them stay over watching movies until midnight-amazing!
6. My piratanical puppy!

Thursday, October 05, 2006

magda's travels

magda's travels
Let me tell you all a story, it took place this weekend, but I have the distinct suspicion it could happen a great many times in my next two years here. I went to Ganja with my work, which is great because it meant I got to see another city, learn something AND see my friends out there. I was supposed to be there for one night, but arriving at work on Thursday I was told we weíre leaving that night instead- a day early. We took the company car, which was great because it saved me the travel costs and an hour. Also meant that my co-workers took the first part to have language lessons what is a hill, a canyon, goat you get it. Then that got boring for us all and we settled into listening to some Turkish music. When we were 20 minutes outside of the city the car stopped working about we slowed to a stop. My co-workers got out and start looking around, looking at the ground and the side of the road, I thought maybe a part of the car had fallen of. I was wrong what they were looking for and found was string. I was fascinated to find out how string was going to restart our car. And impressed when it worked. What happened was this, they pulled some tube out of the gas tank and siphoned a bit of gas out spit that out then tied it off with the string and closed the gas tank with the tube hanging out. I asked what the tube was and was told that American cars donít have it and no one really knows what it does and this one co-worker had figured out some time ago that this worked. And it did every time we broke down it worked until the next time, all six times! We got there safe and sound and I had a great time and arrived with a story to tell so not at all a bad trip in.

While there I got some good food but of all the meals I ate there I have to say two standout to me the breakfast each morning where I got to have cereal with a banana thanks to Larry my gracious host AND the PB and J I had on bread fresh out of the oven! Man that sandwich rocked and it was all the better ëcause I ate it watching Arrested Development with Ben. I wish I could have sat in that chair all morning,..dayÖ forever ( I was exhausted from the night before) . But, I made the responsible choice and took the earlier of the two afternoon buses because you never knowÖ

When I returned to town I went to my friendís place he was cooking dinner for me and his family oven baked chicken, rice and corn bread (Awesome food) but one thing- the electricity was out and had been all day so at 6:30 we decided it was time to make a broth and boil that chicken we through in all the veggies including 6 jalepeno peppers and it made for a nice and spicy chicken. At seven the power came back and we got to back the cornbread! So it all worked out. I guess life is just like that in Peace Corps you got to have a plan B. If the electricity is out use the gas and if your car stops find some string!





In Peace Corps, like most other times living abroad, itís the little things. The little things that build up your everyday, that shape the experience. For me my day starts with my walk to work. There is of course the pre-game. Will I bring my computer today, if so I lug it, if not risk being without it when inevitably the day starts to linger. So as you can guess by now, today I decided to bring it, and my day has started to linger on. Pre-game ends with breakfast and a brief conversation with my host mother then Iím out the door and in the world. We are supposed to be community members, and I try to make an effort to be that. So I smile and try to be as routine as possible. I take the same path and leave roughly at the same time everyday. That way, I see the same people, in hopes that the new kid in school vibe I get from everyone eventually wears off a bit. Although, I admit that I clearly donít mind as much as some that all the girls giggle as I walk by, itís like Iím the cute/cool new kid. And by saying hi to the kids or younger women, they might also be cool. (And reading this it sounds like ego, but trust me for good or bad being different separates you and can make you a celebrity, currently I choose to take the good and ignore the bad ñ Iím sure it will wear on me eventually.) But, I realized that this routine was as much for me as it is for my integration. I want to become part of the community and familiarity is the only way I know how. And this week I notice progress. And of course it was in the little things, my smiling game had escalated into actual saying hello to one woman everyday- in my head I call her the well dressed Azeri woman. This is not at all meant to admonish other Azeri women, but this lady walks up the street every morning with immaculate posture and is completely put together. She doesnít make me feel sloppy or regret my fashion choices, rather I feel good. And on my way to work I find myself looking for her everyday. As we see each other approach we smile, and with a simple hello we continue on our way to work every morning. With that my walk to work is made. And I feel like I have won some small accomplishment, that I am on my way to being a member of this community- All because the well dressed Azeri woman said hello to me.