odds and ends

Last night was my 13th month anniversary of being in Azerbaijan. Lucky thirteen. Fourteen to go if you wanted to count. I spent it with another volunteer who I haven't spent much time with, Matt. I like that my site is interesting enough that eventually almost everyone will spot by and in doing so afford me the opportunity to get to know them better.

I thought in the spirit of the random travelers that come and go I would include some pics- 1 is my baby sister who, as you can see just got married. The other two are from one of my favorite areas of Sheki. It is the old town, where the palace of the Khan still stands. Matt was about to go walk up there yesterday so he could see Sheki and I could get work down on a new project I have, but then a storm intervened and after the power went off and the battery was drained from my laptop we surrendered to hang out, cook up some pasta, share some stories to make each other laugh. Happy 13th month AZ4!

Characters

Well Kats and Kittens, its time for another Blog entry. And here we go. The last week has seen me play hostess quite a bit! Adam came to help me with my website again, and yet again I worked him to exhaustion. This time I took my own trash out but kept him at my office till 11pm or midnight the whole time. However, we were productive, and according to Peace Corps Inspector Carlos Torres- that is a pretty good measure of happiness levels for PCVs. And trust me when PC touts its organizational knowledge wizardry, I don’t question it!

In other news I finally saw the Wolf-man of Sheki. I’ve seen pictures and heard stories but I had my first and second sighting this week. Sheki is a great town, and is full of sweet pastries, old architecture and Characters. I have presented few to you my readers already, the well dressed azeri lady and my postman to name a couple. Well the Wolf-man is on that caliber. He is this hunched older man that walks around Sheki with a stuffed wolf under a sheet. NO KIDDING!! For 40cents you can look into the beasts eyes and take a picture with it! Two things to note about the stuffed Wolf, it’s eyes have little LED lights in them to make him look more fierce and my favorite part—the silk sheet that covers the Wolf has two holes cut out for its ears to stick out—how great is that!

Lastly, some other characters rolled into town this weekend- AZ5. Well we had three 5ers come in to learn about a PCV does, what is our life like, and pump us for all sort of info. I had to lovely girls Kat and Carly and Josh had Donny the new kid (who totally took my Donny the new kid on the block references well!) If these three are any indication of the quality of AZ5 we’re going to have a great year. They got in Saturday night, Josh and I picked them up from the bus station—I went “Sheki ice queen” on Donny and later apologized and made it up with Chicken tacos. (Sheki ice queen is my public persona at site especially with men, Charlie dubbed me that and Ash can attest to just how true it can be.) Sunday the boys hiked and the girls slept in, went to the Bazar, walked around town, and took some naps, that afternoon we met up with Karen (the coolest expat at CHF) had tea and went to dinner at our hotel. Sunday night the girls kept me up giggling and talking about stuff—I know that will take no one by surprise. Monday was take your 5s to work day and since they had to leave so early we crashed Monday night. But I had a great great time with the 5ers and I look forward to meeting them all! Please enjoy the pic of us and Wolf-man and the WOLF!

reunion!!!

Well Again it’s been awhile so let me jump right back into things and say things. It feels great to be back. I know I am not supposed to say that, but it is true. I’m not going to bag on America- that rocked too! Kazia’s 30th was outstanding and Jana’s Wedding was unique and awesome. I had a great time, but it I stayed there one more day I was going to pop! Turns out everything the U.S. was way more delicious than I remembered. So I basically felt like I ate my way across the U.S. – which was great, but I needed to stop eating.

My first great surprise was waiting for me outside of customs. Amongst all the men holding signs for drivers, which for some reason I was inspecting, there was a Peace Corps driver with a Peace Corps sign. Now I know that for certain reasons PC will pick you up, but as special as going to your sister’s wedding is, it’s definitely not one of the reasons. But I went over and talked to him. Turns out he was waiting for an AZ5 that was on my plane- crazy right! (sidenote- at least 5 European rhythmic gymnastics teams were also on the plane)

So as the evening played out, I got a free ride into town (usually a 20$ cab ride)
A free room to crash in (would have been a 55$ hotel room)
A free ride to PC offices the next morning (3 $ taxi)
And I got to meet Greta Shoop- AZ5 early (frickin priceless! Did I mention her last name is Shoop like the song- how cool is that!)

The reunion theme continued to my trip to Ganja, which was dubbed the Reunion Tour, as so many AZ4-ers that had spent part of June away from AZ returned for a little softball! It was hugs all around for the PCVS and Ming won the tourney but I think we all had a great time. I helped moved Ben in Larry’s apt as we all said goodbye to “LARRY BADGER”(properly spoken in a thick Russian accent for comedic affect). Yes was sad to see Larry go but the man had to get home in time for his 70th birthday, and it is all part of the PCV circle of life as AZ3 moves on and AZ4 swoops in and takes all the really cool stuff, like Air Conditioned apartments!
One last note on softball, it has been said that I am not afraid of balls being thrown at me, and in the final game I finally proved to the guys that I can even catch, what remains to be seen for the fall season is if I can finally learn to use my glove hand and stop getting wicked bruises each time I play!

4th of July---- Thank you AMERICA. I never felt so high class! The embassy threw a kickin’ bash. Hot dogs Hamburgers and chocolate chip cookies. Also a special thanks to Mike, who yet again hooked us up with a free place! And let me say this- In Ganja, we had no water until we moved to Larry’s, before that in Sheki I had no water. Think about that, now think about how much softball we played in middle of the day heat and humidity, and then add the bus ride to Baku- the other side of the country, now think about how happy we were to get to Mike Air Conditioned apartment and use his showers and washing machine!

Finally, after 2 and half months of trainings and trips my counter part Azad and I were reunited too! It was great to see him again! And yeah I wore lipstick and he freaked out about how beautiful I am- so there you go, Reunions in every capacity and you can see why I mean it! It’s great to be back.



FYI the pics are all taken at the embassy. Standing in front of our state flags. In order left to right-Ashley, Rikki, and Ben in front of the Texas flag
Higgens and I in front of the all time best state's flag. Tom and Arzu in front of Illinois'.
Group shot goes Ben, Tom, me, Rikki, Ash Higgens, and Jason