Will and I spent the following weekend in Ganja, a gorgeous city to the west near the Georgian border for softball and a luau with no Hawaiian decor but a real spit roasting a pig in a Muslim country. Talk about a delicious time! There were mountains as far as the eye could see, some snow capped. I felt like I was back in the PNW. I definitely want to try and make it back to Ganja to visit sometime.
We got back on Monday and rolled right into our English Club where we taught our beginning class the names of locally grown produce in Azerbaijan. Since there was a week long break from school last week, we had a special class on Wednesday morning and took the kids on a field trip to the bazar for a scavenger hunt/bingo sort of game where they had to identify correctly the names of fruits and vegetables they saw in English, check them off on cards we prepped before class and also write them down. For students in an educational system that values ROTE and has no hands-on learning or really show kids that learning can be fun...the excitement and competitiveness that surfaced was really enjoyable to see as a teacher. I do believe we thoroughly confused the stallkeeps at the bazar though, if they weren't confused enough by the presence of Will and I since we don't look like what they think Americans look like.
This last weekend we celebrated Thanksgiving a week early in Baku with a majority of the Peace Corps. It was a potluck held at the Deputy Chief of Missions of the U.S. Embassy's house and us volunteers were kindly taken in by families who work at the embassy for the weekend. My hosts, Jeff and Micah and their precious one year old son Elijah were incredibly kind, laid back and gracious people. It was really nice to have a break from sitelife and use a real washer and dryer. The following morning we did a Sunday morning brunch 2 floors up of the apt building with a few other of the embassy families hosting volunteers at Kim and Henri's residence.
Kim and Henri are a couple who work for the State Department that I met back in July and I just have so much respect and admiration for them. They are really down to earth, hip, fun, worldly people, also RPCVs having served Peace Corps Ukraine not too long ago. Henri and I spoke at length about career path opportunities after service and I left yesterday feeling really inspired to continue living a little girl's dream of life and work abroad. If I ever find a life partner and stay in this industry, Kim and Henri are pretty much what I'd aspire to be like with my husband. They've got some really beautiful art hanging on their walls that they've been collecting from their global travels too. I can't wait to hang out with them again in 2 weeks for the joint december bday bash us volunteers have planned. They've been wanting to come dancing with us for awhile, I'm sure mixing a little karaoke into that won't be too hard.
I can't believe I'm already approaching the 5 month mark of living in Azerbaijan, it's just been going by so fast and I realize the remainder 22 months of service will continue to fly by especially once projects take off the ground for the AZ5s. It astounds me still everyday and sometimes I find myself asking myself "Whoa...am I *really* in Azerbaijan?" especially when I'm attending "balacaq toys" which translated means small wedding but is in fact a party with crazy amounts of food and dancing celebrating a very young (around 7-9 is they standard age) boy's circumsion. I felt bad for the poor kid! But the faces he was making was deliciously comical. Speaking of comical, T&A, my Halloween/Lenkaran hosts treated us volunteers to an awesomely bold/funny skit at the Thanksgiving talent show. They cross-dressed as Avril Lavigne and Kelly Clarkson and did an interpretation of VH1s storytellers of artists explaining their song-writing process. HILARIOUS! They even sealed the deal by singing "Girlfriend" (the lyrics go "hey hey you you, I don't like your girlfriend! hey hey you you I think you need a new one...I could be your girlfriend") to Rustin, 1/2 of the AZ4 couple whom they call Mr. Erin Goeckel, and he even played along with some playful suggestive flirting complete with some booty shaking to the singing...good times! I feel like my reasons for joining Peace Corps are reaffirmed and bolstered every week of volunteer life. Us AZ5 kids are starting to come into our own too, people are showing more of the quirky silly sides of our personalities since we've been together for nearly 5 months now. We even get to spend christmas together since we'll have our first in-service training conference starting on December 25th. It's almost like being back in the States and seeing all your loved ones for the holidays, except without my Mom and other female relatives asking me why I'm in my mid-twenties and still unmarried.
that is a picture with Director Tschetter and his wife when they came to Siyezen...sorry been slacking on the pictures lately!
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