another month goes by

Blog

Wow. So no blogging for the whole month of March. Boy am I one lazy PCV. I suppose the easiest thing for me to do is to do a ten-list update of current PCV life. Ready, steady, go!

1. Novruz bayram (holiday). Now this is like the super bowl of all Azeri holidays I've witnessed yet. Think of it one part Halloween (fire jumping, trick or treating), one part Easter (spring celebration, egg dying) and one part Thanksgiving (lots of visiting family and eating ridiculous amounts of food). I genuinely enjoyed the holiday and I'm glad I stuck around for the holiday since many other PCVs left during our 2 week break from school. I think there aren't nearly enough holidays in the world with jumping over fires, really.

2. Integration. A local friend said to me about 2 months ago that my community wasn't necessarily taking to the new volunteers all that well since our predecessors were much more outgoing. Most of those who know me know that I'm typically a very outgoing, extroverted person so I was trying to keep in line with what we'd been advised to do in order to integrate to our communities, which wasn't successful in my case. I decided to shelf what we were advised and use a combination of instincts and cultural observations/knowledge to integrate some into my community. It's been a successful strategy so far, I've gone from being treated with suspicion to being invited to homes of complete strangers in the streets. I'm even making friends (finally!) in my community! It's weird to say that it's genuinely been a big contributor to my positive mental state lately, I feel a lil cheesy saying it but it is what it is. I'm liking my site more and more.

3. A result of above has led me to successfully arranging an Azeri language tutor. Which for me is really exciting since I'm quite serious about learning the language to a high degree of fluency. Right now we've got it arranged for Tuesday morning tutoring sessions, so once a week. I originally wanted twice a week but realized it's a huge time commitment between all the other things I do (school, english club, culturally exchanging with the locals, helping other volunteers with projects, etc) Prior to this my language acquisition strategy was to learn a new word everyday (about) and it's been successful. I've added 20+ words in addition to useful (funny) phrases to my lexicon in March. Rock. While Azeri isn't necessarily a widely spoken language, it's extremely close to Turkish, which is maybe just a bit more useful for the next set of dreams I want to chase. (hint: you may be able to come visit me in Istanbul in 2010)

4. Winter. Yay! It's finally over. Azeri winter is tough. Not really sure why exactly since winter is my 2nd favorite season in the states but I didn't take all that well to the Azeri winter. Maybe it's a culmination of novelty of PCV life wearing off, gratuitous amounts of mud, less daylight, sparse heating in most buildings...it was rough but I survived. The weather has been warming up again so I've been able to leave the house and not freeze.

5. Again, a result of warmer weather means I've been able to start exercising. Frigidly cold weather isn't conducive to exercise, let me tell you. I've had an aerobic step bench built. Been rocking out to my exercise ball. Makes for a happy vy, let me tell you. If anyone wants to send workout dvds, say cardio kickboxing, any form of dancing (even strip!), step aerobic, yoga or pilates...I wouldn't be opposed to it. In fact, I will dedicate workouts to you ^.^

6. Host family. I'm still with a host family. My room is huge and mostly private. My host family is really good to me and there's more or less an implicit financial disincentive to move out so I'm not really all that motivated to get out soon. Though with the weather getting progressively warmer and bikinis around males is a definite no no, I may reconsider. If I could find a cheap house though, that may work out. But right now I've got a huge studio room with space for a workout corner, an indoor shower (but not toilet), satellite tv, dialup internet, great host family and quite a bit more freedom than most have with host families? Again, not motivated.

7. April Fools Day. Happy joking! My sitemate texted me at 5 a.m. trying to get me. But I know Will way too well to be fooled. He sent the same ruse to other people and I was the only one who caught on immediately. It inspired me to pull my own ruses, both of which were successful. Siyezen strikes again! hahahahahaha....

8. PTAC! so one facet of volunteer-staff engagement is we have a few volunteer committees, all of which we learned about during PST. One was called PTAC which stands for Programming & Training Advisory Committee, which is staff & PCVs working together to develop/improve training and programs for the 3 sectors we have here. My ears perked up during PST because it seemed like something I'd be into. I applied & got selected as a member. Exciting. Our first meeting is this Friday, we get hotel rooms for the night and my roomie is the coolest 70 year old lady ever. Her name is Bev, who along with our other 2 older female volunteers we (AZ5) have affectionately nicknamed "the Golden Girls." Bev, Cindi and Natalie all got a lot of moxie and everyone wants to be them when we reach their mature ages. I absolutely adore all of them.

9. Program Design Workshop. Yet another thing that Peace Corps does, this workshop is intended to help us learn how to design projects and get them off the ground with a local at our sites who are interested in community development. Between Will, myself and Barbie, we only have 2 of 3 sectors (english education, community development) represented currently in Siyezen. I've started working with the local Ministry of Youth & Sport director here to help develop the youth of my town, his name is Elvin. We'll be attending a 2 day workshop together later this month and I'm really going to lobby for a Youth Development volunteer for him since he's sincerely interested in developing the youth here. His passion inspires me! He sees the girls of Siyezen as too passive and wants to empower them, which is one of the most enlightened views of cross gender roles I've come by in Azerbaijan. How could I not use this opportunity?! I've got high hopes for this.

10. Travel. I've started planning my next trip/vacation. It'd been decided since last July I'd be returning home the following summer for a visit since it's a fair bit of effort to get any of my family here in Azerbaijan. I've been researching airfares to Seattle and at best I'd found something $1600+, mostly due to the fact that it's ridiculously expensive to fly out of Baku. Baku-Istanbul roundtrip is about $430USD! But Will is going to Riga, Latvia with some other PCVs and the flight is $239USD which inspired me to see flights from Riga-Seattle compared to Istanbul-Seattle. My oh my is it much cheaper all the way around. Only now I want to spend a few days in Riga since I'm there. Is it bad of me to cut time with home even shorter to see one more corner of the world? I read up a bit on Riga and it sounds amazing! I mean...Seattle will always be there, but when will I ever be in Riga again?

Until next time y'all.