Random Happenings

Well since I have been neglecting updating my blog this month, I thought it was about high time I did. Nothing super amazing or out of the ordinary has happened to me, but I will relate some random stories.

Last Friday night, I was making strawberry jam with my host mom. We were sitting outside at the picnic table in our yard underneath a berry tree (our yard is full of various fruit trees, I can not wait for them to come into season, probably in another month or so, so I can pick fruit from our yard). It was really windy out and the wind was knocking all the blackberries down on top of us. I don't know why I found it so funny, but I couldn't stop laughing - it was raining berries!

This past week I bought and put up screens on all my windows. Now I can open my windows and enjoy the fresh air without my house getting full of bugs! I still have bugs, but before I didn't open my windows at all. Now I only close them when I leave. It has made a big difference in the temperature of my house.

Yesterday Greta came over to my house for a bit just to hang out. We were sitting in my living room when we heard a chicken. (My family has 5 chickens and they prefer my yard over my host family's yard, so they are usually always around.) It was a loud noise and kind of unexpected. Greta was like what was that. I replied, without thinking, oh, no worries it is just a chicken laying an egg. After I said it I thought - oh my gosh, I am officially country! I can tell the difference in chicken noises!

This next week one of my site mates, Greta, leaves for good to head back to America. After that it will be just me and Amber holding it down in Imsihli until September - and then she leaves and it will be just me! Should be interesting.

Work wise - things are coming. I have started working with a NGO in Baku to help them write and edit grants. I have also started helping out another NGO is Imishli with a project and editing grants. So, at least now I have a bit more stuff on my plate. My house is starting to feel more like home and I am settling into a routine. So, life here has been pretty good as of late.

I am just anxiously awaiting July 6th when my friend Joy is coming to visit for a month! I am super excited and can not wait. We are going to travel in and out of Azerbaijan - so that is what I am counting down until.

Feeling Inspired

Well it is Thursday night and I just showered and am enjoying a steaming hot cup of tea (new for me because I never liked tea before I came here; now it is becoming a daily necessity for me) when the sudden urge to write a blog entry hit me. I figured I should jump on this as the inspiration has not found its way to me recently. Actually, I have not had much inspiration to do much of anything as of late. I have been having a bit of a hard time of it; it as in life in Azerbaijan. But, I was thinking over this I realized I totally called it before I left the states. I remember telling people that I thought at the about seven month stage that the honeymoon would have warred off and reality would hit me. And the 23rd marked seven months down and 20 to go. Anyway, I have been prying for a change in attitude and perspective and slowly I am seeing that answered!

But, I did want to write a bit about my life. I am settling into my new house; I know I promised pictures, but my camera is on the fritz again so you will have to settle for words instead – for now. (The pictures I posted yesterday were from Amy’s visit to Imishli the other week.) Slowly, it is turning into my home, not just a place I live. Last night I stayed up way too late making a wall decoration arrangement. I made five collages now hanging on my living room wall from magazines, cardboard, ribbon (thanks mom!), modge podge, glue, tissue paper, and cards. Working on that last night really had a calming effect on me. Now, I can’t wait to start my next project: a mural on one of my bedroom walls. I am calling this my ADD wall and all that will make complete sense when you see my design. My bedrooms are an amazing shade of princess pink and my mural will be in all black. I can not wait for the hours of tedious thoughtless drawing and painting. (I am not being sarcastic, but completely serious – when I do art my OCD comes out in all its glorious fury, all which has a very relaxing and calming effect on me. No worries mom, I will not be asking anyone for help, I don’t want everyone to hate me!) I am heading to Baku tomorrow for some Peace Corps meetings and can’t wait to come back so I can start muraling (yes, I did just make a new verb; it is amazing how my English language skills keep digressing).

What else, so Hadley and mom this is for you. I am embarrassed to admit but I came really close to getting a cat – like 80% there. The last thing holding me out was that I would have to ghetto rig a litter box and make my own cat food. But, the litter of kittens didn’t survive, so my decision was made for me. So I have two reasons why I almost went back on my claim that I would never own a pet: one, I wanted someone to talk to. How sad is that? I can only laugh at myself. I get kind of lonely here at times; I spend my time mostly by myself. My office is completely isolated from people and I live a ways from my site mates. My spirits are always lifted when I spend time with my host mom, but I can’t fully express myself in Azerbaijani so I spend a lot of time listening (I can understand a lot more than I can speak. And side note to that if I am not careful I think my host mom is going to marry me off. I am afraid I am going to wake up one day married and not know it! Maybe she is just in the wedding arranging mood since she is in the negotiation stage of finding a husband for my host sister, but lately whenever we talk she always bring up the subject of finding me a husband and me staying and working in Azerbaijan. She is even trying to bribe me; she said if I got married she would give me a new bed for me and my husband – a much nicer and more comfortable one than I have now. No lie, she really told me that! I almost died laughing. (Side note, I have what we PCVs call an orphanage bed because it looks like a bed you would find in an orphanage. Actually, I have two twin orphanage beds which I pushed together to make a double bed. Not that like it really matters because the body slumps are so deep that there is no possibility of moving out of the giant pit in the center of each bed once you get in.)) (So mom, just another thing to add to the list of why you are inadequate! Lol. If I was any younger I think my host mom would call child services to take me away. I mean really, you haven’t married me off, you didn’t teach me the proper way to hand wash clothes, you didn’t teach how to make home made jam… should I go on!?!J Second reason, I want something to kill all the stinking insects in my house. (Mom and Joy, where are you when I need you?) Due to Azerbaijan construction (aka holes and cracks in all my walls and windows) my new roommates are flies, moths, spiders, ants, some bug that looks a gray lady bug on steroids and creepy antennas, and something I pretty sure are baby roaches. However, due to my complete fear and anxiety from roaches I am telling myself they are some other type of bug, some unknown foreign species of bugs only found in Azerbaijan to give me the strength to kill them and not run away screaming. Anyway, I am glad that I am going to stay cat-free otherwise I would completely turn into that spinster with the cats! I can not turn into that lady yet; I don’t want to be the crazy cat lady until I am at least in my 80’s and completely senile. Granted I am not a spinster by American standards, but here I am considered one. So, I will just go back to my books and dvds. I knock a book out in anywhere from 1 – 3 days, depending on how good it is, and am catching up on dvd watching. My new favorite thing is to watch tv series – I don’t think I will ever watch tv shows again, I will just wait for the series to come on dvd, it is great not having to watch commercials or wait a week for the next episode.

What else? Food – I am so enjoying being able to eat or not eat food of my choosing! My new favorite thing to make? Applesauce with oatmeal. But, apples are going out of season and getting expensive so I will have to find something else to get addicted to until next fall. Actually all fruit is a bit expensive right now, but I am told that in about 1 month prices of grapes, plums, watermelons, and cherries will get very cheap. Cheap like a 3 kilo watermelon for under a $1 cheap. I can’t wait! Okay, it is getting a bit late and I need to go to sleep so I can get up early to catch the bus to Baku. If you made all the way to this point – mad props for reading my diarrhea of the mouth!

Random Pictures of Imishli

Our wonderful Heydar Aliyev monument in our Heydar Park. (He is considered the father of Azerbaijan and every city has a park, museum, statue, street named after him, his quotes plastered everywhere, as well as giant pictures of him all over. His son is now the president.)

An absolutely amazing poster I saw in a school classroom. Yes, I did say school. What else would you want your kids to learn about?

Me trying to get gum off my shoe.


Some random apartments with their toilets in the yard. It is common for apartment buildings not to have indoor bathrooms. Glad I don't live in an apartment, oh wait my toilet and shower are in the yard too - about 50 ft from my front door!

One of the amazing sites I see at the plethora of butcher shops. Sometimes the legs are tee-peed together on the road, or there are buckets of blood, piles of skin, intestines laying around, not to mention the hanging meat or the tied up animals waiting to be slaughtered. Makes me happy I am a vegetarian.

Its the small things

Amazingly enough I finally found a drink in Imishli I like! I am pretty pumped. My three favorite drinks are water, skim milk, and diet coke. Diet coke is a no go in my dear city (it was even hard to find in Baku last time I went much to my utter disappointment), but I can find milk. It is not skim milk, the lowest percentage I can find is 3.5% and it tastes a bit different. However, I water it down and enjoy the special treat of milk. Normally I only drink tea and water. But, a few days ago one of my site mates introduced me to Aquinafina carbonated flavor water, a drink I would definitely turn my nose to in the states, but I tried it and am instantly addicted. It kind of tastes like a water downed 7-up, but I will take what I can. So the point of this - none, I am just really happy I found something I like in Imishli!

Unrelated, I did not go to work this morning so that I could help my host mother clean and prepare my new house. We did a little cleaning, but I did learn how to make my favorite meal - meatless grape leave dolma. I am super excited about this! The coolest part of it was that all I had to do was walk outside and pick the grape leaves off our grape vines and gather the greens I wanted from our garden. I am not sure why, but that was really fun for me - going into our yard for the ingredients needed!

As soon as I am all moved into my new house, hopefully in the next few days, and it is fixed up the way I like, I will take pictures and post them for everyone to see.

Novruz Pictures

Me and the host family visiting one of my host sisters and her husband in Tartar (village outside of Ganja)

from right to left: host dad, host sis (her apartment), me, friend of host sis, host sis, host mom
On the trip to Tartar we stopped to climb a mini mountain. This is my host sis's friend, me, and host sis battling the wind

Host mom and me inside our house

Host mom just finished jumping the fire

Filling the hats with goodies to give back to the kids who threw them in the house

Me and host parents in our house (host bro is taking the picture)

Our fire

Latest in the AZ

So, I have been a bit slack lately about bloging - sorry about that. But there is some exciting stuff happening in Azerbaijan right now. One thing is that it is Novruz! What is Novruz and why should we care, right? Probably what I would be thinking, too. Novruz is, from what I understand, the biggest holiday in Azerbaijan. It is a symbol of the revival of nature as well as spring, according to my nifty Azerbaijan Culture book! It is throughout the entire month of March, marking the last month of winter. Each Tuesday of the month represents a different thing: water, fire, air, and earth. It is a fun time and a lot of guesting (definitely a verb here - going to go visit family and friends). So back to Novruz traditions, firstly, the house gets a hard core cleaning. Secondly, tons of food. Pakhlava, shekerbura, qogal, ploff, and dolma are definitely staples and tons of over stuff is cooked, too. You probably don't know what some of the food are - just know they are amazingly delicious and I am learning how to cook them. Hopefully, after two years I will be able to do it on my own and cook them in the States! Each Tuesday has different traditions that take place. Last Tuesday kids went around to different houses and throw their hats in the house. Why might you ask? Because each house then fills the hats with pastries they made, candy, and fruit. Tons of fun! However my absolute favorite thing is the fire jumping! Yes, you heard right. Each Tuesday everyone builds a bonfire in their yard and everyone jumps it 3 times. I don't know the exact roots of why people jump the fire or why we do it three times, but I was told by one person to think of wish while jumping. There is also a phrase you say while you are jumping, but not sure what it means in English, so I will just leave that out. So for the past two Tuesdays I have been fire jumping! No burnt clothes or shoes yet! I do have pictures, but I will have to post them later because I forgot to bring them with me to the computer. Another neat thing about Norvuz is that everything is shut down for 9 days of holiday - i.e. no work. That is always fun, so starting tomorrow my days will be filled with guesting! Something interesting about the nine days, in order to have nine days in a row off (since the main Norvuz calender day is the 21st - a weekend) the government changed the work schedule so that Sunday the 29th is a normal workday instead of going back to work on the 27th. That has no standing on anything to me(because I have clubs on Saturdays and Sundays anyway), I just thought it was interesting.

Speaking of interesting things the government in Azerbaijan does - yesterday was a big day here politically. I am not in America while the excitement of Obama is happening, I just read about it, but I can say I was living in Azerbaijan when it became a dictatorship. That is pretty exciting! (being sarcastic). Okay, not an exact dictatorship. March 18th was referendum day, where the country voted to on 41 constitutional referendums; the main one being to allow no term limits for the presidency. (Who by the way term's would in 2013, but not anymore since he successfully got the referendum passed.) Another one of the referendums that passed are stricter media restrictions. All very interesting things happening here.

Anyway, I am doing well and healthy. Once I come back to work - starting the last week of March, I will add pictures and more updates of everything going on.

Latest Trip

Yesterday I finally finished a grant I was working on and sent in it! Exciting for that. It has been a very frustrating process due to the time frame and lack of support I was given. But, regardless it is finished and I will know in 3 months or so if we got it. I am not sure if we will though because my organization did not do some of the things I asked them to do for the grant (which were required in the application). However, it is all over and done with.

Saturday I am going to Baku for two days for Peace Corps stuff and then headed to Sumqayit to visit my old host family. Actually my entire cluster is all going to Sumqayit at the exact time so it will be just like PST! I am really looking forward to that trip.

The last weekend in February I went to Quba to visit my friend Amy. Below are some pictures from my trip.

So, what do you have in your neighborhood? If you are Amy the answer is an archaeological site full of human remains! Of course we totally went there to check it out.

Day 1 of the trip. Beautiful weather and gorgeous views.

Day 2. We went to Xachmaz (about 30 minutes by bus) to visit Jake. This picture is from this crazy park they have full of plastic animals all over the place. It was like a fake zoo.

Day 2. We went for a walk down the railroad tracks. (Some of you make think this is unwise recreational activity, however, I visit them in Imishili, too because it is the one place, besides home, I can go and not be the center of attention, i.e. constantly stared at, yelled at, etc...) We stopped to hang out on the bridge where we were almost run over! Okay, I am exaggerating just a bit. But we were on the bridge we suddenly Jake yells to get off the tracks because a train was coming. One would think you could hear it or even feel it coming from far away, but no way. That bad boy was coming fast and it just appeared.

Day 4. (Day 3 I spend inside because it was snowing literally all day). Woke up to over 1 foot of snow. If you notice I am wearing pink boots that came up to my mid-calf. I was standing in the snow and you can barely even seem them. This was my travel day back to Imishli, and thankfully my bus didn't get into any accidents. However, it was a rocky start as a tractor had to tow us out of the snow so the driver could actually start driving.