Winter Makes You Think

So, now that it is winter I have been thinking about where I was last year. Snow evidently makes me think deeply, who knew. I've been having flashbacks to my life one year ago and it is so very different now. This time last year I was living with a host family full of awkward situations like being offered money, complained to about health ailments, walking in on my host dad purposely putting me host mom into a coma ( he was a doctor, but still, in the living room?) screaming fits of rage by my host sister, and shotguns being pulled out during friendly card games. Now I live on my own (insert sigh of relief here). Last year I was also still fighting the "I am not an English teacher" war that every Youth Development Volunteer encounters. I have sort of gotten over that at this point. I work with some of the better English speakers in town and help some people write reports in English, but that is it on the English front. I've sort of found my groove helping people with office trainings, sports, and something along the lines of therapeutic recreation planning. It rocks. I've come a long way in the last year, I've grown wiser and a bit more bitter, but I don't think that is a bad thing. Here is a gratuitous picture (of the shack across the street from my apartment), cuz you know, I like blogs with pictures and I'm only sort of a hypocrite.

I woke up to winter

So, last Saturday was a beautiful day in Quba. It was sunny and clear, I could see the mountains covered in snow, basically gorgeous. Now, Tuesday morning I woke up and the place is covered in snow. This also happened simultaneously with the gas being out all over the region. Bad timing Azerbaijan, bad timing.

Made it!

So it is now December 1st and we have made it this far with no snow in Quba yet. Score. I like snow and all but in Azerbaijan it just makes life harder. People don't want to leave their houses or villages to come to work with you, the streets suck and you fall down on them lots (hopefully not so much for me this year, my family send me boot grips!) and you never get fully warm since it is cold even inside. Last year was cold and I was living with a rich host family who used tons of electric heaters, this year I'm in my own cement box apartment. We'll see how cold it gets.

Thanksgiving

This past Saturday was “Thanksgiving” in Azerbaijan. Well it was for PCVs anyway. All PCVs were invited to the American Embassy’s Deputy Chief of Mission’s house for a potluck dinner and talent show. We had lots of good food and some pretty impressive talents. My fellow PCVs and I here in the first finger created a human pyramid. After the event 8 other volunteers and I went back to our host for the night and got a little bit of America. I did my laundry in a washer AND dryer! We had use of a refrigerator, freezer, microwave, blender, like 6 different showers, television, ping pong table, video games, wireless internet, free phone calls to America, and a sauna. Anyway, despite coming down with a bad cold, I still had a great faux Thanksgiving.

Skillz and Failure

Sure, joining the Peace Corps has helped me gain new skills (Like speak Azeri, go over a week without a shower, I.R.B.-ing, and drink dozens of cups of tea a day!) but I have started to notice a decline in many of my other abilities. My English-speaking skills are going in the crapper and new to the list of things I am getting worse at: Multitasking! I had t meeting at 6:00 last night, which meant that it was almost 8:00 when I got home. Still feeling motivated I decided to try and accomplish the list of things I had set out for the day. So I lit the water tank to shower, unpacked some stuff, started to make cookies for a club today, and then even got around to ironing a shirt for next week’s presentation. This is where the problem came in. The iron was heating up, the cookies were in the oven, and I was putting away some books. Then I started to iron my shirt, check to see if the shower was warm, then put on some water for coffee. I forgot about the cookies (some blame rests on the new oven with a celsius dial that I haven’t mastered yet) anyway, the cookies failed.

My Kick-Ass Family

Perhaps you don’t know this, but I have a pretty amazing family. Sure we fought when I was growing up, but I think we all turned out better because of it. Now that I am halfway around the world, my brother and his fiancé send me bacon and my Mom Dad and Sister send me text messages; which makes my day. I love and America, it’s awesome who wouldn’t, but in the 14-ish months I have been in Azerbaijan I had never had the true sense of missing something so much I thought about going back, just for a weekend. I was sitting in my apartment when I started to realize how much I miss my Dad (it’s a lot). It occurred to me that things like Christmas, Birthdays, Thanksgiving, none of that has set off the homesickness for me. I’m really looking forward to spending my last Christmas in Azerbaijan with my friends here, but I can’t just go get bagels with my Dad on the weekends and that fact (I know it took me a long time to realize it, hey my Dad travels a lot, it isn’t totally out of the question) makes me feel very far away. Things like when my Mom can’t sleep at night so she talks to me because she knows I’m up, or going to wine sales with my Dad, those are the things I miss, and as much as I love my friends in Azerbaijan (again, a lot), that is a void you just can’t fill over here.

We never really do the family portrait thing, so in lieu of that, please accept this photo of me with a bloody nose. Enjoy!

Halloween

So, as many of you know Halloween was last weekend. And as many of you can probably guess, Halloween is not a holiday in Azerbaijan. That isn't going to stop Americans from celebrating though. I made the trek up to Zaqatala (2 hours on a bus to Baku and then 13 hours on a train) for some festivities. After making and eating some amazing food at Loki's (I couldn't find the umlats Loki, sorry) we headed over to Josh's haunted mansion of a house. By haunted I mean unfinished. After bonfire and the world premiere of Xachmaz slasher along with dancing and general PCV shenanigans it was time to head back to Loki's house, in the pouring down rain. Part way through the walk a PCV who shall remain annonymous decided it would be fun to splash around in the streets-turned-rivers instead of fording them Oregon Trail style. We were pretty mushed soaked by the time we arrived back to an apartment that was experiencing electrical failure. Good times.

Somehow I ended up with a knife safety pinned to my long johns.

Playing in the rain