I lied.

I realized I mentioned I would put up pictures from my short trip to Mingechiver and never did. Here are a couple. Mingechevir doesn't quite feel like Azerbaijan. It has a different vibe. Granted I was only there for around 24 hours but still. I liked it, I want to go back when the weather is nice and checkout their resevoir! And no I don't know how to correctly spell Mingechevir in English.

One more for the road!

I have a day of good internet so I'm going to use it! Here is a picture from Zagatala of a group of helpful PCVs pushing a truck up a muddy hill. I unfortunatly was in a meeting at the time and did not get to participate in the impromptu serving of the community, but my friend Alison was kind enough to take my camera along.

Enjoy!

Hey Amy, do you have a mass grave in your neighborhood?

Of course, who doesn't! About 2 blocks from my house here in Quba is a mass grave that was found in 2007. Feel free to google some history on it, I haven't yet but I read the signs posted by the skulls. It is a little bit creepy walking into the blue tarp covered area, especially when it is windy and cold. Apparently my site mate Chris went and the guy let him walk up to the top of the exhibit to see a skull with a nail through it. Friday the 13th is coming up again next month, I should organize a midnight trip.

Quba weather is sneaky!

So Hannah came up from Imishli for the weekend and we checked out Quba and Xachmaz in great sunny weather. Then, Sunday it started to snow and didn't stop. 24hrs later we have over a foot of snow. Just in case you thought winter was over, it is not!

P.S. Hi Mom!!!

Soup Meat

My host family always laughs at me when I use a fork and knife to eat meat off the bone. I just don't like getting my hands dirty.They always ask me why I don't just pick up the meat and eat it and everytime they ask I always think to myself "My brother would love this." I have gotten served a leg of some animal in a bowl and I keep thinking how Alex would just pick up whatever meat it is and start knawing on the bone. Sadly I do not have a picture to accompany this thought but here are some others from recently. Not sure what it is but it is at the teacher's institute

New art work in my room

Sunrise on my street this morning

Zagatala Fortress

The wild horses in my neighborhood

Singer from Youth Day celebration

Gənclər Gün

So February 2nd was youth day in Azerbaijan and my sitemate Jill's organization had a celebration. It was basically an excuse for me not to work and get free food. The whole thing was in Azeri soI understood about 50% of what was going on. There was some dancing and singing and door prizes. Overall not a bad day. Ruslan and Vasif, just a coupleof Azeri guys who share a love of cake.

Somebody please find out what vitamin PP is, I've been drinking it for a while now.

What smells like burning underwear?

My host family has a washing machine in the house. This among many other things makes me one lucky PCV. However I am not allowed to operate the washing machine. I’m not totally offended by this despite the fact that I’ve been using a washing machine since I was tall enough to reach the knobs myself, but the one my host family has is in Russian so really it is probably okay that they do all that for me. Currently my host mom is in Baku though which means nobody is allowed to use the machine. Since I am bound for Zagatala this weekend I decided to hand wash some socks and underwear for the trip. Nobody in Azerbaijan has a dryer so I put my newly washed clothes in front of my heater. I usually do this even if the family is home because I have never seen any of my host family’s underwear hanging out on the line, so if they don’t want theirs out there I’m not sure how they would feel about my superman underoos and glow in the dark pirate skulls.
Recently my host dad was messing with the electricity in the house which in turn has made my heater insanely hot. Of course I forgot this and left my clothes to dry while I went to go get some tea. When I came back the waistband of one pair of underwear melted on my heater and I had to air out the burnt plastic smell from my room last night.