Can you still call it a sweat shop in the freezing cold winter?this

Since my apartment is a small cement box if you want more space the only way to go is up. So Jake build me a bunk bed. Jake is a pretty handy kid to have around. I don't really want to write much right now so lets call this one a photo essay.

Jake working on the blueprints

Jake cutting the wood

Putting the frame together

Putting the new kid to work

Final product. Notice the amazing leopard print.

The great bread crisis of '09

So, this week we had no gas for 3 days. I figured this would just mean that everything would be cold unless I felt the desire to go chop me some wood. I was wrong. I was on my way to my sitemate's house and he asked me to bring him some bread. I stopped by the corner store and asked if they had bread. "There is no gas, how can we have bread?" In case you don't know, bread is a pretty big deal in Azerbaijan. It is eaten at every meal. If it gets stale or moldy you don't throw it away, that is unacceptable! You hang it from the dumpster and the "Chorek Fairy" does something with it (this may be a mystery I never solve here). So no bread. For 4 days "because it takes a while to bake. Yesterday I went to the store and people kept sticking their heads in the door asking for bread. It was a difficult time, but we made it through. I made muffins actually. And I didn't burn them. Go me!

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.