Be Back in a Minute

I’m off to Georgia. I’ll be in Tbilisi for a few days. Until I get back, here’s a quick NYT write up on the referendum results yesterday.

6 Months Left

Today is a big milestone.  Not only does this post commemorate having spent 21 months in Azerbaijan, but this is also my 100th post.  Based on a totally unscientific calculation, I’ve got that to mean that I’ve written about a post a week during my time here.  Sounds about right to me.  Keeping this blog has been fun, especially when I hear back from the folks who read it.  I’d like to write more often, but there hasn’t been much to say, really.

Over the past month, I had been really focused on our fund raising effort for ABLE Camp, which I’ve mentioned before.  We submitted two big grant proposals at the beginning of March, and now we’re just waiting to hear back from them.  It’s a big hurry-up-and-wait game, because we had several people working hard on everything for a while, and now there’s nothing we can really do.

Since I had been focusing on ABLE so much, I haven’t really been putting a lot of energy in to teaching.  I don’t really have much of a problem with this, because things were starting to get a little monotonous around the classroom.  Still, I’ve only got less than three months with these kids in the classroom before I’m out of here.  Now that the ABLE stuff is done (for now) I want to put a nice effort in to teaching and finish well.

My birthday was last week, which was kind a big deal.  My conversation club totally surprised me with cake and balloons.  Kids were running up to me all day and telling me happy birthday.  I had a few people come over the weekend afterward, and we grilled up some meat and hung out on my porch.  I’m 25 now, which makes me feel like I need to take out a mortgage or something.  Here’s a picture from a moldy little kebab spot at the bazaar.

A preview of “5 Months Left”:

• My mom is coming to visit.  I think it’s going to be a blast.  She’ll be leaving on the day before my 5 Months post, so I’m sure I’ll have plenty to say about that.
• Big holiday coming up this month.  I wrote about Novruz last year, and once again, it’s still a holiday.  I’m hoping to be doing some traveling, so I’ll be able to show some pictures.
• We should hear back about our grant proposals.  Yikes.

Forget what I said yesterday

The wind has taken over everything. It occasionally makes my power go out, and even manages to make my internet connection not work. I can’t quite figure out that last one, but I’m going to go nuts if my dial-up disconnects while i’m sending an email again.

talk about the weather

There are two advantages to living in Ujar, my site in Azerbaijan. I don’t know if these advantages outweigh the bad things that come with this place, but if you’re going to make it through the Peace Corps, you’ve got to focus on the good.

The best thing about Ujar is our supermarket, which we honorary Ujarians call, “The Awesome Store.”  It’s tiny by American standards, but this place blows other stores in the area out of the water.  They have real coffee, cereal, good cheese, and frozen ravioli.  Except for a couple of the bigger sites in AZ, this store is head and shoulders above the rest.  It’s the first place I go when I have friends come over from other regions.  This place has made my life simpler and better.  And when it’s really hot out, I go there because they have air conditioning and I shop really, really slowly.

Speaking of hot, this is THE biggest downside to this little town in the plains.  It gets insanely hot here.  Like 110 hot.  Therein, however, lies the second benefit of this place: short winters.

It’s been warmer here lately, and the trees are starting to bloom once again.  We’ve had classic spring weather of strong winds and light rain over the past week.  Today has been the day when it all comes together, though.  The sun is shining and the air is warm.  I don’t think we’re out of the woods yet, but we’re getting mighty close to barbecue weather.