Another Silly American Bayram (Holiday)

Happy Thanksgiving! I know it's a little late, but I haven't been on the internet, and I'm about to write about how I spent Thanksgiving, so it seems fairly appropriate.

For Thanksgiving, we all went over to my friend Mike's house. His father had killed a turkey (hinduşka) for us the night before and Mike had cooked it in his mother's oven. He also made some pretty fantastic garlic mashed potatoes. His mother thought he was a bit crazy with his American cooking techniques, but she was extremely proud of him when she tasted the results and kept saying how he is such a good cook. Mike wasn't the only one to have an Azeri think he was insane for how he prepared food though, because as I cooked up some stewed apples for us (the closest we could come to apple pie), my mother stood by and just kept saying "interesting... interesting" ("maraqlı... maraqlı"). And afterwards, one of my sisters tried the apples and said they tasted bad and then said the kitchen smelled awful (and let me remind you that people in America buy candles to make their houses smell like that kitchen...and I was loving it) and my other little sister wouldn't even try them. I just tell myself it was their loss because we certainly downed the stewed apples at dinner. When I brought the dish back, my mother looked in it and was like "you guys ate all of that?" That's right, fatty Americans don't mess around with Thanksgiving. We could barely move when we were done eating. Oh, and I found cranberry sauce in Baku, don't worry (if you're in my family, you probably were actually worried I couldn't survive Thanksgiving without cranberry sauce haha). Although it was no Ocean Spray, it was nice and processed and we tried to get it out in the shape of the can (because that's how all the classy people do it). Unfortunately, since to get the can open Mike's mom had to saw the end off with a knife, it was a little mangled (Look at the photo and you'll see that's kind of an understatement haha). His mom also didn't understand why I wouldn't just scoop the stuff out. She didnt' appreciate the can shape Mike and I were trying to achieve.

My Beautiful Cranberry Sauce...haha

Besides Thanksgiving, this week was just classes. And while that sounds boring and you are probably wondering why I am mentioning it at all, the reason I'm talking about classes is because all of the sudden at the end of this week, our school seems to have become the home of a sizable rat population! The other day during class we heard scratching near our trash can and, while I stood on a chair, everyone went over to see what was going on and a big old rat scurried behind our kitab şkafı (bookcase)! While that left me sufficiently freaked out (I really do not like rats), the rats weren't done with me. The next day was a holiday for Azeris but not for us Peace Corps volunteers, so we had to have the school opened especially for us. Just as Mike and I discovered that the doorman relocked the door after letting us in so we were trapped, two big rats started running right at us across the entryway! Don't worry, I found another chair to stand on until we climbed out one of the windows because we were tired of waiting for the doorman to come from his house to unlock the door. I don't like rats, but I'll admit it was fairly comical.

At the end of this week we have our second and final language test, which means we are starting up nightly tutoring sessions in addition to our normal language classes. Luckily I did well on the last test (I was deemed an "intermediate mid" Azeri speaker...if that means anything to you) and actually my score on the first test was higher than what I need on this test to become a volunteer. Just when I was starting to feel pretty good about myself for that one, I was on the phone with my mom and she put me right back in my place by saying "well yeah, but doesn't that just mean they had really low expectations for you?" Thanks Mom. (Haha I know you are reading this Mom and going "No, that's not what I meant!" and getting all embarrassed. I just think it's a funny story. And so do all the people in my language class. Who laughed at me a lot over your show of support. Haha)

Alright, I'm going to get to bed so I can wake up early and get to the internet cafe to post this, but before I go, I think I just have to mention (since you all seemed to love learning about my mysterious ankle ailment) that I woke up this morning to find that my right hand was partially swollen from another bug bite. It's nothing in comparison to the cankle I was sporting a few weeks back, but I'm a little concerned that there are some genetically modified post-Soviet bugs out to get me. It's not like I'm a Peace Corps volunteer in AFRICA where this stuff is expected (haha yes that was my obligatory dig at my wonderful sister in Benin who has informed me that she is walking around telling all her friends about my cankle. Not fair, this is my second crazy bug bite in a month and she is walking around Benin swollen-body-part-free!).

Miss you all!

Qədirli, Tovuz

To start with the important stuff, I have been placed in Qədirli, Tovuz. It’s in Northwest Azerbaijan (the red region on the map) and you can try googling it, but I’ll tell you right now that there is not much out there, even about Tovuz city (region's in Azerbaijan are called by the name of their biggest city). I’ll be the first volunteer in my specific village, but they were supposed to get someone last year and he went home after about a week of being at site. I have heard rumors it had something to do with having to chop wood every day, so maybe I’ll just have to become super jacked so I don’t freeze to death! And yes, I did learn how to say “I’m freezing to death” in Azeri class the other day haha.

In other news, I have recently discovered the wonders of running in the karate gym in my basement. No, it does not have a treadmill, actually strangely enough I hadn’t even considered anyone interpreting me saying I ran in my basement that way until I told Nathaniel and he asked if it was on a treadmill…I guess I’m more used to Azerbaijan than I thought. But really I’m just running laps of my basement with my ipod. Yes, the laps are very small (they take me about 10-15 seconds…and I’m being generous), but having this as my little escape to unwind is fantastic. Some days when I’m not in the mood for a serious run, my exercise time devolves into me just playing tag with my brother and sisters or rocking out with them to my ipod. But generally my siblings get bored of watching me after a few minutes, or I should say Cavad is kicked out by his sisters because he runs around almost tripping me. Funny story about that: I tried to tell Cavad today that he could run with me but he had to let me run in front because my legs are longer (in fact my legs are his whole body…), but instead I told him “Cavad, my shoe is cheap.” Oh Azeri, how much I screw you up. Really the sentences are fairly close (“Mənim ayaqqabım ucuzdur” instead of “Mənim ayaqlarım uzundur”…valid mistake right??), but Asya still looked at me like I was insane and was like “Cheap??” Anyway, once they’re gone I’m left alone with no one watching me except the excessive posters of Bruce Lee and Jean-Claude Van Damme, but at least they can’t yell at me when I pass by and wonder what the crazy American is doing now! Plus this way I can run for as long as I want without my family getting worried about me, even if they find it hard to comprehend that I am running down there the whole time when I’m gone for an hour (Ayna even asked me “How many laps did you do? 10?”…I had to tell her more like 100).

Haven't you heard? All the Americans have Donuz Qripi!!

It's been a slow week for me here in Azerbaijan. We were supposed to have 3 days of practice teaching to finish that portion of our training, but instead the school in Ceyranbatan where I live and have been working was closed for 2 of the days. So instead I was forced to hang around and watch lots of the show Dexter on my computer (I became addicted to watching it when my foot was fat and I had to lay in bed all the time...I've now watched the whole first 2 seasons haha).

We've heard conflicting things about if this is a school vacation that happens every year or if school was specifically closed because of swine flu (or as we call it here, donuz qripi). We haven't had any actual cases in Ceyranbatan, but supposedly today they are spraying down the entire school to disinfect it (my host mom even used the word "prophylactic" so I guess that translates to Azeri?? who knew?? I can't successfully communicate simple sentences most of the time, but now I can talk about prophylactics). One of my little sisters specifically is super paranoid about getting sick. She was giving me daily donuz qripi updates last week about how many people in AZ are sick and has been asking to eat fresh garlic so she'll be protected. She has also been begging my mother to buy her one of those medical masks to wear. She even pretended the Peace Corps had called to say that the family needed to buy a mask for me so that then she could steal it...pretty creative if you ask me! Oh 11 year olds haha.

Unfortunately the big event this week was that one of the girls in my language group had to go home (as in to the US home). Poor Mary was literally allergic to Azerbaijan itself and was just coughing and sneezing the whole time she was here. It's really strange with her gone because our language group really spends all day together...and there is no one to cough and sneeze through every language class! The extra nice twist is that there were already rumors going around Ceryanbatan that all of us Americans have swine flu and are going to make people sick, so Mary leaving probably confirmed the idea that we are all sick in their minds! The concept of allergies doesn't really seem to translate as well as prophylactic...

Saying goodbye to Mary! (sorry, the picture is kind of blurry)

Mary - Azerbaijan style: always with a tissue haha

I miss all of you and love hearing from you, so send emails, letters, blog comments, and all that good stuff! I tend to make it to the internet cafe most Sunday mornings (what in the US is Saturday night, around midnight on the East Coast and 9PM on the West...you can figure it out if you're in between the two) so if you're around you can find me on gchat and usually even video chat (I know, it's pretty crazy, I can video chat at the internet cafe here) at that time.

To keep you in suspense for my next post: I find out Wednesday where my permanent site for the next two years is....!!!

I'm Totally Going to Be a Black Belt Before Long

This week my host father put down a new mat in our karate studio basement where he used to teach karate lessons (have I mentioned that he used to be a karate instructor? I think he is going to start up again). We celebrated by him teaching me and my host siblings some moves, we busted out the boxing gloves and everything. Cavad even came down wearing the most adorable little karate suit. After our lesson, my father started showing off by doing some crazy kick moves into the punching bags (and I was able to catch him in a photo mid-jump...thank you very much, it took skill on my part too to capture that!). I think spin-kick-jumps will be the next lesson though, I wasn't really ready for intensity of that yet believe it or not... (and yes, I know most of you who know how incredibly uncoordinated I am are having difficulty even imagining me trying karate in the first place, but I'll tell you, I was kicking some major butt).

Our Halloween celebrations continued into this week when my friend Mike and I got our host families together to carve up the pumpkins he bought. But let me just tell you that pumpkins here are not like US pumpkins. They are crazy shapes...and Mike intentioinally picked some weird ones. Of course the one he gave me to start cutting had this long neck that I had to cut through to get to the seeds and it took me FOREVER. And then, even though Mike and I were supposed to be sharing the pumpkin, only my hand fit down the narrow neck of it to grab the seeds, so I seeded the whole thing and then Mike got most of the fun of carving it...thanks a lot Mike haha. But even though I bruised my hand getting the seeds out (yeah I really did bruise from it, I guess I'm super delicate here in AZ I don't know), carving these pumpkins was one of the best things I have done since I've been here. My two sisters came with me over to Mike's house to do the carving and then we carried their pumpkin home to show the rest of the family. I have never seen my host mother's face light up like it did when she saw this jack-o-lantern. She kept telling me how she had never seen anything like it and my host sister kept blowing the pumpkin kisses and stroking it, it was hilarious. They kept it on the kitchen table for like two days and just kept lighting it all the time (and then blowing the candle out so it would last longer of course) and now it is sitting outside the house where I think it will stay until it is totally rotted out haha.

True Life: I Have a Cankle

It's true. My left ankle doubled in size yesterday and now if that was the only part of me you saw, you would think I weigh about 300 pounds. Trust me, it's real cute.

It all started when I was mysteriously bitten by a bug (or so I assume) INSIDE my boot while walking home from school Friday. Yes, not only did the little sucker get in my boot, but he found the 2 inch wide band of exposed skin between my sock and my spandex pants and he got me good. My ankle didn't start swelling until that night, but it didn't waste any time once it got started. By the time I woke up Saturday my ankle had ballooned and then throughout the day on Saturday the rest of my foot followed suit. Right now my ankle has deflated a bit, but the rest of my foot is still going strong. I can sort of feel it jiggle when I walk. Did you get a good image there?

Besides my fat foot, life in Azerbaijan is good. Yesterday was Halloween in the states, which isn't celebrated here, but I got to tell my host sisters all about it and they came Trick or Treating at my bedroom door wearing a strange Santa mask thing haha. They also watched a lot of Disney programming that was clearly supposed to be for Halloween in the states but somehow made it over here and was translated into Azeri...I don't ask questions. The American TV we get here can be so bizarre. I have been watching Corwin's Quest where Jeff Corwin has been hanging out with baby elephants, Guinness Book of World Records where some idiot dove from 30 feet into a foot of water, and the Dennis the Menace cartoon. And yes, someone has taken the time to dub all of these shows into Azerbaijani.

I hope all of you are doing well and your ankles are a normal size!