Daily Life

So I wrote this with the intention of posting it a week ago, but through a series of internet mishaps and such, it hasn't made it up till now...which means some of the information has changed but whatever, just pretend I posted it last Wednesday, ok?

Because I am constantly (alright, constantly is certainly a bit of an overstatement, but often enough) getting questions about my daily life here, I wrote up this little snapshots of some facts about my life right now. Enjoy!

Tea today so far: 1

Tea yesterday: at least 5

Most recent junk food purchased: M&M peanuts, Fanta, Dannon yogurt bar that can only be counted as junk food because I only eat it due to the fact that it tastes like cheesecake

Current books: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows; Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship by Jon Meacham (I didn’t even mean to do it, but I wanted to read a novel on the side while I read this book about FDR and Churchill during WWII and I picked a book my mom brought for me which is all about the aftermath of WWII…good coincidence!)

Recently finished books: Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (never finished it in Mr.C’s AP English class because I took the test and said “screw that” to more work before graduation, it took me months this time, but I was determined not to give up again and have to restart a third time); The Innocent Man by John Grisham (I read it like crazy on my marşrutka ride home from Baku, only stopping when we hit the ridiculous road construction patches because I didn’t want to get sick)

Most recent movie watched: Braveheart (another volunteer hadn’t seen it – ? – so we had to watch it during Biləsuvar camp)

Most recent TV show watched: Glee (this show makes me so happy)

Most recent thing I cooked: Peach sorbet thanks to Mathias’s recipe and instruction

Activities I’m currently teaching: Conversation Club for University Boys with Tamilə müəllim, World History Discussion Group, English Writing, Mini Camp for Middle School Age Students (starts today!)

Last time I was in Baku: August 14 and ready to go back, if only for the Twix ice cream I found during this visit and should not be allowed to buy any more because I’ve already eaten too much of it

Last time I saw Beth, my sitemate: August 7 (and before that it was July 14^th…how am I surviving??)

Latest decorations added to my room: Maps of Azerbaijan and the US which like to fall back off my wall so I’ve had the pleasure of hanging them many times, more pictures from my mom for my picture wall

Last time I had an Azerbaijani language lesson: August 16

Last time I had a lesson before that: first week of June (oops)

Last time I talked to my family in the states: August 12 (only for like 5 minutes before it got cut off, I was super disappointed, it was the first call from Naima! And I hadn’t heard her voice literally since I came to Azerbaijan)

Most recent song obsession: Tik Tok by Ke$ha (a little bit embarrassed to admit that…)

Songs I reminisced listening to this week: Stumbling into The Barenaked Ladies on my ipod, I first listened to “One Week” which reminded me of Little Jimmy trying desperately to learn the words and say them fast enough and then to “Lovers in a Dangerous Time” which took me back to freshman year with Steph Miller in our sweet double blasting that as one of Steph’s song obsessions.  Then I also listened to “Walcott” by Vampire Weekend which has lyrics all about getting out of Cape Cod and all the bad things about it…but my response was more like “Oh my gosh no Cape Cod is wonderful and I want to be there right now more than anything!”

Biggest success of the week: Actually remembering to consistently take my vitamins every day, something I haven’t done in months and something which can be pretty important here where I feel my diet is generally lacking a few (many) things.

Biggest disappointment of the week: One of my fans seemed to stop working last week.  And yes I said “one of” even though I live in one room.  I had to buy a second one during the heat wave while my mom was visiting (she was about to get violent if I didn’t go make the purchase), but I have been leaving one in my family’s room for them to use…and so I was I jerk and went and took it when mine stopped.  I’m still hopeful mine will make a complete recovery and I can go back to sharing like a nice person.

Interesting little stories of late:

Sitting in a car on the way to town with my host mom and an acquaintance, I noticed that the woman was looking at me strangely and kind of cocking her head to one side.  I tried to ignore her, assuming she was just being curious and trying to look into my purse (and at this point of this sort of typical Azerbaijani behavior, I just sit still for it most of the time).  Suddenly she looked at me and told me she had been counting the freckles on my left arm.  In case you were wondering, there are 47.

In a sleepy daze one morning, I heard a strange scratching sound from outside my window.  Looking out I could see some sort of animal in a small tree just over the property line in our neighbors’ yard.  I was trying to make out what animal it was and at first wrote it off to my eyes not working properly because of sleep, but no.  It really was a rat.  A big rat eating what I now learned is a chestnut tree.  Probably 10 feet from my bedroom.  Not a big fan of rats.  And especially because I heard a story last week about another volunteer getting bit by one in her room while she slept! Ew!

I watched a guy get arrested at a road tea house on my way back from Baku.  I have no idea what this guy did, but it was very interesting to watch the two cops try to get him into the backseat of their car.  He was literally doing splits against the door frame so they couldn’t get him in.  And he lost a shoe.  A third cop would kind of walk up occasionally and watch and not help, which was maybe the best part.  And the other cops were yelling “You’re a cop! Help!” but he just walked away.  This incident made me realize the value of having a partition for the back of your cop car because as I watched them drive away, I saw that one cop was having to sit with the guy and keep him in a headlock until they reached their destination.  I bet that got fun at some point.

Another Week, Another Camp

I feel like summer should be wrapping up, but I still have about a month left until we start school!  This is not complaining at all, I certainly have plenty of things I want to do with my teachers, students, classroom, etc before September 15th!

I just spent a week down in Bilәsuvar helping with a summer camp that my friends Jon and James were having.  It was a really great week.  Their kids were so sweet and excited and we got to do fun things like make picture frames, drop eggs from the second-floor of the school, and play the ninja game (if you haven't played the ninja game yet, try it, you won't regret it! This is a game that involves a bunch of kids standing in a circle taking turns doing ninja moves to try and hit another person's hand, no one gets hurt, every one gets to be a ninja...awesome).  And in addition to all this fun at camp, there were some great volunteers down there as staff and so we would go play softball (really "left-field ball"...the other volunteers can attest to how thrilled I was to be playing...which is not very much at all) and make amazing food (fruit sorbet, donuts, and general overall wonderfulness).  Only downside is that Bilәsuvar is not exactly close to Tovuz which meant I had to take a really long and ridiculously hot bus ride, the highlights of which include the little girl next to me vomiting (she stood up and did it on her father not on me, and I think she and I both are thankful for that because I was in no mood to be barfed on...not that you are ever really in the mood for that...) and the bus breaking down so I got to stand on the side of the road for like an hour and a half before giving up on the bus and getting a ride from a passing car.  Sounds like fun right? Wanna visit me now?

I'm in Baku about to head back to site.  I just went to the dentist yesterday and got my teeth cleaned.  I was talking to staff yesterday before going and one guy asked me if before Peace Corps I would have ever dreamed of being so excited to be getting my teeth cleaned? Especially because I was paying for it out of my own pocket (Peace Corps only pays for us to get our teeth cleaned once a year...and that's a year after actually swearing in, so it would have been a year and a half without seeing a dentist and given the amount of sweets we have here with our çay - tea, I didn't feel so great about that).  I thought he made a really good point because never before would going to the dentist be the highlight of my month, but I'm super happy with my clean teeth haha.

Apologies, I've been super lame about posting

So yeah, as the title says...sorry.  As I wrote in my last post, my mom came and that meant no time for posting for a while and then the task of explaining everything we did seemed too large, so I just didn't do it!  But now I'll just tell you that you can go to Facebook and find all the photo evidence of my mom's trip and maybe someday I'll write up some of the craziest moments!

You may be thinking, well Jess we all know your mom left like weeks ago, no excuse for not posting since then.  True story, however after she left I was busy for another week because within like 12 hours of getting home from Tbilisi, I left again to go to Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) the summer camp that volunteers and Azerbaijani counterparts put on for girls from all the regions of Azerbaijan.  It was fantastically fun.  It was so great to see these girls work so hard in sessions (I planned a day about leadership and courage that apparently went really well, but I wasn't there to see that one b/c I was a bit late due to getting back from my trip) and then let loose at our nightly dance parties/talent show/etc.  And I got to hang out with some of the most amazing other volunteers in country, which was so refreshing and fun.

I need to be running along (I know, I know, I only just got started) but I wanted to throw a big shout out to my sister Naima who returns today (!!!!) having just finished her Peace Corps service in Benin.  How ridiculous/unbelievable/crazy/exciting is that?  Call me Naima, now you have to b/c you're in the US where Mom will pay the bill and I just told you to in front of my entire blog audience (and you know that has to be huge right??? I mean, Mom prints it for Grandma and Aunt Lillian to read and everything so I'm even in print!!). Congratulations!