Super Volunteer

This post is a testimonial to how awesome one of my fellow volunteers is.  For a long time I have been promising my host sisters that I would take them up to Qazax (a region about 40 minutes away) to visit one of my friends, Connie.  My sisters love her, but even more importantly, Connie has been doing an awesome job developing a killer bike program to teach the kids of Qazax how to ride and how to do it safely and my sisters really wanted to learn how to ride.  Wanting to be true to my word, I arranged for us to go up to see Connie the day after camp ended, knowing that I wouldn't really have that much free time at site for awhile after.  Connie said that day was fine and I told my sisters and they got all excited.  Unfortunately, I woke up the morning of with a bad stomach virus.  Gross.  Being the dumb idiot that I can be, I thought that I would be fine and had gotten everything out of my system (along with my breakfast) and decided to go to Qazax anyway.  Boy was I wrong.  I showed up in Qazax in pretty rough shape, but Connie didn't hesitate one second in helping get me settled and then teaching my two sisters how to ride bikes all by herself.  I lay in the shade of her school's courtyard while she ran around with them for about 2 1/2 hours in the hot Qazax sun of late July.  I was so impressed by her dedication (and the fact that she never said to me "you're an idiot, you are ill and still came up here, loser" or something to that effect).  And this was the first time that I was able to see the bike club I have been hearing so much about and let me tell you, it was fantastic.  So basically what I wanted to say in this post is that Connie is a super awesome volunteer and my hat's off to her.

Connie helping my sister Gülnar learn to ride.