Hey all, sorry for the delay between posts. I've been busy traveling through Russia and Azerbaijan the past month or so. That and my computer doesn't work so well anymore (I got it to turn on for the first time in a month yesterday) and the phone line at my house doesn't work anymore at all so I'm on the computer at work. Which means this will be a quick post.

My trip to Russia was awesome. I'll work on getting some pictures up and writing some stories down and hopefully I can get those posted early next week. Highlights included me trying to order food in Russian, blasting off into space in a real space shuttle in Moscow's Gorky Park, napping in parks in Latvia, petting a real live bear, calling America from Estonia, playing guitar for a group of Russians at 7 in the morning after a night at the bars, and many other tales. It was awesome. I also gained about 10 pounds by consistently eating 2 or 3 times the amount of food as my travel companions Bethany and Rachel combined. It was amazing and kind of disgusting at the same time.

After Russia, I went to my COS (Celebration/Close of Service) Conference that PC throws for departing volunteers. It was a lot of fun and a good chance for all of us to get together in a big group. This weekend is obviously the Fourth of July and I'll be heading to a friends house tomorrow. Should be a good time. I hear they have a pool so it'll be just like home. Anyways, I should go for now. Have a good Fourth, everyone!

It’s finally time for the Azerbaijan Softball league to begin again. Two weekends ago we had the first softball tournament up in Barda. Some of the volunteers (John, Jason and Sarah) came down to Lankaran and stayed at my house for a couple days leading up to the weekend and we all traveled up there together on Friday the 2nd. While they were here, we showed them all the sights that Lankaran has to offer, including the Caspian Sea, the football stadium and the prison where Stalin was held. At the stadium, we talked to the same security guard that was there when I showed my parents the field. We also got a walking tour of the prison which is currently being renovated. It was nice to take a look inside and see what they had done. On one of the days, we ate at our favorite restaurant in town and had a couple drinks. John tried the fish due to Ashley’s high recommendation and after constantly complaining that it cost 6 manat, he ended up getting sick. Now he’s blaming the chicken Lavangi, but I won’t stand for that. He ended up making a full recovery.

As I said, we left for Lankaran on that Friday and got to Barda by early evening. Our first games were scheduled for the next morning, so everyone decided to take it easy and get to bed by 9:30 at the latest. By that I mean we partied until the early hours. Around 8, Ryan came to wake us up. I went with him to the field to get everything set up and play catch and basically just give myself time to wake up. I was recruited to play left field for the Barda team and I’m more relieved than anything that I didn’t screw anything up. I got a couple big hits and made a few good plays in the field, including throwing someone out at home plate. We still lost both our games, but the team put up a good fight. It felt good to get out and play again after a long winter. After each team played 2 games, we hung around and played another game just for fun. Afterwards, we kept up one of our favorite traditions and went to the nearby restaurant and got some beers. A good time was had by all.

The one bad part about this day was that my phone got stolen. I had placed it in Ryan’s bag with my wallet and a bunch of his stuff. It fell out at some point and someone had placed it on the bench where the people who weren’t playing were sitting and hanging out. There were probably about 20 people there, so I wasn’t too concerned. After the games when we discovered it was stolen, some of the kids said they saw who took it but that they didn’t know him. They assured me that they would get it back for me within a day or two and not to worry. I believed them and went about my normal business, hoping for the best. That following Monday, we received word that they had found my phone in a warehouse in town. I don’t know how it got there, or what the real story is, but they found it and for that I am grateful. It was actually kinda nice to not have to worry about charging it or anything like that. Luckily, the sim card was still in there and nothing else was taken.

On Sunday, we all got together again and played for a few more hours. This day was just volunteers, as usual. Afterwards, we all went back to Jason’s house again for another party. This time we were celebrating Cinco de Mayo eve. Yet again, a good time was had by all. As you can imagine, we all awoke Monday morning bright-eyed and ready to tackle the day. We bought some good meat, made margaritas and celebrated Cinco de Mayo, although it was a little tamer than last year’s celebration. Tuesday was more relaxed as most of the people had left by then, and it was nice to have a simple, quiet day. On Wednesday, Ashley and I left around 7:15 to get to Baku. He had some stuff to take care of and we were meeting Bethany and Rachel so we could get our visas from the Russian Embassy on Thursday afternoon. By the time we got into town we were both ready to crash. On Thursday, we all got our visas without any problems. So now I am officially excited for my trip to Russia, Estonia and Latvia. We’ll be leaving on June 1st and returning from Riga on June 11th. It should be an awesome time. We still have a little planning to do, but most of the details are taken care of.

When I returned from Baku last Friday, I arrived home to discover that I had no electricity. Because one of my pipes still leaks a little bit, I also had no water. And since I couldn’t plug in the pump for the well because of the electricity, there was little I could do. Fortunately, I had water saved up in a huge bucket so I was able to cook and clean and things like that. I also discovered that no matter the electric situation of the rest of my house, one outlet still works so I was able to use my computer at least. On Saturday, thinking that I had forgotten to pay my electricity bill, I went to the post office and paid up hoping that everything would be turned back on by the end of the day. It wasn’t and I also realized that I most likely paid the same bill twice and that something was actually wrong with my house. After a brief look at the wiring, I decided to call the landlord and have them take a look. A half hour later, everything was mostly back to normal except for the wiring. For now, everything works ok (except the actual well pump and my phone line), so hopefully the tape holding everything together lasts for at least four more months. What can you do though, right?

That’s about all I got. I put up some softball pictures from Barda. Our friend from the Peace Corps, Shams, was in town this weekend so we gave her the tour of Lankaran and ate Lavangi. It was her first visit to Lankaran and she seemed to enjoy herself. We also went to the stadium and saw the same security guard. He laughed at me. It was nice to see Shams at least once more, since we don’t get to very often because she’s so busy with organizing all the trainings that PC holds. I hope everyone had a great Mother’s Day!

…For my parents at least. I’m still in Azerbaijan for the next 5 months or so, not that anyone is counting. So I think it is safe to say that my parents’ and aunt’s trip to Azerbaijan was a success. I got to Baku last Thursday with Ashley and we hung out in the hotel until it was time to pick up my mom and dad at the airport. They didn’t have any problems with their visas or their luggage and we were back at the hotel in no time. My dad asked if I wanted to see all the goodies they brought with them then or wait a day until we got to Lankaran. I thought about this for about 1/8 of a second and a few minutes later we were all enjoying a glass of some fine tequila. It was delicious. The perfect appetizer for this deliciousness though, was one of the finest sandwiches I’ve ever enjoyed. That sandwich is known as the Spicy Baconator from Wendy’s. If you haven’t had one, go get one immediately. You won’t be disappointed. It didn’t bother me that the burger was around 24 hours old. It was so good. It also started a week full of much eating. I’m still kinda full.

We decided around 3 a.m. that we should at least lay down and try to sleep for an hour or so before we had to leave to the airport again to pick up Aunt Jean. Her flight was due to get in at 5 but didn’t get in until 6. Due to the long visa line and the fact that her luggage did not arrive with her, we didn’t see her for quite some time and were beginning to worry that she may have missed her flight. She eventually came out and we were on our way back to the airport and back to tequila. We all got some sleep and later went to the Peace Corps office to get phone numbers for the airport and find out when the luggage might make it. They told us to call back the next morning and they would be able to tell us if her luggage was there. The next morning when we called, no one answered. We decided to head over to the airport thinking that was the only option available at the time. We got there and found two very helpful people who took us right to her luggage and thankfully, everything was taken care of. Later that day, Saturday, we headed down to Lankaran.

Friday though, was for cleaning up from all the traveling and doing some touring of Baku. We took a taxi from the hotel to the center of town and walked to the Maiden’s Tower which is in Old City Baku. My parents were there last year as well on their trip here, so they were experts at leading us around. Not really, though. We walked to the top of the tower which has tiny stairwells and doorways and I think Dad and I managed to not hit our heads at all this time. After wandering around Old City for a while, we walked down to the Caspian and along the walkway there for a bit. By this time, it was getting kind of late in the afternoon and everyone was fading fast. We decided to head back to the hotel for a couple hours of rest and some showers before we headed out to one of our favorite gathering places, Tequila Junction. On the walk there, we were able to point out where Ben broke my nose, which I’m sure she enjoyed. A bunch of other volunteers met us there and we ate a ton of nachos, drank a lot of beer and had what can generally be described as a good time. Katie challenged Dad to a chugging contest, so while he sipped his Guinness, she chugged a full beer. It was that kinda night.

We got to Lankaran Saturday afternoon and get everyone settled into their hotel rooms. After wandering over to my house and giving them the big tour, I took my dad and Joyce to get some chickens and bread from one of the nearby tandir places. We devoured three chickens and bread and sat around and talked for a while. Again, everyone seemed pretty tired and by now it was around 9 or a little later. I walked them back to the hotel and made it back to my house without leading anyone into any of the roadside gutters/ditches and went to bed. On Sunday we walked around town a little bit to kill time before we then took a bus up to Isti Su (translates to hot water). We had lunch at our favorite Gutab place and had a couple cocktails. Basically, we showed my parents and aunt what we typically have for lunch during the week. Anyways, Isti Su is a small village about 20-30 minutes away by bus and they have natural hot springs, hence the name. They created small rooms where groups can go in for 10 minutes at a time and soak and as we say, replenish, refresh and revive your soul. It feels pretty good. Afterwards we walked back up and waited a while for the bus to come to take us back into the city. By then it was dinner time, so we all headed to the new Turkish restaurant in town. This took a lot of time but the food was pretty good. They forgot to make one of our pizzas so we had to wait much longer than we usually do, but everything worked out. We even got to play with one of their pet rabbits they keep in the restaurant. Afterwards, we headed back to the hotel where we played a couple games of Yahtzee in the hotel restaurant. It was a good end to a good day.

On Monday I introduced everyone to my office and gave the grand tour of the city of Lankaran. At night, my office took us out to dinner where we ate and drank a bunch. The night ended kind of early since we needed to get my aunt back to the airport by 11 the next morning. We left Lankaran around 5:30 and were there in plenty of time. After saying goodbye, we picked up Ashley and were on our way to Sheki to see Magda and Charlie and show my parents more of Azerbaijan. We even helped move Magda into her new apartment. After checking out the sites of Sheki (climbing a mountain, old buildings, etc.) we packed up and were on the move again. Our next destination was Gence, where Ben was our gracious host. There was only enough time to spend one day there, but we saw most of the city and had a couple great meals. This ended the traveling portion of the trip and before we knew it, it was time to head back to Baku to send mom and dad off back to America. It was a great week though, for sure.

I finally made it back to Lankaran and was able to rest up a little bit and catch up on happenings at the office. I couldn’t rest long though, because I had to prepare myself for two weddings that week. On the 16th, my friend Ziya took me to a village wedding. We took a bus about 20 minutes out of town and went to his friend’s house. The groom was there, Ziya’s neighbor, and about 25 other men. We sat around eating, and giving toasts to the camera, me included, and at the end of all that, we went to a little wedding place where all the women and music were. We danced a bit and after a couple hours of that, we were off. I got home around 1 or so, but had a great time. Before we went to the wedding part, Ziya took me to his house where I met his father, wife and baby boy, Ujal. I put a picture or two of him up here. And yes, he’s a White Sox fan as you can tell by the apparel. Two nights later, Friday night, I went to another wedding. When we first moved to Lankaran, the AZ2 volunteers introduced us to Fuad, a friend of theirs who also speaks really good English. He helped us out with a lot of stuff as we got acclimated to our new surroundings and has been a great friend. So Fuad’s wedding was Friday and that was also a great time. Lots of food, as usual, lots of drinking, pretty common and definitely lots of dancing. Tim, Ashley and I had a lot of fun and we definitely showed off our dance moves as much as possible. The next morning, though, I was back on my way to Gence to celebrate Ben’s birthday, go to Qazakh to play soccer with Katie and a bunch of kids there, then back to Gence, then back to Lankaran again. Then, after just another couple of days of rest, I had to go back to Baku. I needed to go to the Russian embassy to fill out paperwork and start processing my visa for my trip to Russia in a month or so. Everything worked out great, and so now I’m starting to get really excited for the trip.

I’m back in Lankaran now, and things are finally settling down, but only a little bit. This month is sure to be busy again and it all starts tomorrow when a few friends come down to spend the week in Lankaran. On Friday, we will all head up to Barda to begin the softball season which is always a lot of fun. This Wednesday, we are going to play kickball at the orphanage that we had the play day at a month or so ago. Hopefully the weather will be nice. The past couple days have been gorgeous, but it started raining a little bit tonight. Tomorrow, I’m supposed to have a meeting with the ExCom to discuss plans for the sports league. We just found out last week that we officially received permission from the city to move ahead with the project and work directly with the schools, so now the real work begins. Should be interesting. Sorry for the lateness of this post, but hopefully it is full of plenty of information and joy to keep you busy and content until my next post. Pictures are: Ashley and I enjoying our amazingly delicious Spicy Baconators, Ziya and son, Ujal and me, Fuad and his wife Nigar, me dancing at the first wedding and then our friend Mobil, Ashley and me with Fuad and Nigar.

And back to reality. I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Spain and will get into a little more detail soon, but I thought you all might be interested to hear my latest housing issues. Take a guess, water, gas or electricity. Well, this time it’s water. Again. I returned home from all my travels (when I got back from Spain, I quickly turned around and went to Baku for a couple nights to watch some March Madness on Saturday night) to find that I had no water left in my big water tank. No problem, I’ll just turn on the well pump, I thought to myself. So I plugged in the pump only to find that it is no longer functioning. So once again, I am out of water. I would like to say I will have it fixed this week, but I am leaving again on Thursday to meet up with my parents and aunt who will be here for a while to visit. Needless to say, I’m quite excited to see them again. Plus it should be a good time showing them around the country. Now on to Spain.

We left Baku around 6 in the morning and flew on to Moscow. We had to land for a couple hours in a town about an hour away from Moscow because of bad weather. It didn’t really matter though since we had a 7 hour layover so we weren’t in danger of missing our flight to Madrid. When we finally did get to Madrid, we met up with Joyce’s friend Nicole and her friend Sarah. Our original plan called for us to then catch a bus immediately to Sevilla, but we had a small problem finding the bus station and figuring out the Metro. We finally did, but it was too late. Little did we know, it would end up being a trend for the vacation… the whole getting lost and sleeping in bus station thing. We decided to wait it out in the bus station for 6 hours or so and we had some Doritos and tequila thanks to Nicole to keep us warm and busy. We had to sit outside which got a little cold, but what can you do. We finally got on the bus and made it to Sevilla where we had a hotel waiting for us. Unfortunately, we had no idea where the hotel was and after waiting for a taxi for an hour or so, decided to hoof it in the semi-correct direction, then completely wrong direction. What didn’t help was the parades going on in town that crowded the streets and all of us being tired from travel. We finally made it though, and checked in without any problems.

Joyce’s friend Caroline was going to meet up with us in Sevilla and gave us some directions, which of course, we could not follow. So Joyce and I wandered around for a couple hours, ate some food (tapas are freaking awesome, by the way) and went back to the hotel where Caroline happened to be waiting for us. Good times. Funny story, while we were eating it was after midnight which meant it was St. Patrick’s Day. I tried to order an Irish car bomb, in Spanish, and got laughed at. The bartender’s eyes popped out of his head when I said car bomb in Spanish, and I tried to explain how to make one. They finally got someone that spoke a little English to help me out and I tried to get behind the bar to make one, but eventually gave up. The next morning, Caroline took us around a little bit and showed us how to get around town a little bit. We ate some breakfast then wandered for a bit. Turns out, when Joyce and I got lost, we were about 5 minutes away from the hotel. Go figure. The rest of the day we walked ALL over the place and saw pretty much all of Sevilla. We took a lot of pictures of old buildings, parks and churches and at night we watched the parades celebrating Holy Week. There are a few pictures of the guys in robes and the floats they carried around with candles. It was all pretty impressive. After that, it was time to say goodbye to our nice hotel room and leave for Valencia.

Every year in Valencia, they have a festival called Las Fallas. I was very excited when I learned that our trip would be corresponding exactly with this festival. We were able to plan our trip so that we would be in Valencia on the 19th, which is the last and biggest night for the festival. All over the town, they build these giant paper machet floats. They are all judged and a winner is selected, although I have no idea what basis they use or which float one, or if I even saw the winner. Either way, at night time, they light them all on fire. All of them, except the winner of course. So all day long there are people everywhere, checking out the floats, drinking beer and throwing off firecrackers. They were the kind that are somewhere in between black cats and small sticks of dynamite. It was awesome. Whenever it was time to light one of the floats, they would set off fireworks from that site so at night you can hear and see fireworks all over the place. We staked ourselves a nice spot right in front of one of the bigger floats and were able to see them set up the explosives and watch from the front row as they blew it up. They had fire hoses on either side and were constantly spraying the buildings, the float and everywhere around it. Keep in mind these things are built in the middle of these old European streets, so the buildings are practically right on top of the fire. I can’t imagine something like this going on back at home. Crazy fun. After the fireworks, we were all pretty exhausted. I was starving so Bonnie, Arzu and I stopped off at a Burger King (I know, I know, sometimes you gotta give in, you know?). Everyone went back to the bus station where we had a few hours to kill before our bus left for Valencia. The one guard at the bus station was quite vigilant though and made sure that no one got to rest their head or lay down in any form at all. If you slept for one second, this guy was all over you yelling something in Spanish until you sat up right. There were tons of people at the station though, so he couldn’t really keep up and we all got to rest our eyes for at least a little bit.

We finally made it to Barcelona and met up with Dave (my cousin) without any problems. We gathered our stuff and went to his house where we were immediately greeted with showers and beer. Not a bad combo. We went out a little bit that night to some of the bars, but we got a late start so we didn’t get to see the usual places Dave heads to. Friday night though, we got the full tour. It was a great time and I can see that Barcelona would be a fun place to live. That Saturday, we all kind of hit a wall. It didn’t help that most of us slept until around 4 or so in the afternoon (we got in pretty late that night). We decided that a relaxing day wouldn’t be all that bad, so we made dinner in the apartment and hung out all night. It was still a lot of fun and re-energizing. Nicole and Sarah had to leave early the next morning anyways, so they weren’t really interested in going out all night again. On Sunday we got a pretty good tour of Barcelona. Dave took us to Park Guell and a couple of the other major landmarks. It would have been nice to have another day to walk around, but we saw pretty much everything we wanted to. Barcelona, I think, was still my favorite city to visit though.

Monday morning brought with it another early bus ride back to Madrid. We got there early enough in the afternoon that we could wander and check out some of the major sites before we had to be at the airport, so that’s exactly what we did. Arzu went shopping, since she had already been to Madrid, but Joyce and I did a fair amount of wandering. I don’t think we even got lost. Well, maybe just a little bit. We got to see the big palace, cathedral, parks and watched some old guys play bocce ball. You can tell they go out there all day, every day. It was pretty amusing. We got to the airport in plenty of time to catch our flight and made it back to Azerbaijan. It felt good to finally get home and sleep in my bed, but it also would have been nice to spend more time in Spain. I would have liked to see a bull fight, but that will have to wait till next time. I’ve attached a bunch of pictures and have a ton more on my computer. The pictures are: a bridge in Sevilla, a parade with the guys in their robes, a float with candles and the Virgin Mary, the bull ring in Sevilla, a palace, the view from the top of the towers in Valencia, two of the floats that they set on fire, one of the streets in Valencia with tiny booths for shopping on the sides, the float we saw get lit up, Joyce, Sarah, Dave and Arzu out in Barcelona, pictures from the park designed by Gaudi and a statue in Madrid that is the city symbol.

The excitement doesn’t stop there though. Tomorrow morning, I am heading to Baku so I can meet my Mom and Dad at the airport. A few hours after them, Aunt Jeanie arrives as well. I’m excited to see them all again and can’t wait till they get here. We’ll spend Friday in Baku, then on Saturday we will head to Lankaran for a few days. Aunt Jeanie will fly out on Tuesday, and then my parents and I will be moving on to Sheki and Ganja. I figured since they have been to Lankaran before and have seen pretty much all it has to offer, I would show them other parts of the country this time. It should be a lot of fun, as always. Be assured that I’ll let you all know in a little over a week. Till then, go White Sox!

The Lankaran food situation just keeps getting better and better. As all of you probably know, I am a fan of the chicken Lavangi that is sold and unique to Lankaran. Over the past months, we have been discovering new foods and newer places to get said foods. One of our favorites is qutab, which is basically a tortilla filled with meat or potato and then deep fried. You can cover it with a yogurt sauce too, which is quite delicious. While this isn’t the best meal around, it is probably the most economical. Seventy cents will usually fill you up quite nicely. Also in town is the cocktail stand which I have mentioned before. For twenty cents you get yourself a tasty, milkshake type treat. It’s amazing every time. Our newest addition is a Turkish restaurant that opened recently and has some of the typical meals, like kabob and the like, but it also has pizza which is quite delicious. On top of that, we just found they will deliver, so we now have pizza delivery. Unfortunately for us though, the pizza is a bit more expensive than what we are usually spending on food, but it’s still a nice treat every now and then.

In other happenings, some friends came down to Lankaran this past weekend and a great time was had by all. We hung out at Ashley’s and mine houses and effectively made terrible messes that will take me a few more days to clean up, but I’ve taken care of the main stuff. On Sunday afternoon, Tim, Joyce and I went to one of the orphanages in town for a mini play-day. This was the idea and implementation of a youth group that Tim and I have been working with for a while now. They wanted to do this a long time ago and they finally got the ok and good weather to do it. The girls that organized the play-day were in charge and it was fun to watch them try and take control of a 25-35 kids and teach them how to play different games. It was a great couple of hours and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. We will be going back in a couple weeks to teach them kickball and play some games with them which should be fun. I remember teaching my sports club how to play wiffle ball and then kick ball so I know this day is going to be a little bit tougher, but I’m sure it will be ok.

This week I am mostly putting my house back together and tying up things at my office because I leave for Spain on Saturday morning. Joyce, Bonnie, Arzu and I will fly out Saturday morning to Moscow and then on to Madrid for what should be an awesome time. From Madrid, we’ll head off to Sevilla for a few days and then Valencia and Barcelona before we make it back to Madrid and then back to Lankaran. Work wise, things are moving along pretty well. I’m supposed to go visit the schools in town tomorrow and Thursday to take pictures of the sports facilities and see what repairs will need to be made to make them playable for the kids. The goal is to get this done before my vacation, so I’m really hoping we get it done. That way when I get back, we can jump into other things that need to be done, such as finding coaches and officials and getting them trained. So far, though, things have been going well.

The pictures this week are Aygun handing the office keys off to Farana on Aygun’s last day and other pictures from the same day and then some pictures from the play-day on Sunday. See you all when I’m back from Spain and Happy St. Patty’s Day!

A quick apology to all you loyal readers and avid Aloink fans out there, in particular, Mrs. Flegal. I know this post is long overdue, but I have been trapped inside my sleeping bag for the last month.

Well, after two months, the wait for water is over. Last Thursday, I sat around my house while my landlord, two of her grandkids and a repair man were over fixing up my pipes. The first repair man they brought over told them it would take him a week or so before he would have the time and equipment to fix the water pipes at my house. This would not do, so we went to a different neighbor, I mean repair man, who made a shopping list of things to buy at the bazaar and went to work that afternoon. By mid-day Friday, I had running water from the cold water pipes again. Needless to say I was very excited because as you all know, running water is freaking awesome.

Also, and I don’t want to jinx it, but the weather has been fantastic the last few days. Temperatures in the 50’s and low 60’s with a slight breeze and cloudless skies are a great thing. So is running water. Did I mention that already? There is still a little work to do, as I had to leave Friday afternoon for a meeting at my office, but I think I can handle the rest. After carefully observing the repair man once all the new faucets and joints were in place, all I have to do is turn stuff on and bang on the pipes with a piece of metal. So that was my evening after work yesterday. All went well and I was able to shower this morning which was a wonderful thing, seeing as how I haven’t taken a shower at my house in over two months, or this year. I’ve used other showers, but it’s just so much easier using your own, you know? Enough of that, let’s move on to work related happenings.

As most of you probably know, I am on my second counterpart with my organization, since my first one moved on to bigger and better things with a job in Baku. While I was in Baku two weekends ago for Volunteer Prom (the 14th through the 16th), my new counterpart and Russian tutor, Aygun found a new job in Baku as well. So this is her last week working for CLEE in Lankaran and will be moving to Baku to work as a lawyer in a big firm. While I am once again a little disappointed because we have become good friends and she helps me out with everything I need, I am more than happy for her and glad that she has a new opportunity. Plus she’ll be working right across the street from our favorite restaurant in Baku, so I should get to see her whenever I’m there.

*Quick notes* Prom was awesome. I’m not sure exactly why it’s called Prom, because it’s just an excuse for all the volunteers to get together in Baku and party, but I guess it gives us a reason to dress up. Whatever. It was a blast this year. We didn’t go anywhere special, just the usual place, but everyone dressed up in some way or another and the bar let us play our own music so there was something for everyone. We went out for dinner in groups on Thursday and Friday night and Saturday, a small group of us hung out in a friends apartment and played video games and made lasagna for Magda’s birthday. The food was great and it set us up to have a great night. I’m getting pictures soon, so I’ll put those up next time, which will be sooner rather than later. Ok, back to the other stuff.

So Aygun is gone. Fortunately, we’ve already hired a replacement who I already know because she was Ashley’s Azerbaijani tutor when we first arrived in Lankaran so we are already friends. That should make the adjustment a lot easier. She’s being trained this week and I’m sure she’ll catch on real quickly. She speaks English too so that will make it easier dealing with my new project that is finally starting to get some legs. On Friday, Aygun and I met with representatives of the city from the Ministry of Youth and Sports about creating the sports league that I’ve wanted to start. It was important for us to get the city to support us and they agreed so this week we are sending letters to the Education department and will begin getting the schools and teachers directly involved (I hope). So it should be interesting to see how this project develops, but I’m real hopeful we might be able to have it put together by the end of spring so I can see the formation of the league before I leave. I’m cautiously excited at this point and hopefully this will keep me busy in the upcoming months. I realized last week that I haven’t really put up any pictures of the area where I live so I went out the other night and tried to get some good pictures while the weather was clear. These aren’t the best but they are what I have right now and I hope to get better ones in the upcoming weeks. The first picture is Ashley, Carlo and me at Prom. The next one is the street my house is on and then the other two are from the surrounding area around my house.

While a whole lot hasn’t really happened since the last update I’ll try and make this as entertaining as possible. A couple of weeks ago, the circus came into town and generated a bunch of excitement. It wasn’t Ringling Bros. but it was pretty entertaining. There was a rumor that they had some animals but that it was too cold so after a day in Lankaran, they sent them back to Baku. So, the circus was more of an acrobatic display with music and all that stuff. Tickets were really cheap as well, so it was volunteer friendly. I was only able to take a few pictures before the circus staff came and told me to stop so I’ve posted the ones I do have here.

This past weekend, I went from Lankaran to a small village way up north and to the west called Qazax. It’s as far as I could travel from one volunteer site to another. I hadn’t been up in that region before, so for the first night I went the first 10 hours to my friend Ram’s house in Shamkir. He took me to a Georgian restaurant where we ate some amazing food then we just hung out at his place and played a lot of guitar. We wrote a song which I think sounds pretty good. The next day I went the last hour or so up to Qazax to meet up with two other volunteers where they had pizza waiting topped with none other than delicious bacon! The next day more people came over and the party was underway. I decided to pack up all my stuff that night since I knew that I would not want to pack at 6:30 in the morning when I would have to leave. It didn’t occur to me until I was in the taxi and on my way that I had left my camera and iPod at my friend’s apartment. Not that big a deal, but it makes a long bus ride feel that much longer.

I finally made it back to Lankaran and had a fairly interesting bus ride. It seemed to take forever, and everyone around me was very talkative so I didn’t get to sleep as much as I would have liked, but that’s ok. Arzu is in town doing some work until Thursday, so I’ve been able to hang out with her which is always fun. My director Rufat took us out to dinner Monday night. It was only us three but we had a great night, talking joking and eating. So after my weekend travels and then being up all night Monday, I’ve been exhausted all week. That about wraps it up. My pipes still aren’t fixed but hopefully I’ll be able to get someone over to take care of that sometime this week. Ashley has running water now so at least I can go over to his house and shower. It’ll still be nice to be able to get my house fixed though. Some people are heading up to Baku to watch the Super Bowl at one of the bars, but I won’t be making the trip, mainly to try and save some money. Other than that, I’m just waiting for winter to end.

I wrote everything but this paragraph a week or so ago, but have been either too lazy to post it or to cold to get up and get the phone line and connect it to my computer so I can go online to post it. Nothing much happened this past week though. In addition to the one broken pipe mentioned later, I also have two busted faucets as well. One of em flew about 2-3 feet from the wall!! Just waiting for that thaw. Anyways, like I said, nothing much new besides what’s written below. I had a new first for me today though, which is pretty exciting. It had been quite some time since I’ve been able to shower and was sitting in my room the other day watching a movie and finally got disgusted by my own smell (it really wasn't that bad, but I figured a cleaning couldn't hurt, you know). It was time to clean. I didn’t want to use any of the water that I had managed to save from the faucet though, so I gathered a bunch of snow by filling a bucket and a pan from my kitchen and then melted it on the gas heater in my main room. I let it get warm for about 5 hours or so then I walked outside to the shower room and cleansed. The cleaning part felt real nice. The miserable part was the fact that the room I was in was around 30 degrees. Needless to say, I moved quickly. And that was my first (I hope last) snow water bucket bath. I’m just grateful I live in the South of Azerbaijan. The pictures this time are of the winter wonderland of my yard and over my fence and then fireworks from New Years in the big park and the Lankaran volunteers (minus Tim who is on vacation) with the Azerbaijani Santa Clause and Ice Princess.

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a fun and safe New Year extravaganza. The Lankaran group sure did. Ashley, Jane and Joyce came over to my house for a nice evening of chicken Lavangi dinner, games and drinks. Ashley and I have taught Jane and Joyce how to play Euchre, which is one of my favorite games, so we’ve been playing a lot of that lately. It’s a good four person game and it kills the time pretty well. The day before, Ashley and I went to the bazaar and bought a bunch of firecrackers (like black cats) and roman candles and some other small things. At night we walked around town adding to the general mayhem of everyone throwing off firecrackers and celebrating the New Year. We got to the big park in the middle of town just in time to see the big firework display that they had put together. It was pretty good, so I added a few pictures. Afterwards, we walked around a little more and went to go say hi and happy new year to my host family. We had some tea and cakes, of course. From there we headed over to Ashley’s house for more cards and to sleep. It was a good night, and a fun way to bring in the New Year.

This past week has been quiet since there wasn’t any work. All the offices and organizations close for a week for the holiday. It’s nice to have some time to get the house in order, start studying Russian again and things like that. I also watched a lot of movies. Yesterday, though, it was time to get back to work. It has also been getting pretty cold here. On Saturday I woke up to find a couple inches of snow on the ground. I was going to make a snow man in my yard, but figured the snow wouldn’t last long, like last year. So far, I have been very wrong. It has only gotten colder. The pipes in my house have been frozen the last several days, but luckily it’s been sunny and a little warmer in the day so they thaw a little bit. The first night I was caught off guard, but since then I have filled all the pots in my house with water and I even have an 18 liter bottle filled so I should be good for a little bit. If nothing else, I can always melt the snow down and use that for cooking, cleaning and what not.

Yesterday before work, I was hoping to take a shower. Nothing beats a hot shower in the morning on a cold day. To my disappointment, though, after checking all the faucets outside, everything was still frozen. Not that big a deal, I thought, so I went to work. On my way home, I was walking down the street by my house and heard a lot of running water. My first thought was, which faucet did I leave turned on?? When I walked into my yard I realized that it wasn’t a faucet that was running water, it was a broken pipe coming out of my shower room. Water was spraying everywhere and flooding the pathway to the toilet. So I went back outside and ran to my landlord’s house but no one was home, so I went to my neighbor across the street that always helps me whenever I have a problem. She said she’d call a repair man and the landlord and let them know what had happened. Meanwhile, I was trying to figure out which valve to turn to make the water stop. I finally found it and lucky for me, the puddle that was gathering ran off so I don't have to skate my way to the bathroom.

I also made what appears to be turning out to be a wise purchase. Since it has been getting colder outside, the inside of my house has also been getting colder. If it is 30 outside, there’s a good chance the warmest part of my house is around 38-40 degrees. I decided to buy some plastic sheeting for my house since one side is pretty much all windows and they aren’t the tightest fit. After wrestling with the plastic for a couple hours, I got all my windows covered in the main room and in the kitchen. I only have a little bit left too, so I guessed how much I needed accurately, which I’m pretty happy about since I didn’t want to spend more than I would have to. After a couple hours last night, the temperature was around 50 while it was 28 outside, so I’d say its money well spent. And that’s pretty much what I’ve been up to this week. I’m picking my Russian lessons up again which keeps me busy and working on a few things with my office. Every day either on my way to or from work I get in a small snowball fight with some of the kids that live down my street. It’s fun. I usually win and every now and then they throw ice balls so I just whitewash them on the side of the road. Just kidding. I actually just say see ya later and walk away. All in all, it’s been a good month so far.

Well it’s been a while, but it’s good to be back. Mainly that means that I’m back to Lankaran and things have finally calmed down a little bit. It also means that I have electricity in my house which is an improvement. About two weeks ago, the power went out in my house. This isn’t that odd or even that bad a thing, as you grow accustomed to this sort of thing. The problem was, all my neighbors had electricity and mine was the only house that didn’t. That was annoying. So I burned through a bunch of candles and took to reading by the lights at the end of the lighters. I called my landlord and they came over with a neighbor but couldn’t figure anything out. It wasn’t that big a concern since I was heading to Barda and Sheki and I figured I could deal with it when I got back. So I got back and was hoping that the problem would have just fixed itself, but no luck. Later that night, the landlord came over with an electrician and after poking around a bit, the power came back on. We celebrated with high fives. They left and about an hour later, my power was out again. It came back a couple hours later, and has been better since. It’s not that bad a thing, but my computer only lasts 7 minutes on a full battery and you can only read so much. Oh well. Last weekend there was a Christmas party at my friend Jason’s in Barda and a good number of volunteers went to celebrate the holidays. It was a good get together with a lot of good food and friends. We didn’t do anything spectacular for the party, but it was definitely a good time.

On Sunday, Rikki George, Ashley and I went to Sheki to spend Christmas with Magda at her apartment. Basically this meant spending a great deal of time watching Christmas movies, like Elf, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, Santa Claus is Coming to Town and many others. First, though, we went to the fancy pants hotel in Sheki and got ourselves some great food. We got cheeseburgers, club sandwiches, fries, and stuffed chicken. The food there is really good, but a bit pricey for us. It was still worth it though. The highlight, for sure though, was Polar Express. Sheki has a small movie theater and we managed to find a time when they wouldn’t be having any customers and rented out the theater. They played Polar Express for us and we had Coke and popcorn. It wasn’t the same as the theaters in America, but it was really awesome. It was definitely better watching that movie on a big screen rather than a small laptop. Other than movie watching, we hung out, laughed a ton, walked around town for a little bit and played a lot of Life. That game is crazy. On Christmas night, we cooked ourselves a chicken, some pre-packaged stuffing, rice, instant mashed potatoes and some whiskey. It was really, really good. Everything tasted so great. Afterwards we made sock puppets from the kit that Ashley’s sister sent to him a while back. This was also a lot of fun although I was disappointed that we didn’t get to put on a theater show with the puppets because a lot of the glue hadn’t dried yet. So that’ll have to wait, but it just gives us more time to think of some good skits.

On Thursday, I was back at the office. Aygun had organized an office party to celebrate the new year and invited a few people to celebrate with us. She also planned a small game with small gifts. Each person had to grab a sheet of paper and complete the task that was on it in order to earn their prize. Mine was to say the Peter Pecker tongue twister, but it was Parrot Peter instead. Weird, eh? I succeeded though and got my prize which was a little mouse on wheels. When you pull it backwards on the ground a few times, it can roll away on it’s own. It’s perfect for my house and everyone got some sort of mouse gift because next year is apparently the year of the mouse. Who knew? We also had a bunch of snacks and fruits and balloons which led to a great balloon fight. Afterwards, Rufat took one of our new lawyers, Rahim, me, one of our old lawyers, Ziya, and Arzu (she was in town as well) out to dinner. He had brought some boar meat to the restaurant that they cooked up for us and we also had turkey and the usual assortment of bread, veggies and stuff to eat. The boar was so good, I could have finished it all on my own. After some drinks and some singing (they made me bring my guitar, and Rufat, Rahim and Ziya started singing some classic Azeri songs), it was time to retire for the evening. On Friday, I met Arzu for lunch and hung out at the office. We don’t have work all next week so now I have plenty of down time to catch up on some stuff around my house. One exciting development from this week is I found Mountain Dew bottles in a tiny shop right by my house, so they can be sure to get more of my business now. So far, we don’t really have any big plans for the New Year, but I think we’ll buy some fireworks and wander about town and see what trouble we can stir up. Should be a great time. I plan on going to the host family tomorrow and seeing what they are up to. That’s about it for now I think. I hope everyone had a great Christmas and enjoy your New Year’s celebrations. It’s hard to believe that it’s almost 2008 already, right?

The pictures are of my plate of food from Christmas night (to make you all jealous), the sock puppets that we made in Sheki, Aygun playing my guitar and “singing” a song, the New Years tree in my office, all the snacks and what not from the party and everyone from my office except Aygun (she’s taking the picture). From left to right, there is Arzu (doesn’t work with us anymore), Rahim (new lawyer), Shabnam (another new lawyer), Rufat (director) and me.

Before I get to the results, I thought I’d give a little extra update on my week. Nothing too exciting happened, really. I got my hair cut, more like trimmed, by my new stylist, Joyce. She came over after work on Thursday to trim up the sides and back because my hair is getting pretty long since I haven’t had it cut short since I was home in June. Having her cut my hair is definitely an experience. She’s only cut guys’ hair once and that was me a couple months ago. So whenever she goes to cut something, she either flinches, or says “oh crap” or something else to make you think that your head is going to totally look messed up when she’s done with it. It’s pretty entertaining. I can’t complain either; it’s a free hair cut. It turned out pretty good, so I’m happy with the 2 Manat that I saved.

Tonight I’m going to a play at the Drama Theatre in town. I’ve been to parts of a play twice, and each time I saw the same scenes from the same play. This time, I’m hoping it’s a different play for one, and two, I’m going to try and stay for the whole thing. My friend Aygun is going and the rest of my office was supposed to go as well, but they bailed. So now I think it will be Aygun, her dad, her little sister and me. It’ll be nice to get out of the house a little bit and do something different. I’m even thinking about doing some laundry today, but it’s kind of crummy out so I’ll probably read and watch a movie instead.

Now on to the much anticipated (mostly by Mom, I think) results of my latest Reader Challenge. I appreciate everyone that sent in their guesses. I really liked the ones where the logic behind the guess was explained. And John, great job on getting the ball rolling. Dad, I was also impressed with your guess. That was some good sleuthing, but you forgot one fact. Only some people came Friday night, most Saturday night. Also, a good number of people left Sunday morning and only a handful stayed till Monday morning. So some people got 2 days, others 1. After collecting all the bottles and placing them in the garage and doing some calculating, the “exact” number I came up with for this challenge is 494. So congratulations Dad, with your guess of 521, you win this Challenge’s prize. It’s not a phone call; I’ll give that to the second place winner, which is Mom with her guess of 457. The pictures you see here are of both sides of the prize for this challenge. It’s a handy-dandy 2008 calendar!!! The months are written in Azeri but in the Cyrillic alphabet. I won it at the English Exhibition and will mail it with a short congratulatory letter. Proudly display it on your desk. That should about do it. Thanks again to everyone who participated, and I’ll think of a new challenge for you all.

I apologize for not posting an update last week. I meant to do it before I was leaving for the weekend but my plans got changed and bunched around a little bit and I ran out of time. I will try to catch you up to the best of my abilities.

The Saturday before last, I along with the other PCVs in Lankaran were invited to an English Exhibition at one of the schools in town by my friend Lala. She is an English teacher there and comes by my office every now and then to say hi and talk for a little bit. She organized a play last year where the students sang songs in English and acted out scenes from Azerbaijani plays in English. I watched a DVD of it and it was pretty entertaining. This year was a little bit different. We didn’t really know what we were getting ourselves into. We showed up at the school and she showed us to the room where the exhibition was. In the cafeteria of the school, there were little tables set up like booths at a science fair. Each booth had a different theme with different facts about American or British history and some differences between American and British English. There were also games at each booth. Some were about grammar while others were about sports or food or anything else you can think of. Some games involved a saying written out in Azeri and if you translated it into English correctly you would win a prize. I started collecting quite a few prizes because all the kids wanted me to come to their booth. When I answered correctly, they wouldn’t let me not accept the prize, so I got all sorts of stickers and pens and pencils and things like that. I started giving these away and going around helping other kids as they dragged me around from booth to booth.

As the event was wrapping up, all the kids hounded us all and asked for pictures and autographs. Everywhere I turned there were kids posing and shoving paper under my face for me to sign it. One kid even asked me to sign her arm. Eventually, the teachers got everyone to calm down and they sat us down for tea and cake. The students and other teachers presented Lala with flowers and a gift and there were some speeches. Each of the kids from that school was presented with certificates and this is where Lala really put us to work. Azeri handwriting can be pretty difficult tot read and Lala asked us to stand up in front of everyone and read off the names and present the certificates to the students. So Joyce, Jane, Ashley and I each got about 4-8 certificates to hand out. I must say, I did pretty well. I impressed Ashley at least, although honestly, that isn’t too difficult. The picture over on the right is Ashley and me by a couple of roosters saying “Nush Olsun.” It’s by far my favorite saying here and means “bon appetite.”

Last week, my program manager Elmir from Peace Corps was in town to visit with Tim, Ashley and me and talk about our first year of PC service and our plans for the upcoming months and to check to see if there was anything they could help us out with in regards to our work. I had a really good talk with him and enjoyed the visit a lot. Fortunately, I have a very good working and personal relationship with the people in my office, so I didn’t need any help from him about that. I also got to bounce some of my ideas off of him and get some feedback. All in all, it was very good and I came out of it feeling a lot better about stuff. Plus, Elmir’s a great guy and always good to talk to. On Thursday, he took Ashley and me up to Beylagan where our friend Carlo lives. Carlo was having a small birthday party at his apartment so we stayed there until Sunday. Others joined us on Friday and Saturday and it was a good, small get together.

That (last) Saturday, Carlo took us around Beylagan to an old cemetery where there is a mosque and shrine dedicated to a prophet. The prophet is buried inside and visitors take off their shoes and walk around the grave and pay their respects. Hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the room is a long chain with a hook on the end. There is a man there to assist you, or you can do this yourself. With a scarf wrapped up as if you were going to put it on like a neckerchief, you swing it over your head and hit it onto the hook at the end of the chain while you make a request to God. After a second or two, the hook jerks around suddenly and if the scarf stays on, it means that God has accepted your request. It was really interesting to try it and to see the Azeris try it as well. Afterwards, we went outside where they have small cabin type rooms. They served us tea, candy and mutton kabobs. It was all we could do to keep ourselves from constantly saying, “Mmmmm. Mutton!!” Once we were done eating, Carlo’s friends there drove us back into town since it was already dark and it was about a 45 minute to one hour walk back. On Sunday morning, Ashley and I had to catch a bus back to Lankaran. This was no small task as the bus we were to catch was leaving a small town at 8:00. We were told to take a taxi to a spot on the side of the road and wait around 10:00. We got out of the taxi, walked to the side of the road and five minutes later, our bus came flying by. It’s amazing how this stuff works out sometimes.

As for things at home here in Lankaran, they are going well. My landlady got the gas fixed at my house so I now have a heating source for the main room of my house and the water for showering. The night it finally got fixed a couple weeks ago, I just laid on the floor looking at the flame coming out of the pipe in wonderment and glee. Finally, I could sit somewhere without freezing. Unfortunately, my bedroom is still a little cold, but it does get a few degrees warmer than the outside temperature so it’s definitely an improvement. Plus, I have a few sweatshirts and the Peace Corps sleeping bags are wonderful. I typically sit next to the gas heater at night and read for a while. It is nice to be able to sit at the table and work instead of lying in bed all the time.

I realized after reading the guesses for the Great AzerAloink Reader Challenge #3 that I never placed a deadline for guesses. I apologize if some of you hurried your guesses and appreciate those that are playing. Dad, I must say, you definitely are talking some math. With all that being said, I will allow guesses for anyone else who wants to play until this Saturday morning, my time. You have until midnight Chicago time Friday night to get in there.

So it seems the winter chill has arrived. This past week or so, the temperatures have gotten much cooler, especially at night. Some of the regions up north even got snow. We’ve been getting rained on most every day recently, which just makes everything seem that much colder. What doesn’t help is I still have no heat in my house. This means that I can see my breath while I eat dinner (right now it’s around 45-50 degrees inside my house). It really isn’t that cold but there’s no escaping it since the inside of my house is about the same as outside, just less windy. My landlord called last Wednesday to tell me that they have gas in their house and wanted to know if mine had turned on yet. I think they were just bragging because I still don’t have any. They said they would call a repair man to come check it out but as of today I still haven’t heard anything from them. I’m planning on stopping by after work to see if they have any news for me.

I have also been very busy at home trying to catch some mice. A month or so ago they weren’t really causing any problems and you could hardly notice them, but recently they’ve gotten much bolder and are starting to create some issues. So I went out and bought some sticky glue type stuff that you spread on cardboard and drop bread crumbs on to lure the mice on to the cardboard. Once they are on it, they are stuck for good. So far I’ve caught two mice this way, one small and one that was a decent size. Overall, I’ve caught three mice and the first one was all me. I was getting ready for work one day and walked from my kitchen to my bedroom to grab my computer. At the doorway of my bedroom I noticed a mouse making his way across the floor as well. I grabbed a broom that was nearby (luckily I had just swept out my house the day before and left the broom inside) and was able to hit the mouse once like a golf ball. After that it kind of laid there wheezing. It was a little weird. I proceeded to sweep him out of my house and down the stairs and left it at the mercy of the dinosaur mural. I think a cat came and scooped him up. The other mice, the ones that get stuck to the cardboard, are placed into a plastic bag and then into my dumpster. Amazingly enough, my dumpster has not been emptied in the 7 months or so that I have been living in this house. It’s getting a little full and my landlord has told me they will tell the garbage truck to come clear it out when it comes by but this has not happened yet. I think they think I leave my house every weekend, so they are waiting for me to be there. Just another thing I need to talk to them about, I guess.

We had a nice Thanksgiving last week, and thank you to everyone that sent me an email or message. It’s always weird not being home for the holidays but it’s always good to know people are thinking of you and it will be great to be home next year to celebrate with everyone. I don’t want to say I’m used to not being at home but it definitely helps to have great friends, Azeri and PC, to spend time with. It helps makes home feel a little bit closer.

At work, I have been meeting with some of the kids that participated in ABLE camp back in September on a small project that they want to begin. They want to do something with a website, but I’m having difficulty finding out exactly what their goal is. It seems to change day to day and week to week so it’s definitely interesting. If nothing else, I will be able to help them with basic computer skills and maybe some organizational stuff (yes, I can be organized when I choose to be). In the next couple of weeks we will be having trainings at my office so we have been preparing for those as well. Other than that it has been kind of laid back lately, which is nice. People are starting to get Christmas and New Year’s plans in place, so I am thinking about what I want to do. There is a group of people heading out to Turkey for a week so I am thinking about ways I can make that happen. That about does it for this week. There’s not a whole lot to talk about now that things are settling down. My Russian lessons are progressing nicely. A little slow right now, but Aygun and I try to have a lesson whenever she has time.

I decided to share some pictures of the aftermath from Halloween weekend (The other picture is a random one I found of the view off my porch. Breathtaking, isn’t it?). With a little bit of help, I was able to collect all the bottles from the party and put them into boxes and garbage bags. I put them all in the garage so they are out of the way and don’t get all cruddy by sitting out in the rain. The goal is to get the garbage truck to back right into my lawn and just take everything from the garage and get rid of it all in one fell swoop. Should make for an exciting Saturday. In fact, I think this might make for a good challenge for all my readers out there.

So here it is, the Great AzerAloink Reader Challenge #3. As usual, each contestant receives one guess which is to be posted on the comment board of this blog. This week, your job is to guess how many bottles are in my garage. I’m looking for a total of all the bottles. This includes beer, champagne, tequila, vodka, wine, Fanta, Sprite and anything else that might be in there. While I don’t know the exact number, I have a pretty good idea (I have determined a number that will be considered “exact” for this challenge). Things to consider before making your guess:

Not all the bags shown contain bottles; some contain regular garbage items, such as chicken bones or Slim Jim wrappers.

The piles in the pictures are the result of people staying at my house for three nights.

We have added to the pile since Halloween, so not all the bottles are pictured.

Ashley and I used some of our Fantasy Baseball winnings to provide “party favors” for everyone.

The bottles come in many different sizes. For example, a bottle of MGD is small compared to a bottle of Xirdalan and tiny compared to a bottle of wine.

So there you go. Think carefully and talk some math. The prize this time will be really neat. I promise.

So, on my walk to work one morning something funny happened. At least I was amused, which admittedly doesn’t take much, so hopefully you all will be too. My office is about a 25 minute walk from my house and is basically a straight shot down one main road. I was walking down the road, just minding my own business when, from way behind me (like a couple blocks), I hear the unmistakable sound of a bell being rung from a bicycle. Lots of kids in my neighborhood ride backs and like to ride circles around me as I walk home and ask me random questions, so I figured one of the kids saw me and was cruising down the street to say, “Hello, what is your name?” So I keep walking and I keep hearing the RING RING getting closer and closer. Now, the RING RING is just about next to me and all of a sudden there is a flurry of RING RINGs as the bike rider slows down and pulls up next to me and rides at my walking pace. I look over to see an old man, probably around 50 or so, staring right at me. RING RING, he says. He followed that up with a quizzical stare that I returned to him. After saying hello and then asking him what he wanted with a simple wave of my hand (you know what I’m talking about), I looked away. He stared at me for a few more seconds and said … (wait for it) … RING RING RING RING RING RING and rode away. I couldn’t help but laugh and wonder what the hell had just happened. And now on to this week’s update.

Last weekend ROCKED!!! Team Lankaran decided to take the night train into Baku, so we left around 9:00 Friday night and arrived around 6:30 Saturday morning. A long train ride to be sure, but with music, beverages and snacks (FUNYONS RULE!!!) it can be a fun ride. Once we arrived in Baku we went right to the Peace Corps lounge where there was already a good number of our friends trying to catch up on some sleep and hang out until they could go to the houses they were staying at for the weekend. The Peace Corps calls other Americans that live in the area and arrange for us to stay at their houses for a night or two. Ashley and I stayed with the same couple we stayed with last year. They’re really nice and have an amazing house. We got there around 11 and they were just getting up and making breakfast so we were treated to eggs, pancakes, sausage and bacon. Needless to say, it was awesome. Ben, Carlo and Jason also stayed with us. During the day, we decided to relax at the house and have some beers while we swam in the pool and sat in the sauna. Great Peace Corps experience, right? Around 3:30 or so it was time to start preparing our dish to bring to the party. This year was a potluck party with volunteers bringing pies and mashed potatoes and things like that while the embassy provided the turkeys and stuffing and the house and main items. We made mashed potatoes. They were delicious. A little after 5, we headed out to the party only getting a little lost along the way. We made it there in time, though, and got some appetizers and chatted up our friends and Peace Corps staff. It was funny watching people react to the appetizers. One server would walk in with a tray full of chicken nuggets and volunteers would be running from different rooms to grab one or two. You would think we’d never eaten before. Then came the real meal. You know you have served yourself well when you walk by other people and they stare at your plate and say, “Oh wow.” I done well. Twenty minutes later, I couldn’t move. The food was incredibly good. I covered everything in tons of gravy. For the first 5 minutes, I stared at my plate, just soaking in all the Thanksgiving wonderfulness. Dinner was amazing and so was dessert. Shortly afterwards, it was time for the talent show.

Many of you have probably already heard, but Kelly Clarkson and Avril Lavigne made an appearance at the party. Ashley and I have been trying to figure out a way to outdo last year’s performance so several months ago we decided it would be funny to dress up as Kelly Clarkson and Avril Lavigne, since they are both really awesome performers. A few days before the party, we were practicing at my house and trying to decide how we could have some chatter in between the songs we played and came up with the idea to do a “VH1 Storytellers” skit. After I got up on stage and played Dave Matthews Band’s Warehouse solo, I headed to the basement to get beautified as Kelly Clarkson. Ashely was already dressed as Avril when I got down there and our beautician, our PCV friend Karen, was putting on his makeup. It was my turn next and then we patiently awaited our turn at the end of the show. Some of the staff was cleaning up dishes and taking down the tables and saw Ashley and I sitting in the room preparing and just laughed at us. One lady freaked out and started yelling something in Russian then petted the tuft of hair on my chest. She then walked away laughing hysterically. Ashley and I just about lost it there. Finally we got called up on stage and performed quite possibly the most ridiculous performance ever. It took us a while to prepare for this too, because Ashley can’t play guitar so I had to learn all of his songs as well as mine so I could teach him how to play at least a little. We played a duet together as the last song, and I’ve been told that we melted at least one face (Joyce’s). If you ask me how Ashley and I look dressed in drag, I’ll tell you its incredibly hideous and more than a little frightening. Everyone else at the party seemed to think that I was quite attractive. Not sure what I think of that, but compliments are compliments. I’ll take what I can get.

And so now the last month’s whirlwind tour of Azerbaijan is complete. I look forward to resting and getting back into a normal routine again. I’m having some troubles with my house that I need to get fixed. The gas line that heats my house is very weak and doesn’t light. The landlord has come over to look at it but I need to follow up with them and find out what the deal is before winter really starts. I’m concentrating a little more on my Russian lessons as well and hope to get into more of a routine for that as well. For real Thanksgiving, Team Lankaran will be sitting around someone’s house, eating some good food, some pumpkin pie (thanks to Becky, I believe) and watching movies. In other words, we’ll be doing nothing. I’ve posted some pictures of people getting food last Saturday, people sitting in the room of the talent show and Kelly and Avril. I’m still collecting more and hope to get those up next week. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!!!

Nothing quite like a pig roast, no matter where you are. Last weekend in Gence, a bunch of us got together for softball during the day and pig at night. I could go on and on and on about how awesome it was, but I don’t need to make any of you jealous. I have put up a couple pictures. One is of the pig being cooked and the other is of me enjoying a piece of bread scraped on the pig and a bottle of Mountain Dew after a day of softball.

This weekend pretty much concludes a very busy and eventful month. All the volunteers (or at least most) will be heading to Baku on Saturday for a Thanksgiving celebration with folks from the Embassy. We did this last year and gorged ourselves on turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy and pie. This year shouldn’t be much different. After dinner, the volunteers organize a talent show for our hosts and it has become very popular. This year I’ll be performing a song solo and then teaming up with Ashley to melt faces and rock everyone’s worlds all over again. There is quite a buzz over what we are going to do this year to top last year’s performance, mainly stemming from the fact that we have been spreading the word that we are going to blow last year out of the water for the last 4 months. We’re very excited and have been practicing for the last couple weeks now. We only have a couple days to get ready and put on the final touches, so it’s been a busy week.

Next week things should get back to normal. Or at least normalish. We are planning a nice Lankaran Thanksgiving celebration for the weekend. Basically, we’ll just make some good food like mac and cheese and sit around and watch movies. It’ll be nice to just relax instead of going all over the place. As for work, I applied for the grant and will be waiting until the end of December before we hear if we get it or not. In the meantime we will start meeting with our conversation club again in a week or so and I have met with the kids that went to ABLE camp in September and the plans for a small project are in place with them. My office is also organizing several trainings for different groups in the community that we hope to begin in December. They will be focused on human rights (one of the main focuses of CLEE) and on general business skill development (where I come in).

I went to my host family last week with a large duffle bag full of laundry because I have gotten very lazy and hand washing that many clothes would have taken me months. They were kind enough to let me use their machine and hang my clothes all over the place to dry. Plus it was a good opportunity to hang out with them which I haven’t done in a while. Ulvi and I renewed our Yahtzee rivalry and played 6 games with each of us winning three. My Russian language lessons have started as well. I haven’t been able to find enough time to study, but I’ve pretty much got the alphabet down and have started learning grammar rules (so much fun). It’s going ok, I think. Other than that, I’ve been waiting for letters from Jackie’s students and a video from Zach’s office. Also, thank you to Jane’s mom for the “Darn Good” Chili pack you sent. No joke, it was better than “Darn Good.” Anyways, I found a picture of all of AZ4 together a from month or so ago when we were at our Mid-Service Conference in Baku. It’s a good picture of all of us together. I’m still trying to think of a new challenge that will really make you think so stay tuned.

Sounds as if there are some sore losers out there. Don’t worry, I’m thinking up a new challenge for all of you and an even better prize. Maybe I’ll send some chicken Lavangi to you, but odds are I’d eat it first so all you’d get is a pile of bones. They’d still be delicious, though, you can bet on that.

As you all know, the last two weeks were incredibly busy. I had Ben and Magda stay at my house the week before the party, and then the party was general insanity. We made costumes mandatory or else you weren’t going to be granted entrance into my compound. People started to arrive Friday night, and we bought 10 chickens stuffed with Lavangi and 10 pieces of bread to feed everyone. It lasted about 8 minutes. Later that night, I was talking with some friends when someone came up to tell me that my neighbors were at my gate and wanted to talk to me. Thinking they thought we were too loud, I asked everyone to quiet down and to turn the music off. I got outside and two of my neighbors drag me over to one of their houses where one of their sons is waiting inside. They bring me in and tell me that he plays keyboard and that they want him to come to my house now and the next day to provide music for us. I thought it was very nice and told them so, but that it was unnecessary. Instead, they gave me a cd of music for us to play and told me again and again that they are my sisters. So, now I have two older sisters to look out for me in my neighborhood. Good stuff.

Saturday afternoon brought more people and lots of awesome costumes. One guy, Nate, dressed up as Gwen Stefani, but his costume wasn’t all that great and he just looked like a creepy dude. I called him Glen Stefani the rest of the night. Ashley and I dressed up as Ron Burgundy and Brian Fantana from the movie Anchorman, and as always, we were a huge success. Jane and Joyce went the commercial route and dressed as the Chiquita Banana girl and Land o’ Lakes Girl. I am still collecting pictures from everyone that was there and hope to be able to post more next week. I have put up a few to tide you over though. All in all, the party was a great success. There was a little bit of trouble though, as Joyce playfully slapped (shoved)me, causing me to lose my balance. I hit my head against one of the windows in my living room/hallway and got a cut above my eye. I had a pretty nasty bump too and got quite the shiner, but it’s almost all faded away back to normal now. My house is also just about back to normal thanks in large part to Jane, Joyce and Tor, an AZ5 Volunteer. Others chipped in before they had to leave, but these three stuck around for the bulk of it. I decided to stack all the garbage in my garage until I could figure out how to get rid of it all. It’s a little ridiculous, but I guess three days of Halloween festivities is bound to make some trash. I also want to thank all of the parents that sent decorations and anything else Halloween related. My garage was decked out and I had decorations all over the house as well. It was awesome.

This upcoming weekend a bunch of us are headed up to Ganja for a Luau/Pig Roast. I’m not sure the pig roast part is realistic or will ever actually happen, but it has been discussed and I am certainly holding out hope. Either way, there should be a lot of volunteers getting together to celebrate November, or something like that. Man, I hope we get a pig.

Besides cleaning and recovering last week, I was very busy writing a grant proposal for my host organization. A lot of the work had already been done, but I needed to fit everything into the grant applications specific guidelines. This is still for the Lankaran tourism booklets that we have been trying to produce. It came down to the wire, but I got the application in Friday evening and so now we are playing the waiting game. This week at the office we are welcoming two new lawyers into the office that will be here mostly part time. One of them is friends with the lawyer that used to work here so I know him pretty well. The other one recently graduated from University in Baku so I will be getting to know her. Aygun will fill in as a lawyer when the others are gone but will mostly be working as the office administrator. She’s very excited to finally be back to one job as she has been the only lawyer and office administrator the last couple months. So my office is finally getting back to normal and things should calm down a little bit, just in time for winter. Aside from all that, I’m also busy preparing for the Thanksgiving Day PCV Talent Show. I’m sure most of you remember Ashley and I performing a Bon Jovi classic last year (remember the youtube.com video?). Well, this year should blow that completely out of the water. As usual there is a great air of secrecy to our plans and so no one else knows what we have planned until we walk out on stage. It makes it more fun that way.

So everything is going well over here and getting back to normal. November has been very busy so far and will continue to be with Ganja this weekend and then Baku the weekend after that. It’s nice though, because as it starts to get cold and dark by 5, things tend to slow down to a crawl. With the office getting back to normal and with Aygun having some more free time, I will be starting Russian lessons this week or next. I figure it will be a good challenge and it couldn’t hurt to know a little bit if I want to go visit Russia next year. We’ll see how it goes. I’m thinking of a new challenge, like I said and will get that up soon. Other pictures posted besides the obvious are Rikki the Mexican eating Ina the Bulgarian Flavored Taco, Ben as the Jolly Green Giant and Ram as a transformer. It only worked from the side though, he looked absolutely ridiculous from the front.

Last week in Baku was a great time. I ate all the food that I wanted to, several times for some of them and got to see all of my friends in one place again which is always great. We went out dancing a few nights and on Saturday afternoon we played some people from the US Embassy in softball. The field was really nice, much better than what we have gotten used to. The game was a lot of fun as well. I only got a couple of hits (everyone struggled at the plate but we got the big hits) and scored a run. I threw out a runner at home from left field as well in the first inning which proved to be a big play later in the game. We got down a few runs early but got back in the game thanks to Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" blasting out of someone's iPod stereo. Going into the top of the ninth, we were down 9-8. Once again, we decided to play some Journey to get us the lead. An AZ5 got a couple of big RBI's to put us ahead 11-9. The Embassy team scored one run in the bottom of the ninth but that was it as our defense shut them down. Afterwards we all went out to lunch for nachos and chicken nuggets. Then it was time for all of us to head back to our sites. Ben and Magda came to Lankaran with Ashley and I and we've made awesome meals all week and just been having a great time.

Also during the week, we had our medical and dental check-ups and everything turned out great. I'm healthy and within the normal weight range for my height, so don't worry Bonnie's mom. It's all good. You'll all also be pleased to know that I have no cavities. I'm relieved because now I don't have to worry about it or go back to Baku for fillings. Good stuff. I also took my language test on Tuesday and scored an Intermediate High which means I improved a little bit and I can get a tutor to start learning Russian. I think it'll be challenging but I want to give it a shot.

Now the moment you've all been weighting for (GET IT???). I got a decent amount of guesses and they vary quite a bit. My personal guess would have been 134, but I figured it wouldn't be fair of me to make a guess. Some guesses were intriguing, such as Joel and his ELMO!! guess. I think he's just a little bit off though. My official weight at the time of my weigh-in was.......... 139 pounds. So John, with your guess of 138.8, you are the winner. Sorry Zach, I wanted to go in dripping wet, but the Peace Corps is very strict about walking around dripping wet. Oh well. Congratulations and thanks for your guesses. Now I must prepare for the Halloween party.

This past week hasn’t brought much excitement to the great city of Lankaran, but it hasn’t been completely boring either. I have had some company at the office which has been nice. The cleaning lady comes by once or twice a week, and another volunteer (Azerbaijani) at one of the other NGOs in town comes by to answer the phones for me and help out with clients that come in. Turns out it’s much easier for her to talk to them than me. Plus she doesn’t speak English, so it’s a good chance for me to practice. Which is important because next week, I have a test.

During our service, Peace Corps organizes several trainings for all the volunteers in Baku. We had one last year, and next week is our Mid-Service Conference. I’ll leave Lankaran on Tuesday morning and arrive at the Peace Corps office a few hours before my Language Proficiency Interview. We had to take these during training as well. Basically, you sit down with the Peace Corps language coordinator and talk in Azeri for 20 minutes or so. She’ll ask questions or just let us talk and she judges how well we can speak and understand. This wouldn’t be so bad, but the part that freaks me out every time is when she turns on the tape recorder. I don’t know why, but it always unsettles me for the first minute or so. I’m hoping to get a higher score than I did in training, obviously, or at least maintain (insert awesome “thumbs up” picture here). I really hope I haven’t gotten worse, but I’m fairly confident that I haven’t. Time will tell though. On Wednesday and Thursday the Peace Corps staff will have sessions planned out for us to refresh us on things we have learned in the past and also to motivate us to get back out there and break the monotony of being at site. On Friday we have our medical and dental check-ups. Can’t wait for these! And this brings me to the Great AzerAloink Reader Challenge #2.

As most of you know, or have at least noticed if you have seen any pictures of me recently, I have lost some weight during my time here in Azerbaijan. I thought that this week, I will post another challenge for everyone (update on Challenge #1 coming later). I will even through in a prize. The winner will receive a phone call/voice mail from me at some point in October. I know, I know, it’s very exciting. I will be weighed on Friday morning, and will post the results in two weeks. Everyone has until my next post two weeks from today (October 11) to make their guesses on my comments page. The winner will be whoever guesses closest to my weight on next Friday.

Some helpful hints:

When I left America in June of 2006, I weighed around 160 lbs.

Between then and now, I may have misplaced somewhere between 20 and 25 lbs.

While in America this last June, I gained roughly 10 lbs.

I’ll be in Baku next week. That means McDonald’s, nachos, beer and pizza.

I walk to and from work every day… about a 25 minute trek, one way.

I try to work out, but have no set routine.

My good friend Carlo got so worried in Barda that he made a diet plan for me, which I have yet to follow.

Ponder all this and get your guesses in!

As for Challenge 1, two people entered, and that was Dad with a guess of 24 days of rain in October and Katie with a guess of 17. We are still at just one night, so it looks like Katie will win.

I'm surprised we're still only at 1 day, but I'm more than happy for it. I'll think of a prize, Katie.

Barda was a great time last weekend. Each softball weekend involves one day of just the American volunteers playing a game or two, and one day of the Azerbaijani/American teams playing against each other. This weekend, the American games were on Saturday. And John, yes, I did hit a home run. Aside from stellar play in left field and that home run, I really didn’t do much else. It was a rough go around, but still a great time and a good tune up for next week. A group of us will be playing some of the Marines from the Embassy in Baku on Saturday. The volunteers won the basketball game last year, and we hope to keep it up in softball.

Aygun is returning from Australia this week (today she should be in Turkey), so it will be good to hear her stories, see her pictures and see if she brought back some Vegemite, which we all know is an acquired taste. Granted, it is a taste that I have not yet acquired. Lyka is staying at my house since Ashley has gone to America, and has become a little bit more well behaved. She still barks at night, but not nearly as often, which is nice. I have gotten her to stop digging at the concrete in front of my gate, but now she digs under the house. My yard has a nice collection of bones and other random objects that she has pulled out from under there. I just found out yesterday that the tourism booklet my office had been working on with another NGO will not be getting made like we had thought. The other NGO is experiencing some budget cuts and decided to cut our project. I’m disappointed and frustrated but have a few other ideas on how we can get this completed so we will see what happens. Other than that, everything is pretty normal in Lankaran. And Zach, I’m waiting for that video hello and letters from your co-workers. Let’s see if they can entertain as well as a group of 5th graders.

Apparently, I’ve been weak sauce the last couple updates (according to Mom) so I hope to remedy that this week. I don’t think I can, but I’ll do my best, and isn’t that what really counts? Well, that, and making sure we all have fun. Here we go!

As you can probably guess, the last week or two has been kind of slow. Tim, Ashley and I organized a training for college kids that was supposed to be on Monday at 2:00. We were going to have 10-15 students meet us at the library and we were going to give a seminar on resumes, cover letters and interviews. Ashley contacted his tutor who knows students and one of our other friends from the youth group that he is involved with to invite other kids. So at 2:00 on Monday, Tim, Ashley, Jane, Joyce and I all headed over to the library to meet with everyone and do the first of what should be many trainings. Turns out, Ashley’s friend in the youth group was on a bus coming from Baku and wasn’t able to make it that day, which means that all the people he invited weren’t going to show up. So, there you go. Just goes to show that you can schedule and prepare all you want, but sometimes it just doesn’t work out. So I think we are going to try again next week.

In office news, I have been holding down the fort over at CLEE this past week and a half. My coordinator, Rufat, was on a month long vacation to Russia. He just returned this week and stopped in to see how I was doing and make sure everything is ok. He had a great trip, from what I could tell by his stories and pictures and brought back some pretty tasty chocolate. Arzu, who is working in Baku, has spent the last month in San Diego for a program designed to train it’s participants on youth organizations. Last I heard from her, America rocks. Ziya, one of our lawyers, recently got a new job as an ombudsman in another city, about an hour from Lankaran. That means that Aygun has been the only lawyer in our office for a while, but we are searching for another one as a replacement. Speaking of Aygun, she is currently in Australia. She also has my camera, which is why I won’t be putting up any pictures for a couple weeks. I get an email every other day or so, and so far she is having a great time. She is staying in Sydney and says she is constantly getting lost, but that everyone is really nice and helpful and more than willing to point her back in the right direction. I hope she brings me back a wombat and some vegemite. Well, maybe just the wombat, vegemite is nasty. So that leaves me alone in the office to answer questions and give out lawyerly advice. I don’t do much of that, I usually just ask the clients to write down what they need and when Aygun gets back, she will help them out. And as for Ashley, who doesn’t work at my office but is there quite often, he is on his way to America for a friend’s wedding. He has promised to do all he can to eat a baconator in O’hare Airport and let me know how it goes. If nothing else, I’m sure he’ll eat plenty of other stuff.

Ashley and I received a treat in the mail a couple weeks ago. My friend Jackie is a teacher in Chicago and had her 5th grade students write us letters. While the letters weren’t as crazy as the ones we got last year, they were just as amusing. She even sent a cd with a video of all of them saying hello to us. So now we have something else to keep us entertained and hopefully the kids will learn a little about Peace Corps and Azerbaijan.

This weekend promises to be very exciting. Maybe not exciting but at least mildly entertaining. I am going to Barda to meet up with a bunch of other volunteers and play softball. We did this over the summer and it was a blast. The same four cities (Mingechavir, Barda, Sheki and Ganja) all have teams again (Americans and Azeris) and this is the first meeting since the summer time. I’ll get to see and hang out with my friends and meet some more of the new group of volunteers who I didn’t get to hang out with much in Baku last time. Should be awesome, except for the bus rides. Those are never fun.

Later this month, we are having a Halloween party in Lankaran for all of the volunteers. So far we have heard from a lot of people that they are coming so it should be a good time. In the next week or so I’m going to go around the neighborhood and tell everyone that a bunch of American’s are coming for a holiday party and that they will only be here for one night and to apologize ahead of time for the noise. On that Sunday, there is a soccer game at the local stadium so we are going to get a big group of kids together with some of the volunteers and watch a game. It’ll be great to get the girls involved because they always tell us that they want to go see a game, but feel uncomfortable. Our hope is that with a large group and American girls, they will feel better about it. Hopefully the weather will be nice. So far it has only rained one night in October. I kind of hope it keeps it up because the days have been quite lovely. I have attached one picture, from a while ago. It's me enjoying the Krusty-O's you sent me Mom. Thanks! They were delicious.

Once again, Ashley and I have defied the odds and won another fantasy league against my friends in America. This time, we dominated in baseball. I came back from behind several weeks ago to finish in first place, and Ashley took second. So now we hold both titles in football and baseball. Taunt my friends at will, because I surely will.

I didn't know what to write... so. Hi Jane's mom and Jane's friend Shannon. Hope you are well. Love, Tom

Well, this should be a really quick update this week. We officially have welcomed two more volunteers to Lankaran which is very exciting. Everyone came over to my house last Saturday and we made sloppy joe’s. This was great because we got to eat an awesome meal AND got to sing the sloppy joe song. Always a fun time. So Jane and Joyce definitely got a warm welcome and they have insisted that we cook one American meal every week, which Ashley and I were quick to agree to. Other than that, not too much has happened since last week. School started on Saturday as well, so it’s been fun to watch all the kids walking to school in their new outfits. On Monday, Ashley and I saw 3 kids, pretty young by the looks of ‘em, walking down the streets. They were wearing matching shiny suits with matching briefcase style bookbags. It was awesome. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera, but you can bet they broke some hearts in the schoolyard that day.

A funny thing happened on Sunday night as well. I was lying in bed watching a Bears game from last year when I received a text message from Aygun. Here is how it read. “Hey tom! Will u come after lunch plz? Tomorrow I’ll have surgery in my throat. Bone got stuck there. While eating. Very dunzo. Don’t cry for me. I’ll be ok. Have a good night.” Needless to say, this caught me by surprise. I was also a little confused and worried that Aygun might not be ok, so I texted her back to make sure she was alright and to see if there was anything I can do. Her response was that she is ok and not to worry, she was just so hungry she thought she was Lyka (Ashley’s dog) and “here you go – bone inside.” Not to worry though, the next morning she was ok and back to her usual self as the bone somehow worked itself out of her throat and she didn’t miss any work. Hearing her tell the story is hilarious though and we all had a good laugh. That was the excitement of the week for me.

Since school has started, we have to find a new time and day to have our conversation club. I also need to schedule a new time for the athletic club. We’ll see how this goes, as scheduling has never been an easy thing for us and the students. I hope that I can continue both though, as they have been a lot of fun. I would like to see the athletic club grow to involve other schools as well. This weekend promises to be a good one as well. All my friends and I are heading off to Baku to hang out with a ton of the new AZ5 volunteers. This will be our first chance to meet a large number of them and them us, so it should be a fun time. Also, on Saturday I am planning on going to visit my first host family from training. I haven’t seen them since I left last September, so I’m excited to see how everyone is doing. I just heard that an AZ5 stayed there for a week or two during their training and they constantly told her about how much I ate. I found this funny because they always told me how little I ate. I’m sure they’ll be surprised to see how much weight I’ve lost.

The pictures I have posted are random and don’t relate to anything in particular, but I find them to be amusing. The first is from the Project Design and Management workshop conducted by the Peace Corps that I attended in August. That’s Ashley on the left and Maria on the right. Next is my friend Chris Boswell and cardboard cut-out Tom at Zach and Julie’s wedding a couple weeks ago. Finally, there is the groom himself having a drink with party cardboard cut-out Tom at the reception. Fun times were had by all. (Next time I'll try to put up more pictures from this side of the world.)

September started off a couple of big weeks for us here in Lankaran. On the third, Ashley and I traveled with 8 other kids (ages 14-17) up north to Gabala. You may have heard of Gabala and the listening station that is posted there. Anyways, we went up north to attend ABLE (Azerbaijani Boys Leadership Experience) Camp 2007. Of the 8 kids, 5 were going to attend the camp and three others attended last year and went going as Junior Counselors to help out the volunteers. We met up with five other volunteers who also brought kids from their regions. Before I get into camp and how much fun it was, I want to thank everyone that contributed to this project or wanted to, but didn’t get a chance. All the kids really enjoyed themselves and took a lot out of camp and it could not have happened without all your help.

Being in Lankaran, we always have long days of traveling ahead of us if we want to go anywhere. Gabala, being in the northern part of the country was no different. We met on Monday morning to catch the 7:30 bus to Baku where we would transfer to a bus that would take us to Gabala. Ashley decided to bring Lyka with us rather than leaving her at home by herself for a week, so we had to take a big, slower bus, but it was a little more comfortable. We all crammed into a littler bus in Baku and arrived around 6:00 that night. We made introductions, ate dinner, and that pretty much wrapped up the first day of camp. Tuesday morning, Ashley and I were in charge of leading the day. I gave a presentation on Leadership and Ashley presented on community. The kids then got into their groups and talked about what community groups there are in their towns and how they can work with them. That afternoon we had a guest speaker from the Embassy come. He spoke about leadership as well and told stories of his experience working with the Embassy and as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

Each day was structured the same way. The mornings were made up of technical sessions that encouraged the campers to think of ways that they can work together to help their community and in the afternoon we did different activities. On Wednesday and Thursday, we had counselor to camper skill transfer where the kids got to choose where they go. Ashley and Charlie taught them how to make hemp necklaces, Mike taught them about photography, Carlo talked about astronomy and I was in charge of music. I brought my guitar and everyone was excited that they were going to learn how to play guitar. Once I explained that I couldn’t possibly teach them how to play guitar in two hours over two days, some were disappointed. Then I explained I would play a song and they would sing and we’d play a mini concert for the camp, they got more excited. While I had many requests to play Sweet Caroline (mainly from one kid), I did not oblige. Instead I taught them how to rock to, what else, Bon Jovi’s Dead or Alive. The kids got really into it and it was a blast to practice with them. We put on a show and everyone loved it. For me, it was a highlight for sure. The kids are wearing gloves in the picture because they were going to tie dye their shirts afterwards.

During one of the afternoons, we taught the campers how to play football. That is, American Football (really... what other kind is there?). There was one American to each team, and the kids counted off by 4’s to make the teams. We then rotated who each team would play. I had a rough day of it, losing 7-0, 14-7, and 21-14. At least my team got better with each game. I’m convinced if we had played two more times, we would have tied and then won. Oh well… it was still a lot of fun. The highlight of the week for me came afterwards, when the bus was waiting by the field for all of us to load up and take us back to camp. One of the kids, from Lankaran no less (which was easily the rowdiest and goofiest group of the week… go figure), was bouncing around the group screaming, “We are the champions!” over and over again. I’m guessing his team won more than mine did. Anyways, he was real pumped up and just bouncing around all over the place with a huge, goofy grin on his face. Finally, he sits down on the curb and is just laughing and joking. Carlo and I are standing by him, just watching, and you can tell he was building up to something. Finally, he raises his arms triumphantly and screams, “THIS IS THE GREATEST DAY OF MY LIFE!!!” It was incredibly hilarious and cool that he was that pumped up. That's him, on the right, re-creating the moment on the last night of camp. For the rest of the week you could randomly hear someone shout that across camp. It was great. There’s even a picture of him shouting, “This is the greatest week of my life!!” I believe it will be the poster for future ABLE camps.

On top of that, we did a lot of the regular camp stuff. One night, we built a bonfire and made smores. Always delicious. On the last afternoon, we played wiffle ball and went on a hike. There was also a lot of Frisbee and football throwing during downtime. One afternoon was dedicated to teambuilding activities, like the trust fall and egg drop competition. There were three other stations that challenged the kids to work together and reach a solution faster than the other teams. We even had a dance party one night, which was actually a lot of fun. It’s amazing to watch them combine the traditional wedding style dancing to rap and rock music. It’s quite entertaining. The picture though, does not indicate this. I went with the classic dance, just for you, Zach. All in all, it was a great week.

This week is exciting as well. Two more volunteers will be moving to Lankaran in the forms of Jane and Joyce. It’ll be nice to have fresh faces around and someone else to hang out and joke around with. Plus, I think we are already planning on having an American meal at least once per week, which means I should start packing on those pounds pretty soon. Another event this week is Tim’s birthday. I’m not sure what the plan is, but I’m sure there will be some sort of celebration. Finally, this week also marks the one year anniversary of my move to Lankaran. The other side of that, of course, is that I have just one year left until my service is done. It feels pretty weird to think about at this point, but hopefully I can make the most of the next year since I am sure it will fly by just like this past one has. I decided to add a poll to this week’s blog update as well. You can answer on the comments page, if you feel so inclined. October is coming (it’s next month, you know) and last year we were blessed with good weather. From what I’ve heard, it usually rains every day here in Lankaran, or just about. Last year, I think it rained about 1/3 of the time, which seemed nice. My question to you is: how many days will it rain in Lankaran during October this year? The answer may shock you, but you’ll have to wait till November.

The pictures should be pretty self explanatory. Except for the one with me and the bear. Whenever you travel across Azerbaijan by bus, there is always a 30 minute break at the halfway point. At the particular café we stopped at they had a bear in a cage. Just sitting there, hanging out. I had always heard about it but had never seen it. So I guess that’s one thing I can cross off my list. I tried to use different pictures than the ones Ashley put in his blog. I’m sure there are a few repeats though. Oh well.

Quick note… Yes, I read all your comments. Sometimes twice, even. But never thrice. Oftentimes I try to incorporate the comments into my post, to give a little shoutout to commentators. So, John, I do read, and as for you Mr. Zachariah Bo Summers (that’s his real name), there will be no need for a beatdown. BLOG ON!!!

So, I’ve had this one phone that I’ve been using at my house since I moved in. It’s nothing special, and even a little broken. It’s a normal phone and the chord always falls out of it, so it was kind of a pain to continuously be replacing the phone line. In my bedroom I had another phone, but no phone line. I don’t know what took me so long to make the switch, but I finally did it and my life has greatly improved since then.

This isn’t any ordinary phone, mind you. Sure, it’s gold, with a cool, old-time kind of handset. But that’s not all. It’s also a lamp. And a clock. And a pen holder. And a celebration of 2001. There’s nothing this phone can’t do. Well… it can’t make bacon, but besides that, it’s a pretty efficient phone. So that’s been my last week. I plugged the clock/pen holder/2001 celebration phone in. Life is good.

Besides that, we had the new volunteers come visit us last week. They had a lot of stuff to do and people to meet at their host organizations and with their host families, but we got to spend a little bit of time hanging out and getting to know each other. We had them over to Ashley’s house on Thursday and made a quesadilla feast complete with a giant bowl of queso and freshly made chips. Needless to say, I had to take a taxi home because I could not walk. That’s about it for now. It truly is the dog days of summer.

Next week, Ashley and I are heading to Gabala with 8 kids from Lankaran for the boys leadership camp run by volunteers. It’ll be a week long event and should be a lot of fun. I’ll be sure to take lots of pictures so next time you have something to look at, although I’m not sure anything will really compare to the clock/pen holder/2001 celebration phone.

Yes, I know, I’m a slacker. I’m trying to be better, and we’ll all have to settle with that for now. You have to cut me some slack because I’ve been busy these past two weeks, aaaand it was recently my birthday, so there ya go. Anyways, last week I headed to Baku for a training workshop the Peace Corps put together for volunteers and Azerbaijani counterparts from our communities. The workshop was called the Project Design and Management workshop, and I found it to be everything a good workshop should be. Fun and informative. Other volunteer friends were there as well, and of course, so was McDonald’s. Good times. Also, I got reunited with my site mate, Ashley. He was in Budapest for a music festival, which by all accounts, simply rocked. But now that he’s back, Lyka is no longer staying at my house which means that I am now able to sleep from 2-4 a.m. unless I choose otherwise. Sometimes I think about going out on my porch and barking at the neighbors for old times’ sake, but then I think of better of it. Also this week, I have been working with fellow volunteer and Lankaran resident, Tim Ong and a youth group on another project that they want to do with one of the local orphanages. We just completed planning and now are working on getting all the permission we need from the city and everything else lined up. More on that later. As always, I am still working on the tourism booklet and we should be submitting a rough draft very shortly, knock on wood. This Friday, Ashley, Tim and I will be presenting on different topics for a Freedom of Expression workshop that one of our friends from Lankaran has organized. On top of that, Ashley and I are wrapping up plans for the boys’ summer camp that will be in September (ABLE Camp). We’re all really excited about this and it should be a lot of fun. See, I'm busy, right?

As for my birthday, I had a pretty laid back celebration. Aside from when my friends and I were all in Baku before AZ3 and the Budapest music festival goers left at least. The day before I went to my host family’s house because it was my host mother’s birthday so we had a small meal and talked and that was nice. They invited me over for lunch the next day for my birthday, and when I got there, there was way too much food, and my host brother Ulvi got me a gift, which is pictured. That night before I was leaving work, my director cornered me and they all came forward presenting their gifts for me. From the office all together was a dog piggy bank. Also pictured. It’s pretty awesome. Aygun wrote a message for me on the bottom of it which reads, “Wish you such a life you never have to bark about! With love, CLEE Band, Lankaran.” As if I could ever forget where it came from. Also from the office was a bottle of whiskey equipped with a glass to drink it from. What more could I ask for, really?

That night I went home and decided to have a very special dinner for myself. I carefully selected a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese and prepared it with care and skill. I made it old school, too. Instead of just regular hot sauce, I added taco bell fire sauce packets AND bacon bits. Let me tell you, it was quite amazing. I wrote several texts to fellow volunteers sharing my joy and all responses carried a tone of jealousy with them. I followed this up with several hours of playing baseball, basketball and skitchin’ on my Sega Genesis. I’m not gonna lie, turning 25 felt oddly like being 7. I’m not complaining though.

On Saturday (that’s the 11th for those of you keeping track) Arzu came from Baku to celebrate with me and my office friends. They showed up at my door around 5 with three chickens stuffed full of lavangi, 5 fresh loads of bread and a good amount of beer. So, we ate, drank and danced. Arzu also gave me a little bear she had made and on the bottom is painted in Azeri “Ireli, Chicago Ayilari,” which basically translates to Bear Down, Chicago Bears. The bear is holding a glove and baseball, but that’s a minor detail. Everyone had a great time. Tim was over for most of the day as well. We also played games on the Sega which was a blast, especially when arguments broke out over who the computer was favoring. The Bear Down bear is pictured and one or two dancing pictures, as well. Those are for you Zach, I know how you love them so.

That should catch you up on everything. This week is exciting because the two volunteers that will be moving here in September are visiting for a couple days. They will get to meet their host organizations’ and families’ and us, so I’m sure they are excited as well. It’ll be nice to have a few fresh faces around here, that’s for sure.

The rock video is on youtube.com for absolute certain this time. Just go to youtube and search amongst the videos for “Azerbaijan Bon Jovi.” It’s awesome. At least in my experience.

So this week should be a short update. I had a nice trip to Baku and we sent the AZ3 volunteers home in style. Plus I got to eat nachos, McDonald’s (stuffed into the chicken sandwich of course), and see everyone who I haven’t seen in a long time. We even got to meet some of the AZ5 volunteers and show them around Baku. Then it was back to Lankaran and the real world. Which, of course, means spaghetti and ketchup. Yum…

Since Ashley is gone to Budapest, I am in charge of watching the dog, and so far the first two nights have been interesting. The first night, Sunday, I was exhausted from the weekend in Baku and the hot journey on the bus back to Lankaran. First thing when I got back was picking up Lyka from Ashley’s house and collecting all the food and toys that I needed to bring over to my house. Second on the agenda was finding a taxi to save myself the 40 minute walk to my house. This proved to be more interesting than I had originally planned.

While waiting on the side of the road, the sight of an American with a dog on a leash attracted some attention. One kid in particular was completely fascinated with the dog and me. The highlight of this exchange, though, wasn’t the 79 questions he asked in a four minute period, but maybe the last question he asked. At the end of our conversation, he tells me to wait there for a second. I do, since I really don’t want to walk home and up to this point I couldn’t find a taxi driver that would let Lyka sit in the back seat with me, but rather wanted to put her in the trunk. This seemed like it would be uncomfortable for her, so I decided to wait it out. I mean, I’ve seen goats back there and they always look miserable. Anyways, the kid returns with a cat in his hands. I immediately start telling him no, this isn’t the way to behave and is inappropriate. Even after saying this, he asks me if he can throw the cat at the dog and see what happens. I couldn’t help but laugh, and despite my dislike for cats, could not allow this to happen. Hence, I decided it would be best to start walking. Finally I find a taxi in front of a tea house with, of course, more spectators. This time, they were able to laugh at the taxi driver enough to get him to take me. It was amusing when, as I was telling him that the dog was nice and there’s no reason to be afraid, Lyka jumped halfway through the passenger side window. He couldn’t stop laughing the entire ride, as Lyka would not sit still, and kept licking the seat. Finally, we made it to my house where Lyka could finally spend her days and nights barking at my neighbors on their porch. If only they would stop staring at her, I think she would shut up, but who knows. She spent the first night in my house and that is the last time that will be happening, for now at least. I do believe my yard is Lyka proof, as much as I could make it anyways. I had to find some wooden boards to cover the bottom of my gate because last time she was there she managed to sneak her way under it and I think you all know how little I want to chase her around the neighborhood. She has been getting better with each day that she’s been here and I’m hoping that trend continues. Enough about her.

On Monday, I had my first Athletic Club meeting and had 12 kids show up. We played volleyball, which you would think would be very difficult with no real volleyball net. Turns out, you can play many games like volleyball, but not quite volleyball. We even played an Azeri version of dodgeball which gave me an idea. We could play real dodgeball!! This should be fun, but I think we will wait until we can use the gymnasium at the school. Next week we will play wiffle ball. A lot of the kids want to play American football as well, which I’m really looking forward to teaching. On Wednesday, I will have conversation club again, which is getting more and more difficult since it’s hard to keep coming up with games to play that will keep the kids interested. I am planning on bringing my guitar and hoping that we can write a song, so we will see how that goes. There are a few pics of Lyka and one of the barricade, and if I catch her doing anything stupid, I’ll put that up as well.