Pig is Delicious

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.