Mexicalian In The AZ

As of today, we have less than 25 months left here in Azerbaijan. We swear in on September 12th and begin our service on the 13th. Then we have 24 months in Mingachevir. It’s still hot. It’s been over 100 degrees most days in August, but we are adjusting.
In my last post I wrote that we took our mid-training language tests. I achieved Novice-High, which is what TEFL volunteers need to achieve, so that’s great! I don’t feel like I really have enough language to be dumped at site, but most of the people I’ll work with will have English skills. Jesse got Intermediate-Low which is the next step up from Novice-High. CED volunteers need higher skills so he still has one step to go until he reaches Intermediate-Mid. He’s very good at speaking Azeri and his basic communication skills are amazing. He’s good at miming and talking until he knows he’s understood.






Last Sunday all the Sumgayit Station trainees invited our friends over to Jen’s house where we created a Mexican wonderland! Jesse and I made salsa, Barbie made tortilla chips out of lavash, and we had fantastic bean and chicken burritos. Good stuff. It’s always a lot of fun to get a bunch of us together for something that feels "American." We all live around Sumgayit in smaller communities and we are able to see each other in Sumgayit most days if we want to, but since we’re all doing different things (TEFL, CED, and Youth Development), our schedules don’t always match up. We do get all Sundays off, so that’s a good time to have fun.




This last Sunday we had an Italian feast, again at Jen’s. Jesse and I made a penne casserole, Jen made pesto spaghetti, Bonnie made bowties with vodka sauce, Barbie made garlic bread and Jane brought lettuce from Baku for a salad. Jesse and Tom made SG (super garlic) Chicken – an original Azerbaijan recipe. It’s so nice to relax with Americans every now and then! We’ve also come up with an amazing tradition of having the men do the dishes. I’m pretty sure that this was the first time in the history of Sumgayit Station that men (or even a singular man) have done the dishes while a group of women lounged on a porch. We’re changing things here in Azerbaijan! Maybe if some Azerbaijani men see our men doing the dishes, they will decide to lift a finger in their own kitchens… well… at least we’re planting a seed.




Before the Italian food, we went into Sumgayit with our family. We went with our Nana, host father, his sister, her kids and our niece Maleyka. We had chay (tea) at a café, walked on the beach (I even got my feet wet for the first time… I still can’t believe that I live right next to the Caspian Sea… whoever would have thought I would live here?!?!), got a professional photo taken with the Sea in the background, the kids rode in toy cars and we ate ice cream. We got to the city in a marstruka that a friend of the family’s drives. We even drove it on the beach!! There are always cars and marstrukas on the beach, which still feels a bit weird to this Oregonian.




Keep the emails and comments coming!! It’s so nice to get to the internet café and have things to read from all of our friends and family back home! It really does help us get through this crazy time and it’s so nice to know that we’re still in your thoughts! Real mail is great too!!!









































Photos: 1. Barbie’s chips with our salsa… looks like Emerald Valley Salsa, doesn’t it? 2. Jesse doing the dishes in a typical Sum Station sink. 3. Jesse prepping dishes, Donnie washing, Nick drying, Nate supervising. 4. The proud men with clean dishes. 5. Americans in Azerbaijan… our street. 6. Jesse and Nubar, our niece. She ADORES Jesse. 6. Jesse and Nubar hunting for seashells (the Azeri word for seashell translates to Fish Ear) 7. Jesse, Rovshan and the marstruka at the Sea. 8. Vy, Tom, Jen and her host sister, Bonnie (in the red), me, Jeff and Kelsey at the Italian feast. 9. A cow eating the trash. This is where we take our trash to be burned every few days or weeks. 10. Jesse walking up to our gate. It’s the cement block/ rusty fence to the right of Jesse across the street. 11. Our courtyard. The window that Jesse’s head is blocking is our window. Notice the chickens. 12. Our kitchen. 13. Jesse being silly with the kids. Nubar, Elman and Elshan. Nubar’s bundled up because the temperature dropped to about 90 this evening. 14. Me and Maleyka watching Jesse and the silly kids.
We will add more pictures of our house later!