Going, going...

So I have been at site for almost a month now. I know the town inside out and am starting to get bored of walking and seeing the same things over and over. Things seem to be moving in the right direction at this point. I am teaching, and the students are actually learning. I don't feel like I suck anymore which is a relief. Between Azeri and Russian I can express every need I have, on their own though I am worthless in each. I am getting tutoring for Azeri starting next week and hopefully for Russian in another month and will hopefully pick them both up. This language thing is so annoying, imagine trying to explain to people why you are so 'weird' without being able to speak. It gets old.

I just survived my first sickness in Azerbaijan. I managed to pick up a stomach virus last weekend in Baku and had to miss four days of school. The interaction between me and my family was comic now that I look back at it, but at the time I wanted to kill them. As you all know a stomach virus involves constant trips to the bathroom after every bite of food or sip of water. Well, in Azerbaijan food is the solution to all problems and my family would not stop forcing me to eat pomegranates and greasy potatoes (both 'great' for an upset stomach). Apparently to them those are the cure for everything, and my refusals were pure insanity. Then they tried to convince me to get cupped (the hot cups on your back thing they did in the 1800s). Everyday they would talk about it for at least 30 min and swear by it, calling my PC doctore stupid. Then they tried to convince me to go to their doctor and get on a blood iv because clean blood will just clear whatever I had up....To top it all off my family had 2 parties during my 5 day illness (the only 2 they have ever had in my presence), and during all of them they had a "Show the American" session. So they would force me to get out of bed, all greasy and in PJs and go to their party, sit, be stared at, and forced to eat greasy nastiness which of course caused me further pain and bathroom problems. It was 'lovely', but i survived!! I went to school 1 day this week and now we have a 4 day weekend. Lie is tough. ;)

Back to the logistics now. As I said school is going well. Some teachers are easier to work with than others and I seem to be having a farley OK time in comparison to other volunteers who are either totally ignored or don't even have a school schedule yet. My living situation seems to be OK too, especially compared to people who have warm water once a week or have to go to the river to do laundry. I don't think I'll ever complain about my long walk to the bathroom/toilet or the constant blackouts after i heard those stories. So yeah relatively speaking everything is OK. I do miss home a lot and with nothing to do most nights I tend to look back a lot. A little cry now and then helps and I deal with it mainly by talking to other people in my group going through the same thing. Emails always help too *hint hint.* I'll post soon again, I promise`