Correction

So I said the Maoist strikes are largely peaceful, but even though incidents may be few and scattered, yesterday one of my favorite bars got vandalized in front of me, while i was locked into my other favorite bar with the lights off, across the street, waiting for the Maoists to calm down. I predict things will escalate, yet the world news are largely ignoring the growing civil unrest here.

That's all.

On The Road

I am now back from my second field trip, which ended 5 days early due to the Maoist strikes in the capital. The Maoists are a tricky bunch, they protest a LOT, and when they announce strikes, the city shuts down. Stores are closed, cars are not allowed to run, all the while in the center of town Maoist supporters have something of a celebration with singing, dancing, and cheering. In the past they have been known to get a little violent and burn tires, harass shop owners and beat up people who thought they'd get away with driving. This time however they say this will be a peaceful endeavor and that they'll behave . Either way, they have announced a week-long strike for this week, with an intent to put pressure on the government to make a constitution and to oust the prime minister of whom they are not a fan. To make a long story short due to this activity I had to return and miss 4 days of school visits and interviews, because had I stayed, I would have gotten stuck away from Kathmandu and missed a meeting with my supervisor and possibly my flight to Thailand.

Anyway my second field trip took me to Syangja, a beautiful mountain region near Pokhara, where we visited a number of schools in order to distribute scholarship materials, and for yours truly to conduct a number of interviews. Once the road past Pokhara was over the Syangja roads were mountain paths on which you could travel no faster than 15 km/hour and one day in particular we took 50 kilometers in almost 3 hours. Words can’t describe how much I missed long 4 lane highways and how easy it is to get speeding tickets in Europe and the US. The entire time i felt like i was sitting in a salt shaker and wax anxious for us to arrive. At one point we had to stop our huge SUV and fill a hole in the road with rocks in order to pass, and on numerous occasions we drove through streams and rivers. In the four days we spent driving on these roads we passed around 4 other vehicles total. Surprisingly, one of the mentioned mountain paths took us to Sirubari, a model village which does get tourists on occasion, where we spent the night. I was a little disappointed, because other than the cute stone paths and neat houses, there were no people out, no shops, and only one stupa to look at. Wonder what other tourists do when they go there…

Syangja was very different from Makwanpur (where I was in March), in the fact that trafficking is rare and all children are likely to be enrolled in school. Weather they attend is a different story, but in Makwanpur enrollment was also an issue since a lot of children, especially girls, don't ever get the chance to go to school. One of the schools we visited was right near the model village I mentioned, and was solely for Dalit (untouchable) children. Even though the village itself is a haven, and people have a source of income and pride, Dalit children in that community are barred from the Gurung school of the local people and have to walk further in order to attend the one school available tot them. In that sense the impact of my NGO could truly be seen in the small primary school we visited. For the short material distribution program we did there, the locals had planned a grand welcome, with flowers and presentations, and was the only time anyone expressed a gratitude like this out of all the schools we went to. I was touched.

So now I am in Kathmandu, my field visits are incomplete (which wasn’t the plan), I am 4 days away from my vacation to Thailand, and 3 weeks away from returning back to Europe. Needless to say the stress level has risen to code red.

Happy 2067!!

Wednesday, April 14th marked the first day of Nepali New Year, and now we are living in 2067. It was quite nice to celebrate two new years, because the next chance I get to celebrate 2067, I will either be dead or nearing my 85th birthday. Who knows though, maybe I will be one rocking granny…Surprisingly there wasn’t a huge New Year celebration, like we do in the western world. There were a lot of parties for tourists, expats, and young Nepali men, but most of the locals I know, stayed at home, and maybe went to a temple the next day in order to mark the occasion. The most exciting of the Nepali celebrations was held near Kathmandu in Bakhtapur (Bisket Jatra) where they erect a 30 meter lingum, a sign of Shiva’s you know what. Miniature Shiva Lingums are found all over Nepal and are representative of the convergence of male and female parts. Sexy.

Other than that I have been nothing more than a tourist over the last weeks. I currently have my boyfriend here and we went to Pokhara for five days, where we explored the city and its vicinities. There, we took a short hike to the World Peace Pagoda and visited a bat cave in which I made many new sleeping friends. Turns out they sleep holding on to one leg and every 30 min they switch so they don’t cramp up. So cute! I might want to be a fruit bat in my next life. The rest of the time we ate, drank, and hung by the lake. There might have been a museum visit somewhere in there too...i don't remember.

After Pokhara, we came back to Kathmandu and have been exploring more local temples and stupas. I've also had to go back to the office, where I have been trying to get in touch with local NGOs and iNGOs for interviews and background information. Some of my field trips fell through, since I never heard from the American Himalayan Foundation representative who told me I can join her on a few trips in order to track down graduated students from the program. Bummer….I should have remembered from Azerbaijan, that such promises in developing countries are not always valid. I go on my next field trip in about a week and again will be staying in Pokhara from where I will be making day trips to the surrounding regions and conducting interviews, focus groups, etc. in order to get more feedback for my research.

That’s it, no deep insights this time.

Expat Life in Kathamndu

In the days after my field visit I have had quite the life (excluding the no electricity and water fiasco, but hey at least I can drink beer…). As previously mentioned I moved to a new house which is beautiful and in a nice neighborhood. We do still shower out of buckets and do our dishes on the balcony (its the closest working tap), but regardless i am really happy with the new place. Anyway...I have met a lot of people who live in Nepal for various reasons, and have found out that the social scene is relatively small and you are bound to run into the same people wherever you go. For instance, last week I went to a cheese ‘party’ in a small farm outside of Kathmandu where my colleagues from university also ended up in. To be honest I didn’t even know it was supposed to be a party. I thought I was going to a stinky barn where a Nepali farmer would give me a the tour, let me milk a cow, and then sell me some creamy delicious cheese at a low cost. Turned out that the farm was owned by a French guy, who lives in a beautiful self-built cottage and the ‘tour’ I was imagining ended up being a party celebrating spring, with plenty of drinking, smoking, and food. The crowd included expats from prestigious organizations, local bar owners and rock stars, and people like me, who are clearly neither. It was a nice surprise and I ate and drank my heart out until my body decided to rebel and get a cold. So yes….I again spent 2 days in bed recovering from my ongoing health ailment. This is getting old, seriously!

Thats it for expat life.... I am currently taking a break from the office and enjoying a mini vacation in Pokhara for 5 days. This is the second biggest city which sits on a lake and is the beginning of the Annapurna range and all its trails. Its beautiful, quiet and relaxing in contrast to Kathmandu, and its wonerful to take a little break from the fumes. As far as work, I don’t have a field visit till the end of April, and NGOs in Kathmandu are ignoring me so I hope I have better luck tracking down people to interview after my vacation.

(In the picture you can see Bea, my Spanish roommate, enjoying the festivities)

Field Visit

I had seen tough times in Azerbaijan, especially in some of the IDP camps, but the way of life I saw during my first field visit is in a whole other category of poor, and to think that this is the way the majority of the world lives is truly something to take into account. So I spent 9 days in Makwanpur district which is in the south, near the Indian border and is a hill region. It’s less than a 100 kilometers from Kathmandu, but the road is a non-paved mountain path and the trip took almost 5 hours. Once there I visited 5 school and interviewed around 30 people including parents, teachers, and students. Some of the interviews took place in people’s houses, which gave me the opportunity to see first hand the dwelling and livelihood of the people. From wooden shacks, to mud houses, each having one room for 5+ people was the norm in all communities that I visited. In the villages that were off the main road, the schools were some of the only brick buildings I saw and women were the majority of those working in the fields, carrying large loads of wood on their head, and collecting water at the wells. From the interviews I did, I learned that a lot of girls repeat classes numerous times, due to the fact hey have to do household work before and after school and go in for wage labor on their days off, which would give them from 60-100 RPS (60-70 cents) per day of work. Having all this in mind, no wonder they have no time for schoolwork, and with almost all of them having illiterate parents, and no jobs other than occasional farm work available in their communities, it is easy to understand why education doesn’t always rank high as a priority. Furthermore, Makwanpur is a region heavily hit by traffickers ‘recruiting’ for the circus in India. I interviewed one girl who was a tight rope walker for 6 years since she was 9. Parents get tricked and then compensated to let their daughters go. Some of the girls get released when they grow up and become too heavy, or if they get HIV, so currently there is a high return rate for girls with girls who got either too old or too sick to work. Evidently local NGOs have been active and the trafficking cases are decreasing, but in the communities I visited the majority agreed that trafficking is a fact of life and girls are still leaving to go to India and the gulf countries for ‘work.’

On a more positive note, Makwanpur is a beautiful district, with rolling green hills and rivers running throughout it. There we stayed and ate at a guesthouse, which was quite comfortable, and I had a chance to get to know my assistant/translator, who also became a good friend of mine in the process. Each morning we would have breakfast/lunch at 9 and then return from work around 5 exhausted and sweaty. Traditional Nepali cuisine serves one meal for breakfast, lunch and dinner and its called daal bhat tarkari, meaning lentil soup, rice, and curried vegetables, and even though delicious, eating it twice a day for over a week was intense. The highlight of the trip was the fan clubs I gathered at each school I visited. Kids would stare at me, and tell me how white, tall, and blond I am, and would literally run in front of me and start walking backwards in order to get a better view. On other occasions, I would be interviewing someone in a room with an open window, and every time there would be kids on top of kids, on top of kids lined at the windows as if though they were watching a theater play. At times I felt that I must have two heads and three arms, and on better days like a Bollywood star. I don’t know how famous people do it, since its truly exhausting being started at and trying to function at the same time. Either way I came back to Kathmandu this week and unknowingly had brought some friends with me in my stomach from the dirty water I drank, so I had three miserable days of pain and fever. I went to the doctor finally and was told that my typhus vaccine is only 60% active, and there is a chance I may still have it. I find out for sure on Monday, but I doubt its that, since the antibiotics I was put on made me feel better in less than 5 hours. I also moved into my new apartment with my new roommate Bea, who is from Spain. Through her, and my other friend Roger, I am starting to have somewhat of a social life. Its weird hanging out with ex-pats, and I still have my old defense from Azerbaijan, where I try not to be too culturally inappropriate even when I am with westerners only. Our apartment is big and nice, with the only problem being that we barely have any furniture and I still have to shower out of a bucket because the electricity is too weak for the water heater to work. So that’s it for now! Namaste!

Interesting facts I learned at an ex-pat party:

• Number one cause for death among women in Nepal is now suicide, surpassing maternal health mortality
• Nepal is ranked 4^th in the world in terms of its capacity to produce hydro electric power, yet has 12-14 hour power cuts in the capital every day
• Nepal is the 14^th poorest country in the world

(Source: American dude, working in public health in Kathmandu)

RHEST

Happy Holi

Holi festival is here! As I had mentioned earlier kids have been preparing for this for the past 2 weeks, targeting young girls and tourists with water balloons and buckets. Today however, the game is different and EVERYONE participates, and not only with water but also with tika paints. I have spend all day hiding while local kids and even foreigners downtown have chosen to join into the water war or as I liked to call it ”get the tourists” event. I have been observing carefully the festivities from my supervisor’s house and its insane. Anyone who walks through the street gets soaked from kids prepared with balloons and full on buckets of water which they pour on people and if you are lucky, the water is bright red and leaves a nice sewer like stench. Kids, and teenagers have been storming the streets looking like Mel Gibson in Braveheart, with their faces painted in various colors, and yelling like someone is ripping out their guts. I say “NO THANK YOU,” to that and good luck to my fare faced comrades downtown who are bound to get water ballooned in the face....OH NO, have i turned into a party pooper!?

Other than that I had my first field visit this past week. It was in Nagarkort which is known for having spectacular views of the Himalayas, but I barely got to see any mountain since most of the time haze was covering the peaks. A few of the photos I took ended up ok after some photo shopping and int he end the 2 days of fresh air away from Kathmandu were much appreciated. RHEST was having their annual meeting there to talk about new policy and the successes and failures of the past fiscal year. course it was all in Nepali, and my purpose there was to get a better idea of it all it all and maybe interview some of the volunteers from the regions. relaxing right? Well, it was for about a hot second, until my supervisor sprung a surprise Focus Group Discussion and four 40 min interviews on me. My preparation was close to nil and my translator was no where to be found. Somehow it was all pulled off and I got some answers by rugged men, who were not really sure what this white little lady was doing there in the first place. I think that for the circumstances it all went down ok. During the two days I also got to experience my first Bollywood sing off and it was amazing. After dinner everyone met up in one of the hotel rooms, all the women (around 15) were sitted in a tiny bed, and all the men sat on chairs around. The crowd was split in two teams and they would start a different Bollywood song beginning with the last syllable of the previous song sang. It was confusing, and I heard about 50 Bollywood songs in the span of 15 min. It was an amazing experience, and their knowledge and skill was impressive.

And let me end with the exciting news that I now have a new apartment with a cool roommate from Spain for about half the price of what I pay now. WooHooo! Also my supposed field trip starting on Tuesday might have to be pushed due to the fact I am having translator issues. However if everything stays on track I might not have Internet for the next week and a half and will be able to communicate normally around March 10th.

Week 2

Ah Nepali life…still trying to get the hang of it. So immediately after my last blog, all my exploration plans were ruined due to the fact the stomach gods cursed me with some food poisoning. How I miss the days of constant stomach activity of the negative kind...NOT! So I spent my 3^rd and 4^th day in the country ‘cleansing’ my system from and thinking that I’ll never eat again. Luckily I recovered and now I am on the path of becoming a healthy plump woman. Ever since the forsaken illness I just can’t stop eating. I am still not brave enough to cook my own food, so I buy things from the nearby bakery and eat delicious vegetarian dishes in the nearby ‘trusted’ fast food restaurant. I get fed at my office as well, and curried vegetables, rice, and flat bread will never get old. I hope the Azeri 20 kilos doesn’t catch up to me, because I do not miss the days when I had only 1 pair of pants that fit.

So this past week I started going to the office, where I got to meet everyone and figure out how the next 3 months will go. The rest of the time I spend fighting with internet and hang ing out with my coworkers. My field visit schedule was set this week, and it looks like I’ll be taking two 10 day trips in 2 and half districts. The districts completely changed from what I was originally anticipating, but I wasn’t in anyway expecting that thing’s won’t change. So on March 2^nd I head out to Makawanpur which is a hilly region near the Terai (plains) known for human trafficking. The program has existed there for only 4 years, which is not that much, but they insist I should go there since a lot of girls get sold to Indian circuses from the local villages. Then I will go to Syangja and Kaski which are in the mountains and have had the scholarship program active for 12 years. I’ll go there at the end of April for 2 weeks. In the middle I am on my own, doing background research, teaching myself Nepali, and hopefully not getting fat. The week ended in hanging out with Brian, Giulietta, and Su from my program in Utrecht, and a new friend we met here, who is doing research on the expat community of Nepal. I feel grateful that I can have some sort of social life, because I know how dreary it can be without, and my hat goes off to those friends who are doing their internships alone in non-tourist centers.

In other news, my supervisor keeps hinting that I have to move out of her parents place and since I have started looking I am realizing that where I am at now and what I am paying for it is not actually a good deal at all. I have paid up for a month and looking to move out in the second week of March. Wish me luck!

Current observations on life in Kathmandu: There are dogs everywhere! Some look happy and fat, living next to butcher shops, others are the most miserable sites ever, and break my heart; The pollution leaves black gunk in my nose; Text messaging to the USA works, but not to India; Kids throw bags full of water at you because a 'festival' is coming – I guess water is an improvement over rocks, which is what boys used to throw at us in Azerbaijan; and finally, brushing your teeth with Sprite is better than using the water from the tap.

Quote of the Day....

"Inuu make sure you lock the terrace door so the monkeys don't come in...."

Namaste Nepal!

Going on day two in Kathmandu. I have been bad at blogging while in Holland, but I promise that with this adventure I will do better. For those of you who haven’t kept up with me, I am in Nepal as a part of my master’s degree and am doing an internship for a small NGO which assists poor girls in rural areas to go to school. My job will be to do an impact study of their program, which will take me to two districts in the mountains where I will conduct interviews, focus groups, and investigative work with local stakeholders. When all is done at the end of May, I will leave a report for my org and go back to Europe where I will write my master thesis based on my findings. Unlike with the Peace Corps where everything in the beginning was nicely organized, this is solely on me and at this point I am still without a local number or any friends, (hmmm maybe i should have taken notes on how they did things...). I am currently living in the upstairs apartment of my supervisor’s parents. They live on the East side of the city (which is considered to be part of the Old Kathmandu) in a big compound above a small department shop. Its really nice, with the only problem being that it’s kind of far from the center. Kathmandu is unlike any place I have been to. First off, there are more people and cars than anywhere else, and honking twice per minute while driving is the norm. The fumes and pollution are bad due to the amounts of cars, motorbikes, and mopeds and I am seriously considering joining the many Nepalis that wear face masks. Currently, the city has 11-16 hour power cuts per day (load shedding), with the exception for today, because evidently the Gods are cooperating. My apartment has a light in my bedroom which works during power outages and one plug which is connected to a generator. The water situation is ok , because it runs all the time, unlike many other places who don’t have water or even plumbing. I have to take bucket baths, because the pressure is not strong enough for the shower to run, but I don’t mind since Azerbaijan prepared me well (Thank you, Peace Corps!). I may move to somewhere else if opportunity permits and if I find something nicer and closer to the center, but at this point I think i will stay here, plus the family downstairs is really nice and let me use their computer and internet which are connected to the generator.

I went out exploring yesterday and took it easy today, with the plan to go out again tomorrow. The city is really interesting and impressive from what I have seen and am excited to check out some more places tomorrow. Yesterday, I went to Durbar square, which is full of beautiful Buddhist and Hindu temples that date back to the 17th century. There you can see people praying, cows running around, pigeons pooping, animals being sacrificed, and many interesting people (a bit of a sensory overload).

Following, I went to ‘monkey’ temple or Swayambhunath, which is an incredibly beautiful Buddhist monastery overlooking central Kathmandu. I found some scammer tour guide, or actually he found me, but in the end I didn’t mind paying him REALLY well, because I was alone, on my first day, and needed someone to show me around. I ended up in the Thamel (tourist district) where most the tourist hotels, shopping and restaurants are and walked around aimlessly for 2 more hours until I finally made it back. There are so many first impressions that I don’t know where to start….Hindus, Buddhists, hippies, traffic, military, three wheelers, holy men, oh my! I will get through them all since I plan to be a good little blogger. I start work with my NGO on Monday, so I have until the end of the week to explore and do some shopping. There are amazing things to buy here, and additionally I have to get some traditional Nepali wear for my site visits in rural villages. Locals are really friendly, the city is so exciting, and am sure that the rest of the country will be amazing as well! I will end on the note that after feeling like a midget living in the Netherlands, I now feel quite tall, which for me is always amazing!

Funny impressions

I have been in The Netherlands for 2 weeks now and I have to say I am really enjoying it. I live in Utrecht (which is a 25 min. from Amsterdam) and doing a master in International Development Studies at Utrecht University. My next year will prove to be quite busy since I’m doing an internship abroad starting in February, and then coming back and working hard-core on my thesis in the summer and fall. This coming internship will send me back to the developing world where I will have to do a project for an NGO based on which I will eventually write my thesis. I still don’t know where I am going and what I want to focus on, but will have a bit more clarity in about a month when we get the list of countries and research topics.

So you are probably wondering what made me want to start blogging again? I honestly thought this was done for a while, but a week and a half ago I attended the orientation for international students a German undergrad explained what we were to expect while settling here. All of her cultural descriptions sounded really funny and unbelievable, but alas… That same night a friend and I decided to go have a beer in town. Walking into the bar we immediately noticed that we were two of six girls among a sea of identical Dutch men. They all had long side swept hair (with lots of hair product in it), collared shirts, tight jeans, brown belts, and fancy shoes. They ignored our presence and hugged, touched and talked into each other’s ear. Naturally we realized that we had found our first gay bar in Utrecht. What a joy, I thought! I get to make some gay friends which subsequently end up being great girlfriends. As the night went on, one of the gay guys came to our table and invited us to go to the bar next-door with them, since this one was closing. We joined them happily to dance club next door and all of sudden things started changing. We slowly started to realize that these guys were not gay at all! They looked stoic and waited for girls to go up to them and then engaged in totally heterosexual activities with them. The AW! Then one of them came to us, and asked if we matched our purses to our shirts on purpose…I mean what would you think? He was straight. Laura and I quickly escaped this skewed world of metro sexual straight men, and told ourselves to beware for these strange bars. On the walk back, I realized what a culture shock this had been, and hence the blog writing started again.

Since that experience I have learned that there are plenty of places with men that are more of what I am used to, but still giggle when I pass a group of pretty boys, who obviously spend more time getting ready than I do.

(A tribute to Donnie Darko perhaps?)

Transmitting again

The decision has been made to continue this blog, due to the fact I am yet again in a new place. Even though this time i am in the quite developed world, I have already made quite a few interesting observations which differ from anything i have experienced before, and may be able to entertain a soul or two with my skewed views. So the first real post is soon to come. And for those who read my Peace Corps posts, let me just tell you that one year later, I miss Azerbaijan more than any place I have ever been.

Almost done!

My service is slowly coming to an end and there are only 2 weeks left till I must go to Baku and close out my Azeri life. Who would have thought that through all of the anticipation to finally finish I would actually become nostalgic? It happened and I am realizing how many small things have mattered a lot to me, and how leaving them won’t be a piece of cake. At the top of the list for that is Kiwi (my dog) who with the help of my friend Meredith, I will try to bring to America next summer. I have become so attached to her, and I miss her even when I travel within Azerbaijan. Too bad she can’t drink beers with me in the summer heat…Some other things that have mattered to me and I will miss are:

• My two favorite students Fidan and Shabnam.
• My house, since who knows when I can afford to live on my own again.
• Famile, my counterpart, who has always stood behind my decisions and has helped me through my problems.
• My Peace Corps friends.
• Making my own work schedule and not working a 9-5 job.
• Not worrying about money (too much) and having hassle free health care.

There are probably more aspects of my life that I will realize I’ll miss as my time here diminishes. Needless to say I am also looking forward to plenty when I come home, such as: a social life, supermarkets, sit down toilets, sushi, and washing machines among others.

Two things that I am most definitely happy to be leaving behind are Azeri men and being a teacher. I take my hat off to all of my current colleagues because teaching is not as effortless as it may and in fact is pretty hard! Maybe it’s a bit different teaching here, but still, I can’t picture ever being able to handle the job with the little amount of patience I possess.

So you probably wonder what I have been doing for the past 2 months? The answer is: not much! Once school ended and the heat cranked up to 90-100 degrees everyday, it is not only I who wanted to hide out with a fan in my face. All summer I have had one conversation club which would meet bi-weekly for 2 hours and that’s about it. I left Barda a few times to go help out friends with their clubs and camps, and finally took a trip to go see the mountains with my friends from Baku. Other than that I have been sitting at home in front of the Internet, cuddling a frozen water bottle and waiting for the sun to go down so I can function. Don’t ever take your air conditioning for granted people!!!

So everyone has been asking about my return. As previously mentioned I arrive on September 21st at Dulles, at 8:53 pm. Its taking me a little longer to get home because I'm taking a week to go to Berlin and re-civilize myself. When I come back home base will be my mom’s house in Alexandria for about one month, and around October 19th I’m heading out to Breckenridge, CO to live for the winter. I will email ways to reach me as soon as I get a cell phone and then the reunions shall begin. I can’t wait!!!

Pictures: 1) At Ilisu in Gax 2) Fidan and I 3) Museum in Sheki 4) In Sheki with Bulgarians 5) The Kiwi

US bound

My official return to America is:

September 21st!

Stop 1: DC
Stop 2: Breckenridge
Stop 3: San Francisco
(Inshallah, as the Azeris would say)

Toes

It always surprises me how time flies when you have things to do. June began with my long anticipated vacation to Riga which was exactly what I needed in order to remind myself what I have been missing out on. My friend and I stayed in a hostel in Old Town Riga where we met a ton of cool people, partied, ate amazing food, and did a number of touristy activities which I didn’t dread as much as I had imagined. Each day was more fun than the last, and once we came back to Azerbaijan we both went through a 2 week long nostalgia for Latvia. Immediately after our vacation we headed to our Close of Service Conference (COS), where our group reunited one last time before heading our separate ways on September
13th. We had sessions ranging from health to career advice, and even though helpful, what I got out of it was a good dose of stress, since I am still confused about my future. Why can’t my perfect job just hit me in the face so I won’t have to get wrinkles over it? If anyone has any future opportunities for me that involve skiing, traveling and not sitting behind a desk now is the time to speak up!! After COS, I came back to Barda for the environmental camp my site mate, Mare, and I had planned. We did environmental activities, every morning with a group of kids and we ended up enjoying it so much that we are going to gather with them two times a week, every week, until I’m done.

So logistically this is what my life had consisted of. Now I want to share a story about my foot…In late May after running daily on a crappy sprinter’s track I injured my left foot. The pain was gradual and I ignored it for about a week until one day I took my shoe off and I could barely step on it. The Peace Corps doctor sent me to the local hospital to get an X-Ray since I could get that over with right away and possibly skip the trip to Baku. I went to the scary hospital and did the deed, following which I had to talk to the orthopedist and get the diagnosis for my condition. After examining my foot, which was already de-swelled, and looking at the X-ray upside down, he told me that I have a serious condition called aseptic necrosis, which a lot of young women get due to the fact they wear high heels a lot. He told me I’ll be fine after serious physiotherapy and about 10 prescriptions. Our PC doctor freaked out and immediately summoned me to Baku for a second opinion. Meanwhile I researched this condition that I apparently had just to find out that it usually occurs in older people at the hip bone or the knee, rarely at the ankle and possibly never in the foot…Hmmm. Additionally I haven’t worn high heels in over 2 years which was the doctor’s main argument for me having this softening of the bone he diagnosed. So I went to Baku and Irina, my doctor straight out laughed at the diagnosis after looking at my seemingly perfect X-Ray. At the end it turned out I had just pulled a ligament and as long as I took it easy for a while it would heal. Should I believe that? I don’t know... What freaks me out is that this Barda doctor gives these sorts of diagnosis on a regular basis, sending people to surgery, and prescribing them unnecessary drugs. Once again this incident made me feel so damn lucky that I wasn’t born here.

And here is a snippet of important information:
I have decided to travel for a week after I’m done so my official return has been postponed till September 21st. The plane tickets are bought so its all set. Mark your calendars!

2 Years of Being a School Teacher - check

Today was graduation and school is officially over. I’m never ever EVER teaching again and couldn’t be happier about it. I know this means I am one step closer to coming home, but 103 days still sounds like an eternity away. At least I won’t be too bored while counting down till September 12th. I am barely going to be at site in June due to my Riga vacation and the Close of Service Conference, and then in July I’m planning and participating in a number of summer camps which will keep me busy and whining for at least a few more weeks. In addition I have decided to take the Foreign Service Exam, which also fits in that time period of crazy.

Other than that the Peace Corps has been quite the love mixer lately. We are on our way to marry off our second PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer) couple in June and are wondering who is next. The first two got hitched back in January and moved in together right after. They are both in my group and are preparing to go home, meet each other’s families, and plan the American wedding with all the perks they didn’t get here. The second couple is a mix between my group and the new group, and is tying the knot in the next week or so. The wife to be, Mariko is extending her service one year and switching her site so she can be with her man. None of this of course can happen in Azerbaijan, so both couples have had to go to Georgia in order to legalize their union. They come back with the papers and PC handles all the rest. Love love love. BLAH! Speaking of this, just this week I realized that I have forgotten what to do with myself around normal, interesting and attractive men. My local interactions with the opposite sex are either accompanied with anger and annoyance (at local Azeris), or the sisterly nudge nudge (with PC guys). How did I figure this out? It happened three days ago, when a Spanish cyclist contacted me via Couch Surfers, asking if he could stay with me since he was to pass by on his way to Iran. He is taking on the world with his bike and at the age of 40 has been on the road for 4 years and has gone through South America and Africa already. He left his job as a lawyer in Spain, and while on the road entertains the poorest of the poor as a clown, for which he actually has training. If you speak Spanish and would like to check out his videos you can go to his website at www.biciclown.com. Needless to say he was just as amazing in person as he is on paper, and yours truly wanted to hide under the table not knowing what to do with herself around him. Quite sad, I hope my flirting skills come back to me once I return to civilization because this is totally UNACCEPTABLE!

And now back to my Peace Corps life. I have been quite busy in the past two months planning an Earth Day event and an end of the school year assembly with my 5th formers. For Earth Day I planned an awareness campaign for my classes, which ended up with a school clean-up on the weekend. Around 25 students showed up, and we had a grand time picking up syringes, beer bottles, and cigarette butts. At the end I gave all of them hand sanitizer and candy for their hard work. The end of the school year event was a bit more complicated since I had to teach 26 students a number of poems and songs. It sounds easy, but I tell you getting those kids into gear and controlling 26 little torpedoes is a tough job. It took 3 months to have them learn 4 songs, a poem, and create a letter from cardboard. Any less, and the program wouldn’t have been a success. The theme was the alphabet so each student had to make their own letter, say a poem about it and learn 4 songs with the accompanying dances. On May 16th we had an assembly inviting parents and teachers and it was an utter success. I was very proud of the little ones and almost cried when they presented me with gifts and speeches about what a great teacher I am. Now I know that there is something I will miss once I go from here.

I have also been working with my Jehovah’s Witness counterpart, who along with her group have been harassed and persecutes since they started their activities here. She has written a letter to mail out to different NGO’s and International organizations and I have been helping her revise it and make it more professional. The letter entails all of the discriminatory acts against Jehovah’s Witnesses by town people, the police and the Ex Com and is quite lengthy. Her English is not that good so it hasn’t been an easy task to arrange and re-write it. I have uploaded the letter in case you want to read or give it to anyone who may help. You can download it HERE.

And finally, I have been an essential part of the Barda Bandits, and had to say goodbye to a friend who recently quit due to the fact he got a job in Iraq. 3 more blog entries till the end!!!