Walk to school in photos

Let's begin with saying goodbye to my apartment and walking out past the stairwell.

Walk down the alley and say goodbye to all of the small children and Myriam's favorite cat. At the end make a left and you'll be on a very long street.

Beginning here with a slightly erie yet run down warehouse. I don't think it's in use and it looks like it was half demolished. There's all sorts of tagging on it and it is my mission to understand it all.

Note Myriam's total enthusiasm to be walking to school.

Still walking down the long street, the big pile of trash is in site so we're getting close to our next maneuver.

See, big pile of trash

Once we pass the big pile of trash we pass this very large army-esque truck. It's almost always there and I couldn't tell you why. We will be turning left before that street up ahead but Beca & Mike's houses are down that way.

We have turned left and passed the sheeps sleeping quarters. In beetween a large apartment complex and very large houses. The brown table on the left is usually under a make shift tent with loads of fruit being sold by teh people who live in that apartment.

Almost out on the road where we meet Mike, Beca, and Jess. Jess and Nurana live on this road to the right.

Now as a group, or sometimes not (It depends on how lazy we all are that day) we walk the rest of the way. Note the next pile o' trash on the right

We curve to the left around the school

We pass said school and start an incline up a narrower walkway.

This photo makes it look like the Secret Garden. I'm okay with that. Pretty much it's jsut more of the same. We have to take a huge turn around the school and pass some pretty tall aprtments.

Then we are out front of the school looking at the pipes. Door's on the right and through the school we go!

The hallways are typically filled with students screaming their hellos. The other option is by far my favorite. The kids will open the door and hold on to both handles to hold themselves mid air and ride the door back and forth. Inppropriate for school, yes. Enjoyable, yes.

Up the stairs and out the window you can see the center of the courtyard. Haven't really seen any students in it. But that's the view from our hallway.

What is the view from the courtyard? Me and Beca!

Hope you enjoyed your tour. Total walking time, about 15 minutes. If you're bionical like Mike and Jess it will take you about 5 seconds.

At my new site I will give you a classroom tour. My classroom now is reserved just for us and is quite large, so I'll wait until you can see a more average classroom.

Now you can go back to the Qobustan and Mud Volcanoe post because I added some photos. From here on out I will hopefully be able to add the photos at the same time. Next up, picture tour of my apartment!

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I'm going to Qax!!!!!!!!

That's right, we found out our site placements and I'll be in the awesome town of Qax! In English it's spelled Gakh , so now you can look up either spelling for an accurate map. It's pronounced (g-ah-gh, x in azeri is like gurgling), use this to impress at dinner parties. Kit be careful, on a date the whole gurgling thing isn't too attractive. I'm so excited to see what craziness Qax holds for me! The north eastern border is Russia and the south western border is Georgia. I'm in between two big regions, Zagatala and Şəki so no worries there. We call my area the middle finger, as the AZ map looks like a hand. I'll be practically in the mountains and there are a few cool historical sites there which is awesome for me. Doodle, you will be happy to know that there are some nature reserves here with bears and some sort of goat endangered species. Who knows. I've been told by many of the Azeri Peace Corps staff how beautiful my area is. It's supposed to have great air which will be a lovely change from this Sumgayıt air. Apparently Sumgayıt was on Time's list of top 10 most polluted cities, look it up (2007 I think). It's also supposed to be one of the worst ecologically polluted cities right now. Meaning that there's a lot of industry, and that plastic chair factory on my side of the tracks is probably SUPER healthy.

Speaking of health, and site announcements. One noticeably absent person today was Mary. One of the coolest girls here and also one of my first friends in the group. To make a long story short, Mary's allergies made it impossible to stay here and play us songs on her inhaler. I love her dearly and anytime we're together as a cluster I am just waiting for her to come in the door coughing and blowing her nose. It's truly amazing how close I feel to all of these people when I realize I had no clue who they were 2 months ago. It's pretty darn upsetting not to have her here, but hopefully she'll get the best country for re-assignment and I can go visit!

Today was a really cool day and I'm so excited to finally know where I am. I have a site mate, Jay, who is awesome! He will live in a village near my town, currently he's across the highway in New Ceyranbatan so we're obvioulsy besties already. There are no AZ6's placed in Qax but there are 6's & 7's in the regions outside Qax. I wasn't too worried about my site before because it felt like there was so much to do before I was actually going. Now, with only 3 weeks left and a site name I'm very nervous. I have the jitters and it feels like my hands won't stop shaking. That might be the chocolate that my family gives me, so good! One site I don't think anyone is going to, Xudat (pronounced who-dat). Too bad, could've made fun of them all 2 years!

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Donuz Gripi

Uh oh, here we go................Swine Flu.

That's right folks the Swine Flu has hit Azerbaijan. The first night or so of the TV spots my youngest Hsis pointed at me and said very slowly, "Lori....bad...teacher," repeatedly. I was very confused as she started talking really fast to my oldest Hsis. When translated, the teachers at the school think that the Americans all have the swine, and are telling their studenst this! If you thought the US was obsessed/scared you just won't comprehend this. Donuz Gripi is on the news every night. There are adds and loads of remedies. My favorite is all of the masks. School is super funny with about a third of the pupils in masks. Even better is when they don't have anything covering their faces and then they see Americans and hurry to put on their masks or hold a handkercheif over their faces. Beca being the doll that she is accompanied me in coughing and immediately snorting whenever we passed children with masks. Sooooo funny.
I'm pretty sure my family knows I don't have it but nonetheless we joined the garlic train. They were all eating raw garlic and told me I should too. I didn't really want to because they were nibbling it, but they insisted. So I took that big ol piece, threw it in my mouth and after about 4 chews swallowed it. They were shocked. Absolutely amazed that I could do this without any problems. Well they weren't aware of the epic battle my stomoach was fighting with itself, yet I remained super fabulous for the evening. In the morning my Hmom tried to kiss us girls goodbye but my younger sister said no when she got to me and jokingly said I had the swine. Ahhhh donuz gripi, how you slay me. *snort*

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