I broke a rule

All around Qax there are ditches allowing the water from the mountains to flow cleanly through the city without me having to step in the water. For these ditches Jason gave me a rule with two options.
#1 - If I'm going to fall in the water road thingy he must be present.
#2 - If I can't make number one happen, I need to push an ogling boy into it.

Well my friends Friday night neither of these two situations occurred, thus I broke the rule. I was over at Nona's and we were chatting our lives up and doing push-ups and crunches for quite a few hours. The sun had set and I needed to do some laundry so I said goodbye and headed home. Very few people were on the street and the w eather was perfect for my little stroll. The arc of my right foot was already aching. I had dropped a freakishly heavy glass artificial maple flavor on my foot earlier in the day. Thanks Alicia. By this time a nice big bump and a bruise is already showing so the only shoes I could wear were my flip flops. I'm down the hill and can see my door from the road so I decide to cut across a road to make a diagonal. You know the shortest distance between to points is a straight line, I paid attention in 6th grade. Unfortunately I did not pay attention to my dad's many warning to pay attention where I was going. I cut across and as opposed to walking in a parallel direction with the water ditch I am now nearly perpendicular to it and rapidly approaching it. Unsuspecting of my impending doom I walk freely and my right foot plunges in scraping my shin fairly deeply about 3-4 inches as my left foot plunges right on down to the knee scraping mildly. My flip flopped feet are now in the water as my toes cling to t he strap while I am doing everything in my power not to scream out in pain. I lift myself out of this stupid water road thingy and limp to my door whimpering and telling myself not to look down knowing I'll freak out if I see how bad it is. As I'm limping I'm remembering again how grateful I am not to be living so far down the hill and I open my gate. Standing with my legs under the cold running water I get the soap and clean out my battle wound, It's a battle I'm in a form of US Corps in a foreign country and I'm claiming this. It's pretty deep and even though I still can't walk 2 days later it's slowly healing. BTW thanks to Ruth for my extra little medical kit, totally helped! This is why you should always listen to your dad and follow Jason's rules, also this is why I now have a new nemesis. These are my battle wounds immediately after cleaning the gravel out.

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Good Idea

It's a good idea to have your parents come to Azerbaijan. Reasons being:

1 - They now will understand half of the crazy you have been sending home in emails.

2 - They won't be so terrified of this crazy thing you signed up for.

3 - There are some wonderful friends I've made here, they see I'm well taken care of.

4 - You're a Qax Star and now they can see it (as if there was any doubt).

5 - Ego! You've been speaking the language for 9 months and daily progress is mostly noted by you alone. Throw your parents who meekly say hello and thank you and you are more or less fluent. Aka use your parents to make you look oh so good!

6 - It's easier to see how happy I am when I'm laughing with Nona rather than sitting at home skyping about worries.

7 - To all of the host country nationals who still don't quite understand how or why I left home for this commitment, I'm a real girl. These are my real parents and this is our real love that passes over half the world every day.

8 - Also for host country nationals, if you have been taking care of me...my mommy will bring you things!

So many more reasons, I'm still counting them...you don't have to read them.

Last view of Qax waiting on the train platform. We may look serious but about one second after this was taken the sarcastic punch line was dropped and it was all smiles. Qax is magical, it does that to people.

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To Lekit!

Beca and Doodle preparing for the Lekit trip.

Eventful times in Lekit this round. When we arrived Turan seemed nervous. Besti Ana was as usual ready to entertain and had a full meal placed before us in minutes. After we ate it was time to rest on the balcony with Turan and then a new twist, swimming. A young cousin, Elşen was over and he was really excited to see me for some reason. Once he went up to swim he found a turtle in the nearby area, somehow remembered that I not only liked them but I have quite a few at home and brought it to me. So I had to go see it. We all headed up to the pool and after pretend searching Beca and I joined in the swimming. After swimming I witnessed the sheep being slaughtered and prepared for the following day of kebabs and fun. Vagif Ata even let me help him hang it up on a post to drain the blood. I almost lost my fingers but it was an experience. Next I took my parents on a hike to the river and Doodle and I continued to the waterfall. He got some good shots but said it was a bit too far out of the way for his liking.

When we returned the house was buzzing. Dünya had 3 friends from university over, and Turan's old university friend brought his family up too. There were Turks, Azerbaijani's, Americans and who could forget that Vaqif Ata is a rockin' Tsakhur! Food was eaten, Vagif Ata's "compote" was drank and love filled the air for two of the dogs.

The next day was the big day. Everyone was to head out to have a brilliant time in Kotuklu. Unfortunately the weather looked pretty bad so plans were changed to an area nearer the waterfall. The party ended up in two groups, Americans on one side and everyone else on the other. We were with a cute little old man, who runs a little tea house in the summer for all of the tourists. He was so excited to talk to my parents and he took such good care of them, politely taking my father aside to explain where the toilet was as to not offend anyone. Here he is with his Samovar, that stuff makes good tea!What happened next was truly magical. Turan finally found someone who could withstand hours of questioning and still be completely transfixed with the conversation. In fact I was worried, for the first time, that the guest I brought might out talk Turan. I saw that look of admiration and love coming out of Turan for my father just as it had whenever Jason would pick up his guitar. Enraptured. But then I got to see how cute Doodle was when he finally had a student who really cared just for the sheer knowledge of it, no grades would be given here. It was adorable. Besti Ana, my mom and I just watched and giggled at how cute they were. Doodle started telling some jokes and the best one by far:

"Turan, what noise does a 500lb canary make?

"I don't know."

"CHERP!!!"

When he yelled that into Turan's face, which by that point was only one foot away, Turan had to hold on to his seat. He was laughing so hard that it took a few minutes to recover. Precious. Alas it was time for us to go and with a quick picture we were off. Left to right, Vagif, Doodle, turan, Beca, Mommy, Me, Besti Ana

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