Touchdown Azerbaijan!

Happy 4th of July and hello from the lovely land of Azerbaijan! I've been here for about 1.5 weeks and it seems like 1.5 years of good times. My group of 48 volunteers is down to 46 already, but is a really fun group of young kids (mostly 22-26). We had a blast in Philly going out and getting to know each other. We completed our first week of training in a suburb of Baku on the Caspian Sea and I moved to my new host family on Sunday. They are great, I have a father, mother, and brother (24), with another brother in the army (18). I'm in a small town (population of 7,000) with limited internet so I will try to post once a week hopefully. There are 6 of us here for 10 weeks learning the language. Azeri is starting to come to me, which is good, but I definitely have a long way to go to be able to talk consistently with the locals. The food is great and I've sadly given up two great loves of my life, not eating friuts/veggis and not drinking tea...I at/drink those heavily with each meal and am liking most of it pretty well sad to say. We all meet in Baku once a week for training and tomorrow will be our first time of that. I think they are planning a 4th of July party for us this weekend so that should be fun. I'm really excited about my decision to come over and think this will be an amazing experience for me in my life. I hope all is well with everyone!

all my best,

ashley