A week of ups and downs

Well the last week has had highs, lows, and normal stuff in the middle. I gave my first presentation with another volunteer on presentation skills to the rest of the group (I told them to watch what we did during out presentation and do the opposite). Myself and a 3 other volunteers start working with a local micro credit business this week. We will work with them for the next 3-4 weeks on a marketing plan and a few other general business projects. This is just to give help to a local company and give us practice working with Azeri businesses before we are on our own with a company for the next 2 years. I went to my first Azeri wedding Friday night with my host father and uncle. They have a small family only ceremony one weekend and then have a huge reception for 6 hours the next weekend-lots of toasts, eating and dancing. The weirdest thing about weddings is no one smiles EVER. They think it looks better in pictures if you have a straight face-needless to say I ruined several pics because I couldn’t stop laughing at no one smiling-oh well, such is life. I was the token American which everyone thought was funny and I danced my butt off. Dagen and Michelle, tell Wally I’d make him proud with my dance moves! I then woke up at 4:30 am the next morning with a really bad case of the yaks. I think I set a personal record of 8 yaks in one day on Saturday and had 101.5 degree fever. I’d drink half a glass of water or 7-Up and about an hour later I’d get to taste it again-good times. Sunday I felt a lot better. It was just a 24 hour bug that everyone in my Peace Corps group has been passing around-I’m one of the last ones to have the pleasure. The first pic is of the huge water reservoir/lake I visited 2 weekends ago and got to swim in. Next up is our local soccer field with rocks, broken glass and a cow (my school is on the right and my apt is straight ahead). Last but not least is a pic of me and the men I hung out with at the wedding-mostly host relatives…I’m officially half way done with my training!!!