HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Tom, Tim and I had dinner with the US Ambassador last night. She is going around with a Texas Swing Band that is touring the region for some cross-cultural exchange deal or something. We went and watched their concert this afternoon-it was really fun to hear some good old fashioned swing music! The AZ Ambassador is a really cool lady who actually tries to hang out with PCV’s as much as possible, which is great and I think fairly rare among ambassadors world wide, so we all feel pretty lucky to have her over here with us.

I am going on a major push staring today to be a lot more efficient with my time in Lenkeran when I’m not traveling. The last half of October I got in a lazy mode and just never felt like studying/reading/doing anything productive. I spent way too much time watching movies/laying around/just wasting time. I’m not sure if it was just me being lazy or if I hit some sort of “I’ve been here for over 4 months” wall or something. Who knows? So my goal for November is to be a ton more productive, knock out several books, and be a lot better about my language practice and studying. One odd thing that I’m trying to get over right now is the fact that I’m not good at faking conversations. I talk non-stop it seems in America, but when I try to just fake a conversation over here to practice speaking the language, I can’t think of stuff to say at all. I’m honestly baffled.

I’ll be in Lenkeran for the next 10 days, which should be nice. It’s cooled off here a ton (mid 50’s-low 60’s during the day), fall is definitely upon us. The tree leaves are starting to change color, so it’s pretty here when it’s not raining. My house doesn’t stay warm at all, so I’m sure I’ll start firing up my furnace in my room before too long. Nene brought in a plastic tarp to my room where I’m pretty sure my wood stack will reside for the remainder of my time with her. Having said that, all of a sudden it got up to 88 degrees yesterday, which was completely ridiculous.

And finally, the Halloween Party in Ganja. Tom and I made it to and from Ganja without completely getting lost or taking a wrong bus or anything (we just had one flat tire on the way there and no other major hiccups). We were both blown away by this, and aren’t counting on it happening again any time soon. Tom and I went up and met the gang who greeted us with 3 huge bacon and pepperoni pizzas! They were amazing. We hung out all night (Tom and Ram played the guitar) and we just vegged out, which was great. Saturday we made biscuits and my gravy mix for breakfast (the below picture is of my B&G I ate with a ladle so I could drink the happiness of the gravy…it just made sense at the time) and my queso for lunch….by far the 3 best meals in a row I’ve had since I left America-thanks to mom and dad for the awesome gift package!!! I cried when it was finished…figureatively…..seriously. We then all loaded into a cab and went to Carol’s (a super cool AZ3 Volunteer that has a huge house in Ganja-she pays for it with money form the US). There were probably 40+ Volunteers there and most of us dressed up. Tom and I were the AZ3 Angel and the AZ4 Devil respectively-AZ3 seems to think they are perfect and my group of AZ4 Volunteers have gotten into trouble a few times already, so we found it appropriate-of course I was the Angel . We definitely got the most laughs at our idea and costumes-thanks again to mom for the gift package, you can’t find Angel and Devil costumes in AZ oddly enough. The party was a blast, Carol made corn bread, chowder, cookies, cakes, and tons of other great American foods! We all crashed on her huge living room floor-think YMCA lock-in basically. Since Tom and I live the farthest away from the center of the country (where Ganja is), we had to hop a 9:30am bus home that crawled at a snails pace. Eight long hours later we were back in town and completely beat. Amazingly Tom and I only managed to piss people off one time at the party with our stupidity. Around 8 am Sunday morning one or two people were up and moving around, and you could tell that everyone was kinda awake, but just not wanting to move or talk yet. I was wide awake and ready to play so I yell “Good Morning Tom!” to him on the other side of the room, and there was a collective moan throughout the room. We then basically had a recap of our favorite parts of the party and couldn’t stop laughing at each other from across the room. This woke up the entire group and no one was impressed what so ever. I thought it was really funny. People dressed up really well for being in the 3rd world where there are no costumes: Kasey and Rachel were BFF Babies (Tom’s idea), Rikki George was a witch, Terah was covered head to toe in work out gear (no one knows why she has all of that here), Ram bought a muumuu and dressed like an old Azeri woman, Becky made a pomegranate costume that was awesome, Joy was a Vampire, Ressa was a cowboy (using my boots and belt/buckle combo), Magda was a pirate, etc. I was really impressed. Enjoy the pictures and Happy Halloween to all of you in America, Trick or Treat well!!!

Pictures: B&G, Queso in the 3rd world, Tom, Ram (in costume), Magda and I at Terah’s. Halloween pictures to come, I didn’t use my camera so waiting for them to get emailed to me…