America Day Var!!!!

I mean, what a freaking week in Lenkeran! I don’t even know where to begin…

First of all, everyone around town kept telling us that May 1^st would be amazing weather. This was hard to believe since it rained approximately 28 out of 30 days in April at least a few hours each day. Amazingly enough, it was freaking gorgeous on May 1^st. Mid 70’s and not a cloud in the sky. One cue, all of the stores in town brought out coolers with tons of ice cream in them! It was the most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen as far as weather prediction accuracy. Maybe the Houston weather guys should call the Azeris and ask them the next day forecast-they couldn’t be more wrong than those guys, even from half way around the world.

I had to call the Mayor’s Office 6-15 times a day every day of the week bugging them about the permission we needed for America Day. It drove me nutz! They sent a letter to the Baku Mayor’s Office to ask permission for out little day for some reason. Finally on Thursday I call my guy and he says “Of course there is not a problem. Why would you ever think that?” Oddly enough I had to call him three more times that day to get the guy two power levels below him to call the directors of each school to pass the permission along. We went to two of our three schools Friday morning to invite the kids for Saturday’s event.

On Friday most of the crew that was invited (we asked 20 PCVs to come help us manage our expected hoard) showed up to Lenkeran. We had a nice and relaxing evening where we showed some people around town and everyone got their first chance to sample Lenkeran’s Famouse Lavangi (the rotisserie chicken with stuffing). Everyone was more than impressed-our reputation for AZ’s best food is still in tact thankfully.

Saturday morning we took some more people on a tour of the “hot spots” in town and then we made a surprise visit to Nene’s house. She was really surprised (she knew they were in town but I didn’t tell her we were stopping by). She was mad at me for not warning so she could have cooked for us all. I told her that may have put her in the hospital, so most people just drank some local tea (not me, don’t worry). Then we headed back to my house to put the finishing touches on our skits, picture presentations and logistics for America Day taken care of.

We got to School 4 in time to set up the food for the kids, the props, computer projector, etc. A little after 2:00 there were three parades of approximately 35 kids apiece flooding to the school. We had the Deputy Mayor say a few words to kick the day off (he’s hilarious and made me “coax” him into talking-the oh, well, I guess if you really want me to I can say a few words, but it really isn’t necessary, beg me some more and maybe it’ll happen routine). We then split the kids in half-50 kids out back to the play area and 50 kids into the conference room. Out back Tom and half of the PCVs did skits about Memorial Day and 4^th of July. They had some really funny stuff to help the kids follow along with what they were saying. We had some people talking in English (it is America Day after all) and people translating for some of the kids. I didn’t see this, but apparently at one point when they were talking about the Boston Tea Party, Tom dumped out a few packets of tea on the ground and stomped on them. The kids’ faces were those of complete shock for a few minutes, and then they kinda decided to laugh. Like I’ve said time and time again, people drink tea here 24/7 and they couldn’t comprehend why someone would do such a thing as to waste any of it. Yet another funny lesson learned in AZ! My room we had talked and answered questions about summer vacations in America, showed a slide show of American hot spots and then an Azeri hot spot slide show. We encouraged the kids to take a trip to somewhere in AZ they have never been before. Most people here do not travel outside of their towns (except Baku trips), so this is a big deal to encourage we think.

After that was over was when the pure insanity took over. We had two representatives from the local Ministry of Youth and Sports go with us on a 25 minute walk through the center of town with 20 PCVs and 100 kids to a big sports field. Two friends brought down softball equipment from their towns and we set up two areas to show kids how to hit softballs and one area where they could play catch. 99% of the kids had never played baseball (most of them had never even seen it), so it was a lot of fun to watch them go after it. The girls here are great and wanted to play just as much as the boys. No one was happy when we finally called it quits around 6pm, but a great time was had by all! Tom and I got really lucky because America Day went about as smoothly as we could have wished for and local kids, local leaders and the PCVs all had a freakin awesome time!

After that was all done we treated out guests from out of town to a Cinco de Mayo 100 count chicken soft taco feast including a HUGE bucket of queso and four bags of Tostitos tortilla chips from America. Needless to say we all stuffed ourselves silly. This wasn’t near the spread the Embassy had for us for Turkey Day, but it was pretty freaking good for a couple of PCVs. A special shout out to the Hunzikers and Kniolas for the two insane gift boxes for all of us that included sombreros, decorations, maracas, Mexican spices, Velveeta, chips, and other amazing times. Your praises were sung highly throughout the night! Having an outdoor feast with a bunch of our friends was the perfect way to top off a huge local success for Tom and I in Lenkeran! A special thank you to the PC Staff and all of the PCVs that helped out with America Day! Everyone in Lenkeran had a freakin blast!

All of our friends really liked Lenkeran and you could feel the jealousy seeping from their skin as we had perfect weather and not a bad little town to live in as well! We also celebrated Terah’s 26^th birthday this past weekend. She brought down Lyka for me to finally meet. For those of you that haven’t heard, I have been offered to take over puppy patrol when Terah splits for America in August when she’s done (she’s an AZ3), so Lykya and I did some major bonding over the weekend. Tom and I also presented Ben with his belated b’day gift-a home made cardboard tee ball set due to Ben’s inability to hit a waffle ball in any way, shape or form. Thankfully he takes us constantly reminding him of this fact quite well.

This week will be a big week of recovery from an intense last week. In AZ this week they have a black holiday today, Victory Day tomorrow (I’m told is the anniversary of the dissolution of the USSR) and the birthday anniversary of the first AZ President on Thursday. We are off to take part in a softball tournament in Barda this weekend. PCVs from Ganja, Mingechiavier, Sheki and Barda have put together softball teams in their towns and we are going to have a tournament. There aren’t enough Americans in Sheki to make a balance on the team, so Charlie invited Tom and me to play on their team. American sports two weekends in a row should be amazing! I only have a few pictures from the weekend today, but hope to put an additional post up this week full of them.

Pictures seen this week are of: kids coming to the school, me explaining what will happen at America Day, Ram talking to the kids, Tom Maria and Rikki George acting out their play, the American Flag we showed the kids, Brendan and Maria signing autographs for the kids (this went all for all of us the entire day and is completely funny/ridiculous), Rob teaching a kid how to hold the bat, two kids watching the action, and lastly one local youth with a monster swing, just not much of the ball!