Aliabad - Here I come

I am now officially a Peace Corps Volunteer (again!!). After swearing in ceremony in Baku on Thursday, we celebrated by having breakfast in the hotel where the ceremony took place.  It was a buffet hmmm, eggs, cereal, yogurt (and not from a jar), breads, granola, and fruits.  I drank 4 cups of coffee with milk, it was well worth the $15 manats ($19.00 approximately, that's a  lot on a PCV's earnings!). The next morning we all got up early to get a taxi down to where we were meeting to catch  the marshurutha that we rented to take us to our site. You saw my luggage at staging, now add a huge sleeping bag, mosquito net, water filter (huge) and books that was mandatory assigned by the Peace Corps (now times that by 6 thank God, one PCV decide to go another way to his site).  It was definitely a challenge to stuff all our luggage plus us in a large mini van, but you know we did it.  Unbelievable... But we were lucky as the group going to Tovoz had 7 people and they had a smaller van.  It took about 9 hours to get to my site as we had to let volunteers off on the way and I was second to the last person dropped off.  The host family I am now living with is wonderful.  My room is awesome and warm.  They have central heating (actually a pipe that runs through all rooms with hot water in it).  They have a FULL indoor bathroom right across from my room. And I have Internet.  God surely loves me.  This part of Azerbaijan has a lot of Georgians living here and as I am trying to understand what my host family was saying and nothing sounded familiar (I knew my language skills sucked but I was really worried).  Then the daughter who speaks English (yea) told me that they were speaking Georgian and Russian (whew..).. Oh joy, now I am really going to suck at the language.  Fortunately, one of the LCF (trainers from training) lives in Zaqatala and she will be my tutor. 
Here are pictures of my new home and my host family (mother and daughter)... How awesome is this.




Life Challenge:  Every moment is an experience, so give it a try.. Jake Roberts.