I was invited to Ajcabedi (a town in the palm, remember, I'm the middle finger as we look at our hand) with other PCV's for a surprise birthday party, with BBQ chicken, hot dogs (sort of), vegetarian fajitas and all you can eat mashed potatoes (for those of us living here, mashed potatoes is AWESOME and not heard of in this culture). My site mate (Kaylee) and I went on Friday since going anywhere from the Middle finger takes at least 4 hours. Now getting there, we had to take two marshes, one to Ming and then a direct to Ajcabedi (not so bad) and then a taxi to Leah house, which took about 20 minutes. Once there, (about 7 of us) we got to work, we had to go grocery shopping for the party ( buy lots of whole chickens), potatoes, veggies, oil, butter, eggs, you get the picture. Most of the PCV's would be coming on Saturday, so it was up to us to get this party started (so to speak)!!! We peeled, sliced and diced until our fingers were raw but we got to catch up with each other (some of us hadn't seen each other since PST (training)), what a great group and to see my PST partner in crime Leah was just so much fun... Now the next day, Leah was going to cut up the chicken for the BBQ but she had more shopping to do and since we were there to surprise Carissa, we couldn't leave the house as she may see us.. So guess who got to cut up the chicken.. Yep, but the knives where not Sharp enough so I asked Rick (another PCV) to help.. We had 9 chickens, so off we went, I found a shelf to use as a cutting board, washed the first chicken, spread her out on the board and started directing Rick on how to slice and dice. My childhood memories of my mom on the chicken ranch came back very clear. Everyone else was yucking and running out of the kitchen, but each chicken we cut up, we became more confident and faster in cutting it up. We were stellar, and within the hour 9 chickens were cut up, soaking in salted water and getting ready for marinating. LIFE is GOOD. The surprise was a surprise and there were 20 AZ 9's there (half of our group that first came to Azerbaijan) to celebrate!! The BBQ sauce came from Leah's family so it was BBQ sauce to die for... I had forgotten how good BBQ chicken was, so I savored those 4 (yes 4) pieces of chicken with mashed potatoes. LIFE is GOOD.
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| Here we are AZ9's surprise birthday party for Carissa |
Oh, about the water.. My water for my apartment is suppose to come every 3 days, well, it missed me on Tuesday, so I ran out on Thursday (including my emergency pot) but no problem, I went over to my friends at the Wedding Palace and took a shower, Friday I would have water.... no it was not to happen, Friday morning I turned on ALL the valves (before I left for Ajcabedi) and NOTHING. I texted my landlady, and she said NO problem, tomorrow (Saturday) water would come and her husband will come over and open the valves... So Saturday afternoon, I texted her just to make sure (because I wanted to take a shower when I got home) and received a text back... NO WATER it will come on Monday... Darn, Darn, Darn...okay Leah, I need to take a shower here.. No problem, but NO hot water. That was a cold shower, but now I don't have to worry until Monday (hopefully my water will come).
Now about the 3 marshurutkas. We left Leah's at 7:30 in the morning for the bus station to get the marsh to Ming, but before Ming there is a round about that has a marsh to Zaqatala (so we thought), so we got off there. No, the Zaq bus had already left. There was a marshurutka to Sheiki which is 2 hours south of Zaq and was ready to leave, so we jump on that one. As usual the driver was driving like a bat out of hell and we passed another marsh and I turned around and saw the signed in the window, Zaqatala/Baleken... Kaylee there's our marsh, if we can get our driver to flag down that driver and switch marshes, we can save about 30 minutes time because it will by pass Sheiki and drive straight to Zaq. I think the driver read my mind, as he stopped the marshurutka and told us that he talked (I guess on the phone) with the other bus driver and he was picking us up. Wow... finally something worked for us!! We were home by noon and it only took 3 marshurutkas, traveling in Azerbaijan is definitely a challenge!!
Life Challenge: Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life... Confucius
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