My First Trip to My New Home of Ucar...

So this past week all of the current trainees had site visits to their permanent sites. Oh, and I now know that there’s another AZ6 volunteer going to Ucar with me; his name is Kevin and he’s a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) volunteer. I don’t really know him much – there are 61 of us and we’re in different programs; obviously we don’t all know each other, we’re just happy if we can remember everyone’s names!

I left Tuesday night on the night train and arrived at 3:45am amid some confusion of when I would actually arrive (at least now I know for the future). Candice, who is a volunteer that’s already in Ucar, met me at the train station and I stayed with her for the rest of the night. That morning Candice walked me to my host organization where I met the director and some of the employees. I stayed for an hour or two that morning and then my director took me to meet my host family. I met my new host mother (she was the only one home), saw my room, drank tea, etc. There was even time for a nap that first day – I was able to sleep on the train but I was kind of restless – what with worrying about getting off at the right place and everything I kept waking up. That day I also met up with Candice, Jeff and Kevin, and the four of us made dinner at Jeff’s – the four soon to be volunteers in Ucar, two AZ5’s and two AZ6’s. When I returned home I met the rest of my host family – host mother, host father and two host sisters, ages 15 and 20. They seem very nice and I’m excited to move to Ucar, but it will be kind of hard to leave my current host family.

The rest of the week was spent in Ucar. I worked full days on both Thursday and Friday, observing some of the classes that are taught at Akinchi, having lunch with my director, meeting employees, etc. Everyone is very nice and I’m excited to be there permanently! I technically do not move until December 11th, but Alimusa, my director, has asked if I can come back for an important meeting on November 26th. I got the okay from my program manager to do this (because I’ll be missing a couple classes) and it will definitely be a great learning experience. Apparently this type of meeting only happens once or twice a year so it’s important that I’m there.

Friday night I went to a wedding with my host mother and sister of a neighbor. Technically my host father was there as well but since men and women sit separately at weddings I didn’t really see him there. It was an interesting experience – very different from the wedding that I attended in Ismayilli. It was not at a wedding palace but at someone’s home instead, there was no meal served, etc. It seemed like a neighborhood party. Traditionally, in Azerbaijan there is both a groom’s wedding and a bride’s wedding, but I don’t know which this was and to be honest, I didn’t even see the bride and groom! I don’t know if they arrived after we left or what was happening. Hopefully I can get some answers when I’m back there in December. I didn’t have much of a chance after the wedding because my train left early Saturday morning. An interesting note on the train station: Kevin and I went on Friday to buy our tickets but all we ended up doing was reserving our tickets. Apparently that’s what you do in Ucar. When we got there the next morning we returned to the ticket window and bought our tickets. I have decided that I need to keep a list of all the different ways that my name appears on my tickets – since they never know quite what to do with the W’s in my name. Tickets anywhere is never going to be a simple thing for me.

So now I’m back in Tagiyev for the next couple of weeks and they are packed full! We still have language sessions every morning and have CED sessions pretty much every afternoon; we even have language classes on Thanksgiving!

Have a great Thanksgiving! I’ll miss being there with everyone but I’m very thankful for your thoughts and prayers!