My Ever Increasing Patience...

My patience has grown by leaps and bounds since I arrived in Azerbaijan. Here's an example of that from last week.

Last Thursday I had an errand to run. I'm working with some youth who want to plant some trees at their school and I arranged through a fellow PCV to get 75 free trees. The only thing was that I needed to go two hours west to pick them up. So the Director of my organization volunteered to take me/go with me (he has a friend with a car) even though the project isn't affiliated with my organization (how amazing is he!). We left the office at 10:30am and travelled as planned to Ganja, two hours west. There we picked up the trees and headed back east. We stopped quickly before we left the city for doner, a cheap sandwich-like meal that is sold on the street in the larger cities, and then headed for home. We travelled great for a little while, until we came to a road block. So we followed the detour. Now, there are not many main roads here, so we went very far out of our way for this detour - at least 45 minutes. Then we came back down on the east side of the city where the detour began. Unfortunately at that point the road was still closed. So the driver and my Director were out talking to the road patrol, and we were eventually allowed onto the road. By this point there is also car trouble; the car I was riding in had to be jumped to start. So we thought we were ok - we had gotten on the road. But after we drove for a short bit we were diverted into a gas station parking lot, where we sat for at least a half hour while they cleared the road so the presidential motorcade could pass. This was why the road was closed. I would guess that at least 15 - 20 kilometers were closed at a time. When we left the gas station the car had to be jumped again, and nothing electrical was working (lights, wipers, etc.) so we stopped by a service station. This was another long wait - at least 45 minutes - while we waited for the correct person, while he checked out the car, while he searched for and found the part we needed, and then finally while he installed and tested it. From there, we were finally able to get back to my office, unload the trees, and be done for the day at about 6:30pm. Have I mentioned that it rained all afternoon? I also got a call that I had a package waiting for me at the post office and I didn't get back in time to pick it up. But these things were out of my control and I just sat in the backseat patiently waiting for the issues to be resolved. There was nothing I could do and being impatient wouldn't have made a difference, except for maybe making the time seem even longer. This is just one of the many changes I have noticed in myself since I began my time here...