I feel like I've been waiting for Christmas for 6 months and it finally has happened. And the bike I was hoping for, plus the Moonshoes, plus the walking, talking robot were all under the tree. Sunday I moved into my apartment and have been basking in the glow of adulthood with a stupid grin on my face during the entirety of my seven minute walk to school. Already, living on my own nets me an extra 1.5 hours each day, where previously i was be walking.
I moved into my apartment Sunday and spent the day unpacking, which is nothing compared to a US move. The apartment is furnished, and after substantial rearrangement of the furniture and moving the fridge into the kitchen from the hallway quite comfortable. It has electricity and indoor plumbing which means an indoor toilet and shower/tub. Admittedly I'm still figuring out how the shower/tub works. That sentence probably reads a little weird in the US, but Azeri plumbing is not so straight forward as a pipe to a faucet.
A fellow PCV, Lannea, and I went to a mini bazaar to pick up some vegetables for my first cooked dinner in this apartment. I'm asking a million different questions to her while standing in front of all the fresh produce. She suddenly exclaims 'Wait, you've never shopped for food here have you?' As a guy, I haven't even been allowed in the kitchen let alone shopped for any food. The variety in a single green grocer's stall is equal to most farmers markets. I suddenly have a new found desire to talk with shopkeepers around me or speak with the little kids playing soccer. This is now my community, it is these people I will be seeing everyday for the next two years. There was such a resistance to community integration when I was temporarily living in a distant suburb outside the city. That 180s immediately, now that I'm actually living in Xachmaz, in my own apartment. I feel part of a community now that I have a space of my own to occupy in it.
Cooking my first meal was literally, a thrill. Lannea and I ate the healthiest meal we've had in Azerbaijan (no exaggeration) with foods purchased minutes before: onions, spinach, tomatoes, pasta, olive oil. Oh olive oil, how I've missed you, never will the horrible pee colored sunflower oil be allowed in this house. Each step of cooking added another item to my kitchen inventory and to my shopping list; skillet: check, strainer: need, cutting board: check, forks: need. Control over diet and food is a huge step in normalizing my time here and having a kitchen is a huge step towards that. The fact that there is coffee on my counter, that there is beer in the fridge, that my sister's 'save the date' card is taped to the fridge door-all just like America.
Last week our housing coordinator came up to Xachmaz to give the final approval on mine and another volunteers house. My landlady gave him the tour and he ensured that I actually good did know what was being talked about; did I actually know how to light the petch, could I really light a glass stove, etc. As he was dropping me back off at my host family's house, he congratulated me and then articulated exactly how I feel now: 'and now your service really begins.'
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