Family Away From Family

We're 'jumping for joy' that we got to be together

Last week seemed was filled with the monotony of making plans and waiting, this week was filled with those events that heralded the end of service.  I guested on Monday and Thursday with families who have welcomed us Americans into their lives and hearts and I benefited from a couple days off from school due to an early Gurban Bayram, a Muslim holiday celebrating Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son in loyalty to God.

But what made this week significant was our final North Finger get together, the first event celebrating COS that I have been looking forward to for months.  I feel incredible lucky to be placed in the site I was placed for a variety of reasons; wonderful counterparts, a great school, a (relatively) progressive city.  But the largest reason was due to the other Americans that were placed here with me.

We had a large number of PCVs from my class of volunteers come up here, and the eleven of us (plus 2 more AZ9s) have really become quite a family.  Whereas many other areas of Azerbaijan will find volunteers in petty drama or getting together blackout drinking fests, the North Finger crew has established a reputation for being totally awesome because we all simply like each other.

We've celebrated our holidays together, hosting massive Christmas feasts and 4th of July celebrations.  We planned our camps together and played each other's baseball teams.  We've held potlucks and even have gotten together every Sunday to do yoga together.  Our area was extremely close with one another and really exemplified what it is like to have a family away from family.

The North Finger is isolated from the rest of the country, due to the Greater Caucuses, we have to go through Baku to go anywhere else, which means we're always 2 hours further away.  But we really made a community for ourselves here.  I always felt a twinge of pride when I would hear from other volunteers how envious they were of us in the North Finger.  We didn't just hang out together, we really really liked hanging out with each other.

So this past Saturday we began to say our goodbyes.  We had one last massive pot-luck featuring a beautiful Azerbaijani-flag colored red velvet cake.  Joey and Hillary from nearby Guba planned a hilarious version of the Newlywed game, where we were paired up with our site-spouses.  Lannea handed out a mix cd that was compiled by each of us choosing a track.  It may sound a little dorky, but its pretty typical of the North Finger and exactly why I loved living here so so much.

On Sunday, we all went down to the stadium to play the last game of baseball against the Khachmaz Maximum, this time with amazing shirts provided by Kelsey's sorority.  The Americans got creamed, and everyone was impressed with how much the Khachmaz Maximum had improved.  Me? I was just so happy that I had so many friends nearby willing to field a team.

Glendene, Lannea, and Kelsey; Michael, Corina, Hillary and Joey; Mercedes, Dai, JM, Kiersten, and Saneou-my service was made so much better by your involvement in it.