New years has brought much to share... lots of new things going on for me here in good ol Ganja. We celebrated New Years here in Ganja, and had several friends in from out of town. It was nice to see some familiar faces, and even nicer to have a small break from work while the offices were closed. It gave me a chance to recharge my internal batteries, and got me ready for the new challenges to come this year. I have officially switched host organizations to a place that has a lot of needs, and really utilizes my abilities. In the first two weeks I've already started two new clubs, including an American Movie club, and an English Language Reading Club. They given the youth in Ganja a chance to practice hearing and reading english... two areas of learning that are often neglected here. There are conversation clubs galore, including the three I'm doing. So these two add some variety to the list. My club is limited for the time being to 10 students for the Book Club, as I'm having to pay for copies of materials myself... and every book that has a lot of pages, adds up to a lot of money. The movie club is available to all youth in the community. I also sent out a request to Darien Book Aid to beef up the materials for my new club... they have graciously granted my request to further the english reading in Ganja.
I've also been spending a lot of time with the host family, and had the pleasant experience of celebrating some traditional Azeri holidays, namely New Years, and Qurban Bayram (a day of sacrifice). Both were great and gave me a chance to really finally bond with my host sisters "Nushu" and "Mimi." We have decided that I won't start looking for independent housing till sometime in April so that I can celebrate Novrus Bayram with them. As I'm told, there will be fire jumping for the holiday in mid-March. I will hopefully have some good pictures to share with you from that one as well.
The weather in Ganja is taking it's toll as it's been below zero a few nights. Needless to say, it's colder than anything I've every felt in a Washington Winter! Aside from all that, I've been busy as ever improving my Azeri, and have picked up a few words and phrases in Russian. I'm not cleared to officially study Russian, but my host family speaks a little and have been sharing with me.
I just figured I would let you all know I now have a more regular connection to the internet, so please feel free to comment or email me now. I should be able to get back to you all a little faster now that I'm working at a host organization that has internet access. Also, in order to start posting more regular blogs, I'd like it if you could all think of questions you'd like me to answer in the blogs. It will help spur topics for me to post about, as by now, the newness has worn off for me, and I forget what may be interesting or new for you guys!
