Bits and Pieces

Spring now appears to be in full swing and I thought I'd write a few bits and pieces since last time.

It snowed on March 30th, the first time it has snowed in recent memory after the first day of Spring, which is celebrated by the Novrus holiday.  I will post more on that holiday later. Other than an unusual thunder and lighting storm last weekend, the weather is quite pleasant.

March 30 snow

I am gaining new baking skills.  I make a mean Banana Sour Cream muffin with nutella filling. I am also perfecting my pita baking skills. As I indicted earlier, my oven, which is called a red pec, is basically a little larger and slightly more robust Easy Bake oven. In order to make a good pita, you need to have a really hot oven. So I crank that baby up to its highest temperature and let it rip. Each pita bakes by itself for 2 minutes the first side and 1 minute the second. A batch makes 8 pitas. I think I have the whole process down to about 2 1/2 hours. I freeze most of them and then take them out one at time.  I'm mostly filling them with egg, tuna or chicken salad. If I take it out on my way to work, it is defrosted perfectly by lunch time. It is so much better than buying bread. While bread is inexpensive, I can't eat a whole loaf before it gets stale or moldy. When I do buy bread I usually by a flatter bread called tandoor.

Pita Bread

Some expat-women volunteered to update my organization's kids area. It is beautiful.

Children's Zone

A bit of unfortunate news - a new group of trainees was expected to come to Azerbaijan earlier this month, unfortunately circumstances arose that necessitated that their arrival be cancelled.  Peace Corps hopes that next year a new group of  volunteers will come. As we say in Azerbaijan, Inshallah.

I have been busy at work; attending a series of leadership trainings (half in English translated into Russian and half in Russian translated into English), working on a grant application, creating a small database in Access and working with the organization on strategic management and financial reporting. A little bit of this and a little bit of that. It has been amazing how much of the training in Russian I have been able to follow at times. Many business/technical terms are similar and if you know the general topic and catch a few words here and there, I can pick up the gist of the conversation. But I'm glad that it is translated. All the staff of my organization speak Russian, for some it is their first language. But not all speak Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan has only been the official language since the early 1990's, when Azerbaijan gained its independence.

Till next time - Patti