When my group first arrived in Azerbaijan, we were given the first three in a series of five rabies shots. There are a lot of stray dogs in Azerbaijan. I have been feeding stray dogs on and off during my service. My neighborhood has a mother with three puppies. I have been feeding them for the last couple of weeks. Last Friday, a close friend visited and I asked if she would like to go feed the puppies with me. She agreed so we took some cut up hot dogs. As you may know, puppies have sharp teeth and instead of putting the food on the ground we feed the puppies directly so that each would get some food. As you may have guessed, we both got our fingers cut with sharp puppy teeth. So off to the office and now we have the final two rabies shots.
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| Two of the puppies and mom |
At the halfway through service, volunteers have a mid-service exam which includes a physical, teeth cleaning and for the "seasoned" woman volunteers a mammogram. For reasons that I don't fully understand, there is not an approved facility in Azerbaijan for a mammogram, so the decision was made to send us to Tbilisi. So on Monday, a group of four women were driven in a Peace Corps vehicle, which was nicknamed the "mammovan" to the "Red Bridge" where we walked across the border and took a taxi into Tbilisi. The trip involved two overnights, one on the Azerbaijan side and the second in Tbilisi. Two volunteers are staying to enjoy Tbilisi for a couple of days and two of us crossed back to Azerbaijan this morning, met up with the driver and headed home. A short but successful trip. I must say that traveling by car is much more pleasurable than by bus, but perhaps a little less colorful.
