The week before Christmas

The pictures are self-evident.
This week was quite ordinary for us with the exception that we learned that our younger son, Andrew, will be having “minor” surgery on Monday, the 21st. He will have the procedure as a day surgery in Harrisonville. Not being there for him is difficult for us. He has taken care of everything with the help of his friends, co-workers, and Matt. The technology of the cell phone gives us the ability to be in contact if necessary, but it is not like being there. We are confident that all will go well.

Winter is quickly approaching. Today I saw a heavy frost and it was very foggy. However, I hate to mention it since we have noted the cold weather in the Mid-west and all the snow to the north of Kansas City. Frank shared with us that they had experienced bitter cold and deep drifting snow. Our weather probably compares more to northern Oklahoma or southern Missouri.
We concentrate on keeping one room warm where we eat and work. It is surprising how warm our little kitchen stays with just using the gas stove and electric oven. I may have mentioned that Linda and I have never seen a working oven in an Azerbaijani stove. Everyone buys a small electric oven. We went for the slightly more expensive and it has a thermostat. The cheaper model is either on or off and controlling the temperature is quite an adventure.
Our oven gets everything done that we need, but just takes a little longer. We have never baked whole potatoes, but do cut up into small pieces, coat with oil and an onion soup mix and heat for about an hour. That is quite tasty. Usually Linda either fries or mashes the potatoes.
We eat a little rice. I prepare the rice using the method of boiling the rice for 10 minutes, pouring off excess water, and cover using a towel for a good seal on top of the pot, and wait five minutes. Linda does not eat as much rice as I. We often have black eyed peas, pinto or kidney beans with cornbread, and I add rice to mine.
Two sisters in one of my conversation clubs traveled to Baku and brought us back a little broccoli. That was quite a treat. We thoroughly enjoy the soup mixes that have been sent to us. There is nothing quite so tasty in this climate than soup.
Again, I know it is much colder in many places in the United States, but it is a different kind of cold here. The difference is that the public buildings and homes have very poor heating methods. On days when Linda has a full load at school, she comes home chilled to the bone. The school has electric wall heaters, but Linda has never experienced them on. The teachers will get a small electric heater and bring to their room, but temperature is usually about 40 – 45 in the rooms. Children keep their coats on the entire time in school, as well as the teachers. A difficult learning environment at best.
The Central Library has no heating system. The computer room has a small electric heater, and I warm up my hands with it. It amazes Linda and me that the buildings in which we work are colder than the outdoors in the winter, and warmer than the outdoors in the summer. Sometimes, I put on my coat and go outside to warm up.
We have Volunteers from Minnesota, Alaska, and other cold weather states who are used to the outdoor cold, but not the indoor discomfort. In the villages some Volunteers sleep in three layers of clothing plus the sleeping bags. The problem is when they read their hands get so cold outside the sleeping bags. Most village and mountain city Volunteers sleep in stocking caps, socks, layers, and the great sleeping bags. Many Volunteers will spend more time in their sleeping bags than out during the month of February.

Now that we have completed a year of service plus training, we spend a lot of time reflecting on what we have and have not accomplished. Also, we try to realistically assess what we might be able to accomplish in the remaining months. At times it becomes discouraging when thinking that the entire system is flawed. An example is that Friday was a day for “control work” at Linda’s school. Control work is required by the educational system to judge what the students have learned. Essentially it is a set of statements with a blank to be filled. The students must write the entire statement and fill in the word. The teachers either provide the answers or change the answer to the correct one later. It certainly does not measure the students’ knowledge or abilities. It is a complete waste of time for teacher and student, but required. It fills the days with unproductive activity and there are not that many days of educational opportunity provided to begin with.
With the onset of the colder winter and shorter days attendance is lower in my conversation clubs. I have been assisting more with the computers which is never ending maintenance. I have been helping download and install free anti-virus software. On one computer there were 2091 files which needed to be repaired. I offer my laptop to scan flash drives with my McAfee software. Often there are as many as forty viruses on a student’s flash drive. From my counterpart’s flash McAfee removed 137 files.I was feeling quite low with the lack of people recently, but spent a couple of hours assisting a young man in applying for jobs via the internet. As we walked home, he grabbed by hand and said if he could ever do anything for me, please ask. We must always remind ourselves, drop by drop a lake is made.