Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Hello, Did Summer just pass us by??

Friends!
I have officially let you down. I beg for your kindness even though I have not been faithful with my blogging through the summer... so I'm sure half of the people who cared to read this have given up hope of anything new showing up. But, I honestly feel like Summer came and went, and where was I? Well... I made it back to Turkey in June for 2 weeks, 1 week for a company conference, and another week for vacation. Let me just say that I love Peppermint Mocha Fraps from Starbucks, and had my share while enjoying the other perks of Istanbul. I made it to pretty much every shopping mall and center that is there and loved every minute of it:) Side note, I was kinda overwhelmed with how "stylish" everyone was there. I felt quite out of place and out of touch with the new "in". However, it didn't stop me from enjoying the European Cup and cheering for Turkey in their match against Germany. I would have to say that was probably the closest I've come to a "world cup" experience.

In July I was out at a 2 week kids camp that Convoy put on for 40 kids! It was a lot of fun, God's grace that I didn't go stir crazy having to stay on the camp grounds for the entire 2 weeks, and only a few run ends with some snakes:) What fun we had, what few showers we took, and many sleepless nights with boys invading our room with toothpaste...





I returned home for 2 days, then loaded up with the rest of the Convoy team for a 2 day drive out to the Pamirs! We drove along the Afghan border the majority of the way there, really amazing to see. I got to stay with 2 american friends who work out there, and catch up on life and the sort. We also went to a wedding where we had to dance for a good 5 hours! Amazing to say the least. I LOVE that about Tajik culture. They know how to enjoy life and every big (or small) occasion that takes place. O ya, I had a bit of a fall at one of our "lunch break" stops on the drive out to the Pamirs... Gosh!











We got stuck after a few hours of driving on our way back to Dushanbe because of landslides and the road being full of huge boulders. They had to dynamite the mountain several times, so we were there for a good 9 hours:)


3 Days after arriving from the Pamir's, I packed up again and headed for a good family friends hometown/village with them. Being the only "sister" there with their fam for 4 days, I got to experience life as a Tajik GIRL. Lets see... they work, work some more, and well, work some more:) It was a bit frightening having to cut and help cook the food for meals, but their mom is a really sweet lady and taught me lots:)! When I found myself given just a knife and bowl and asked to make a tomato, cucumber, onion salad, and all the women relatives had gathered around me to inspect my knivery skills, I was a bit nervous, but they were kind and helped me learn how to be quicker about the kitchen duties:) hehe. O and I had brought several instant coffee packets to give the fam, and the first night there, they mixed it up in a baby bottle and fed it to their 5 day old goat! haha. apparently it wasn't feeling so well and the coffee gave it's intestine's a shove. Within minutes the goat had recovered and the whole family was thanking me for helping "heal" the poor thing:) We also got to go out to one of the big really pretty lakes that wasn't too far of a drive from their house. When it came time to come back to Dushanbe the grandma begged me to return after my trip to the States to marry one of the grandsons! She said, "they would love to throw a TUI (wedding) and have me join the fam". Unfortunately I had to refuse the getting married part. Although, a nice tajik girl is going to be very lucky to have them as her family someday. What a fun Summer it has been!












Waiting for the road to be opened, we decided to bust out a game of UNO on the hood of the truck. It was kinda funny, the tajiks had different rules for UNO that none of us had ever heard of:)

2 Comments:

Blogger CONNIE said...

Great blog, it was worth the wait, I'm exhausted after it though!

September 17, 2008 at 3:41 PM  
Blogger Brandi said...

that is too funny about the goat... i'm glad you're back to the blogging world!

September 23, 2008 at 1:48 PM  

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