schoolyard

sheep

kids in school yard

sheep

Life....

We are overseas, and no surprise, one of the first things we did was hire a maid. It is actually beneficial to our marriage that we have a maid, because I don't like to clean... at all, and neither does Vlad, but both of us hate messy dusty apartments. In the states, we couldn't afford to have someone come clean once a week, so we had to do it ourselves. Which is fine, everyone does it, but in the spirit of women's lib and all, I will not be the only one to clean anything. I hate it! And in the spirit of men's lib and fairness neither will Vlad. So it's generally a constant battle between what we would like to see done, what we are willing to do, and what we can negotiate the other person into doing. BUT! Overseas we can afford to have someone come in twice a week and make our apartment sparkle. No more whose going to clean the toilet fights. No more I'm not mopping the floor this week fights. None of that. Just come home, house is clean. Beautiful.
But now I have guilt. In China, there was no guilt. Our maid was from a village somewhere and what we were paying her was far and above better, and the work was safer, than anything she could have gotten on the local economy. We were paying her something crazily small like a dollar and a half an hour, but if she was working in the city as a laborer in some factory she'd be making less and have the added benefit of risking her life every day when she went to work (take for instance the guys who washed the apartment windows. They went to work suspended from the top of a tall building on a length of rope no bigger than my arm. No saftey harness, no platform, just the rope. I guarantee that our maid was making WAY more than those guys).
But Baku. With communism just ending and the private sector taking some time to work out the corruption, well it's just sad. True, no one is starving. In general I don't feel bad about the population. Everyone looks healthy, suitably dressed, and housed. In China this was often not the case. Almost everyday I saw people, even kids, where I thought to myself there's no way that guy's eaten today, and he HAS a job. So I don't feel overly privileged just because I eat everyday. However, I was talking to our maid today, and I was asking how she learned English. Well, she taught herself while she was in school. And she was in school a long time because she's an economist. She used to work as a manager (I'm not sure if I understood her right) or maybe the head of a department in a company, until she got laid off due to the corruption (maybe she didn't take bribes, or didn't take bribes from the right people I don't know). Before that she worked for an insurance company, and before that she was a government official in a communist organization. HOW CRAZY IS THAT??? She says that she doesn't have any bitterness about this work, but still I feel bad. Would I be able to go from running a section having important things to do, to sweeping someone's floor? And do it cheerfully to? I don't know. I'm barely handling going from the THOUGHT of a legal career to housewife. I don't know if I had actually done stuff. Which is once again why I'm grateful that God has allowed me to be where I am and who I am. I could have easily been born in America with no prospects, or in China with even less prospects.....

In Country at Last

We've finally made it to Azerbaijan. Not until the very end of our journey did I actually think we would make it here. I thought, surely, they are going to call us up and say, "I'm sorry, did you think you were going to Azerbaijan, well in reality, Vlad is going to Iraq and you are going to stay in the states for a year." Which would have been fine... um not really, except that it interferes with the other news that's going on with us.... We're going to have a baby. I know, I know, I talked a lot of talk about not being mommy material, and children being difficult and sticky. And well, I still think that, but hopefully our infant will change my mind. Vlad is tickled pink and can hardly contain himself with excitement. I can hardly contain myself too, but it's not excitement that threatens to leak out.... I don't know why, but my morning sickness still continues to linger on. It's not the overwhelming all encompassing nausea that it was, but now a more subtle, have to eat or else I get headachy and subject to bouts of vomiting kind of thing.
I am pleased though, because I did not explode right away into a three hundred pound pregnant woman. I'm still manageably small, and if I dress appropriately I can hide the fact that I'm pregnant, even at 19 weeks. I might still explode, but I was not huge at 10 weeks. So maybe I'll have a reasonable sized baby afterall.
Anyway, I am in the process of collecting pictures of Baku to share, and I've got some anecdotes and whatever. I'll try to blog better in the future.

Wow 1 month and no change yet

So we are in mid July, getting closer to our Sept. departure date and still no change in assignments. YEAH! If things continue to go well I might start looking up things on Azerbaijan next month. It could be very exciting. But I'm not going to get my hopes up. I'm still just trying to enjoy staying with my parents. I think it's an unexpected gift. How often as adults do we get to reenter the protective cocoon of our parent's homes? I'm learning so much about them.

Manila!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

Well, it has happened. We have been assigned to Manila. I'm not sure whether or not to be happy. I still don't believe it. We're going to Tashkent! We're going to Tashkent. We're going to Tashkent? We're going to...? We're going to Manila? When did that happen?

I, standing straight and tall!

There is still no word. And there probably will not be any word until after the weekend. I'm tired of waiting, not knowing, not doing. I know I should look up Manilla and start to get an idea of what it might be like to live there, but I really can't. I don't want to get excited about yet another post, only to find out that it won't be happening either. I've also sort of stopped writing emails because I keep saying the same thing over and over again, and although the people I'm writing to don't know it, I feel like I've started to repeat myself. They, of course, are hearing it for the first time, but I am repeating it again and again. It's hard to still sound upbeat about a situation after the 4th time you've written about it. I'm trying to make the most of my holding pattern, but it's just so hard.

Should I stay or should I go?

So we are trying to decide the least disturbing of three, well two options. AND it's not even clear that we will be able to choose all of them. We have been offered Dushanbe, which is a small little place even further from the middle of nowhere than Tashkent, Manilla, which could be fine, but probably similar in many ways to Beijing, and then to stay in DC which would be great, except we really aren't ready to do a year in DC. My resume's in shambles, our wardrobe is scattered across the globe, and we're carrying too much weight. Realisticly we will probably end up in Manilla simply because it is the least evil of all the choices. And we can definitely go there. The other places are all sketchy. And as with all state department stuff who knows what rules you can follow and which ones you can't.
Oh, funny side note. It turns out that HR will be upgrading it's systems during the month of July so no new transfer orders will be processed during that time. When I heard this, I thought it was just too funny. After all, June, July and August are only the BIGGEST transfer months of the entire state department. So let's shut down our systems for an upgrade during that time. Not in February or October when people are rarely moving, but in July when hundreds of people all over the world are moving hither and yon. It makes me wonder. If the US is some of the best, what do other people have to put up with?

...And still floating

Almost two weeks of waiting now, and still no word. We are now free agents and do not have to go to Uzbekistan, but the alternatives are worse. All of the choices we were given were the ones we looked at and decided against before we chose Uzbekistan. It's a little frustrating, but I have come to terms with my current fate. Either way it goes, I'm ready to leave, the only thing I will need to take care of is to pack my bags, and get Honey's health certificates. It's nice to be this portable. I'm currently reading a Dean Koontz book, it's not too bad, but it feels a little like those Steven King books from the middle of his career where it's a big book, but nothing really happens. It's a good thing that I also read for the lyricism of the language, so a poorly plotted book will still be a worth while read if I can enjoy the imagery... Maybe I should have been an English major. But then, I hate these books as well, because the characters are good, the mental pictures are there, but where's the story, I end up at the end of the book thinking, but why? I think that's what I'm most afraid of in terms of writing my own books, I'm afraid that I'll get to the end of the long book writing process and my reader will think, but why? Why indeed.

Still waiting

Sometimes the waiting is unbearable. I keep looking toward the future, but then I stop, realizing that it is a large blank void, completely unwritten. It's hard to plan, when you don't even know what city you are going to be in. It's kinda like graduating from school, except that instead of knowing what city you want to go to and not having a job, you've (well, my husband) got a job, but no city.... But even then I guess we don't know what kind of job it's going to be either. I guess what it boils down to is we don't know.

Friends and babies

A couple of days ago, I called a friend of mine from high school who has a pretty new baby. And I've gotta say it's an odd experience to think back on our previous adventures and connect them to this woman who was talking to me about rashes, mortgage vs. rent, and maternity leave. I hear her voice and I think about our conversations about first love, first times, parties, or just random craziness and then in the background I hear a fussy baby. It's weird I tell you. And I never know with mothers. Sometimes I'm reluctant to call because the baby could be sleeping, or they could be busy doing something with the baby, but after talking to her I realize that I should just call. I also forget that moms are intellectual people as well and sometimes they need a break from the cooing, pooping, and cleaning. It's just hard for me since I'm not a conversationalist (I actually really suck at it) and I feel bad talking about what's going on with me because it's so mind numbingly boring to me. I feel like the person on the other end of the phone must be ready to poke their eyes out with pencils from boredom.

Floating

Dang! Last night's post didn't make it on the appropriate day! Oh well. Anyway, we are still waiting for some word, any word, on what might happen to us. At this point I don't really care. We've packed, we've shopped, we've prepared and planned, really all we have to do at this point is pack our suitcases, get a health certificate for our pooch and be pointed in the direction of our new country. It seems like such a waste though, a year of getting ready to go to this place, and then, oh yeah, you were supposed to go to Tashkent, yeah, see what had happened was.... and now we are definitely, probably, not going, maybe. Gotta love the govt.

Nostalgia

I've been feeling awfully nostalgic lately. I don't know what it is, maybe it's the realization that I'm 30, or maybe it's just I've been at home for a long time, and I'm seeing people I don't normally see so I'm remembered of times 10-20 years ago when I was just a wee lass. It's crazy to think that all those periods of my life are in the past now. Not that I'm complaining. I would not go back to being a teenager ever again. I might live in my 20's for awhile, but even then, you'd have to pick and chose carefully. I can't imagine life staying stagnant though. I claim not to like change, but in reality I really do like it. Why else would I have encouraged my future hubby to take the foreign service exam? Why else would I move to New York and long to return there? I don't want to just stay at home and live in my routine, I want to break free, see and do. I just can't figure out what I'm meant to do....

Family

While we are waiting.... This past weekend was the 31st annual Vernon family reunion. It is great to see everyone and watch and listen as the family shares their experiences, talents, and love with each other. Whenever I go to these events I always feel bad that I don't know more of the family. But when I was growing up we always lived to far to go, and now that I'm grown, I'm out of the country too often to attend. But one thing that my parents always stressed was the importance of family. I will definately try, if I have kids of my own, to bring them out to the family reunions so they can see where they came from, because it's hard to know where you're going if you don't know where you've been.

waiting

We have finally reached the day before our departure to Uzbekistan, and well, we are still waiting. Our visas (entry permits) still have not come through. SO after almost a year of preparation it looks like we are not going tomorrow after all. It's a little anticlimatic after all we've been planning to go planning to go, and it was always a little ways away, just a little more time, a little more planning. Now we're done planning, we've got all our stuff, but we still aren't going. And it's entirely possible that we will not be going at all. We have even started thinking about alternatives to our friendly post of Uzbekistan. Jamaica anyone?

Power outage

Last night there was a big storm here at my parent's house. My dad and I were playing Halo when the power went out. Surprisingly, the actual storm only lasted maybe a half an hour, maybe an hour. But it was quite a display for that time, there were winds, and buckets of rain, and lots of thunder and lightning. After being in California, then in China for so long I had almost forgotten what a summer thunderstorm really looks like. The lights were out for three or four hours. My parents and I played scrabble--good old fashioned fun, with our vintage 1970's board, my dad won, of course. Then I took Honey for a walk. It was a little creepy walking through the powerless neighborhood right before dark. Some neighbors were out in their front yard talking to each other. Some people had windows open. I ran into a couple of dogs who were very interested in Honey, but she had no chance to socialize because their owners called them away. As I walked through the neighborhood, there was something amiss, but I couldn't put my finger on it, then I realized, there were no lights. Of course I knew that there wouldn't be lights, but I didn't really know it until I saw it. There was also very little sound. Despite what everyone says about the suburbs, you know quiet, sleepy, etc. There is actually a hum to a suburban neighborhood. Little background noises that seep out of houses to fill the nights with noise. TV, radio, lights, kitchen appliances, etc. All that makes noise. To have it cut out, well, it was quiet. Which got me thinking. What all are we missing, with our TV's, iPods, Play Stations, etc that people a century ago took for granted. I'm sure it wasn't silent, nature is not silent, stupid birds and crickets add plenty of background noise. But what about other human interaction. Last night was the first time I'd played scrabble in years. When I was a kid my mom used to have TV blackout days. At the time I hated them, no TV for a week! She was killing us. But now perhaps I understand the wisdom in her method. We could all probably use a few Power out days!

more than 30

  

Count down to thirty (10days left)

Wow! Today is April 5, only 10 days away from my 30th Birthday. I am excited about it. 30 is a big milestone. It's weird though, I finally understand what everyone talks about when they say they don't feel old. I don't. I don't feel 30. But then, what does 30 feel like? I'm kinda sad that I never set any goals that I should reach before I hit 30. But I guess that's good because now I don't have to rush about and try to cross off some stupid goal that I set when I was 20 that doesn't really apply to my life now. At 20 I never would have set the goal to learn Chinese, and live and work in China for two years. Nor would I have thought to want to live in Uzbekistan, learn Russian, possibly Uzbek, and make a plan to write a novel. I have done so much, a lot of it off the general outline of what I had wanted to do (ok, maybe I would have wanted to learn Chinese and Russian, they were on my list of lifetime languages to learn) but still so interesting, and fulfilling, that I'm not really missing out.... Ok, I am missing my own career, but I plan to fix that very soon.... I have seen so much, and done so much that I really can't complain... Ok, I can, but I really shouldn't. It's weird though, last night when I thought about it, I think I have been floating by to much in life. I have allowed a lot of my life to happen to me instead of making life happen for me. I still feel like I'm waiting for my chance, when I am letting my chance slip by. If I don't reach out for life, it will just slip through my fingers while I'm not looking. Does anyone ever really plan to one day wake up old?