oil

I love you all and we have power at work for the first time in about two weeks - praise the lord I'm not freezing today - I asked about it the other day and was told it was becasue we would not pay them bribes. Luckely they can evedently only abuse one person at a time for so long, or we paided a bribe. Who can really know. Speaking on azerbaijan's crappy courruption. I was reading an article in News Week, though it must be noted in my opinion it is not the most reliable source for world information as it is very scewed. It was called "The Power of Petroleum" and talked about how smaller nations have more resources and less reason to bend to outside forces due to oil and its rising prices. It reads, and I quote "In countries like Nigeria and Azerbaijan, the result is repressive and corrupt political institutions and bloated bureaucracies sustained by oil money" the picture going with the articly is title "THE CURSE OF OIL : Feild workers in Baku, Azerbaijan" it is a picture of one of the disgusting oil feilds that ruin the environment and help currupt the governemtn even farther, or at least give them the means to be courrupt. Thank you News Week, this somewhat makes up for the articla printed a few months ago, though I cant rememnber which exact one, that managed related militants with guns to peace corps volunteers. You know we are so similar. Cant win um all

11/16/07
I’m headed to Goycay today for thanksgiving – I little early but we cant get leave during the week. I think pretty much everyone else is going to Baki for the annual thanksgiving dinner. I think it is usually over 100 people and that is just too many people for me and thanksgiving. I think thanksgiving is actually one of my favorite holidays. I love the food, I loved the cooking, and I used to love going to the mountains for thanksgiving. I also love the weather. Crisp, but not freezing. So me and Kat are having out own thanksgiving. Our lovely families sent us some food that we could not get and then we are going to round up anything else we can find. Packing list to go to Goycay – pair of warm pants, random boxed goods that have shown up in the mail.

So it was good. We cooked, a lot, eat a tone and them for some reason, continued to eat through the night. Then I became sick. Well actually, that happened the next day. I woke up not feeling right. Prayed the whole way home on the marshutka that I would not throw up and then heartily made up for it once I got home. I either ate until I was sick literally or my body was just not ready for such different kinds of food. It does live of potatoes, grease and noodles right now. I let my mom and sister do bonka on me. This is where the take these glass jars and suction them to your back using fire. They say if they turn red or black there is sickness. O don’t think I needed the bonka to tell me that and sadly it did not make me feel any better. It did feel pretty good if not a little strange. It is sorta like having someone put really big hickies all over your back but really close together so your skin is pulled really tight.

Somethings a littel Ratty

11-14-07
A couple of weeks ago Ryan told me he had a rat in the attic above his head. It scurried around, making little pitter patter sounds and he did not like it because it was creepy and sounded like someone else was in the room. I told him to be nice, it was probably very nice and this had been its house before his. They heard me! The other night I heard little pitter patter over my room. I sort of like the way it sounds. I fell asleep and that’s all I knew of it. Last night I knew a little more. I woke up around 2. I wake up every night all night now. Either is it is the malaria pills or my psyci is just off the chain because I have been having some freaky dreams. Last night I woke with my dreams slightly incorporating this weird background noise. The were scurrying, or it, all over my ceiling, really fast, zigzagging. Not a soothing pitter patter of little feet but really not so bad, and then…. It all accumulated into a construction site directly above my head. I mean this as literally as you possibly can when you are talking about rats in the roof. My bed is put into a corner, with my head in that same corner. DIRECTLY, over were my head was they they/it started hammering, moving, rolling, sawing, banging, and my no means quietly. It was a little after two in the morning, I tried to ignore it, thinking they had to stop soon. An hour, I just could not fall asleep with it. I tried listing to my music, it was impossible to drown it out. I got up to stumble outside and maybe by the time I had peed they would have finished construction, they had not. On my excursion through the rest of the house I also noticed that they were no where to be heard but my room. Hmmmmm, fishy I say! It went on and on. I wanted to get mad but had to remind myself they were rats, and it was their house and I had said I liked them. My bad. I now know how people who live in apartment stacked on top of one another with noisy neighbors feel, Banging on the ceiling with brooms or what ever they can find. I actually resorted to that with a stick I had in my room. It worked for all of two minutes, and then was totally ineffective, I still stood up on my bed every so often to bang on the ceiling. This went on for hours, and I eventually fell asleep to it. But as I lay there, wanting to club a rat with my stick, not bang on the ceiling all I could think of was they must be building some magnificent contraption. Maybe like the "if you build it they will come" Maybe because I said I liked them it would be along the lines of that movie where the man has all the rats that follow him. I know how much bubba would like that knowing how much he loves rats. Or maybe it is some grand city. I just imagined the ostentatious, splendid, crazy things they could be building, all the wild indifferent to our foolishness, or maybe laughing at how they have us tricked. Maybe it was a time machine. If so I sure hope they let me use it. Though it may be a tad small. I might have come up with a logical answer for what they were doing, but quite frankly there was none. I have never heard such. At 8 o’clock when I woke up they were still at it in the exact same place. Once the house really woke up they stopped. I image they were pretty tiered. Working on grand schemes all night is a tiring business I imagine.