It Snowed!

Hi All! So it snowed here last week and although it was wet, maybe a little annoying and didn't stick it was absolutely BEAUTIFUL! So I thought I would share.

My house, I tried to kind of get the same picture as before, but with the whimsical snow.

Roses, you know I love them and they are all over here and some are still blooming now! They look pretty in the snow :)

Marie, who lives in a town close to me, and I made enchiladas a couple weekends ago. One of the greatest accomplishments of my life. It took two hours, people you know I don't cook and we made everything from scratch!

Do you know how hard it is to hand make refried beans!

This is the view from the highway near Marie's house. Isn't it beautiful!? The day that I took this picture, I was waiting for the bus to go home when my host dad passed in his car going the other direction. He told me to get in and he ended up taking me to his work, a hazel nut factory.

This is my dad outside of his work. They shell hazel nuts and then bag them to be sold, I think.

This last weekend we had quite the crew of people come visit us up in our northwest haven. It's not necessarily easy to get in or out of our finger so it was great that we had so many visitors. We all spent the weekend in Tovuz at one of the AZ 6's houses. School is going well for the most part. It's definitely not as overwhelming as I was afraid of. I'm getting a lot closer with my teachers. The other day when I was ill two of them came to bring me tea and make sure I was OK. The weather has been very cold here. Our pipes froze last night, but don't worry there are other ways to get water. Today, however, the sun is out and it is wonderful! Next weekend I am going to Baku for some meetings on girl camps here in Azerbaijan and to hopefully see the Super Bowl :) Thanks for thinking of me, I love all of the comments.

Walking Tour of Qazax

Hey guys! It's me, Jessi. Well actually thats Miss Jessi to you now that I have offically started teaching.

So, here I am. I've been living in Qazax for a month now and I figure it is time for you all to get a tour of my new home.

This is the sun rise this morning from my front door. Those small mountains in the distance, those are the Lower Caucacus.

You probably figured, but this is my bedroom. Messy as usually, although I do try to keep my room clean here, I made my bed at least! I know, I need to take the Christmas decorations down, that is my next goal.


This is my house. You may regocnize the pink towel, blue sweat-shirt and random array of socks hanging out to dry, yeah, they're mine. I live on a family compound with three houses; my house, my dad's mom's house is the one next to mine and his Uncle lives in another. My room is in the back of the house.


This is my gate, I walk through this bad boy multiple times a day.


Once I walk through my gate I am out on my street. Here it is...


These geese guard my gate every morning. They are very nice and try to attack me everytime I walk past them.


Usually when I am leaving my house it's because I am going here. This is my school. It only takes me 10 minutes to walk here.

After school I like to walk around the city. This street is full of hardware stores :)


This is something like a bus stop. You can see the main street after all the buses and the city bazar is just on the other side.

This is one of the parks in Qazax. It's sunny today.

Most of the time after school I also meet up with my site mates. This is Connie.

And this is Amanda (and me, if you have already forgotten what I look like).

Sometimes my site mates and I go exploring. Last week we found a canal behind my house and eventually made it up this little hill that over looks the city of Qazax. Somewhere down there you can see my house.



Then I go home. I walk down this street...


and pass this van, which I really like.

So I hope you enjoyed this little make shift tour of my new home. I'm going to leave you with this picture of the Greater Caucasus. It doesn't fit into my tour because I didn't go over to that part of the city with you today, but I think it is beautiful. I hope all of your holidays were wonderful and your new year is off to a great start! I know mine is :) Talk to you soon! Miss you all.