Monday, June 13, 2011

Marie and Jessi's 30 Hour Adventure

Friday June 10th1pm: The Last day of Marie and Teresa's Agstafa summer camp! Things are going great, its hot, sunny and I'm finishing up helping the kids hit the pinata's they spent the week making when I get the call from the Peace Crops housing guy. He has just spent the last couple of hours on the phone with my landlords and it is now offical, 1pm June 10th, I am getting evicted.
3pm: Marie, who has plans to leave on a weekend trip the next day changes her plans to stay and help me. We begin the tedious packing process (why in the world do I have so much stuff-I'm a Peace Corps Volunteer!)
5pm: We start our quest for a new apartment. We make a few calls and are almost immediately out the door to look at our first "new" apartment option.
7pm: Marie and I come back and continue packing. As you can probably tell by my face and the pile of stuff behind me-we are exhausted! And this isn't even all the stuff, we have more packing to do. But by midnight its time for bed.
8:30am:The long, drawn out honk of the trash truck. Marie and I pop out of bed, get dressed without saying anything and starting taking the multiple loads of trash down to the truck-Saturday June 11th has begun.
9:30am: Quest number two begins-it is time to find me a new place to live-I'm almost homeless!
12:30pm: After many frantic Azeri phone calls and waiting around we walk through the door of the most perfect place to live! Sure the walls are falling off and the floor's covered in dirt-this is my new home!
1pm: Brunch, coffee and one last gaze out the window at the increddible view I'm about to leave. The view I had from this apartment was one of my favorite things about this country.
2pm: Marie and are start the cleaning process. We scrubbed this place from top to bottom! I've never met someone who can make a sink shine the way that Marie Novak can!
5pm: My friend Afgan and his brother come with a HUGE truck to take all of my stuff to the new apartment. And when I say stuff-I have my own fridge, oven, bedding (my old apartment didn't come very well furnished for living but thanks to my mom and dad's trip here last year it really became a home with all of this fancy stuff!) Of course while we spent an hour moving everything out of my fifth floor apartment (no elevators here!) it started to rain on the open bed truck holding all of my stuff.
6pm: We drive over to my new building in the rain and unloaded it into the stairwell. With in three minutes every kid who lives in this building was out helping us walk all of my stuff up to the fifth floor apartment here. On our way up every mom was hanging out of her door yelling "Welcome! How are you?!" This place is so much friendlier then my other apartment!
7pm: At last! everything is inside and Marie and I are EXHAUSTED!
We haven't stopped going since getting up for summer camp Friday morning. In these 30 hours we preformed not a move, but a life relocation for me.
I think its safe to say Marie and I can make any quest into a reality!