We have been invited, if we want to, to join some volunteers at The Training House--they are removing a tree. We walk to The Training House for the first time, and after one short detour (we thought the hospital was a park) we find the place and join in the action. They have most of the work done already but I grab a place on the rope and down it comes. It is dead but still about 30 feet tall. No saws, just an axe. They knock off the bigger branches and we haul the brush over to one corner of the yard. The space they are clearing is about a quarter acre in size, and the plan is to clear it, bring in some topsoil and plant it in grass by about march.
That was the normal part of the event, the next part is the slightly crazy part--there was concrete light post that they wanted to take down as well, so we commenced digging around this pole for about an hour, then attached the same rope near the top of the pole and started pulling, much like the tree. It barely moved. We dug another half hour and pulled again, we got it leaned over about 10 degrees. We dig about ten more minutes and a session of classes lets out, so we enlist five other young men to pull on the rope with us. A total of eight men going back and forth on the rope, it finally fell--over the trunk of the downed tree--and broke in several pieces! England declared that that was enough for one day, clean up the area and good work.
After that we went and found the stadium, which is a little bit of an exaggeration, where Mrs. P. and England run several times a week. Running is something that we enjoyed while in Estonia and we want to start again here in Azerbaijan.
The rest of the day we hung around the house, still getting used to the time change and overcoming jet-lag.
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