Friday update

It is Friday night, we are sitting in the front room at the cabin, beloved on her laptop, I on mine. We have been back in the USA for one week now, so I will give a little update.


We stayed four nights with A, which was nice, but it is easy to tell that she has become accustomed to living by herself and that we were in her space. She was a gracious host, and we had a lot of fun talking and laughing and eating together. We love her and it is nice to be close to her again. Even had dinner with her boyfriend one night. He is a fine cook and a fine young man all-around. (Don’t know yet if he’ll ever be part of the family but if it happened it would be fine by me.)

B

Also got to spend some nice time with our son B. He moved to another abode this week, from a smallish apartment to a house. Helped move a bed and a couch and got to spend some time with he and his girlfriend and her son. They are all really neat together. (Don’t know yet if she’ll ever be part of the family but if it happened it would be fine by me.)


Of course my mom is happy that we are close in proximity again, have gotten to spend some nice time with her this week. And all sorts of friends have invited us out or to dinner or coffee just to visit. Also visited Vickie in the hospital--she is beginning the process of dialysis, not a pleasant experience. However, she is putting the best face on it and moving forward in the face of difficult prospects. I love her! Please pray for her strength and rapid recovery in this interesting time of transition, thanks!


Monday Beloved spent almost the entire day researching mobile phone programs and prices to find us just the right deal. Satisfied that we got a good deal we went about getting my iphone unlocked. That was not an easy process. We had it to two different places for a total of seven hours to get the job done.


I spent Monday talking to old contacts and seeing what is available for work and looking for some sort of transportation. I have set my sights on a Jeep Cherokee, and in the price range that I need there are not a lot of options. Several that are in decent shape but have 250-plus thousand miles, several that have 130-150,000 miles but need work--brakes or no air conditioning or need front-end work, and a couple that have 100-130,000 miles that need major work--an engine or transmission. One had a good engine and transmission but had been rolled over. Probably not a good option. Finally found one Tuesday night and made a quick call on it. Ended up getting it, finalized the deal on our way out of town Thursday morning. (More on that in a minute) So now we have a car of our own. Again.


Tuesday morning I went back to work as a contractor at Spirit AeroSystems. I suppose if I have to be here in the Hometown instead of Azerbaijan I would not rather work anywhere else. I love the company, the job, and the fine people that I get to work with there. It is a great environment and good money, so I will be at Spirit several days a week until we figure out what the next step is. (More on that in a minute, too) It is fairly easy to settle back into the group and the work, my manager Tony is as easy a person to work for as I have ever had--he makes me feel welcome and at ease and is encouraging me in the midst of an occasionally-overwhelming change of career.


Tuesday night we are staying at the home of a dear friend we have known for five years now, even as I write this it is hard to believe we have only known her for five years, she is such a kind and good friend. She opened her home to us just before we left back in December, and has done the same again, so we will be spending the next couple weeks at her house.


Wednesday I was at Spirit again, and went to look at the Jeep in the evening. Also went to meet a friend, a pro baseball player that is going on a summer-league tour with his wife, they are looking for someone to stay in their apartment while they are away so they don’t lose the apartment. It is an interesting deal, but a good deal for all of us, since we don’t have anything in Wichita we will get to move into a furnished apartment for four months. Also went to look at the Jeep and drive it, and spent some time with B--Portal2 came out Tuesday and he wanted to play it. His computer won’t handle it right now so we played on my laptop. Good times!


Thursday we got up early, we are going to Oklahoma today. We are meeting the guy with the Jeep at 7:30, pay the money and do the title. We are on the road at 8:30, we have a lunch appointment in Tulsa. More friends to see and tell all the story. The drive is nice, it is a pleasant contrast to the terrible roads and, umm, interesting drivers of Azerbaijan.


Friday we spent most of the day resting and working in the yard. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll get some photos. 

We still think about Azerbaijan all the time. Our hearts are still there, we remember all the people that we got to know and can’t wait to get back there.  Even right now I look across the room--Beloved was given an desk-top-sized Azerbaijan flag on a stand for her birthday--it is right there in the bookshelf. It is our desire to keep our relationships up over there, to help whatever way we can over there, and to help people here get an idea of what life is like over there. The time we spent in Ganja made us realize that there are a number of good organizations working in Ganja, primarily The Training House, that we can help by raising awareness and funds for their programs. Still trying to figure out exactly what that looks like, but if you would like to have a part in making a real difference in the lives of children in Azerbaijan let me know--I can help you get some funds to some people that will do some real good with it.


Thanks for reading, I will continue to post as regular as I can. Hello to my dear friends in Azerbaijan, Yaver and Amalya, Turab and Namiq and Gunlar, Gulbaniz and Gulmira, all the rest of the staff at the Training House, England and Mrs. P., Indy, Manchester, Berry and her family, Farshid, (somebody tell him hello for me!) all the group at the Bank, N&L who will be returning to London this summer--Godspeed, and all the rest. We love you and miss you.

Friday April 15 The Hometown

Options abound back in the Hometown. It’s good to be back in the Midwest, things are easy and familiar here, no need of learning language or culture, favorite foods are present 24/7. 


However, it is not where we meant to be starting this adventure some hundred days ago. There are many answered questions, many decisions that have to be thought through and made, and not least of all, what to do with the experiences of the past hundred days. What is our role now? Do we still have an opportunity to make an impression on the landscape in Azerbaijan? We would sure like to...


Part of the answers are easy, we will live in Wichita, Kansas for now, I will go back to Spirit AeroSystems as a contractor and make some money, we will continue our relationships and friendships that we have here in the Hometown.


Other easy answers are, we will continue with our relationships and friendships that we have built in Ganja, Azerbaijan, we will see what we can do to help those that we have left behind in Azerbaijan fulfill what they have started and are working on there. It is the desire of our heart to funnel money into the Training House, they still need to finish some building projects to be able to apply for the legal registration, allowing them to grow.  It is the desire of our heart to help Coffeeman and his family get back to Ganja and open Shah Asari. It is the desire of our heart to return to Ganja at some point in time, and I imagine we will for sure take a short visit this fall, October or November. (You are welcome to join us if interested!)


The hard answers are how and when to best accomplish these things, or if there is a different plan altogether... We’ll see.


Friday is spent in getting back in touch with folks, family first of course, but also friends and associates. We also spend a little over an hour talking to our former mobile phone provider who failed to cancel our service back in January. It was a successful conversation, it just took some time.


We went to see mom, and she was delighted of course. We went to see B’s new house, and that was good as well. We also had a bit of business to take care of for our Canadian friends in Ganja, they had some documents that needed to be notarized and sent by courier to Alberta Canada, so we got to spend and hour or so with our friend the notary public and catching up on news. Talked with Tony out at Spirit and set the wheels in motion for my return out there. Talked to a couple of friends about some creative housing, more on that soon...


Went to lunch with A and B and A’s boyfriend Alex. We went to a familiar nationally known bistro restaurant and ate good American food and talked about everything. 


We borrowed a car from some dear friends of ours, so now we are a little more free.


We rounded out the day getting to bed about 11:00PM. We’ve been invited to breakfast tomorrow with some friends, and we will continue on the quest to put all the recent changes in perspective, and in order.

The Journey West Part III

Today's layover, though longer than expected, comes to an end and we board shortly enough. There is a bit of a circus in our section of the plane, there is a young couple that is holding a boarding pass for seats right behind us. They are quite insistent that they booked window seats. They are getting frantic--perhaps there is a claustrophobic situation here, but they are walking up and down the plane trying to convince somebody to switch seats with them. At the same time we hear the stewardess commenting that this older lady, the only one sitting in the center section, is looking for someone to trade a seat as well so she can sit next to hear son, further in the back. This airplane is a Boeing 767, two seat on the window, three seats in the middle and two seats on the other window. Beloved and I are in the two left seats of the center. When all the exchanging of seat has shaken out, there is one lucky woman sitting in the row behind us in the three center seats all to herself. The plane is nearly full, there is only one other open seat within sight of me.

This appears to be an older 767, the newer airplanes have video monitors in the back of the seat in front of you, this one does not. It has a projection screen on the bulkhead about ten rows in front of us. We weren’t even sure if they were going to show a film.


All the seating is sorted out, the doors are closed and we are under way. About 30 minutes into the flight there is a meal, and it is pretty good. Then the cabin lights go out and everybody settles into nap-mode. This is okay, Beloved and I are exhausted now after our 16 hours in the Tbilisi Airport and 6 hours in the Warsaw Airport, so sleep comes as easily as it can it such a situation. About 5 hours into the flight they do indeed start a movie, “The King’s Speech” though we are too tired to catch more than a little of it. 

Our arrival into Chicago was uneventful, a fine landing and only about 25 minutes late. We are a little apprehensive about this, we do have a connecting flight and we have to get through passport control and get our bags rechecked on the domestic flight. Our apprehension was unnecessary, almost every flight out of Chicago is delayed, the President of the United States was in town this afternoon and closed down the airport for an hour.


We get through Passport control, we are on American soil again, finding our two checked bags was no problem, getting them checked was no problem, and getting to the gate was no problem. Our flight was delayed one hour and forty-five minutes, but once we got on board, it was no problem.


A little more sleep, we have been traveling now--from the time we checked out of the hotel in Tbilisi, Georgia--for about 41 hours. 

One other interesting point, four flights in this journey and all of them required us to ride out to the plane on a bus and walk up a set of steps to get onboard...


We arrive back in the Hometown, and A and B are waiting for us. It has been four long months away from the kids and there are teary greetings and laughs and smiles as we meet at the baggage turnstile. It would have been perfect if our bags had arrived with us, but even that is only a small damper on the moment, we are back with our children in a familiar place.


A couple of phone calls to mom and friends and we call it a night. It has been a long journey and we are wiped out. It is still Thursday night here, though ours had an extra ten hours in it. We are with A at her apartment tonight, and finding sleep in a totally horizontal position come easily and nearly immediately.


More tomorrow.

Day 50 Thursday

I couldn't exactly dance for joy, or even call this streak of grey weather over, but we did see the sun for a few minutes this afternoon. About 20 minutes, actually. There was this mysterious gold-ish light coming out of the west.  Other than that, the grey continues, we walked to the Training House this morning in the rain...


Came home to a headache and slept the afternoon and early evening, but felt better about 9:00PM, so spent some time looking for a car for A. If you are reading this in my Hometown (you know who you are!) and know of a descent car for about $1000, we are looking right now. It doesn't have to be perfect, just dependable.


Sheesh, I'm 6,500 miles away...

Day 48 Tuesday

How's the weather? Cold and grey... Day number nine of no sunshine or stars. Gee, if I had wanted this I coulda gone to Seattle. Here is a bit of color on this wintery-grey Azerbaijani day, a photo of my daughter I took last summer. She in one of her mischievous poses and her fiery red hair-color. I love this image, it brightened my day. Love you girl!

A

Speaking of A, she sent an email on Saturday, something to the effect of, "Call me as soon as you get this no matter what time it is my car just died and I don't know what to do and I'm kinda freaking out here so call me as soon as you get this okay?" Just the kind of message every dad loves to get when he is 6,500 miles away from his little girl. Honestly it was not all that frantic, she didn't even use the words "freaking out," she was quite level-headed about the whole thing considering the engine broke a major moving part and blew a hole in the side of the block. A couple phone calls and my brother helped her get the car diagnosed ( I think his exact words were, "It's toast.") and back to a place that she can get it sold instead of towed away. So, If you have a loaded 2010 Mini Cooper for sale we can give $900 today!

Here is another image, now the second-most important document we are holding in Ganja, the receipt of our work-permit application having been received. It only took three trips to Yavlar to get it! So now we wait, and in some 30-35 days from now we will have an answer if we can remain here. This is the one that our hopes and prayers are on, so be hoping and praying with us that we receive our work-permit in good order. Otherwise we are on to plan-B and we don't know what plan-B is right now!

Tuesday is language lessons day, so we were at the Training House today. Twice, actually! It was also the last day of a class that our instructor was teaching to Azeri young people. She is teaching them english so she invited us to be in this last day class, a graduation party of sorts. It was a lot of fun, and I commend these young people for taking the time and making the effort to learn another language. I know how hard it is, really!

We're really on our way now

Back in Florida, and it seems as though we'll make it all the way to Azerbaijan this time.


I thought about titling this post as "How not to leave on a three-year journey," but that is not a very happy title. Accurate, but not very happy. I suppose I suffer from a bit of an invincibility complex, I always take on more that can be accomplished, and I do so because I (still) have a hard time saying no. So, being afflicted with a belief that I can accomplish nearly anything--coupled with a history of severe procrastination--I find myself at the end of my time in the Hometown with a ridiculously full plate of work and wanting to spend quality time with my family and loved ones.


I should have stopped saying yes to any more work about three weeks ago, (my wife said six weeks) but it starts getting around that, "John is leaving town" so everybody has one-last-thing that needs to be lettered or pinstriped, and Tony offered me to work at Spirit literally as much as I want to, so I am seeing the opportunity to make some good money just before leaving town and I find myself working 12-16 hours a day and trying to spend a couple hours each day with family. Besides the fact that I love my work, it makes for a great opportunity to work way too much and not see my family and friends nearly as much as I would have liked, and still ended up not accomplishing all that I hoped to do.


I would like to dedicate this paragraph to my daughter A. She went with us to the airport this morning, and I am so thankful for her. I know our departure came too soon, I loved the time we've spent in the past couple weeks. I am so thankful that you have a great job now, and I feel like we are in a better place than ever. I am totally proud of the person that you have turned out to be, and I trust that you will be fine and better than fine as we run off to the middle-east on this adventure. Thank you for coming to see us off this morning!


We left this morning at 6:26 after getting up at 4:40. We had to make one stop on the way to the airport and then stop off to see my mom and hug her neck, then we got to the airport and hugged the kids one last time. We flew to Houston, Texas and had a very short layover there, about 25 minutes, and then on to Orlando, arriving at 12:20 local time. Mom and Dad W. were there to greet us and pick us up, and here we are at their house for a few days yet. We will fly out next Tuesday, bound for Baku.

Visa Update

It's been a couple weeks now since my last post so I think it is time for an update. A lot has been going on in recent weeks, and one of the crazy things about this delay we've been in is that we have been able to take advantage of a couple things that we would have missed out on.


One of the more significant events that we were sad about missing--had we taken off for Azerbaijan on October 19--was a meeting of business people hosted by The Connector. This forum was held in Colorado Springs, and was delightful. We heard from several businessmen that are operating such operations as translation services, training companies, book sellers, travel and resorts, all sorts of people. There were men and women from the USA, Canada, Norway, Azerbaijan and others.


It was very insightful to sit and hear strategies and concepts about operating small businesses in Azerbaijan. I sat next to an older gentleman from Southern Azerbaijan, he spoke very little English. However, he was respectful and genuinely glad to be in America spending time with foreigners (to him) that want to help his nation prosper and see new concepts.


We also got to spend some time with The Coffeeman. It's always nice to see him, we have a great time together. We had produced a flyer for this conference, he had it printed and brought it with him. It turned out nice and was well received.


One neat bonus of this conference was that it was that it was held  in Colorado Springs, right at the base of Pikes Peak and a fe minutes from a National Park called "Garden of the Gods." If you ever are in the area and get the opportunity to tour this park, do so. It is not huge, and even a couple hours will give you a really neat experience. These rock formations are fascinating and I encourage you to see them if you can.


One other event that we, or at least I was happy to have been able to take part in was an annual event in my Hometown, a motorcycle toy run. This is a motorcycle rally held each year to raise funds and donate toys for under privileged kids. My daughter A shares my love of motorcycles so she joined me on the run. There were over three-thousand motorcycles on this beautiful Sunday afternoon, it was huge fun to be part of.


Today we sent off our passports to the Azerbaijan embassy in Washington DC with our visa applications. We had met an American gentleman at the forum who showed us his recently acquired 90 day tourist visa. We are hopeful that this will be the last step that getting out of the country now. We have our airline tickets set, and we will know in about 14 days if we have visas to enter the country of Azerbaijan.


More later!

Still in Florida, Still no Visa

Wrote an email today to England, asking about considering a little different avenue for our visa application. Seems most of the concern is about our qualifications to teach English as a second language. Some might doubt my ability to use it as a first language, but that is a different matter altogether. We are exploring getting into the country with me as an artist instead of an instructor, I'll let you know what England thinks of this idea.


We celebrated Kid B's birthday today, many family members converged on Beloved's parent's house. It was a nice afternoon, we had 12 for dinner.


Kid A arrived tonight, I picked her up at the airport about an hour ago. This was her first experience flying cross country by herself, and she did great.


That's all the news for today.

Welcome to Azerbaijan... or not

So my good friend says to me, “You didn’t think it would be easy, did you?”  Well, I thought I might at least get to the country before seeing a challenge or two. I guess it’s not an adventure if everything goes as planned...

This is the first post of our adventures in the middle eastern nation of Azerbaijan. Counting down the days until we arrive in-country, I was going to do something cool in the title like, “Day One minus 12...” we were (are) holding airline tickets to arrive in Baku, Azerbaijan on October 19, 2010. That title, of course, is reliant upon the fact that we do indeed arrive on October 19. However, that fact has now become history, so I had to go with the other cool title that now sits atop this post.


My Beloved and I have been planning a move out of the country for some time now. We have done our research, made contacts, we have sacrificed and saved and made arrangements for this move. I resigned my job at the end of September and we’ve been renting a house in anticipation of leaving on this date. 


So two months ago we purchased airline tickets to AZ, departing out of Orlando, Florida. The plan was to take one last road trip with the kids, A & B, to Florida and spend time with them as well as Beloved’s parents before exiting the country. Kid B secured time off from his work and the plan was set in motion. (Kid A couldn’t get quite as much time off and will be flying down to join us) After a joyous farewell they would drive back to The Hometown and we would jump on the 747 and send them an email when we arrive.


That was the plan, the rest of the story goes like this.


Wednesday morning, Oct 6, our last day in The Hometown. I awoke to a text from The Coffeeman, a partner in our still-forming business, Sha Asari. The text says, “call me when you’ve read the email from England.” England is the gentleman that runs The School. The School was to be our first employer over there, trading instruction of English for learning the Azerbaijani language. Their tested and true method of entrance into the country was to arrive in Baku, purchase a 30-day tourist visa then work out the details to acquire a one-year work-permit and visa.


This plan, it seems, is no longer viable.


The email from England stated that one of their recently arrived instructors--going through this exact method--had been denied application for the one-year visa and was going to have to leave the country while this was all being sorted out. The email also stated that England was “concerned” that our entrance into the country was now impossible, for the time being anyway, and that we should “consider” postponing our travel plans for a couple months to see how it all washes out.


I was unable to speak to The Coffeeman, he was taking his kids to school. I called another dear friend, The Connector, a 15 year veteran of Azerbaijan, and though now a resident of the USA he is still a frequent visitor to the nation, and I forwarded to him England's email.


The Connector read the email with interest and knowingly uttered, “yeah, I thought they might get to this point...” It seems that the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Office of Immigration have been fighting over who will get to do what job, and in a massive power struggle have made things difficult on a lot of folks that would like to come visit their dear country.


The Connector's other insight was the use of England's words, "consider," and "concerned." "I've seen England and his wife boldly walk into things that would make others run away screaming, so if he says he's concerned, you better take that as a huge red flag, and my opinion would be that you postpone your departure for a couple months to see how this all shakes out."


When I eventually spoke to the Coffeeman, his opinion was the same.


So, that is what we're going to do, we will wait a couple months. It's not what we wanted to do, but we will make some research into what's going on and we will get there eventually.


Welcome to Azerbaijan, just not yet.