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.

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.