013-05-2012

 9:48 AM

Letter to a Friend,

This is a bit of a long-shot but I have a friend who is going back to the states in a few days and I might actually reliably get a letter through … IF I can find a stationary store in time to get an envelope (in the city) and IF I can figure out the stamp situation.

I got your message finally a few days ago on a “hub day” in the main city when we all got together to have meetings and get our rabies boosters.  It made my whole day.  I haven’t had any contact with anyone, really, since I left orientation.  I wanted to answer you, but I didn’t have any real time and now my computer is dead.  The adapter I brought is the right shape, but the plugs in this house are very old and they are too small.  Charging it with a smaller, borrowed adapter makes me nervous because I don’t want to forfeit the surge protection.

As for the mail here … there isn’t much of a postage system—most people in the villages don’t have postal addresses.

12:00 PM

I have a whole, whole new appreciation for what is actually clean and what is dirty.  I just finished washing 2 weeks of laundry by hand.  My host mom very quickly realized that I very, very little idea how to really wash clothes by hand … and no idea at all how to do it without a sink.  She thought the whole thing was pretty funny.  She kept coming down do ask me if I was tired yet …  I said I wasn’t tired (of course!), but … I forgot to wash my towel so now she’s heating more water on the stove.  I wanted to explain that I was using it as a bath rug and that my other towel is still clean, but how?  I’m dreading the thought of handwashing even one more thing.

12:40 PM

Towel is very clean now.

… Everybody is going into Telavi (the main city) to meet up for a social. I don’t think I’m going to go.  I want to stay here and bake bread with my host mom.  I don’t really like Telavi, anyways, mostly because every time I go I have to sit through hours and hours of meetings.

There was a crazy thunderstorm last night, too!  The kind of storm everybody wakes up talking about … even for here.  We’re at the base of the Caucus mountain range and we get thunder almost every afternoon.  Tbilisi (the capitol) is flooded.  It’s terrible, but, even so, I don’t think I will ever get tired of the sound of thunder.  As a side note, I have never lived—or been—anywhere where the mountains from a distance look SO big.  Maybe it’s because we’re in a valley here and not in them?  They literally disappear into the clouds.

8:00 PM

About 8 cups flour

2 Tbs salt

1 Tbs yeast

Mixed with warm water until wet and sticky but not runny

RISE 2 hours

Punch down

RISE 1 hour

Then bake at a high temperature

Then lower

(bake time roughly 25 minutes)

After making bread, let me just say that I didn’t realize what a luxury warm bread is.  That wonderful  smell of melting butter.  Enjoy your toast for me.  Or your bagel.

Love,

Al

PS: This letter did not get to my friend.  No clue when I’ll be able to get mail out.