Packing and Goodbye

Sunday the 27th was a great day. I spent it with family and with Hannah. Most of the day involved packing, playing card games with them, a great final meal at home, watching TV shows that I will miss and more packing (oh, also downloading a TON of things onto my new external hard drive and ipod that were gifted to me this past week! Great presents). My Mom did an amazing job of running a few little errands while I packed and Meghan, my sister, also suggested that I change my blog title to "Azerbai-Sean." Well here you go Megs.

For those who are interested, here is a make-shift packing list I have. I never got around to making a master packing list, although I did look over previous volunteers' lists.

(PS- for anyone who has heard of the Color Personality Test, this experience of packing for the next 2 years of my life just shows how wickedly Orange I am). Hannah just kept saying how unbelievably stressed she was at my nonchalant style and my dad threatened to leave that area of the house because I was making him so nervous. They're both Greens.

Packing List: 2 check bags, 1 carry on, 1 personal item bag.

1) 5 dress shirts

2) about 10 T-shirts

3) 4 polo shirts

4) 4 casual button down long sleeve/short sleeve shirts

5) 5 pairs of slacks

6) 2 pairs of jeans

7) 2 pairs of shorts

8) Running shoes

9) casual shoes

10) dress shoes

11) Chaco's (sandals)

12) a suit jacket

13) pea coat & jacket

13) all the toiletries

-Including an extra roll of toilet paper

-also contacts even though PC said not to; current volunteers said I should.

14) electronics

-my netbook

-Passport Elite 500GB external hard drive

-ipod

-power converter

15) extras

-my own sleeping bag (PC give you one, but it's huge and difficult to travel with)

- a journal

- a couple books

-Honey to give to my host family (it a suggested gift by former and current volunteers)

-A picture album that Hannah made for me with pictures from 5 years ago to current; a gift I will use over and over and over again.

Monday rolled around and was a pretty difficult goodbye day. Meghan had an early flight back to Sacramento, so we/I said our goodbyes. Not easy at all.

Mom, Dad and Hannah all stayed until my flight left, which was delayed until the afternoon. I'm actually thankful for that delay because the extra time was really wonderful.

The goodbyes were all tearful, and hard. It finally hit me; 2 years.

But I'm confident time will fly, and of course there will be visits in order.

So here I am in Philadelphia, and only 40 minutes away from Staging (orientation). We'll hop on a Bus tomorrow morning at 7am to JFK in New York and then we're off to Frankfurt for a layover and then Baku by October 1st.

I'll miss you all. I love you. I should be able to post more in a day or so.

Azer-by-whaty? Azerbaijan?

When I first found out Azerbaijan was where I'd be headed, my first reaction was that I knew where the Caucasus Region was, but nothing about actual Azerbaijan. The Caucasus Region includes the countries of Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Armenia. Once in the Caucasus, you'll find Russia to the North, Turkey and Iran to the South, the Caspian Sea to the East and Black Sea to the West.

The Caucasus were formerly under the Soviet Empire's sphere of influence; that is, of course, until Rocky Balboa defeated Ivan Drago in the dramatic boxing bout that single-handedly ended the Cold War. (Refer to the Cold War documentary, Rocky IV).

When the USSR crumbled and the 3 countries gained independence in the early 90's, Armenia and Azerbaijan went to war shortly after. The purpose for this war was a piece of land called the Nagorno-Karabakh Region; a heavily Armenian populated region of Azerbaijan. The fighting ended with a 1994 cease-fire, leaving Armenia occupying Nagorno-Karabakh, and Azerbaijan with 600,000 internally displaced persons. My understanding is that there is still a large amount of resentment between the two populations.

below are some basic factoids I've learned about Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan Facts:
Population: 8,238,672
Language: Azeri
Religion: Muslim 93.4%, Russian Orthodox 2.5%, Armenian Orthodox 2.3%, other 1.8%
Government: Republic; elected Head of State (however, accusations of corruption are in high volume).
Agriculture - products: cotton, grain, rice, grapes, fruit, vegetables, tea, tobacco; cattle, pigs, sheep, goats.
Industries: petroleum and natural gas, petroleum products, oilfield equipment; steel, iron ore; cement; chemicals and petrochemicals; textiles.
Weather & Climate: Below freezing point in the winter, around 100F in the summer.

visit https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/aj.html for more information.

There is Internet access in the country, but it is unclear how often I will be able to connect. The Peace Corps will provide me a cell phone, but my understanding is that it is very expensive to use and that text messaging is the main mode of cell communication. I will be staying with a host family for the first 2 months during Training. Depending on where I end up I may be housed with another host family or will be renting a place. The likely hood of renting a place and being by myself is not very likely, simply because there are not a lot of available places in the more rural areas of the country. But who knows. In the mean time, I'm excited to meet my host family. I do need gift ideas though. Any thoughts???

Monday is right around the corner

I'm leaving the country for 2 years starting this Monday, and I'm hardly even packed. Everything just seems as normal as can be, and I don't even feel like I'm going anywhere; at least not for two years. I wonder what it's going to feel like when it actually hits me...
...I hope it hits me soon....
For years I've wanted to join the Peace Corps. It's been an idea that has both excited me and given me great anxiety at the same time. I think what I found most intriguing about the US Peace Corps is that while military service is an incredibly admirable form of showing one's patriotism, we as Americans have incredible alternatives to military service as being the only avenue towards actively showing that patriotism. And of course, serving abroad is not the only or best way to show it. For me however, it has always been a fascination; being an American in a foreign land, doing service work as an American. Hopefully I can do Uncle Sam proud.
I am honored to have the opportunity.

Sean Murphy is the name, and Youth Development will be the game.
Between October 1 2009 & December 3 2011, I will be serving in the country of Azerbaijan. The first 2 months will be language and culture training. The two years following will be the actual service, and I still have countless questions about what that will look like. When I found out in July that I was officially accepted into PC service (woohoo!) and was told the destination was Azerbaijan, I was pumped! My desired location was the Middle East. Azerbaijan is squished between Europe and Asia, and sits right on top of the Middle East.


In an upcoming post I'll try to give a short but interesting description of what I know about Azerbaijan and what I plan on taking with me. I'm hoping to get a few more posts up before I leave California on Monday so stay tuned. And since I'm new to the whole blog thing, I'd love any feedback you have for me. Thanks everyone!

oh and of course, if there are ever any questions I'll be happy to get you an answer to the best of my ability.