Carry a Cow? not a problem.

So we left the capital where we live and took a train to the second biggest city in this country--it's located smack in the middle and is surrounded by snow-covered mountains. The reason we went was for the wedding of our coworker (i'll post about that soon), but we made sure we had a day to explore the city as well. Just before we got on the overnight train to head back home, we stopped at the Nizami Gencevi monument. He is a very, very well known national writer. Aside from poetry, he wrote several epic plays. After we visited his grave [funny story, actually: it was locked up and completely dark and closed. But we sweet-talked some stoic police officers into unlocking it and taking us inside, where we viewed the memorial by flashlight!], the officers gave us permission to look around the rest of the grounds and ran (truly, they RAN) back to their car (it was COLD!). We walked for a few minutes and found a series of statues depicting the characters in Nizami's epic plays, some of which you can see behind us in this picture:

One of the pictures was of a woman carrying a small cow on her shoulders up some stairs. It's based on one of Nizami's most famous pieces, and is really an interesting story to read:

One of my teammates said, "wait, is that a WOMAN carrying that cow?!" ...and so it began. I, of course, being a woman, said, "so you think she can't carry a cow just because she's a woman?! I could carry a cow. No problem." Naturally, they doubted me and my brute strength and my sheer determination. And so this is how we settled things:

Clearly, I won.

And yes, I could carry a cow.

HappyValentine'sDay!

i don't necessarily like or dislike valentine's day in america,

but i LOVE it abroad.

basically, i love loving. this holiday presents a perfect opportunity to teach some american culture

and do some lovin' on my students.

this year, i baked 100 heart-shaped sugar cookies and

mixed up a bunch of different frosting colors.

and then we all

had

a

blast.

what's not to love about a little loving?

what, you don't celebrate valentine's day in three languages?

Russian (green): ya tibya lublue

Local language for this country (white): man seni seviram

The language of my heart (red): I LOVE YOU

these are two of my precious 10-year-olds. we had a wonderful valentine's class! we decorated cookies together (their first time ever!) and learned a love song and, since we recently studied poetry, we read and analyzed two poems--one described Claudius and St. Valentine and the history of the holiday, and the other was a perfect description of love and was taken from chapter 13 of Paul's first letter to the Corinthians.

decorating cookies with my coworkers!

love, love, LOVE them.

love is patient

love is kind

it does not envy

it does not boast

it is not proud

it is not rude

it is not self-seeking

it keeps no record of wrongs

love does not delight in evil

but rejoices with the truth

it always protects

always trusts

always hopes

always perseveres

love

never

fails

i hope you all got a chance to love yesterday.

happy valentine's day

and a whole lot of love

from the ends of the earth!