So, I will give you a run down of a day I had last week. I woke up at 5:30 and took a quick "shower." [this consists of me kneeling before the bathtub with the hand held shower head washing my hair] Then I went in the kitchen and put the tea pot on the stove to boil.

[Back-story: Babushka's 18 year old grandson was staying with us for the week to learn English from me, and she waited on him hand and foot. Usually she woke up and had Ramadan breakfast around 4:30, and then was asleep the whole time I was up and getting ready for school. But when he was there, she stayed up and cooked, and mostly just stood around watching us do stuff. So on Tuesday, I said that if she wanted to sleep in the next day, I would be happy to make breakfast and tea and clean up, and she said OK.]

Fast forward to Wednesday morning. No sooner had I got the ingredients for a delicious frittata out of the fridge when in shuffles Babushka, up and at 'em. "I want to learn your American breakfast," she says. Um, ok. Maybe she couldn't sleep. So she watches me make the frittata, cringing when I do my fancy flip out of the pan onto the plate and back into the pan [I could see her trying to stay calm while she watched a plate be used in an unconventional way] Finally, I finish, and there is a gorgeous frittata on the table with two plates next to it.

And then babushka says, "So...what's Irjan going to eat?"
I look confused and reply, "Half of this frittata."
"It's a very small amount of food," she says.
"Oh, do I need to cook more?" I ask.
She smirks. "Well this is just a very small amount of food. Irjan is a big boy."
"Hmm," I say, "I watched him eat breakfast yesterday, and he only ate two bites of plov."
"Yes," babushka says, "Irjan eats very little for breakfast."

Anyway, so I left the house at 6:45 with Irjan and we caught the #35 bus from the corner. it turns out that we both have a favorite spot on the bus, so we parted ways after we got on. The whole trip, I watched the bus get fuller and fuller and he got pidgeon holed into this old lady's lap, squished between all kinds of people. Meanwhile, I was chilling in my nook, standing up protected on one side by the wall of the bus, one side by a big horizontal bar that blocks my spot from the bus doors, and a third side by the person sitting behind me (whose leg area I was actually standing in, but for some reason this one particular seat on every bus has extra leg room, and somebody always ends up standing there. If you're not picturing an insane mass of people pressed into the bus, please add that into your mental picture. That will help you appreciate my 3 sided fortress spot that Irjan apparently didn't think too much of. And as for the 4th side, nobody can really squeeze past the person behind me's knees to get into my spot unless I let them. Usually another person ends up in there with me, but if I want I can make it look like there's no room.

Oh yeah, I have this down to a science. Around week 3 I looked at my average day and realized that I could seriously improve my quality of life if I could just figure out how to be more comfortable on the bus.

I planned on posting this story a week ago, so now it's kind of old news.....because I have since moved into a different house. Long story short, Babushka didn't live in a very safe neighborhood and Peace Corps moved me. new photos from the mountains are from the new host fam- they love the mountains! I have a mom and two sisters, 8 & 12. More on the new fam soon, but for now I have to run.