It’s Almost Like Having a New Family

There’s been a new development in the family!  Before this we had my host brother, my host mother, and me.  To this, we’ve added a host sister and a host grandmother!  This is a pretty significant development.  We’ve nearly doubled the amount of people in the family.  The story is this: Nərmin is a 15-year old who has been studying here in Lənkəran and her family is moving to Baku.  She wants to finish out the year at her current school, and it turns out that my non-host brother, Nayıl, is her English teacher.  So she’s sticking around here because of the education.  And Grandma came with her as a package deal.  They’ll be moving out about 3-4 weeks after I move out in April.  So far, they’ve been very sweet.  My host mom and my host grandmother can now chat and gossip like Azerbaijani women were made to chat and gossip, and Nərmin can practice her English with me.

One of the benefits of this arrangement was completely unexpected: Nərmin cooks a fantastic American-tasting pizza!  I’ve had other PCV friends over when she’s prepared it and the agreement is unanimous.  Apparently her aunt, who had lived in Sweden, taught her how to do so.  Score!