Mama and Papa O Come to the 'Baijan: Part 4

Somehow, the weather worked to our advantage (except for the whole shutting down the water thing...). Blue beautiful skies as we're watching parachuters, and grey drizzle and rain as we're headed to travel again.

Thursday morning we woke up leisurely, ate breakfast, cleaned up the house, and packed to get ready to go to Qax. Farid finally returned from Dubai (I owe him a punch for leaving the darn country the week my parents are in town), and so my parents got to meet with him for a quick 15 minutes before the taxi came. Farid is one of my besties in town, and even though we've both been busy lately and haven't gotten to hang out much, I've known him over a year now and feel like he's one of the more important people in my service. Fortunately, I have this funny feeling that he'll end up in America again, and my parents can meet him then!

At 12 on the dot my counterpart's husband shows up to take us to Qax. He was our private chauffer for the time we were in Balaken (him and Elvin), and he was more than happy to do it. He drove us down to Qax, and just as we arrived at Lori's house, the rain lightened up. We got out just as she and James were coming home from running a few errands. We got my parents stuff in the house, and then headed up the hill to see the only working Georgian Orthodox church in Azerbaijan, and then across the street for some fine Georgian cuisine at Migidana. I ate way too much khachapuri (cheesy bread)...but there was still plenty to take home.
After that, we went back to the house to meet up with all the other volunteers who were in town for the weekend, and there were a bunch. I was glad it worked out that way, because then my parents got to meet a lot of other volunteers, from a lot of other regions, and got to compare the experience we all have. Up in Balaken I lead a pretty nice life, and my sitemates do too. They got the chance to meet people who have had different challenges, and have a different routine than I do.

It happened to be Cinqo de Mayo, so Megan cooked us a fabulous Mexican fest. Unfortunately, after the khachapuri, I didn't have much room left for food, but I enjoyed it anyway. My parents and I headed out just as the boys were threatening to put their jorts on, and we walked to the hotel across the street where we were staying.

Let me just say this, for 5 manat a person, that's exactly what we got. Thankfully, Lori's was close, so we didn't have to spend much time at the hotel. We wanted to get our sleep, because the next day was the Pilgrimage!!