Yay another update from us. On our return we found a mouse in our only bucket of drinking water, which was a pleasant welcome (a lesson to us all, cover drinking water). Tomorrow marks the arrival of our hero and saviour, complete with fur, Vale’s cat, who is temporarily on loan. We don’t know his name, but we’ll call him ‘our little soldier’. We have learnt how to successfully light a fire so are now warm.

On the work front, our office is now fully decked out with bookshelves and pretty English related posters, and, of course, maps. Our plans to start children’s classes with the English teachers in the schools have taken a turn for the slow at the moment, but we are perservering with the one teacher who has taken an interest. It is difficult to convince people that our work over the next few months will have better and further reaching results in the long run if we concentrate on the teachers and adults as opposed to holding kids’ English classes ourselves. We have started our community English lessons and will be holding beginner and intermediate classes once a week to begin with. Otherwise we are pursuing ideas for the development of Shushi in general, such as a website, and a playground. The Red Cross constructed playgrounds throughout red zones in Nagorno-Karabakh, and we are hoping to model a similar one in Shushi.

If anyone has any ideas/plans for Shushi’s development that we can help with, please let us know. If anyone is interested in coming to visit and give a short workshop or talk, we would be more than happy to make the arrangements. And also give you a couch to sleep on.

Julia and Briony