Lots of work and moving apartments

Hello everyone. It's Saturday, and I do have weekends here. What am I actually doing with my time, you ask?
At the moment, I'm busy working on the annual report for the Bureau of Human Rights. It's not clear how I can write the annual report for an organization I just joined, but they don't always have reasonable expectations. Otherwise, I spend a lot of time emailing because the University in Kazakstan wants to have documentation of EVERYTHING on my resume/everywhere I've ever worked/and every professor I've ever known. If I actually get through the red tape, it will be a miracle - and just to work there for a semester! Mahdi calls this my "Kazakh project".
Speaking of Kazakstan, Christine is leaving tomorrow for Astana, and she has nowhere to stay because apparently the Kazaks don't trust guests. I tried to help her through my Kazakh friend Asset, but a friend of a friend of a friend is a little too distant to get security. After Kazakstan, Christine goes to Turkmenistan where she has paid for a 2000 dollar two-week tour of the country. I wonder if it will be worth the expense.
In other news, I don't know if I have told you that the Tajik woman I live with has fallen ill. About a week ago, she called the emergency medical team at midnight to the house because she thought she was having a heart attack. It wasn't, but the pain was apparently killing her, and the doctors gave her a shot to calm her down. This past Tuesday, she checked herself into the Russian hospital - and although she's sounding better, she will apparently have heart surgery at the beginning of November. For this reason, I will move back in to my old host family, as Sayorah, my roommate will be recovering in the small apartment we share - it only has 1 bedroom, which I have been using - and I can't imagine recovering from heart surgery while on a couch. She didn't ask me to leave, but my coworker who was on the phone with her at the hospital volunteered that I would move after she has her surgery. My host family has wanted me to move back in anyway, and they have a hard time explaining to their relatives and friends why I don't live with them. I don't mind living there - as they take really good care of me, but now with the grandmother there, it's a little too full of people - especially as the grandmother follows me around and doesn't talk - she just stares at me. This makes privacy a little less than last summer. The Mother though is such an amazing woman, and always welcoming - and rarely tired of my horrific American ways - like removing all the inside of a Golubtsi - stuff pepper and eating just the outside. :)
I will pay them the same amount they got last summer, just out of courtesy, because I really don't want them to feel jipped. They say that I can live there for free, but I would feel like such an imposition, especially because they cook for me all the time.
In other news, I am a real Tajik wedding crasher. Everyone likes me to go with them to weddings so that I can be the "token foreigner", and honestly, I never complain, because wedding food is usually pretty good. During the month of Ramazan, there were no weddings, so now there will be double the number for the next month. Today, for 1pm, I have two invitations. Tonight, with Galya, we will go to La Salsa, the mexican restaurant in town to say goodbye to Christine - whom i honestly will miss very much. She's been a great ear for all my crazy rambling stories, and it will be sad to see her go.
--As per other questions you may have--- like what do i eat every day, when I'm not at weddings - where they serve Plof or stuffed peppers -
I mostly frequent restaurants as i am normally scared of cooking myself on these oooold gas stoves.
My favorite options are "The Georgia Cafe," or "DBD" for Iranian food. At the Georgian restaurant, I get khachapuri - fried cheese in a bread - round like a pizza - and bean salad, which is the best bean salad on the planet. I often get five servings to go and keep it at home for the week. For the past week as well, I have desperately trying to get the Iranian restaurant to prepare for me 5 servings of "Oshe Reshte" which is a kind of food that I can hardly describe in English - it has wheat noodles and vegetables and greens and I guess it's a stew. The minimum amount they will prepare for me, despite it being on the menu, is 5 portions, and ordered weeks in advance!! It's a good authentic oshe-e reshte, and so i will do almost anything for it. My host mother said that she would prepare it for me, but she said that it was a clear liquid - and the Iranian style is definitely not clear - so I don't want anything by the name of Osh-e reshte to disappoint me. Otherwise, I normally eat my lunches out as well obviously and then I normally have something at a government cafeteria, which consists of mashed potatoes and cabbage in various forms. I also often go to Merve, the famous Turkish restaurant in the center of town which is apparently owned by fundamentalists....I've seen no sign of this in their working practice, unless it's because they are fundamentalists that it takes 10 minutes to get a menu sometimes.
---Wish me luck trying to get a Kazak work permit!
--Karin./