#67)  When I Go Home (Dec. 7, 2005):  Cara comes home Dec. 13!!

Hey,

 You know last time I was in Oguz Jonathon and I were talking about how we are going to go home more materialistic than when we joined the Peace Corps.  Usually it happens the other way, I think!

I find myself thinking about going home...

Here is a list of stuff I want to buy:

A new wardrobe

A laptop computer

A digital camera

An ipod

Maybe a car

Good food

I’m so excited to:

-use my feather pillow (for 2 years I’ve been sleeping on a mini-feather pillow Peace Corps bought from Lufthansa...they are included with the price of those outrageous ticket prices, right?)

-sleep on my comfortable mattress

-drive a car, ride in a car...on smooth roads

-talk to whoever I want to

-meet boys...talk to them...and kiss them if I want to!

-go to church and sing hymns

-have reliable electricity, gas, heat, and hot and cold water from the faucet 24 hours a day!!

-check out books and magazines at the library, such a huge selection!

-watch interesting shows on TV

-hug my mother

-play with my nephews

-go rollerblading, ride a bike, snow shoeing, and so many other outdoor activities

-have a conversation where people don’t ask me: which is better (here or there), how much money do I make, how much is my rent, how much did ___ cost, teach me English, take me to America, if I’m bored/missing my family

-sit and walk in grass

-walk through flower gardens

-visit Glacier National Park

-eat Mexican food and drink margaritas

-be able to find clothes I actually want to buy (free of sparkles, buckles, zippers, loops, etc.)

-wear new clothes, in styles I’ve been without, that aren’t completely stretched out!

-use a washing machine

-flush the toilet and things actually disappear...the smell from the neighbors doesn’t come through the pipes....

-work in a kitchen that has counter space, cupboards and a logical layout with adequate pots, pans, dishes, utensils

-go wherever I want to, whenever I wan to without having to inform anybody or ask for permission

-and of course, see all my friends and family and just be in their presence for hours

Things I’ll miss:

-going to the bazaar for fresh organic fruits and vegetables

-using fresh inexpensive herbs in everything I prepare

-eating the farm yogurt

-being able to walk everywhere I go in town–work is only 7 mins away

-the wide, tree-lined sidewalks

-using cheap and convenient public transportation

-a handwritten letter almost every week from Sherry

-being surrounded by a swirls of language: Lezgi, Azeri, Russian, Turkish, etc.

-my friends here

-mercimek, lahmacun, dolma, plov,

-easily meeting people all the time

-sitting by the fountain/river on a hot evening eating ice cream

-saying “Inshallah” God willing

-my self-created, flexible schedule, including afternoon naps and time to do everything

-hanging laundry on the line outside my 3^rd floor window and sending it flying in the wind

-traveling to other remote places

-watching progress, growth, and change

-feeling like I’m growing and changing...learning all the time

-sending and receiving text messages that are a conglomeration of English and Azeri

Things I won’t miss:

-miserably hot uncomfortable stinky marshrutka rides where you can’t open any windows because somebody will get “sick”

-walking in the street and being stared at, commented on/at

-gender expectations

-having THAT conversation: which is better (here or there), how much money do I make, how much is my rent, how much did ___ cost, teach me English, take me to America, if I’m bored/missing my family

Things I don’t think I’ll miss, but it might surprise me:

-kids in the yard that think I’m a star, “Hello, Cara!” at every coming and going

-Azeri music/concerts infusing life all the time

-when the city electricity shuts off at 9pm and it is quiet and dark (the upstairs neighbor playing piano)

-seeing women and men all dressed up...all the time

-having to take my shoes off in all the houses

-turkish toilets

-dancing at Azeri Toys

-drinking tea with candy and jam...all the time

-being invited to drink tea all the time

-quick trips to the market every day

-complaining about Peace Corps

-the assumption that almost every sickness is due to cold

Random thoughts:

-I was in a taxi recently and this couple kept touching each other and flirting.  It shocked my system!  How will I react when 12 year olds are making out at the movies?

-I saw “Super-size Me.”  Is it really possible that so much of America is THAT unhealthy?  That’s what I’m coming home to?  Corporate America where making money is all that matters?  Or where people are so busy they don’t have time to cook food?  Or where people drive their cars to go down the street or buy mobility machines because they are too heavy to carry their own body?

-Are we really still at war?

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#68)  November 2005 (put on-line Dec. 7)

Fall Fashion:

Looking at my students today versus the first time I saw them, I can see a huge difference.  Western fashion has arrived!  This Fall many of my students dress in jeans and denim jackets.  One of my favorites is the one that has HADE written vertically down the back in shiny sequins.  (After the popular television character from Klon.) Also available now, at the bazaar and shoe shops, is quite a variety of flat shoes, many of which look like tennis shoes.  In class two days ago, only one of the girls was wearing high heels.  I reminded them when I first met them, they all wore high heels and asked, “Why do you wear flat shoes now?”  “Because its more comfortable!”  Maybe they have learned something.  Most women, however, still do not feel free to indulge in these western fashions and continue to wear suits and high heels.  The men, are also more and more often seen in the street wearing warm-up pants matching zipped jackets.  They, too, are sporting denim jackets.

Happy Halloween! 

Let’s face it.  Usually this holiday doesn’t jazz me.  I delighted in it this year!  Samira, one of the neighbor girls, said she wanted to have a Halloween party and celebrate with me.  I prefer it when people come to me with their ideas rather than me pushing ideas on them.  OK!  So I got an idea for my costume and thought it would be fun, and decided to celebrate it outright.  My co-teacher informed that she would miss class, again.  I wanted to have fun teaching, as in Not use our horrible book, so I printed off a copy of the Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe and prepared a great lesson. Halloween day began with class.  I set my things down in the back of the class, as is my custom now, donned a hideous green-warted plastic mask with wild hair and as I walked to the front of the class and growled, delighted at all the screams that rewarded me.  Now that I had their attention, we proceeded with our scary Halloween vocabulary and story.  But we didn’t have time to finish so “YES!” students enthusiastically agreed to write their own version for the end of the story that evening.  Walking home triumphant through the bazaar, I looked high and low for a suitable squash.  The small selection were shaped more like gourds and wouldn’t stand upright.  I considered buying one of the last five watermelons and carving it–but compared to the summer price of 3 K for 1000 manat, they were exorbitant at 1K for 1500.  I couldn’t do that!  So I kept looking and found a 4000 manat green and yellow squash that stood upright and carried it home.  I called Samira to come over before class.  We cracked the knife through the tough outer layer.  She dug out the guts, but didn’t want to carve the face.  I began with one eye, and soon enough I was able to pass the knife  to her and she got to make her first jack-o-lantern ever. 

A few hours later, I got inspired to call the neighbor kids to my house.  I went back to the bazaar, the long way so I could have a walk before it got dark, and bought a kilo of candy and told the kids to stop by around 5pm.  I put the candy on my frisbee, and set the jack-o-lantern on a chair by the front door, glowing happily through jaggedy teeth from the candle  inside.  I taped a sign to the door that explained that today was Halloween, our scary holiday.  The first two girls came knocking at 5.05.  I put on that same green mask with wrinkled face and opened the door.  GRRR!  Shrieks of terror exploded from the two little bodies.  Bayram mubarek!  I congratulated them on the holiday and handed them some candy.  As they recovered they got excited and ran off to bring other victims.  They kept coming and I kept laughing as I scared their socks off one at a time.  Halloween has never been so much fun!  But that part ended too quickly as I had to close up my house and meet Samira for the party.

I walked over to school #7, where we would celebrate.  Now this party was just about like any other high school party I’ve ever been to.  There was a table with some sweets and soft drinks.  The boys and girls sat there eyeing each other and laughing and talking and joking.  We had no power at the moment, so, as the local Halloween expert,  I suggested we tell scary stories in the candlelight.  I managed to tell the Tell-Tale Heart in Azeri, and it was easy to do considering that this group of students studied in the Russian sector and I’m able to speak Azeri more freely than some of them. : ) The power came back on; they put in a cassette and danced.    I managed to be a good sport for a while and even slow danced-Jr. High style- when invited by one of the boys. One girl in a tight mini-skirt pouted with arms crossed in the corner as the other girl played intermediary between the two parties.  A scene I remember well and don’t miss.  After awhile, they tried to organize a game; I thought I’d go crazy from the noise as they all shout at the same time.

I picked up my coat to check the time.  “Are you going?”  “In a little bit.”  And looked around the room reflective.  As normal as this party felt, there was something very unique about it at the same time.  We were at school number seven, but we were in somebody’s home.  Beds lined the walls, stacked with blankets and pillows.  There was a stove, storage buckets and a table.  The walls decorated with wallpaper and framed with gold moulding.  The windows were adorned with lacy curtains.  A carpet on the floor.  It was the home of an IDP,  families displaced from their land over ten years ago now.  Unique, but not special.  It was just life. The kids still acted like kids and they can’t remember anything different.  As we left, I said good night to the mothers in the hallway, holding children and smelling the aroma of the dinners they were cooking.  Laundry from the day hung on the lines, almost dry.  And we walked back in the dark cloud-covered night.                     

Class work: Recently my students had to write their opinions about class and the university.  The most interesting response: “I think every teacher must make love [to] her lesson.  If she can’t make love to her lesson, nobody will love her lesson.”

I find myself over the last few months thinking about going home and making these lists...

Here is a list of stuff I want to buy:

A new clothes

A laptop computer

A digital camera

An ipod

Maybe a car

Food I haven’t eaten in two years

Cowboy boots!  Strange.

I’m so excited to:

-use my feather pillow (for 2 years I’ve been sleeping on a mini-feather pillow Peace Corps bought from Lufthansa...they are included with the price of those outrageous ticket prices, right?)

-sleep on my comfortable mattress

-drive a car, ride in a car...on smooth roads

-talk to whoever I want to, especially cute young men

-go to church and sing hymns

-have reliable electricity, gas, heat, and hot and cold water from the faucet 24 hours a day!!

-hot showers anytime

-check out books and magazines at the library, such a huge selection!

-watch interesting shows on TV

-hug my mother

-play with my nephews

-go rollerblading, ride a bike, snow shoeing, and so many other outdoor activities

-sit and walk in grass

-walk through flower gardens

-visit Glacier National Park

-eat Mexican food and drink margaritas

-be able to find clothes I actually want to buy (free of sparkles, buckles, zippers, loops, etc.), or “borrow” from my sister

-wear clothes that fit and aren’t completely stretched out!

-use a washing machine

-flush the toilet and things actually disappear...the smell from the neighbors doesn’t come through the pipes....

-work in a kitchen that has counter space, cupboards and a logical layout with adequate pots, pans, dishes, utensils

-go wherever I want to, whenever I wan to without having to inform anybody or ask for permission

-and of course, see all my friends and family and just be in their presence for hours

Things I’ll miss:

-going to the bazaar for fresh organic fruits and vegetables

-using fresh inexpensive herbs in everything I prepare

-eating the farm yogurt

-being able to walk everywhere I go in town–work is only 7 minutss away

-the wide, tree-lined sidewalks

-using cheap and convenient public transportation

-a handwritten letter almost every week from Sherry

-being surrounded by a swirls of language: Lezgi, Azeri, Russian, Turkish, etc.

-my friends here

-mercimek, lahmacun, dolma, plov, paxlava, tendir bread

-easily meeting people all the time

-sitting by the fountain/river on a hot evening eating ice cream

-saying “Inshallah” God willing

-my self-created, flexible schedule, including afternoon naps and time to do everything

-hanging laundry on the line outside my 3^rd floor window and sending it flying in the wind

-traveling to other remote places

-watching progress, growth, and change

-feeling like I’m growing and changing...learning all the time

-sending and receiving text messages that are a conglomeration of English and Azeri

-how a plateful of fruit is always cut up for guests

-the “vsf” when you ring someones phone to say hello and hang up before they answer

Things I won’t miss:

-miserably hot uncomfortable stinky marshrutka rides where you can’t open any windows because somebody will get “sick”

-walking in the street and being stared at, commented on/at

-gender expectations

-having THAT conversation: which is better (here or there), how much money do I make, how much is my rent, how much did ___ cost, teach me English, take me to America, if I’m bored/missing my family

Things I don’t think I’ll miss, but it might surprise me:

-kids in the yard that think I’m a star, “Hello, Cara!” at every coming and going

-Azeri music/concerts infusing life all the time

-when the city electricity shuts off at 9pm and it is quiet and dark

-seeing women and men all dressed up...all the time

-having to take my shoes off in all the houses

-turkish toilets

-dancing at Azeri Toys

-drinking tea with candy and jam...all the time

-being invited to drink tea all the time

-quick trips to the market every day

-complaining about Peace Corps

-the assumption that almost every sickness is due to cold

Random thoughts:

-I was in a taxi recently and this couple kept touching each other and flirting.  It shocked my system!  How will I react when 12 year olds are making out at the movies?

-I saw “Super-size Me.”  Is it really possible that so much of America is THAT unhealthy?  That’s what I’m coming home to?  Corporate America where making money is all that matters?  Or where people are so busy they don’t have time to cook food?  Or where people drive their cars to go down the street or buy mobility machines because they are too heavy to carry their own body?

-Are we really still at war?

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September 20, 2005

#65)  Happy Birthday, School Started, Close-of-Service Conference

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!  A mound of cellophane, empty boxes, shiny green and red wrapping paper, fresh flower-laden beer bottles lining the wall, a flashing Vegas-style tropical scene clock, two kissing doves, a matching set of Mecca plate and mug, a hand-made Sheki box, homegrown honey, a gold ring, a dancing ballerina with broken off hand thermometer, a framed gold-matted Mecca icon, a lace-embellished heart-shaped porcelain jewelry box, a delicate gold-speckled scarf, a glass picture frame, a Pringles can with nothing left but crumbs, guitar music, rice shakers, Nido can drums, CDs, dirty dishes everywhere, two large boxes with pieces-parts of cake, two sleeping friends, and memories dancing in my head–those are the remains of my birthday.

What can I say?  I threw myself an amazing, unforgettable party ... : ) Durdana helped me to make the arrangements on Thursday and Friday; we celebrated from 3-5 on Saturday.  Sometimes this culture really suits me...waiting until the last minute to make a decision and arrange things. : ) We booked the Turkish Restaurant, a synthesizer, and a videographer.  We called and texted *almost* everyone I know (and like) in town. We ordered paxlava, soda, and not one but two amazingly gigantic and very floraled glittery frosty birthday cakes–one for each 15 years of my life!  Los quinces we say in Spanish. : ) I got all dressed up in a simple black dress and people came and came and came!  Around 38?  Jonathon surprised me from Oguz, he brought a new AZ3 named Lucas–Durdana asked him, “Where is Hadi?” a reference to my favorite show, Klon, which he’s unfortunately never actually seen.  Kerri came from Sheki and Amy from Ismailly.  About 20 of my students, friends from World Vision, Soros, one of the teachers from the Orphanage, my old neighbors, and my beloved little “sister,” Samira.

Durdana welcomed everyone, I said some words, and the dancing began!  Really, it progressed just like a Toy...but unlike a bride, I smiled the whole time! One by one, Durdana invited a spokesperson from a group and they toasted me and then we would dance “our” dance.  Early on I said, “Let’s have cake!” So they played the birthday song over and over and over again while I cut the cakes Azeri style–a big circle in the middle and the slices–no more like fat wedges–along the outside.  Because it was my party, I danced every dance with my friends and students.  Smiles, smiles, smiles everywhere!  I couldn’t tell, and I still don’t know, if they were just having a good time (which they were!) or were especially amused at my dancing (which they were, I’m sure!), which I kept doing regardless of how I looked. : ) “You were supposed to give me lessons!”  I shouted over the music to Leyla, one of my students that dances especially well.  “Yes, it’s my fault.” she replied matter-of-factly.  Ack!  The video camera planted itself on me almost the whole party, so you’ll be able to judge for yourself...the difference between me and my Azeri friends.  The music blaring, sweat dripping, smiles and laughter and kind words, photographs at the end.  I can’t wait to watch my video “montage” they call it...and to send it to you!

My celebration didn’t end there.  We carted all the gifts, flowers (fresh and silk), left-over cake, and a gift cake home.  Almost three whole cakes somehow remained!  Let’s give it to the neighbor kids!  Armed with camera, cake, knife and napkin, we called them.  I expected a tromping, but for the first time, they came rather shyly.  We probably cut that cake up into about 30 slices and made our distrubutions in two separate parts of they yard.  We climbed back upstairs and about ten minutes later, while opening all the gifts, I heard a commotion from the hallway and knocking at my door.  “Tebrik ederiam!”  They all exclaimed as a huge pile of neighbor kids handed me a bouquet of red roses.  Sweet!

A few beers and gift-admiring later, we walked out to the river, blowing kisses to our Heydar statue as we went, to watch the sunset and play.  There are these little swings–the “Yalanchi”, like the dragon swing at Knott’s Berry Farm, but they are people-powered.  Higher and higher we flew...then the “Gunesh” a little ferris wheel, and a carousel with mounted camels, horses, and elephants.  Back home via my favorite walkway through the pine trees.  And then began our night of music as we busted out the guitar and accompanying noise makers and sang, laughed and told stories until three in the morning!

And that...ended my very Azeri birthday in Mingachevir....for now...today I’m distributing more left-over cake to the neighbor families in my building and taking the rest of the cake and music to the orphanage to dance and celebrate with them for a bit...

Medical Thoughts: The mother called  the doctor on the phone after hours, at his home.  It was an emergency. “Can I bring my girl to see you?  One of her eyes is really watery...[and] she ate a lot of walnuts.”  He said bring her.  Three days later I followed up on it.  “He said it was from the cold.  He gave me a shot and sent me home.”  All better.

School Started:

I was prepared for “Knowledge Day” this year!  By that, I mean I did absolutely nothing in preparation!  The night before the first day of classes I asked Durdana about our schedule, and I wasn’t disappointed.  She didn’t know.  I did learn something new, though.  The jockeying of schedules is a money-making venture.  The directors wait until all the teachers are back and continually revise the schedules...giving more classes and better schedules to those teachers who pay for them.  For the most part, though, my schedule has been set.  All the speech practice classes have been moved from the first lesson of the afternoon (1pm) to the first lesson of the morning (8:30).  This is unfortunate for me because I prefer to cook in the mornings when the gas is good, go to the bazar in the mornings when the food is the freshest, and exercise in the mornings when the air is fresh and there are the fewest amount of spectators!

At our first day of school this year, again, they played a scratchy recording of the Azeri National Anthem.  Again, nobody sang.  Again the most important men gave speeches (Directors and Deans).  The notable part about this year’s first day of school is that I also gave a speech.  In Azeri!  I had a few minutes to confer with Durdana about what to say.  I wished them a good year.  I said I was happy to live in Azerbaijan for 2 years and have learned a lot from them.  I wished them to study and learn a lot.  And that there be peace in the world.  (Somehow seems appropriate as I work for the Peace Corps.) I’m not so good at these speeches, but I’m getting better.  I think.  The fact is that regardless of how good (or not) my speech is, and how good (or not) my Azeri is, people are touched and amazed at the effort...that this American is here and she works with us and is learning our language.  In the end, that’s all it takes to bring Peace to the world. : )  You could do it.  And then Durdana and I checked the most recent version of the schedule and went to have tea because we had no class to teach for the day.

Close-of-Service Conference:

At long last, it arrived!  I went to Baku on Monday.  With high hopes of bonding with my fellow volunteers, I decided to check into the official Peace Corps hotel, the Azerbaijan, with Amy, and give it one last chance.  The rooms on our approved 4^th floor were all full, as were the rooms on the 8^th floor.  They sent us up to the 10^th floor.  We walked down the well-used hallway, and unlocked the door to our room.  An ancient television, ripped carpet, scummy tiles in the bathroom, cigarette burns on the arm chair...and probably lice infested beds did not impress me.  YUCK!  I stepped into the hallway and called PC to say No Way am I staying here–safety and security concerns--as these creepy guys eyed me up and down as they walked by.  (Baku has really high end hotels for the oil men and really low end hotels for men with their special gal of the evening or hour, but next to nothing in the middle) Thankfully, I have friends in town who were once again kind and welcoming to let us crash with them.

Tuesday, a rather unfortunate day.  I had my Azeri language exam–which I’ve somehow managed to use rather sparingly since summer began, so it was not as rewarding as it could have been.  Then I got the word that my request to end my service two lousy days early was denied, and the message was delivered in a way that was not so kind.  So, I then got to sit through a meeting with my tear-stained face, where we received the news that the original plan for our conference had changed due to water problems and we might have to stay the week in Baku (at the horrible Azerbaijan hotel!).  We waited while they scrambled to come up with a new plan.

We loaded up busses and headed out to the Guba Olympic Training Center.  Ah!  Little cottages with comfortable beds, clean rooms, hot water, the BBC, set in the middle of an immacculate compound that even had real grass beside the mountains.  We actually had free time and I got to swim in a beautiful olympic pool, sit in a sauna, lay in the grass, and run on the track.  The food, with lots of salads, tasted quite delicious.  In our sessions, we talked about our accomplishments, goals we had met, work that is still left to do, writing our resumes, filling out our PC paperwork, how to say good-bye, how to help our communities say good-bye to us, and favorite memories.  In the evenings, we had a dance, a slide show, movies, free time.  At our final lunch, we (Kerri, Christian and I) had prepared some entertainment.  I painted up my eyes with gobs of black mascara and dramatic eyeliner and closed my head in a pink scarf–I was Hadi from my favorite show Klon. Keri wore a white doctor suit and hat with large fluffs of lamb’s wool for eyebrows–she was Dr. Alberie.  I’ve never really acted before and Christian had been kind enough to give us Acting 101 during our free time.  Our parody of this show got a lot of laughs, many more than I could have hoped for:

“Doctor, I’ve come to ask you one thing.  I’m so worried!” 

“Please, I’m listening.”

“....How is it that your godson looks so much like Lucas?”

“Hmm.”

“Explain it to me, Doctor.”

“He doesn’t look like Lucas.  He’s Lucas’s clone.”

“For God’s sake Doctor, tell the truth!  I’m not just asking.  It’s my destiny, we’re talking about my destiny!  Why does that boy look just like Lucas?”

“Because he’s Lucas’s clone.  Lucas’s clon.”

“Clone?”

As it went on, I got less nervous and it became really fun to be Hadi!  I might try acting again, but in English next time--we did this in Azeri! : ) I had also asked for letters from our former staff.  Following is a poem that our previous country director, Bill Levine, crafted and sent to us:

YOU’VE (ALMOST) DONE IT!

When E-mailed by Cara and asked to contribute

A poem or letter that she would distribute

At your COS, I said, “Sure, ‘twill be easy.”

But then as time passed, I began feeling queasy.

For while it is true, I remember you all;

Twenty-four separate anecdotes-- could I recall?

Stories funny, or sad that I just had to mention—

How could I possibly hold your attention?

Instead, let me ask you all please to remember

As you count down the days between now and December

That no matter how many posts Peace Corps has run

There will only be you to be Azeri One.

Only you spent that winter in Two-Oh-Oh-Three

Freezing your butts around old Devachi,

And trying to learn TEFL teaching dynamics,

While digesting endless donors at the Ramix.

The Thanksgiving meal that you made that November

Along with the show, surely you will remember.

You swore in and moved out to home stays and schools

And struggled to hone your Azeri and tools,

That would make you effective in classroom and town,

And slowly you gained a sense of renown.

Of course there were breaks.  You were relieved of testing,

And you learned some new English words—how about “Guesting?”

It wasn’t all work, when the urge really struck you,

You jumped a Marshrutka and headed for Baku.

Well, some more than others flew under the radar

And characterized staff as the kin of Darth Vadar

As policies aimed at your health and well being

Were perceived by a few as army MP-ing.

Some of you opted to find your own flats

And discovered the joys of going to the mats

With landlords and ladies who promised you all

‘Till you moved in and found you’d got little at all.

The GLOW Camps, the Day Camps, Azlanders you’d write,

And who will forget  Summer Schools and Twelfth Night?

For me—well, for me—I will always remember

The way you all looked on that night in September

When you stepped on the buses and pondered your fate

And were whisked off to training in Sumgayait.

Watching you even then, to we staffers it seemed

That somehow you were providentially teamed.

Two years later, I know that I still feel the same

You’ve done it and fulfilled  the “why for” you came!

I’ve never been prouder when all’s said and done

To be able to say I was part of Group One.

A very small part, to be sure, that is true

For the “guts and the glory” are all due to you.

In these times of troubles, of war without cease,

Be proud what you’ve done to help foster peace.

Your commitment to excellence won many hearts--

Your students, their parents, and yes, counterparts!

You’ve shown there’s a side to our country that’s great

Reaching far beyond leaders, or red or blue state.

AZ Ones, I can say what I know no Azeri can,

You represent the best in being American!

Peace and love,

Bill

The conference ended too quickly, but I appreciated the opportunity to have the time to reconnect with our group–Azerbaijan #1.  Really, as a group we feel quite proud of all that we’ve learned and accomplished here...and we have some amazing memories.

We loaded up on a nice bus and headed back to Baku.  I went out dancing and then to church on Sunday, visited a few more orphanages on the peninsula, washed my laundry in a machine, played Settlers of Catan with my Baku friends, attended my last VAC meeting (total meeting time, 5 hours?!), and closed out my 1% Fund bank account.  (Now I’m finishing up my paperwork).  It feels good to be bringing closure to some of my responsibilities.

Laughs At Crew Practice: one day the boys were explaining about Islam to me, one of the other boys on the team--that he’s not too smart.  (But he is really funny!) At that very moment, Islam, already on the water and not able to hear anything they were saying, for no reason whatsoever, brayed like a donkey.  Hee-haw!  We all laughed.  He’s the same kid that’s in love with Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen.  “Do you know them?  Have you seen then?  Can you help me meet them?”  He has high hopes.  And today, the coach taught me about the healing qualities of cats, “Wherever you hurt, your leg, your kidneys, your shoulder...you can [literally] put a cat on it and it’ll remove the pain.”  I never knew.  I don’t have a cat, so you try it, and let me know how it works.

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August 28, 2005

#64)  August (newest to oldest)

Mingachevir Regatta: We had our big meet this weekend.  I raced.  I won.  And I now am the proud owner of an official “diplom” from the city, that says I’m the Champion. : ) After my race yesterday, which was the first one of the meet, the coach took me on the water in the speed boat for the best views of the starts and finishes.  Time in Azerbaijan kills me sometimes, its all so relaxed.  Punctuality and efficiency are American values, after all.  The meet was supposed to start at 9:30 this morning.  I’ve adjusted to my life here, and showed up around 10am, not a bit surprised to find them all still sitting around.  Then the coach walked upriver to get the speed boat.  “Take your time getting into the water,” he told them all.  After the first race of the day, the boat motor died.  Someone else had to come and row us to the dock.  I thought about the next group of boys, sitting on the water, ready and waiting for their race to begin.  It took us at least ½ hour to get back to shore.  The man who helped us tried to guest us with tea.  We managed to escape and walked back, another 15 mins.  He sent a boy rowing out to the start line (another 15 mins) to begin the race.  I sat around for awhile, and finally we went to watch the last race of the day–the 4 person boats.  It ended quickly and I sat around some more.  I ended up talking to a Turkish man who made many of the mosaics around town!  The beautiful one at the rowing center took about 3 months to make he said.  (It’s now falling apart.)  We waited some more...the boys took their boats out of the water, swam a bit, and then decided to have one more race.  They carried their boats and oars back to the water.   It was now 1pm and I was hungry. I went in the dark, musty, stinky, dusty office, “I’m outta here.”  The coaches were filling out the diploms, “we’ll be done in 20 mins.  Stay. Sit down here and rest.  You need to get your certificate.”  I grudgingly stayed, but out by the river, knowing that it would not be just 20 mins.  And 1 hour and 15 mins later the 10 minute ceremony began and ended.  I got my diploma, shook the coaches hands, the boys all clapped for me, and I raced home to get some food.

It really happens: Every now and then I have a day that’s so great, so magical, I wonder why it is that I’m not staying.  Today was one of those days.  It started out at 7:30 in the morning when I headed out for my bazar trip.  The morning cool, the produce fresh.  I remembered to grab my plastic bucket, so my fruit wouldn’t squish in the bags.  I bought 3K of grapes to give to the orphans, some green beans, and I found some beautiful white corn that was “sulu” full of water!  (The last corn I got was hard and yellow and I felt like a domestic animal trying to eat it.)  I returned to the house, ate breakfast, woke up my PCV house guests and we headed out to meet the rest of our crew.  On the way saw  a friend who was going to work.  Say hello to Ulviyya, I said.  We sped to the orphanage in two taxis as there were 7 of us.  Relatively quickly we gathered up the children, only 9 today, as many had gone to their houses over the weekend and hadn’t returned yet.  Yes, did you know most of these children do have families?  They aren’t really orphans in the traditional sense of the word.  The doctor was late, again, but she gave her permission over the telephone to take them before she arrived.  We were off.

As we walked to the beach, we snacked on grapes.  I talked with Sadet, one of the teachers at the orphanage who has been accompanying us.  I really like her!  She’s 28 and a very smart, kind girl.  As I explained how we were going to clean up the beach, she said, “we should get garbage cans and place them on the beach and then people can toss their trash into the cans.”  Oh!  What a genius!  She’s right!  From my experience, if there are garbage cans, Azeri’s will put their garbage into it–that’s what they did during Soviet times.  But now there aren’t many garbage cans so they throw it everywhere and anywhere.  That’s a very do-able project I would love to work on.  And there is a smart girl to work on it with.  But I don’t have enough time!  Too bad I didn’t meet her earlier.  Then we talked about one of the orphanage boys, but really, he’s gone through puberty so he’s rather more like a man–one that likes to take his pants off.  (I’ve told you many of the kids at the orphanage have illnesses and disabilities, right?)  She says to me, “All of us girls [co-workers], we see him and decide no way!  We don’t want to get married!  It’s too scary!”  I just laugh as I could imagine their horror at seeing strange body parts they would just prefer to stay far away from.  She says she hasn’t gotten married yet because she hasn’t found someone she likes, “with good character.”  I understand that.  I love her openness, sense of humor, and honesty.

We arrived at the beach and began to pick up garbage.  To my surprise and delight, quite a few of the locals began to help us!  It became a team effort.  Plastic bottles, empty cigarette boxes, lots of underwear (!), wrappers, glass particles and decaying corn cobs quickly filled up our bags.  The kids swam, shrieks of delight and lots of splashing!  And unlike last week when we arrived so late, they had 45 minutes to swim until we put them with Sadet on the bus to return to the orphanage.  The bus driver is very kind; he transports the orphan children for free.

Five of the seven PCVs  hung out at the beach until the next bus at 1pm.  Hannah and I swam out to dive off the pier.  The water was so clear, for the first time, I could see really deep to the iron toward the bottom.  I dove with some of my diving buddies–I’ve got lots of them...all little boys.

I saw my PCV friends off to the bus, and picked up my post.  Yesterday evening eating ice cream at the river I saw Ruslan, my post man.  “Hello, Cara!  He said with a smile.  You have two letters!  Come and get them!”  So I did.  I know everyone in the post office.  They lady that used to give me a hard time is now on maternity leave.     : ) I came back home, reading my letters with good news and pictures of my beautiful Glacier National Park, got lunch, napped for a bit, showered, and read my book. 

For the first time in a long time, I’m studying and enjoying my Azeri.  I had bought Ali and Nino in Azeri, and decided August would be the time to read it.  Language is so funny, how I learn it; it fascinates me.  I guess it’s just part of my natural acquisition process. I reviewed the sounds of the vowels so I could practice reading out loud.  And there are so many things I’ve been saying wrong! (I suspected it...) Now from reading, I see what letters (vowels) they should be (there are nine vowels in Azeri.)  I think, I should have done this a LONG time ago!  Perhaps people would have understood me better.  People I talk to on a regular basis are accustomed to my speech, but talking to strangers can sometimes be a little more work.  But instead of beating myself up over it, I just think perhaps I just wasn’t ready.  So again, I’m excited to be learning Azeri.  And I feel sad. I’ve invested so much energy learning this language and I don’t think I’ll be able to use when I return.  It makes me want to stay.  I feel that my language is now, again, going to improve significantly...and I’m enjoying it so much, after so much work, I want to reap the benefits.

My friend, Aynur called me.  Did you hear that?  My friend.  I realize that I have a friend.  (And that is exciting!)  She apologized for not coming earlier in the morning like she said she would–she woke up too late.  When are we going again?  “ I saw that the children didn’t have any clothes to wear.  I asked all my relatives and neighbors to give her clothes for them.”  That touched my heart.

Tonight I went to dump my garbage.  You know, we just dump it on this special spot in the road/curb in the evenings.  In the morning the truck comes and shovels it up.  I had planned to go to the internet and send off an email and then find some women and sit in the cool evening air near the fountain near my house.  It’s my new hobby, sitting at the fountain.  During the daytime, its man’s land.  I’ve recently discovered that at night, it’s also women’s land!    I’ve met quite a few nice women, and almost every time I go, I see someone I know.  On my way, I walked down a path I hadn’t gone down in awhile and one of my old neighbors, standing at her 1^st floor balcony window, called to me.  “Gonag ol!”  she said, be my guest.  “Thank you!”  I said, which is also conveniently, “good bye” in Azeri.  But I didn’t leave and we talked a bit more, about her son that didn’t pass his university entrance exams, that is waiting to be called into the army, and will go to the 3 month Mingachevir school for chauffeurs to drive bus.  “Gel, chai ichaek!”  (Come!  Let’s drink tea!).  Why not?  There was something different and inviting about her. I could feel that she had a different aura about her than most Azeri’s.  Much softer, much more, I really can’t put my finger on it, gentle?  Perhaps. She’s very religious.  She’s quite lonely, which is mostly why I went.  She told me stories about her first husband and how he died from an illness–they didn’t have any children.  She told me about how God has provided for her, Ramazan and the fast, how people are sinners, how God is good, and some miracles she’s seen in her life.  We talked about making jam and compote.  She reminisced about the good old Soviet days when the nearby hotel (now filled with internal refugees) filled up with foreigners and a friend she had that came to crew on the river.  They met when the girl admired her flowers, she used to grow so many!  And now we have a date tomorrow after I crew to go to the bazar and find some good zogal to make my favorite jam. : )

So, I sit here, at the end of the day, reflective about my life.  Yes, I’ve had so many challenges living here!  But today, it feels as if its all come full circle.  It feels successful and worth the effort.  Real conversations with real people.  Now I walk around town, and I see people I know everywhere.  I’ve learned my language and I can speak with them.  I feel safe, comfortable, and happy. I adjusted...and this is my home.  I see growth, I see progress, and I feel the hope.  People at the beach willing to pick up garbage with us.  Sadet wanting to install garbage cans.  Aynur collecting clothes for the orphans.  I feel good all around me.  And I’m happy.

Update on our new mayor: Sad to report my first instinct was right according to my most recent information: he’s really rich because he’s really good at corruption.  A real professional they say.  It’s true he did make the local directors pay to re-do the sidewalks and main street.  (I feel like a traitor writing this information because its so bad.)  However, he had them take it out of their work accounts, and he made them take out a lot.  Then he kept a lot for himself and paid for the projects with the rest of it.  And he’s been visiting all their offices, inviting them to keep their jobs, for a price.  And its not a small debt, either.  One director paid $10,000.  It wasn’t enough, and he didn’t have more to give, so he had to resign.  The education director recently had to sell his large house and buy an apartment.  He still has his job.  The reason I know all this?  I have a trusted friend who’s father is also a director and is in quite a moral quandary.  According to her, he’s always kept his books clean, and here when he’s so close to retirement, will either have to take money from his organization, find the money somewhere else, or potentially lose his job.  It’s also interesting that the improvement projects–sidewalks and roads, also benefit the new mayor as his family owns both businesses.  They are painting up the drama theater, too, and its looking nice.  It’s an election year.  It’s an election year.  It’s an election year.

Pass the baton: It’s happened.  Congratulations to Azerbaijan Group number three!  They swore in as volunteers on August 5.  In Mingachevir, we have two new TEFL volunteers, Chris and Hannah, and the first business volunteer, Tom.  And despite the fact that Tom is a Husky, I really like them.  First of all, Hannah LOVES Spanish and Spanish music.  That bodes well for a fantastic friendship!  Tom makes me laugh–he wants to invent the “man fan.”  And Chris is just a nice guy.  Secondly, they help with the work–they are excited and very willing to participate in the orphan project.  Third, they make me feel like I’ve come a long way and really learned so much!  They have questions burning in their hearts: How much does a bus cost?  Where do you do your internet?  Will it be easy to find a house?  And I have a lot to say.  But should I tell them? After all, there was nobody here to help me.  I had to find it out all on my own...isn’t it part of the experience?  It was for me.  If they ask, I tell.... “In my experience...” and most of the time, I hope that their experience will be different, better, and easier.  The fourth and most important reason I love them so much already, is that they are going to share and continue the work.  All of a sudden, I don’t feel like all the responsibility is on my shoulders to teach this whole town English.  I always knew I couldn’t; but the people in the city seemed to think it was my job to teach them all personally.  The orphans will have new friends and advocates.  AzETA Mingachevir Branch can continue to put along at its own pace, with their support as needed.  More teachers will begin to access the available resources.  My students will potentially find a great new friend that is closer to their age...and in a few short years teach and apply to get their own Peace Corps Volunteer to work with!

Summer Yard Work: I’ve noticed that August must be the official hot season for yard work.  Now, more so than the rest of the summer, the women do two main jobs in the yard.  One: they clean the carpets.  Two: they clean the mattresses. 

For the first job, most women find some sort of plastic to lay on the ground–usually they find an asphalt patch to put it on.   It’s either clear plastic from an old purchase, clear plastic that costs 1000 a meter from the bazar, or a blue tarp.  I have yet to find the store that sells those!  (I haven’t actually looked, either.)  Then they have/find a long hose that they hook up to the yard spigot.  They hose down the carpets really good.  Some women use the long stick/”mop” to scrub it down.  Some use a hand scrub brush.  Most of the time there are bubbles from the laundry detergent.  They rinse it off really well and finish with a “neft rinse.”  Neft is gas, and if you put this diluted kerosene on your rug, it will keep the bugs out.  Then they lay it over the parallel bars in what used to be the children’s playground to dry.  The sun is so hot, it doesn’t take that long, which is why August is official rug cleaning month, I believe.  After which, they roll it up, tie it with a small rope, and set it in the corner of the house until the weather is cool again.

For the second job, women either sit on the flat platform, about 1 ½ foot off the ground or sit on that piece of plastic they bring out.  They have already untied their mattresses and removed all the lamb’s wool.  The first thing they do is whack it with a three-pronged stiff metal whip or wooden stick.  Whap!  The wool hangs onto the prongs, shake, shake, shake...dust and little particles float in the air.  And seem to land right back on the heap.  Whap!  Shake, shake, shake.  Whap!  Whap!  Whap!  Slowly the pile of un-whapped wool gets smaller and the pile of whapped wool gets larger until the wool has all been “cleaned.”  Then comes the washing stage.  They pile all the wool into buckets, which they fill with water from the yard spigot.  They let it sit for a few hours and rinse.  Then they set it on the plastic tarps to dry in the hot August sun.  (No threat of rain right now!)  After it is all dry, they have already washed the cloth stuff sack of the mattress, they refill, and restitch it closed.  On to the next mattress.  Remember, each wife has a dowry of about six of these mattresses that the family doesn’t really use other than for decoration, plus the everyday mattresses.  If they do one mattress a day, this is easily a ½ months work!                                                                       

Remodeling: You know its time to “redo” your house when you clean it and it still doesn’t feel clean, according to my neighbors.  It’s been 10 years since they have remodeled their house.  In the process of remodeling, you have to strip everything down to the brick walls and floorboards and start all over again mudding up the walls, painting them, and especially painting the floors with that really glossy reddish brown paint.  It’s a Very Dusty Job (not to mention noisy) that takes a few months.  They do one room at a time.  And the way people pay for labor?  Usually lunch is included in the arrangement.  If you feed your workers, they can work a longer day.  If you don’t feed them, then they don’t work as hard and leave earlier...supposedly to go home and eat.

A summer morning:  I woke up at 7am and grabbed a book to start the day...it had thoughts of serving and grace...

I got up and thought I should do my cooking before it gets too hot.  I cooked another batch of granola and made some chigirtma--tomatoes and eggs for breakfast, with some fresh figs on the side. I investigated the sticky red mess on the bottom of the refrigerator–one of my tomatoes had gone bad and gotten squished.  I cleaned up that mess and put all my fruit into a bowl.  I boiled some water and cleaned the dishes.  After too many days, I finally got enough energy to do the floors.  The dust here is incredible.  Having clean floors is very refreshing.  It is just a lot of work.  A volunteer in Ganja said she has to clean her floors everyday.  And that it takes two hours!  I thought it was just me.  There is no way to make it faster, except to pretend like the corners don’t exist or cleaning behind the arm chairs, like I did today.  But I did move the small chairs, and most of the large items on the floor–but not all.  It still takes a long time and feels dirty about the same amount of time later.   I scrubbed the tub, put in two buckets of laundry to soak, and got myself clean–with half with the left over warm water and half cold water.  I was feeling quite hot from all the work.  And now I sit here, having an almost clean house.  My desk is still a mess and so is the coffee table.  It is filled with stacks of books, music, papers, half written letters, recent arrivals that I want to read again that I tend to rotate through, and my journal.  My current collection of books are as follows in Azeri: Ali and Nino, Latin script.  My language and confidence has deteriorated rapidly so I’ve committed myself to reading at least 10 minutes a day.  Spanish: People magazine and La Casa de los Espiritus, recently arrived in a care package and just tempting me to never leave my house or do any of my other work, not to mention the latest and fantastic release by Shakira, Oral Fixacion I.  English: Ataturk: The Rebirth of a Nation, Cappadoccia, The Bible (reading Romans), Our Daily Bread, The Confessions of Saint Augustine, Colossians and Philemon Bible Study, The Catcher in the Rye, Where There is No Doctor (I recently diagnosed myself with a boil.  Ever had one of those?), the first official edition of a Peace Corps Azerbaijan Volunteer Handbook, hot off the presses after 22 months of confusion, the most recent edition of the Azlander, Peace Corps Azerbaijan’s Newsletter, Worldview (Summer 2005), Newsweek (July 11).  The Russian hasn’t made it back onto the table yet...except for the tape recorder (needs new batteries) but I’ve got the TV tuned to a Russian station and I understand almost nothing.  I think its time to finish up some of my selections and move on.  I’ve got another stack of books in the back room waiting to be brought out.  On my desk, I have all the paraphernalia for my grad school class, which I just can’t seem to get myself motivated to do.  My pictures from Turkey and my most recent hiking adventure, get moved around and looked at often!

Swearing in–group #3: Today the third group of volunteers swears in.  And I’m sitting in Mingachevir cleaning and doing what I need to do.  So why didn’t I go?  I really can’t say.  I don’t really have anything going on here.  In fact, almost all of my Mingachevir friends and acquaintances are gone on vacation.  Its really quite lonely at the moment.  One big reason is the prospect of sitting on a bus for 10 hours sweating.  Another reason is that I don’t know any of them since I didn’t help out with their training.  And since having been gone for a month, I really feel like I need to be here.  Its kind of interesting, really.  When I first got to Mingachevir, I didn’t leave for Baku for the first 3 months; I felt like I had a lot of work to do here to get to know my community.  And now that we are coming up on the end, I again, feel like I need to be here, to wrap things up. 

Talking with the neighbors (women) in the yard:

“My stomach hurts,” says one.

“Did you spend too much time next to the air conditioner?  You were sitting by the fan...” diagnoses the other.

I think its heaven, but its really all just a dream...a hiking trip:

I met Amy in Ismailly and the next morning we took a shared cab to Gabala where we finished buying our supplies and found a driver to take us out to Laza village–a Lezgie village–at the end of the dirt road. His name was Royad and we stopped in the middle of the village where all the men were busy sitting.  He explained who we were and that we were looking for a guide to take us through the mountains to Xinaliq.  We had an offer of $100 for two horses.  But we only needed a guide, and one horse at that.  We discussed, and decided we could pay $50.  Royad saw we had no takers and put us back in the car, a suped-up Lada with power windows, nice radio, and air conditioning, and drove us up the hill a little ways to his house.  We met his mother, father, sister-in-law, and nieces. The small baby was swinging in a basket made of sticks and a flour sack–wrapped up in blankets as if it were the middle of winter.  They served us tea and homemade bread, tomatoes and cucumbers.  We discussed the proposition of going to Xinaliq. Unlike all the Azeris we talked to about this, they didn’t say “No, you can’t do that!  It’s dangerous!  You’ll get eaten by bears!”  Instead they simply informed us that we would be staying the night with them with a 5am departure the next day. Royad would ask around to find a guide for us and if he couldn’t find anyone else, he himself would take us.  So that left the afternoon free to explore.

Royad hiked us up the hill/mountain behind their house.  We looked over one hill into the town of Gabala.  We kept climbing higher, along the ridge now, past the tree line and into a steep field of wild flowers--queen anne’s lace among other things.  And we sat on the edge and looked onto the village of Laza, the river valley we’d hike the next day, and talked and napped under the blue sky.  We headed back down and the family fed us some of the best bozbash I’ve ever had.  Really, its soup you know, but they serve it with a fork.  You are supposed to eat enough bread to soak up all the liquid and fill up your stomach.  Then they showed us to their guest room, prepared for us, filled with guesting mattresses, pillows, a table, and dishes...the brides dowry.  We rested awhile and decided to get ready for bed, when we were invited to tea.  “They prepared the samovar for us Cara, we have to drink tea,” Amy said.  So we sat at the table some more, and drank more tea.  We refused an offer of dinner.  We confirmed that we were leaving at 5am.  We went to bed.

At 4:40am the mother came in, “DUR!” she barked at us.  “I’ve got the motor running!”  Which meant hurry, I guess, since she had to use gas to run the motor.  We were able to turn the lights on, put our clothes on and made final preparations.  Royad met us and we said goodbye to his mother.  We were off.

Darkness covered us. A few stars sparkled in the sky between the clouds as we wound our way through the village, over and up.  I thought we were supposed to go into the river valley?  “We’re taking the other route, so we don’t have to be detained by the passport control office.”  The small sliver of the moon peeked out as we walked through the meadow, lighting our way.  Quite magical, quiet.  Then into the tree cover, where it was dark!  I think my pupils were so dilated, they were about to burst!  Is that possible?  Walking over steep sections of scree, with a heavy pack, I had to concentrate and struggle not to misstep or fall.  I imagined my self slipping and falling down the steep hill to my right.  My eyes fatigued, I pulled out my head lamp.  Not as romantic as walking in the dark, but much safer.  We arrived at the river bed and the day had begun to dawn.  We set out packs down and hiked out to a waterfall.  Up the river bed some more, set the packs down again, except for our breakfast, and headed up to another waterfall.  Our meals were all a combination of the same foods: sausage, Danish cheese from a box, dark brown Baku bread, apples, raisins, dried apricots, peanuts, green beans and cucumbers from Amy’s garden, gatorade (thanks to PC medical unit), and power bars (left over from my winter supply).

Then the serious hiking began.  UP, UP, UP.  That was the theme for the next day and a half!  We took turns carrying the 2 packs.  We quickly arrived above the tree line, and the scenery changed.  It was all smooth mountain ridges alongside the river valleys covered–no carpeted–with green grass.  That is all.  And then, lambs, goats, cows, a few horses, shepherds, their dogs, and shepherd shelters scattered about.  Lamb tracks cut across the fields, animal poo strewn all about like a child’s toys across the house.  We hiked, we hiked, we hiked.  Up, and up and up.

At last, the evening began to get cool, the fog rolled in, the wind picked up, and we thought we were at the top...of something.  We stopped to rest while Royad tried to find the trail.  After a few false starts, we decided to camp there for the night.  I was getting cold.  Amy and I set up our 2 person tent, many thanks to its owner, Linda!  Royad slept on the grass–like a typical 25 year old, he’d been out the night before and had only slept 2 hours.  We quickly ate dinner.  Amy and I were worried about Royad keeping warm during the night.  In typical region fashion, he’d brought nothing.  (While he seemed amused at the amount of stuff we carted in our heavy packs!)  That’s not true.  He had a bag with a long sleeved camouflaged shirt and camouflage pants that read US Army, Comando.  But it was not near enough to keep him warm in this weather, especially with it threatening rain.  So Amy and I dressed him up: my fleece, hat, and socks, her rain coat, fleece, and gloves.  It was the best we could do.  We pulled out the footprint from under the tent and set it in the rain fly’s vestibule–that would be the best place for him to sleep.  There was No other  shelter.  The hills were bare except for the grass.  And we settled in for the night.  It rained a bit.  Amy and I were comfy in the tent, mostly.  I was sweating and her thermarest had a hole in it.  We knew Royad was fine; happily snoring away.

By morning, the fog had lifted a bit.  We packed everything up and day began to break.  We discovered we were not, in fact, at the top.  We walked along the ridge to the next up.  The grass sparkling like jewels in the morning’s dew.  We were at the top of the world, the clouds beneath us and the blue sky above us.  I haven’t breathed air this fresh or clean...since...I can’t remember!  I think its heaven.  

We took a lot of pictures, not ever wanting to forget, and kept climbing up.  This is worth it–a perfect way to remember Azerbaijan.  The terrain changes.  Now it is extremely rocky, and then we get past that...it feels like we’re on the moon.  We go a little farther and Finally, we are looking into the next river valley, on the other side.  The grass is green again, but not quite so green.  There are horses and we spy the shepherd’s camp that we thought we’d make it to the day before.  We sit down for lunch.  We make our way down the valley, stop and fill up our empty water bottles from the creek, and get invited in by the shepherd’s family and children to guest with them. They are Lezgie and from Royad’s village.  They live here in the summer from mid June to mid August.  I spy the meat cuts drying, the mountain herbs drying, the bucket with the homemade cheese.  They invite us out of the wind, into the tent–half a wall of stacked rocks with a blue tarp draped over the central pole.  We take off our shoes and sit on the pillows.  The women get busy, in no time the samovar has boiled the water and she is pouring us tea, comfortable talking with Royad in Lezgie.  Amy and I both feel quite relieved and I’m thrilled that they can just talk, and for once we, the foreigners, aren’t the topic of conversation.  She brings out fresh lavash, goat cheese, cow butter, and sugar.  Royad makes up for lost time–about 30 hours without tea?-- and quickly downs three glasses.  He laughs at me that I’m still on the first glass.  I told him I didn’t know it was a race.  We finish, take some pictures, thank them for their hospitality, give them our beans and cucumbers, and take off.

Right at the first river crossing, I manage to slip and my foot is now sloshing in water.  I laugh, surprised it hadn’t happened earlier.  I’m going to learn how to use a pole and hop the streams like Royad, I think.  But we can’t stop there to change–we have to escape the barking dogs first.  Shepherd dogs are mean!  Once in safety, I put on my Tevas and for the rest of the day, we slosh back and forth across and through the river.  About at the 5^th crossing, Amy decides to put her Chacos on.  The water is cold and refreshing, there are still patches of snow, covered with layers of scree.  Back and forth, back and forth...we make our way down the river valley.  More creeks join the river, it gets faster and deeper, and stronger.  But we don’t fall.  It’s up to my knees...and a little higher.  At one point, there is a bridge.  I laugh, in disbelief.  It looks like a log with rocks stacked along top across, a balancing act for a professional, a recipe for disaster for a girl with a huge pack!  I get closer and see there are actually two logs, with the stones resting securely on both.  I walk across with no problem. 

All of a sudden, about 5 shepherd dogs, snarling, barking, fangs dripping with saliva...come at us!  Amy and I scrambled to grab rocks, ready, but we could find one on such short notice in the grassy meadow.  Royad comes running back to us, yelling with his big stick. We almost get eaten by these horribly mean, ferocious shepherd dogs, but the shepherd comes at the last minute and calls them off.

For about the 100^th time, I am so thankful Royad came with us.  He’s a good guy.  He talks just enough, cracks a few jokes, and never says anything about us being girls.  He genuinely seems to enjoy himself.  He knows the way and says hello and talks to all the shepherds, which as a woman, I’m glad is a job Amy and I didn’t Have to do.  We just would follow and say a  greeting, which felt much more appropriate.  Royad also didn’t have the “standard” conversations with us: how old are you, teach me English, marry me, take me to America.

A fellow Lezgie came along on a horse.  He strapped our packs to the top, and all of a sudden I could fly.  We started speed-walking/floating along the now flat terrain, with out packs, much faster than the horse, and in no time at all, Xinaliq shined in the evening sun in front of us.  We did it!  We climbed the last hill and the first family we saw invited us in for–you guessed it--tea, homemade bread, tomatoes, cheese, and cucumbers.  Royad and the host father went into the village and were able to find us a ride, even at this late hour, into Guba.  Amy and I were both anxious to get out of the mountains and into cell phone reception.  It was Monday night.  We walked around this village for 45 minutes.  The old houses stacked up in a way that the roof of one is the front yard of the next.  Villagers stacking bricks of poo and straw–the firewood for the winter.  There is a helicopter pad painted next to the school from when the president was supposed to visit.  In Xinaliq, the people speak their own language–Ketshmitsl–and it resembles no other language and no one else in the world speaks it (all through its related to languages in Dahgestan.)  They say the people are Caucasian–maybe even descendants of the ancient Albanians, not Turkic.  I didn’t understand a word, but it has quite a few guttural stops.  We arrived back at the house, and our jeep was waiting.

We piled everything in, and from the very beginning of the ride, Amy and I smiled.  With every bounce along the dirt road, a giggle would escape.  Bounce bounce bounce...hehehehehe!  Through the rivers, up the hills, along the steep cliffs, looking across the red valley, through the steep valley–Cloud Catcher Canyon...”this is so much better than the Indiana Jones ride!” Amy exclaimed.  Yes!  But it’s the real thing!  For two hours we bounced across this dirt road, our driver truly excellent, and then all of a sudden arrived on the smoothest, paved road I’ve ever been on in Azerbaijan!  We stared in disbelief at the two very large houses in fenced-in estates.  The President’s.  Oh, now that made sense.  I should have seen it coming.  The driver pulled up to the vogzal, I saw the minibus and heard its diesel engine running.  That meant they were about to leave.  Royad asked if they had space left, Amy paid the driver, I carried the gear.  It was a fast transition, and in no time, we were riding in the cool of the night, to Baku.

We checked our phones.  No messages.  No missed calls.  Lauryn called...”Are you guys out O.K?”  Yes, it’s all good...it was Fantastic!  Yes, we’ll tell you all about it later.  A few more calls to find a place to stay in Baku...it was 10pm and we’d be there at 12pm...like a dream...It was a fantastic dream.

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July 24, 2005

#63)  Message from Turkey #4

Seljuk!

I loved that little town. I stayed in the most wonderful pension...I wandered around town for a bit...saw the Byzantine aqueduct ruins with pelicans perched on the columns...church of St. John (where he supposedly wrote the gospel)...and then returned to the terrace in time for some good conversation and a gorgeous sunset over the valley. And then we watched the full moon rise. I slept out on the terrace. : ) And woke up early.

Walked down the tree lined road to Efes. I started at what is usually the end...and I took my time wandering through the not-yet-so-crowded ruins. (But they got busy later!) Amazing. I took lots of pictures. : ) What I find to be amazing is that so much of the site still hasn't been excavated--you can see old brick ruins underneath what looks like a mountain! And that they have pieces parts of stone and marble laying around and numbered...locked up and numbered...a huge puzzle waiting to be reassembled someday to the best of their [educated] imaginations! And then I headed back to town, sat around at the pension, not wanting to leave to catch my bus. So I went to the museum instead and saw many of the artifacts from the site are stored. I stopped in my new friend's carpet shop (hes Turkish and lives in Berkeley... has a store there and comes home every now and then to buy more carpets). I got my bus ticket, and left for Izmir, reluctantly...it was like admitting my vacation was over. That and I enjoyed the people at this pension so much. : )

From Izmir I caught an overnight bus to Adapazara, where a friend of a friend lives. This girl got her MS and PhD at WSU! So she picked me up at the airport at 6:30 am and hosted me to an amazing day in her life. We ate an amazing breakfast of all organic food from their garden, in their peaceful and beautiful flower garden: peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, olives, herbs, homemade bread, freshly blended peach juice, watermelon, and tea. Turkish coffee. Then I looked at her pictures--she really got to see many places in the PNW that I haven't been to even. I met many of her family members and we went out to her sister's house in Kojali--on the Black Sea! We sat on the porch enjoying the view and then I went swimming! This water, believe it or not, I enjoyed more than Kabak. It wasn't as salty, for one, so it didn't sting my eyes at all, and it have waves to play in!! Then we had to hurry home to hurry to Istanbul to catch my flight.

And that's it...the end of my 19 days in Turkey...I could have stayed much, much longer. : ) Wait until you see the pictures... : ) I took em for you, you know.

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July 21, 2005 

#62) Message from Turkey #3

Greetings from Selçuk!

The last time I wrote you I was still in Cappadocia right? Well I spent a few more days there. I hiked Pigeon Valley from Uçisar to Göreme and then I also hiked Love Valley. Except that the trails here are not marked very well and I ended up blazing my own trail and crossing over 5 valleys to get to the one I should have started in! So instead of being a 3 hour hike, it ended up being around 6 or 7? Good thing I like to hike! Pigon Valley was quite amazing as you the trail suddenly comes out at this huge chasm. I had to ask this random sleeping guy in the valley where the trail went. He showed me...up this ridge and over and down, really, it was quite dangerous! I have learned that they don’t protect their tourists here from being stupid...you really have to make your own judgment calls! (more on that later!)

I met a guy named Yasin, a really sweet Turkish guy. He taught me to play backgammon the Turkish way and I taught him how to play the Azeri way. We sat around trying to keep cool that afternoon...munching on sunflower seeds. (I’m making a lot of progress in my attempts to become a good at this hobby!) Later that evening. we went to watch the sunset from the best viewing place in the valley! It really was quite stunning, by far one of the highlights of my trip so far! At the pension I stayed up quite late playing backgammon with Simon...he’s quite good and let me win twice. hahaha, he’s a pretty good teacher and didn’t let me do anything too stupid.

The next day I went from Göreme to Nevþehir to Aksaray to Gözelyürt. It is supposed to be this gem that was previously had quite a few Greek inhabitants out of the way without so many tourists. I went to their underground city and saw a church that was built in 356AD. The dome on the top was a bit lopsided! An interesting experience. I had also wanted to check out Monastery Valley, but it was too hot to walk the 2K with my pack so I went back up the hill to catch the 3pm bus. I got there right at 3pm and but the bus didn’t leave at 3. Or 4. Or 5. It finally left at 6pm! So I spent 3 hours sitting in the plaza under a shade tree with three Turkish boys talking and laughing, and of course, eating sunflower seeds. This little town reminded me of Azerbaijan more so than the rest of my trip so far: the boys said its Shameful for the women to be in the public park, that they need to be at home cooking and cleaning. One little boy tried to convince me that Islam was the true religion and if I just read the Koran I would understand. I told him that, in fact, I do want to read the Koran. I said we could swap-I would read the Koran and he could read the Bible. At one point I brought out my Azeri Manat to show them. This old man came over, I thought he wanted to learn about it, too, so I showed him. But instead of looking at it, he began to walk off with almost 20 dollars!!! He’s crazy! The boys said.

So I was ready to move on to Selime, where I wanted to spend the night and hike the Ilhara Valley bright and early the next day. I met some Americans and they were so friendly! They dropped me off at a pension. And I know many of you are worried about me traveling alone. I’m not going to lie and say it’s perfect. It definitely has its perks! I’ve been able to meet so many amazing and fun people that I maybe wouldn’t have talked to if Id been traveling with someone. In general, I rarely feel alone; I’m rarely ever Alone. There is always someone there to talk to, and I’m pretty good about being safe and taking care of myself. Until this day. At the church in Gözelyürt, I was the only tourist and felt extremely uncomfortable around the young Mullah, who was not following what I know to be normal Turkish culture. He took my arm to show me around. He ignored my cues to back off. I never felt in danger, but I didn’t enjoy my visit, either. I told the muzeum curator to speak with him about it. Hands off. Now in Selime. There were only 2 pensions in this tiny town and I had them drop me off at the one that was by the bus stop, 3K away from the trailhead and 2K away from the rest of town. My planning was great. I had no way of knowing that No More Guests were going to come that night! At first I had fun speaking with the hotel owner...the TurkishAzeri thing is still amusing, I have a lot to learn. We made dinner. Still fine. But then we sat down on the floor cushions, traditional Turkish style. And he sat too close! And he served it on the same dish. I flashed my stealth ring. Im married, I said for the 20th time this trip. Making up a lie that I’m alone because my architect husband was too lazy to want to hike the trail with me. In my mind, a definite Stop Sign. But how can I be so naive? Because its not a stop sign for all people. So am I! he said. He took out his wallet and showed me a picture of his wife and 6 years old. Your eyes are beautiful. You make me so happy. No sex, just kissing he says...have you heard enough??? I finished dinner and went and locked myself in my room. Again, no danger. But what a creep.

The next morning I hiked the Ilhara Valley a beautiful river valley filled with Poplars, caves, and Old Churches. But before that, I went to a monastery, carved out of the rocks. Wow! And I did, somewhat stupidly, go up the 300 some steep steps to the top. It was CRAZY! The last section I climbed, was straddle legged through a vertical tunnel! You come out of that onto the edge of the cliff! No ropes. No NOTHING! I wondered how many people have gotten injured or died?! Cause I’m athletic, and normal Joes do this, you know? And it was challenging for me. But then I looked up, and I wasn’t even at the top! Right above the vertical tunnel was a vertical climb up the grooves dug out in the rock face! I would have done it in a heart beat, if I was on belay. But I wasn’t so I just sat there, appreciated the view, I promised myself to not be so dumb in the future. Hahaha.

At the valley, I so happily bounded on those trails, popping in and out. And it wasn’t so hot. : ) I talked to different travelers and found an Indian couple that was going to Aksaray at the end of the day, which is where I wanted to go. Mr. Creep was going to be disappointed I wouldn’t be accepting his offer for free lodging and food that night. So all together we went and picked my bag up from the pension. And he charged me the normal rate; the harrassment apparently was at no extra charge...

So in Aksaray I stopped in the same Pide Solonu for some food and that family was delighted to see their Turkish speaking American! Then I did some errands and filthy from my hike, I swung into the historical Turkish hamam to get clean! I had the lady scrub me til my skin all came off. She was supposed to give me a massage too but later said it was too hot. Bummer. All for less than 4 dollars. Too bad I wanted that massage! Then I stopped to buy an Ayran, a watery yogurt drink, but the guy didn’t have change so he gave it to me! And then I found an internet place that let me use 5 minutes...for free! (The other place tried to give me a tourist rate...) And I find that for all the creeps, there are probably more kind and generous people out there! That is refreshing.

In this town I found the women in the street especially closed. I always try to ask women instead of men for help, and here they wouldn’t even look at me. Its like they would run away scared. I don’t know what to think about that.

I raced back and caught my bus to the Big Bus Station where I waited, exhausted, to depart for an overnight bus to Antalya. I had asked for a window seat so I could sleep. Turns out that me and the French couple Id met earlier got the last seats and mine was by a man. So they had to move me. Unmarried men and women can’t sit next to each other on the bus! But I refused until they found me another window seat...and this one happened to be in the front of the bus...

Arrived in Antalya early in the morning and left an hour later for Fethiye. The scenery was gorgeous! Pine mountains...up and down...and from there I caught a small bus to The End of the Road! Called Kabak. I didn’t realize it was THAT remote! Hahaha. In my blue jeans and pack I had to walk myself about a mile into the valley, sweating the whole way in the middle of the afternoon that my jeans were sticking to me! I stayed at the cheapest place I could find--in a TENT--close to the beach!! and every night we had a campfire, and I could play the guitar underneath the big moon! This place was filled with Turkish Youth--not one single foreigner--and I really enjoyed talking to some of them! Plus, don’t you wish you were me, I bobbed for hours in the Mediterranean Sea...up and down...no effort needed because of all the salt! Swam out to a cave hiked up the valley to see the Rare Jersey Butterfly...only found here! And then hiked out again to stay at George House at the crest of this huge Chasm called Butterfly Valley. Yea for me! I resisted the temptation to hike into this beautiful place--people HAVE died trying to do it. And enjoyed the moon rise with a couple from Spain...

Now I’m in Selçuk and will tour Efes tomorrow...my vacation is almost over...

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July 13, 2005

#61)  Message from Turkey #2

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July 9, 2005

#60)  Istanbul!

Gunaydin!

That's Turkish for Good Morning!  (I guess the literal Cara translation is DayMoon came) I'm having to relearn everything and its really funny, this difference between Turkish Turkish and Azerbaijani Turkish!  A lot of the time I can communicate, but there is LOTS of room for  negotiation. and many times, people don't understand me.  If they are patient, we can figure things out.  For example, last night I was in this bar listening to live music in an AMAZING town called Safronbolu with a guy I met named Mehemet and he was calling the Gavali (plum) erik (apricot!), We both had a good laugh.  Other differences I've discovered is -happiness goes from you- instead of the azeri way of saying -happiness comes to me-  There are also a couple of basic verbs that have different meanings.  Azeris say "basha dusherum" for I understand, but it literally is like saying it falls on my head.  Here they say anlayerum.  Turkish people laugh hysterically if I use it.  I could go on all day because I find it very amusing, and so is there Accent!  but I'm not going to because you want to hear about other things!

Like Istanbul!  Its an amazing city, with a feeling somewhat like Seattle because you can take ferry boats all around the Bosphorous-one minute you can be on the European side and a few minutes later you can be in Asia.  I went to a lot of the big historical sites:  Aya Sofia, the Blue Mosque, Suleyman Mosque, the New Mosque, and Topkapi Palace and got the tour of the Harem.  I tried to go to the other Palace, but it was closed "for a holiday" but I don't know which one.  I went walking and felt just like a local sitting on the Asian side watching the sun go down over the palaces and mosques, chomping on sunflower seeds.  But they are really efficient and rhythmic about it, it comes from much practice.  I'm rather sloppy and clumsy about it, getting little slivers of shell in my mouth.  Sometimes I pretend to be like them, and can crunch them like a machine, but then I end up not actually eating the seed.  But I feel cool.  Ha.  They don't know the difference. 

So impressions of all the historical sites?  Well, first of all, they are packed with tourists and cameras...so I blend in well in that way.  Ha.  Aside from that, they are amazing.  Just knowing they are so old, and they are absolutely beautiful.  My favorite mosque was actually a smaller one off the beaten path Mehemet Pasha somebody full of blue tiles.  There were little boys studying in the courtyard, he said he studies about 6 hours a day with a little rest in there.

I also went up the old castle to watch the sunset over the Bosphorous.  : )

One of my favorite things, though, has been Speaking Spanish!  Well, trying to speak Spanish and getting completely jumbled about!  I met 2 gals from Spain and we hung out.  They were pretty patient to hear me code switching between Russian, Azeri, Spanish, English and now a few words of Turkish!  At first I couldn't find any Spanish words in my brain.  But I could understand Everything they were saying.  The more I listened to them and began to talk, the more I could.  But I discovered that there are certain words that are Really strong in each language that come to mind first.  I just laughed in bewilderment at the jumble of words that come to mind, and when they pop there and how!  That my sentences now tend to follow an Azeri/Russian grammar structure with the verbs somewhere near the end.  And the short phrases, 1 word responses are the strongest:  Yox (no) Ha (yes) sonra (later) all Azeri.  In Russian fsyo (that's all).  Those just come out of my mouth with no effort or thought.  Then sometimes I can't find words at all...its like I'm digging somewhere in my brain trying to find words that are buried and dusty and hidden...even if I just used it the day before.  Its so fascinating, language!

So, back to Safronbolu.  I took the day bus out--really comfortable and Luxurious compared to my usual transportation.  I love the journey, you know?  Just watching the scenery go by.  I was surprised at the hills, trees, greenery, the grassy meadows with bright purple and yellow wildflowers under a blue sky!  Ah!  I talked to some little Turkish boys who made fun of the server, called him an idiot and gave him bunny ears when he wasn't looking because he was shamelessly flirting with me and asking for my phone number, etc.  Good thing I was wearing my Stealth Ring--this time I was married and my husband was in Istanbul working--at the Architectural conference they are having.  Hahaha.  Also talked to a Japanese tourist and read his Excellent tour book.  It was all in Japanese and Turkish and Pictures so I gleaned a lot of information.  I see how Lonely Planet leaves much to be desired in a Travel Guide...they could learn a thing or two from these books.  My theory is that most people don't speak Japanese, so they need a LOT more visual cues and hard information.  Pictures and the names of all the meals, shopping items, hotels, etc. 

Safronbolu is listed as a UNESCO world heritage site.  It's absolutely amazing with the old traditional buildings. mostly from Ottoman times. It is a favorite Turkish Tourist spot.  There are a good number of East Asians here, but hardly from anywhere else...  The town is built up and around three canyons with rivers at the bottom.  Old mosques, carvansaray, cobbled streets, old houses converted to pensiones.  Would you believe my Water Closet!  It is literally a toilet and faucet in a cupboard/closet with tile.  You step into it and can close yourself in the cupboard!  I laughed.  And the people are genuinely friendly.  I sat in a cafe last night eating Monti--like Azeri xingal, a pasta covered in fat and garlic yogurt and mint.  Yum.  And talked to some local people.  Then we all moved to the shop across the way and talked some more.  I really like the feeling of this town, I could live here.  Friendly people, modern and historic parts of the city, in a setting somewhere like western Montana.  You know how much I love Montana!

More later.  : )

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May 31, 2005

#59)

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May 6, 2005

#58)  

Training #2 I attended PDM, project design management workshop, with my counterpart, Durdana, in Baku. It was two days of meetings, where we had a chance to go step by step through project ideas, making a budget, planning, etc. They did a great job setting it up, but it wasn’t so helpful for us. By the end of the workshop, my counterpart said our job was to now “go back and think of a smart project” which we should have created by the end of the workshop. Whoops. I think generally, she doesn’t have the same time and motivation she used to. “Without money, how can I have any desire?” she has said numerous times. Our work is on a voluntary basis, and generally speaking, volunteerism is a concept that is “developing” in Azerbaijan, like everything else.

Training #1 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan Here I was able to learn the FLEX curriculum to teach the students that are going to be going to the states for 9 month of studying. We will be drilling into their heads such things as “not bad, not good, just different”, “use your toolbox” (a list of strategies which includes such things as, “use your communicative nature,” knowing and following the rules, to solve problems, etc”) and “wear your TOPHAT” (which stands for Talk, Obey, Participate, Help, Appreciation, Trust). Seeing what we have to teach the students based on years of students going t o the states is a window into our own culture. Of course, for boys the gender roles can be difficult as many of the American families expect them to wash their own laundry. For both sexes, it is often difficult to deal with alone time/privacy issues and independence as people spend time doing their own thing and students are often expected and asked what their plans are as well as doing things like getting their own breakfasts and making a sack lunch. One thing that really surprised me was the emphasis on church! Since many of the students end up placed in small-town America, often in the Bible Belt, church is a large part of many of their host families lives. So, they try and prepare students for this fact. They sa y that the aim is not to convert them, but rather point out that church is more than religion, it is often a social center. Many of the students praise their church experiences because it is often the first place they find friends—most time their best friends—and also it is a good place to fulfill their volunteer requirements. Xalida, one of my Azeri teaching counterparts told some funny stories about her time in the states. She lived in a small town, and one time went out with her friends. After passing the same cafe 3x, she finally asked, "Where are we going?" They all laughed at her...they were cruising! My roomate was killer Kathy, a cool lady who is married to the deputy so and so (second in command) at the embassy in Tajikistan. I enjoyed talking to her. And we had a dance...FUN! The weather was very changable! The day before we arrived it was 85Degrees, then it was cool and rainy, th en it snowed, than it snowed and stuck, then it melted and was beautiful! The venue was "the pyramids" out at the Chorvag Resort, 45 mins outside of Tashkent. Right on a reseviour, near some mountains. Beautiful. Spring time, trees were blooming and the countryside was green! Then read the story about Samarkand!  (below in red)

Waste Contour: You know I have a cell phone.  (Ask my parents for the number if you want to call me). : ) In this phone is an address book, with lots of phone numbers of work contacts, friends in the regions and Baku, staff, my security officer, medical doctors, etc.  All the information I need.  I always know who is calling me, and that’s pretty cool. (Except from outside the country, then it just says “anonymous”)  There is also a new entry that’s very special because it makes laugh every time it appears.  For a short time there I was annoyed as this obnoxious Azeri guy would call--he refused tell me who he was! (I don’t give my number out to strangers or people I don’t want to talk to.) Who was this guy?  I didn’t want to talk to him, so I just didn’t answer the phone.  Except this guy is extremely persistent and kept calling and calling and calling.  And you know, I can always tell if an Azeri person is calling me because they let it ring at least 20 times before they hang up! On one hand, its great.  I can finish my shower, dry off, get dressed, and still not miss the phone call.  Ha!  On the other hand,  I get tired of hearing the ring.  Still he kept calling.  I explained the situation to my students one day, who still, by the way, think I don’t speak Azeri, and Leyla volunteered to talk if he called.  And I wasn’t disappointed.  I told her to talk as long as she could and get as much information as she could. The guy still refused to say who he was, but that he was looking for his girlfriend, Gunel.  Leyla said there’s no Gunel.  Don’t call this number anymore.  He said he’d keep calling until he could talk to Gunel.  Leyla said we were going to change the number.  She kept him on the phone for almost 5 minutes!  Then I thought, why should I have to change my phone number since this guy keeps calling me.  So now I have a new game.  It is called “Waste Contour.”  We have to buy pre-paid phone cards that register the time in contours.  Contours are seconds that you can talk and are very expensive.  I usually pay 50,000 AZM for 2500 contours.  That’s about 20 manat per second, which is 1200 manat a minute which is equivalent to over 20 cents a minute, for a local call!  (A text message is 11 contours, about 5 cents). Just for comparison, with 1000 manat, I can buy 2 ice cream cones, 4 wads of greens, print one 4x6 picture, or buy a liter of fresh yogurt or milk.  Nothing speaks to an Azeri like money, which is what inspired my new game.  So now, instead of getting annoyed whenever my friend, “Waste Contour” calls, I simply laugh, pick up my phone and let him talk as long as he wants to no one.  He keeps calling.  Sucker.

Some recipes:

Dill Pasta (my own creation, I think):

Ingredients: Dill, Pasta, Yogurt, Garlic

Cook pasta, drain.  Dump in a bunch of diced garlic and a wad of washed and chopped dill.  Add yogurt.  Stir.  Good hot or cold.

Chigurtma:

Basically, anything and a little egg scrambled in.

Fry chicken in butter.  Add beaten egg.

Fry greens in butter.  Add beaten egg.

Fry fresh tomatoes in butter.  Add beaten egg.

These are the most popular, and of course, –contrary to popular belief–it is possible to prepare without butter, and it is still tasty.

Shuba Salad:

Boil the following veggies whole in water: potato, beet, carrot, egg.  Peel and dice.  Layer ingredients on a dish with layers of mayo and salt in between as you like.  (Optional fish from a can layer) Potato, beet, carrot, chopped dill/cilantro.  Garnish the top with green and then chopped up egg.  If you separate the egg white from the yolk you can get fancy.  Alternative, use white yogurt instead of mayo.

Beet salad:

Boil beets, peel, and mince.  Crush walnuts.  Mince garlic.  Mix together.

Stalinchny salad:

Boil potato and carrot, peel and dice.  Dice cooked meat (optional).  Dump in a can of peas.  Add lots of mayo.  Stir.

Table salad:

Wash and slice tomatoes and cucumbers.  Put on plate.  Serve at every meal.  To make it fancy, add purple basil, green onions, cilantro, tarragon, or dill. Serve with a little dish of salt for dipping.

My lunch today: I enjoyed my lunch so much today, I thought I’d tell you about it!  It started off at 9:40 when I noticed that my favorite yogurt lady came into the yard.  I grabbed my 1500 AZM, my 1 liter jar and ran out the door, arriving just in time to get 1 of the 2 liters that were left.  Success!  Then I went to the bazaar and bought fresh greens down from the winter price of almost 1000 AZM to 250 AZM a wad: mint, dill, and cilantro–the lady set up outside the bazaar on a blanket threw in two wads of something else and called it an even 1000 AZM.  (When I got home I discovered that the extras were spicy ones I that don’t like very much, so they are still sitting on the table!)  Then on to the next lady, just arrived from the village with fresh farm eggs.  I bought 5 for 2000 AZM.  I also went to one of the bread stands and found new, squishy bread, still warm.  This wasn’t a round loaf, but a longer, boat shaped one that he folded in half stuffed in plastic for 1000 AZM.  I went home, washed and chopped up my greens, put them in the pan.  Then I beat three of the dark yellow, almost-orange-yolked eggs with Nido (milk power) and water and poured it over my panful of greens, sprinkled on a little salt.  As it cooked and I got my fresh yogurt out of my temporary refrigerator, a plastic bucket with cool water.  Egg/greens mixture, one of my favorite meals here, in a bowl with thick, white yogurt, and oh-so-soft-bread.  Yum! I have left-overs for dinner... : )

Hiking: I’m celebrating the fact that I was completely irresponsible this weekend.  I ditched the 2^nd annual AzETA National Conference in Baku and went hiking!  I’m still waiting for the guilt to catch up with me.  It hasn’t. : )  Last Spring, I missed all the good hiking weather because I was working?  I don’t know but I didn’t get out and then it got HOT! Not this year! Went to Ismaily and Amy and I bought food and scouted out our route from a nearby park.  We set out early in the morning and taxied to the nearest village at the base of the mountain.  We crossed the little river and began our first hill.  Wasn’t too long and we were thick in brambles.  Oh!  It was slow going!  But then we cut deeper into the forest, up and around to the ridge.  It was there we found a trail!  Horray!  It took us through a field of “Bahar” Spring flowers that smelled sweet like honeysuckle.  Later, as we climbed, we went through trees that still hadn’t leaved out yet.  We made it past the tree-line, still climbing, and, at the top, tired and out of shape, we danced around excitedly as we looked over the “other side of the mountain” and saw the Caucusus, still snow capped, not too far  in the distance.  The top of the mountain was grassy, with patches of snow still on the ground, and carpeted with the very first flowers of spring: different varieties of crocus bulbs, yellow, blue/white, and purple.  We sat down to our feast of the most delicious fresh and mild local cheese I’ve had in Azerbaijan yet, (in Mingtown they sell saltier cheese in large tins from Barda), granola we’d made the night before, hard-boiled eggs, bread, and beef jerky and power bars from home.  Yum!

Lamb tracks:   I’m still not used to the lambs.  Yesterday, on the way home from hiking trip #2 to Ismaily, I got caught in a huge traffic jam.  Of lambs.  It was by far the largest herd of sheep I’ve seen yet, and it was also notable because it was also the biggest traffic jam I’ve been in outside of Baku.  The lambs flooded the road in moving streaming romping drops of white.  Watching out the cracked windshield of the Lada taxi (did you know that nothing on the Lada has changed for over 20 years?  That’s why everyone knows how to fix them and they have spare parts all the time!) the driver skillfully (?) navigated his way to the far left side of the road because the other cars–coming the opposite direction-- had decided to drive on “our” side of the road.  Lambs following the butt of the lamb in front kept darting in front of cars in a desperate attempt to not get lost or left behind.  They filled up any available spaces between cars.  They ran around cars as they kept trying to make progress forward.  For the lambs, it was a frenzy of panic as they bleated and cried, car horns honking.  I got the feeling I had entered an automatic car wash, but instead of water, lamb blobs covered us on every flank as we crept forward an inch at a time.  (I used to think, hey... I still think ... automatic car washes are super cool!)  The jam occurred between Goychay and Mingachevir, and consisted of a bottleneck of about 500 lambs, a large truck with a canvas canopy, 3 ladas, another car, 5 shepherds on foot, 1 shepherd on horse, and 4 snarling dogs. We were out of it in 4 minutes.

More lamb tales: Driving home from Baku a few weeks ago.  Ok, fine, I don’t drive.  Riding and bouncing in the marshrutka a couple of weeks ago, I started counting.  We kept driving past herd after herd, and I thought, do people realize just how many lambs are in Azerbaijan?  This is right after I got back from Uzbekistan and I didn’t see any herds on our journey to or from Samarkand.  I had commented on that to my traveling companions, and we all surmised that the country is bigger in area, and therefore the lambs have more space to spread out.  I don’t know if I buy that.  But the contrast was remarkable.  The hills had begun to turn a beautiful green in my absence, but the lamb tracks still crossed all over the hills.  Do you know what these look like?  Imagine like you are hiking on a fairly steep mountain, so you can’t go straight up.  (Well, you could, but why would you want to unless you are crazy like me or Amy hiking up the mountain in Ismaily?) Instead the trail crosses the mountainside horizontally. Much more comfortable.  A good trail is about11 inches wide so people walk single file and cause the least amount of environmental damage, and there is only one trail for everyone.  Ok...now take that trail and make about 20 of them spanning up the hillside, about 2 feet apart.  And there you have your lamb tracks.  All over the country, whether you see lambs or not, you see lamb tracks.  Mostly the lambs graze in grassy land, without trees, so they are easy to spot from the road.  So, back to my counting game.  On this trip back between Baku and Mingachevir, I saw about 25 + herds of sheep (most of them had quite a few goats mixed in) and 15 + herd steer. I think that’s a lot of dolma and kebab.

Cricket in class: I haven’t laughed so hard in class for a really long time.  Mostly, I tell stories, act and dramatize things out the best I can so my students will understand yet the latest adventure (usually mishap) of my life in Azerbaijan and my students reward me for my efforts by laughing hysterically. They genuinely laugh so hard that I feel truly funny for the first time in my life!  And it eggs me on to keep dragging out the story, because they are still laughing!  But this time, it was my turn to laugh.  I had given my students internet research to do based on our unit on sports and games: draughts, steeple chase, sailing, diving, archery, slalom, and cricket.  These are all in the unit, the students are supposed to know what they are–but the book never explains anything!  Most of them had a fair amount of success, since I found a good web address for each of them and they had to get the information and tell it to the class.  Then Nurana came up and told us about cricket and it went something like this, “There are two teams.  One of them is out and one is in.  And the team that is in that is in goes out and the team that is out goes in.  And then they go out and they go in.” And at this point, I can’t tell if she is trying to be funny or is serious.  “What happens next?” Then she went on, “And then the team that is out...” And at this point the class is laughing out loud and so am I.  “Out/In!  Is that all they do?” Tural cries out.  “Nurana, please, continue.”  I say.  “And then they go in.”  And we all laugh.  To my amazement, through everyone’s laughter, even her own, she continued telling us about out and in not once, not twice, but a few more times!  Tears trickled down my face, and I told her thank you and invited the whole class to spend a little more time researching cricket to find out what happens after they go out and in.  We laughed again.  And we still do as inevitably out and in/in out comes up!

Tashkent and Samarkand: So a very fun part of this training in Uzbekistan was racing out to Samarkand!  After our sessions ended on Friday, we all piled up in mini-vans to head back to Tashkent.  And there the adventure began.  We had ordered a taxi to pick us up at the hotel at 6:30pm.  We arrived at 5:45 and I was so very hungry!  I had to get something to eat before we headed out.  Luckily, right around the corner, according to a volunteer from Kurgystan who had visited the year before, there was a delicious “Hot Pizza” right around the corner.  To the right.  Great!  What about a bank?  None of us had any national currency, the Uzbek Sum (“soom”).  No banks nearby, probably closed at this hour anyways.  What about the hotel?  Yes, the desk was swamped with about 30 people trying to check into their rooms.  Lucky for us, Grahm from Uzbekistan, had a very large wad of Sum. $48 worth.  We gave him $50 bucks for it and were out the door.  I left my bag in his safe keeping, but my companions didn’t.  Dan with a pack, Shane, literally rolling his suitcase down the street (the sidewalk was dirt so he couldn’t go there!) And Xalida’s suitcase was little and I just carried it.  Hungry and on a mission–I had tunnel vision for that pizza...we didn’t have much time.  To the end of the road and right, just following our directions, we went...and didn’t find Hot Pizza.  Nor anywhere else to buy a substantial dinner.  So we turned around, carrying and rolling our suitcases through downtown Tashkent.  I was getting nervous we’d run out of time and I wouldn’t get to eat... But there it was, at the end of the first road to the left (not the right).  We ordered, figuring if we ran out of time, we could eat it in the taxi.  Xalida and I went back to the hotel to get my pack, say goodbyes, and meet the taxi–he was already there waiting!  We picked up the boys and our two pizzas and we were on our way!  (The best pizza ever, I think!  I was just hungry...you know how Everything tastes wonderful if you are hungry enough!) At one point we had to turn around and go the long way because the road was closed.  Turns out it was a road through Kazakhstan!  We were at the border!  At 11:30 after much car conversation and exhausted from the day, we arrived and found places in a little hotel.  After making arrangements to wake up at sunrise–I can’t believe they agreed, we only had one morning in Samarkand, after all-- I crashed onto the bed...so quiet, so tired after a long day, it was a recipe made for a good sleep.  But there was this bright light coming in the window from the courtyard of the hotel.  I’m so tired, I can fall asleep anyways, I thought.  I laid there, acutely aware of the bright light.  “What is that smell?” Xalida says.  “An air freshener.”  “It’s strong!”  She said.  “There must be some other really bad smell they are trying to cover up!” I told her.  She laughed.  I tried to sleep again.  But that light!  All of a sudden I heard the boys’ door open, a click, and it was a wonderful, welcomed darkness.  “Ay, Sagol!” I gushed just like an Azeri.  Xalida busted up laughing and didn’t stop for five minutes.  We had spoken almost all English all the time, so it shocked her a bit when instead of simply saying “thank you,” I switched over to her language.  I fell asleep.  The next morning, without an alarm clock, I was the first one awake...just as the sun was coming up.  Here goes nothing, I thought.  I knocked on the boys’ door to see if they were serious.  Five minutes later, dressed and ready to hit the town, Shane joined me in the breakfast room/office.  But we were locked in.  So much for that!  We poked around a bit and peered through the window. “Here he comes!  Get out from behind the desk!” He unlocked the door, came in, and we went outside.  We made it to the sidewalk, and just gawked at the sight towering in front of us!  The Bibi Xanim mosque, built in the late 1300's early 1400's.  Tall, and tiles with amazing and colorful designs.  We watched Daewoo after Daewoo drive up and drop people off, preparing to open the bazaar.  I checked out the womens’ wear: colorful long skirts, what looked like pajama pants hanging out the bottom, colorful scarves and colorful plain blouses that didn’t even have to match anything, and flat shoes!  More products getting carted and dropped off, people carrying large bags of produce.  Dan made it out. We wandered around for a bit, waiting for a colorful sun to rise and light up the sky.  A little cold and hungry, feeling guilty for letting Xalida sleep, we went back to the hotel to get her and breakfast.  Yummy bread!  Turns out there are over 20 varieties of nan with individual patterns and names!  Having missed the sunrise, but full, we went back for a more thorough look at the bazaar.  Huge bags of the biggest sunflower seeds I’ve ever seen!  Rows of aromatic fresh greens–the same ones as in Azerbaijan.  A gigantic cast iron skillet/pot, a good 4 feet in diameter? With kilos of the beginnings of Uzbek plov–rice, oil, and carrots.  Winter vegetables.  Women cleaning potatoes by shaking them side to side (woman to women) in a bag that was like a net.  Spices: saffron and cardamom.  A whole section just for sweets.  Very similar to Azland. We couldn’t buy anything; we looked around for a place to change money; we had given the taxi driver the rest of our national currency.  So we continued walking and taking pictures along the main road towards the Registrar.  We passed a bank, but they were closed.  It was, after all, a Saturday. And we saw the intimidating buildings of the Registrar, spread across the horizon, gleaming turquoise, as if it were a sea of tiles.  The original buildings around the square  were ordered built by Tamarlan in the early 1400's.  He brought in the best artisans and workers to work on it.  They served as madrassah, hospice for dervishes, canverseri, mosque, bathhouse, military parades, and executions.  Later, in the early to mid 1600's, first the Shir Dor (lion bearing) Madrassah was built and then the Tillya Kari (gilded) Madrassah.  A medrassah is an Islamic religious school.  There is kufic calligraphy and gulkh patterns worked in. (I’m not really that smart, I just read a travel guide).  They say that the animals on the building are “lions” or at least they closest they could come to them because nobody had actually seen a lion or a picture of a lion!  They look like tigers.  Here we managed to use our American dollars–thank goodness Dan had some small bills! We bought our entrance into the complex and also, at the same time, since it was still early in the morning, we were able to pay a bribe for an “unofficial” (but really, they are so common) tour up one of the minarets.  I’m glad I only saw after climbing it that it leaned significantly to the left!  In and around, and up–some 55 steep steps we climbed.  We took turns popping our heads out the roof, and I sang out the call to prayer at the top of my lungs, as if I were a mollah or something.  OK, I really didn’t sing, but I did say a prayer.  And I imagined having to climb those steps five times a day and was glad to do it just once!  From out the top of the minaret, I could see the Registrar, the Bibi Xanim mosque, Tashkent Kuchesi (street) that we had just walked up, and the layout of the town.  Pretty cool!  We went down and spent time poking our heads in the used-to-be-student-rooms-now-turned-commercial shops selling silk, tea sets, national clothing (robes, hats, slippers), random tourist junk, and hand painted ceramic plates (not unlike my beloved Mexican Talvera). Again, still no money so we just looked!  We did find some money changers here–almost 1 to 1–we’d heard the exchange rate was 2 to 1!  Thieves that capitalize on people like us who didn’t have our act together enough to have already exchanged our money.  Dan blew $70 in about 20 minutes.  I took pictures of things I liked...they are easier to carry home that way!  I had a $50 bill and worthless traveler’s checks!  I bought 2 traditional hats, a red one with fancy sequins, and a traditional fold-up hat!  It’s like cardboard with material and swirly decorations (appliques)  glued on.  Actually, since I hate shopping, and Dan is so good at it, I sat in the sun enjoying the atmosphere while he found and bought it for me.  I love having personal shoppers.  As long as they get what I want.  It looked good, but  I opened it up and was disgusted. “Ew Gross!  It reeks!  Was he wearing this?  You let him sell you one that someone has worn?!”  It smelled worse than an outhouse, worse than a wet goat, worse than b.o. on a marshrutka in the middle of the sweaty summer...combined.  We checked the rest of the hats, they all smelled hideous.  Turns out it was some kind of (toxic?) Russian glue.  Let me know if you want to borrow it. : ) We headed off towards Tamerlan’s Tomb down the road, but never made it.  We got distracted by some food vendors.  Rounds of hot, fresh bread beautifully patterned with little black seeds like flowers in wheelbarrows, around 50 skewers of raw kebab-ready and waiting for the lunch rush?, huge skillets of greasy “buttery” plov, and monties–meat/onion/rice dumplings.  Like dolma but wrapped in dough instead of grape leaves or stuffed in vegetables.  And we had tea.  Then we walked back down Tashkent kuchesi to the hotel to meet the taxi.  The hotel staff accepted our payment in dollars and told us that the taxi was going to be late, and offered to call his relative to take us to catch our flight.  We accepted, squished again into these cars that never seem big enough, and enjoyed the ride back.  In general, Uzbekistan was beautiful and green!  The trees were blooming.  And there simply wasn’t a bunch of garbage decorating the land and bushes along the road.  Oh! And the road was nice and smooth.  We went straight to the airport, and I don’t know how, but somehow we had Sum left over.  So we got some snacks and looked at the tourist stuff.  You know how usually things are more expensive in the airport?  Well it turns out that these were much more reasonable that at the Registrar!  So I got a pair of slippers for a gift.  We had to waste the money anyways, right?  I actually had been feeling pretty lousy most of the afternoon, and for the first time ever, actually barfed on the airplane. And that’s how my trip to Uzbekistan ended.  Then we landed at Heydar Aliyev International Airport in Baku, Azerbaijan and, well, I was back in Baku, Azerbaijan...for better and worse.  I realized that I hadn’t seen one picture in Uzbekistan of a National Revered Leader or any billboards of pictures or quotes by said National Revered Leader or any buildings, airports, parks, palaces, streets, or shops named after said National Revered Leader. (Granted I wasn’t looking for them, but really, adoration of National Revered Leader is not something that needs to be hunted out!)  Shane tried to help us make the transition back and began our famous phrase from the training, “Not good....”  “Not bad...” we all replied. We expected him to say “just different” as we were taught.  But just for the occasion, he said,  “Just !^%$*# up” instead.  We all laughed.  We were happy to have made it safely, along with all our bags, and our driver was waiting for us. :)

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March 28, 2005

#57)  Easter and more: 

I spent it in Baku.  It was good.  I went in for a follow up on my stomach on Friday so that Peace Corps would have to pay for my bus/train transportation and a little money for food.  Good planning on my part!  And then I stayed...it was an H and H weekend.  Haircuts and Hamam .  Keri and I went to the hamam in the Old City.  It makes me laugh because every time I go its like the first time and I have to re-remember the rules.  Or learn new ones.  But the women are kind, mostly speak Russian, and treat me as if I was one of their daughters, offering tingling pepper-minty face scrubs and rub salt in my skin in the sauna, and other tips to the foreigner that doesn't know.  They scold me for being so dumb when I wash my hair before going in the sauna.  Larissa gets someone to translate into Azeri that I need greasy hair for the sauna to keep it from "burning."  I also don't have a snow ha t for the sauna.  Stupid me.  I saw the women with snow hats in their before and thought it deeply ironic as everyone here is afraid of being Cold and Getting A Cold.  But in a super hot roasting sauna, I though you'd be free from this worry.  But now, I learned  that it, too, is a strategy to protect hair from "burning."  I just play along, amused at this life I lead.  And we all sweat and scrub and laugh and splash...regenerating. 

Saturday I did the Race, but only 3 K this time since I hadn't been running but once in three months and even then my knee hurt a little.  Dr. said to start smaller and work up.  Plus she'll get me a knee support.  I ran pretty slow--16 minutes!  I used to do a mile (which is longer! in 8 mins in high school...ha!)  Regardless--I STILL came in First.  Hahahahaha.  Then i got my haircut.  YUCK!  You know I love mullets on Other people--not on ME!  I tell you, they gave me a major mullet and I made them cut off the bottom.  The layers are too short. I don't like it, but so far the Azeri's are very in love with it.  Then I went carpet shopping with Kelly and helped them pack a bit because they will find a new place soon.  The more carpets I see, the more I think I might need to find one for me!  They are amazing and when I learn the regional differences, materials, patterns, dyes, etc, it becomes eve n more fascinating.  So far, my favorite carpet patterns and colors are not from Azerbaijan, but Turkmeinestan.  I bought new glasses frames and went to the market.  It is a big going-away weekend.  I'm learning that most social events in the ex-pat world are going away parties!  People are constantly coming and going.  The plus side is that it is really easy to meet people and circles are fluid...unlike back home where the groups feel established and you are either out or in and there is no question which one you are.  The sad part is, if you manage to make a good friend, its not for very long.  So, we said good-bye to two of our office staff--Steve and his family and Alice.  Steve (our Program Manager) has been here since The Beginning and I've really appreciated working with him--I'll miss him!  I know he always had tons of work to do, but whenever I was in the office or would call, he always had the time to answer a question, hear a story, or make some jokes.  Alice (our lead accountant/finance officer) always made sure we had our money.  I enjoyed sharing meals with her in Baku...and swapping books!  (OK, she would always read them first and then pass them onto me...)  With strong support like theirs, it made my life at post easier.  I will miss them greatly...wish them well in their new endeavors (poor Steve has to go to Fiji)...and get ready for all the upcoming changes in the office.  Our Director, Bill, will also be leaving in May. I appreciate his educating us about the politics and history of the region and keeping us informed of potential security issues....not to mention they have all been very hospitable for us...and inviting us into their homes for a meal every now and then.  : )  OK...then the Randalls are moving to England and Laura is moving to Pakistan....

Church on Sunday was full of praise music, as we celebrated Easter!  Yea!  Then we went out to lunch with friends, stopped at the bank, the office and headed out on the bus.  (the end is always a blur because its a rush to get out of the city and home before dark.)  The Marshrukta ride was uneventful except for two things:  one, a woman vomited in her child's snow hat and then we had to stop the bus on the side of the road for a bit.  This area seems to have an unusually large number of people that get car-sick.  Then I saw an amazing act of kindness.  There was this old grandma that was sitting in the bus waiting to go and when they tried to collect money she had none to pay.  The bus driver yelled at her to get out of the car.  She promised to pay him later, he was adamant...I guess she's done this to him before.  (Or other people like her).  She said she was sick, she had no money, she had to go home.  But he was firm.  Get out.  Crying now she stood outside the door.  And completely unexpectedly, a woman volunteered to pay her passage.  A total stranger.  She had nothing to gain.  The old lady did nothing to deserve it.  And I watched in awe.  Grace, I thought.  An Easter Blessing...  And for You, friend, I pray you experience Grace today and a Peace that is like no other.

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March 12, 2005:  NOTE FROM 3/28:  This happened in February... its old news & nothing more has happened.  Not to worry.   

#56)  Security: Well, you are all well aware that there are certain people in this world that are charged with making sure the rest of us are “safe” and that this certain position sometimes enables a person to do things that other people might not be able to do.  In this part of the world, there used to be a certain agency with three special letters.  The organization still exists, but it takes on a different name and is now officially part of governments all over  this part of the world.

Shortly after I got back from my vacation in January, I moved yet again and shortly after that, my counterpart, Durdana informed me that my our local Supervisor had called her asking for my phone number.  I’d already given it to him and to her credit, Durdana is very good about not passing out my phone number to other people without my permission.  He said he Needed to know my Exact Address, which she didn’t know.  Instead she gave him my landlord’s telephone number, since she is acquainted with his wife, Fazila.  Kind of strange, I thought.   I completely forgot about the incident.

You know how much joy changing the lock on my door gave me!  Yes!  I have the only key, I thought!  But shortly thereafter, I came home from teaching one afternoon and the metal covering on the upper lock had been moved.  Strange, I thought.  Someone has been messing with my door.  I went in and got busy doing what I do...

Later that day, sitting on one of my armchairs talking on the phone–enjoying my newly cleaned house-I noticed something black on the rug.  Hmm.  What’s that?  I picked up a little sunflower seed.  Kind of strange, I thought.  I rarely eat sunflower seeds and haven’t bought them in months.  Where’d this come from?  Later I found another lone sunflower seed on the floor in what had been my clean bedroom.

 Then I went to get money out of my hiding place to pay my tutor.  It was the end of the month, so I was getting lower on cash.  I pulled out the one remaining 50,000 note. Kind of strange, I thought.  The last time I got in here there were 4 left.  And I raced out the door to my tutoring lesson.

That night, deep in sleep I woke up with a fright.  Kind of strange thing #1 + Kind of strange thing #2 + Kind of strange thing #3 = Something Really Strange.  My mind raced against the possibilities.  I have the Only keys to my house.  I checked.  The three remaining keys were still in their spot.  No one can climb in from the balcony.  How could anyone get in?  I had friends over the day before.  Maybe they had dropped the sunflower seeds.  I call them first thing in the morning.  I racked my brain trying to remember if/what I had spent the rest of that money on.  Since moving in alone, I’d begun tracking my spending.  I’d written down almost every item I’d bought over the past month.  There was a discrepancy–I should have more money left.  Not to mention the fact that I’m not careless with my money and I’ve learned to keep track due to those unfortunate circumstances from the past...

I couldn’t sleep and dreamt the following dream: I was living in a barn.  A really nice, clean barn with a solid metal doors and a wrought iron roof.  I was comfortable and safe living there plus it had recently been remodeled.  When all of a sudden someone began banging on my door.  I tried to ignore it but they kept pounding.  “You must leave Right Now!” They meant business.  But so did I!  With fists clenched I angrily declared, “I’M NOT GOING ANYWHERE!”  At that moment the sturdy roof slid wide open and simultaneously people began pouring in from the sky, the windows and through the front door.  I spun in circles as from every corner they grabbed my belongings and hauled everything out the front door faster than I could comprehend.  “Where am I going Now?” I asked, helpless.  (OK, I guess it was really more of an exasperated whine.  When I was little I was a notorious whiner.)

First thing in the morning I called my friends.  “No, Cara.  We didn’t have any sunflower seeds.”  “Is there any chance it fell out of your pocket?  Or you purse.”  “No, Cara.”  Then I called our Safety and Security guy, Emil.  “If I locked myself out, how would we get me back in?”  He didn’t know.  I went on to explain how Kind of strange thing #1 + Kind of strange thing #2 + Kind of strange thing #3 = Something Really Strange.  We agreed  it was completely illogical that someone could get in.  I’m not a thief, I don’t think like a thief.  I couldn’t explain why they didn’t take anything else!  Other than maybe they were going to come back later.

I asked my neighbor, “Say, I was expecting someone yesterday.  Did you notice anyone stop by?”  “Well, I heard someone knocking.”  “About what time...morning, afternoon, or evening?” “Afternoon.”   “Do you know about what time?” She said, “Maybe 3pm?”  I’m at the Institute Monday-Friday at that time.  “Did you happen to see who it was?”  “No, I was washing my laundry and didn’t look.”

I went to Baku for my VAC meeting.  This meeting was really interesting for me.  Recently, one of our volunteers had been accused of being a spy from a nearby country.  I didn’t think it was that big of a deal; I’d been accused of the exact same thing a year prior.  The only difference was this time, the accusation had consequences for other people.  You see, she had hung up a map of the country that had different ethnic groups listed in the parts of the regions where they live.  Remember there are over 20 different ethnic groups around: Tartar, Lezgie, etc.  This particular map, printed elsewhere, had written the neighboring country’s people in the disputed part of the country that has been bitterly fought over and is currently under possession by these other people.  A very unfortunate situation.  This started a chain reaction as those charged with protecting the population rang the alarm bell to their counterparts around the country and Peace Corps Volunteers began to be closely watched and checked up on...among other things.

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February 23, 2005

#55)  Yesterday, February 23, 2005 was a momentous day here in Azerbaijan for me.  Why?  It is the first day I’ve bought meat.  I remember living in Siyazan, being absolutely horrified at the meat cutters. Right along the side of the road they would kill the animal, cut off its head, hang it to drip the blood out, hack it up with a hatchet on a tree stump, and then display the product on meat hooks hanging in the sun.  When a customer came, they would weigh it, put it in a plastic bag, and pocket the money–all with bare hands!  In the hot afternoon sun, the flies would buzz around, and on a windy day, dust would blow everywhere.

But yesterday, my Russian homework was to cook the famous meal of borscht.  (Did you know I’m learning Russian, too?)  I went to the market to buy the ingredients: beet root, potato, onion, carrot, greens (fresh dill and cilantro) and cabbage.  I practiced my basic Russian, “kartoshka skolka stoit?”  And now it seems most of the market people are reluctant to speak Russian with me, whereas before, when I wanted to practice my Azeri, they all assumed I was Russian!  I think the truth is that they speak such a mix of Russian and Azeri that neither language is very strong.  I had yogurt at home–I had already bought a jar the day before from the woman who comes in from the village and sells it in the yard about every 3^rd day.  Then I went to the meat cutter recommended by my teacher over by the post office.  She said to arrive in the morning, anywhere after 9 o’clock.  Only on Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday do they sell cow meat, yes, also known to us as beef.  Hehe, sometimes I forget how to speak English!  I arrived around 9:15 and there was quite a crowd.  I thought maybe they would sell out.  I watched them haul a freshly skinned lamb carcass into the hut.  For whatever reason, all the men were standing together by the side door.  I stood by the women and watched them hack away at the meat.  1 kilo for her, 1 kilo for her.  All the women had the exact change.  Beef costs 17,000 manat a kilo.  Lamb costs 15,000 manat (about $3) a kilo.  (And my favorite cheese here, Gouda–the cheapest and often only kind of cheese they sell that will melt–is now 25,000 a kilo!)  The funny thing for me is that it doesn’t matter the quality of your meat: full of bones, full of fat, lean meat–it’s all exactly the same price!  Fat is so important here, and many people love to make bozbosh soup (it uses bony meat) that, in Baku, fatty meat is more expensive than lean meat!  And I’m simply not a meat fan to begin with, so as I waited my turn--I noticed they were for the most part taking turns for a change–I almost fled.  The smell, the blood, it was almost overwhelming.  But I thought if I’m going to buy meat, it’s better to buy it when I know it’s fresh and in the winter when it’s cold out–especially since I don’t have a refrigerator in my new place.  I asked for ½ kilo of meat with little fat.  He gave me one little bone, too, put the bright red wad in a plastic bag, gave me change, and I went home.

Cooking borsht.  Just in case you are interested, this is how you do it according to my tutor:

1) Boil your meat in water with salt, pepper, and a bay leaf.

2) Peel and cut into small pieces a few carrots, 1 ½ beets, 3 onions and boil them in the water you just cooked your meat in–but first set the meat aside and clean the scum from the top.  

3) Add 2 or 3 chopped potatoes, the meat, the greens, shredded cabbage and sarikurk (the bright yellow spice, I can’t remember what we call it!–the cheaper version of saffron...you know!) Or tomatoes.

4) Serve with yogurt, mayonnaise, or sour cream on top.

Then enjoy for this Russian delicacy for 2 days for breakfast, lunch and dinner because you live alone and it’s simply too much food!  I gave my tutor a teapot-ful to try, to see if I did it right.  And today might try to give more away.  But the problem?  I don’t have enough dishes! [*My tutor said the flavor of my borscht was good, but the meat was tough!  I was supposed to use the bony and fatty meat and I used too much beet.]

My new place: I moved out of the “old” place and into my new place a week ago today.  I’m now living in my old hood, in the building across the yard from my old host family and language tutor, and in the building next door to Patrick and Libby, the other volunteers in town.  And I really like this place! What are my favorite things?

1) It’s clean!  It’s simple!  It’s not cluttered!  And there aren’t 8 gazillion dusty old mattresses.

2) It’s comfortable!

3) The sunlight! (But I’m afraid during the summer this means it’ll be REALLY hot!)

4) The shadows of laundry blowing in the breeze.

5) There is no gold anywhere!

6) I know for certain I have the only keys! (Very satisfying to buy and change the lock myself!)

7) It has a phone–my own line!

8) A separate room for my bed and clothes.

9) It’s in my old neighborhood.

10) It has a metal door and is safe!

It is officially a 1 room flat, but they have remodeled it.  Come with me on the tour!  We’ll begin in the balcony which they have closed off  with windows and turned it into the kitchen.  It has a sink, stove, a few storage shelves and a food prep table.  Through one door into what used to be the kitchen is now a bedroom painted pastel green and pink.  It has a bed and cardboard boxes I have collected and transformed into my dresser.  The bathroom has a tub, toilet (I’m now the proud owner of a newly purchased toilet seat!), a gas water heater, and nice ceramic tile on the floor.  It is really nice compared to all the other rental bathrooms I saw!  The entry way has been painted pastel purple and green and has a three-way mirror and a coat hanger.  The main room is pink and has 2 comfortable arm chairs, a sofa, a nice table for studying/eating, a coffee table,  a thin rug and sheer curtains. I love the window sills–I can store and proudly display all my Azeri gifts.  From there you can walk through another door back into the kitchen.  The whole layout makes it possible for me to run around in circles trying to stay warm. : ) But the weather has been surprisingly pleasant.  Notice: I have no refrigerator.  If I don’t get kicked out before summer, I’ll have to find a way to solve this problem...or just go shopping every day.  And I transformed the other bed they refused to take away into a picture display that is against the wall.  The mattress is hiding behind the couch.

Since moving in...I don’t even want to leave!  I find that I love the alone time so much!  I spend hours “playing house!”  Cooking and cleaning should not be this much fun!  One of my favorite things to do is hang laundry on my line! [Remember, I haven’t been able to cook or clean for over a year...] I also am studying Russian, studying for grad school (I’m working on earning my ESL endorsement while I’m here), playing guitar, writing, organizing etc.  I just can’t get enough of it!  I leave the house to go to the bazaar, to teach, to do computer work, for tutoring, and to visit people.  Moving 2x during the winter is definitely a way to make it pass faster!  I’ll recommend that strategy to future volunteers.

This place is not without its problems.  The generous owners–Ramiz and Fazila–proudly gave me not 1, but 2 forks, 2 spoons, 2 bowls, etc–in case I had a guest.  Yes, but what if Libby AND Patrick came over?  They had to repair the laundry line.  It was quite an ordeal that took three family members over 6 hours for 2 days–I missed class twice–at the end of all their hard work I said, “I’d love to give you tea, but I’m afraid I can’t as I only have 2 glasses.”  Haha.  I now have Four glasses and Three bowls.  My heater is made of three ceramic bars with wire wrapped around it in front of a shiny reflector–one of them works.  And then there were people banging on my door.  I don’t answer the door for strangers.  I listened as he talked to the neighbor about an old electricity debt that hadn’t been paid.  The next day when I returned home, I didn’t have power.  That’s not unusual.  But a few hours later I noticed everyone else had power and I still didn’t.  I met the neighbors and discovered my line had been cut.  I called Ramiz and explained everything.  “Talk louder!  I can’t hear you on this phone!”  I said to him.  The old phone they gave me has a handset that rattles like a baby toy.  I’m not an expert, but I think that might be part of the reason it doesn’t work very well and I can’t hear.  My language teacher has let me borrow an extra phone of hers and Samira, her daughter, did the wiring herself.  That evening Ramiz sent his son Tural over with a friend of the family.  Everyone here is an “expert” in electrical wiring.  They redid the wiring in the hall themselves and I have power again.

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February 15, 2005

#54) Hello Friends! I believe the last time I wrote you was during Christmas.  Here’s what’s been going on since–in chronological order:

1) My host brother stole my money.  Imagine walking in your room from such a wonderful Christmas in Baku to see you suitcase open and your money stolen!  (But not all of it, just some of it, so that maybe you won’t know exactly how much is missing). And unfortunately, it’s not the first time, and this time it wasn’t even my money, but project money from AzETA.  Personal conflict can be difficult in normal situations, but what was especially difficult for me this time was actually having to accuse someone.  I’ve always been taught that you don’t accuse someone unless you are 100% certain and you can prove it.  There is always that little nagging doubt–the one that says HOW and WHEN DID HE DO IT?  Since the last time it occurred, I had  taken precautionary measures so that it wouldn’t/couldn’t happen again.  Or so I thought.  I always lock my door when I leave the house and I lock my money up in my suitcase whenever I’m not at home.  So I couldn’t prove it, let alone explain it.  My mind doesn’t work like a thief.  I could only speculate.  And it said either they kept a key to my room (but the suitcase?) Or he did it while I was home.  The nerve.  Did he admit to taking the money?  No.  He completely denied it.  I realized those are skills I still need to learn: How to deal with dishonesty and lack of integrity, among other things.  I’m learning the hard way that this culture is not Guilt based like I’m accustomed to.  It is Shame-based.  Which means that if you lie or steal or kill someone, its not actually wrong unless you get caught.  That is completely different than our guilt-based culture in which we know what is considered “right” and “wrong” and at least for me, when I do them, the guilt nags at me and makes me feel so horrible and miserable that I just don’t do them!  And when we do... are expected to self-reflect, confess, and ask for forgiveness.  Or maybe just because I was raised Lutheran, I know my sin is always before me...which is why I need the forgiveness of One with that power. But no, because even in the elementary schools students must identify what the problem was, why it was wrong, and what they need to do to reconcile the situation. I wanted the kid to learn a lesson from natural consequences.  Would turning him into the police do that?  No.  It only means that his family would have to pay off a big bribe.  Did I tell everyone that he stole my money so that he would be shamed by the whole community?  No, I didn’t do that either.  Because I know that he would be scorned by everyone for stealing from a “guest.”  Which would only make him more of a delinquent.  Instead, I talked to him and told him I had to move out and it was his fault that I had to move out.  I told the rest of the community that I was moving out because of my host brother.  I saved the family name, I said I loved the rest of the family and that they were wonderful.  I didn’t say what he did, only that I didn’t trust the host brother anymore and I can’t live with out trust.  So, despite all the problems, the relationships were salvaged and I still visit and the host mother’s face lights up whenever I do and the 3 year old runs around screaming with delight.  I still feel betrayed.

2) The struggle to decide: to live alone or to find a new family?  I know I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it is really strange and unusual here for people to live alone.  They just don’t do it.  But just in case you are counting, current host family was number three.  And it is hard work to get used to a new family and let them get used to you.  Remember I lived alone in the states for years after school in my own house.  Ok.  So about 2 ½, and I really enjoyed it!  One of the main reasons for me to stay with a family was because it was safer.  But after this situation, I really began to question that!  It certainly turned out to not be secure.  I began looking for a new place–family or not, just a good situation.  I met one older lady who wanted to bring me in like one of the family.  That meant we’d be sharing the same bed.  No thanks.  I met another young family that was so excited to have their own Private English Teacher right in the same house!  “What is your name?”  The kid said to me. Too bad, because the room was really bright and clean.   I just want o be able to relax when I come home.  I met another lady who shuffled around slowly, said she’s an old lady and basically never leaves the house.  It had that nursing home smell.  No, I don’t have the strength or the patience or the faith or the trust or the desire to break-in a new family.  I decided I just couldn’t deal with anybody but myself and this blasted winter cold.

3) The struggle to find a new apartment?  So we began looking at places for just me.  How does one look for housing in Mingachevir?  You talk to a lot of people!  My counterpart Durdana spent a lot of time on the phone.  “Listen...do you know of any available apartments for rent? Furnished and finished. Yes, it’s a working person.  A really good person.  A clean person.  It’s a single woman.  Until December.  OK, find out.  I’ll call you later.”  A working person is key.  It means they can actually pay rent.  There are so many people in this country that don’t have work right now. And then we walked the streets.  We asked shop keepers.  We asked bread makers.  We asked a few acquaintances she saw walking by.  We asked people staring out apartment windows.  OK.  She did all the asking.  I just stood there and pretended to not know what was going on, like the apartment wasn’t for me.  Patrick, Libby, and I went to a real estate office, because they do exist.  And we saw the Perfect Apartment.  Clean, on the third floor, lots of windows, not too cold, safe, close to my old neighborhood and the people I know.  It happens to be the same apartment to one Durdana hunted down for $60.  But then they wanted $80 and because I’m a foreigner, they refuse to lower the price–but they want me.  You see, there is a belief here that foreigners will take better care of the apartment.  Foreigners will pay more.  Foreigners will not vacate the apartment and steal everything when they go.  I can afford $50 on what Peace Corps will give me.  So we kept looking.  We found three places, and I knew which one I wanted, so we called Emil, Safety and Security at Peace Corps.  He came out with the “checklist.”  It goes a little something like this:

Mandatory requirements: In community; safe neighborhood; reasonable distance to work site; above first floor but not on the uppermost floor; glass doors and windows on balconies must have metal bars; solid entry door with good locks; at a minimum must have stove/hotplate, refrigerator, sink with a drain, small table; bathhouse; separate rooms for living and sleeping (if living with a family); water supply available; and toilet facilities. 

Highly recommended: neighborhood reasonably well lit; neighbors close enough to hear shouting in case you need assistance; doors that provide access from outside have secure locking mechanisms; front door has a peephole; access to working land-line phone; bed with a mattress, table with two chairs, a desk, a bookshelf, couch/easy chair; effective and reliable heating provided; electricity available on a predictable/reliable basis; screens on windows. In addition to this, Emil always asks about the neighbors.  How are they?  Any drug addicts nearby?

It is so very easy to rule out a house with a list like this!!  (Not to mention for simply personal taste!) The first flat didn’t have the gas connected–wasn’t ready to move in plus the bathroom was falling apart.  The second house wasn’t secure enough.  It was on the 2^nd floor, without metal bars and the land lady refused to put them on, and Emil pointed out the route someone could use to easily climb up and break in.  That’s why they pay him the big bucks.  Not to mention that it didn’t at that moment have ANY furniture because they had just finished remodeling so it was clean.  And it had No Refrigerator, either, and although it is not a current problem because refrigerators actually insulate things From the Cold, and she said she would put one in, I couldn’t move in until it had one. [You don’t trust people here to do what they say they will do]. And most of the houses we look at don’t have refrigerators. Then the third house we looked at was a one room flat, 3^rd floor.  No security problems.  She said she would move in a bookcase and clean it.  It didn’t have a telephone and that is a problem.  It costs $100 to install a phone, and the land lady wouldn’t compromise.

Out of the three, Emil chose the small one bedroom on the third floor in the cinder block building without a telephone and without security problems with really nice neighbors.  (The daughter works with one of my site mates).  The building retains heat better in the winter but let’s pray there’s not an earthquake!  He talked her down from 250,000 AZM to 230,000AZM--two whole shirvans.  But during the negotiating process she said to him, “Hey!  You are one of Us!  Why aren’t you helping ME?”  I can understand that she might think that, but to say it in my presence shocked me.  I should be used to Stuff Like That now, so I just looked at her and simply said, “I Understand Everything.”  She was a bit surprised, but not even a tad bit embarrassed or ashamed.  So I was predisposed to not like this woman Shirin Xala, Sweet Auntie, from the get-go and faithful Emil explained that he’s well-paid to be in my side.

4) Medical Problems and the AzerAmbulance in Mingachevir.  During this whole stressful ordeal, my stomach decided to revolt.  Groan!  I had the worst stomach pain; medical staff was certain I had an ulcer.  The climax was one night around 12 in the morning the pain was so severe I became nauseous and began to vomit.  But not just any vomit.  It was so forceful it came out my nose!  EW!  (OK maybe that is too much information.)  I called medical again and they decided to bring me in for testing.  It was 1 in the morning and I begged.  Isn’t there something that I can do HERE?  All their previous suggestions had failed miserably:  eating bread, putting heat water on the painful spot (sorry, no boiling water “after gas” hours, but a friend had sent some of those pocket one-time heaters!  Small Luxuries!)  taking some antacids.  Nothing had worked.  So she called the in-town doctor and made the arrangements.  I carried the phone into my host families’ sleeping room and woke them up.  “Here...(I’m sobbing as I hand them my cell phone)...talk.”  Yep, that got their attention and they were scared.  “Why didn’t you wake us up before?”  “What is the matter?”  “Oh!  It’s because you drank too much cold juice.”  “It’s because you left the house with wet hair.”  “It’s because you drank cold water.”  “It’s because its too cold outside.”  “It’s because it’s been too windy.”  The speculations went on and on.  And I thought, that is EXACTLY why I didn’t wake you up. 

The ambulance arrived and these two men, blurs of white lab coats, white medical hats, and big mustaches came into my room, surprised to find a foreigner.  They were confused.  And before they could treat me, they had to understand everything.  My host family  filled them in on my life history:  why I was in Mingachevir, what I do, where do I work, where was my family, why I wasn’t married yet, and what I was doing living with them.  All the while,  I laid on the bed groaning in pain and trying to find a less painful position.  Just give me the shot!  Do something!  But, there were more preliminaries to come.  They wanted me to lie on my back and touch my stomach!  Get away from me!  I’m in pain!  He thought I didn’t understand the directions because I wasn’t cooperating.  “I can’t do it!”  He’d already received his instructions: give her a shot and get out.  Finally preliminaries over: belly feel, temperature, blood pressure, I rolled over.  An injection in the left cheek.  And he wasn’t finished; he began to inject the right cheek.  “No!  Just one!  Irina said just one!”  Yikes.  It turned out it was the same shot, simply half of it in one cheek and half in the other.  They packed up and left, only after collecting a bribe from my host father, I found out later.  My host parents sat on the bed and talked to me.  They were scared and now were feeling a bit relieved.  Do I need anything?  Do I want anything?  “I watched.  They used clean needles and a new vial.  I kept everything so you can show your doctors in Baku,” my host mom said.  The drugs began to take effect, dozing off, and in the blur, I realized they really do care about me.  And the next day I realized my thieving 15 year old host brother had missed all the excitement.  He was in Baku, missing school, getting treated to $60 dinners by his aunt visiting from Russia.  Do you think that’s a parental response  for stealing my money and turning my world upside-down?

I packed up and bounced my way to Baku for a Barrie Emil.  So cool!  I had to drink this milky chalk-like substance and then could see it go through my body thanks to Xray technology.  Did you know that an empty stomach looks like a skinny little tube?  Only when it has food or liquid in it does it bloat up and look like that round thing in all the anatomy diagrams I’ve ever seen in books and school.  Swallow, Swallow.  Bark!  Snap.  Swallow, swallow.   Bark!  Snap.  Me swallowing the chalk, the technician giving me commands in Russian I didn’t understand, and then her taking snapping the xrays of my belly.  I found out afterwards she was telling me to stay still (don’t breathe, etc.)  while she took the xrays.  Good to know.  After the fact.  Two pictures later, I saw that I had no deep ulcer.  But a high percentage of ulcers are not detected by this procedure.  My theory was that I had a very shallow but vast ulcer...that covered a large surface area...

I bounced on the marshrutka back home–or at least to Mingachevir–packed my bags and got ready to move.  I forked over the money, convinced her to give me Both of the Keys, and we began to clean my new apartment that already should have been cleaned but wasn’t.  We worked for a whole day and later that night.  We being me and two extremely kind and faithful friends that I’ve been blessed to know that live in Baku. Then it happened again.  I called medical services and we had to call the ambulance again, but instead of waiting until the pain got so bad I was vomiting, we called earlier at 11 PM instead of 2AM.   This time they put a turnicate on my arm.  Really, really, really tight.  So tight, I immediately began swearing in English.  That is unusual because when I’m with Azeris and I speak Azeri and even when I’m the most frustrated and angry I still speak in Azeri, even though it is the most deteriorated, ugly, gibberish version of my Azeri I have.  And afterward I wonder...why didn’t I just say what I wanted to say in English?!  But it never occurs to me in-the-moment.  I saw them pull the needle out–the turniquet was so tight I didn’t feel them stick it in!  They let loose the turniquet and Whoosh!  I could literally feel the drugs course through my body.  I got a shiver and began to tremble.  It was a rush and I understood how people can get addicted to drugs!  The pain subsided, I got sleepy and went to bed.  (Host brother, again, missed all the excitement as he hadn’t yet returned from Baku.)  The next morning,  I went to Baku again. This time for an endoscopy.  I was disappointed I didn’t get to see anything but vomit.  They squirted my throat with anesthesia, but missed, so the back of my tongue went numb instead.  They stuck this tube down my throat.  You’ve seen those long, thin metal grabbers with wire pinchers at the end?  We used to play “garbage man” with them...so you didn’t have to actually bend down to pick things up.  Anyways, this one had a little lens on the end, like a big eye with a light that was going to allow them to see the inside of my stomach.  Bark, bark.  ram.  Bark.  Bark.  Ram, ram.  I could feel it inching its way down my throat.  My gag  reflex kicked in and my face was laying in vomit.  It was on the beautiful paper towel they had placed my head on, but in vomit, nonetheless.  Bark, Bark.  Ram, ram.   Bark, bark.  Ram, ram.  It’s her, again barking commands at me in Russian. Breathe out! Breathe in!  And then she would push it in farther.  I never thought the distance from my mouth to my stomach was so long, about as far away as the planet Pluto.  I tried to pretend I was anywhere but There.  I had to concentrate on breathing.  I squeezed Irina’s hand and closed my eyes.  I could do this.  Life was reduced to a bare minimum.  All I have to do right now is breathe in and breathe out.  It was all I was capable of...and I doubted my ability to even do that right, as my body continued to protest this foreign tube.  More noises and she scraped out two little sections of my stomach lining.  ( So the inside of this tube is hollow and they can actually get samples!) At long last, we went through the process, but in reverse and I was finally free of the tube.  The results?  No ulcer.  That was good, but disappointing.  All that pain, it should have been Serious!  However my stomach was Very Red and Very Swollen with a VERY thick lining of mucus and Very Irritated–trying to heal itself.  All in all, a Very Sick stomach.  So I was put on a very special diet, I am still on that diet,  my “baby food” diet.  Soft, bland, mostly white.  No fat. (Remember how Azeri people love fat?)  Nothing acidy. (Do you know that the vegetable of winter is “pickled” everything?  Tomatoes, cabbage, tomatoes, cabbage, garlic.  Plus the seasonal fruits are these delicious mandarins?)  All food I can’t eat now.  Nothing hard.  The Azeri diet and chronic stress had really taken its toll. 

And then I realized maybe it was a blessing that my host brother stole my money, that I had to find a new place, that I had decided to live alone.  Because now, for the first time in 15 months, I would have some Control!  I could decide what to eat, when to eat, and how and with what, to fix it.  And that is a small miracle.

5) My apartment is such a dump it takes 3 days to clean

“Sweet Auntie” had said she would clean the apartment.  What she meant was that she would tidy it up.  I just happened to have some friends in town from Baku during all of this.  Kelly and Tiffany wanted to do home stays to improve their Azeri language.  I had set it up.  And boy was I glad they were here...this week of all weeks as I came and went from Baku.  And then had to move.  It took the three of us 2 whole days of cleaning.  There were cob webs and dust and grime and filth EVERYWHERE!  We started at the top and worked our way down.  Nobody had really lived here for 2 ½ years.  We found moldy tea in the teapot.  Stale, blue, I-think-it’s-bread in the cupboard. Her stack of guesting mats were filthy.  We hung them off the balcony and shook off the dirt, try to get some air.  We took the rugs off the wall and swept off the cobwebs beneath them.  We used gallons of bleach and washed every wall, every door, every shelf.  I spent two days simply scrubbing Every Thing in the kitchen.  And I still didn’t get to the inside of the refrigerator or the oven.  We didn’t get to the bathroom.

6) I move in, sort of.

Finally, we dumped my stuff in the middle of the room and quickly caught a bus to Baku for my endoscopy.  And I have to add here that the first day cleaning, the kitchen sink hose broke.  The first day cleaning the bathroom, the toilet water hose broke.  And then my electricity stopped working.  And when “Sweet Auntie” came by to fix it later, she just about had a heart attack because we had rearranged the furniture and broke the cultural rules and put her pile of Filthy Guesting Mattresses Under the bed.  On the floor.  On plastic, but still on the floor.  Which is unacceptable.  Mattresses can’t go on the floor. [Then how do people ever sleep on them?  Suspended in mid air?]  But the truth is that it is tradition.  Everyone is required to have these mattresses, but they really aren’t allowed to use them.  They are part of the wedding dowry.  So we quarreled.  Apparently, the Azeri way to rent an apartment–at least her way--is to collect the money and pretend like you still live there.  She wanted everything to stay exactly the same.  She had even tried to keep a key so she could come over at will.  “When I rented to the other foreign man I came here almost every day and he didn’t have a problem with it.”  Durdana came over and next thing you know I’m sobbing and blubbering and I just can’t keep it in.  All I want to do is be able to live freely.  I want to come home and be comfortable.  I can deal with all the outside stresses if I have a Refuge and a Sanctuary.  My home must be my own.  But not in this case.  So Durdana came back and we had to stack all the mattresses On The Bed.   And I would have been like the Princess and the Pea sleeping on a bed that is as high as my nose, except that they are so old and dirty that the slightest jostling and Poof!  A pile of dust blows across the room.  Achoo!  So I sleep on the couch.  And shh!  Don’t tell Sweet Auntie I’ve wrapped her mattresses in plastic even though she told me I couldn’t.  And I’m not exaggerating.  Even Durdana, an Azeri, asked for a hat, borrowed one of my shirts and spit in the bathtub not once but twice from the filth coming from these guesting mats.  “We’ll look for a new place for you, Cara.”

7) I start shopping and cooking for myself, and all of a sudden, after 15 months, I feel like an adult again!  And it feels good.  Now, I’m on a special diet, so I buy things like white rice, white potatoes, white bread, etc.  Everything I eat is boiled, and cooled because I’m not allowed to eat anything hot or anything cold.  I can’t eat fat, acidy food, caffeine, chocolate, or tea.  So I don’t even bother to go guesting anywhere.  What a rude guest if I can’t be force fed.  I can’t even drink hot water.  So I stay home and glory in the permission I have to hibernate and finally rest.  I decide my new goal is to become a Champion Sleeper.  I must get better.  But then life and reality hits and I am filling out applications for scholarships and to apply for programs and I’m still working.  But I’m supposed to be resting.  And it’s cold–although this room is much warmer than my old one–and without a heater!  I think I’ll stay here for the winter because I prefer filth to cold.  I realize if I’m going to heal and relax and get better, I need to leave.

8) I need a break!  I go to EGYPT!

I’d been asking around for a year, “If you had a vacation in January, where would you go and what would you do?”  And I took one of the suggestions.  I went to the Red Sea, to the tourist town of Sharm el Sheikh.  I went to Baku on a Tuesday morning, got all my papers signed, bought a ticket that afternoon, and flew out the next morning on Turan Air.  Would you believe that for the plane ticket, 11 days in Egypt, 10 nights at a 4 star hotel where I put my head on the pillow and don’t find myself asking “Am I going to get lice if I use this pillow?” PLUS breakfast and dinner every night...I only paid $517.14 USD.  If I would have shared my room with someone, it would have been less.  I went alone and I breathed deeply.  While there, I read this verse from Psalms 55, “Oh, that I had the wings of a dove!  I would fly away and be at rest–I would flee far away and stay in the desert; I would hurry to my place of shelter, far from the tempest and storm.”  So although many people think of the desert as dry, barren and lifeless, it was a fountain of life for me!  The first day I made it as far as out my door to the pool.  I sat there and read.  The next day I made it to the beach.  I laid there in my swimming suit and read and snorkeled.  I considered it ambitious to get up and find a bathroom!  The next day I laid at the beach and read and snorkeled.  I met these 4 Norwegian gals on the plane over.  They live in Ganja, a 5 month cultural experience for University–and it turned out that we were staying at the same hotel, Sharm Holiday, so we spent quite a bit of time together.   At 2am, our bus arrived and we were on our way to Cairo.  The bus went under the Suez Canal–a long white-tiled tunnel full of yellow lights.  We arrived in the morning and our first stop was the National Museum for two hours.  Then we had a short motorboat cruise on the Nile River (The guy lied, he said it was a felucca boat).  Then we ate lunch–I managed to find rice and chicken and bread in the buffet line while we looked and the Sphinx and the Pyramids at Giza.  We had 45 minutes by the big pyramids.  We had 15 minutes at the “panoramic” view.  We had 45 minutes at the Sphinx.  The whole time we were fending off sellers of all ages and men on camels trying to get us to go for a ride, take pictures, etc.  The white camels are smaller and faster–they are the “camel police” and it is their job to chase away the extra camels from anywhere but the “panoramic area.”  So I walked around and took pictures and didn’t “hear” any of the people selling stuff.  Then we loaded back up and went to two live info-mercials, one about perfume and one about papyrus paper paintings.  People bought stuff.  And we were back on the bus, under the Suez Canal, and at the hotel by 12AM.  My 22 hour tour of Cairo.  The impressions that will last?  This guy riding a bike through very congested streets with one hand holding the handlebar and the other hand holding the hugest tray of bread that was on his head.  Seeing King Tut’s royal possessions that he was buried with!  Thrones, ornate boxes, jewelry, and his FOUR gold nesting boxes that were built around his mummy.  I sent a postcard home saying that I have new ideas how I want to be buried!  The brick apartments outside the city center in all stages of completeness--partially built but people are living in them regardless.  They just finish as they have the money or desire, or they buy an unfinished flat and will finish it later when their son gets married and moves in, etc.  Of course the Pyramids are Big and Old, and the city is creeping in around them.  Its not difficult to stare at them in wonder and be amazed at the history and the construction of the things.

  Back in Sharm, I met more foreigners from Lithuania, France, England and Denmark.  Talked a little with the Azeris, my Norwegian friends.  I heard a lot of Italian, Russian, and other languages I couldn’t recognize.  I appreciated the amazing sight of topless women at the beach lounging on an adjacent chairs to Middle Eastern women dressed and wrapped up with only their eyes showing!  I reveled underwater where I didn’t have anyone caring where I was from or what they could get from me...I could simply *Be* in a Liquid Blue Quiet World.  Sigh.  Sleeping in fresh, clean sheets, a luxury!  Being WARM, a miracle!  The electricity working and hot water in the shower.  Watching the BBC every day, catching a few reruns of Seinfeld--laughing out loud because its actually funny, and a few movies.  Eating yummy food, desert bar every night even though I couldn’t eat the chocolate or the chocolate croissants from breakfast either.  I still found plenty to eat.  You should have seen the bread creations!  Two Eiffel Towers and a Pharonic head!

9) Tate Sebastian Vasquez was born!  February 2, 2005.  Welcome to the world little one!  I can’t wait to see you and hold you and don’t grow at all until I get home...please... : )  His brother Lance continues to grow and move and talk fast and non-stop from what I understand.  Now my older sister Gretchen and Roman will be extra busy as they parent Lancelot and TaterTot.

10) I return back to SNOW!

I couldn’t even come to Mingtown because the roads were too horrible.  I hung out with Kelly and Tiffany and caught up on Klon, my favorite show that ended while I was gone!  And just in case the suspense has been keeping you awake at night, Hadi and Lucas ended up together after all!  Now I have two extra hours each day in my life...

11) I return to Mingachevir on the train for the first time.  I almost missed it!  I rushed and found my seat in the 4^th wagon, sat down with my knees almost touching the guy facing me, and five minutes later we were off.  The good things about the train: you can spend most of the day in Baku because it doesn’t depart until 4:50pm.  It’s safer than a marshrutka.  You can ride it after dark.  You can go to the bathroom.  You can read comfortably.  The train rocks gently instead of bounces violently.  You can walk around.  And you can even drink tea, if your doctor lets you.  We arrived in Mingachevir at 11pm, it was snowing, and therefore, no taxis were working!  I met the other 2 people stranded at the station, and together we started walking toward town.  Me with my backpack (I’m so glad I can travel light!) And my brand spanking new Peace Corps issued SlumberJack sleeping bag!  Whoo-hoo.  After a bit we found a taxi, I went home, and crawled into bed exhausted.  The next day I  walked around the snow covered city, went to the bazar, tried to buy a heater but couldn’t find the one I wanted, washed my laundry, and stayed warm reading in my new sleeping bag.

12) I  receive the news that my landlady needs the apartment for her grandson that is getting married and I must move.  AGAIN!  Yes, I know you are reading this with keen interest so you say, “Well, you were going to move anyways!  Remember all the Princess and the Pea Mattresses?!”  How can I forget?  But this apartment is small, I like the light, and I prefer filth to super cold!  But the thing is, I was going to stay one more month.  So when I went to pay, I was informed I had 2 days to move out.  Ha!  And the search resumes. More of the same, except this time, Durdana is not helping as much.  You see, she has an empty apartment that she thinks I should live in.  And I might end up there.  But the pipe in the bathroom is broken and there is no refrigerator.  So you see the problems.  Plus it is in a part of town where neither the gas nor the electricity is very good.  So I have a few other people helping. And they volunteer the magic word, “Xarigi.”  I have grown to despise that word.  It means “foreigner.”  And the second people use it, it means special privileges.  Because I’m a xarigi, I’m given seats in the front of the bus, people lay out an extra special table when I come guesting, and I always get a special price.  The American discount.  At least double what normal people pay.  In someone’s attempt to help me, they said Foreigner, and then the person on the other side of the phone line began doing the math and thought that if they Kicked Out the person currently living in their apartment and then put a Foreigner in it, they would indeed profit.  I choose not to accept special privileges that cause injustice.  I wonder if after a few years, people here will begin to hate foreigners because of the reverse discrimination and injustices they have faced on their behalf. Hmm.  So, I’m currently looking for a new place to live.  And I just pray that God would let me land...Somewhere.  So far, I have found one apartment that has been empty for 7 years.  I thought this place was dirty.  And the land lord?  While looking at the apartment she growled, “WHAT ARE YOU TURNING THE WATER ON FOR!”  “WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO OPEN THAT DOOR!”  “WHY ARE YOU LOOKING OUT THE WINDOWS!” “WHY DO YOU NEED TO SEE THE KITCHEN!” And then she would kindly charge me only $100.  Another place is again, 2^nd floor with security problems and no refrigerator.  Plus there is already someone living there.  Durdana’s flat I already told you about.  The fourth place, I’m excited about.  Clean, freshly painted.  She was moving out her bride’s furniture and putting different furniture in.  3^rd floor, a metal front door, a telephone.  Everything I need.  BUT NO REFRIGERATOR.  And 20 shirvan ($40)  If we can’t find a refrigerator, Emil won’t approve it.  So I’m still looking and have no more leads.  Time to hit the shops again.

13) School begins.

14) My dad has emergency three hour back surgery.  If he didn’t, he could have been paralyzed.  He's all right, but has to sit around.

15) February 12^th passes.  My anniversary–I’ve been in Azerbaijan now for about 17 months and have 10 months to go.

16) February 14^th.  Know that I love you all.  I’m thinking about you today. : )

17)  Feb. 15-17:  GOOD news from the day:   IM GOING TO TASHKENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  (in Uzbekistan).  I got selected for the FLEX teacher program and will go in April!  Whoo-hoo!!!!!!!!!!!!  : )  : )  It is to prepare high school students (about 16 years old) who will study abroad for a school year.  This will be a motivation to continue with my Russian studies.

School is fun right now, i like our chapter.

 18) Feb. 18  I'm moved in...  I'm safe and in a place and hopefully I'll be able to stay there through the end of service.    

 19)  An old message - from Thanksgiving!  

Happy Thanksgiving!  Today is Turkey day back home…but here it feels just like any other day.  Except for the fact that this morning I wrote out a list of things I was thankful for and had my students do the same.  Today is also special…I busted out my Big Azeri coat again.  Its been cold; I’ve been cold.  I’ve been wearing an average of 5 shirts and a fleece plus two pairs of pants and two pairs of socks.  I have my mother’s blood, and its not enough.  Of course…its only November!  What will I do in January and February when its really cold????

Yesterday when I told myself it was a holiday…she asked what we eat?  I named a bunch of things…and she said, “Green Beans! I can make that!”  So I didn’t tell her it’s just a side dish.  I’m having Green Beans tonight for dinner.  Our director invited us to Baku for a big dinner this Saturday.  Yum…I’m licking my lips in anticipation!  
: )

Work is chugging along.  I’m happy to say that a few of my new students that were not speaking at all are now speaking a little!  One of my girls had her engagement party this week.  I’ll be surprised if she returns to school in January.  We recently finished a chapter on heath and sicknesses…I provided a lesson on HIV/AIDS which they were really interested in.  I wanted to do a lesson on health “beliefs” but just didn’t.  I’ve definitely lost my ability to have children as I’ve sat on way too many cold floors here…I get yelled at every time!  We now have a unit on London.

This week AzETA hosted a teacher training.  We didn’t forget to put our tablecloths out this time.  We had two American teachers out and managed to round up 33 participants for the first lesson…and different people for some of the others.  They taught lessons on Bloom’s Taxonomy, Writing Process, and Cooperative learning techniques.  We also had a panel, and common questions asked are: “Tell about American Wedding Party” “What is your opinion on George Bush and the war in Iraq” “What is your opinion on the conflict over Nagorno/Karabaugh”  “What is THE most famous childre n’s song…can you teach it?” “What is your holiday at the end of October like?”

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December 2004

#53)  Merry Christmas from Cara         :)

Dear Friends!

A little note to wish you a Merry Christmas!  How are you spending the holidays?

I came into Baku to spend time with my "family" of ex-pat friends.  Parties and visiting, talking, sharing, laughing.  Reading aloud children's' stories in Azeri and English. Singing Christmas songs in Azeri with local University students in a house that is "beautifully" decorated; the ceiling looks like icing a wedding cake. Eating delicious baked goods:  cinnamon rolls inflated like beach balls, pumpkin bread, cookies, pecan pie, cheesecake chocolate cake, gingerbread cookies, and even cranberry bread!  I think I did try at least one of everything!  I also had done a little baking.  Before I left Mingtown, I made cut-out-cookies for my host family and they were gone by the next morning!  I have a shape-cutting deficiency I discovered, so I stuck to candy canes and Christmas trees shaped like a triangle-with-a-rectangle stuck on the bottom.  Dumping out stockings and opening gifts; I got yarn and a crochet needle, a lesson today, and I can spend those long bus rides doing something productive!  Plus the most amazing thing: my very own  mug and slippers to leave at the house in Baku with the invitation that I know its my house, too.  Very comforting to my heart!  Isn't that sweet?  And an invitation to another ballet!  This time 1001 Arabian Nights.  I also enjoyed this one, however the dancing in Georgia was flawless and  I discovered that really exceptional ballerinas make everything look so easy!  The Azeri dancers made think that maybe it isn't quite so easy as they wobbled a little on lifts, didn't jump and stretch quite so high,  didn't extend quite all the way.  And there were a few moves by the men that reminded me of my step aerobics class and another move by the purple sheet people that reminded me of playing "airplane" on the playground as a child.  A ballet interpretation of belly dancing was also interesting and fun!  The live music with the booming tympani, the orange, blue, and yellow lights with a stage that just kept getting deeper were all magnificent as was the Theater of Opera and Ballet off of Fountain Square.  Love the gargoyles on the front of the building.  Very memorable...the opportunity to spend the holiday with so many different people, a mixture traditions from all over...celebrating...here  in Azland...

Today I'm going to church; I hope we sing a lot of traditional Christmas music!  And my crochet lesson is later today.  Yes, I've learned the basic stitch before, so I can make one really big long chain is what I used to do.  I called it a jump rope.  But if I want to make a scarf, I have to learn to return back the other way!  I have some work to do in the office Monday morning and then I'll catch the marshrutka back.  There is a toy waiting for me. My host mom has been talking about this wedding for weeks, planning all the details.  What she's going to wear.  Which skirt is better?  Which earrings?  What color to dye her hair?  She went to the gozellik salonu but that turned out too yellow. She did it again, and again--now it had lots of gray.  Then she did it yet again.  Every time she asks me how it looks?  And I think "do I care?"  "Does it matter?"  My idea of beauty and yours are so not the same!   I thought the "yellow" dye job was fine; she preferred the third "gray" version.   So now, around the 4th try, it has mostly browns, yellows, streaks of orange, a few dark brown mahogany, and light browns.  I think she's done.  And to think I might go straight from the bus to the toy palace without dressing in any chiffon, without applying cosmetics, without shining up my shoes, without primping in front of the mirror for hours and walking in like a cloud of scented perfume.  Shameful...

I pray wherever you spend the holidays, you enjoy the company you find yourself in and are surrounded with full love and a spirit of peace...that the new year is full of promise and hope...and for those of you so inclined to believe in God or a Savior, that He may richly bless you and reveal himself to you in many meaningful ways in the coming year, and continue to keep you in his loving care.

Peace be yours!  As my students always sign, "I kiss you!"         Cara

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December 15, 2004

#52)  A visit to our neighbor (Georgia):  

If you are one of those people that thinks all I do is travel around and have fun...then I've got another story for you!  Another work trip.  This time I had gone to Baku for a Peace Corps meeting–the one where all the volunteers complain to their elected representatives and then we present the problems and proposals to the staff.  This time we again talked about permission to leave sites on Friday and they finally granted us two times per school year to get personal business taken care of in Baku.  We also asked permission to leave site on Friday, Christmas Eve.  Denied.  We also asked permission to leave site Friday, New Year's Eve.  Granted.  I'm not the only one that is cold all winter–we are all cold!  So they are asking PC Washington to get us all extra warm sleeping bags since electrical sources of heat are unreliable and people that use indoor wood stoves have their carbon monoxide alarms going off in the middle of the night and kerosene stoves are available although the quality of kerosene is sometimes really dangerous and causes the stove to explode.  That is just a sample of the fun.  We also reviewed proposals for the 1% fund that I set up, people can get $60 towards a project.  This time we have two people building bookshelves and others providing teaching supplies for a service-learning-gardening-English club

At 9:30 Thursday, day-of-the-meeting morning, however, I received a call from one of our ELFs, Senior English Language Fellow that works through the Embassy.  There were two conferences happening in Tiblisi, Project Harmony's English Language Teaching Conference and Empowering Teacher Associations–the final result of the beginning drafts of a grant proposal Durdana and I had written over the summer!  And the participants from Lenkoran had dropped out.  Did I want to go?  Go past go collect $200...completely paid for!  I had my lovely VAC meeting...and the bus of participants had already left at 7am.  I didn't see how I could get a visa and make it in time.  I said no.  Then Amy reminded me about the night train!  So I texted on my cell phone, called Peace Corps to see if it was even a possibility, and began researching last minute visas.  I got my passport pictures and some money form the cash machine.  I prayed that the rumor was true, I heard visas for Georgia had gone from $70 to $10 for Americans.  I taxied it to the Inner City, Georgia's embassy is by the Maiden's Tower.  The consul was not in.  I had heard rumors that it's hard to catch him, and that they often lie about his return so I was skeptical when they said he would return in 15 minutes.  But he did and we filled out paper work, then I had to run to the bank again to pay 59,000 manat for the visa and run back to the embassy, racing the clock when I knew the consul would leave for lunch and our VAC committee was meeting to plan our strategy!  I again breezed past the carpet sellers and this time a demonstration and TV cameras out front by an old mosque they are planning to turn into a business and found the consul still in.  I sat at his desk while people came and went and he filled in the blanks on form after form.  What a boring job I thought.  So I decided to treat him like a person and asked him some questions about Georgia while I waited.  I admit, I was being my most patient, kind, friendly self I know how to be!  I wanted my visa.  He said OK, come back at 5pm and I'll have this ready for you.  My heart dropped.  He got interrupted again.  I didn't move.  He looked at me.  Do I have to do this now?  It was 15 to 1.  He was tired.  He had, after all, been sitting at his desk steadily pushing a pen around–pacing himself as if in a marathon-- since 11am.  Would you please?  And he did.  Questioning again why I was only going for 3 days, Georgia is beautiful, why don't I stay longer? He placed the sticker inside my passport, filled in no more than 8 blanks, pressed the stamp on.  Finished, he handed it to Fuad to make a photo copy.  We chit-chatted some more.  And he handed the passport back with a smile and his business card, and the long yellow rectangular teeth kindly invited me to dinner upon my return.   I thanked him for his kindness and left...

I raced to the 28th of May in a taxi to buy my train ticket.  One girl in a coupe for 4, $60,000 AZM with my own questions of who my cabin mates would be?  The train was scheduled to depart at 8:35pm.  I asked the woman what time I needed to board?  8:35pm.  Interesting.  I asked again and again I got the same responses.  She sighed and the tone and speed of her words changed.  But now she was angry that I could be so stupid as she wished I could speak Russian instead of Azeri, the language she was most comfortable communicating in.  Luckily for me, my phone rang at that moment, someone from the Peace Corps office checking up on my progress.  (They had made bets whether or not I'd be able to get my visa!) I explained my question and handed the phone over.  The answer came back 8:35pm.  Yes, I know that is when the train departs.  But what time do I need to come?  How early will they let me board the train?  Lucky that her English is better than the sales clerk's Azeri and we discovered I should be there an hour ahead of time.

Armed with my visa and a bus ticket, I triumphantly I took a bus to the office for our meetings.  I was going to Georgia!!!!

I tried really hard to be patient and helpful.  I tried to pretend like it was any other ordinary VAC meeting.  But its hard to think that telling staff for the 4th time that they should allow us Fridays off is important when they've already said no way 8 gazillion times and Georgia was calling my name.

I want to breeze through the train ride and arrive in Georgia...but its a large part of my experience--16 hours?  So, if you are like my dad and want the Reader's Digest Version, skip ahead to when I arrive in the country.  As I boarded the car, I showed the conductor my ticket.  Is there anybody already in my coupe?  I won't be with men; I only will share a room with women.  No worries, I'm the first one there, and we will have to change people around if men show up.  As I walk down the corridor I hear him tell his co-worker "she's like us!" because I know I'm supposed to ignore men.  I dump my backpack and plastic bag on the lower right bunk and inspect the coupe.  Red and black striped rug on the floor, 4 pillows, one with something that looks like black grease on it, 4 dark blue wool blankets which makes me think I need to prepare for a long cold night ahead, four sleeping pads covered in long pastel colored striped fabric, a little table between to two sets of bunks, a large window with a shade, two metal red "ladders" on the wall to climb up, and a sliding door with a lock.  I visit the neighbors...trying to build a community of friends, safety and security for the ride.  On the one side, a family with a little 1.5 year old named Aysel who bobbled around visited me the first few hours and cried for others.  On the other side another family with a young girl about 13.  I tell them all I'm alone and I don't want to room with men.   I ask the 13 year old if she wants to stay with me?  Her dad doesn't let her.  A longish-haired Georgian man named Sasha, on his way back from India, talks to me.  I get nervous because I'm still in Azerbaijan and we're speaking English and I don't want anyone thinking I'm making arrangements to prostitute myself out to him that night.  I walk the corridor again.  Still no one comes.  I stand in the doorway and talk to my neighbors in the corridor.  I sit on my bunk, my mind racing from a busy day.  Did I forget anything?  Too bad I don't have my camera!  I text message a few friends to tell them I'm leaving for Georgia.  By 9pm the train has departed.  The conductor brings sheets and tea for me.  I'm exhausted and the train is rocking.  I think I'll sleep well.  I finally close my door and lock it and lay in the dark, rocking.  And it gets hot and stuffy.  This is a different experience than the marshrutka.  I'm stretched out and comfortable, I'm not freezing, and instead of bumping along, it is a smooth ride.  Ahh. I have pangs of jealously of PC friends that regularly travel to Baku on the overnight train. I'm going to Georgia!  I can't sleep its so hot and stuffy.  I inspect the coupe again...isn't there any way to get some air?  The only way is to open the door.  Uncomfortably hot and safe, or comfortable and vulnerable?  I leave the door shut and think about the Jews during World War II, packed in train cars with vomit and urine, no food and uncomfortable.  The heat is not quite so oppressive anymore.  Around 3 in the morning–Ganja– they open my door, I suck in some cool air, and two women come in.  I lay back down in my hot stuffy coop, now listening to the sounds of two Azeri women.  All night long we slow down and speed up.  We stop constantly.  Once the morning comes they constantly ask to see my passport.  Finally this young fellow dressed  in camouflage asks to see my passport.  I think even the lowest ranking guards think they have the right to see my passport!  He grins and says, "Amerikanski!" absolutely delighted and pulls out his stamp it.  Guards also come and inspect my bags.  They inspect the coupe.  Again I think of World War II as they look inside the bench, and unscrew the panels in the wall looking for stowaways!  Two hours we spend with inspections.  But I'm going to Georgia!  Wait!  I'm IN Georgia!  And the conductor comes back.  He very unappropriately sits beside me in my coupe and talks.  Call it curiosity, call it harassment.  They always want to know if I'm married, have children.  He asked if I have a boyfriend.  Already uncomfortable, I'm completely shocked when he asks if I've ever slept with a man before.  The conversation ends.  I say I need to finish my letter.  I encourage him to leave.  Sasha comes back and sits beside me.  He gives me a stick of incense from India.  We get up and look out the window.  He says we're almost there and points out some sights and gives me his phone number in case I get into trouble and need some help.  He tells me a taxi should cost 5 lire.  I get off the train and walk past the confusion of buyers and sellers and blurs of bright yellow and orange bags of citrus, up the stairs, poking my nose around.  I find someone to change my money. $10 for about 17 lire, it is enough to get me to town.  The woman kindly closes her window and walks me out to get a taxi.  She doesn't speak Azeri or English, I don't speak Georgian, but we both know a little Russian. (And when I say a little, I mean there are some Russian words in Azeri and I've learned my numbers and colors plus a few conversation words!) Taxi language situation is the same.  And I'd already asked everyone on the train where I needed to go for the Primavera Palace and the Vera Hotel.  So with an unshaven old man at the wheel of a taxi with ripped seats, we speed off into the wiles of Tiblisi with Bob Dylan blasting on the radio!

Its only been a few minutes, but already I'm feeling free!  I devour this new scenery, the Georgian script that looks like spaghetti noodles strewn about.  I see little English and no Russian.  I glory in the directness and ease of taking taxis instead of busses around the city.  I can relax.  A river in the middle of the city, churches, churches, and churches!  They are everywhere!  I see the McDonalds signs--the same all over the world--and I heard somewhere is a Starbucks.  Fun statues.  And before I know it, I'm in front of the Vera Palace hotel, I get my conference packet for the Project Harmony conference, use the restroom rejoicing in the small triumph that it has toilet paper, and leave to go to the Primavera Hotel to where the Teacher's Association Conference is taking place.  Which I feel a little guilty and frustrated about.  The project that I helped to write didn't pay for me to come, but is going to benefit from my presence while Project Harmony pays the bill.  To be fair, I came to the Project Harmony conference every day...for my lunch.  Oops.  So, I attended "the other" meetings and talked about Teacher's Associations.  We visited two branch offices, one in Tiblisi and one in Rustavi.  Participants from Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan were present to share perspectives, ideas, and information.  I have to say that I feel like the conference caused more problems than solutions for us here in Azerbaijan.  Now my counterpart thinks we, too, should be funded by the British Council and have a beautifully remodeled and well-stocked offices and libraries not to mention paid staff.  I remind her they have been operating for 10 years and for seven years worked unpaid.  We have been officially open for 3 1/2 months–we are still a baby.  We need more time. 

So, yes I worked and went to meetings, but two nights were all mine!  The first one the ELF's invited me to the ballet.  They didn't have an extra ticket, but since they were in a hurry and I have decision-making issues, I followed them immersed in the conversation.  If it was too expensive to buy a ticket, I would probably find the group for my free dinner.  Eddie kindly volunteered to buy me a ticket.  I imagined it would be a sub-standard performance like I'd heard reports about last New Years when volunteers went to see the Nutcracker in Baku.  They were disappointed.  We met their friends and wah-lah!  One girl had an extra ticket.  And she gave it to me!  Now I really feel like I'm walking under a lucky star.  Not only am I in Georgia, but I'm going to the ballet.  We had orchestra-level seats.  I sat alone, in this swarm of people and reveled in golden lights and the shushed-talking of those in anticipation of the coming performance. The ladies next to me made me move down, to my new seat, a two-by-four covered in fabric.  A little annoyed, but how could I be? I had a seat!  So no complaints from me!  The curtain rose, the music began: drums, accordions, horns, strings...and the dancers came out in local costume.  Girls with long braids, long dresses.  I couldn't see their feet and they absolutely floated across the stage!  The men with pants and vests with daggers.  Sometimes hats or long shirts.  Very colorful and every song they changed costumes.  Spinning, jumping, clashing, kicking, floating, coordinating, teasing, leaping, flirting, gliding, flying, fighting.  My favorite was the sword fight dance where the clanks of sword and shield kept time with the music as they leaped and dove at each other.  Another was the dagger competition as they leapt and landed on their knees, did knee spins around the stage...all the while whamming these daggers into the stage floor and continuing to weave through them as they danced and spun!  Imagine the whole stage filled with dancing people, all choreographed to perfection!  And my face constantly grinning and my eyes open with wide-eyed wonder and delight!  It turns out they tour around the world and are only in town once a year.  And I got to see them!!!  Unforgettable, it really impressed me!  To think I almost didn't go.  Shameful.  Then we went to a fancy ex-pat place for dinner and my ELF hosts treated me to a delicious dinner of tomato-basil soup, trout, and ice cream in orange brandy chocolate sauce...with delicious local Georgian red wine.  I felt absolutely spoiled and loved every second of it!

The next day we only had meetings for ½ they day.  After my hosted-by-Project-Harmony lunch, I went with my ELF friend and a local Georgian to the Christmas Bazaar.  I delighted in all the wonderful homemade items: bags, paintings, gorgeous silver, gold and enamel jewelry, hand-sewn dolls, hats, greeting cards, boxes, wood work...but I didn't buy a thing.  I hadn't had time to change more money, I needed my lire for the taxi back, and everything was "ex-pat" prices.  I didn't stay long, because Ia, a young Georgian teacher, had agreed to tour a few of us around the city.

My goal was to attend an orthodox prayer service.  I changed money on the way back and caught a taxi back to the hotel.  We got on a bus .40 lire, went past the Philharmonic where I'd seen the ballet, and got out by the Parliament building and went into the church on the other side of the street.  To walk into a holy space.  The walls are covered with religious iconography...laden with gold.  There are no pews.  The incense smells deep and old...seeped into every nook of the church.  The priest with his large hat–that can't be the right word!  The priest with a mini-cathedral on his head came out.  They walked the circumference of the sanctuary, chanting and singing.  I looked into the faces of the simpler Georgian woman, many with big blue eyes, brown bangs, and no make-up.  Heads wrapped in scarves.  As we rotated 360 degrees, facing the procession.  I prayed.  At one point, I found Ia and she translated, "Forgive us... Father, Christ, Holy Spirit"  I didn't want to leave.  I have a year of missed Sundays, this deficit of church in my heart, a longing and a comfort I find in the quiet solitude of liturgy and the Word.  And especially now that it is the season of Advent, I especially miss the simplicity of evening prayer and song within a congregation of believers.  The service was going to be about three hours, and as a group, it was time to go.

So we went toward the Old City.  On our way my counter part, Durdana, stopped to change money.  But she came right back out and said she couldn't do it there as, "They are all men in there smoking."  "It's O.K., honey. " I found myself talking to her as if she were a child, "This is not Azerbaijan, it's o.k." I stupidly said, as if being in a different country could change her 40 plus years of cultural upbringing that so sharply separates men's and women's spheres.  Another volunteer impatiently rolled her eyes, eager to ditch the extra Azeri weight and devour the freedom that is Georgia.  We walked in the cold to the old city, but a cold that felt much warmer than Azerbaijan's cold...three story wooden houses with long balconies on each floor wrapped tightly around the building, the base like a castle.  Statues, goofiness, and pictures...out at night having fun once again.  We stopped in the old church in the old city.  In the darkness, the glow of candles, I saw the tall arching ceiling where frescoes from long ago had faded and chipped.  Simple stone showed through and there were fewer icons and gold flashing before my eyes. I closed my eyes, felt the warmth and singing and again Ia translated, "Forgive us.  You are Almighty, Powerful, Immortal God."  At the river, the same river that comes through Mingachevir we waited for a mini bus.  I wondered aloud if I spit into the river how many days would it take to reach me in my town?  We went back toward the hotel and found a place to eat.  We ordered mushroom and meat xingal (dumplings), tomato and cucumber salad, two clay pots of beans, bread, and "lemonade" that tastes like vanilla cream soda.  We compared Azerbaijan and Georgian cultures, since our respected neighbors didn't know much about each other.  One topic revolved around food.  Azeribaijani people love to cook and eat everything in lots of fat!  It made me laugh when the xingal arrived.  We all began to eat.  "What are you waiting for?" I asked my counterpart, Durdana.  "I'm waiting for them to bring the butter!" she said impatiently.  But the fat was not coming because Georgians eat the xingal without drowning the big blobs in a pool of grease.

After dinner we walked around town some more, bought Georgian red wine, stopped in a piano bar, and the five-star Marriott hotel.  Wow!  There stood a huge gingerbread house in the lobby!  I think I smelled it before I saw it. We sat in the plush lobby until the electricity flickered, threatening to go off.  If only it were daytime!  English bookstores, music stores, metros, bakeries, so many more things waiting to be discovered.  It was late, we headed back and slept for a few hours before our 7am departure time. 

Morning came quickly and we boarded the bus to head back to a Muslim land and a place where I'm constantly aware that I am, unfortunately, a woman.  My trip was fantastic, but I am admittedly going through a little culture shock.  A little freedom can be a dangerous thing, and now I feel as if I've been put back into a cage of cultural norms that are not my own:  gender roles, the importance of appearances, money issues and insipid corruption...not to mention the limitations and darkness of winter in general, where I return from class and crawl into bed so that I can warm back up!  I'm re-reading, and recommend to you, Ali and Nino by Kurban Said.  It is a love story between a Georgian girl and a boy from Baku.  I feel as if I understand this story, this love so much more now that I've been to Georgia...I'm so amazed how two neighboring countries can be so much the same, but still so very different...and this story is what happens as they try to blend the two...

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December 2004

#51)  Cross-cultural Connections:  MAKE SURE YOU READ THIS ONE! - Megan :)           Photo below, too - notice reflections in bowl.  :) 

Recently I had the opportunity to create what my students say is the highlight of their lives!  Something they will never forget!  And I must confess, I also feel as if it will end up being the pinnacle of my Peace Corps service.  12 college students from Colorado and 17 students from Mingachevir, through a random connection, all ended up sorting seeds together in the warehouse of World Vision.  Teams of  two scooped from the huge bags of donated Marigold seeds and working together filled and weighed the blue plastic bags into 1 kilo parcels for distribution.  That is what they did.  But there were only two scales and only four people could work at a time.  The rest of the time everybody else talked and laughed and hugged.  Faces lit up in surprise and they discovered life in other cultures.  After awhile notebooks came out and students exchanged email addresses.  My students invited an American to guest, to "come to us" as they all say, the following night for dinner, tea, and sometimes even to spend the night.  Invitations enthusiastically accepted.

What did my students have to say about the event and the Americans?  Other than surprising me that they all had learned and committed to memory ALL of their names! Not to mention their hobbies, about their families, school, etc!

"______ plays that instrument...like a violin but bigger."

"______is fat!  I thought all Americans were skinny!" 

"Do you have oranges in America? _____ said you didn't so I bought her a whole kilo!" She meant mandarins.

"I can't believe _____ said her mom cooks and her dad washes the dishes!"

"It costs $10 to go to a movie?!"

"______ said she would send me a good dictionary!"

"I asked if she kissed a boy.  She said yes.  I want to experience that feeling."

"Her parents are divorced?  Separated?  What is the difference?"

"I want to go to America.  How much does a plane ticket cost?  They bought it themselves?  That is expensive for me!"

"_______ ate a lot!"

"_______ ate a little!"

"My mother and father asked a lot of questions and I had to translate!"

"We didn't go to sleep until 2 in the morning!"

"Can you send this letter?  Can you send this picture? Did Travis give you a letter for me?  A picture?  When are you going back to Baku?"

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December 2004

#50)Media and freedom: 

During our recent mid-service conference (we are halfway through our two year commitment!) We had a guest speaker discuss media issues in Azerbaijan.  And it has me thinking about freedom in general.  I have one friend back home that gets so frustrated at government "regulations" as it seems everything has its formula of correctness, a form, a procedure, a specialist to take care of things.  For example: here the electrical wires for homes are all exposed in the stairwell.  Everyone seems to consider themselves an expert and many times I see people standing at the wires...moving this one here, bending that one, changing another one in an attempt to get stronger current.  Dangerous?  Or the ability to simply set up shop and do business.  It seems from the lack of jobs, everyone is in the business of buying and selling and little "kool-aid" stands spring up everywhere selling cigarettes and semichkas, sunflower seeds.  In actuality, the process to become "officially registered" as a business or NGO is so difficult it takes years to complete the process, and lots of connections and bribe money, to be sure.  And in the mindset of litatigation and safety, cars don't have seatbelts, restaurants aren't regulated (as far as I can tell!), there are exposed "sewage holes" on the road and sidewalk obstructions everywhere...and people have the freedom to throw their garbage anywhere they want to!  My counterpart said even buildings are build without the people in mind...builders ignoring safety issues...I guess there are some standards of safety, but the belief (truth?) is that people pay their way around them to save money in the long run.

The irony amazes me.  This apparent lack of government regulations–perceived freedom...on the little things anyways.  The media arena is another beast, however.  I always suspected, but could not find any information.  So I asked and Peace Corps brought in a man from Internews.  Here is what he said.

There are 1750 print, 5 news agencies, and 6 private radio stations.  Their surveys say that 90% of nationals rely on television for their news coverage.  That since independence, printed material has decreased from 45 million to 4.5 million sources.  And new agencies are not coming out due to the difficulties of registering with the government.  For example, in Georgia, it takes 1 month to register and begin doing business.  In Azerbaijan, it can take years to register.  The most recent successful application was two years ago! 1 new radio station and 1 new television station were granted permits from the Ministry of Justice, to the brother of the governor in Naxivan.  (This is the "separate" part of the country that the powerful leaders come from–Heydar Aliyev was from here.)  The ministry will not say how many licenses are currently "in process."  I recently had a conversation with another NGO Director.  He's had many frank and open discussions during his time here.  It's no secret that agencies are not granted legal permits because then they are obligated to do things "by the book."  His organization works in schools and if these particular education centers became official, then the directors of the schools couldn't continue (and those higher up) couldn't continue to collect their bribes and sap the system.  A petty example is the paper.  When I try to print, I'm told they have no paper.  But this organization pays for a ream of paper monthly.  Which means if the Director of the school doesn't buy it, he/she can pocket this money and only the people of Azerbaijan lose, again.  Coincidentally, this center will not continue operating with the support of the operation much longer, and if they discover the operation changes after their departure, the school will lose the computers.

So it is difficult to officially begin any sort of newspaper, television or radio business.  It is also difficult when you have one.  If you divide news sources into Pro Government, Anti Government, and Independent...only 7.7% are independent.  The laws on the books regarding press complies with European norms, however the implementation of these laws is not conducive to independent journalism.  There are strict editorial sections.  Media staff isn't paid well.  If a reporter is paid $500 a month in Georgia, the same job in Azerbaijan would pay $200, and then in the regions a similar job would pay $20-30.  Contracts are not good, if written or honored at all. Since reporters are not paid well, they are known for trying to make a little extra money.  A little cash to report something...a little cash to keep quiet...."journalistic integrity leaves something to be desired."  "Checkbook journalism" they call it.   And if words and bribes don't work, then it's known that other forces and threats can be applied. 

Another problem is the lack of respect for intellectual property.  Pirated material is readily available and used by television stations.  Defenders of independent media would have to shut down all the stations as it is estimated that 25-40% of all material shown on TV is pirated! (And once I learn Russian, I could enjoy all these movies. They are rarely dubbed into Azeri.)  Internews has proposed an international conference between public and private to discuss piracy issues.

I think the last thing I'm going to tell you about are our favorite stations, AZTV1 and AZTV2.  The new volunteers had taken to calling them "god1" and "god2" as the most prominent face is that of the beloved president.  One of Internews's jobs is to try and help the state make the transition between "state broadcastings" to public.  The normal procedure is to take the government controlled station, turn it into a company, write a charter, and then they can work independently.  AZ1 is still government controlled and AZ2 was the one selected to turn public.  AZ2 has no editing equipment, one television camera, 20 employees and a budget of $1,000,000.  Our guest said that at staff meetings the editor tells the reporters what to shoot and how much money to collect.  Compare that to AZ1.  He didn't say how many cameras they have, but they do have editing equipment, 2,000 employees, and a budget of $14,000,000!  At this point, he said they, of course, want to change AZ1 to the public station, and with the changes preserve 200 of the young people that can adopt new methods and get rid of the conservatives that lack the imagination to produce "watchable television."  At least this is what the translator said.  Now I'm wishing I asked if there were any statistics on the percentage of television programming dedicated to music, singing, concerts, etc.  And compare that to government coverage.   He did say that ½ the coverage is propagandistic and the other ½ entertainment.

Oh, one more thing.  A scary law about "state secrets" has been written but not yet introduced into the parliament.  Came from the presidents office...but not directly.  This law would grant that every and all ministers could add anything to a list of "state secrets."  Already, private oil company information is guarded, but state oil company information is available.

So, from all of this...I learned that the television industry has more on their mind than simply producing something I wouldn't mind watching on television.  Really and truely...I don't love watching television here–except for el Clon, my Azeri dubbed soap opera from Brazil.  There are video clips, Azeri style musical singing concerts, a Bingo/lotto show, "news", weather reports.  I'm not a big fan of TV back home, but sometimes I really just want to watch a good sitcom.  There are many movies on dubbed into Russian...but now that it's winter, I don't know if I could make it through a whole movie without the power cutting out.  Although I heard a rumor that they were changing the electric distribution procedure starting January...I'll keep you posted.  Actually, we're doing really well power-wise.  We have it most of the day now, and it even cuts out on a pseudo-schedule...almost every morning around 9am for a few hours and in the afternoon/evening for a few hours.  Except in the evenings when we have it, it's too weak to power the heaters, refrigerator, or oven.  Just enough for a little light and the television...  

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Thanksgiving 2004

Happy Thanksgiving!  Today is Turkey day back home…but here it feels just like any other day.  Except for the fact that this morning I wrote out a list of things I was thankful for and had my students do the same.  Today is also special…I busted out my Big Azeri coat again.  Its been cold; I’ve been cold.  I’ve been wearing an average of 5 shirts and a fleece plus two pairs of pants and two pairs of socks.  I have my mother’s blood, and its not enough.  Of course…its only November!  What will I do in January and February when its really cold????

Yesterday when I told myself it was a holiday…she asked what we eat?  I named a bunch of things…and she said, “Green Beans! I can make that!”  So I didn’t tell her it’s just a side dish.  I’m having Green Beans tonight for dinner.  Our director invited us to Baku for a big dinner this Saturday.  Yum…I’m licking my lips in anticipation!  
: )

Work is chugging along.  I’m happy to say that a few of my new students that were not speaking at all are now speaking a little!  One of my girls had her engagement party this week.  I’ll be surprised if she returns to school in January.  We recently finished a chapter on heath and sicknesses…I provided a lesson on HIV/AIDS which they were really interested in.  I wanted to do a lesson on health “beliefs” but just didn’t.  I’ve definitely lost my ability to have children as I’ve sat on way too many cold floors here…I get yelled at every time!  We now have a unit on London.

This week AzETA hosted a teacher training.  We didn’t forget to put our tablecloths out this time.  We had two American teachers out and managed to round up 33 participants for the first lesson…and different people for some of the others.  They taught lessons on Bloom’s Taxonomy, Writing Process, and Cooperative learning techniques.  We also had a panel, and common questions asked are: “Tell about American Wedding Party” “What is your opinion on George Bush and the war in Iraq” “What is your opinion on the conflict over Nagorno/Karabaugh”  “What is THE most famous childre n’s song…can you teach it?” “What is your holiday at the end of October like?”

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September 19, 2004

#49)    Cara's birthday!!!  

Dear all! Thanks for the birthday wishes and letters! I got a free trip to Baku for my birthday--thanks to a meeting. So spent the morning--5 hours in the minibus, the next few in a meeting at the office...then had the whole evening free to go out to dinner with a fellow volunteer. We drank "syrups" where they spin a carousel of colorful upside down test-tubes of flavors, squirt a bit out into a glass, turn on the bubbler to add mineral water. Went up one of the tallest buildings for the "best view" of the city lights. (I disagree...) and sat in a cafe on the boulevard...along the sea. Not too windy or hot. Very pleasant!

And last night we had a typical Azland celebration at my house in Mingtown...Grapeleaved dolma, plov (pilaf), fruit, salad, cake, tea...and the company of a few friends.
 : ) Sahib, the 2 yr old, provided the entertainment!!!

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September 15, 2004

#48)

Sick: This past week ended up being the third time I've been sick since June. Having a fever of 102+ . The most recent episode turned out to be food poisoning. My first, and hopefully last, time. I stayed in Mingtown with my fever, chills, diarhea, and vomiting. My host mom is not going to let me go to Sheki anymore, she thinks They make me sick. The other two episodes happened two weeks apart. Medical hauled me in (taxi to Baku...much faster!) and put me up at the Absheron Hotel, where we always stay, unless they are booked due to football games. If there is one thing we appreciate about Peace Corps, it is the fantastic medical treatment! I got poked, prodded, and the blood sucked out of me to "rule out" many illnesses, including malaria. I got to stay in the city for a few days, feeling like a walking band-aid, and work through it all, prepping for IST. In the end, it ended up being a virus. But I'm glad to know that I'm in good hands.

IST: We had already made the plan at the end of July. William, Tara, Libby and myself were invited to the meeting. By the end of it, we were responsible for teaching--or delegating--3 days of our training session. I was officially the "Counter Part Coordinator" which meant that I signed my name on the grant proposal that Steve wrote, went to the embassy to pick up $1000 cash, sign my name again, and then carry the money and the papers back to the office. They get to fill out the report. I might have to sign my name one more time; I should check on that. (The money can't go government to government, but it can go to a volunteer). So we taught many of the lessons to a mixed group of Azeri counterparts and fellow volunteers, plus many of the staff. Talk about a difficult audience because of their varied knowledge levels! I was responsible for coordinating how to work with a counterpart. My counterpart and I demonstrated a session on using puppets in the classroom, as the fact that you can model real language to your students is one of biggest advantages of co-teaching. 

PST: I mentioned some.

Grant Writing and AzETA: All summer my counterpart (Durdana) and I have been meeting at the IREX computer lab and corresponding with English Teacher's Associations in Georgia and Azerbaijan. The results of sitting beside each other at the computer? September 25, at 2pm we are hosting a big celebration of the opening of our new AzETA branch in Mingachevir. We will have many guests from Baku and will invite the city's English teachers as well as our students. Wish us success! We hope to offer a calendar of professional language development classes, workshops in new methods (which I would teach), computer classes in cooperation with other NGO's in the city, along with the development of the AzETA office, which would house English books, magazines, and teaching materials. Wish us luck! The protocol we must follow is tell the city Director, whose responsibility it will be to inform directors, who must in turn inform their teachers, Inshallah. Except that most teachers don't want to come to something that is told to them by their directors. So somehow, without insulting the way things are done, we need to let the teachers know that this organization is for them and they want to be part of it! : ) The other computer work we have been doing is writing a grant proposal for the AzETA branch managers in Azerbaijan to learn how to manage a branch. Important skills! Georgia has a very effective association and branches; our proposal is to collaborate and go to those branches to learn how and what we need to do. We submitted the proposal this week. Again...wish us luck! If it is accepted, we will be going to Georgia in November...Inshallah. 

School Starts: Tomorrow. And let me tell you what I’ve done to prepare:

1. have not gone to the university
2. have no clue where my classes will be
3. I don’t even know what time my classes will be taught
4. I have talked to my counterpart, who has found out that she, despite her requests for practical speaking classes, is supposed to teach one group (every day) of practical speaking and one group grammar. I will only teach the practical speaking class with her
5. She thinks the class begins at 1pm or 1:30, but she’s not sure
6. We will teach the same group as last year, but we don’t know how many have transferred to other branches, gotten married, switched groups, or simply will not return

I’m not worried. In the states, we think we need to be prepared and hit the ground running. Here, I have yet to participate in the first day of school. But from what I can tell, maybe by week three we’ll have a clue what is going on?

The First Day of School: Is today. It has also been declared "bilikli bayram" which is "knowledge holiday." To celebrate this day, most schools in Azerbaijan decided to cancel classes! William thinks this is great way to start the new school year. In my situation, upon hearing the kids through my window from the secondary school singing the national anthem, I decided maybe I should head over to the institute. It sounded like a party at the secondary school with music and singing and instruments! At my school, people we hovering in the yard, happily greeting schoolmates and teachers they have not seen all summer. Then the directors finally got on the loud speaker, set up special for the occasion, played a crackling version of the national anthem (one student told me he was "singing in his heart" when I said the little kids sang the anthem!) and mumbled some words in Azeri while many continued to talk. Something about money. There is never enough. But over the summer they put a carpet on the floor in the teachers' room and painted many others. And to my great delight...put in heating system. At least there is now a radiator in the teacher's lounge, although I don't know how many classrooms they got to. Our classroom is on the 2nd floor this year, on the street side of the building, with a much better chalkboard. It is much larger and echoes more. The tables are still the big hard ones that don't move well. (I'd much prefer tables with chairs, but these are a connected unit). Our class begins at 1:10 and ends at 2:45? or something like that. Works well for me! I have time to watch Klon at 12:00 AND make it to the university in time for classes. Plus, I'm hoping that for the afternoon classes, they will be warmer! So, unlike many schools in the country, we did return for class in the afternoon. We have begun the academic year with 3 new students to the group. The [only] boy still wants to change groups. One girl is getting married, others transferred. All in all, we had a "large" group of 13!!! 

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#47)  Peace Corps work

Do you have evaluations and feedback from a PC supervisor/coordinator? Yes! Being a government organization, we are swamped with paper work on a regular basis. There is a form for everything. Mainly we must fill out quarterly reports that say how we are helping our students, the teachers, the community, and our secondary projects. We must quantify how many people we’ve served that are individuals, service providers, organizations, and communities. We also must say how we are supplementing the curriculum, passing on skills, etc. It takes quite a while to fill it out well. And I’m in pretty consistent contact with the office, so they hear all the ideas and projects I’m working on. I can ask for feedback and we dialogue how things are going, too. It will be interesting to see how these informal processes change with the arrival of more volunteers. We also have travel reimbursement forms, language tutor reimbursement forms, settling allowance forms, market basket surveys etc. etc.

How often do you see the office staff or are you just out there on your own with other PCV’s? Well, since I’ve been working in Baku the last 3 weeks, I’ve seen the staff everyday. They started joking around that they’d have to add me to the payroll! But that is a little unusual. During the winter, I stayed at my site and didn’t go to Baku for 3 months. So, I see them as often as I need or want to. Right now it is a lot, as I’m in for meetings and work. What am I doing? I put together our newsletter, the Azlander with Sarah. I’m on the Volunteer Action Committee and we have quarterly meetings. Alice (the accountant) and I just set up the 1% fund. Not to mention that I go in for planning meetings and to teach. If I wasn’t involved at all, I would only have to go in for trainings, which we had in March, August, and we’ll probably have another one in November.

The 1% Fund: Hurray! We have it up and running. Since I'm part of AZ1, we have the opportunity and responsibility to start everything we think is important or helpful. So, as part of VAC, we set up a little slush fund for small projects around the country with projected budgets too small to apply for a large grant through another organization-->they don't want the headache of all the paperwork for $50. So...if you've wanted to know how you can help...now is your chance! You can direct money to the 1% Fund Azerbaijan through our Program Director, Bill Levine, to be used here. You can also donate to projects throughout the world through the Peace Corps Partnerships Program. Go to the webpage www.peacecorps.gov and hunt it down. : ) 

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#46)  School

Delayed start date: Classes were set to begin September 1. The government officially announced that we officially begin the 15th. That’s just fine with me! Although AZ2 will be in for extra challenges! There training will almost be over and they still won’t have been able to observe or practice teaching in a real classroom with real students and teachers. It’s hard to explain to them what to expect; they need to see it for themselves. PC is currently trying to set up a summer school. We came during the fall, so classes were up and running for us. I’ve also heard that there will be no classes on Saturday this year. That has not been consistently confirmed.

Questions about school: One of my friends recently asked a bunch of questions about Azeri school. Perhaps I really haven’t given very much information about this yet, as it can be hard to describe in positive terms at times, because it looks different, feels different, and the expected rules do not apply. The government is currently under the process of reforming the system. How and what that will look like in a few years is anybody’s guess. 

How do the schools monitor if students can graduate? The grade system is 1-5, 5 is the best grade and anything less than a 4 will make a student cry. At the end of term, students have exams. The teacher will give a grade. Or the director might give a grade. If you need or want a 5, you get the opportunity to buy it. Not all teacher’s are corrupt, neither are all directors. However, the question shows the American value system that students must know information, that there are certain standards. I’ve yet to discover that. But, school is mandatory through the 9th grade. They offer 10th and 11th as University preparation. Grades don’t matter so much as passing the entrance exam and forking over some cash for entrance to your university of choice.

Does Az have a type of standards that we are used to? Oops. I kind of already addressed this one. If there is a standard, it is that the class races through the textbook and “covers” the curriculum. Students must know their lessons, which means that they must be able to have memorized the text for that days lesson and be able to recite it. Students that try to recite it and do it incorrectly are often scolded, while students that do nothing sit in the back of the classroom and do nothing productive are ignored. Which might be a a better option if you don't like getting yelled or told that you are stupid or lazy for not learning your lesson well enough.

Do students enter a specific school/institute for a specific vocation (business, teaching, trace, etc) after 8th grade or something like that? Yes. After 11th grade they must take their entrance exams for the university and apply separately to the school of their dreams. Many want to study at Baku-Slavic or the Language University. Others at the Neft Academy (Oil School). If they don’t get accepted (or have enough money) for the top schools, then they choose their back up schools in the regions. Like the Mingachevir Branch for Teacher Training Institute.

What vocations are taught at institutes as opposed to the University? At the institutes, they have teacher training, exercise, tourism. Other than that, I'm not really sure.

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#45)  AZ2 

They have arrived, and are currently on week #6 of training. I was out to Sumgayit last week to teach 2 TEFL lessons and meet them all. Seeing them going through the adjustment process (and struggling to absorb all the language, information, and lessons that they need to) was oh-too familiar. But it showed just how far we’ve come in what has become almost a year since our arrival. They were impressed with my ability to get food at the restaurant and to work with the restaurant staff when they continued to serve everybody else before us. 29 came to country. One left during week #3. And another left last week because of a serious family health issue in the states. She may or may not be back. Overall, I’m cheering for them…its not easy but they can do it!

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September 2004

#44)  Olympics: Congratulations to the Azeri team! Ferid Mansurov won a gold in wrestling…the most popular sport here. I watched a few events in the mornings before our training meetings while in Baku: ping pong, swimming, fencing, men’s gymnastics, judo. And on the Italian channel! How interesting to see a more Euro-centered view of the events. I think Azerbaijan got 6 medals total. Notice that they are all individual sports.

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Summer 2004

#33)  Adventure to Sulut! 

I was in Baku and instead of traveling the 7-8 hour minibus ride to Sheki all in the same day, I thought maybe I’d go halfway and stay with Amy in Ismaily. I texted her on my handy cell phone. She responded with the following message: ‘gng to Sulut w fam. If u wnt advntr, take bus to ismaily, get off at Basqal Rd. If u cn, get macin to Basqal, if not walk 3 k and abt 6 k to Sulut, n ask 4 amcn.'

For some, that might not have been enough information. But I went with it! I couldn’t even call her to say I was coming because Sulut is too remote for mobile phone reception. So…I took the old mini bus from the Shamahenka bus center (a different one than the bus center for Mingachevir) and rolled through the dry, dusty land on a hot Saturday afternoon. I talked to the women sitting on the front bench beside me, as women are always seated in the front. As usual, their eyes popped out, gold teeth flashed with big grins and cries of, “Ay, Allah!” and “Mashallah!” Truly flabbergasted that I speak Azeri. Busting out the Azeri is always a fun surprise. The locals are so impressed and flattered—literally awed—that an American lives in Azerbaijan AND speaks their local language. Simply looking Russian and speaking Russian would not be new or surprising, what I’m typically mistaken for. Having made 2 new best friends, with multiple offers to go guesting, they helpfully made sure I dush-ed at Basqal Road, mountains in the background, calling out my name!

I walked a bit, and struck up a conversation with a father and son walking along the same quiet, tree-shaded road. (Actually, they struck up the conversation with me. I don’t really talk to men unless I have to!) As we walked and talked, a big black sedan drove up and slowed down, offering us a lift. Turns out that this man is Amy’s host-dad’s brother! Dutifully, he took me home, fed me gretchga and chunks of mutton that his wife had cooked earlier in the morning, and made a couple of phone calls, trying to get a hold of someone on a land line in Sulut. No luck. So for an hour he tried to discourage me from crossing the river-turned-dangerous due t o the previous night’s rain storm. Impassable by car, yet alone a little girl with a huge backpack. Having experienced Azerbaijani hyperbole before, I pushed on, accepted a ride in his relative’s jeep to the road, where they saw me off…to what I’m sure they thought was my death with their pleas to reason! Elated to be on my way, I practically skipped as I sucked in the freshest and stillest air I’d experienced in a long time! Gorgeous day! I wasn’t alone for long. Right after slipping in my Tevas and wading through the calf-deep “raging” river, I caught up to a herd of black and white sheep, and two 10 year shepherd boys. Together we went to Sulut until a man on a horse came. He offered me a ride on his horse, and under the conditions that either he rode the horse and carried my bag, or I rode the horse alone—and checking with the two little boys that he wasn’t dangerous, I hopped up on the horse! Until we met another younger guy on a different horse, I changed horses. You’d think that riding a horse I’d get there faster. Not quite because we stopped about every 10 minutes to have the same discussion. You’re friend is there? Who is it? Who is she staying with? I don’t think she is there. I never saw her. I never heard about her. She’s not there. What are you going to do when you get there? What will you do when she’s not there? On and on it went as they were really concerned. Until finally I’d said, Listen. If it’s a problem, I’ll get off the horse and walk there myself. Oh, no! We couldn’t let you do that. And we’d start on our way again. Upon arriving in the village, we did just what I thought I’d do. We asked around for the American. And we found her. Sitting in the schoolyard under some fruit tree with her host family’s relatives. And was she surprised and excited to see me! : ) I made it!

We spent the rest of the afternoon with the family and guested at their house. Houses in Sulut, by the way, were made mostly of rock, with a wooden timber about 3 feet up. They say its protection from earthquakes. Lots more barns. And for the first time, I saw women carrying gallons of water from the springs in the traditional metal jugs slung over their shoulders. I also saw tendir bread ovens, but instead of being able to stand beside them like you do in the south, they are built into the floor or ground and you can sit and work at the same time. The next morning we got up, had breakfast, and went hiking. Destination? Old castle ruins, “40 rooms” Or so we thought. Upon arriving at the top of the hill, stopping at the shepherds’ hut and drinking chai with them, we asked her host brother if the castle was much father? Oh, well…we took the wrong trail. That’s o.k. we thought. Let’s just backtrack. How far? 10 minutes into the hike! Our plans had changed with out our knowing it as we transformed from a small hiking group into a large family clan hiking expedition. Eybi Yox.

Then it was the reverse hike out from Sulut to Basqal. We were offered a ride, but instead of guesting and waiting who-knows-how-long, we said headed off and guested with other relatives and made it out to the main road at the same time as our ride did. At that point, we needed to catch a ride to Ismaily, to Amy’s house, and some business men from Baku on their way to Zakatala picked us up and we rode the rest of the way—to Amy’s host brother’s surprise and delight-- in style in a black, leather interior BMW. (My host brother calls it a "Boomer" in Russian)

The next morning I caught a taxi to Gabala and stepped onto the yellow decrepit bus for Sheki right as they turned the engine on. 

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Summer 2004

#32)  Squat Toilets

There are plenty of opportunities here when I know I get to practice a lifetime goal of gracefully laughing at myself .... Example: Do you know that there are squat toilets here? Most of the time its more like a fancy hole in the ground. The while porcelain has grooved ridges for your feet, and as you pee...it sometimes bounces of and splashes around...unless you have really good aim and a straight stream, then you can get it in the black hole. Other times, it is more like cement with a hole chipped out the middle. In Sulut (the village) there were boards criss-crossed and you could position yourself on two solid pieces straddling the hole and could see in between the 1 inch spaces between the boards at the muck beneath. If I was a little kid, I'd be afraid I was going to fall in!!! I still questioned the integrity of the boards! Regardless...most of the time the y don't want you to put your toilet papers in. (And traditionally, people here wash with water and don't use papers at all). But I digress. So, this particular time I was working in school #8 in Sheki. Indoor toilet, porcelain squatter. I tossed my little paper into the trash bin BUT MISSED. I could have left...but a little bit of conscious hit me and I thought, Cara! Don't be such a slob! Who is going to want to touch Your little papers? So I turned around, bent down to pick up and toss my little papers in into the mini trash can in the corner and before I know it, my prescription sunglasses slipped off my shirt and straight down the black hole. Not even rolling around the rim, or anything. (as if there is a rim!) ha. Horrified!!!!!!!!!!!!! I tried using a stick and sloshed it around in the muck. (Think outhouse) But it was pretty deep down, the stick wasn't long enough. And dark. I pretty much gave up. Completely mystified, grossed-out, wanting to cry, but knowing I should be laughing, I related my story to Keri. Glasses are gone! If if I could get them...I wouldn't want to wear them, right?! Better that they are inaccessible! But she is also wears glasses, said, "No, you Need those." And we found (during the middle of day camp, by the way, someone else was teaching) a piece of wire from the puppet making supplies. She grabbed my hand and determinedly walked us down the three flights of stairs to the bathroom. She did the fishing and actually managed to snag them on the 3rd try. With screnched-up face, I had to careful reach my hand through the not-clean hole to retrieve and guide them safely out from the no trespassing zone. UGH!!!!!!!!! Deep breath. At arm's length, I rinsed them under the faucet. But I had to scrub them clean; the water pressure wasn't enough. Sterilize and sanitize with half a jar of Purell, thanks Sherry! EWWWWWWWWWWw!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So I just try to laugh. What else can I do? Except share the pain and torture the AZ2 group as Keri and I used it to teach pantomime, storytelling and Chalk Talks in the classroom--not to mention the importance of maintaining your sense of humor!!!

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Summer 2004

#31)  I love summer. 

Hello to you all!

Gosh, I love summer. I love summer. I mean, I Really Love Summer! (Do you feel the same way?) I have been so busy in a good way doing many exciting things around Azerbaijan! So…maybe the best thing would be to go through my little calendar and fill you in with my activities and impressions. I think the last posting was on taking the orphans to the beach. So that means I’ll start with…

The end of June…English Camp in Masalli: There were 6 volunteers and about 50 kids each day. We each had a lesson plan and a theme for the week, and each day we taught the same lesson plan to different groups of kids 4 times. My theme? Games. We played, Go Fish, Pictionary, Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar? and Bingo. Other volunteers taught conversation, slang, storytelling, music, and history. 

I was actually in the village of Arkivan, and I spent the week with yet another host family! This family was a mother, two daughters, and a son. I really enjoyed this family; they liked to laugh and have fun. At the end of the week I wondered why I loved this family so much, and all I could figure was that one of the girls was the same age as my own little sister, and I miss having sisters! I’ll never forget walking in on the little brother while he was in the toilet (oops!). They fed me halva the first morning and I wanted to know who had died? The oldest girl Firuza—her name means turquoise--showing me her nursing textbook. The illustrations shocked me a little; it’s not what I expect a respectable Azerbaijani girl to be showing me. Then I learned that it was a mid-wife/childbirth book! We went to Isti-su together (hot water) and went swimming in our skimmies in the restorative, natural, mineral water. We spent an afternoon in Lankaran, where I thought I’d be stationed. One of the volunteers said it reminded him of Florida. I’m glad I’m in Mingachevir with my lake! : ) On the last day, our hosts arranged two taxis to take us out to see the waterfalls out towards Yardimly. Jake was really excited because his host mother released her youngest daughter to my care to see the beautiful waterfalls—normally she’s not allowed to leave the house except to go to school, the market, and to get water. By the way, I had the most amazing biblical connection while I would go with the girls to get water down the hill and across the street at the natural spring. I really felt like I was part of the tribe of women in the world. (How many women must carry their water!) When the afternoon begins to get cool, we leave the house, carting our jugs. We would fill up our jugs with the cool, refreshing water, exchange some words with the other women and girls there (sometimes there was a man or a boy) and then head back, stopping every time to rest at the same spot midway up the hill. I realized that for women that stay indoors most of the day, getting water is their chance to get out of the house, and it almost becomes a social event at the watering hole and again at the resting spot! The last evening we finished up with a southern specialty: levanghi, a stuffed chicken, full of onion and walnut mixture. Even Jonathon ate it and loved it...and he Hates Onions with a passion.

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August 31, 2004

#30)  "We are greatful to PEACE CORPS"

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August 2004

#29) An Experiment in Chai

Now that we’ve officially hit the ½ year mark, it seems a good time to throw out my favorite random fact.  Since being sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer, I have drunk 315 little glasses of chai, divided up as follows:

12th Dec-25

January-59

February-90

March-50

April-48

May-32

June-12^th 11

Even without actual temperature readings or monthly national averages, it’s not easy to disguise the obvious correlation between consumption of tea and lack of heat.  The endless need and often-futile attempt to stay warm forced me to respond, why, yes!  I’d love to have another glass!

Why you might be asking, would I actually track my tea drinking?  All in the name of a good scientific experiment, of course!  Or at least to perhaps feel somewhat intelligent since I was understanding, on a good day, maybe 2 percent of what was being said at the endless guesting sessions.  These are the games of a language learner.  Well, at least in my experience. Listen as long as you can and then start counting.  Overwhelmed with ignorance and with wide-eyed wonder—my in-depth and incredibly informal study of Azeri chai culture began.

Tea time in the morning, noon, and night, before and after meals, at parties, before bed and when you wake up.  It became one of my favorite obsessions…studying which kind of glasses people used:  the pear-shaped armud, normal glasses, fancy little tea cups all dignified and proper, or even very rarely what we think of as a coffee mug?  I studied whether people poured and slurped off the saucers of sipped or poured and spilled.  Which kind of sweet did they guzzle tea around?  Super sweet Russian chocolate?  Individually wrapped and a surprise inside each time. I became adept at spying out ½ eaten chocolates rewrapped in the jar.  Chocolate out of a big gift box?  Always amazed at the lack of pieces hidden behind the woman on the super-sized box, not to mention lack of flavor. Hard candy?  Most of them are fruit flavored, too big to suck on and speak at the same time, truly a mouthful.  My favorite has become the “my-my” usually sporting a little picture of cows and tasting mostly like caramel.   Sugar by the spoonful or sugar by the cube?  The quantity varies.  Some simply suck on a single cube while they drink the chai, while others drop a cube in the saucer.  Still others really like really sweet tea.  The most I’ve seen is 5 cubes in a 5 ounce glass!  1 cube per ounce.  Although here it would technically be some denomination of a liter, I suppose.  Then there is the procession of sugar jams: strawberry, cherry, fig, apricot, grape, peach, raspberry, blackberry, zogal, plum, xurma —all served on delicate little glass dishes with delicate little spoons.  My favorite, they say it’s medicinal, from the cornel berry, is the tasty but seedy bright red zogal. 

Besides studying the table laid out before me, I also began making calculations in my head looking to find the relationships between the type and amount of chai accompaniments consumed with golden teeth flashed during a jolly conversation.  More candy means more gold.  I watched to see how people poured the chai.  Some prefer to pour the dark chai first and then add the boiled water from the kettle.  Others pour the white water first and then darken it up with the dark water.  Still others quite aggressive and super efficient pouring both at the same time.  I studied the chai pots.  Ceramic and chipped around the nozzle.  Ceramic and reinforced/enclosed in a metal cage.  Most people used a little string to secure the ceramic lid to the pot.  Others had more efficient metal pots with wide mouths—which are much easier to clean.  Oh, random fact!  Many families flush the old soggy tea down the toilet!

My studies continue…but all this to say that…at least it made sense at the time:

I drank a total of 315 glasses of chai in 6 months…which averages out to a little less than 2 glasses per day.  Sure, maybe its not especially that exciting.  It might not even be interesting.  But now you and I know, for what its worth, that I drank an average of 52 ½ cups of chai a month, which averages out to a laughable not even 2 cups a day.  From my highly scientific experiment, I can decisively conclude that my chai drinking is definitely below the national average.

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July 2004

#28) Read-a-thon (a marathon but instead of running, you read until you’re exhausted)

In December, a few University students and myself wrote letters to Darien Book Aid, Inc. I think it was towards the end of February that the 2 boxes of books arrived—23 pounds to be exact.  I couldn’t wait to get them home, but instead busted them right open in the office and to my delight found titles like Little Women, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator (with cassettes!), Ramona the Brave, Where the Wild Things Are, not to mention Robin Hood and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs video cassettes.  My students had wanted difficult classics like Dickens, which they have read and love…in Azeri.  I thought 3^rd-7^th grade would be more accessible to their reading levels and I also asked for picture books since they are high interest even to lower level readers.  They provide schema and understanding—an alternative to translation and base for discussion--not to mention that as future teachers of younger students, they will hopefully be able to incorporate picture books into their teaching.

There was a little twang at my heart, I didn’t want to just give them all these books, potential decorations in the library (or some other locked cabinet) to sit and collect dust.  I wanted as many students to touch, read, and fall in love with as many books as possible!  So we started a contest.  I put the 20 picture books in the library and told the students that for every 5 they read, I would put in one more, dropping in more difficult chapter books as we went along.  Capitalizing on the Azeri spirit of competition, we sought to see which group would read the most.  With the help of the librarians, they started a journal for the students to record their thoughts on the books, a record of the books and also proof that they had read.  I went from class to class and read one of our selections, The Library, by Sarah __________ as a way to introduce the contest and also announce that the long-awaited books had at last arrived!  The first day of the contest, one of the teachers let his students out of class and to get as many books as they could!  (As you can imagine, this class ended up winning.)

The highlight of my semester has been the day I walked into the library during class time, expecting to find it empty, but instead discovered that it was full of students pouring over the books!  Some of their teachers had not shown up, and others had gotten permission to leave.  Still others said they simply didn’t go to class because it was boring.

To wrap up the Read-a-thon, I collaborated with World Vision.  We made certificates made out of paper—pink, the only color I could find in town--that will be treasured and displayed for years to come.  World Vision had also received some GIK’s (Gift in Kind) from Samaritan’s Purse—beautiful skirts form Nightingale’s in England, which they were kind enough to let me distribute to my students to encourage their academic studies and sense of professionalism and commitment to teaching.  Working again with the librarians, we turned this into a big deal and had a ceremony in the library with the Rector, Dean of the English Department, English faculty teachers in attendance.  And of course, we took a lot of pictures which we will send to all our wonderful donors with our thanks (letters written by students) for the success of our first Read-a-Thon.  I would like to add that without my even requesting more books, Darien Book Aid already has informed me that 2 more boxes of books are on their way.

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July 2004

#27)  Three Cultures

In Alaska, I remember the confluence of the Nenana and Tenana Rivers.  One was a glacial river, full of dirt—cloudy and brown.  The other was clear and clean.  At this one spot they would come together and continue as one…

I spent the week working and playing in the south and as a result, have a bigger view of what Azerbaijan…and what a true point of conflux it is. 

I know I’ve written before on the duality of Azerbaijin…living in the north, there is a lot of Russian influence.  People speaking Russian and Cyrillic writing around town and on the minibuses.  People exclaim that Mingechevir looks like little Russia.  We have quite a few Russian television stations and movies are dubbed into Russian. But that is only one aspect.  The influence from the north.

I discovered upon visiting the south, there is a lot of Arabic influence.  It is close to Iran (yes!  At one point I was at the border!)  The first and most delicious difference is that host families cook tendir bread!  They have big ovens that look like a clay version of a top-loading washing machine—cylindrical on the inside.  They stuff it with branches and wood to get a hot fire going.  Then they slap the dough on the interior side of the oven and it sticks on the side and bakes until they take it out and you have the most amazing, delicious chewy bread.  YUM!  (I’ve heard rumors of people baking bread like this in the North, but nobody sells this bread in Mingechevir, which is sad for my taste buds but better for my waistline!) Another difference is the television.  I guess I’m used to the Russian, not a big deal anymore….but to see that beautiful Arabic script on the TV and actually understand a few words!  I’m pleasantly surprised to find out how many Russian and Persian words I hear and know—loan words that have been incorporated into Azerbaijani.

In the north, we have a lot of Lezgie people that live here and they speak their own language.  In Siyazan there were a lot of Tats.  In the south there are a lot of Talish people…who choke a lot!  In Azerbaijani, chokh is a word that intensifies everything…so it can be chokh dadli (very tasty) chokh pis (very bad) chokh gozele (very beautiful).  It is fun in Talish that they use the word Choki a lot.  But I digress…

Now I’m becoming obsessed with the west--Turkey.  The Turkish influence.  Azerbaijani is a Turkish language and one of my counterparts recently told me how Azerbaijani never used to even exist as a language…that it is just 30 some years old.  Its really just Turkish that has changed a little and then someone decided to call it Azerbaijani.  So…Turkey.  I’m gonna have to go there next summer!

So what was I actually doing in the south?  Teaching English, of course!  Jake had gathered up some students who came everyday.  We offered classes…music, stories, conversation, games, slang, etc.  Can you guess which was mine?  I taught Bingo, Go Fish, Pictionary among other things.  But more on that trip later.  : )

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June 20, 2004

#26)     Beach Day

Myself and 5 other PC volunteers recently took a bunch of orphans to the beach, the lake formed by the damming of the Kur River, a 45 min walk from my house. (20 mins from the orphanage).  The kids walked hand in hand, despite the heat that made your hands all sweaty, smiling all the way.  We arrived and passed out garbage bags.  First they had to clean.  I started having them collect garbage before we got to the lake, because you can only imagine their attention span for garbage with a deliciously cool fresh water lake lapping at the shore and tingling their toes.  First they picked up garbage and slowly their toes, ankles, knees...opps!  I fell down in the water! got all wet.  The garbage collecting ended and the rolling and splashing in the water began!  The World Vision support car arrived with the rest of the little kids.  They had a turn picking up garbage and then swimming.  They ate sandwiches and peach tea prepared by my friend, Chen.  The day is already a special treat to them.  But then, Steve Meyer, your voice from my time working out at camp keeps echoing in my head,  "Be with your kids!"  And I grab one of them and take them out into the deeper water...where they've never been before.  I spin them around, and let their bodies float free, because none of them actually know how to swim, and their feet have always been grounded.  I'm face to face with these kids, their big eyes bulging with delight, eyelashes glistening from the water, and smiles shining brighter than the hot sun.  And I take them out one at a time, over and over and over, squealing, laughing, screaming, squeaking, and so many other noises of excitement.  Sure...we took them to the beach.  That is the easy part.  But where it really makes a difference is actually being with them.  Playing with them one-on-one and splashing with them.  That's when they know they are special, important little people.

Other than that, I went back to my lake the next day with another volunteer.  And I can't even explain how many men/boys and underwear I saw, my 2 days at the beach!!!!!!!  They show up and strip their pants and shirts off.  No swimming trunks here!  All sizes and levels of elasticity not to mention thickness of fabric, or lack thereof.  Ha!  It is no wonder that women and girls aren't permitted to go--its quite scandalous for this conservative society!  How many times did I see some poor little kids' pants (underwear) fall down, and the day before plenty of the little kids just went bare.  It makes me think that if you can't have integration, perhaps segregation would be a step up.  A part of the beach that is just for women.  And again I struggle with the acceptability of me, a woman, being at the beach.  I found a mother, daughter, and 2 sons.  We sat by them.  I saw 2 other little girls swimming.  But as the day went on, more boys and men came, and the women all disappeared.  We swam out to the pier and I dived with all the boys--even from the highest parts.  They were impressed, and perhaps quite shocked, and I think I was accepted into the fold. On the swim back I was escorted by the 2 cutest little boys who just wanted to sit near me the rest of the day.  You know how much I love swimming!  And you know how hot it is! So I indulged myself, and it was fine.  But I don't know what the talk of the town is going to be...I'm sure that regardless, I'll have to take my kids from the orphanage out again.  : )

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June 19, 2004

#25)  WHAT ARE YOU DOING FOR the 4th of JULY??????????

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June 19, 2004

#24)    THE Ilham Aliyev!  Yesterday was a busy day here in Mingtown.  I was invited to the Institute because the President was to make his first visit to town since his inauguration.  I waited in the courtyard with students and teachers alike, incredulous that He was supposed to go There.  But I played along until we all moved out to Heydar Aliyev Kuchesi, the main drag in town that has just been renamed in the former President’s honor—and my addressed changed, coincidentally--to join and wait with the rest of the town.   But not for too long, because I was also invited out to the IDP settlement (see update #22 for more info about the IDP situation/settlement), where He was scheduled to make an opening ceremony speech.  Yes…look at me, on the inside and in the know.  : )  I admit, it is a fun place to be.  I took mini bus #7 to the far side of town where I joined with World Vision and the community to bake in the hot sun for 2 hours.  At last, the security men got moving, the camera men posed and ready, the security cars flooded in and The Ilham Aliyev stepped out, but I couldn’t see him for awhile because he was surrounded with people.  He is tall; he stands above the rest.  Important people stood on the platform and made speeches while we all continues to bake for the next 45 minutes.  (I was in the front row, by the way…about 20 feet away.  Azeri’s always take very good care of their guests and my World Vision friends are so sweet, they kept pushing me to the front!)  My friend, Nurana, was one of the translators, so now I call her a star.  Of course, I didn't hear a word anyone said.  By the time everything got going, we were all so hot, hungry, and thirsty, that I was simply fixated on the fact that the President's wife was standing beside him in blue jeans, a white T-shirt, and no heels!  Now I feel justified in wearing whatever I want, as in not dressing up all the time!  The next day on one of the Azerbaijan channels, whose job it seems is to be exclusively dedicated to following and broadcasting the President’s every move, we got to watch the whole ceremony again.  And I did get to see myself once before the power went out!

Interesting tid-bits:

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June 2, 2004

#23)    Hello all!
Two days of school left, classes at least. They have a month of finals coming up. And I'm sure you're all thinking...wow! What is Cara going to do all summer? It will be a nice break. Hardly! I'm excited to say that good things are happening all over the town in Mingachevir and I will have to opportunity to help with a few really neat projects.

The first one that I'm the most excited about is I managed to find a local women's group here. They already have a comfortable office with a doctor to help young women with literacy and health. So...women can learn about family planning, condoms and the like. I have heard horror stories that some women strictly believe in the 28 day cycle, that if they don't have their period on the 28th day, they automatically assume they are pregnant. If they don't want to be pregnant, they undergo highly unsafe procedures I won't describe to you. Education is key. Even more exciting is that they want to expand and create a gym for women! The space right next door is perfect! High ceilings, open, with pillars, 3 separate areas that will be perfect for an aerobics area, weight machines and stretching. There is also the plumbing for a locker room and showers. We are beginning to form an action plan to locate resources. It is a big, exciting, and very possible project. I'm super glad to have discovered some women in town that are more active and are not content to sit inside cooking and cleaning all day.   : )

Then, the teachers and students decided they want to open up a branch of AzETA (Azerbaijan English Teachers Association) here in town. That means getting the teachers together, a space, resources, etc. I will help this project also. If you remember, I just recently got back from presenting at this group's first national conference ever.

After that, we're working on a beach day clean-up/play day with World Vision, Peace Corps Volunteers, and kids from the orphanage  (See update #26 for details about how this day turned out!).

Then, for a week in June I'm going South to Masalli to help with an English Language Camp there.

In July, the volunteers in Sheki are putting on a GLOW camp...can't remember at the moment what the acronym stands for, but it is to encourage girls to get involved and empowered. I will work with them on that.

Somewhere in all this, I hope to play guitar, read a bunch of books, continue to study Azeri, and go to Georgia for a few days.

Oh! And at the end of July, AZ2 comes! We are all excited for that...although I feel like I might be the jealous big sister...feeling like our super attentive staff has new priorities. We were the first...the unforgettable... : ) When have I ever been the first anything???? : )

It got HOT here fast. I went to a toy last night. Just sitting I was sweating, and I'm not that much of a sweater. People continue to be impressed by my Azeri Dancing. 

Hope you all have lots of rest and relaxation this summer...chase a dream...and drop me a line. Love, Cara

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May 25, 2004

#22)  Nagorno-Karabaugh:  I have been hesitant up until now to write a piece about a very sensitive issue in Azerbaijan because it is such a difficult situation to understand:  the conflict with Armenia.  I will give a basic outline of the history, what I understand at this point—which may or may not have some errors (and as I learn about it while living in Azerbaijan…I try and filter through the bias),--and then end with some hopeful news. 

The Soviet Union collapses and Armenians are living in an area called Nagorno-Karabaugh.  They take over more and more of the lands, many people die in the fighting.  Many Azeris are forced to leave their homelands and live essentially as refugees in their own country—about 20% of the population, actually.  That is why they have the name Internally Displaced People, or IDP’s. 

When I talk about the monthly mourning ceremonies we go to, these are the battles and struggles the people remember.  Each town has their own Martyr’s Alley, the biggest one is in Baku.  The dates of all the battles are painted on the walls in the schools, there is a big billboard in Mingachevir that says “Don’t forget.”  They hand out little slips of paper listing all the battles.  Amana is here helping to educate and remove land mines in the disputed territories, since there is currently a peace agreement. 

These battles have infused a hatred in the people for Armenians.  They are called “the enemy” in school, among other things.

I was invited to dinner by an IDP family that were actually victims from the Xojali massacre.  There are differing reports on this battle.  Some say it was a battle, others a massacre, and still others say it was genocide, and once that term was applied, there was no going back.  I’ve heard horrible tales, the photographs are gruesome—shown yearly on local and national television--of the people being shot and wounded.  The family said people plucked out their gold teeth—dead or alive.  They fled without even a fork.  They couldn’t find the husband for quite some time; they thought he was dead.  It turns out he had hidden in a lake—underwater—for 3 days. (And of course, that whole conversation was in Azeri, but I’m pretty confident I understood it all correctly!)

The government at the time felt an enormous responsibility to help the people, and the country continues to use enormous amounts of resources for their IDP families.  It has been going on now for over 10 years, and there is a resentment that is starting to grow against these families.  They are given priority on the few jobs available, food distributions, monetary support, free housing, etc.

Mingachevir has a large population of IDP’s.  Many of them live in the schools.  They hang laundry on the line, play in the yard, and typically take up a floor or wing of the school.  (Schools are on double shifts).  They also live in old, run-down factories left over from the Soviet Era.  The two IDP families that I have gotten to know a little better have been extremely kind, jolly (to use one of the favorite adjectives of my students) and simply wonderful people.  They both had houses and jobs.  Their homes/flats looked like every other Azeri household with its see-through curtains, chandeliers, decorations, and cabinets full of dishes.

World Vision has been working with the government and local people to design and build a community for the IDP’s in Mingechevir.  They have built a settlement of a few hundred houses and last Tuesday the first families were allowed to move in.  I got to drive through the settlement and see some families with proud and smiling faces as they move in with their belongings.  Many families took advantage of the permission to plant before moving day and many of them planted one of the local favorites, gizil gul (red rose, although gizil technically translates as gold!).  They are proud and hopeful for the future.  The community building is complete.   There is space allotted for markets and central bazaar.  A modern play facility is in storage and will be assembled soon by a group of men from Great Britain.  Hope abounds.

An interesting twist to this story is that the President himself, Ilham Aliyev, is scheduled to come out and officially help open the new settlement.  It is interesting to see the improvements in town and all along the road to Baku as people anticipate their great leader’s arrival…

**See #24 from June 19, 2004 for more about the President's visit!

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May 22, 2004

#21)  Road Race:  Saying I'm the champion sounds much more exciting than it really is!  But I did get first place in the Baku Road Races for the 5K this weekend.  I took a minute off my time.  26:10 or something like that.  Whoo-hoo!  Its really not that fast...but I'm healthy and well.  It is fun and somewhat tortuous, running, that is.  But I couldn't have asked for better weather--it was a beautiful clear, warm day with a small breeze.  I got a shirt and a really nice Jeep bag.  My fellow volunteer won the 20K and so impressed the Azeri men watching, that she was immediately invited to join the Azeri National Team and travel with them to compete in Tiblisi this Thursday.  : )  They said they'd talk to the President to get her a visa, and send her a training schedule on email.  She's hoping to turn it into a secondary project and get women in this country running/exercising.  She was the only female to run the 20K.  At the least, she's hoping to get women access to the Olympic Training Center in Sheki.  And from there, I'm hoping to get access to the Olympic Rowing Center in Mingechevir...

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May 18, 2004

#20)  Teaching at the Institute:  I know up until now, I have not said much about what I do at the institute, and I purposefully use the word "institute" instead of "university" as people in town have corrected me.  We also have a Polyteknik University, but my Teacher Training Institute is a branch of the main university in Baku.  So I stand corrected.  : ) So let me tell you the exciting news!  Last December three students wrote letters to Darien Book Aid, Inc. (based out of Connecticut) who sent us--free of charge--23 pounds of books!  Hurray!  In a place where resources are few, and what there is tends to be locked up in someone's special cabinet and inaccessible to the common person, this is a huge blessing!  Instead of just giving the students all the books and letting them sit in the library (I admit, students can be a little lazy!), I decided they must read them and initiated a "Read-a-thon."  Azeri people can be very competitive.  We now have 2 weeks left of classes and I am excited to say most of them have stepped up to the challenge.  I have some really fabulous students that are on scholarships and study all the time!  I also have many students that have paid their way into the university and pay for their grades, and will pay for their diplomas.  And the rest of the students are from the Regions and were not able to get into the "popular" schools, namely any school in Baku, because they have a lot of learning left to do!  To start them off, I only gave them 20 children's picture books--the easiest--I said (although we know picture books are also good for adults, they still need to learn it doesn't insult their intelligence and can be just plain fun!) and they must earn the other books.  And they want to have books!  I just left the library which had about 20 students in it--ALL mine!  Two of the teachers are not here to day, so they could have gone to the bazaar, but they didn't!  They were in the library reading!  By the way, I rotate through 4 different classes, first and second year and am supposed to co-teach with the regular teacher of that class.  I have spent much time watching and patiently trying to integrate myself into the teaching routine and gain their respect.  You see, my style of teaching is different than anything they have ever seen!  According to Raziya, a second year student, she described local education with the following words: "criticize, shout, cruel, humiliate."  She described my teaching: "as a friend, encouraging, work our brains"  and then she said, "and somehow, you make us to think."  Hurray!  To some of the local teachers, what I do doesn't count as "teaching" here...yet.  They call it "playing"  I'm glad to say that I'm now getting more teaching time, and the students only become more responsive as they become comfortable--and enjoy--this new style.  Word is spreading and today we had a guest in the class that, although he doesn't even speak English, encouraged them to learn from my teaching style and use it when they become teachers.  Slowly, slowly...different is becoming OK as the students are motivated and ARE learning with these silly "games."  Last week for the "transportation" unit I had a listening exercise with Peter, Paul and Mary, "Leaving On a Jet Plane." And they absolutely loved it.  It is slow, repetitive, and about love...you should see them sway as they sing it.  : )  Oh, but my classes.  I teach 77 students, 8 of whom are boys!  Sometimes it makes for interesting dynamics, especially with the gender roles here.  So...the Read-a-thon is going well, and with the help of World Vision, I will even have some prizes to give away at the end.  Some really nice professional skirts that were donations from Nightengale's in London.  Then for the WHOLE month of June, they will take finals.  I don't understand how they can stretch them out for a whole month.  "To My Mind" (as my students always say) they will have plenty of spare time to continue reading. The other exciting news, work-wise, is that we finally got a key!!!!!!  Hurray!!!!!!  There is a special English Language Center on the first floor that is, let's face it, almost always locked and the lady who is the gate keeper likes to be agreeable and helpful but then rarely acts on what she says.  So...after a few months of playing this game, we went to the Rektor of the Institute.  WOW!  He immediately called that lady in (This whole thing was surreal and reminded me of the conversation with the Police Direktor) and said to my surprise and delight--why is the door locked?  Its for the students.  And then he made another call and brought a different woman down. He said she gets a key and will sit there from 9-5 every day, and the room will be open!  The students and teachers can use it.  So, I was finally able and willing to deposit a nice pile of current and interesting magazines and junk mail for my students!  Not only is a woman there, but she even speaks English!  So I will teach her some skills, and next year, she will be leading English conversation clubs.  We're all about building skills and empowering the locals to survive without me!  And slowly, it is fun to see this mission being carried out...

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April 27, 2004

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March 29, 2004

#18)  Amazing Contrast:

Novrus Bayram:  We celebrated Spring!  Finally, a happy celebration!  Since living in Mingtown, I have participated in numerous sad occasions:  the death of Heyder Aliyev and the ensuing days of grief and mourning for him.  The remembrance of Iyirmi 20 (Jan 20) and Xocali (Feb 28).  All occasions where we first cancel classes, gather together, and go to the grave sites with silk flowers in honor of those that have died.  In all senses, it has been a winter of grief for my Azeri friends.  Another amazing contrast!!!!!  A happy occasion where they band together to cook the National Meals and Sweets (plov and dolma, paxlava, shekerburra and many others).  People have little rounds of growing wheat called semeniya, they boil and color hard boiled eggs.  We tossed hats at houses, ding-dong-ditched and came back to retrieve our hats filled with goodies:  National Sweets, nuts, and dates.  We have egg wars.  And there was a huge celebration in the square.  Big bonfires, a man jumping on a tight rope, and children all dressed up on bright, colorful costumes dancing to live music!  The sun was shining and I was happy to see the remembrance and coming of spring.  Hurray!  A joyful celebration.  And since my week in Baku, the papags have disappeared along with the big heavy coats!  Happy Spring!!!!

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February 17, 2004

#17)  Polis Direktor:  Last week our Director of Safety and Security for the Peace Corps came to Mingtown to introduce us to the police.  We were escorted up the stairs to the corner office at the front of the building.  We entered through the double doors, and by that I mean two doors, one following the other, not side by side!  The office was set up like every other director's office I've had the priviledge of seeing in this country:  A long rug running the length of the rectangular room to the desk, arranged in a T.  As I sat at my place by the table, I noticed the other desk coming off  his full of phones!  Three of them were bat phones...direct lines to...who? I wondered?  He also had a huge switchboard with flashing red lights.  He pushed one button and in his deep voice, simply said, "Chai geterin"- Get the chai.  No please.  No thank you.  Nothing excessive.  As our Emil explained Peace Corps and what we were doing here...the chai came.  Upon the Chief's first comment to me:
 It's a little late for you, isn't it?  Why aren't you married?  Well...I already have enough laundry to do.  But that didn't stop him.  He said they have plenty of single men in the police force.  Lazimdeyil.  I don't need a husband, I said.  Then he met the couple that lives in Mingechevir with me, and now that I think about it, it's a little unusual they weren't asked why they don't have children?  Single people are asked why they aren't married; married couples are asked why they don't have children.  (If I haven't already, I'll have to write sometime about the beliefs behind this!)  He met them but was not dissuaded.  He came back to me to tell me that I'm not going to make it 2 years as a single lady; somebody is going to kidnap me.  That is what they do here...you get married officially, or somebody steals you away to marry you.  Sorry, I don't think so.  Hahahaha.  This is guy that will provide for my safety.  Is it wise to be aggressive and tell him off?  So I tried to remain amiable as he pushed another button, "Gel."  Come.  And then Imran came, the Director of the Yol Polis, the men out on the street.  He is in charge of my safety.  That is good news; they are all now watching out for me...instead of simply watching me...

Bingo: Bingo is Azerbaijan's lottery, and people sit at their stands in the street all day long selling tickets, mostly for 2000 manat.  You can win a car and money.  

TV/entertainment media:  The TV schedules include Azeri, Russian, Turkish, American programs.  We get quite a few American movies (sinema); they are dubbed in Russian, even on the Azeri TV stations.  There is also a large amount of music videos, concerts (konsert), and music programs in general.  We have Tom & Carri (Jerry) on the Turkish station.  We have Spanish telenovelas (soap operas), which we call teleseriales, dubbed in Russian and Azeri.  I am currently watching two of them with my host mother:  "Amantes del Desierto" and "El Clon."  Spanish TV is very popular, and so is Shakira - once when I was in a Turkish restaurant I saw 3 videos in 40 minutes!  For other shows, there is "El Gitano," but only in Russian.  The other aspect of Azeri television is the news (Xabarlar).  It has the weather with local and international news.  We see a lot about Amerika and Russia, the two countries that Azeri hopes to get aid from and align themselves with ... depending on who you talk to.  Daily we are bombarded with Ilham Aliyev's day as the cameras seem to follow him 24/7; although much less since Haydar Aliyev's death slowly fades into history.  There are a few children's programs, some of which are American based educational programming dubbed in Azeri, but mostly they're Turkish.  Also there are talk shows (tok-sou), sports, and fotosou, where they have scenes of Azerbaijan set to music!  The general rule in Azerbaijan seems to be that if you have electricity, the TV should be on, and it should be loud enough so that you can hear it in every room of the house!

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#16)  January 30, 2004

Out the window:  Right now I sit at the computer in the best internet club in town--they have a generator that helps deal with the constant power outages and pretty good computers!  The sun is about to set behind the 5 story cement apartment building across the street. It is Golden Hour.  There is a little kiosk out the door where they sell chocolates, gum, beverages, etc...there are little shops like this on all the corners.  Across the way is the park area before the main road.  The parks here are gray and red tiled walkways that have fountains, trees, and benches.  People patiently sit all day by their little tables to sell a pack or two of gum for 1000 manat or a little newspaper-rolled cup of sunflower seeds for 200 mana--even when it is cold out!  Right out this window is a public telephone stand.  They unhook the phone at night and take it with them.  A phone call costs 1500 manat/minute to a mobile phone or 9000 manat a minute to America.  (5000 manat is about $1).  The most
 fascinating thing to me are the men that sit on the benches all day...mostly three to a wooden green bench.  They show up mid-morning wearing their shiny black shoes, dress slacks, long black coats, and furry papogs.  Then they talk, quietly watch everyone walk by.  I'm so tempted to go and sit.  I want to watch them watch everyone else!

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#15)  January 7, 2004

This is a great letter that Cara wrote to her PCV-matched classes.  Its scanned and linked here, don't miss it!
Click on the first page, then use the arrows at the top of the page to see the next page.  There are 4 pages.

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#14)  January 11, 2004

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#13) January 3, 2004

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#12) December 31, 2003 

Yeni ilini mubarek! Happy New Year! 2004 will come to me before it comes to all of you! : ) Its amazing the festivities that are happening. New Year here is Christmas and New Year combined. Out on the street are yulkas (Christmas trees) and shakhta baba and gar giz (Frosty Father and Snow Girl, as my students translate it!) are ready to pose for photography. The kids are out of school as of the beginning of the week and there is a constant stream of firecrackers and bottle rockets that are blasting away. My host brother (Ferid) and sister (Nurana) are tossing them off the balcony. Yesterday I went with the school kids to a play. It was more like a concert with costumes... someone would sing along to the music and all the kids were in the aisles dancing. As the play went on, the stars of the show appeared.  Pachobel's Canon introduced first frosty girl and later frosty father. At the end a high tech robot came out, kind of a Michael Jackson feel to the music and his dancing. It made me laugh. It was quite an ordeal to get into the theater. Kids were pushing like crazy...not exactly orderly. They almost broke a door down. I have similar memories from the metro in Mexico City! Not a comfortable feeling. And they were lighting firecrackers and sparklers in the theater! 2 1/2 hr ordeal...but good to see the culture, you know? Either way...we will be feasting, the kids all have little plastic masks, and so many people are out on the streets. It feels festive...although people have commented to me that this year the festivities are subdued...perhaps because of the death of their great leader, Heyder Aliyev. At least that is how they tell it to me.

Electricity
It has been so sketchy lately that the cell phones won't even charge--not enough power coming through! The ironic part is that for bayram (holidays) there has been NO problem. What is the deal here? I ask around and people just expalin that it is a bayram. Yes, I understand that...but it makes no sense. If you can have constant power now... then problem is fixable and you can have constant power every day. Basha dushmuram--I say this A LOT--...some things I just don't understand. Now, I have bought a nice stock of candles. I really enjoy the candle light at night. 

Kura River 
My town is right by the river. I love walking by it...especially in the mornings when the sun is rising. I head down my favorite road I call "Pinetree Promenede" to the river. A couple of times, like today, I've even been inspired to run. I've seen rowboats on the water--wouldn't it be great if I could get connected to that. And today I ran all the way out to the dam and beyond. There are just some roads that call to you... begging to be discovered, and that was one of them. I had heard there was a dam and reservoir, but I just ran out along this road and there it was! I am absolutely stunned by how BIG the lake is! There are great rocks to stand on...I know this will be one of the places I come to often. It is peaceful and beautiful...close to the city, but you can feel like you are out in nature.

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#11)  December 27, 2003

Merry Christmas Greetings to all of you!

A few moments of my holiday here in Azland:

*Having my students huddled around me belting out, “We Wish you A Merry Christmas!”

*Riding in a Marshrutka to the snow covered and absolutely beautiful Caucusus Mountains, the ancient town of Sheki.

*Meeting up with volunteers! Christmas Eve we had the MOST amazing feast yet with turkey kabob and amazing salads and nut dolma.

*A Christmas service and singing.

*Christmas morning sunrise RUN (50 mins!) exploring the town with Sarah! (Imagine the colors playing off the snow covered mountains!) Cobblestone streets, old alleyways, shops…so much to see!

*Bazar shopping for dinner fixings, cooking together…

*Exploring an old caravanseri…old hotels with BIG doors and guest rooms enclosed within the walls. They used to have the camels in the middle! The palace is currently under restoration…

*Talking and laughing!

*Making little ornaments from napkins and paper and packaging tape!

*Meeting more Azeries and hearing the “sweet” Sheki accent!

*Eating American treats from care packages. (By the way…they have yet to tax anything…so mail me whatever you want! Hahaha! )

*Thinking of all of you…I pray you are well and wish you peace in the new year.

Heyder Aliyev…the mourning period has been extended to 40 days. One day last week I walked with the whole university to the executive building in Mingtown to put silk flowers…we had to wait 2 hours for our turn to show our “spontaneous” display of grief. We had a week solid of Heyder programming on every TV station. So many hours (by that I mean days!) of people walking past the building in Baku laying down flowers. There was a hush-hush incident at the university where a student expressed an incorrect political opinion at the worst time possible. Whoops. The teacher asked me not to say anything…I’m not sure if the danger lies with the outside world knowing or the inside world knowing? Amazing glimpse into the culture….that I’ve been asked not to share…so you get no details.

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**DEC. 18 CARA IS FAMOUS  :)    ....   Info on Peace Corps page

Link to Peace Corps article about the Azerb. PC group!  www.peacecorps.com & look near the bottom left of the page 

Begins:  "Recently, Azerbaijan gave an historic welcome to its first group of Peace Corps volunteers during a swearing-in ceremony in the coastal city of Sumgayit. On December 12, 2003, United States Ambassador to Azerbaijan Reno Harnish helped to officially inaugurate 26 new volunteers into the Peace Corps.

In addition to the ambassador, the swearing-in ceremony was attended by the Peace Corps Azerbaijan Country Director Bill Levine, the Sumgayit Mayor Vagif Aliyev, the Azerbaijan Deputy Minister of Education Elmir Qasimov, and principals of the schools in which the new volunteers will be working. Also in attendance were 14 returned Peace Corps volunteers from other nations who are now working with development agencies in Azerbaijan, members of each family that hosted a volunteer during their three month training period, and the Azerbaijani Language and Culture Facilitators (LCF’s) who helped the volunteers adjust to their new home in the country.

“These are really special people,” Country Director Bill Levine said of the new volunteers. “They’re bright. They’re committed. They embody the pioneer spirit that a first group needs to have. We’re all really proud of them and confident that they will set a very high standard for subsequent groups of volunteers."

Link to Peace Corps article about the nation of Azerbaijan    www.peacecorps.com & look near the bottom right of the page

http://www.peacecorps.com/index.cfm?shell=learn.wherepc.easteurope.azerbaijan.photogallery&Photo=4

Has info about Azerbaijan & 4 photos.

Begins:  "Azerbaijan is at once familiar and different—and the contrasts are a constant in daily life. From a strikingly modern capital to towns and villages where water, heat, and electricity may be infrequent at best; to a technically savvy elite with access to luxurious hotels, cars, and restaurants to people living in decaying Soviet-era flats or modest farmhouses, using horse-drawn carts, and eking out a meager living; from glorious natural beauty to environmental degradation—Azerbaijan will present new challenges and experiences wherever you go throughout the country."

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 #10)  Monday Dec. 15, 2003

Greeting from Azland!  I have arrived safely in Mingechevir, and I can't even begin to tell you about the last few days moving out of Siyazan...a few days in Sumgayit where we had meetings with our new supervisors..swearing in...moving to permanent sites. 

The conference was quite a disaster...they didn't seem to understand the concept of a schedule, objectives, and we kept getting off track.  Many of them still didn't really understand what they were doing here and what a volunteer should do.  I'm grateful for Mayil Muellim, who is SO incredibly on top of things.  He said he read his handbook 3 times, got me a room on the 3rd floor so that I'll be warmer, and he also mentioned something about a computer.  His English is good, and he is also culturally sensitive...realizing that there are changes we have to make to live here as a foreigner.  I appreciate that, and extremely grateful for him; I think we will have a productive working relationship!

Then we also had our swearing in ceremony at the Chemical Palace in Sumgayit at 10am Dec. 12th.  There were many important people present--officially, that is---and I got to meet the US ambassador.  We lead the 6pm news, and my new host family saw ME on national Azerbaijani news, although I missed it. 

Our fame was short-lived, however, when they announced that Baba had die