It's That Time of Year...

If anyone’s looking for a good cause to contribute to before the end of the year for taxes purposes, check out the following link. Here you can donate to the Peace Corps general projects or search for specific countries and/or programs and as it says on the site, it’s all tax deductible!
http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors

Settling In...

So I’ve been in Ucar for a little over two weeks now and I’m settling into a bit of a routine. I’ve been going to my organization each weekday and have become involved in the English classes they offer. This is an area where I could start to contribute right away while my Azeri is still improving and I’m learning more about what the organization does and how it operates. I just observed at the beginning but have been teaching some classes since my second week. There is an English teacher who teaches English grammar three times a week and then the other two days I am teaching conversational English. I’m trying to coordinate what we speak about in my class to what they are learning or have already learned, which can be kind of tricky since there’s not really a “curriculum” like there would be in a traditional school. So I have lots of ideas of things to do – the least of which is cheering the room up with some visual aids – but right now it’s just a matter of participating and involving the students. The students are anywhere from 10 – 25 years old and it’s been great getting to know them and the area through them.

We have an AMAZING store in Ucar which I’m sure I won’t fully appreciate until I move out on my own and cook for myself all the time – items that you can’t get in many parts of Azerbaijan. We also have many train tracks – the ones from home in Michigan have followed me and multiplied! I have to cross them to get to and from work each day, but at least I’m not stuck in a car waiting for the train to pass – I use the pedestrian overpass if a train is moving or just walk over the tracks. And I had mail waiting for me two days after I moved (Thanks Mom)! It’s the little things that give a lift to your day – an unexpected letter or package, a great meal, an email from a friend, the absence of mud, etc.

And while Christmas is not a celebrated holiday here, New Year’s definitely is. There are New Year’s trees and Saxta Baba/Santa Claus (Grandfather Frost) and holiday music. Saxta Baba is even on the Coke bottles! And there’s a “Merry Christmas” decoration/ornament on the New Year’s tree outside the Cultural Center at the end of my road (I haven’t seen any New Year’s trees in anyone’s home, just in outdoor/city areas). I worked on Christmas like any other weekday, but we’ll have some Christmas celebrations with other volunteers over the weekend.

Earlier this week I worked with Jeff, who is an AZ5 TEFL volunteer in Ucar, to meet a teacher at his school who might be interested in tutoring me in Azerbaijani. She wasn’t able to do it, but she introduced me to another teacher whose daughter is an English teacher that would be interested in helping me. The Peace Corps reimburses us up to a certain amount for continuing our language learning, so I’ll start that up right after the holidays. I feel like I’ve improved on some of my vocabulary since moving but I think I’ve forgotten some of the grammatical stuff. I can usually get my point/question across, but it’s definitely not how an Azeri would say it.

The End of PST & Becoming a Volunteer...

The last couple of weeks of PST were pretty busy. We had language class as normal every morning and a CED session pretty much every afternoon. With the permission of my program manager I did make a 24 hour trip back to Ucar for a meeting that he wanted me to attend. Because of the time of the meeting, I left the previous afternoon, stayed the night in Ucar, and then went into my organization the next morning. I sat around for a while and then finally had a chance to talk to my director and it turned out that the other half of the meeting unexpectedly showed up the day before. So the meeting happened, just not with me there. I was told they tried to call me, but I didn’t answer (I don’t have voicemail…) But according to my phone, the only call I missed was when I was already on the way there, so it wouldn’t have made much of a difference. While I’m disappointed that I didn’t get to attend the meeting, I’m sure this won’t be the only scheduling conflict that I run into while I’m here. The concept of time is just a little different here – I saw it when I was in Peru during college as well – and we just have to come up with a happy medium of compromise.

The CED sessions were interesting – I think it comes more from knowing how we’ll be using the information now that we have our site assignments and have been there rather than everything kind of being up in the air like it was two months ago. We learned about grant writing and some of the resources available, the banking environment in Azerbaijan and other relatable topics. (Does a 15% savings rate sound good? What about when I say that the inflation rate is in the 20’s? Makes a difference, doesn’t it?)

We had a cultural event towards the end of PST at the local Sumgayit music school. One of the teachers had made a connection with one of the LCF’s and the result was a three hour musical program for us, half consisting of traditional Azerbaijani music & dancing while the other half consisted of a more traditional concert (we even recognized some songs…raindrops falling on your head…in Azerbaijani of course) with a choir and musical ensembles. It was amazing to see the talent, especially in the youngest kids, dancing these intricate dances and playing instruments that we’ve never seen before.

Our last two days before swearing in were hub days, which are days when all 61 of us gather together to have sessions that apply to all of us instead of just the individual programs. This was essentially their last push to get us any information that we may not have received yet during training. A small sampling of this was reviewing our EAP (Emergency Action Plan), receiving contracts to pass on to our new host families, an overview of what reporting we need to do, what our first 90 days should look like in our new communities (with corresponding assignments), clarification of money, elections for the VAC (Volunteer Action Committee) and instructions for the swearing in ceremony. I was interested in the VAC and ended up being the alternate, so should one of the six people elected not want to continue as a committee member or if they leave before their two years are up, I’ll end up on the committee. We’ll see.

These two days were also a holiday here in Azerbaijan, Qurban Bayrami. Here’s the link to the Wikipedia page telling you about it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qurban_Bayram. Let’s just say there were lots of sheep around that had a red marking on them signifying their impending doom.

The actual swearing in ceremony was on Wednesday, December 10th at a local cultural palace. All of the Peace Corps staff as well as the trainees/new volunteers were in attendance. Invitations had also been extended to the directors of the schools where we did our training, our host families, representatives from our new organizations, government officials from the corresponding ministries (for TEFL, the Minister of Education, for YD, the Minister of Youth and Sport, and for CED, the Head of Regional Development Program, Ministry of Economic Development) and current PCV’s. Some of the government officials came themselves while others sent a representative in their place. Our actual oath was administered by Donald Lu, who is the US Embassy Deputy Chief of Mission. He’s a former Peace Corps Volunteer (along with our Country Director, Admin. Officer and Program & Training Officer) so it’s a little more authentic/meaningful to be sworn into something by someone who’s actually done it. Although I think we were all a little jealous when he mentioned during his speech that he was dropped off at his site by the Peace Corps, while we all have to get ourselves there. The ceremony was followed by refreshments with the guests and then most of the newly swore in PCV’s headed to a local gathering spot to enjoy the rest of the day and say goodbye to each other since the next day we departed for our sites.

Thursday was traveling day. Lucy, a volunteer who lived near me, and I shared a cab to the bus station in Baku. It was more expensive than taking the marshrutka, but definitely worth every qapik. This way we didn’t have to try to explain all of our luggage and we also got dropped right at the bus station entrance instead of having to walk a ways. At the bus station I waited for Kevin, my new sitemate, and we got a bus. We ended up on a bus to Berde instead of a marshrutka to Ucar, which was fine with me – the busses are the size of charter busses in the States so there’s room underneath for luggage, and they said they would stop on their way through Ucar. Now Ucar is not huge and I’d only been there twice, so by the time it started to look familiar I saw us passing the bus station. Kevin noticed the same thing and he was closer to the front of the bus, so he got the driver’s attention and the bus stopped. So we arrived in Ucar! We didn’t go backwards to the bus station but were let off on the side of the road about 100 meters away, with our luggage piled around us. Kevin’s counterpart was coming to pick him up and was nice enough to give me a ride home, but we had to fend off a few taxis while we were waiting. So I was ushered into my new home and of course was given tea right away. Now to just break in the fact that I don’t really like tea that much.

It was sad to say good bye to my first host family. I really enjoyed them 98% of the time and hope to see them again. It’s just hard to start all over again with a new family – what you’re like, how social you are, what you like to eat, how much you eat, etc., etc. I feel like it was just towards the end of my time with my first host family that I was finally getting reasonable portions of food instead of these huge servings that could serve a whole family! But I’m also excited for this new family because from what I experienced during my site visit they are very different, and that’s good to experience to have an accurate understanding of Azerbaijan. Would a foreigner have an accurate perception of the US if they only met one family or visited one city? The difference isn’t good or bad, but they are much more social than my first family – the only people I ever saw in my first host family’s home were family and the student my host mother tutored. During my site visit there were always people over and I even went to a wedding. A new adventure to discover!

I’ll write more about work and such later. I miss you all and definitely miss the holiday season in the US! It’s just not the same but I’m doing my best to be in the holiday spirit by playing my Christmas music and watching Rudolph. I’m honestly ready for January to come for the holidays to be behind me and there only to be one more Christmas to go through halfway across the world. I’ve definitely come to realize how much I took it for granted that I have always been with family on holidays.

An Azeri Thanksgiving...

So on Thanksgiving Day we had language class as normal. My cluster wanted to do Thanksgiving together but we figured with class and such we wouldn’t have as much time to cook, so we planned Thanksgiving for the next Sunday. After class on Thanksgiving Day the girls went to the market to buy all the stuff we’d need: apples, garlic, onion, carrots, eggplant, etc. Then early Sunday afternoon we all met up at Lexi’s house since it was a convenient location for us to cook and eat (everyone’s amenities are a little different; for example, in my apartment there isn’t room for six people to eat at a table together). We started playing Christmas music and got to work. Lexi had gotten a head start on a few things, but we peeled apples for the apple pie and peeled and cut potatoes and other veggies. It was definitely a balancing act because cooking space was a rare commodity (we could only have one thing in the oven at once) – so the squash went in first, then the veggies, then stuffing/dressing, then warming the chicken (it was much easier to buy pre-cooked), then pasta, and finally the apple pie while we were actually eating. And then there was the stove with the mashed potatoes, fried potatoes and apples. We had huge quantities of food – more than we could have ever eaten, even with Lexi’s host family, who joined us for dinner.

They lingered around during the day and were definitely interested in what we were doing – it was, as the Peace Corps would say, a cultural exchange for them to see what we did – the foods we cook in America and how we do it. There were actually very few things that had to be altered because of being in Azerbaijan – the dressing was missing a few ingredients and we ate chicken instead of turkey because of the cost, but otherwise it was a fairly traditional Thanksgiving meal. And in the meantime, while everything was cooking, there were games played, pictures taken, threading practiced, knitting learned (although on my part it was very short-lived – Lexi’s family kept trying to help and I got too frustrated and gave up for the day) and of course, lots of dishes to be done. It was a full day, and when we finally finished eating it felt like hours later than it actually was.

It was a wonderful day and I’m thankful for the amazing people I got to spend the day with! Even if it wasn’t Thanksgiving at home (no broccoli cheese casserole or football) it still felt like a heartwarming day with as close as I’m going to get to family while I’m here. Who knows, we may have a new tradition on our hands!

Oh, and as an interesting side note: I am now apparently ready to be married because I can prepare an apple pie that impressed Lexi’s host mother (she even asked me for the recipe)!