You Don't Have Women's Day in America?

Last week, March 8th, we celebrated Women’s Day here in Azerbaijan (and in many other countries throughout the world). It’s just like it sounds – a holiday for women because they are women. Personally I don’t understand it. Why? It’s celebrating something that you can’t control and on a day that has no significance (in contrast to say, Independence Day or Veteran’s Day). But it’s just like any other national holiday, only with presents! People get the day off work and the schools are closed. Students bring presents for their female teachers, men bring presents for their female co-workers, etc. I now have an excess of perfume (a very popular gift here) as well as artificial flower bouquets. I asked if there’s a Men’s Day and was told that there was when Azerbaijan was a part of the Soviet Union but that there isn’t now. So while I think the idea is nice, it just seems like it’s emphasizing women, and why would you need to emphasize women if everyone is equal, especially if there isn’t a Men’s Day? Isn’t the best way to recognize equality to show it with equal treatment?

A Pantry, What's That?

It’s hard for me to explain differences between America and Azerbaijan without making huge generalizations – people are unique and different from each other in Azerbaijan just like they are in America. But here is one difference that I have noticed in more than one place…

Normally, I go home for lunch each day (as the majority of people do) and my host mother has prepared food for me along with the rest of the family. A couple of weeks ago I went home and was unexpectedly alone. Who knows, maybe my host mother had gone to work or the market. But I had no way of knowing when she would return, and she has said in the past that her kitchen is always open to me, so I began to forage. I was amazed at how little they keep on hand and as I thought back to my host family during training it didn’t seem any different. Here’s what I could find: onions, potatoes, eggs, flour, tea, jam, bread, butter/oil and pickled veggies. Now this isn’t because the family I live with eats only what I mentioned. Here, it’s not uncommon to go to the market every day and buy fresh produce. You buy what you need for that day and maybe the next day, but that’s it. Why buy what you aren’t going to use immediately? Since it’s fresh, it would go bad. My logical mind is thinking that there are good and bad sides to this: fresh food every day is great (tasting and for your health), but ugh, going to the market EVERY day or two! It seems like such a waste of time! But I was one of those people who would go to the store once every three or four weeks and really stock up. Even those people who go to the store once a week in America have a pantry that would probably produce great curiosity on the part of an Azerbaijani. There’s also the little issue of power here. Even if you wanted to prepare something in advance you would need a place to store it, and while most people have refrigerators the power goes out almost daily and the outage can vary in length from a few minutes to hours. So it kind of defeats the purpose of a refrigerator. So there you are, a little information about one of the many differences I have found between Azerbaijan and America (there are many others but this one’s easy to write about).

fevral yagışa mart güllərini gətirir...(February showers bring March flowers)

I grew up with the saying “April showers bring May flowers,” which is quite appropriate for Michigan. It doesn’t work for Ucar, Azerbaijan. Here it’s early March and we have some rainy days behind us (although there are probably more to come) and flowers are blooming. The grass never really disappeared (it only snowed once this winter, and it stayed for less than a week) but I can see the fresh green of the new grass compared with the old grass. Daffodils and violets are out and some trees have a hint of green. And while it’s a little muddy it’s definitely more welcome than the mud in the fall. This mud is in anticipation of spring and growth while the fall mud doesn’t give one much to look forward to except days huddled around whatever heat source is available. Men have started to play dominoes outside – the click click click is a sure sound of better weather. During the day it’s been in the 50’s and 60’s and the sun is beaming down all around town. The only place that’s not warm yet is inside – when it’s a concrete block building, it doesn’t warm up quite as quickly as it does outside…maybe next month.