You're Not Scared To Live Alone?

In Azerbaijan the Peace Corps requires Volunteers to live with host families for the first four months after they move to their permanent site. The Peace Corps finds host families for us during training and they work with our counterpart organization to find host families for us at our permanent site. Then we’re pretty much on our own. We either have the option of staying with our host family (renegotiating our cost and what they provide for us, which not many people do) or finding a place in town to rent. I knew from the beginning that I would want to live on my own. There’s nothing wrong with my host family and it hasn’t been the bad experience that some people have had (or an exceptionally wonderful experience either) but it’s just hard to be living with someone else after having lived alone for so long, especially when they don’t understand your language. When everything else I do is in a foreign language it’ll be nice to have a little sanctuary of my own, a place where I don’t have to be “the American,” I can just be myself.

Most Volunteers have to go out searching and talk to everyone they can. But my Director (the Director of the organization I’m placed at) is AMAZING and told me that he would take care of it. And he does know more people in town than I do, which definitely helps. So a couple of weeks ago we went and looked at a house; it’s actually where the Volunteer before me at my organization lived. It was a hit! I’ll have two bedrooms – one of which can serve as a living room – and a kitchen. And the basic facilities, of course. The owner is moving to Moscow at the end of May, which is very common here in Azerbaijan. It’s estimated that almost 2 million Azerbaijanis live and work in Russia, and since Azerbaijan has a population of only about 8 million people, that’s a pretty big percentage. So I’m moving in on April 11th and will technically just be renting a room and sharing the kitchen until she leaves, and then I’ll have the place to myself. And my favorite part is that there’s a porch, which will be especially nice during the hot, hot summer that we’ll have here. I’m so excited to be living on my own, and especially to be cooking on my own. Part of the host family agreement is that they provide food for us and while I haven’t had to cook anything with my host family, it’s not exactly what (or when) I would be eating if I could cook for myself. Mmm, spaghetti and omelets and cold beverages…

People seem surprised that I want to live on my own. The norm is to go immediately from your parent’s home to your husband’s home – and sometimes when young couples get married they even live with one set of parents for awhile. Whenever I mention it to someone they ask if I’m afraid to live on my own and seem surprised that I’m not (even though I haven’t heard one bit about crime in the four months that I’ve lived in Ucar, so I’m not sure where the perception of fear comes from). But telling my host family was no big surprise. I had mentioned it to them periodically since I moved in that I wanted to live on my own. But they definitely tried to change my mind. The public services (water, gas, electricity, etc.) can vary from one area of town to another and they definitely went on and on about how great theirs are. But I’d gladly have gas or electricity a little less regularly and be on my own. And the best news is last: while the house is not exactly on the same street where I live now, there’s a back entrance only two doors down from my current house, which makes for easy moving! The countdown is on!