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.

During the Day...

So in response to a couple of questions about what I’m doing at work, here goes:

I’m continuing to teach conversational English classes two days a week. Right now this consists of getting the kids to talk – a lot of their English language knowledge is grammar and while that knowledge is necessary, it means they can tell me about the types of nouns a lot better than they can tell me what they did yesterday. So I’m sure they’re sick of all of my questions, but they are speaking more than they used to and that’s good – even if it’s not perfect they are hopefully increasing their confidence in it. They’re also recognizing that they don’t need to know every English word before they can speak English – for example, they’ll ask me a word in English and a couple of times I haven’t known the answer – not the translation, but the English word. Part of it is because I’m not a walking dictionary and part of it is that I don’t know British English – what, a swine is the same as a pig?

My organization also has computer classes at our center in Ucar. There are many villages that surround Ucar and are varying distances from the actual town. We currently have locations in a couple of the villages and would like to expand to another one. This village, Shadlig, is about 20 – 25 minutes from Ucar and only has public transportation into Ucar once a day. So this town is ideal in its location because the residents do not have easy access to the center in Ucar unless they have their own transportation, which is not common. An arrangement has been made with the local school for use of one of their empty classrooms, now all we need to do is get the computers. But to get the computers, we need money. That’s where I can help. I’m going to write a grant that will hopefully be approved and then we’ll be able to purchase computers for this village “branch” of our center. Right now I’m working through all of the logistical questions:

• What besides the actual computers do we need?
• What’s the budget?
• With this grantor the organization needs to put in 20% – can they afford that?
• What are some of the risks associated with undertaking this project?
• How will it continue to be sustainable after the computers are installed?
• What exactly will be taught in these classes?
• And on and on and on...

Well, now I’ve written on my blog about it. I guess it’s about time to work on the application…

In Azerbaijan They Drive on the Right (Most of the Time)...

Riding in a car in Azerbaijan is an adventure. As Peace Corps Volunteers we are not allowed to drive or own a vehicle. This is for two purposes (that I know of): one, it increases our safety and two, we are expected to live at the level of the locals, and owning a car is not a common thing here. As the title of this entry foretells, they do drive on the right, which is helpful as a foreigner (knowing which way to look – very important as pedestrians are not given the right of way) but that doesn’t tell the whole story. Very few roads have lines – down the middle, between lanes, or on the sides. There are very few traffic lights. Roads are pretty much open territory. If the right side of the road has a big pothole in it, why not drive on the left to avoid it? If there are cows or sheep being herded across the road, drive on the left or wait for them to finish crossing (herds can be from just a few animals to over 50, which usually takes up more than one lane). If the road curves to the left, drive in the left lane to make the trip that much more efficient. And while I’m not saying this is wrong, I am saying that it’s very different from the order/attempted order you see on American roads. There is also a different sound associated with driving here. In America the sounds I associated with driving are braking and crashing. Here it is the honk of a car horn.

• Honk: I’m turning here.
• Honk: Random animal, get out of the way.
• Honk: I’m passing you now.
• Honk: Hi, how are you?

So even though there are less cars on the road it seems noisier to me (and I’m in a small city). A couple of weeks ago I was travelling to another city and I took a taxi part of the way. Sitting directly behind the driver the thought popped into my mind that this is what it must feel like to be in Mario Kart (or some other car racing video game) – he had his hands at 10 and 2 (the proper driving position), was hunched over (like he needed to get the best view possible), peered in the rearview mirror as necessary to pass another car, and was driving as though a record was at stake (when really all that was as stake was another fee – the sooner he got rid of us the sooner he could pick up another paying customer). So, like the bull that jumped in front of the car I was riding in yesterday (the brakes worked), combine all of these things together and anytime you get in a car it’s an adventure and a story waiting to happen.

It's All Around Me...

One of the issues facing Azerbaijan as they continue to transition from Soviet rule is the environment. This includes the pollution and contamination from the massive factories (some of which are still in use) as well as establishing the infrastructure for trash removal. Following is a conversation that I had with an Azerbaijani last week while walking in Ucar. She had just finished a snack and threw the wrapper (about the size of a small chip bag) on the side of the road.

Me: Why did you just throw that wrapper on the ground?
Her: Because there’s no trash can here.
Me: What do you with your trash at home?
Her: I put it in the trash can.

In my mind, I would put the wrapper in my pocket and throw it away when I got home. I can’t say if this is an overall Azerbaijani perspective because I only had this conversation with one person, but there is a lot of trash around. Some areas are very clean and I’ve seen a garbage truck picking up trash on a daily basis; however, I’ve also seen people throwing trash into a pile which has been here since I moved. So I don’t know if the basic infrastructure of trash removal is in place and it has yet to progress beyond its current stage, or if people just choose to ignore it. And while this is not something that I can change on my own, hopefully I made the person I was walking with think about her actions and how it affects the area around her…

Guesting...

As I’ve previously mentioned, I’ve been assisting and teaching some English classes at my organization. Before we all left on the holiday one of the students asked if the English teacher and I would come to her house during the holiday break. The English teacher, Mesme, had to check at home so after doing that we decided that we would go this past Friday, and after my travel adventures it was moved to Saturday.

Mesme and I met in town and Ulvia, one of the students, came and picked us up with her uncle, who has a car. We were then driven to Sevinj’s house (three of the students, Ulvia, Sevinj and Lale, are very good friends and all live in the same village just outside Ucar) where we were greeted by her mother and fed tea and snacks (baklava, cake, etc.) while we looked at Sevinj’s pictures – with school friends, with her family, at weddings and just general growing up pictures. So there were the three students, Mesme, me, and whatever members of Sevinj’s family seemed to wander through. These are the times when I wish there was some sort of program where I could just absorb the language while I sleep and wake up fluent – I know I was being talked about but I couldn’t understand everything. And having Mesme there was both a positive and negative experience – if I had a question there was someone to direct it to and help with translation, but I know she also answered questions that were directed at me when I could have answered on my own.

After 45 minutes or an hour we left Sevinj’s and walked the equivalent of a block or so and ended up at Lale’s house. There we were welcomed by more family members, ushered into the dining room, and had fruit and nuts set out before us – along with tea, of course. After some chatting came more food – chicken, bread, etc. Tasty chicken, but it’s hard to know how much to eat when the hosts aren’t eating – they’re watching you eat. It’s that tricky balance between eating enough to be appreciative and not offend anyone, but not so much that they think you’re starving and try to give you even more…

So an hour later the three girls, Mesme and I left Lale’s and we walked along the village road that leads to the main road into Ucar. When we reached the main road instead of turning toward Ucar, like I thought we would (maybe to catch a bus home), we turned the other way. Now, it was time to go to Ulvia’s! Maybe I should’ve asked at the beginning – I initially thought all of us would be getting together at one of their houses, not all of us going to each of their houses… So Ulvia’s house was more of a walk, 15 – 20 minutes away, and when we arrived we were greeted by her mother. Into another eating room, we were welcomed with tea and sweets (mmm…baklava). We all looked at Ulvia’s pictures and then came more food: cabbage dolma, salad and bread. Dolma is a traditional Azerbaijani dish that is a meat and rice mixture wrapped in cabbage (or grape leaves) and cooked. After that the sweets returned, along with fruit and more tea. I really should have known what we were doing ahead of time, that way I could have staggered my eating a bit more – it was all so delicious! Then we were at Ulvia’s for a bit longer – doing the typical teenage girl kind of thing – watching some TV and listening to music. From there Sevinj and Lale walked home and we waited for Ulvia’s uncle to come by with his car and give us a ride home.

Retrospectively, it was an interesting day. Not entirely what I expected, but even better. It was good to see the girls in their element, outside of the classroom. And not only outside of the classroom, but in each of their homes, being the host. Each home we went to it shifted – you could see the girls and how they were almost ready to have a home of their own, and do this on a regular basis. I saw the same thing with my host sister during training – she’s 17 and not yet engaged, but her family was already planning her dowry and she couldn’t get enough of looking at home decorating magazines or helping her mother around the house. I’ve noticed that it’s much more forward looking here than what I remember growing up. I learned how to bake cookies because I wanted to, not because I would need to know how to cook for my household one day. I had chores because my parents wanted to teach me responsibility, not because I needed to know how to do laundry for my future household. Here it seems that the end result is always in mind – girls will grow up and get married, so these are the things they need to know.

I’m sure this was just the first of many visits to friend’s homes, so we’ll see what’s to come. Obviously all of Azerbaijan won’t be represented in what I see, but hopefully I’m getting a well-rounded view during my time here.