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.

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.