Novruz: Celebrating a New Holiday...

Novruz is the holiday that occurs on March 21st every year – the literal translation to English is “the first day of spring.” According to the people I asked, Novruz is celebrated in all Muslim countries (predominately Muslim). The four Wednesdays preceding the holiday people light fires in their yard or in their common area / the street if they live in an apartment. The four Wednesdays traditionally each have a meaning: fire, water, air and ground. Then everyone jumps over their fires three times, as doing this is supposed to leave all of your troubles, pain, sickness, etc. from the past year in the fire. And on the actual date of the holiday, the 21st, there is a big dinner and more fire jumping. For this big dinner the women are baking for days in advance. They make sweets that are only made once a year – baklava and other very rich treats. My host mother was full of activity for the entire week – preparing, baking, cooking, etc. The schools are closed for two weeks for the holiday but before they leave lots of classes have Novruz parties for the students (kind of like our Christmas parties). So the preparations at home aren’t made by just the mother but usually the kids too, since they’re home from school. (I say kids but I’m not sure if the boys help out; there aren’t any boys in my host family). At my house, with my host family, our big dinner consisted of appetizers (nuts, raisins, candy, baklava, and more), salad (a mayonnaise based concoction with eggs, potatoes, carrots, and peas), bread, then the main entrees – yes, I said entrees – dolma (grape leaves stuffed with rice, meat, etc.), plov (rice and chicken along with raisins and chestnuts in a sauce) and plain chicken. Then it was time for more of the sweet stuff and fruit. The few times I’ve eaten baklava in the U.S. the portions have always been very small – it’s so sweet it’s almost overpowering – but here the portions are like a small piece of pie! After a few bites I have the following thoughts going through my head: I wonder what something this sweet is doing to my teeth? How slow can I eat this to ration the sweetness before someone comments on it? I want to learn to make this before I leave Azerbaijan! How many pieces do I have to eat before I can turn the next one down and not offend someone? (Not that it’s not good, it is, but it’s hard to eat consecutive pieces of something so sweet!)

Many towns also have special events planned for Novruz. I had a few days off from work so I went and visited a few friends in Mingecivir. In Mingecivir they had a huge celebration in the central area of the city on the morning of the 20th. Different groups of people would put a display together and be responsible for their assigned area. For example, the local college put together a group performing traditional Azerbaijani dances, next to them was a group with traditional Azerbaijani food, and on and on. I missed these performances, but there was even a tightrope walker and strongmen! There’s also a Novruz tradition that involves eggs – is it a coincidence that Easter is about the same time of the year and there are also eggs involved? You hard boil eggs, dye them (sound familiar?), and then have contests with them. Two people each take an egg and then knock them against each other, and the person who breaks the other’s egg wins! Now it sounds like the wishbone at Thanksgiving! One interesting aspect to see is that you don’t just go to the grocery store and buy egg dye – you use natural ingredients! Eggs can easily be dyed red by using the outside of a red onion. But I’m not so lucky and my egg broke right away. Oh well. It’s about the experience, not winning, right? Mingecivir also had a huge fire, which I’m not sure if it would’ve even been possible to jump over. It was great to experience holidays in a couple different places (at home with my host family and in Mingecivir with friends) and see more than I would have in just one place. So now it’s officially spring and everything from the past year will remain in the fire. That can only mean good things to come!

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…