Working Together and a Trip to Baku...

Last week the Peace Corps put on a Project Design & Management Workshop for Peace Corps Volunteers and their counterparts. I was able to attend with the director of my organization; so last Wednesday we traveled the 4 hours to Baku together. The Peace Corps put us up at a local hotel and that evening was free as it was our travel day. My director, Alimusa, went to see an old friend who lives in Baku and I went out to dinner with some Peace Corps friends.

Thursday morning we arrived bright and early at the Peace Corps office and started the workshop. The first day was a lot of review for the volunteers as we had covered a lot of the basics during training (at least during CED training). But it was new for the counterparts, many of whom were not directors or co-workers, but interested community members who have worked or will work with the volunteers. The training was completely bilingual, everything that was said was translated into the other language – if the trainer led a session in English, the translator would translate to Azerbaijani; if a question was asked and the response was in Azerbaijani, the translator would translate the answer to English. At times it could be hard to follow because the language would shift – one minute I would need to be listening to the presenter and the other to the translator! So day 1 was a lot of project planning basics and PC grant information. The day was topped off by a trip to CitiMart (the amazing store that is the only place I know of where you can buy peanut butter in Azerbaijan) where I treated myself to ice cube trays, pb, brown sugar and sweet and sour sauce; then we ate dinner at McDonald’s and went to the store for English movies.

Day 2 of the workshop was definitely the better of the two days. Not that day 1 was bad, but day 2 was much more practical and hands on. We worked with our counterparts on a potential project and went through all of the project planning steps. Side note: A few weeks ago Alimusa and I had discussed potential projects to work on after I had submitted my grant application. So because of that I had three or four ideas in mind that we could discuss. But it turns out that we planned a completely new project! This was kind of frustrating because as much as I’d love to do all of these projects (he has some great ideas) it’s just not feasible to do them all at once, especially with the magnitude of some of them. But we talked over the project to determine what it will entail, who we need to talk to, what the timeline should be, the potential costs, etc., etc. And now it will just be a matter of putting that plan into action, meeting with our contacts, finding money, and so forth.

Alimusa told me that he really liked the conference. I could have taken anyone, but I chose to take my director because he has all these ideas for our organization and community and I thought it would help him think through the processes and determine the feasibility of them. It was definitely interesting to see the varied English abilities among the counterparts – some speak very good English while others, like Alimusa, know none. This is also because the workshop was for all three areas (CED, TEFL and YD) and depending on the area in which a volunteer works can determine how much English language interaction they have/how many people they know that speak English.

We ended the session at the end of the day Friday and Alimusa headed back to Ucar that evening. I’m a poor PCV with just a living stipend, who am I to not make use of an available hotel room? So I stayed until Saturday. I spent most of Saturday in the PC lounge using the internet (it’s fast and unlike at my organization, I don’t feel guilty for using someone else’s computer) to do research and catch up on my email. That afternoon I took the train back to Ucar and enjoyed what was left of the weekend! Now to see what progress we can make on this project!

The Cycle of Volunteers...

So the normal lifespan of a Peace Corps Volunteer is approximately 27 months: 3 months of training and 2 years of service. Before our group, volunteers always arrived in Azerbaijan in June. With our group the arrival changed to September. What this means is that in September, the AZ5 group of volunteers will be leaving and a new group, AZ7, will be arriving. And this is really just a long way of saying…

If you're an AZ7 who's found my blog, welcome! I had my invitation by this time last year and we’ve heard that many people have already been invited and have accepted that invitation. I know I read some volunteer blogs before I left to try and learn more about the country and the Peace Corps; real information from real volunteers instead of Peace Corps publications. We’re looking forward to meeting you this fall! If you have any questions, feel free to post a comment or send me an email!

It's Finally Time!

So that title sounds really exciting, but I thought it was worth mentioning something very mundane and kind of entertaining. I stopped wearing long underwear and started wearing sunscreen on the same day. While it’s been spring for a while now, at work we have no heat (a couple of small space heaters for the winter) and it’s a concrete building that just does not warm up quickly, even if it’s warm outside. So because of being inside I wore long underwear through the end of April (with the exception of a quick walk to the store or just being at home). The walk to and from work was sometimes a little toasty, but being warm at work made up for it. But now it’s what I would consider hot. This past weekend was in the 80’s and it’s just spring. Apparently it reaches about 40 degrees (Celsius, of course) here in the height of summer. For those of you who are Celsius challenged, that’s about 115 – 120 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s hot. (For anyone who doesn’t know me well, summer is my least favorite season because of the heat.) And I’ve started applying sunscreen as a part of my daily routine because I was outside this weekend just walking around town and got a little sunburned. And with walking 25 minutes to work each way, it’s definitely needed, at least for now. Maybe by July I’ll be accustomed to the sun and won’t need it. We’ll see. I’m already enough of a conversation piece for the people of town, I’d prefer to not make it worse by looking like a tomato. Stay tuned for before and after (May and September) pictures…

Ahh, the Joys of Living Alone (For the Most Part)…

So I’ve now been moved out of my host family and living on my own for three weeks. Yay! I knew I missed cooking for myself, but I didn’t quite realize how much! I can now cook for myself whatever I want whenever I want it. Well, with the constrictions of the ingredients I can get locally. So no peanut butter, chocolate chips, brown sugar, cheddar cheese or pre-packaged beef (I don’t really have the desire to buy it from the butcher and grind it myself). And if I don’t feel like eating I don’t have to explain it to anyone.

And I can also come and go as I please. No one needs to know if I’m coming home for lunch or asks me why I came home at 6:00 instead of 5:30. And while I recognize that that’s what a family does, it was just a hard adjustment to make after being on my own for so long. In my new housing I just let my landlord know if I won’t be home for the night so that she can lock the door. The house is set up so that there is a porch with three doors opening off of it: one is the kitchen, which we share (to date no problem there as their schedule is completely different than mine), one leads to my area and the other leads to her area. So while there were a few questions the first week as I learned my way around the house and she saw that I really did want to be independent, everything seems to be going smoothly now. And soon she’ll move to Moscow.

Even though I was very excited to move out of my host family’s home, I think host families are an important part of the Peace Corps. I met a number of people through them and experienced local holidays with a local family, which wouldn’t always be possible on my own. While you can experience a large part of a culture by living in it, there would definitely be parts I would’ve missed by only living independently and never with a host family. So while they are definitely not family, it was not a bad experience and I will look back on it positively, and I will continue to see them as long as I live here.

A Cash Based Society...

Here in Azerbaijan, things like debit cards haven’t really caught on. I have a debit card that I use at the ATM when I need money (the Peace Corps deposits our monthly living allowance in a local bank account) but there’s nowhere else that I can use it, with the exception of maybe a few places in Baku. Everyone just uses cash. I use cash to pay my rent, buy food at the store, buy a train ticket, buy more time for my cell phone, etc. But the strange thing is that even though we are in a cash based society, many, many Azerbaijanis have had to learn to use the ATM. All government positions – teachers, doctors, transportation workers, pensioners, etc. – are paid via direct deposit into accounts, and they access that money via an ATM card. The banking system here is still fairly new (rebuilt after becoming independent in 1991) and many people don’t put their full trust in it. What that means is that most of the time when people get paid, they withdraw everything and operate in cash only. The worst time to go to the ATM is at the end of the month when the pensioners get paid. The crowd is insane! And there is no such thing as a line; it’s just a clump of people gathered around the ATM.

Normally there’s no wait, but for those couple of days there can easily be 20 or 30 people waiting to use the ATM. And sometimes you’ll get there and an elderly person will give you their card and tell you their pin number because they don’t know how to use the ATM. I once waited behind someone who helped four others with their transactions. The hard part of transitioning to a cash based society is that I actually have to plan ahead for what purchases I’ll be making to ensure that I have enough money before I go to the store. Coming from a place where I usually had just enough cash to grab food at a drive-thru because I would use my debit card for everything else, it’s quite an adjustment.