A Quick Trip Across the Border...

A couple weeks ago I ventured to our neighbor to the northwest, the Republic of Georgia (Georgiastan), with some friends. We decided to go to Tbilisi, made a reservation at a guesthouse (where Georgia PCV’s stay when they come in for official PC business), and that’s all the preparation we did. We came from four different regions and met in Shemkir, the city where Chris and Katie live. It’s the furthest west out of our group, so it made the best starting point. We all gathered on a Saturday night so we could leave first thing Sunday morning. Getting to Tbilisi from Shemkir took three separate busses. One from Shemkir to Gazakh (a decent sized city further west), Gazakh to the Red Bridge (the border), walk across the border, and then find a new bus to go into Tbilisi. The border was interesting – definite differences between the two countries in their facilities and approaches.

After leaving Shemkir at about 8:15am, we arrived in Tbilisi at about 1pm – even with the border crossing and multiple bus changes. We made great time! That afternoon we just walked around, explored, found a restaurant, etc. Traveling can be exhausting. Monday we did even more exploring. Visited some churches, explored parks, went up to the city wall/citadel, the botanical gardens, etc. We even saw a Heydar Aliyev Park – Heydar Aliyev is the former president of Azerbaijan and you can’t travel a street in Azerbaijan without seeing a statue, billboard, quote, museum or park named after him, something we didn’t expect to see in Georgia. We also met up with a friend of mine – Natia is from Georgia and was a FLEX (exchange program) student in Jenison last year. So she showed us around a little and took us to a great Georgian restaurant. Georgian food was great – dumplings, cheese bread, etc. Tuesday we looked for some souvenirs (met a fellow American working in Azerbaijan on vacation in Tbilisi – small world, huh?), went to the sulfur baths, ate Chinese food and visited the zoo. There are currently protestors in Tbilisi – opposition to the current president/administration and how the war was handled last year – and we passed their cells (sleeping areas) and also saw a march going on across the river (we were there on a national holiday). And we played a LOT of cards every night. The night before we left the woman who runs the guesthouse came and talked to us about the news from the day – apparently the opposition had blocked some transportation. We weren’t too worried, but did talk about some of our options in case we had trouble the next day. It ended up being a waste of time – while it took us forever to find the bus that went to the border, everything seemed normal. We ended up with seven people (six of us plus the driver) squished into a little hatchback jetta – or something similar – for the 45 minute trip to the border. Little bit of conversation at the border, then the trip back to Shemkir, and the following morning back to our respective regions.

All in all: a great, memorable trip to a place that’s as close as the next state in America. There were definite differences from Azerbaijan, but it’s hard to tell how many of them would hold up if we had traveled outside Tbilisi. Azerbaijan is in the middle of everything geographically and there are certain things that seem to be more European in Georgia whereas it may be more Central Asian here in Azerbaijan. But those are just thoughts – it was only a few days. Hopefully more travels will come later in my service as there are many nearby places that would be exciting to visit.

Note: Pictures are impossible to upload with dial up, but I’ll try and add some to this entry and others later this month when I have access to faster internet.

Approval!

I found out recently that my grant request was approved! So what that means is that once I receive the grant funds (in late June/early July) I’ll be working with my organization to expand one of our computer learning branches and open a new one. It’s exciting news because the new location will be in a village outside of the city (about 25 minutes outside) that only has one bus route to the city each day (meaning they don’t have easy access to our center). And this will be the first public access that the village (population of about 1,200 people) has to computers and the internet, including even in the school. While we don’t have the money yet, things need to start soon. We’ll start training the new teacher at our center in the city and start recruiting students. That way, when we receive the money we’ll just need to make our purchases, set everything up, and start classes. Let the to do list begin!

Chickens! Cows! Sheep! Oh My!

Last weekend I was checking out my hometown newspaper online and I found the most ironic article. If I hadn’t come to Azerbaijan, it would have just been a normal article, but now that I’ve lived here it’s anything but. “Residents Want to Raise Chickens in TC” had me laughing out loud because it’s an everyday, normal occurrence here. My guess would be that about 50% of people have chickens in their yard, and most likely other animals too. My host family during training lived in an apartment so there were no animals there and my host family in Ucar did not have animals. But my landlord does. There’s a rooster, six or seven chickens, and some chicks. It’s also not uncommon to see a couple cows wandering the streets, snacking on the grass growing on the side of the road. So pets are rare (why would an animal live inside?) but barnyard animals are as common as tea (really, it’s a miracle if you can go a day without drinking it). I grew up on a farm so the being around animals isn’t all that strange, but doing it in an area where there are lots of people is; even more odd is that none of them are fenced in. They just seem to wander – for example, my landlady’s chickens usually stay on her property due to the gate/wall, and inside there’s a coop for them to sleep in but they randomly walk everywhere. Sheep are shepherded through the city, albeit in smaller herds than outside of the city, and cars are accustomed to waiting for animals to finish crossing the street. At least here people know where their food comes from!

It certainly does say something for the patience of Azerbaijan people as a whole. How do you think that’d be received in the US? I can just picture it in my last apartment complex…

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!