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.

You're Not Scared To Live Alone?

In Azerbaijan the Peace Corps requires Volunteers to live with host families for the first four months after they move to their permanent site. The Peace Corps finds host families for us during training and they work with our counterpart organization to find host families for us at our permanent site. Then we’re pretty much on our own. We either have the option of staying with our host family (renegotiating our cost and what they provide for us, which not many people do) or finding a place in town to rent. I knew from the beginning that I would want to live on my own. There’s nothing wrong with my host family and it hasn’t been the bad experience that some people have had (or an exceptionally wonderful experience either) but it’s just hard to be living with someone else after having lived alone for so long, especially when they don’t understand your language. When everything else I do is in a foreign language it’ll be nice to have a little sanctuary of my own, a place where I don’t have to be “the American,” I can just be myself.

Most Volunteers have to go out searching and talk to everyone they can. But my Director (the Director of the organization I’m placed at) is AMAZING and told me that he would take care of it. And he does know more people in town than I do, which definitely helps. So a couple of weeks ago we went and looked at a house; it’s actually where the Volunteer before me at my organization lived. It was a hit! I’ll have two bedrooms – one of which can serve as a living room – and a kitchen. And the basic facilities, of course. The owner is moving to Moscow at the end of May, which is very common here in Azerbaijan. It’s estimated that almost 2 million Azerbaijanis live and work in Russia, and since Azerbaijan has a population of only about 8 million people, that’s a pretty big percentage. So I’m moving in on April 11th and will technically just be renting a room and sharing the kitchen until she leaves, and then I’ll have the place to myself. And my favorite part is that there’s a porch, which will be especially nice during the hot, hot summer that we’ll have here. I’m so excited to be living on my own, and especially to be cooking on my own. Part of the host family agreement is that they provide food for us and while I haven’t had to cook anything with my host family, it’s not exactly what (or when) I would be eating if I could cook for myself. Mmm, spaghetti and omelets and cold beverages…

People seem surprised that I want to live on my own. The norm is to go immediately from your parent’s home to your husband’s home – and sometimes when young couples get married they even live with one set of parents for awhile. Whenever I mention it to someone they ask if I’m afraid to live on my own and seem surprised that I’m not (even though I haven’t heard one bit about crime in the four months that I’ve lived in Ucar, so I’m not sure where the perception of fear comes from). But telling my host family was no big surprise. I had mentioned it to them periodically since I moved in that I wanted to live on my own. But they definitely tried to change my mind. The public services (water, gas, electricity, etc.) can vary from one area of town to another and they definitely went on and on about how great theirs are. But I’d gladly have gas or electricity a little less regularly and be on my own. And the best news is last: while the house is not exactly on the same street where I live now, there’s a back entrance only two doors down from my current house, which makes for easy moving! The countdown is on!

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).