The Blue River

November has been full of multiple big events in Azerbaijan. First and foremost, site placement was announced! I know now where I will be going for the next two years of my service as a Peace Corps volunteer… Goychay (Goyҫay – translates as the Blue River)! I am extremely excited about placement. I was a bit apprehensive before our program managers announced the sites because I had not really expressed any huge desires one way or the other about what I cared about for a permanent site. Of course there were some ideas I had formed about preferences, but I was not sure if they were valid or reasonable. For instance, I had hoped I would be placed somewhere that was not ultra conservative. But I also did not want to be in a city. Well those two sort of cancel each other out. However, I have heard now from multiple people that Goychay is not too conservative, so I can keep my head up about that. Also, I did not know whether or not I cared to have site mates. That would include having other volunteers in the same region as me, meaning they would be approximately within fifteen to twenty minutes at the farthest, and living in the same city as the closest. I rated my preference on sitemates as a three on a scale from one to five (I really dislike arbitrary scales). But as it sometimes pays off not to have too high of hopes, I ended up with not only four other sitemates, but some of the best. Two of the other men from my cluster that I am currently in for Pre-Service Training and I are all getting sent to Goychay together! Matt and I will be in two separate villages in the region, and Alec will be in the actual city center. Taḡiyev 19 will live on forever! My mouth and jaw hurt a reasonable amount from smiling so much by the end of site placement day.
We also had our two preapproved (and only) trips to Baku for training so we could see the city sites and learn to navigate the public transportation system a little. What an absolutely gorgeous city! I was not really sure what to expect from Baku. However shocking this may or may not be Azerbaijan is just really third world. Therefore when all of the locals told me about how beautiful Baku was, I sort of just attributed it to “Azerbaijani Pretty.” I figured it probably looked really good in comparison, but was not sure if I would feel the same way about it had I been looking at a picture while sitting at my desk in America. Well I was dead wrong. Baku is really gorgeous, full of oil money, and clean. That is a rare combination for the country. As always with big cities, there are drab areas, but that is to be expected. And my favorite part of the informational handout the Peace Corps gave us before we left explicitly stated, “Please be careful while in Baku. Pedestrians DO NOT have the right of way, even if they are in the crosswalks. Some cars will drive on the wrong side of the street to get ahead of other cars or stalled traffic. They will also drive on (wide) sidewalks so please be vigilant while you are sightseeing.” Ah, yes, this is a way different city than the rest of the country, but at the end of the day, it is still Azerbaijan. I do not have any regrets about being prohibited from driving for the next two years. Traffic laws are virtually non-existent, respected sides of the roads are arbitrary, and everyone drives about 90 mph at all times. And reason number 65 why I would not want to drive in this country: My twelve year old host brother is one of the drivers on the road (He sits on a pillow to see over the steering wheel).
This month I also finished a two week practicum to get experience teaching which was really beneficial, will have another Language Proficiency test in a week or so which I hope will go better than the last, celebrated a big Azerbaijani holiday with my host family, am getting together will the rest of Taḡiyev’s trainees to have a Thanksgiving bash, and am meeting with a representative from my new school in a couple of days.
Ideally the Peace Corps asks for an English teacher to come to the “Counterpart Conference” where they discuss a few of the finer logistics regarding having a volunteer for the next two years, showing us around the community, and preparing the school for us to come co-teach. I am already getting nervous for the conference. I am going to be living in a really small village for the next two years, and my school only has 200 children (equivalent to K-12), and therefore only two other English teachers. In contrast, one of the men from my cluster is going to a school with over 1000 children and ten English teachers. So he will be able to observe for about three weeks before deciding who to work with for the remainder of the year. I, on the other hand, will by default work with these two teachers all year. The reason I am nervous for the conference, though, is because if they are the only two English teachers in the entire school, there is a chance they will not have been able to leave to come to the conference. Instead, there could be a Director, Assistant Director, or some other teacher sent in their place. Meaning, for the two hour lunch set aside for us to jabber away, I am going to be able to showcase my broken Azeri as a good first impression. But this is all speculation. Some schools have all women teachers who are not able to get away because of children at home, tutoring after school, or other commitments, so it is not foolproof in any situation.
As for the next few weeks, all of us are buckling down on language for the final test, and anticipating our move on December 10th. My current host family is already really sad when we talk about my departure. In fact, every day they tell me how many days left until I leave and then get really sad faces. But they are excited because Goychay is the pomegranate capital of Azerbaijan and even has a pomegranate festival every year, which they swear up and down they are going to come see me next year when it happens. Apparently I just missed this year’s festival as it is always in October. I am anxious about moving to site, though. Right now we have an extremely structured and busy schedule. Every volunteer talks about the atrocious time you have on your hands once you get settled in and on a school routine. Every school runs from about eight in the morning until one in the afternoon, but there are not any teachers that actually teach for that entire time. Meaning there is a chance I will go to school from eight until eleven every day and have to figure out what to do with the rest of my time all day long. If anyone has some good ideas on an easy hobby for me to pick up, please throw them my way. I guess for the next two years I cannot say I did not have the time to learn.
**I tried to add some pictures of our trip to Baku, my house, Tagiyev, etc, but I just couldn't get the internet to comply. I promise they will come one day though!