I am starting a section here called “Did That Just Happen?!” in regards to the daily things that occur to me while in Azerbaijan which leave me shaking my head and thinking, ‘Did that really just happen?!’ I came to the conclusion one day these small transactions are what epitomizes life in a different culture. Sometimes I find it difficult to explain (not just in Azerbaijani but also in English) why living in Azerbaijan is so different than living in America. There are times where the culture differences are vast and easy to point out. But sometimes, it is the fleeting observation of table manners that makes me chuckle, or chasing down a mashrutka in a taxi that leaves me thinking, ‘Whoa, I am not in America.’
Runaway Mashrutka
To preface this story, a mashrutka is a small bus, usually ten to 12 passengers which is used for both in-city travel at twenty cents a ride and from city to city at about three to six dollars a ride. (I am fairly certain mashrutka is actually a Russian word, but I am not sure there is a different Azeri word for it. Or if there is, no one uses it.)
My friend Rikki and I were on our way back to Goychay from a neighboring region where we were visiting another volunteer for the weekend. We picked up a taxi in the city center to take us the fifteen minutes out to the highway where we were catching a mashrutka as it passed on its way to Goychay. After the taxi driver had to take his little boy home for lunch first, we headed off to the highway anxiously checking our watches as we were getting close to the time the bus should have been driving by. Sure enough, as we pull up to the road, we see a blue mashrutka in front of us on the road. Rikki tells the driver she thinks that is the bus we need to be on, and without hesitation a pursuit ensues. Within about ten minutes of driving like a bat out of hell and passing multiple cars along the way, our taxi man had honked enough to flag down the mashrutka. Unfortunately it was filled to capacity, but the driver took pity on us and made other people share seats so we could board. As we were safely returning to Goychay, Rikki and I chatted about how when we both came to Azerbaijan, that ride would have scared the living daylights out of us and neither one of us probably could have appreciated it. We drove fast (really, really fast) and were allowed on a bus with no room or seats for two women plus backpacks. But in America, we would have simply just missed the bus, and that would not have been much fun either. I had to get to back to school. So for one of the many moments of, “Did that just happen?!” I was really glad it did.
Eggshells
There are a lot of beliefs in America about what will make you sick and what will make you healthy. Eat fruits and vegetables. Don’t eat butter and salt. Wear sunscreen and your seatbelt. Don’t listen to music too loud, etc. Azerbaijan has what feels like a thousand ideas about sick and healthy items. Unfortunately for me, they are usually near opposite to America’s. Sometimes I just don’t believe them. Sometimes I want to try them. And sometimes, I just shake my head and steer clear. One item for good health I shake my head at is eggshells. For about a week we had a bag of cracked eggshells hanging up in the kitchen. I figured they were being used for compost or something regarding the multiple animals and plants we have hanging around. But about a week later, I was enlightened to their use. My host sister-in-law put them through the meat grinder a few times and ground them to almost a powder, added a bit of milk, and fed them to the one year old baby for important vitamins. Ick. I’ll pass on the eggshell paste.
Child rearing practices
While we have been guesting at other people’s houses lately for birthdays and holidays and such, the two year boy has been especially frustrating. He is in an attention, terrible twos, wild stage. Lately, this includes wanting anything and everything other people have. As he is normally indulged in what he wants, I was not terribly shocked when he had half a glass of wine at dinner. My host sister-in-law said he was just showing off and would not like it anyway. I agreed, but after he had a few drinks, and then downed the whole glass, I’m not sure it was just to show off. And afterwards, if he was falling down because he has bad balance or because he was three sheets to the wind, no one will ever know.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
My Journalistic Exploits
I was asked by my high school journalism teacher to write a few articles for the school newspaper about being in the Peace Corps. Being the talkative person that I am, I ended up writing two different articles, two pages each, that were cut down quite a bit to fit in the paper. In high school, I had trouble writing enough for one article every month. Now I write enough to have my own paper weekly. Nevertheless, I figured I would publish these in my blog. Some of the information is redundant to what I have posted previously, but some of it gives a little more of the nitty gritty details that encompass my day to day life here. Enjoy.
SECOND ARTICLE
When considering joining the Peace Corps, a million questions ran through my mind. Most of them centered round life in a third world country for two years. Would I have running water, electricity, or a bathroom? Would I be able to talk to my friends and family often? Would I be able to develop adequate language skills? While all of these were important questions to be asking myself, I neglected one of the most important areas of what would become my Peace Corps Experience: My job. Because while being in the Peace Corps is purely on a volunteer basis, it certainly does not equate to just hanging out for two years in another country. For many of the men and women serving across the world, this is the most difficult and serious job they have had in their lives.
There are six different sectors available to Peace Corps Volunteers. Being placed in one of them depends on an individual’s background experience, such as education, volunteer work, and job experience. The sectors include agriculture, environment, education, business development, health and HIV/AIDS, and youth development. In addition, many other initiatives such as technology development are integrated into the programs. Every country who invites Peace Corps to help is evaluated and given certain sectors to meet their needs. In Azerbaijan, there are the programs of Community and Economic Development, Youth Development, and Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL). While I did not get my degree in teaching, I had experience as a supervisor and trainer for employees at work and I volunteered for two summer school sessions at West Fargo High School in the English as a Learned Language program (with three Valley City State University graduates!).
As a TEFL, I understand the Education Project Plan the best, but I will also give a few examples of the other sectors that are in place in the country. In the city my village is near, there are two other TEFL volunteers, one Community and Economic Development volunteer, and one Youth Development volunteer. The Community and Economic Development volunteer has written grants for some of the university students to put out a monthly regional newspaper, has taught basic computer skills to a local business, and teaches English through conversation circles to adults at two local banks. The Youth Development volunteer has two conversation circles of young adult women who meet weekly to learn and practice English, has put together two different dental hygiene clinics, and has written grants for local resource centers. Both of these young women have been in Azerbaijan for a year now and are extremely well respected in the community. They work very hard each week to continue to support their projects and think of new ideas to respond to the needs of their city.
As English teachers, we are required to teach a minimum of fifteen formal classroom hours at the schools we are assigned to. When I first read that I would only have to teach fifteen hours, I thought, “I am going to be extremely bored with all of the time I have on my hands.” At the time, I was going to school full time and working twenty-five hours a week. Being here has made me change my mind about how little I thought I would be working. While I do only teach sixteen hours a week in the classroom, I also have three formal hours of lesson planning with the counterparts I co-teach English with. I have the lesson planning I prepare at home on my own, preparation for my five different conversation clubs that meet for at least one hour after school, practicing with my students to participate in an international Writing Olympics competition, and am organizing a teacher’s conversation club. Informal work consists of assisting one of the other TEFL volunteers or the Youth Development volunteer about once a week with one of their conversation clubs, self-study of Azerbaijani language, and at night I tutor my host sister in English after her children go to bed. I also am in correspondence with a human geography class from Nebraska, write letters to family and friends back home, and attempt to update my blog regularly.
Needless to say, this job keeps me a lot busier than I ever thought it would. I would be lying to say I do not get bored though. School lasts from 8:30 to 1 p.m. every day. With clubs, it lasts until about three p.m. With dinner, lesson planning, and language, I can keep myself busy for another three or four hours or so. But the rest of the night and weekends can get really long. I have spent many hours watching multiple television series, reading a lot of books, and improving my crossword skills. This schedule is typical of a lot of Education volunteers, though. Some of my good friends in country are much busier than I am from being involved in teacher training seminars, participating in committees for Peace Corps, and organizing camps and sports leagues for youth. There are also some volunteers who do their fifteen hours a week, organize a few conversation clubs, and spend the rest of their time interacting with their Azeri host families or friends, traveling in-country, and seeing fellow volunteers. The beauty of being in the Peace Corps is the freedom to make your service what you want. While it is still a government agency with a typical bureaucratic hierarchy consisting of paperwork and chains of command and overhead, it is also a job with a mostly unstructured work environment, leaving the volunteer to personalize his/her two years in the best way possible for themselves. It also includes comprehensive medical care, accrued time off, and the ability to travel in and around your assigned country.
Being a TEFL volunteer means a lot more to me, though, than just a fifteen hour work week. My goal here is not simply to show up to a classroom and teach children English. In fact, that is probably one of the lower items on my priority list. Our main goals in Azerbaijan are skill transfers to our counterparts, introducing interactive teaching methods, providing life skill lessons, and encouraging creative thinking among the students (proving to be an amazing challenge in a post-Soviet country). Some days it feels like it would be way easier to do the lesson planning, visual aids, and homework exercises myself, but the reality is my counterpart would never learn on her own if I did all the work. After two months, I am finally getting my seventh grade students to answer questions I pose. Whether in English or Azerbaijani, the fear of being wrong inhibited them from saying anything at all. And some days all I really want to do is climb back into bed after my lessons are over instead of going to conversation clubs. But after spending ten minutes with children who think tic-tac-toe is the greatest game ever invented (even if they have to use irregular verbs to win an X or an O) makes a lot of the work seem worthwhile.
Every day here is a new adventure, a new page in my saga of Azerbaijan. This month, my program manager (my TEFL boss) came to my school to watch one of my lessons. During the lesson, I was walking around the room to ensure the children were pretending to pay attention, and as I circled around the back of the room, three floorboards gave out under me. But because I was staring at the floor in shock, I failed to notice the bookshelf whose legs had been relying on those same floorboards come crashing down on me. Thankfully the bookshelf was empty. I hurt way more of my pride than myself. In that moment, I thought, “I am definitely not in North Dakota.” But the fact of the matter is America has run down schools with inadequate resources, too. It has littering problems, problems with its economy, and inadequacy among genders. Sometimes the differences between the issues of Azerbaijan and America are great and leave me shocked, but a lot of times, they are really similar and that can be extremely humbling.
I feel grateful for being placed in such an interesting country. Working as a TEFL volunteer has been a great experience so far. The proudest achievements I have up until now include: Having my children repeat “Shh” on command to quiet the room, having my counterpart not be late to any lesson because the other teachers are having a tea break, getting the majority of children to raise their hand when I ask a question and not having them scream “TEACHER” at me while they are waving their hand in the air, and just last week my ninth grade class can now answer “How are you?” without any Azerbaijani translation. While they may seem like small achievements, they are the kinds of things that make me smile, even if bookshelves are falling on my head.
FIRST ARTICLE
“All I want to do is go to bed. I’m not sure I have been this sick in a couple of years and training is draining me. I wonder when my family will want to go back to our house.” Little did I know, when having this conversation with a fellow Peace Corps Trainee Joan, the most interesting part of my night had just began. Joan lived in the same apartment building as I did during our three months of training before becoming official Peace Corps Volunteers. Her host family and mine were relatives and after long days of school, I found myself eating multiple second suppers while our family was over there “guesting.” Almost immediately after uttering those words, in walks my 17 year old host sister, and Joan’s 18 year old host sister, showing us their red, welt ridden backs. Naturally, both of us were really scared and unfortunately, had a massive language barrier preventing us from knowing what was going on. So through a couple of pantomimes and a dictionary, what came across was, “Jars, fire, illness, and the Devil.” Well between that and my debilitating head and sinus cold, I felt like I was in a parallel universe. Needless to say, that was the moment I define as when culture shock hit me.
Culture shock comes at different points in multiple forms for most volunteers in the Peace Corps. Sometimes it comes in phases over months and sometimes it is an abrupt experience, like the first time you witness the act of “cupping.” (I have now had this done and quite enjoy it.) The best part of that entire experience though, was having the ability to immediately call another volunteer friend at midnight to tell him what had just happened. And that’s one of the best parts about being in the Peace Corps in 2011. It’s not the same isolating, thousands of miles of separation kind of experience it once was for volunteers. Of course, not every volunteer has the same experience and Peace Corps Africa is a lot different than Peace Corps Azerbaijan, but for the most part, technology has done wonders for those men and women across the world.
So how did I find myself halfway across the world in a country I had never heard of until I committed to a twenty-seven month agreement? The short answer of course is I joined the Peace Corps. But really the process started long before I submitted my application. I felt really antsy about finishing college, but I could not explain why. I knew it was partly because nothing really sounded appealing to me. A lot of people get jobs, a lot of people go to grad school, and a lot of people found some other alternative to suit their needs. My problem was I knew I wanted to be in the latter category, but did not know what that would entail. About my junior year, my sister had told me to look into it because she thought it would be something I would enjoy and being young makes mobility a lot easier. Well, whether I like to admit it or not, she is usually right. I ended up reading a lot of volunteer’s blogs online and went to a few Returned Peace Corps Volunteer events at the Moorhead Public Library. Even now, I think that answering the question of ‘Why did you join the Peace Corps?’ is one of the hardest questions I get asked. And I know I am not alone in thinking that. My usual answer is, ‘Why not?’. And while this life trajectory would not be everyone’s choice, it certainly is possible for more than just the recent college graduate. In my group, called the AZ 8’s (Azerbaijan’s eighth group of volunteers), we have 62 volunteers ranging from ages 22 to 70 years old. Some people are out of college, some people are in the middle of careers, in the middle of changing careers, finishing careers, etc. For some, this has been a dream for a lot of their lives, and with the economy, it was a last resort for finding work for others. No matter the case, sixty-two of us came here to be Community and Economic Development volunteers, Teaching English as a Foreign Language volunteers, or Youth Development volunteers. I am a TEFL volunteer which consists of fifteen to twenty hours of formal classroom hours each week and approximately ten hours of English conversation clubs with the children after school each week.
I did not know much about Azerbaijan before I came to the country. I had a relatively fast application process for joining the Peace Corps and was informed of my placement country exactly six weeks to my departure date. Before that I only knew I would either be in Eastern Europe or Asia. The beauty of Azerbaijan is it is placed exactly between the two. Usually, the separation of the two continents is determined by the Caucasus Mountain Range. That landmark finds its end running right through the heartland of this eclectic country, which has a relative size to that of the state of Maine. Azerbaijan’s neighbors include Russia to the North, Iran to the South, Armenia to the East, and the Caspian Sea to the West. It was once the major route for the North and East to meet the Silk Road into Asia, has roots in the Ottoman Empire as its language is a Turkish dialect, and was considered part of the Persian Empire before becoming under the rule of the Soviets during the USSR. Now twenty years in its independence, Azerbaijan is starting to find its footing in the world. During the Persian rule, Azerbaijan used both the Latin and Arabic alphabets, declared the Latin alphabet for the Nation’s two year independence from 1918 to 1920, was forced to switch to the Cyrillic alphabet for the USSR, and is now back to the Latin alphabet since gaining independence again in 1991.
Being here during this period is interesting every day. There is still a heavy lean toward traditional Azeri culture, yet the younger generation is pushing new ground for themselves. There is also a huge influence from the Soviet period that will not be removed any time soon. Even buying products at the bazar can be frustrating as a lot of labels are written in Russian, or if they are in Azeri, they are still in the Cyrillic alphabet. Yet, every year people are excited to establish their identity for Azerbaijan. My current host family has a last name ending in ‘Ov’ (Ova for a woman). However, for naming the grandchildren, they dropped the traditional Russian endings and added the Azerbaijani ending of ‘Li,’ which is not gender specific. There is still plenty of nostalgia for the Soviet system. Many of the infrastructure and basic needs of citizens were running smoothly in those times. Currently, the village I live in does not have a supply of gas. After the USSR fell, a depression hit the country and many people found themselves going to extremes to feed their families. Unfortunately it meant that in many rural parts, gas pipes were cut up and sold off on the black market. Stories of the same sort are told throughout the nation. There has been a lot of good that has come out of Azerbaijan’s independence though. They have become a major supplier of oil to both the Western and Eastern hemispheres, are starting to make a name for themselves in tourism activity in the Caucasus’, and most importantly, are coming together as their own nation. I feel extremely lucky to be placed in a country with such a rich history, and also one going through multiple changes in a short amount of time. Even though my culture shock experience was overwhelming at the time, these past five months have been a great start to my two year service.
SECOND ARTICLE
When considering joining the Peace Corps, a million questions ran through my mind. Most of them centered round life in a third world country for two years. Would I have running water, electricity, or a bathroom? Would I be able to talk to my friends and family often? Would I be able to develop adequate language skills? While all of these were important questions to be asking myself, I neglected one of the most important areas of what would become my Peace Corps Experience: My job. Because while being in the Peace Corps is purely on a volunteer basis, it certainly does not equate to just hanging out for two years in another country. For many of the men and women serving across the world, this is the most difficult and serious job they have had in their lives.
There are six different sectors available to Peace Corps Volunteers. Being placed in one of them depends on an individual’s background experience, such as education, volunteer work, and job experience. The sectors include agriculture, environment, education, business development, health and HIV/AIDS, and youth development. In addition, many other initiatives such as technology development are integrated into the programs. Every country who invites Peace Corps to help is evaluated and given certain sectors to meet their needs. In Azerbaijan, there are the programs of Community and Economic Development, Youth Development, and Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL). While I did not get my degree in teaching, I had experience as a supervisor and trainer for employees at work and I volunteered for two summer school sessions at West Fargo High School in the English as a Learned Language program (with three Valley City State University graduates!).
As a TEFL, I understand the Education Project Plan the best, but I will also give a few examples of the other sectors that are in place in the country. In the city my village is near, there are two other TEFL volunteers, one Community and Economic Development volunteer, and one Youth Development volunteer. The Community and Economic Development volunteer has written grants for some of the university students to put out a monthly regional newspaper, has taught basic computer skills to a local business, and teaches English through conversation circles to adults at two local banks. The Youth Development volunteer has two conversation circles of young adult women who meet weekly to learn and practice English, has put together two different dental hygiene clinics, and has written grants for local resource centers. Both of these young women have been in Azerbaijan for a year now and are extremely well respected in the community. They work very hard each week to continue to support their projects and think of new ideas to respond to the needs of their city.
As English teachers, we are required to teach a minimum of fifteen formal classroom hours at the schools we are assigned to. When I first read that I would only have to teach fifteen hours, I thought, “I am going to be extremely bored with all of the time I have on my hands.” At the time, I was going to school full time and working twenty-five hours a week. Being here has made me change my mind about how little I thought I would be working. While I do only teach sixteen hours a week in the classroom, I also have three formal hours of lesson planning with the counterparts I co-teach English with. I have the lesson planning I prepare at home on my own, preparation for my five different conversation clubs that meet for at least one hour after school, practicing with my students to participate in an international Writing Olympics competition, and am organizing a teacher’s conversation club. Informal work consists of assisting one of the other TEFL volunteers or the Youth Development volunteer about once a week with one of their conversation clubs, self-study of Azerbaijani language, and at night I tutor my host sister in English after her children go to bed. I also am in correspondence with a human geography class from Nebraska, write letters to family and friends back home, and attempt to update my blog regularly.
Needless to say, this job keeps me a lot busier than I ever thought it would. I would be lying to say I do not get bored though. School lasts from 8:30 to 1 p.m. every day. With clubs, it lasts until about three p.m. With dinner, lesson planning, and language, I can keep myself busy for another three or four hours or so. But the rest of the night and weekends can get really long. I have spent many hours watching multiple television series, reading a lot of books, and improving my crossword skills. This schedule is typical of a lot of Education volunteers, though. Some of my good friends in country are much busier than I am from being involved in teacher training seminars, participating in committees for Peace Corps, and organizing camps and sports leagues for youth. There are also some volunteers who do their fifteen hours a week, organize a few conversation clubs, and spend the rest of their time interacting with their Azeri host families or friends, traveling in-country, and seeing fellow volunteers. The beauty of being in the Peace Corps is the freedom to make your service what you want. While it is still a government agency with a typical bureaucratic hierarchy consisting of paperwork and chains of command and overhead, it is also a job with a mostly unstructured work environment, leaving the volunteer to personalize his/her two years in the best way possible for themselves. It also includes comprehensive medical care, accrued time off, and the ability to travel in and around your assigned country.
Being a TEFL volunteer means a lot more to me, though, than just a fifteen hour work week. My goal here is not simply to show up to a classroom and teach children English. In fact, that is probably one of the lower items on my priority list. Our main goals in Azerbaijan are skill transfers to our counterparts, introducing interactive teaching methods, providing life skill lessons, and encouraging creative thinking among the students (proving to be an amazing challenge in a post-Soviet country). Some days it feels like it would be way easier to do the lesson planning, visual aids, and homework exercises myself, but the reality is my counterpart would never learn on her own if I did all the work. After two months, I am finally getting my seventh grade students to answer questions I pose. Whether in English or Azerbaijani, the fear of being wrong inhibited them from saying anything at all. And some days all I really want to do is climb back into bed after my lessons are over instead of going to conversation clubs. But after spending ten minutes with children who think tic-tac-toe is the greatest game ever invented (even if they have to use irregular verbs to win an X or an O) makes a lot of the work seem worthwhile.
Every day here is a new adventure, a new page in my saga of Azerbaijan. This month, my program manager (my TEFL boss) came to my school to watch one of my lessons. During the lesson, I was walking around the room to ensure the children were pretending to pay attention, and as I circled around the back of the room, three floorboards gave out under me. But because I was staring at the floor in shock, I failed to notice the bookshelf whose legs had been relying on those same floorboards come crashing down on me. Thankfully the bookshelf was empty. I hurt way more of my pride than myself. In that moment, I thought, “I am definitely not in North Dakota.” But the fact of the matter is America has run down schools with inadequate resources, too. It has littering problems, problems with its economy, and inadequacy among genders. Sometimes the differences between the issues of Azerbaijan and America are great and leave me shocked, but a lot of times, they are really similar and that can be extremely humbling.
I feel grateful for being placed in such an interesting country. Working as a TEFL volunteer has been a great experience so far. The proudest achievements I have up until now include: Having my children repeat “Shh” on command to quiet the room, having my counterpart not be late to any lesson because the other teachers are having a tea break, getting the majority of children to raise their hand when I ask a question and not having them scream “TEACHER” at me while they are waving their hand in the air, and just last week my ninth grade class can now answer “How are you?” without any Azerbaijani translation. While they may seem like small achievements, they are the kinds of things that make me smile, even if bookshelves are falling on my head.
FIRST ARTICLE
“All I want to do is go to bed. I’m not sure I have been this sick in a couple of years and training is draining me. I wonder when my family will want to go back to our house.” Little did I know, when having this conversation with a fellow Peace Corps Trainee Joan, the most interesting part of my night had just began. Joan lived in the same apartment building as I did during our three months of training before becoming official Peace Corps Volunteers. Her host family and mine were relatives and after long days of school, I found myself eating multiple second suppers while our family was over there “guesting.” Almost immediately after uttering those words, in walks my 17 year old host sister, and Joan’s 18 year old host sister, showing us their red, welt ridden backs. Naturally, both of us were really scared and unfortunately, had a massive language barrier preventing us from knowing what was going on. So through a couple of pantomimes and a dictionary, what came across was, “Jars, fire, illness, and the Devil.” Well between that and my debilitating head and sinus cold, I felt like I was in a parallel universe. Needless to say, that was the moment I define as when culture shock hit me.
Culture shock comes at different points in multiple forms for most volunteers in the Peace Corps. Sometimes it comes in phases over months and sometimes it is an abrupt experience, like the first time you witness the act of “cupping.” (I have now had this done and quite enjoy it.) The best part of that entire experience though, was having the ability to immediately call another volunteer friend at midnight to tell him what had just happened. And that’s one of the best parts about being in the Peace Corps in 2011. It’s not the same isolating, thousands of miles of separation kind of experience it once was for volunteers. Of course, not every volunteer has the same experience and Peace Corps Africa is a lot different than Peace Corps Azerbaijan, but for the most part, technology has done wonders for those men and women across the world.
So how did I find myself halfway across the world in a country I had never heard of until I committed to a twenty-seven month agreement? The short answer of course is I joined the Peace Corps. But really the process started long before I submitted my application. I felt really antsy about finishing college, but I could not explain why. I knew it was partly because nothing really sounded appealing to me. A lot of people get jobs, a lot of people go to grad school, and a lot of people found some other alternative to suit their needs. My problem was I knew I wanted to be in the latter category, but did not know what that would entail. About my junior year, my sister had told me to look into it because she thought it would be something I would enjoy and being young makes mobility a lot easier. Well, whether I like to admit it or not, she is usually right. I ended up reading a lot of volunteer’s blogs online and went to a few Returned Peace Corps Volunteer events at the Moorhead Public Library. Even now, I think that answering the question of ‘Why did you join the Peace Corps?’ is one of the hardest questions I get asked. And I know I am not alone in thinking that. My usual answer is, ‘Why not?’. And while this life trajectory would not be everyone’s choice, it certainly is possible for more than just the recent college graduate. In my group, called the AZ 8’s (Azerbaijan’s eighth group of volunteers), we have 62 volunteers ranging from ages 22 to 70 years old. Some people are out of college, some people are in the middle of careers, in the middle of changing careers, finishing careers, etc. For some, this has been a dream for a lot of their lives, and with the economy, it was a last resort for finding work for others. No matter the case, sixty-two of us came here to be Community and Economic Development volunteers, Teaching English as a Foreign Language volunteers, or Youth Development volunteers. I am a TEFL volunteer which consists of fifteen to twenty hours of formal classroom hours each week and approximately ten hours of English conversation clubs with the children after school each week.
I did not know much about Azerbaijan before I came to the country. I had a relatively fast application process for joining the Peace Corps and was informed of my placement country exactly six weeks to my departure date. Before that I only knew I would either be in Eastern Europe or Asia. The beauty of Azerbaijan is it is placed exactly between the two. Usually, the separation of the two continents is determined by the Caucasus Mountain Range. That landmark finds its end running right through the heartland of this eclectic country, which has a relative size to that of the state of Maine. Azerbaijan’s neighbors include Russia to the North, Iran to the South, Armenia to the East, and the Caspian Sea to the West. It was once the major route for the North and East to meet the Silk Road into Asia, has roots in the Ottoman Empire as its language is a Turkish dialect, and was considered part of the Persian Empire before becoming under the rule of the Soviets during the USSR. Now twenty years in its independence, Azerbaijan is starting to find its footing in the world. During the Persian rule, Azerbaijan used both the Latin and Arabic alphabets, declared the Latin alphabet for the Nation’s two year independence from 1918 to 1920, was forced to switch to the Cyrillic alphabet for the USSR, and is now back to the Latin alphabet since gaining independence again in 1991.
Being here during this period is interesting every day. There is still a heavy lean toward traditional Azeri culture, yet the younger generation is pushing new ground for themselves. There is also a huge influence from the Soviet period that will not be removed any time soon. Even buying products at the bazar can be frustrating as a lot of labels are written in Russian, or if they are in Azeri, they are still in the Cyrillic alphabet. Yet, every year people are excited to establish their identity for Azerbaijan. My current host family has a last name ending in ‘Ov’ (Ova for a woman). However, for naming the grandchildren, they dropped the traditional Russian endings and added the Azerbaijani ending of ‘Li,’ which is not gender specific. There is still plenty of nostalgia for the Soviet system. Many of the infrastructure and basic needs of citizens were running smoothly in those times. Currently, the village I live in does not have a supply of gas. After the USSR fell, a depression hit the country and many people found themselves going to extremes to feed their families. Unfortunately it meant that in many rural parts, gas pipes were cut up and sold off on the black market. Stories of the same sort are told throughout the nation. There has been a lot of good that has come out of Azerbaijan’s independence though. They have become a major supplier of oil to both the Western and Eastern hemispheres, are starting to make a name for themselves in tourism activity in the Caucasus’, and most importantly, are coming together as their own nation. I feel extremely lucky to be placed in a country with such a rich history, and also one going through multiple changes in a short amount of time. Even though my culture shock experience was overwhelming at the time, these past five months have been a great start to my two year service.
Friday, February 25, 2011
New Year's Resolution
Usually about this time of the year, I have forgotten whatever New Year’s resolution I decided to make. It would have been the same New Year’s resolution I swore I would keep for the whole year and not forget by February. Well this year has been a little different, mostly because I did not make the resolution until February. But for this past month, I have stuck to it like glue (and am pretty proud of myself for that). I am sure part of the success has been that it has nothing to do with losing weight, although going with that route couldn’t have hurt anyone, which has proved unsuccessful in the past. This year I decided to devote my big New Year’s resolution to practicing my Azerbaijani.
I have decided to take a more forceful approach with my language skills while I am here. For being in a country for six months, it feels like I have gotten nowhere. Some days are great language days. I can come home from school and tell my host mom how school was, and what I said to a teacher, and what they said in response, and what I am doing that night, and for the weekend. And she’ll even understand more than half of whatever I said. But some days are complete failures. I cannot get across what my feelings are, or understand anything people are trying to tell me, or answer basic questions. And those days are the most frustrating of all. But I decided part of the problem is that I do not normally like to do things I am bad at. Of course, a lot of people don’t like to do things they are bad at. But I really don’t. I would, in fact, avoid most things that I am bad at, even if they are really fun (e.g. hula hooping, swimming, Dance Dance Revolution). I have come to a conclusion, though, that this hinders my ability to speak Azerbaijani. Because I get so nervous about not speaking correctly, or not understanding what somebody is saying, I decide to just not say anything at all. And of course, this does not help me get any better. So my New Year’s resolution of 2011 is to say at least one full sentence at the dinner table every day, in Azerbaijani of course. One full sentence can’t be too hard, right? Well it seems monumental every day. But so far, I have stuck to it. I’ve found that some days the problem is not that I cannot say something, but that I simply have nothing to say. But it is the little things that are good for practicing and I am working on it. (To clarify: I do not go the Whole day without saying anything. I tend to freeze up when everybody in the house is listening. And I say plenty in English that no one understands.)
Part of what pushed me towards this goal is because whenever we go to another house for a birthday party or a holiday or what have you, I spend the whole night in silence, completely overwhelmed at all of the Azerbaijani flying by my head and anxiety ridden that someone will ask me a question I cannot understand. I would like to add, whenever we are “guesting” at a house, if I open my mouth at all, the whole table turns to listen to me speak because they think it’s ‘nice’ that a foreigner is speaking their language. As nice as it might be, it freaks me out. Nevertheless, I always leave and think, I could have just said something. One thing. Anything. Just something. But I didn’t, and spent the whole night silent besides for trying to refuse mass amounts of food being served to me. So I am determined to make 2011 different because when I leave, people aren’t going to remember a year down the road how bad my Azeri was. They may talk about how I eat my rice with a fork when everyone knows you are supposed to use a spoon, or that I use napkins to blow my nose, or that I drink cold water even though I have been told it gives me cold. But as far as my Azeri goes, it is not going to get any better unless I try. So as nerve wracking as it is to have ten people stare at me while I bumble through a sentence I am surely going to have to repeat, I know I will feel better afterwards for just giving it a shot. Mənim Azərbaycani dilim yaxşı olacak... inşallah.
I have decided to take a more forceful approach with my language skills while I am here. For being in a country for six months, it feels like I have gotten nowhere. Some days are great language days. I can come home from school and tell my host mom how school was, and what I said to a teacher, and what they said in response, and what I am doing that night, and for the weekend. And she’ll even understand more than half of whatever I said. But some days are complete failures. I cannot get across what my feelings are, or understand anything people are trying to tell me, or answer basic questions. And those days are the most frustrating of all. But I decided part of the problem is that I do not normally like to do things I am bad at. Of course, a lot of people don’t like to do things they are bad at. But I really don’t. I would, in fact, avoid most things that I am bad at, even if they are really fun (e.g. hula hooping, swimming, Dance Dance Revolution). I have come to a conclusion, though, that this hinders my ability to speak Azerbaijani. Because I get so nervous about not speaking correctly, or not understanding what somebody is saying, I decide to just not say anything at all. And of course, this does not help me get any better. So my New Year’s resolution of 2011 is to say at least one full sentence at the dinner table every day, in Azerbaijani of course. One full sentence can’t be too hard, right? Well it seems monumental every day. But so far, I have stuck to it. I’ve found that some days the problem is not that I cannot say something, but that I simply have nothing to say. But it is the little things that are good for practicing and I am working on it. (To clarify: I do not go the Whole day without saying anything. I tend to freeze up when everybody in the house is listening. And I say plenty in English that no one understands.)
Part of what pushed me towards this goal is because whenever we go to another house for a birthday party or a holiday or what have you, I spend the whole night in silence, completely overwhelmed at all of the Azerbaijani flying by my head and anxiety ridden that someone will ask me a question I cannot understand. I would like to add, whenever we are “guesting” at a house, if I open my mouth at all, the whole table turns to listen to me speak because they think it’s ‘nice’ that a foreigner is speaking their language. As nice as it might be, it freaks me out. Nevertheless, I always leave and think, I could have just said something. One thing. Anything. Just something. But I didn’t, and spent the whole night silent besides for trying to refuse mass amounts of food being served to me. So I am determined to make 2011 different because when I leave, people aren’t going to remember a year down the road how bad my Azeri was. They may talk about how I eat my rice with a fork when everyone knows you are supposed to use a spoon, or that I use napkins to blow my nose, or that I drink cold water even though I have been told it gives me cold. But as far as my Azeri goes, it is not going to get any better unless I try. So as nerve wracking as it is to have ten people stare at me while I bumble through a sentence I am surely going to have to repeat, I know I will feel better afterwards for just giving it a shot. Mənim Azərbaycani dilim yaxşı olacak... inşallah.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Eating My Way Through Awkward
My beautiful country house
I may have survived the Holidays in Azerbaijan, but I am not sure my waistline did. To say I ate a lot of food would be an understatement. I ate mass quantities of food over the past week and half, and most of it was not voluntary. For three days in a row, we “guested” (socialized/ate/were the guests) from at least 12 to 7 p.m. eating no less than four meals per day. Mind you, meals here are served over a span of a couple hours with multiple rounds, and the most going to the honorary guest. It was a lot. But as a wise volunteer once told me, “Eat your way through awkward,” and I did just that.
Being in this country is a lot of fun. It is full of extremely hospitable people, full of laughs and love, and definitely good eats. But let’s face it, sitting in a room full of people you do not know, at a table with no excess room due to so much food and so many people, in a language you can minimally communicate, and having everyone watch every move you make because you are weird and foreign and the guest equals a whole lot of awkward. Sometimes it’s best just to lower your head and eat. However, it’s not a foolproof plan. I tried to avoid eating bone marrow after I muscled down some internal organs of the sheep we killed for New Year’s, but my host brother noticed, called attention to it, and everyone chimed in about my lack of eating. So with my obnoxious blush reflex in full force, I lowered my head and ate. And it did not get rid of the awkward nor the taste in my mouth. I think a study in what humans would do to not be rude would be fascinating.
Living in the village has been pretty good so far. I have a really great family, a huge country house, and am only a five minute walk from school. This week I start actually teaching in the classroom. I decided to teach grades fourth through ninth, as the younger students are too hard to handle, and the older students do not show up to class. There is a bus that goes in and out of my village twice a day, but my family says I should not ride on it alone, and so I have been taking a shared taxi to get to the city center and back home. I am pretty certain the bus is just fine and safe, but the fact that I am traveling to the city center for any reason kind of weirds them out anyway, so I do not feel like pushing too many issues at one time. I am in good hands, though. I did not feel very well one night and my host mother came and gave me tea with jam in it “medicine,” wrapped a really tight scarf around my waist and forehead, and then put a jar of hot water on my stomach with another scarf wrapped around that. She then tucked me into bed and let me sleep until ten the next morning. Needless to say, I felt awesome the next day. I know a lot of volunteers scoff at Azeri theories on getting sick, and methods to cure it, but so far, they have worked really well. I think my host mother is on to something.
The walk up to our country house. We share a gate and road with a neighbor whose house looks similiar to ours, but is only half finished.
Our orchard. We have pomegranate trees, a palm tree, grape trees, lemon trees, many quince trees, apple trees, rose bushes, daffedils, tuplips, and more things I don't know the names of.
Across our orchard is our animal barn. We have two horses, two cows, multiple sheep (one was killed for New Year's kabobs, but one had two babies... circle of life), chickens, geese, a couple dogs to protect the animals, four cats, and I still haven't determined whether the water buffalo is ours or the neighbors.
The room the family hangs out in at night. It also serves as the children's bedroom, so it is always really hot. The "petch" in the corner is a wood stove. I thought it was strange sitting on the floor all of the time at first, but now I prefer it.
Our unattached bathroom. I wear slippers to the side of the house, put on a pair of "shop shops" and walk to the bathroom, and then put on a pair of bathroom slippers while in the bathroom. Reverse that process to get back to my room. I think by the end of my service, I will be faster at changing my shoes than Mr. Rogers
Our kitchen. It is a pretty big kitchen for Azerbaijan. It is also relatively new, so in a year or so they want to add cupboards. But it is high class with a electric water heater to do dishes! My sister-in-law is using the oven to make cake.
My bedroom. It used to be the formal dining room, but I am slowly taking over. This week I added a map of North Dakota, a map of Azerbaijan, and twenty pictures. Note the flat screen TV that appeared one Sunday. Hello English News.
Overlooking our two horses. Also, on a clear day, you can see the mountains in the background. It is a gorgeous view.
I may have survived the Holidays in Azerbaijan, but I am not sure my waistline did. To say I ate a lot of food would be an understatement. I ate mass quantities of food over the past week and half, and most of it was not voluntary. For three days in a row, we “guested” (socialized/ate/were the guests) from at least 12 to 7 p.m. eating no less than four meals per day. Mind you, meals here are served over a span of a couple hours with multiple rounds, and the most going to the honorary guest. It was a lot. But as a wise volunteer once told me, “Eat your way through awkward,” and I did just that.
Being in this country is a lot of fun. It is full of extremely hospitable people, full of laughs and love, and definitely good eats. But let’s face it, sitting in a room full of people you do not know, at a table with no excess room due to so much food and so many people, in a language you can minimally communicate, and having everyone watch every move you make because you are weird and foreign and the guest equals a whole lot of awkward. Sometimes it’s best just to lower your head and eat. However, it’s not a foolproof plan. I tried to avoid eating bone marrow after I muscled down some internal organs of the sheep we killed for New Year’s, but my host brother noticed, called attention to it, and everyone chimed in about my lack of eating. So with my obnoxious blush reflex in full force, I lowered my head and ate. And it did not get rid of the awkward nor the taste in my mouth. I think a study in what humans would do to not be rude would be fascinating.
Living in the village has been pretty good so far. I have a really great family, a huge country house, and am only a five minute walk from school. This week I start actually teaching in the classroom. I decided to teach grades fourth through ninth, as the younger students are too hard to handle, and the older students do not show up to class. There is a bus that goes in and out of my village twice a day, but my family says I should not ride on it alone, and so I have been taking a shared taxi to get to the city center and back home. I am pretty certain the bus is just fine and safe, but the fact that I am traveling to the city center for any reason kind of weirds them out anyway, so I do not feel like pushing too many issues at one time. I am in good hands, though. I did not feel very well one night and my host mother came and gave me tea with jam in it “medicine,” wrapped a really tight scarf around my waist and forehead, and then put a jar of hot water on my stomach with another scarf wrapped around that. She then tucked me into bed and let me sleep until ten the next morning. Needless to say, I felt awesome the next day. I know a lot of volunteers scoff at Azeri theories on getting sick, and methods to cure it, but so far, they have worked really well. I think my host mother is on to something.
The walk up to our country house. We share a gate and road with a neighbor whose house looks similiar to ours, but is only half finished.
Our orchard. We have pomegranate trees, a palm tree, grape trees, lemon trees, many quince trees, apple trees, rose bushes, daffedils, tuplips, and more things I don't know the names of.
Across our orchard is our animal barn. We have two horses, two cows, multiple sheep (one was killed for New Year's kabobs, but one had two babies... circle of life), chickens, geese, a couple dogs to protect the animals, four cats, and I still haven't determined whether the water buffalo is ours or the neighbors.
The room the family hangs out in at night. It also serves as the children's bedroom, so it is always really hot. The "petch" in the corner is a wood stove. I thought it was strange sitting on the floor all of the time at first, but now I prefer it.
Our unattached bathroom. I wear slippers to the side of the house, put on a pair of "shop shops" and walk to the bathroom, and then put on a pair of bathroom slippers while in the bathroom. Reverse that process to get back to my room. I think by the end of my service, I will be faster at changing my shoes than Mr. Rogers
Our kitchen. It is a pretty big kitchen for Azerbaijan. It is also relatively new, so in a year or so they want to add cupboards. But it is high class with a electric water heater to do dishes! My sister-in-law is using the oven to make cake.
My bedroom. It used to be the formal dining room, but I am slowly taking over. This week I added a map of North Dakota, a map of Azerbaijan, and twenty pictures. Note the flat screen TV that appeared one Sunday. Hello English News.
Overlooking our two horses. Also, on a clear day, you can see the mountains in the background. It is a gorgeous view.
Monday, December 6, 2010
The Start of Something New
Two days until my birthday. Three days until I take an oath to swear in as an official Peace Corps Volunteer. Four days until I break from the only familiarity I have come to know the past two and half months and move to my permanent site. Some day soon the reality of being here will hit me.
The unknown can be a very unsettling prospect to many people, present company included. Heck, embarking on the next stage of my Peace Corps life scares the daylights out of me. But, if history does in fact repeat itself, then I know things will be okay. I remember being absolutely nerve wracked to leave Junior High and go to High School, in the same building nonetheless. I was fairly confident of the safety net of my home town when I left for college and it turns out I did not need it that much ( I couldn’t quite leave the state though). And I cried unashamedly when my mother and sister left after dropping me off in Washington, D.C. for my internship. So needless to say, I do not feel ready to leave Pre-Service Training and go to my village for the next two years. I may be prepared, but I definitely do not feel ready. I’ve had a love-hate relationship with these last two months akin to that of eating a whole package of Oreos. I was hesitant to start, had highs and lows throughout, and felt pretty accomplished afterwards. The strength of the relationships I have forged with both Americans and Azerbaijanis is something I will forever cherish. And I do not have to worry about getting too sentimental yet, because most likely neither group will be going anywhere for the next two years, so our friendship can keep growing. But it is a frightening prospect to leave what I now consider familiar and comfortable for something new and foreign. I know it will work out. I know I will continue to make new memories and friendships and have ups and downs and days in between. But it is the start of something new, and that can be just as intimidating as a new package of Oreos.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Picture This
As promised, I would try and add a few pictures when I could get compliance from the beloved internet cafe. With about 15% battery life left, and an influx of Americans to slow things down, I at least accomplished this much...
This is in Gobustan at ancient cave paintings. It is my beloved cluster, Tagiyev 19, and our "Mama" Lale, our LCF who gets us through everything!
Mud Volcanoes
Our Trip to Baku:
Some Horses outside my window of my host family's apartment building:
This is in Gobustan at ancient cave paintings. It is my beloved cluster, Tagiyev 19, and our "Mama" Lale, our LCF who gets us through everything!
Mud Volcanoes
Our Trip to Baku:
Some Horses outside my window of my host family's apartment building:
Sunday, November 21, 2010
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!
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!
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