It is Always Unpredictable

I knew before coming to Azerbaijan that I was worried about the bathroom situation. The anxiety comes in part from never having been outside of the Western world of flushable toilets, and in part because every time I need to use the bathroom in this country, it is a toss-up as to what I am about to walk into. Some of them (luckily, like my own house) have modern, Western, flushable toilets. Few, no matter how nice they are, have toilet seats, and that is one thing I still have not figured out. Of the normal toilets, some flush, some need buckets for manual flushes, and some just sit on top of holes in the ground. There are bathrooms with really nice porcelain everywhere and extremely clean, just of the squat variety. Some just are not clean. And then there is the outhouse. The dreaded outhouse. My experiences so far have brought me to the conclusion that while some outhouses don’t leave me with the feeling that I should immediately shower and rid my body of all toxins in inadvertently soaked in by stepping foot inside of the claustrophobic wood box, many unfortunately do. And that is the situation I found myself in during my dreaded “outhouse” incident.
My host parents asked me to come along over to their daughter’s house one Sunday evening. She lives in her husband’s house with their children, and his mother and father (Almost always the case if you are the youngest son of the family – my host brother, who is 27, lives in our house with his wife and two kids). Now, I don’t particularly like going over to this house in general because the father-in-law smokes in the room where we all sit and have our food and tea (It is also the only room for guests so you cannot escape to the kitchen) and because the daughter happens to also work with me at school and gets so nervous to speak English, there is a lot of confusing conversation. Nevertheless, we had been there a lot longer than I had expected and it was nearly eleven p.m. when I decided to bite the bullet and ask about using their bathroom. The problem is, in Azerbaijan, it is a slight faux pas to even talk about the bathroom or anything having to do with it. And amazingly, it seems to be only the foreigners who ever need it when they are not at home (I think my family has super human bladder strength). So after two hours of being uncomfortable, I got up the nerve to ask if I could use their bathroom, and the daughter said, “I’ll bring you out there.” Which I knew only meant one thing: Outhouse. And, boy was I right.
After we tramped through the entire orchard, I was given the flashlight for some lighting in the dark abyss. But after I rolled up my pant legs and stepped out to widen my stance, the floor board broke from under my leg and I not only fell on top of the hole that everyone pees (and other gross things) into, but my leg also went under the outhouse. I thank all of my lucky little stars that this one was not the kind that was near overflowing because my leg did not touch a thing. But I screamed, and my host sister/counterpart came running in to help, but then could not stop laughing at what a ridiculous situation I was now in. I felt a little better after that because she was so embarrassed about what happened she couldn’t stop laughing. I was also embarrassed and highly grossed out about falling in an outhouse and would have probably started crying if I hadn’t done a little laughing about it. I asked her a million times over not to tell the seven people back at the house what had happened, but she couldn’t quit giggling and it was inevitable. I ended up dousing my cuts and bruises in antiseptic, and washing my jeans twice(which is not an easy task when you are hand washing) from essentially sitting on the floor of an outhouse, but it has proved to be a fairly hilarious story for my family to repeat, and another good, “Did that just happen?!” moment for my Peace Corps service.

To Good Health

Since I have recently been trying to fight off the common cold that plagues schools, a house with eight people in it, and a culture that does not truly believe germs are the carriers, I thought I would give you insight to a few of the things my host mother claims will for sure make me feel better when I am ill.

Remedies I stay clear of:
Wrapping my head in a scarf or towel because I have a headache
Wearing a hat because I have a headache
Wrapping my head in a scarf or towel soaked in vodka because I have a headache
Wrapping any part of my body in a scarf or towel soaked in vodka or otherwise because said body part aches, including my neck when I have a sore throat
Drinking milk when I have a cough
Drinking either tea or milk with (lots of) sugar which automatically makes “medicine”

Remedies I try to fend off which I am not successful at:
Drinking tea with jam in it, which makes “medicine”
In Azerbaijani, “Bankas”, in English, “Cupping” The practice of lighting a match inside of a small jar and then sticking it to an ill person’s back (usually about eight small jars per back). The heat and gasses and such (I am no scientist) sucks the skin from your back into the jar and when you pull them off about ten minutes later it leaves nice, red to purple welts. Here, the darker the color of rings, the more ill you are. I so far have had this done twice to me. Both times my welts were really dark purple. I claim it’s because my back is sensitive. They say it’s because I do not dry my hair immediately after a shower and that is how I get ill.
A weird grass-tea leaf solution which takes like burnt tootsie rolls and has the gooey thickness of tar
Medicine in Russian writing
Lectures from my host mother about the evils of cold water
Wearing multiple pairs of socks

Remedies I embrace:
Calling our Peace Corps Medical Officer who is available 24/7
The remaining Dayquil/Nyquil I initially brought with me
Wearing sunscreen
Drinking a lot of water
Ibuprofen
Rest
Having Neighbors bring food over to express condolences for your illness

Did that Just Happen?!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.