As promised.... Pictures from Italy

As promised, some of the pictures from Italy. These are just a brief few from the trip.

Some of the ruins and statues around Rome.



Just walking around, exploring the city, eating good food, and drinking out of the public water fountains.








This is the hotel my parents stayed at 33 years before when they came to Italy. They celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary in Rome.



The Colosseum






We went to the Borghese Museum and park. This was by far the most enjoyable site we saw in Rome (in my opinion). I loved the museum. It was the perfect size.





The Trevi fountain





A trip to the Vatican




We went to a nearby hill town, Orvieto, for the day. It had a beautiful church, little pottery stores, great wine, and a beautiful view of the countryside below. The church had a sacred cloth in it. I would try and describe more but I would probably butcher the explanation. The front of the church had the story of the Bible sculpted into it. It was amazing artwork.

Pictures from Rome

Trust me, I didn't forget the best part of my year! As life often goes here in Azerbaijan, the internet is not cooperating as I would like to be uploading pictures from Italy. Hopefully I can get some up soon, though. Stay tuned.

After a long hiatus.. I'm back.

Pomegranate Festival




Winners of the costume contest
Pin the Nose on the Pumpkin. A huge hit at the Halloween party.
It has been a long time since I have updated this blog. I think a variety of reasons contributed to my absence. It would be nice to say I was so terribly busy I just did not have time, but I think that would be stretching it. Mostly, looking back on last fall/ early winter, I realize I was pretty homesick.
We come to Peace Corps not knowing anyone from our group of sixty and they end up becoming family within forty eight hours. It is sort of a strange phenomenon but a close cohort of any kind is a scientific study in and of itself. I was really thankful when I was placed at my permanent site for two years with two of the men who were in my language training cluster. We were already extremely close and I knew I was lucky to have their support for the remainder of my service. But even better than that, we were placed in Goychay with two girls from the AZ7 (I am an AZ8) group who were wonderful. I grew really close to both Rikki and Megan and we had a blast getting to know each. But as the saying goes, time flies when you are having fun. Megan ended up leaving in September and Rikki in November. And frankly, it was a really hard adjustment. Saying goodbye to people here is not as simple as it is in America. It has to be done many times, and not just a hug, but a long lasting multiple course dinner round with tea before and twice after. After about four different ‘good-bye’ dinners with Rikki and her Azerbaijani friends, I had to stop being her plus one, it was just too sad.
My homesickness was compounded by seeing my family in Rome for Christmas and it was hard knowing I was so close to seeing them, but not quite there yet. I was stressed out enough that the Peace Corps doctor had to be tough on me. The conversation went something like this:

Emily: (Calling the doc in Baku) Hi Doctor. I think I may have parasites again. Will you send me a stool sample?

PCDr.: (Sigh) Yes, Emily, I will send you a stool sample, but I think we need to have a talk. This will be the third one you have taken in the past two months, and both have come up negative for parasites. It truly seems that you are just stressed out.

Emily: Oh. I think you’re right.


She was.
Stress is not always the issue. It is how one handles it. But that is not always my strong suit. My escape and coping mechanisms for stress could be another blog post on its own. Instead, I am going to give you a crash course on what I did while I was not attending to my blog.


October: October was my most productive school month of this year. My counterpart was pretty gung ho about new ideas (Venn Diagrams!) and we did not have a single holiday to break up the weeks. The new trainees come from America and live in Sumgayit for three months soaking up knowledge before being sent to the regions. In the middle they also go and visit volunteers for a week and see what site is really like, what we do at school, how we live, and eat non-Azeri food. I had two girls come out and visit the village.
We talk the kids “The Wheels on the Bus” song and went to both of my counterparts’ houses for a lot of food. My counterpart and I threw a Halloween party for fifth through tenth form students. We had a costume contest (I was a bag of tea), food, music, card making station, and a Pin the Nose on the Pumpkin game. After that, I made my way up to the north finger of Azerbaijan to Shabran and had an American Halloween with some of the volunteers.
Our Training group was reunited! Tagiyev 19.

November: I started November by traveling to Baku and spending a week helping with the new trainees’ English teaching practicum. I observed the classes they were teaching and provided feedback and helped our program manager with her reports for the trainees. I then came back to the best part of living in Goychay: Pomegranate Festival.
It happens every year in our region and is spectacular. There are booths from every village, town, restaurant, etc. showing off their best pomegranates, there is a Pomegranate Princess who drives up in a nice car, the ambassadors from America, Russia, and Japan came, and there is a concert at night.



November also brought “Gurban Bayrami” or the Sacrificial holiday. We sacrifice a sheep and then give a third of it to our neighbors, a third of it to the poor, and keep a third for ourselves. This was happening at the same time it was persimmon harvest. We spent about two weeks from morning until night hand picking the persimmons from the trees and lining them up nicely so the people who sell them to Russia can come and see the selection. November also brought the leaving of the AZ7’s which I celebrated in Baku and Thanksgiving which was held at the Charge d’affaires’ house (Butterball Turkeys!).



December: My Birthday! The kids at school sang me “Happy Birthday,” the teachers made a cake, and my sitemates, Alec and Matt, came out to the house for supper with the family. I got peppery perfume, underwear, and towels from the Azeris, and incense, coffee, and cards from the Americans. Then I waited for Rome. My parents had spent a long time preparing for Italy, and everything went smoothly. I met my mom, dad, sister, brother, and brother’s girlfriend in Rome for ten days for Christmas. It was glorious. It almost feels like a dream now.

January: I readjusted to Azerbaijan by spending New Year’s in Baku. I went to school for a few weeks, and then took another week long break at our Mid-Service conference in Baku. All of the volunteers from my group met together for the first time since the previous December to talk about the best practices from the year before and the sustainability of the next year of service. We also picked dates for when we will leave (November 29th!), had guest speakers from the Clean World (Temiz Dunya) organization which fights human trafficking and champions for women’s rights, and watched our fellow volunteers compete for Azerbaijan’s spot on Eurovision (they did not make it). I also quit having my English conversation clubs and started a health club in Azerbaijani for my sixth and seventh graders.

Now I am back in February. I have made some New Year’s resolutions which include me getting back into the swing of updating my blog. I am looking forward to a yacht trip off the coast of Turkey in June and am using that to start cooking for myself more at home. We’ve recently been hit with one of the coldest winters Azerbaijan has seen, but so far the brown monster (Peace Corps issued sleeping bag – It is large, brown, and so very warm) has kept me frost free.

My brother up in the tree picking away
This wove all the way upstairs as well
Getting ready for winter: Cutting up beans to can
A training in Goychay on using interactive methods with our textbooks. Josh Ehrenreich came down from Khachmaz to lead it for teachers in our region.

My sitemate Rikki's host father and his granddaughter at the Pomegranate Festival

Unrelated Matters

Living in the pomegranate capital of Azerbaijan was amazing last year at the end of the season and it is phenomenal right now. They are just becoming ripe and we eat them like candy. I asked Gunay (my sister-in-law) if we had any trees in our garden and she brought me down to a back row of trees where we sat for about a half hour breaking open multiple dark, gorgeous pomegranates. At night we eat them with onion slices, people put them in their mayonnaise based salads, and they make beautiful centerpiece displays. There are regions in AZ that are known for their apples, others are known for peaches, or hazelnuts, or fish. I am so glad to be part of the pomegranate region. In fact, there is a festival at the beginning of November, which I am hoping will be an awesome time.
This October new trainees will be coming out to the regions for one week to witness current volunteers work situations, get to know the bus system a little, get out of busy Pre-Service Training for a few days, and eat food prepared by other Americans. (Last year I went down to Beylegan-Not as pretty as Goychay.) I volunteered to host two women at my house for a week. I was happy today when my program manager called me in regards to hosting the trainees. It is not for sure yet, but I may host an African-American volunteer at the house. My PM called asking if my host family house would be a “comfortable” environment for this trainee. Peace Corps enquires about it because Azerbaijani’s sometimes say what we consider to be rude comments to people that look different than the norm. My program manager wanted to make sure that if this new trainee came to stay with me, she wouldn’t have to field unwanted questions or hear bad words directed at her while she is on her mini-vacation from Sumqayit. More specifically, Azerbaijani’s are taught the “N” word in school as the proper word for a black person. And to top it off, anyone with darker skin than themselves is considered black. Trying to explain that a word that is completely harmless and considered textbook politically correct in their country is in fact one of the most offensive words to Americans is difficult. People will nod along as if they understand, but still drop it when the situation arises. But it is conversation I have had with my family more than once before, and I know this will be a safe place for any American to come visit.
We live in a social media world whether one likes that or not. Being in the Peace Corps during this new age is interesting. I am not speaking for volunteers all over as some parts of the world do not have the luxuries that living in Azerbaijan provides. However, I know from personal experience that where I live blogs are more common than not, every single person has a cell phone (initially for safety reasons, but let’s face it, it’s more of a personal luxury than anything), and Wi-Fi is becoming the norm, not the exception. Azerbaijan just received a new country director (the “CD” is a Peace Corps country’s head hauncho) back in July. Volunteers were happy to note that Macie was a recent Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (2010) and therefore, were hoping she would be more understanding of the computer age volunteer. There are some grumblings heard from PCV’s who volunteered years ago about the inability to book a ticket online and fly home for Christmas, waiting months and months for letters and packages, and not having contact with fellow volunteers. Essentially, we’ve got it easy. Now, I’m not here to say that isn’t true. In most ways, it is in fact an easier way of life. But there are the occasional downfalls. Within the world of blogging comes the knowledge of what one does and when, all the time. This instigates a lot of worry on the part of loved ones back home. There are things I choose to leave out of posts. More specifically, anything that would terribly frighten my mother. But that doesn’t mean other volunteers edit their blogs (nor should they have to) in the same manner that I do.
Also, in the world of social media, the front runner is facebook. And in regards to facebook, there is just one thing I cannot understand and that is posting Too Much Information (TMI). Now, I feel this way a bit about blogs too, but there is definitely more writer’s freedom than on a social networking site. This soapbox all comes about because of the sudden and unfortunate death of a member of our Peace Corps Azerbaijan Staff. But how did I learn about this? Through a phone call from a friend who saw it on facebook. I’m sure that was not exactly how PC AZ was looking to diplomatically handle the shocking news of their friend and colleague. Unfortunately, the already might small grapevine that is Peace Corps gossip travels even faster these days through use of cell phones and internet.
Sometimes when we are at trainings, I joke with my friends that I should be in charge of filtering questions other volunteers have at the end of sessions. I really feel I could bring a lot to the table on editing inquiries that are irrelevant, personal, or time-consuming. Well, in a perfect world, I would edit facebook posts. And there are certain posts that would not get past my controls: Announcement of a death (unless it is famous – ex: OBL), ultrasound pictures, anything relating to the future/present/aftermath of a break up, and intricacies of someone’s honeymoon. Now, I realize not everyone would agree with me and ache for new ultrasound pictures put up by the friends and relatives. But this is the beauty of my own blog, and I’m here to say, “The new 3D imagery of what a child really looks like beyond the average black and white ultrasound picture is downright creepy.”