The "Toy" - Azeri Weddings

It is currently fall break which has given me a lot more time to reflect on my recent experiences in good old Azerbaijan. Today I will be telling you about my first wedding experience combined with all I have heard from other volunteers…So as most of you have already guessed most couples are set up by their parents and even though the bride can say no, the marriage is pretty much arranged. Traditionally there are two weddings: a bride’s, after which the bride goes back home, and the groom’s, which is the official one and the bride goes with her new husband. In smaller towns and villages the “Japanese flag” tradition is still practiced. For those who haven’t guessed it, that involves a family member checking the post marital sheets and in some cases hanging them from the window to prove the marriage has been consummated. If for some reason there is no blood the girl is returned to her family and is screwed for the rest of her life (figuratively and literally). Most know that us women don’t always bleed during our 1st time, but in Azerbaijan trying to explain that phenomena will get you just laughs and eye rolls. It is also not unheard of for mommy or daddy to listen at the door or actually sit in on the sacred act in order to spot fakery. Apparently this doesn’t happen so much to the more liberated Azeri’s in Baku, but in the regions such practices are quite common.

A wedding is essentially a big party where the bride and groom sit on a pedestal and look miserable. They are not supposed to smile in order to signify their sadness for having to leave their families. The wedding hall is divided into a women’s section where the women sit and gossip, and a men’s section where the vodka flows and the more interesting conversations occur. After the plov and dolma are served and the eating ceases, the dancing begins. Azeri music is like nothing I have heard before… It is super fast and dancing to it consists of men and women doing the step accompanied by some hand twirls and waves. I like electronic music, its fast and I can dance quite well to it. It is due to that I always thought I could handle fast…Boy was I wrong…my attempts to do something on the dance floor resulted in me looking like an octopus or a tree on a windy day. Sometimes you can get away with not dancing by blending in with the crowd, but as a foreign object I was not that lucky. Grandma spotted me from across the hall and literally dragged me to the ‘dance floor.’ I remember holding on to the tablecloth until there was danger of pulling everything of it resulting in me having to give in to the awful music. I could have at least had a laugh at this had I managed to slip some vodka in my coke but that was a doomed mission from the start. Throughout all of this sober dancing random people go and take pictures with the happy, or should I say ‘unhappy’ looking couple. It doesn’t matter who you are, whether the couple knows you or not, whether dressed or underdressed, you must go to the pedestal and take a picture in order to be cool. I have contributed one of mine for the purpose of this blog entry. This experiences lasted from noon till five…longest 5 hours of my life…

The “gonaglig” (or guesting)

A lot of my friends seem to be curious about the food here so I thought it is time to share the art of “guesting" with all of you. I feel that I have finally gotten down the Azeri eating habits and now you can see why it is so hard to stay slim in this country. As I have mentioned before “the show off your American” is pretty big in the regions of Azerbaijan. All of my friends and I are constantly on the move guesting at either a relative’s or a colleague’s house and the routine for all seems the same. This is the menu: for an appetizer, you are served tea with cake and chocolates which you cannot refuse in fear of being disrespectful, following are the salads, which include a tomato/cucumber one, and at least 2 mayonnaise based ones, for the main course come the dolma, that’s meat stuffed vegetables for those of you that haven’t experienced them. You have to have at least two servings of each course in order to satisfy grandma who looks in your plate every two seconds to assess your progress. The dolma are cooked in about a pound of sunflower oil and if you ignore the fact you may get a heart attack at any minute they are quite delicious. After that comes the 2nd maine course, the plov which is a rice dish with fruits and chicken and is quite delicious the first few times you have it. During the main part of the course your eating speed must be super slow because if god forbid your plate starts getting empty grandma will fill you right back up...After you are done with all that most Americans tend to want to explode, but right when that feeling sets in the tea and cake come out again! Here being skinny is looked down upon and everyone, including my family wants to make you look like a sausage.

Other than that, work is OK. I have come to the conclusion that being a teacher is just like being a middle school student but a little worse because you don’t have the socializing aspect of it to look forward to. It is also difficult because I have not one but three counterparts. I cannot get sufficient time with either and am afraid that what I am doing will not sink in. To top it off the textbooks are written poorly with a ton of grammar and spelling mistakes and the lessons don’t flow in any logical order…As you can probably see, I am getting quite frustrated At this point I am starting to put more focus on secondary projects which eventually should become the more fulfilling part of my Peace Corps experience. This is it for now! Expect another installment of my exciting new life in about 3.5 weeks!

Going, going...

So I have been at site for almost a month now. I know the town inside out and am starting to get bored of walking and seeing the same things over and over. Things seem to be moving in the right direction at this point. I am teaching, and the students are actually learning. I don't feel like I suck anymore which is a relief. Between Azeri and Russian I can express every need I have, on their own though I am worthless in each. I am getting tutoring for Azeri starting next week and hopefully for Russian in another month and will hopefully pick them both up. This language thing is so annoying, imagine trying to explain to people why you are so 'weird' without being able to speak. It gets old.

I just survived my first sickness in Azerbaijan. I managed to pick up a stomach virus last weekend in Baku and had to miss four days of school. The interaction between me and my family was comic now that I look back at it, but at the time I wanted to kill them. As you all know a stomach virus involves constant trips to the bathroom after every bite of food or sip of water. Well, in Azerbaijan food is the solution to all problems and my family would not stop forcing me to eat pomegranates and greasy potatoes (both 'great' for an upset stomach). Apparently to them those are the cure for everything, and my refusals were pure insanity. Then they tried to convince me to get cupped (the hot cups on your back thing they did in the 1800s). Everyday they would talk about it for at least 30 min and swear by it, calling my PC doctore stupid. Then they tried to convince me to go to their doctor and get on a blood iv because clean blood will just clear whatever I had up....To top it all off my family had 2 parties during my 5 day illness (the only 2 they have ever had in my presence), and during all of them they had a "Show the American" session. So they would force me to get out of bed, all greasy and in PJs and go to their party, sit, be stared at, and forced to eat greasy nastiness which of course caused me further pain and bathroom problems. It was 'lovely', but i survived!! I went to school 1 day this week and now we have a 4 day weekend. Lie is tough. ;)

Back to the logistics now. As I said school is going well. Some teachers are easier to work with than others and I seem to be having a farley OK time in comparison to other volunteers who are either totally ignored or don't even have a school schedule yet. My living situation seems to be OK too, especially compared to people who have warm water once a week or have to go to the river to do laundry. I don't think I'll ever complain about my long walk to the bathroom/toilet or the constant blackouts after i heard those stories. So yeah relatively speaking everything is OK. I do miss home a lot and with nothing to do most nights I tend to look back a lot. A little cry now and then helps and I deal with it mainly by talking to other people in my group going through the same thing. Emails always help too *hint hint.* I'll post soon again, I promise`

At site - First Impressions

This is my second attempt to publish a blog, and am really not excited about typing it again. SO i am in Barda where the weather is finally nice and not a scorchign 105 degrees. So far i am happy here. I have a really nice host family, which leaves me alone when I need to be and treats me like one of them. My 11 year old host sister is precious and i kind of enjoy her company. THe mom and the dad totally understand that i am having a hard time adjusting and missing home and are really supportive. I don't want to jinx the situation, but so far so good.

The town itself is not bad either. I have everythign i need in walking distance from me. I even found an internet cafe which so far hasn't charged me for my surfing. THe people here are much nicer than those of Sumgayit. SO far, neither me nor Sarah have had problems with men harrassing us like we did in Sumgayit and the locals have been nothing but helpful. I don't doubt that i will run into the occasional asshole, but so far the majority of people have been lovely.

At school things are moving along too. The conditions really are miserable, but the teachers and students are really nice. I am currently just observing classes and have to make my schedule and pick counterparts by the end of next week. I think i am going ot stick to teaching 5, 6, and 7th grade because they are still the ones who care about learning English. THe classes are basically a mess, there is little dicipline, the teachers don't lesson plan, and the students speak little English. I really think i can make a difference now that i have seen what i will be up against.

So this is it for now. This weekend Sarah and I are going to Baku which will be a nice change to my DVD watching marathos i have every night. The picture is of my school. You can see the tin classrooms and the two miserable building that are home to the refugees. There is no bathroom on the premises or running water.

My site and such

My summer school practicum ended and I survived. I discovered that I really hate teaching, and am glad that I never have to teach a whole class on my own. My future work in my region involves working with a counterpart where we get to plan together and co-teach rather than me busting my butt trying to figure it out myself. Also a lot of what I do will be outside the classroom, such as grant writing and English conversation clubs.
This week I also found out my site, went to visit it, met my new host family, and most importantly saw my future place of work. The town itself is called Barde, its really small, but has and ATM, internet, and yellow cheese (which is usually hard to find). The city itself has a good water supply but on the negative has horrible electricity which shows during the winter where its on for only a few hours a day. The weather is really hot in the summer (40C; 100F) and mild in the winter (0C; 32F) with only a few snowstorms. Barde is 4-5 hours away from Baku and close to lots of other good locations such as a lake and Ganja which is the second biggest city. My new host family is really nice too; I have the second floor of their house to myself which includes a bedroom and a small living room. The bathroom and toilet are outside in a separate building, and the toilet is not a poo hole but the real sit down kind (so happy!). Needless to say there is no heating in the house just like most places and in the winter I will be freezing my ass off!
Now about my school…When I walked through the gate of the yard I saw the saddest picture of my life and remembered why I joined the Peace Corps. The school itself has two large buildings, a gym, and a huge yard. Sounds nice! Now imagine a lot of trash everywhere, almost every window being broken, and little room for classes due to the fact most of the rooms are occupied by IDPs (internally displaced persons). For those of you who don’t know Azerbaijan’s territory of Nagorno-Karabakh has been occupied by Armenia for nearly a decade. Only a few miles form my city there are trenches, landmines, and soldiers like at any war zones. There has been a ceasefire for a number of years but that hasn’t helped the number of IDPs and refugees who have not been able to return home and have lived in camps for nearly 12 years. The story of the conflict is really tragic and I won’t get into it or else this will turn into a book. Anyway, about 70 IDP families live in the school. They have created rooms in old classrooms and surrounded other areas of the school with wood panels for additional living quarters. Classes are held in a few rooms that are left for the students as well as tin trailers outside the school. The situation has been such as this for the past 10 years and the school is in dire need of refurbishment. I won’t even get into the fact that a new school was built just down the street from mine, and government buildings sprawl up every second in the surrounding regions…
So just like you I am trying to imagine my life for the next two years and I don’t know what to expect. I am nervous about working in the school mostly because I am sure that as an American there is a lot expected from me. I also have to figure out how to deal with boredom because there really is NOTHING to do in the city….But my spirits are not down and I am looking forward to learning 2 languages (my school has a Russian and an Azeri shift), and doing the best I can to make improvements in my school.
(The picture of me is taking a nap in front of Maiden Tower, which is a monument in Baku which dates to some time BC. I was obviously preparing for a night of partying. Unlike the rest of the country Baku is like any western European city. The contrast is quite striking and bothersome at the same time)

3 more weeks of training!

I am currently in my final week of teaching summer school and I can almost see the end of training. The teaching has been interesting especially since I have never done it before. The process is suppose to be kind of a preview of what is to come, except not really because in our future schools we’ll never be teaching a whole class alone. My language is coming along well and in 4 days I find out where my permanent site is. I am quite nervous because there is no perfect location and each comes with its own set of hardships. For example a lot of people will be going to cities and villages in the desert where the summers are going to be miserable. For those going to the mountains, the winters are going to be miserable. Then there comes the issue of villages vs towns which will have an effect on how much more conservative your location will be. Other than that I am finally starting to develop real friendships and have people that I consider really close. This is making the acclimatization process much easier. I still complain plenty about certain things but I feel like I am even getting used to them. I don’t know whether I am saying this because today I am having a good day or I am finally realizing that I will be ok for the next two years.
I also had a really good weekend which has proven to me that fun is to be had and I will be bored only 80% of the time rather than a 100. As a group we went to Qobustan, which is a rock pile in the middle of the desert, housing prehistoric carvings and then about half of us went to Nabran which is one of their beach towns. The town itself is kind of miserable in comparison to any American resort but for here it was wonderful. Even though the beach was a nasty muddy mess, and the water belongs to the most polluted sea in the world it actually had a decent night life which we exploited to the fullest! We stayed out till 3-4, dancing and having fun the old fashioned way.

Our group

This is the 47 of us minus 3.

Site Visit

So I just wrote a blog and for some reason it deleted itself. So here I go again....

This weekend I went on a site visit to Oguz. That is a small town located in the mountains. We stayed with a current volunteer for 3 nights and found out more about what we will be experiencing in the months to come. It was definitely a nice getaway, first of all because I was glad to leave Sumgayit where I have been stuck for the past month, and secondly due to the cooler temperature. We got to hike in the mountains for a bit too which was nice. Other than that all we did was eat and sleep and observe the daily routines of the locals. Again I was struck by the culture in regard to gender issues. All of the young women in town were really bored due to the fact they had literally NOTHING to do. Unlike guys who have cafes, pool halls, and sports to participate in, girls only have a newly opened "girls only" internet club, and walking around the streets. Dull huh? Our volunteer was not very entertained herself. She had 2 conversation clubs a few times a week and in the rest of the time does tie bo or watches DVD in addition to whatever chores she has to do. Basically I need to find ways to entertain myself so I don't go crazy. So far DVDs and my Ipod have been good friends to me, so if any of you get bored do send me some mixed CDs!!

To finish this off, I have to say all of the prep paper work I have read is completely true. Training turns you into an emotional rollercoaster. Somedays I am frustrated as hell and ready to leave, then on the next I am motivated again. I cannot wait to get over this wave of permanent PMS, because currently it is driving me insane. Mostly though I am pretty positive, so no worries!! ;)

that's it from me for now!!

Host Family Life

I am starting to get used to my new way of life. My host family is very nice and very liberal in their views in comparison to those of other volunteers. The reason for that is that they are actually from Baku, which is quite a tourist attraction and modern. The ones I interact with the most are the mom, who is a housewife and the two older sisters, who are home only in the evenings. The youngest sister is also always at home but she is shy and doesn’t really talk to me. The father, who is a car repair I pretty much never see. He works from early in the morning till late at night and then probably goes out with friends. There is also a grandmother who has her own room and doesn’t really interact with the rest of the family much. The communication methods I am using are quite interesting. I speak a mix of Bulgarian, Russian and Azeri, and definitely cannot have any meaningful conversations. If I have something important to say I wait for the sisters to come home, since one speaks good English and have her play translator.
I am really happy with the food here. Everything is organic and without preservatives and all that crap. In the summer Azeri’s eat lots of tomatoes, cucumbers, feta cheese, salami and the meals consist of lots meat, bread, oily sauces great for dipping, and about 29438547 cups of tea a day. We were told by the Peace Corps to be careful with what we eat. For example never to have milk, yogurt, and cheese that are not pasteurized, to wash everything we eat with boiled H2O, and not to even brush our teeth with the local water. Well I have already broken all these rules. I figure I need to train my stomach to the local tastes and have to say that my body definitely hated me until right about now.
My Peace Corps training as a whole is going well. Every Monday through Saturday we have language training from 9 till 1, and then it is “Self Directed Learning” time which I don’t think any of us are actually using. In a few weeks we start model school, which is something like a 2-week summer school program. I am kind of nervous about it, especially since I have to write my own lesson plans, get really nervous talking in front of people, and oh yeah I have never been a teacher!
When it comes to being homesick…yeah, I am, A LOT! But I guess that’s unavoidable. The good thing is everybody has been great in keeping in touch and writing me emails which always cheer me up.

1st Host Family

So yesterday I moved into my first host family. It ended being only a 10 min walk from where our hotel was which is good because I know that area. My family seems really nice too. Its a mom, dad, three daughters in their 20s, 3 kittens, and a big scary dog that wants to eat me. The house is not as bad as I thought. My room is big but the bed kind of sucks because its a box spring with a bunch of pads on it. It hurts a lot to sleep on it, but I guess I'll have to manage. The toilet is also not bad, it is a flush one, except that I have to manually flush it with buckets. I also feel that I am getting fatter by the second because the mom won't stop feeding me. Since we can't really understand each other all she does is feed me tea and sweets and then two hours later gives me a huge meal. I cant say no because I don't want to offend which results in me eating without being hungry. One of my host sisters speaks really good English so thats good. She has a degree in English actually and translates for me at night. My Azerbaijani language skills are still no where and I am starting to think I will never get it. The language sounds cool, but its like nothing I have ever heard. As much as I was worried about not going to be able to communicate I actually ended up having an internet cafe right by my house, so I will actually be on quite frequently if not daily. I also have a cell phone which if you are interested you can have. The only way to call me for cheap though would be to go to noblecom.com and buy a phone card which makes phone calls only a few cents per minute. Otherwise if you have ATT/Cingular or T-Mobile you can text me for 15c a min. So again shoot me an email and I can give you the number. I miss everyone very much and am very homesick so the more emails I get the better I'll feel. Much love!

First few days...

So we arrived in Azerbaijan yesterday. It was the longest day of flying in life due to major delays. We are currently in a hotel in Sumgayit which is the second biggest city and is only 45 min away from Baku. My first impressions of Azerbaijan are good. It reminds me of Bulgaria about 15 years ago. The architecture is old Soveit, crumbling paint, boxy apartments,laundry hanging from balconies and a satelite dish here and there. Pretty much 90% of the cars are old Soviet Ladas and Moskvich-es from about 20 years ago and they actually look kind of cool. I havent had much of an impression of the people yet due to the fact that we have just dealt with our coordinators and peace corps staff. I move into my host family on Monday (in 4 days) and start intensive language training then as well. We learned some basic introductions today and i have to say Azeri sounds pretty cool I cannot wait to be fluent. So thats it for now.. We have already had a power and a water outtage and i can only imagine what a village will be like. I will update again when i can. Much love!

ABOUT TO LEAVE

So this is my blog spot, I guess when i have internet it will be my e-diary so you can keep tabs on me. I am currently in Philadelphia getting ready to depart and am scared and excited at the same time. I hope you all will write me and won't forget about your favorite Bulgarian! Keep checking for updates