It surprises me a little that this Thanksgiving was actually my first away from home, or at least, my first away from family. Fortunately, we had a determined group of people here who wanted to celebrate the occasion in grand fashion. We actually began planning the day at least a month ago, in particular a certain chocolate truffle cheesecake, ingredients for which we bought in Baku when we went as a group three weeks ago. In the end, we pulled out just about all the stops. We had two turkeys, which we had to cook on a spit as turkey kebabs, instead of in the oven. Turned out a bit tough (really, a lot tough, but we have muscular turkeys here, not those wimpy fattened turkeys like back home). We had mashed potatoes, stuffing and gravy, green beans, steamed carrots, and even a salad (not an Azeri salat, which is either pickled or coated in mayonnaise). Instead of cranberry sauce, we had to improvise a bit and ended up with pomegranate sauce, and pumpkin bread that had some pomegranate in it as well, which was delicious. For dessert, apple pie and the aforementioned cheese cake, as well as some of the gold bars my mom sent from home (which were a huge success, she’ll be pleased to know—and even more pleased to know that I saved a bunch for myself; no starving and eating parsley in the grocery store aisle, thank you very much).
In many ways it really was like having a family dinner. It was loud and everyone was either talking or stuffing their faces with food. We said grace (both the Philmont Grace, at Erika’s request, and an impromptu grace by Crystal), and took turns saying what we were thankful for. We then went around talking about where we were this time last year and what our holiday traditions were. Now and then people would break off to take phone calls from family and friends. After dinner we played a charades-like game until it was time to go home (where my host mother may or may not have been a bit insulted that I was too full to eat any of her cooking—she didn’t walk me to the gate the next morning).
What am I thankful for? I am definitely thankful for the group of friends I have made here during PST. Without them I would surely have gone insane with loneliness and frustration over the adaptation process. I am thankful for everyone back home, my family, my friends, my meees, who has stayed in touch with me, who send me emails, messages, and love. I wouldn’t be here, in life, in Azerbaijan, physically or emotionally, without them. I wouldn’t be me without all of you. So thank you for you.
Update: Pictures will be forthcoming but may take awhile as I managed to delete the pictures that were actually on my camera of Thanksgiving, so I’ll have to steal them from other people at some point. Sigh. Stupid technology, I’m both thankful and unthankful for you.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Birthday and Counterparts
Despite the fact that what has been posted on this blog is somewhat of a downer or at least fairly contemplative, we do have fun here. Take for instance, the last couple of days. The 18th was my birthday. I was worried about this. I knew that I would be homesick and depressed, missing my family and friends and normal birthday traditions. But the other volunteers here were really great to me. They let me sit on the bus to Sumgayit (usually, as a male, I have to stand when women get on the bus, and I seem to have bad seat luck), they paid for my lunch (chicken pizza with real cheese!), and my cluster mates came over for dinner after our language lesson. That night, I celebrated with Giovanni with a nice beer I bought in Baku and a couple glasses of cognac and coke. Oh, bromance.
Today, they followed me home and made a spaghetti dinner with garlic bread and a cake for dessert that they had more or less kept a secret from me. I knew they were planning something, but they refused to say what. I think by now my host mother is tired of us taking over the kitchen (my house hosted our recent Mexican food night as well).
Going through a birthday a long way from home was a hard experience to go into, and I almost didn’t want to plan anything. Partly this is because I don’t like being a center of attention, but I think I partly didn’t want to admit that I was having a birthday. Halloween was hard to go through here, and I expected other holidays to be the same way. Last birthday, I was whisked away to Washington, DC, something that certainly could not be repeated here. Baku’s not the same, and I missing a certain someone to spend the time with. Besides, I’m saving my Baku trip for the last weekend of training, the first weekend of December. I’ll need to stock up on certain essentials before going to site.
I was depressed, to be sure, and was almost to the point of drinking my beer alone, listening to calm acoustic indie music, but I’m extremely glad I ended up with a drinking buddy and such nice site mates who would plan a dinner for me. It’s almost enough to make me dread going to site, because I will definitely miss being this close to people. We settle into this way of living just to have it yanked out from under us after three months.
That brings me to the other big event of this week, our first meeting with our Azeri counterparts. These are Azeris who work at the organization we’ve been placed at who will be our main point of contact with the organization and with the community. We returned to the Neapol Hotel where our time in Azerbaijan started for the meetings.
My counterpart is the director of the school I’ll be working at. He speaks no English (though Russian of course, and apparently a bit of German and French). After meeting our counterparts we went the Neapol’s restaurant and had awkward broken conversations sometimes assisted by LCFs and other Peace Corps staff. We then went to a conference room and we (volunteers) presented our expectations and concerns to the counterparts (I was chosen by peers to stumble through our Azeri translations of our concerns) and they presented their concerns and expectations to us. Then we finally had a sit down with the counterpart to discuss our ideas and specific expectations. Rashad, my LCF, was kind enough to be our translator for this discussion. I’m excited by how open to my ideas he seems, while also having some specific ideas and goals of his own to build off of. Or course I’ll start with conversations clubs (after sitting in some on English classes to meet the students and get to know their language levels a bit, he suggested). One of his major goals is building exchange of ideas and culture between the US and Azerbaijan, so he suggested some sort of writing exchange with American students (and between teachers, as well, which was a cool idea I thought).
He also said that their sports teams had done well recently, and suggested sports as being something I could be involved with. I mentioned the softball league that Peace Corps volunteers have started here, with teams traveling between sites and periodically playing in tournaments.
Also, he mentioned he had created some sort of museum at the school and wanted me to develop a website for the museum. I’m thinking of doing that with someone there once I’ve gotten more of the language under my belt or if there’s an English teacher there who’d be interested. My counterpart is very interested in building technological knowledge. The school apparently has Internet and something like 30 computers. Now to see if they just sit there looking pretty in statistics about the school or if anyone knows how to use them.
To go along with his goals and ideas, I mentioned two other programs that are major Peace Corps programs here, the summer camps ABLE and GLOW, and the Writing Olympics. ABLE (Azerbaijani Boys Leadership Experience) and GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) are organized by Peace Corps volunteers and run along with Azerbaijanis and welcome students from across the country. Last year, the camps were held right near my site, so that seems something I should look into being involved with. The Writing Olympics is an international Peace Corps project, a competition for creative writing, the winners of which are published in a book and are invited to a conference (last year it was in Georgia). Peace Corps Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia and Moldova all participate in the program.
So that’s what it looks like I’ll be doing. Of course, subject entirely to change at a moments notice. The counterpart seemed to like me a lot, and we got along very well, regardless of language. After having heard some more negative/less than exciting things about my site (staring, conservative, etc), this meeting went a long way to make me feel more comfortable about my site and look forward to getting to work (or volunteer).
Today, they followed me home and made a spaghetti dinner with garlic bread and a cake for dessert that they had more or less kept a secret from me. I knew they were planning something, but they refused to say what. I think by now my host mother is tired of us taking over the kitchen (my house hosted our recent Mexican food night as well).
Going through a birthday a long way from home was a hard experience to go into, and I almost didn’t want to plan anything. Partly this is because I don’t like being a center of attention, but I think I partly didn’t want to admit that I was having a birthday. Halloween was hard to go through here, and I expected other holidays to be the same way. Last birthday, I was whisked away to Washington, DC, something that certainly could not be repeated here. Baku’s not the same, and I missing a certain someone to spend the time with. Besides, I’m saving my Baku trip for the last weekend of training, the first weekend of December. I’ll need to stock up on certain essentials before going to site.
I was depressed, to be sure, and was almost to the point of drinking my beer alone, listening to calm acoustic indie music, but I’m extremely glad I ended up with a drinking buddy and such nice site mates who would plan a dinner for me. It’s almost enough to make me dread going to site, because I will definitely miss being this close to people. We settle into this way of living just to have it yanked out from under us after three months.
That brings me to the other big event of this week, our first meeting with our Azeri counterparts. These are Azeris who work at the organization we’ve been placed at who will be our main point of contact with the organization and with the community. We returned to the Neapol Hotel where our time in Azerbaijan started for the meetings.
My counterpart is the director of the school I’ll be working at. He speaks no English (though Russian of course, and apparently a bit of German and French). After meeting our counterparts we went the Neapol’s restaurant and had awkward broken conversations sometimes assisted by LCFs and other Peace Corps staff. We then went to a conference room and we (volunteers) presented our expectations and concerns to the counterparts (I was chosen by peers to stumble through our Azeri translations of our concerns) and they presented their concerns and expectations to us. Then we finally had a sit down with the counterpart to discuss our ideas and specific expectations. Rashad, my LCF, was kind enough to be our translator for this discussion. I’m excited by how open to my ideas he seems, while also having some specific ideas and goals of his own to build off of. Or course I’ll start with conversations clubs (after sitting in some on English classes to meet the students and get to know their language levels a bit, he suggested). One of his major goals is building exchange of ideas and culture between the US and Azerbaijan, so he suggested some sort of writing exchange with American students (and between teachers, as well, which was a cool idea I thought).
He also said that their sports teams had done well recently, and suggested sports as being something I could be involved with. I mentioned the softball league that Peace Corps volunteers have started here, with teams traveling between sites and periodically playing in tournaments.
Also, he mentioned he had created some sort of museum at the school and wanted me to develop a website for the museum. I’m thinking of doing that with someone there once I’ve gotten more of the language under my belt or if there’s an English teacher there who’d be interested. My counterpart is very interested in building technological knowledge. The school apparently has Internet and something like 30 computers. Now to see if they just sit there looking pretty in statistics about the school or if anyone knows how to use them.
To go along with his goals and ideas, I mentioned two other programs that are major Peace Corps programs here, the summer camps ABLE and GLOW, and the Writing Olympics. ABLE (Azerbaijani Boys Leadership Experience) and GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) are organized by Peace Corps volunteers and run along with Azerbaijanis and welcome students from across the country. Last year, the camps were held right near my site, so that seems something I should look into being involved with. The Writing Olympics is an international Peace Corps project, a competition for creative writing, the winners of which are published in a book and are invited to a conference (last year it was in Georgia). Peace Corps Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia and Moldova all participate in the program.
So that’s what it looks like I’ll be doing. Of course, subject entirely to change at a moments notice. The counterpart seemed to like me a lot, and we got along very well, regardless of language. After having heard some more negative/less than exciting things about my site (staring, conservative, etc), this meeting went a long way to make me feel more comfortable about my site and look forward to getting to work (or volunteer).
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Language and Meaning
I don’t know if it’s too soon (or if it would ever not be too soon) to write about the Azerbaijani language and make the broad generalizations I want to make here. Anthropology has taught me a lot about studying language and particularly about how language can tell someone so much about a culture. The meaning and roots of words, the way they are used in daily speech, even the way sentences are formed all speak to the ideals and values of a culture. Some anthropologists feel that it is impossible to fully understand a language unless one is fluent, and some that feel, as there are connotations that are inherent in the culture, no one outside of a culture can be truly fluent. Because I am nowhere near anything remotely approaching fluent, I am a bit wary to put out the following, so bear with me and remember these are just vague impressions.
Azerbaijani is a very direct language. It is blunt and to the point. Azerbaijanis are very forward with their opinions about things. It is uncommon to be asked questions such as “Why aren’t you married yet,” and be told “You’re fat/skinny/etc.” At the same time, when you want information from someone, you have to be exact about it. If I want to know what’s in your room, I can’t ask “What’s in your room?” That will just get me “Stuff.” I have to ask, “Is there a bed, windows, shelves, and a table in your room?” All in order to be told that you have just what and only what I asked about, or if you don’t have one of the items I listed.
My anthropology kicks in and I wonder why the language works that way. Does it just seem that way because of the way we’re being taught or because we don’t know enough of how the language is used in daily life. Perhaps we are just too used to a classroom setting and not enough in the regions. But on the other hand, something we’ve discussed is how Azerbaijanis have not been introduced to creative and critical thinking in schools in the way that American students have been. So is the directness a result of this? Probably not directly, but they seem related somehow. At our most recent HUB day session, four Azerbaijanis spoke to us about the differences between Soviet life in Azerbaijan and the present day. We were surprised at first to find that they spoke to us in Russian, which was then translated to English for us. One LCF explained this was because Russian was a more subtle language than Azerbaijani.
Azerbaijani is a very direct language. It is blunt and to the point. Azerbaijanis are very forward with their opinions about things. It is uncommon to be asked questions such as “Why aren’t you married yet,” and be told “You’re fat/skinny/etc.” At the same time, when you want information from someone, you have to be exact about it. If I want to know what’s in your room, I can’t ask “What’s in your room?” That will just get me “Stuff.” I have to ask, “Is there a bed, windows, shelves, and a table in your room?” All in order to be told that you have just what and only what I asked about, or if you don’t have one of the items I listed.
My anthropology kicks in and I wonder why the language works that way. Does it just seem that way because of the way we’re being taught or because we don’t know enough of how the language is used in daily life. Perhaps we are just too used to a classroom setting and not enough in the regions. But on the other hand, something we’ve discussed is how Azerbaijanis have not been introduced to creative and critical thinking in schools in the way that American students have been. So is the directness a result of this? Probably not directly, but they seem related somehow. At our most recent HUB day session, four Azerbaijanis spoke to us about the differences between Soviet life in Azerbaijan and the present day. We were surprised at first to find that they spoke to us in Russian, which was then translated to English for us. One LCF explained this was because Russian was a more subtle language than Azerbaijani.
Now I Know
Last week the staff announced the site placements for the Youth Development and Community Economic Development groups and this week the TEFLs will find out where they’re going. After weeks of build up the last few days before announcements were the worst. The day before, our program officer came into a technical session and told us that she had finalized where we would be placed and even worse, she was bad at keeping secrets. Naturally we began offering her everything from monetary bribes to gifts, and threatened to barricade the door until she told us. The YD assistant director said he would be willing to tell us if we bought him tickets to the US. Lest the Peace Corps read this, I, hopefully needlessly, will note this was all said jokingly (at least on their end, we were dead serious).
I’ll be going to Ismayilli, near the center of the town, but near the mountains. Most everything I’ve heard about the site has been positive. I’ll have at least one site mate, another YD from my group, as well as a TEFL from AZ7 in a nearby village.
As excited as I am to know where I’ll be, it’s scary in a way to have the next two years set. I think of how I felt when I’d decided to go to Gettysburg College, and how that was a four year commitment. This is only two, I tell myself. But it’s different. College is full of breaks and opportunities to come home; holidays, vacations, weekends even provided a chance to escape. I know I won’t be in Ismayilli, or even in Azerbaijan for every day of the next two years, but the prospect of taking a break is a bit more distant. I feel claustrophobic on occasion during PST, as almost every day of our lives is planned for us. We’re either at language class or technical session or spending the day in Sumgayit for a HUB day. We only have Sundays to ourselves.
I know part of my worry for the future is a reaction to the way we live now, and that life will be different in just a month’s time. It’s just hard to fight it when it’s all we really know. The best parts of PST are when we glimpse the future through questions and answers with visiting volunteers, but these glimpses are brief and unfulfilling and the future is still such a mystery. We know next to nothing about our sites, our organizations and our living situations, all of which are fast approaching. Basically all the guidebooks say about my site is that the hotels there are decrepit and have questionable toilets. What will I do day-to-day? That’s up to me. Scary. What will the town be like? Is it pretty? Is it disgusting? Who lives there? Why does the town even exist? Some towns are known for apples or fish or some other export.) What will my new family be like? What will I eat? Will I be able to move out?
Knowing the name is such a relief, but, like an episode of Lost, one answer opens the door to a hundred new questions. Hopefully, that comment didn’t undermine the mood of the post too much. Of course I want to get to the answers right away, but training still has a couple lessons up its sleeve, even when it feels like a waste of time. I can’t keep myself from asking these questions about a future that I’ve committed myself to, without knowing everything about what I would be doing, but I know they will be answered in time. What do I know? Now I know I have questions.
I’ll be going to Ismayilli, near the center of the town, but near the mountains. Most everything I’ve heard about the site has been positive. I’ll have at least one site mate, another YD from my group, as well as a TEFL from AZ7 in a nearby village.
As excited as I am to know where I’ll be, it’s scary in a way to have the next two years set. I think of how I felt when I’d decided to go to Gettysburg College, and how that was a four year commitment. This is only two, I tell myself. But it’s different. College is full of breaks and opportunities to come home; holidays, vacations, weekends even provided a chance to escape. I know I won’t be in Ismayilli, or even in Azerbaijan for every day of the next two years, but the prospect of taking a break is a bit more distant. I feel claustrophobic on occasion during PST, as almost every day of our lives is planned for us. We’re either at language class or technical session or spending the day in Sumgayit for a HUB day. We only have Sundays to ourselves.
I know part of my worry for the future is a reaction to the way we live now, and that life will be different in just a month’s time. It’s just hard to fight it when it’s all we really know. The best parts of PST are when we glimpse the future through questions and answers with visiting volunteers, but these glimpses are brief and unfulfilling and the future is still such a mystery. We know next to nothing about our sites, our organizations and our living situations, all of which are fast approaching. Basically all the guidebooks say about my site is that the hotels there are decrepit and have questionable toilets. What will I do day-to-day? That’s up to me. Scary. What will the town be like? Is it pretty? Is it disgusting? Who lives there? Why does the town even exist? Some towns are known for apples or fish or some other export.) What will my new family be like? What will I eat? Will I be able to move out?
Knowing the name is such a relief, but, like an episode of Lost, one answer opens the door to a hundred new questions. Hopefully, that comment didn’t undermine the mood of the post too much. Of course I want to get to the answers right away, but training still has a couple lessons up its sleeve, even when it feels like a waste of time. I can’t keep myself from asking these questions about a future that I’ve committed myself to, without knowing everything about what I would be doing, but I know they will be answered in time. What do I know? Now I know I have questions.
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