Visiting Baku is always a good break from life at site, and more often than not, more than a little surreal. This last trip just about took the cake, though. All of my year’s YD and CED volunteers came to Baku Thursday for our Early Service Training, an in-service training conference. It was weird, first of all, to see all the YDs again after four months. Some I’ve seen here and there over that time, but never at the same time. Peace Corps put us up in a hotel somewhat near to the Peace Corps office (though not as close as the map they gave us made it seem). Soft beds, normal-sized pillows, and a proper shower with good water pressure that never ran out of hot water. If that ain’t surreal, I don’t know what is.
The conference lasted all day Friday. While a nice chance to catch up and hear about others’ work, we were all glad when the day ended. We were finally free to take advantage of Baku, something we hadn’t been allowed to do during the weekend since March due to the occurrence of protests against the government in downtown Baku. And so we had another strange experience, eating Indian and Chinese food, relaxing at bars, being out at night. At the Chinese restaurant, we even had some fun with the karaoke machine.
The next day, I made arrangements for Easter. I would go, along with a few other volunteers, to a church service. I decided instead of paying for another night in Baku, which would cost money, to stay in Xirdalan with Rashad, my former LCF. He was working all day, so we spent the day wandering Baku, and happened upon a gelato shop, and a hidden ping pong/games den. Through the back of a shop, in a large former theatre, Narnia Ping Pong (our name) caters to those who want to play ping pong, air hockey, pool and some video games. A mural of the Marlboro man adorns one wall, and another wall bears an image of Samson breaking free of the pillars. We encountered an 80-year old man who beat everyone who played against him.
And so we come to Easter. I slipped out of Rashad’s house shortly after he’d gone off to work, and headed off, one bus ride and one five-stop metro ride, to meet the others at a bus stop near McDonald’s.
The church, Baku International Fellowship, is not itself a church, but meets in the auditorium of the Baku International School. This was the time that tipped the weekend over the edge. To enter the grounds, we had to pass through a security checkpoint, and upon entering the lobby, where there was coffee(!), I was stunned. Everywehre I looked, foreigners. Speaking English. I was happy to be at the service, even though it wasn’t entirely what I was hoping for. The music was a bit more in the contemporary music vein for my taste, though they did the Hallelujah chorus to end the service, and the sermon used a Powerpoint presentation, which seems off to me. There was nothing wrong with the service, just not always to my tastes or ideas of what church and Easter should usually be. (I made up for some of it by making Easter eggs when I got back to Ismayilli.)
Being at the school reminded me intensely and immediately of my time at Jakarta International School in Indonesia. My life now is very different from the life I led in Indonesia. The people at the church often did not know Azeri, and some had not traveled much in the regions. They shopped at supermarkets with foods imported from Europe and America. They live in modern buildings with air conditioning and central/good heating, with showers and washing machines, and indoor bathrooms with flushing toilets. This was the life I led in Indonesia for the most part. My school there offered opportunities to travel to the islands of Indonesia, to see and experience and learn about the cultures. But we didn’t live there. It was separate. We always had our comfortable homes in Jakarta to go back to in the end.
Is one lifestyle better than the other? Does one group help people and lead to better change than the other? Now that I’ve lived on both sides of the expat aid worker spectrum, I can’t help wondering. It is obvious that our lives are different, that life in Baku is very different from life in the regions. Knowing Baku is different from knowing Azerbaijan, but knowing the regions is also different from knowing Azerbaijan. The anthropologist in me believes it is important to learn the language to know a people, and to live amongst them. It’s in fact hard not to think that I know better than they do because of where I live and how I live. But is this really the best way to cause the change we say we want to inspire? Or is it better to work with the governments to enact that change in policy which will lead to new teaching supplies and techniques, new agricultural equipment, and so on? Probably, both are needed to make the world a better place. The grassroots and the governmental aide working together. But we don’t speak to each other about our work. They don’t ask for our opinions, and we don’t seek them out for help. Why is that? Why is there so little connection between the organizations? Is there some ideological rationale, or is this just the way it is? These questions are truly worth asking to determine whether or not we can actually change things, whether what we do here is worth doing. I just don't have the answers yet.
No comments:
Post a Comment