Two Years

Two years ago today, September 22, I met 62 other people, people fresh out of college, people who had left the job market after a number of years, people who had retired, people who were about to step into the unknown.  We came together in a hotel in Philadelphia, said goodbye to our loved ones, filled out some paperwork, and the next day, boarded a bus which took us to New York City to fly to Azerbaijan, a country of almost 9 million Muslims.  Two years ago, we circled each other warily, trying to determine who these people with whom we had volunteered to spend the next 27 months of our lives were.  It seems like a lifetime ago.  It seems like yesterday.

I know I wrote something similar last year at this time.   This year, I write this in the wake of a series of protests that have swept the Muslim world, reacting to an atrocious video that depicts the worst, most degrading and insulting stereotypes and misconceptions about Islam that anyone could possibly have made.  I know, I’ve watched the video twice.  My host family asked me to translate it.  I sat in front of the computer screen, unable to comprehend what I was watching.  In part, this was due to the fact that, in addition to being an offensive and degrading, it’s a horribly made movie with almost no thread connecting scene to scene.  It’s bad in every possible sense of the word.

I didn’t start writing today to review the film.  I wanted to write because on this date, I celebrate living in a Muslim country.  Azerbaijan is not a perfect country, and its people are not perfect.  Of course they’re not, no one is.  But it is important to remember that while some people who practice Islam have killed and are killing throughout the world, they do not represent the entire faith.  I hope the images of people from Libya have reached the American media, images of men, women and children holding signs apologizing and condemning those that turned to violence in the wake of the attacks.  These Muslims honored and celebrated the work of Chris Stevens, the ambassador to Libya, and a former Peace Corps Volunteer. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/13/libyan-peace-rally-slams-terrorism-offers-apology-for-attack_n_1881798.html

For two years, I have had the pleasure to live amongst some of the kindest and most welcoming people I have ever met.  The two families I have lived with while serving here in Azerbaijan, particularly my family in Ismayilli, have treated me as one of their sons.  When I am ill, they take care of me.  When I am happy, they celebrate my achievements.  When I am frustrated, they listen while I vent.  When it is my birthday, they baked me a cake, and made me a birthday dinner.  They shared their holidays, their ideas, their beliefs, their lives, with me.  The generosity they have shown myself and other Peace Corps volunteers who have visited is the greatest thing I will miss when I return.  They make me happy to have guests, they make me proud for people to know I live with them.

I have had the fortune to live in two predominantly Muslim countries in my life.  For nearly four years, my family lived in Jakarta, Indonesia.  We were there when the World Trade Center was attacked.  And while security at our school increased, and some of our friends moved home, we never felt as if we were in danger.  Our neighborhood was not the area where a large number of expats lived.  It was our families, our Dutch neighbors, and Indonesians, all centered around the local mosque.  Our neighbors came to us, and told us that we never had to worry; they would watch out for us. 

These countries do no represent the entire Muslim world, just as the United States does not represent all of the West, or all of Christendom.  But here I am, having lived through six years in two different Muslim countries, and I have never felt safer as an American than I have in these homes.  For over a quarter of my life, I have lived with caring and thoughtful people.  These years have been some of the most memorable and formative moments of my life, and to the people, the families, the Muslims, that have been a part of my life, I thank you.

UPDATE: Word has hit the media that protests have started in Baku, though the police halted them and many who were involved in any violence have been taken to jail.  The fact that protests have begun here in no way changes how I feel about my time here, nor does it change any of my feelings about safety here in Ismayilli.

Let's Stomp on Some Wool

Winter’s coming!  Not tomorrow or anything, but the time has come to really start getting ready.  My host mother has been pickling tomatoes and garlic, bottling juice, and putting other foods away for the winter.  Even as school begins again, I have been drafted into the preparations.  Two weeks ago, with a bucket in hand, I went out into the yard to collect hazelnuts.  My family has about 10 hazelnut trees in the yard.  To get all the nuts, I had to go around to each tree, and shake it as hard as I could, then gather up all the nuts that had fallen on the ground.

They also have a bunch of apple trees around the yard, and when it came time to climb up the ladder to get the high up apples, guess who got the call.  My host father set the ladder and I slowly climbed as high as I could.  With his guidance, I reached all around, plucking ripe apples and passing them on down to him.  I was maybe only six feet up, but those branches were not the sturdiest things in the world and there were probably some close calls.  That would have been a fun call to the PC Medical Officer on duty. “Hello, Nate, how are you?”  “Me?  Oh, I’m fine, except, well, I just fell out of a tree.”

A few days ago, it became time to re-stuff the mattresses, blankets and pillows with wool.  So my host mother came home from the bazaar with bags and bags of wool.  This is wool that she carefully compared and evaluated before buying.  She knows her wool.  But the wool isn’t ready right away.  It’s dirty, and has stuff in it from the sheep hanging out in the pasture and rolling in who knows what.  So we have to clean the wool.  This involves soaking the wool in wash bins, and stomping on it like grapes for wine.  This became my job, and after getting over the initial cold-water shock, it was a lot of fun. 

While I was stomping, we had some great conversations about doing this sort of work at home versus leaving it to factories versus artificial materials.  Does it really make a difference?  In a country such as Azerbaijan, where infrastructure is hazy, than it certainly does matter, and I understand completely why people do this sort of work at home.  I’d grow my own food and make my own mattresses, too.  And I genuinely think that a bit more of this would do the US some good as well.  It’s become so easy to just drive over to Walmart or Target to get whatever we need (in bulk!), we forget some of the satisfaction and sense of accomplishment and knowledge of a job done well with quality goods that comes from house work.  Sometimes I get tired of the amount of work that hast to be done around here just to get by, but at the end of the day, there’s something to this way of life.  Slow food movements and the like are definitely more attractive now.  With that, here’s a picture of me stomping on wool.  

Road to COS: Tests are Testing

I got back from Baku yesterday after taking care of several items on a growing checklist of things I have to do before I COS in late November.  This trip, I was able to knock out my COS doctor and dentist appointments and then the final language performance test (LPI).

I’m not a huge fan of visits to the doctor or dentist in the US.  Call it a masculine shortcoming, a lingering distrust stemming from a childhood dentist with large hands, whatever.  Our physicals and dental check ups at MSC (mid-service conference) were less than thorough though, so I wanted to make sure I got myself all checked out this time around.  This meant giving quite a number of samples of various sorts to the doctor.  The dentist went well, though it was decidedly painful, thanks to a certain electric scraping tool that was very unpleasant.  No cavities, so that’s something.

The LPI is a 20-minute conversation to assess our Azerbaijani language abilities after two years.  This is our third testing, the first at the end of training, and the second during MSC.  It’s one of those things that shouldn’t be stressful—after all, we are all able to operate in our communities and get anything we want there—but puts everyone on edge anyway.  There’s something about being graded and ranked that raises people’s hackles, a mixture of wanting to do well and be graded highly and to demonstrate that we’re not stupid, that we actually do know how to do whatever task we’re being graded on.

All the LPIs are recorded, so that the entire language staff can listen and assess.  If anything, I find that to be the most stressful part of the experience.  I’ve just spoken for twenty minutes, and have to wait another few weeks while the staff finds an opportune moment to listen and assess.  At that point, it’s all about the words, and the rest of the conversation goes out the window.  To me, the “um’s,” “uh’s,” and stammers are suddenly more noticeable.  Of course, it's always worse in the anticipation of the thing, and the actual LPI went quickly, and hopefully, well.  I'm currently waiting to hear back about the results, so we shall see.

After all that time spent being prodded and poked, physically and mentally, there was only one way to make up for it all: Baku food.  That’s what it all comes back to in Baku, and it was especially nice since there were a number of other PCVs in Baku for their own tests.  Burgers at Shamrock, funnel cake doughnuts, and a brand new pizza/health spa that opened up around the corner from the PC office.  

A Little Toy Story

I was tricked.  I came home from grocery shopping for dinner and my host father called me over.  “Do you want to go to a wedding [in Azerbaijani, a wedding is called a toy]?” he asked.  Weddings are a big deal here.  Food, dancing, drinking, loud live music.  One of the main cultural interactions PCVs have is wedding attendance.  Other PCVs have been invited to dozens of weddings.  I’ve gone to two.  One I was invited to, and the other I tagged along with my host mother.  So when my host father asked, I was a little excited.  I wanted to compare to my other wedding experiences.  So I said yes, definitely.  “Will you bring this money with you when you go?” my host father asked.  Drat, I knew then I’d be going alone.  And then he handed me the invitation.  It wasn’t actually a wedding, it was what is called a Kichik toy (kee-cheek), or “little wedding,” and is actually a large celebration commemorating the circumcision of a young boy. 

Circumcisions here are not performed at birth, but as in a number of Muslim countries, occurs when the boy is slightly older, usually, it seems around 6-8 years old.  I’ve heard of some host families that will wait to have one party for two brothers to save money, which can sometimes result in one boy being a young teenager at the time.  Yikes.

The party was a little awkward at first.  It wasn’t too strange that I would go alone, as I know the lucky youth’s father, a friend of my host family and a regular taxi driver.  He drove my family to Sheki during their visit last summer.  But besides him, I knew no one, and arrived at the party while he was running a quick errand.  So I stood awkwardly for a few moments until someone came over and ushered me to a chair.  There were about a dozen tables set up on the porch and yard with food and drinks set out to eat until the main course was prepared.  A man with a large camera floated around the party, filming everything from people talking to eating and sipping their soda to dancing and singing.  I sat with a group mostly made up of older men.  After learning about my work, they welcomed me and thanked me for working in Ismayilli, and as is tradition at parties and celebrations here, libations ensued.  And then some more. 

Like most weddings, this “little wedding” featured a live guitarist and singer.  Guitar music is interesting here, as they play largely just the two higher strings and ignore the other three.  During the main course, the singers performed and in between songs handed over the microphone to various guests to give toasts.  Most toasts say the same thing, thanking the host, congratulating him, and wishing them a good life or fortune.  At the past wedding, I was one of many in the hall.  This was at a home, and had a much smaller attendance.  I stood out a bit more, and as a result, I was urged repeatedly to give a toast.  When I gave in, they made sure the camera got in nice and close.  Thank you Mr. Seville.  I did the best I could and there was applause and I was ushered with the rest of the table onto the dance floor, which as people finished eating, had been cleared of some of the nearby tables.

Eventually, the others at my table got up to leave, and I took the opportunity to slip out as well.  Before leaving, I said a final goodbye to the host and his son.  The boy was nervous, but I have a suspicion that was more due to the large number of strange people (especially the weird white guy with blonde hair) that were hanging around his house than any expectations for what was about to happen to him in a few hours.  I’ve heard some stories about reusing kitchen scissors for the deed, and my heart goes out to them.  From others, though, I have heard that it doesn’t hurt that much, and that they just enjoyed the attention and pampering.   Either way, I’m glad that I don’t have to deal with the issue.  This is one tradition that I don’t intend to bring back with me from Azerbaijan.  Novruz, samovar tea, fresh fruits and vegetables from home gardens, I’ll keep all of those.  But “little weddings” can stay here.

Summer's Gone in Ismayilli

Yes, summer’s officially over, both physically and metaphorically, here in Ismayilli.  The last few days have been rainy and cold.  It’s officially September.  Summer’s over.

But the larger summer, the one that meant that worries about the future were still far away, is over, too.  The AZ8s (and two extended AZ7s) just returned from our Close of Service (COS) conference.  The conference was held at a water park/hotel on the northern coast of the Absheron peninsula, north of Baku, and on the Caspian Sea shore.  We spent just about all our possible free time going down water slides in definitely unsafe numbers (we got a 23 person centipede once, but even we acknowledged there were some health risks there), and dancing and swimming in the sea.  I can now check off swimming in the Caspian off my pre-COS bucket list.  There were also some sessions about post-COS medical issues and how to readjust to life back in the US, and probably some other stuff, too, but we were too excited to get back out on the slides.

The conference was also the last time we would all be together.  After this, we’ll see the PCVs nearby, or the ones we’re closest with, but there are a large number of PCVs we won’t see again.  Even the PCVs who are nearby here, the realization becomes more and more concrete, will be a bit further away in the US.  We’re going from a country the size of Maine to the entire USA. 

Back from COS and now that it’s September, November doesn’t seem that far away any more.  As long as it was August, November was still ages away.  August is summer, and November is almost December.  Ages and ages.  But now it’s September, and COS is right around the corner.  It’s time to actually plan and think about and act on plans for what happens next, whether it be graduate school or work, or something else entirely.  Applications need to be filled out, letters of recommendation need to be requested, and statements of purpose need to be written. 

There are plenty of PC paperwork and administrative work to be done.  It is a government organization, after all.  Doctor and dentist appointments have to be made.  A final language assessment, and interviews with our program managers and country director.  We have to write final reports on our projects, sites and organizations.  And find time to get in to Baku to return the PC-owned sleeping bags, water filters, and dictionaries.

On top of all those plans, we all have to decide how to wrap up and end our services in a meaningful and satisfactory way, both for ourselves and our communities.  Two months of school isn’t enough for another big project or a club to have full progression.  But there’s still plenty to do.  At the end of the school year, I ran a week long Earth Week celebration, with each day’s activities based on a different theme (I helped different teachers lead each day).  The week was planned by the PCV Environmental Committee, and culminated in an art contest.  Our students won, by creating a robot statue out of recycled bottles and cartons, a 30 manat grant for another environmental project.  So that will be one of my goals during the next few months. 

I have slowly been organizing my classroom into a resource room for the school, and finishing that will be another goal.  The walls are now covered with posters and maps from National Geographic (thanks to a wonderful grandparental contribution), and the room is slowly becoming stocked with books, magazines and arts and crafts supplies.

Finally, baseball continues!  Ismayilli had a very strong spring/summer season.  After renaming ourselves the Dragons and making team shirts from a homemade cardboard stencil, the boys have won all of their in-conference games and only lost two games total.  The boys are getting pretty big for their britches, but are extremely excited at the prospect of an overnight championship tournament in Baku in early November.

One of the things I’m most looking forward to is not work-related.  One of the last nights I’ll be in Ismayilli will be for my birthday, which I’ll get to share with my host family one last time.  Seems like a pretty good way to cap off two years.