GO DUCKS

Here is a photo of me with the duck stuff my mom sent. She got me duck Crocks, a stuffed duck that quacks, and then a that shirt before i left. i'm wearing this around all day today in my show of support! Read the Civil War post below and then go get changed! GO DUCKS!!

CIVIL WAR

December 1, 2007

When you wake up today it will be the most important day of the year and many of you may not even realize it! Today is the 111th annual Civil War! GO DUCKS!! Even though I am on the other side of the world thanks to many of you and especially my mom I have been able to keep up on the football season this year. Some of you have emailed or called me with eyewitness accounts of the games thank you Sean, Monica, and Dave. Many of you have forwarded me articles, thank you all. And my loving mother has sent me play-by-play text messages in real time, Mom You’re the best! Yes Sunday mornings I wake up in the middle of the night and lay huddled under my sleeping bag anxiously awaiting the messages. Then I forward them to fellow duck fans here that are waiting patiently. I hope you all understand how incredibly awesome each of you are! GO DUCKS!!

As many of you know this season has been great but tragic! We started the season unranked but very quickly moved our way up in the polls and then slowly moved our way into the number two ranking which would have led us into the national championship game. But then, while we were on top of the world the season came to a crashing halt as our Heisman quarterback tore his ACL in the first quarter of our game with lowly Arizona. We went on to lose that game and then the next week our second string quarterback sprained both ankles and then our once mighty, best in the nation (yes I know we were like 4th or 5th but the teams in front of us don’t count because they don’t play the same caliber teams) offence was shut-out by a marginal UCLA. So that brings us to today where the Duck’s will face the beat up Beavers. GO DUCKS!

The Beavers GO DUCKS! are beat up a bit they are on their second string quarterback they are without their top receiver and may be without their starting running back. That sounds bad until you realize the Ducks are without their first and second string quarterbacks, one of the two great running backs the one playing has a serious turf toe problem, many of our defensive backs, and our two best receivers. This game is turning into a JV Football game but there is still state pride behind the game. The state of Oregon is a wonderful state in that a person may not watch football or even care that much about it, but when the Civil War comes around everyone has an allegiance to one team or the other. GO DUCKS!

This game means more than people from outside Oregon can understand. 3-4 hours each year decides who has bragging rights for the rest of the year. No matter the conversation, it could be about a any sport, who has a better academic program, or anything else comparing the two schools, but whoever won the previous years civil war can always come back with “Yeah but we kicked you butts is the civil war last year” and that, is the ultimate trump card. GO DUCKS!

So all you who are Duck Nation get into that closet and get your Lightning Yellow and Thunder Green out. Wear it with pride down to the store and get the something to BBQ get the chips, dip, beer or soda, and take in the pageantry that is… College Football! GO DUCKS!!

Photos

Here are some new pics. the first is of me holding a mirror pond that my wonderful sister sent me!! then the other three are of the pig roast.

Thanksgiving

November 26, 2007

Being away from home always seems to make you appreciate what you are thankful for more than when you’re around everything you’re thankful for. This year on thanksgiving I spent the entire day on a bus going back into Baku. I was asked along with a few other volunteers to go into the PC office for a meeting to help further develop our youth development program. The meeting was on Friday so I had to spend all day Thursday traveling into the capital. When we all did get there we all went out for a meal of nachos, which was amazing but still didn’t compare to a lazy day of watching football, napping, and eating my moms home cooking.

The day after the meeting I headed down to visit a few volunteers in a town called Ali Bayramli who were cooking a small thanksgiving feast complete with a couple of chickens, mashed potatoes, candied carrots, cranberry sauce, gravy, and pumpkin pie! It wasn’t moms and I didn’t get to see all the family but it was very nice to be around others who understood and were in the same situation.

As I was riding the bus into town on thanksgiving I was thinking about what it is that I’m thankful for and realized I’m most thankful for my family, and the things that have happened in my life to allow me to do the things I’ve done and am currently doing. It’s an amazingly humbling experience to live with people who have so much less than we have in the US but are just as happy. It really confirms what I learned on the trail which is all you really need in this life to be happy is one warm meal in your belly a day and a semi dry place to sleep. Everything else just gets in the way. We tend to get lost in the rat race thinking we need to have this and that to be happy but why? Will those things really bring you happiness? I think its just more stuff you’ll need to sell or ask to store in your moms basement to collect dust when you leave on your next life adventure?

I really hope you all had a wonderful thanksgiving and that you had an opportunity to share with someone what you are thankful for.

Oh, I almost forgot I have to make a special note that I’m thankful for the best sister in the world. The day before I left to Baku I received a package from my sister with all sorts of goodies and as she knows me best she sent me three bottles of Mirror Pond Pale Ale and a note saying I was thinking you could use this about now! Thank you, thank you, thank you Becky! You so rock. I did the best thing I could and took them to the thanksgiving celebration and shared them with everyone there and they are all so appreciative of the kindness. There was even a fellow Oregonian who could appreciate it not just as great beer but as a little taste of home.

Luau and Thanksgiving

November 20, 2007

So I got an email from my sister with a guilt trip just as bad as the one I sent to all of you when I hadn’t gotten an email in over a week. It made me realize if I want to keep the support coming from your side I better keep up my end of the bargain and keep this thing posted more often! I couldn’t believe it when I looked at it and realized I hadn’t posted an update in 20 days!! I’m deeply sorry and I thank you Becky for keeping me honest!

Well let me try to recap what has been happening the last few weeks. After Halloween my host brother left to go to Baku for training for two months. He is going to be an air traffic controller at the new airport they are building in our town. The significance of this is that he is fluent in English so now a whole new host family dynamic has started. Before he left I’d get frustrated because my parents talked to me through him and when I tried to speak in Azeri they would look at him. I had asked him over and over to try to talk to me only in Azeri and he would, but really fast and if I asked him to slow down he would repeat it in English rather than slower. So now that he’s gone I miss him because he’s a really great guy and I’ve realized how much easier life was with an interpreter.

Now around the house there’s a lot more charades and laughing while shrugging the shoulders as my family and I try to communicate. I’ve learned that instead of getting frustrated when we can’t get a simple point across it’s much better to laugh and give my mom a big bear hug. I think she thinks I’m nuts and I haven’t yet figured out if when she’s laughing, she laughing with me or at me, but there’s rarely a dull moment when we talk.

The weather has gotten substantially colder the last few weeks. It’s not really that much colder than the weather in Oregon the difference is that there just isn’t any insulation. So it just feels much colder. We brought the heater in and set it up a few weeks ago and the room it’s in is really warm, when the gas is on, but when you head into any other room you either hurry to get back or start putting the layers on and jump under the sleeping bag. I’ve actually got two bags. I brought the one I hiked the PCT with and then Peace Corps gives us a massive subzero slumberjack bag that I mostly sleep on as a mattress but on the really cold nights I crawl into it as well.

The room I hold my conversation clubs in is really cold. It’s in a really old building and during the day it is actually colder in the room than it is outside. I’ve tried to talk my students into having class outside but when I mentioned it they looked at me like I just stepped out of a spaceship or something. The Room is actually just what I wanted though. I was talking to another Peace Corps Volunteer the other day and we were discussing how each of our conditions, yet different from each others, were just what we had imagined in our romantic vision of what PC was going to be like here. I have two oil lamps in my classroom that we use for light (we don’t have any electricity in the room) but also to stay warm. They smell really bad because they don’t have oil for the lamps so we use diesel. On the really cold days we all gather really close and act as if the lamps are a campfire.

My weekends have been pretty busy lately. I went to a city called Ganja two weekends ago for another softball tournament and the PCV’s who hosted it put on a pretty good show. After the games we went back to one of the guys houses where they had a luau themed party. The day before they went out and bought a pig then all day while we were playing ball they were roasting it! This was good in so many ways. First anytime you eat an animal you can still see what it is while eating you have that cave man like feel of manliness. Then the fact that this country is Muslim and they don’t eat pork made it to where I really craved some and it was one of the best meals I’ve had! After the meal when the food comma wore off we decided to have a dance party that lasted until the early hours of the morning when it was just a few of us rocking out in the kitchen in nothing but our underwear? Not sure how that happened but it was good fun!

This last weekend we had a thanksgiving party in Baku at the house of the DCM of the Embassy (he’s the guy that is second in command to the ambassador). It was a really nice event, which everyone looks forward to and gets all dressed up for. PC works with the embassy to find us Americans who work at the embassy to host us in there completely western houses. Our host was completely amazing. She gave us the key to her place with a fridge full of beer and let us have it for the weekend. She came in Saturday afternoon to check up on us to see if we needed anything and then left us to just completely relax in a real western home! We even had a few English news channels!

Well this year because of budget issues the dinner was not catered as it had been in the past. Our country director threw in for a few turkeys and everyone signed up to bring something. My site mate and I, probably because we were relaxing so much, waited until the last possible second to get ready and prepare our meal. Well as it turned out we didn’t have the pots we needed to cook the things we had planned so we hit the market to see if there was anything we could substitute. Unfortunately we didn’t find anything and this put us way behind schedule. We decided to go without and be a little late rather than really late.

We got out of the cab and followed where the directions told us to go. As we turned down a shady unlit alleyway we thought we must have turned the wrong way so we asked someone if there was a barber down the street (which the directions said as across the street from the house) and the person said no the barber was out on the main road. (It should be noted that Azeri people are so nice they will still give you directions rather than tell you they don’t know). Well, we were not smart enough to investigate for ourselves and went back out to the main road and walked down every other alleyway. We decided we must be lost and thought we should call someone to find the way because now we were about 40 minutes late. None of the three people we called answered their phones so we thought it must be so formal that everyone has turned their phones off. So we decided rather than show up to a formal party late with no food it would be better to skip the party. As it turns out we just called the wrong three people. The party was tons of fun and it wouldn’t have been a problem if we had shown up. We ended up walking all the way back to where we were staying, which was about a two hour walk and completely missed our thanksgiving feast. We did end up meeting up with everyone after it was over and had a good time but really wished we would have just walked another 100 meters down that alleyway.

Halloween

October 31, 2007

This past weekend I went down to the southern region of the country to the city Lankaran for a Halloween party. The country is only the size of Maine but because of the roads it takes 12 hours to get from where I am in the north to the cities in the south. The morning I arrived a group of us went hiking in a village to the east called Lerik.

The drive to Lerik was really beautiful and reminded me of driving in the Oregon coastal range in the fall. When we got to the village we walked around looking for some socks that they make there that are supposed to be really neat and unique to the area, but they said they wont start selling them until it snows. Then we saw some hills above the town we wanted to walk to, to get a great view of the area.

It was pretty comical walking through the town some of the looks we got you would think that we had just stepped off of a UFO. When we got to the top of the hills the clouds had rolled in and we were in an eerie fog that was really neat. The land up there was a rolling pasture land that was all green. We’d wished we’d brought a Frisbee. We wanted to have a competition to roll down the hills but because of all the cow pies we decided just running down yelling would suffice for the childlike urges we were having. We also saw fresh wild saffron growing on the hillsides. I tried to get some close-ups of the flowers with my camera but my photography skills were lacking. The saffron flower is really pretty. It is a purple flower, which has a bright yellowish orange center, which my friends said was what they use as the spice. After playing around up in the hills like kids we decided to head back to get ready for the Halloween party.

The party was pretty surreal. There was probably about 40-50 of the volunteers in country that came. And it ended up being just like any other college party in the states. The next morning when I woke I decided I’d experienced enough and didn’t think my body could handle another night of it so a few friends and I decided we’d head back a day early. When we got into Baku we found that there weren’t any more seats on the night train (and we can’t travel the roads at night for good reason) so we talked to Peace Corps and they allowed us to stay the night in the capital. Lucky for us there was a volunteer who was in town for a dentist appointment so we were able to crash in her room and didn’t have to spend the big bucks for a room.

The greatest thing about being in Baku is the food! Out in the regions there are very few restaurants and when there are they are usually all the same Turkish food, which is good but lacks variety. So that night we first headed to the Thai restaurant where I had one of the best curries I’ve ever eaten. For dessert we went to McDonalds where I had a happy meal with a chocolate milkshake! Oh, was that heaven.

While we were in McDonalds we all got a text telling us they uncovered a terrorist plot to attack on the US Embassy and other western buildings in Baku so as a precaution the office would be closed the next day. It turns out that they got everyone before anything happened which makes me feel safe that the authorities have a pretty good handle on what’s happening but it was a little unsettling realizing those feelings are here. Which when really thinking about it there are those feelings and threats anywhere in the world you travel. But now that I’m back in my city 8 hours from Baku I feel just as safe if not safer than walking down the street in any city in the US. The news covered it pretty well over here and the next day as I was talking to people in town everyone’s reaction was the same telling me how bad those people were and how happy they are that I’m here. So thank you to everyone who saw it on the news and sent me an email. There is no need to worry however as living in this small town way up north is probably much safer than being in most cities in the US.

Weekend Photos

Here are some pics in Lerik. The first is while driving there. The second is of main street. The Third is of us having fun in the fog. The last is a house that reminded us of Borat.

A Day In The Life

October 24, 2007

Many of you have asked me in emails to try and describe my normal day. It seems like that would be a pretty easy task but everyday here seems to be a little different from the last. Then, when I try to put it into words it doesn’t really seem like I do that much, yet the simplest things in life take so much more effort and time here. So here it goes this is what my life looks like on this side of the world.

I wake up every morning around 5am to the lovely sounds of the prayer call. My neighbors in the apartment above my room get out of their beds and I listen to them pray. Then I sit there and think about how I should get up and run but so far it’s only been a thought. I usually end up talking myself out of it with the excuse that if I do run I’ll get so skinny that I’ll end up disappearing. Then I roll over and fall back asleep till about 8:30. I get up go into the bathroom to light the water heater. Mine is actually much nicer than others, some people have to build an actual fire ours is gas so the only bad thing is when the gas is off or the fear of the thing blowing up. After the fire is lit I need to wait an hour so I usually eat breakfast while I wait.

My breakfast is usually bread with salty cheese, butter, honey, and sour cream with a cup or two of sweet tea. Sometimes my brother will try to cook me some eggs but he hates them and the way he cooks them I’m not surprised. They have this stuff here called super sun that they call butter (but they also called the grease I spooned out of the beef for tacos butter) and my brother puts about a ¼ cup of the stuff in a pan and then beats two eggs just enough to break the yokes and pours them in. The eggs are so greasy even with hot sauce they are almost inedible and I think I can eat anything with hot sauce.

After breakfast I boil water and wash the dishes. Then go and take a shower under the trickle of water. I have absolutely nothing to complain about because some people only get showers once a week if that in some cases and then sometimes they aren’t showers but bucket bathes. I only want to let you understand the time it takes to wash lathered soap off your body with such a small trickle of water it takes five minutes just to get wet enough for the soap to lather.

After the shower I usually try to study my language for about an hour, but often times get side tracked in some conversation with my brother. Then it changes depending on the day. On Mondays and Wednesdays I go to my tutor for an hour and a half. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I go to my conversation club with my first Teachers University club for an hour and a half. Then I get home at 12:30 and start to make lunch. Lunch is normally bread, grease soup from the night before, fresh chopped tomatoes and cucumber from the garden, and then sometimes fried potatoes. Grease soup is a staple here it is a soup base with varying spices, potatoes, sometimes meat, and enough grease to allow you to hold it over your head upside and shake vigorously when you get it out of the fridge. (This is not an exaggeration we did this one-day and we shook really hard.) After lunch depending on the day I plan my lessons for an hour on Mondays and Wednesdays then go to my conversation club with kids from the college followed by my awesome girls club. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I plan my lessons for a half hour after lunch and then have my second club from the Teachers University followed by a club made up of middle aged teachers which is actually really enjoyable I always try to help them see the crazy things their daughters are wanting to do are just the same as the crazy things they wanted to do that there parents wouldn’t let them do. After this club I hang out for an hour and then I have a club with educated but unemployed guys that are all economic majors. These lessons seem to be lessons of me trying to remember what I learned in micro and macro Economics nine years ago.

So on Mondays and Wednesdays I finish at 6 and usually read or take a nap until dinner. Tuesdays and Thursdays I finish at eight and without fail my Ana is putting dinner on the table as I walk in the door. After dinner is over I usually hang out with the family watching Azeri TV or just drinking tea. Sometimes (and I want to get in the habit of doing this more) I go guesting. Guesting is really just going over to someone’s house to drink their tea, but it is really neat and everyone loves it when I come to their house. I get tons of invites everyday just walking down the street. Then when I get home or get tired of the TV and retire to my room next to the TV room put my headphones on and try to read. My family is usually watching TV till about 12:30 – 1:00 so I’m up until then and as soon as it’s off I go to bed.

Then I have my Fridays where I head to work for about an hour and if anyone shows up I sit and talk to them about anything but work for an hour if not I sit there and wait and then leave after that hour. I’ve left my Fridays open from conversation clubs so that I can actually try to use that time to plan some youth activities. Right now I’m trying to put something together where I will help the youth in my conversation clubs plan and run a weekly Saturday activity where we lead a round robin of games with purpose with an attempt at trying to teach life skills through play.

My Saturdays and Sundays if I’m not traveling for work or play right now I try to get caught up on all the things that get put aside during the week like laundry and cleaning. And I usually use a bit of time to read a bit more. I’m reading more now than I ever have before and I’m really enjoying it. If any of you come across any good books throw them in the next package I can always use something to read, and they say it only get worse as the winter and darkness set in.

I hope this gives you a little bit of an idea what things are like over here. Kristin if you’re still reading or any others that may be coming next year please feel free to email me or anyone else over here directly and we can give you even more details and answer any questions you may have. If your anything like I was you’ll be full of them.

Tacos In The AZ

October 17, 2007

For this post I must first profusely thank my Mom, Dad, and sister Becky for being so absolutely gracious for sending me supplies to make these tacos!!

Today I had the best meal of my life! Since I’ve been here I’ve craved nothing more than a taco the way my mom used to make, and today that craving was finally satisfied. (For the next few hours at least.) This conquest began two days ago when I made salsa from the great fresh produce we have here in our bazaar. I let the salsa sit in the fridge for two days to allow the flavors to completely merge. Then last night my brother and I pulled a Kilo of beef out of the freezer, took it outside, and ran it through the hand grinder. This morning I woke up like an excited little boy on Christmas morning. Luckily I had a few errands to run this morning otherwise I would have eaten them for breakfast. When I got back I started the beans and paced the house. When it was finally lunch time I browned the beef, grated the cheese, sliced the lemons and tomatoes, and started to heat the oil for the real CORN TORTILLAS my sister sent from home.

We have something here called lavash that is kind of like a flour tortilla but… different so it was absolutely amazing to finally have the real thing. Ever since I can remember my mom made us tacos this way where she takes a corn tortilla and fries it in corn oil just enough to cook it but keeping it flexible.

Like a symphony all the parts came together perfectly the tortillas were ready just as the meat finished cooking the veggies and cheese were prepared as the meat was started and my brother and I sat down and enjoyed complete ecstasy.

Here are some pictures to show how great tacos in the AZ look!

Taco Pics

The first is cooking the tacos on the stove. The second is the spread. The third is of one great taco. Ane the last is some corn chips i made!!

Bayraminiz Mübarek

October 15, 2007

This last weekend was great. I got to meet many new people, practice my language a bunch, and eat tons of food. I went down to one of my friend’s villages, which is about 20 min south of my town because they are a bit more religious and his family was having a huge celebration for the end of Ramadan.

Ramadan is the Muslim holy month when they do not eat during daylight hours. As with every aspect of life here I wanted to learn and understand more about the people I’m serving so I asked anyone I could what the significance of Ramadan is and why they fast during this month. What I learned however was not why they fast but just another example of the leftover Soviet mentality. There are many things people do here not because they make sense but because they’ve been told to or learned it that way. Many people here are much different than most people in the US in the sense that they don’t question authority. They just do what they are told and go on about life, and Ramadan seems to be an example of that. Each person I asked why they fast had a different answer and all of them revolved around because it is our custom, or because this is what Muslim people do, nothing about the significance of why the fast happens, when it happens, or for how long. I don’t write this in an attempt disrespect the people here only as an observation of things I’ve seen and experienced.

With the lack of understanding of why the holiday happens aside, we had a wonderful time and got a four-day weekend out of it. I got to my friends house around 12:30 and he had already had lunch 3 times at 3 different houses. My arrival created a reason to have another lunch and that theme carried on for the rest of the day. Throughout the day we went to six different houses and had six meals that were all the same in both content and size. It didn’t matter how many times you said, “no, no I just ate and I cant eat anymore” you were still served massive amounts of food. What else we learned was that if you didn’t serve yourself or you didn’t serve yourself the “proper amount” whoever was sitting next to you would take your plate and fill it with twice as much as anyone else was eating.

All of the meals were the same. We would get to the house go in sit down and have tea with really great sweet cakes, sweet biscuits, or any other type of sweet pastry. Then the meal would follow. This consisted of Plov, which is rice baked with massive amounts of butter then nuts, dried fruit and more butter are poured over it. This is also the national meal of Azerbaijan. Then we had either cabbage or grape leaf dolma. This is one of my favorites. It is a rice and meat mixture that is wrapped and cooked in either grape leaves or cabbage. Then a sour yogurt is poured over the top of it. Then there were the whole chickens or a once whole chickens depending on where in the line of guests you fell. Then there was the lamb stew stuff that was lamb cooked with potatoes and some sauce that I poured over the plov in an attempt to counter the massive amounts of butter. And finally there was the staple Azeri salad of cucumber and tomatoes. That’s literally all the salad is, cut cucumbers and cut tomatoes and it’s at every lunch and dinner here, but they are the best tomatoes I’ve ever eaten since everyone has a kitchen garden here and these are picked ripe off the vine right as the meal begins. After the main meal is over we would sit and eat either bad watermelon, which is now out of season or great pomegranate, which has just come into season. Then the table would be cleared and more tea and sweets would be brought out. After the tea was done we would say our goodbyes, wash, receive our eggs and move to the next house on the list and start the entire thing over again.

As we would walk we would see everyone else from town walking to their next meal and we would play the egg game. The eggs we were given as we left were hardboiled and dyed a tint of red by placing onionskins in the water as they were boiled. As you walked to the next house you would challenge other people for their eggs. One person would hold their egg in their closed hand with one tip facing up while the other person would hit their egg on top of it. The person’s egg that cracked lost and the other person would get their egg. The objective was to get as many eggs as you could. We on the other hand couldn’t understand the need for any more food and didn’t want to walk around with our hands and pockets full of eggs so for some mysterious reason we always hit the egg in a way to make ours break. I think the kids really thought we sucked and sometimes would try to have mercy on us and let us keep our broken egg, but we insisted that they won the egg fair and square and that they needed to take the egg.

I had the opportunity of watching the end Ramadan while I was in Egypt. Five years later I’m in another Muslim country but this time I had a much better experience as I felt that I was able to participate rather than just watch from the outside.

Photos

Yeah so i'm still trying to figure out this blog stuff and the pictures on the last post didn't really end up in the text like i wanted. The Pics are of my underware hanging infront of my apartment, a cow in the streets of Sheki, me and my cheese burger, and my buddy katie pitching in our softball game.

Softball In The AZ

October 10, 2007

This week has been really great. On Friday I went down to Barda in the central part of the country for a softball tournament with the Sheki team. There are four regions that have softball teams with Americans and Azeri’s.

Friday night was great fun we went to one volunteer’s house and had a wonderful spaghetti casserole with garlic bread and got to meet up with a bunch of different volunteers. The next morning we woke up and went to a field, that actually had grass, and played a double header. My team lost the first in a total melt down in the 9th inning we were up I think 12 – 3 in the top of the ninth and ended up losing to something like 17 – 15. Then the second game I think we won by 22 – 2. It was so much fun to be out in the sun playing softball. Later that day we all gathered at a different volunteers house where we ate some great lentil stew, mashed potatoes and homemade biscuits!

The next morning we woke up and headed to the field again and played two more games with the Azeri’s. Unfortunately not all the Azeris showed up so we couldn’t do a real tournament. But we divided up who we had and they all had a really good time! There we a few that actually really good. After the game we had to leave right away to catch our marshrutka back to Sheki.

As we were pulling into the Sheki Autovagzal the last marshrutka to Zaqatala was pulling out. So we went up to the 5 star western hotel and ate a real cheeseburger! Then those of us from the north shared the cost of a cab back home. As we were in the cab satisfied from our cheeseburgers and completely exhausted from the weekend we realized how much each of us wanted to get back to our homes. It was nice to have that feeling of this being my home and the desire after being away to want to come back to what I’ve learned is familiar and comfortable.

This weekend I’m heading down to one of the villages to stay with another volunteer and his host family to experience the end of Ramadan. They are a very strict Muslim family and it should be a great cultural experience! Ramadan is the holy month from mid September to mid October where Muslim people fast during the daylight hours. Then at the end they throw a huge weekend long feast! It should be great fun and I look forward to sharing it with you.

Getting Into My Groove

October 3, 2007

Today was one of the best days I’ve had here! The last two weeks have been pretty difficult meeting all these new people and trying to explain to them what it is that I’m here to do. It’s actually kind of comical if I take a step back and look at it. I mean even Peace Corps doesn’t know what it is that we (Youth Development) are doing here. We are the first group of youth development (YD) volunteers so we are tasked with the job of figuring out what YD volunteers will do in Azerbaijan. In our training we studied different methods to assess the youth and our communities in an attempt to figure out what it is that the people and youth of Azerbaijan want and need us to do. However these assessments take time and require us to have a relationship with the youth so PC has us teaching English conversation clubs as a way to create these relationships and to give us something to do while we figure this out.

There are a few problems to this. First, it’s never been defined what an English conversation club actually is. Second, every person in Azerbaijan wants to learn English. Where this has created problems for me is that my counterparts at the organization I work didn’t really know what a club was so they promised everyone that I (their American) would teach them English. Well a club isn’t a place to teach people who don’t have a base it’s a place to practice the skills you already have so you can apply the language practically and it works best in a group of about 8 – 10. So long story short my counterparts promised me to all sorts of people and then when I explained what it was that I was doing all sorts of people got mad.

Then the last problem with this is that because PC didn’t know what it was that we will be doing all they told (or all the counterparts had heard) was the we would be doing these clubs so they want to help us fill all our time with these, which will take all our time so that it will be more difficult to create real sustainable youth programs.

Well, so that was why my last two weeks have been difficult. The reason today was so great was that it seems like things are finally starting to iron themselves out and I had two really great club meetings today. One was with a very beginner club that was just down right fun. We played a few games that everyone enjoyed and I just felt good to finally be connecting in some way to the youth here. The second was a club that I will look forward to going to each time. It is what a club is really supposed to be with 9 girls that speak really well but are losing it when they don’t have an opportunity to speak. The reason I’m so excited is that while I’m here I want to focus my work on creating more opportunities for girls and these girls will be perfect to get into their minds to figure out what it is that Azerbaijan girls want.

Then to cap the day off I got a package from my mom with all sorts of fun stuff that just made my day, including a new battery for my computer which makes writing blog entries much easier as the power goes on and off.

If any of you have questions about life over here or ideas of blog entries you would like me to write about please email them to me.

September 11th

September 11, 2007

Two years from today I will have completed my service here! We had our last training meeting today and we will swear in tomorrow. Right before lunch staff had all of us gather around in a circle to remember what happened on September 11th. We had all of us trainees and many of the staff both Azeri and American. There were about 65 to 70 of us and we were given a chance to talk about what September 11th means to us.

I talked about how those events helped me make the decision to join Peace Corps. After the terrorist attacks most Americans reaction was to fight back harder and stronger to teach “them” (whoever “they” are) a lesson. I had a different reaction. I thought what would make someone hate Americans so much that they would kill that many innocent people. I thought if they only knew me, or all the people in those buildings, there is no way they would hate me that much, and instead of going out and killing more people and making whoever we were killing (and their families and children) innocent or guilty hate us that much more. But instead why don’t we go out into the world and let people get to know what real Americans are like and dispel any thoughts they may have about us from watching TV and reading newspapers. Then, learn from them what things America does either directly or indirectly which makes people hate us and come home and try to change those things.

As I said in my first post Peace Corps has 3 goals and two of them are completely related to this.

The 2nd goal is: To help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.

The 3rd goal is: To help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of all Americans.

I really feel much more patriotic serving here in the Peace Corps than I ever have before. I am proud of my country and appreciate the things we take for granted every day, such as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, or a free election. Even countries that claim they are free people don’t always have these rights.

These are just a few rambling thoughts I had today on the anniversary of September 11th. You may or may not agree with these thoughts but that’s what I love more than anything the fact that I have the right to express my thoughts. And if you do agree do something about it because you CAN! Go out and protest if you think something is wrong or vote or write a letter to your congressman or senator (tell them you support Peace Corps and what we are trying to do) or join Peace Corps. Whatever you do just don’t sit around and let things happen act like a real American and stand up for what you believe in.

Photos

I had a post from sept 11th that didn't load right i will post it next time in. Here are some recent pics.

The first is of my good friend Whitney in front of the Caspian Sea.

The next is of me and my good oregon buddies.

This is me and my cluster mate Jenni

This is me and the coolest Azeri i've met she is my language teacher vafa

The last is of my new room

The First Week Of The Next Two Years Of My Life!

September 24, 2007

I apologize for how long it has been since my last post. The last 2 weeks have been really busy. I’ll try my best to fill you in on everything that has happened.

Back on September 12th we had our swearing in ceremony. Even despite the stifling heat and the feel of a high school graduation it was really pretty neat. We all got dressed up and our host families came. We had speeches from representatives of the 3 ministries our programs fall under the ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, and Economic Development. Then we had a speech from the U.S. Ambassador who did hers in Azeri followed by one in English. Then we had a couple speeches from volunteers one in English and one in Azeri. After all the talking we stood up and raised our right hand and recited the same pledge to defend the constitution that I did 12 years ago before going to basic training. (that was kind of strange) Then each of our names was called as we walked across the stage getting congratulated by the Ambassador, our country director, and training director. Afterward we had some good food with our families and then all the volunteers and language teachers went out to celebrate and say our good byes.

The next morning I awakened to the realization that I should have started my packing sooner, and threw all my stuff together as fast as I could. I made my bus and was off with the wonderful feelings of anticipation. As I was riding on the 8 hour bus I had a bit of time to reflect and the major feelings I was having were finally the “oh crap what have I gotten myself into”. I have been waiting for these feelings from the day I finally got my acceptance letter but up to this point hadn’t really felt them. I think with every great adventure you really have to have the moments where you ask yourself, “What in the world am I doing?” And the more times you ask yourself that the better the adventure will be. So I was feeling the opposite of what most people would feel in that situation since I had the conscious understanding that these feelings were not only good but also exciting.

I got to my house and from the moment I walked in the door I had an overwhelming feeling of being the long lost relative, which they couldn’t wait to have return. I had been a bit apprehensive after my site visit but all those feelings melted away as soon as I arrived. I went into my room dropped my bags and actually felt as if that was my room. The next day I unpacked all my things, did laundry, and spent the time settling in.

On Monday I went to work where my 2 counterparts and myself went all around town meeting many different people. Of those were the directors of the college and teachers institute. They asked me if I would be willing to teach both English conversation clubs and computer classes. I said yes and then thought, “Do I have any idea how to teach a computer class?” I mean sure I know how to use a computer but to teach a class! I thought that especially when I was asked to help a man in the office next to ours. He said there was a problem with the monitor going to sleep. I went in and looked at it for a few minutes and I was stumped to. I couldn’t even press control alt del to restart the computer. So I thought well we can unplug it and try to start every thing up again and it was only at that moment that I realized he had not turned the computer on. He had only turned the monitor on and couldn’t figure out why it didn’t all just come on. That got me thinking this is going to be hard to realize all the things we think are just common knowledge.

Reading over this it seems paint a picture of a much less busy week one in which I could have written many posts. In reality however it was really busy, things just seem to work in slow motion here sometimes. Take this post for example it is just longer than a page in a word document but it has taken me two days to write because the power has gone out so many times and my battery no longer holds a charge. I promise as I get into my routine I will update this much more often.

This is a shameless attempt to get each of you to include a frisbee in you next (or first) care package! We loved this one to death and i'm not even at my site yet where i had planned on getting them into ultimate frisbee since it's so foriegn that boys and girls can play together. My thought was if i put it on the blog each of you will send one and then we will have many for all the teams i want to start! the ones that ore the best are the ultimate or heavy weight ones. I think they are 180oz -200oz. then if you have any other old sports equipment laying around the house we could really make good use of it over here! ie. basketballs, soccer balls, footballs, old baseball mits, and softballs. If you deflate the balls i can get a pump here and they wont take up too much room! thanks in advance!!

Photos

Here are some new pics the first is of my cluster and LCF, the second is of our great teacher vafa trying to teach us, the next is my oregon friend sporting the ducks shirt the day of the first game! the last is of some traditional azeri dance.

“I’m about to go eat a bologna sandwich!”

September 2, 2007

Last Sunday was probably my worse day thus far! I’d been going through a little mini slump in my motivation. I thought I had sent some subtle hints in emails and the post previous to that day, that my attitude was not as rosy as it was when I left. I hadn’t been to the internet café for a week and as I was going there all I could think was how I was going to have so many emails because I hadn’t been there in so long. So when I opened my email and all I had was junk mail I was devastated.

I pasted the post I had previously written which explained even further how I was having a hard time. I sent the email letting all my friends and family know that I had updated the blog and was about to leave, but then said no wait a minute I’m going to need to prod a little more if I want to get their attention. So I sent a second email mainly explaining how excited I had been and how if I had just had one email not even saying anything important just a simple, “I was online nothing new has changed just wanted you to know I was thinking about you” how that would have made my day that day! Classic guilt trip stuff.

Well as you can imagine my inbox 3 days later was stuffed full of all sorts of emails. I got the “keep your head up”, “you inspire me”, and the “don’t worry this will pass” emails. But my absolute favorite and the one that totally made my day was from my best friend Dave it was in a string of completely random emails he had been sending each time he got online and it only read, “I’m about to go eat a bologna sandwich”. Nothing more nothing less and that was enough to totally make my day! I even think a few azeri’s got a kick out of it as they were laughing at the crazy American who couldn’t stop laughing at his computer. Thank you all for the encouragement and happiness you have brought me this last week.

I don’t know how to describe the feeling someone goes through when they leave their family and friends and life happens while they’re gone. When you’re away you feel as if everything has stopped and all people are doing is sitting around wondering what’s going on with you in Azerbaijan. You don’t think about how when you were back in the US a week or month went by without every realizing it.

This experience is really humbling in understanding how much a person really depends on friends and family. I know there is no way I could ever do this without all of your support. I also know there are many of you reading this who have children, siblings, parents, or friends who here with me. As much as I want you to read this please open a new window and send them a little note even if it’s as simple as “I just ate a bologna sandwich!” They will love every word of it and it may just make their day!

This last week as I said has been much better. We had a hub day where all the trainees came together for a day of lectures. Our language teacher shook things up a bit, which was good. She split our class in two. For two hours she works with the more advanced then the next two hours she works with us that need a little more attention. Then during the other two hours she has us sit in a separate room studying vocabulary.

Then yesterday we had a cultural day where we tried to share parts of our culture and then went and had a great traditional meal followed by a fantastic demonstration of Azeri dance. The part we shared had to do with environmental awareness. The main hub city we all live in and around is ranked by the state department as the most polluted city in the world. There just isn’t any infrastructure to deal with all the trash yet. So as most people would do they burn garbage here. Yesterday we tried to educate university students and anyone else that would listen about the harmful effects of plastic and then told them about the new plastic recycling plant, which is opening this month. Then we all went out to the beach and picked up hundreds of bags of plastic water bottles. It was great when looking at the truck seeing how much we were doing but really disheartening when looking at the beach and realizing we had only walked about a half mile. We have to just keep reminding ourselves that these are baby steps but you need to take those before you can run.

So things are starting to wind down here in training. This next week we have our last language test. Then we have two hub days next week learning about transitioning into service and then later next week we’ll have our swearing in ceremony and the next day move to our permanent sites! Thanks again to everyone for the flood of emails.

Photos

Here are some pics from zaqatala! the first is looking down the main street in town. the next is looking out the window in my office at the street next to the park. the last is looking to the mountains from my office. on the otherside of those mountains is Russia, as the crow flies it's about 20KM!

Catch Up

August 26, 2007

Well I apologize for the recent lack of posts. I’m not dead or seriously ill we’ve just hit the tough part of Pre Service Training. We all seem to be completely exhausted. We aren’t doing anymore than we were before but we just don’t have any energy. I think it’s just the fact that in the beginning we were running on the excitement of everything being new, and now that’s worn off a bit. I also think the training is starting to get to everyone we are treated like children and at first it was ok, it was just kind of funny, but now it’s really starting to get old. Things will be much better once we get to our sites. With all we have done it’s crazy to think that we haven’t even started our two-year service yet!

Since I wrote last the only major thing that has happened has been my site visit. I went up to Zagatala for a few days to see where I will work and meet my new host family and community members. I can’t explain how excited I am to be going up there! The town is absolutely beautiful. It’s a little mountain community and in a way it actually feels a bit like Ashland. It’s a smaller community, people go there to vacation, they are much more modern than any other town other than Baku, and they have a park that goes up into a valley kind of like Lithia park.

I’m also really excited about the work I’ll be doing and the people I’ll be working with. My director is supportive and maybe even a little excited that I want to create more equality for women through sport. I work across the street from the brand new Olympic complex. Azerbaijan has all of these complexes throughout the country where “sportsmen” go to train to hopefully some day compete in the Olympics. It’s kind of like a really nice massive YMCA. The great thing is that I will have complete personal access to it and it has a brand new weight room and swimming pool! I’ll let you all know about the family situation through email.

Again sorry for the lack of posts I’ve just been a bit tired. I do think however that the motivation levels are going to start rising fast as we approach the end of this training. Also a side note hold off on sending any packages now. We are two and a half weeks from moving to our sites so the package would sit at the Peace Corps office for who knows how long. I will post my new address as soon as I get it.

More photos

Here are some more pics (it wouldn't let me post them all in one) This is me and my friend katie in baku, my aunt, and my cousin and i at her birthday party. Sorry i don't have an entry this week. i think we have hit the point where the honeymoon is over because we have all been really tired. i need to find my stride and get myself in some sort of routine for the next few weeks. i think the waiting game is starting to get to everyone and we just want to get to our sites and get started doing what we signed up for. I'll try to get a post sometime this week with a little more thought hope all is well at home.

Photos

Here are some pics that i wanted to send last week. sorry i got down here and realized they were full size and that would have taken hours to upload! the first is of me pointing on the map to where i'm going. then the rest are of my birthday. i've got one with the extended family, me and my ana with the cake she made for me, the dolma we ate, then my uncle and cousins son.

The Wonderful Doner

Aug 11, 2007

I don’t know if any of you have ever gotten sick from food poison but I tell you what it’s not a very pleasant thing. Before Thursday I had only gotten it once. It was when I was a freshman in college and I remember calling my mom crying thinking I was going to die or wanting to die one or the other or both. I think it is probably the worst feeling I’d ever felt. That was until getting food poison in the AZ a few days ago.

I was down in Sumgayait I’d just left the internet cafÈ I had that high we all get after hearing about things back home, I really didn’t have a care on my mind. I saw a few friends at a Corner doner shop and decided to stop and enjoy one of my favorite treats with them the wonderful doner.

The doner is a sandwich from turkey. It is made by shaving chunks of meat off a massive conglomerate of meat with an equally sizeable sword. Then the meat is stuffed into a fantastic piece of bread that was cut like a pita but bigger and much better. Then they throw in some fresh cucumbers and tomatoes with a little sauce and mayo, and all this for only 40 cents it’s really quite amazing.

Well, still excited about reading new emails and seeing some friends I stop to grab a doner with them. All is good in my world. That is until I see him scraping the sides of this mayo jar to get the last of the mayo out of this jar that had been sitting in the sun all day with the normal flies buzzing about. Before I go any farther I should note that it is well know that we will all get sick from the food here it’s never been a question of if but more of when. So we all know that we should be precautious and not put ourselves in situations, which increase this already apparent risk. So I get this doner and in my head know that I should pay for it, walk away, and drop it in the next trash I see… but I did mention there were these friends of mine. Well, one of them I kind of find a fair bit attractive so I don’t make the smart and logical choice I choose to sit and hang out. I know what many of you are thinking and yes I am aware that this isn’t the first time I’ve made a dumb decision because of a girl.

Well things went well we all sat and talked for a few hours and then decided we’d better get home and all was still well in my life I was now even more excited than I’d been after leaving the internet cafÈ. I got home studied my language a bit and went to sleep. Then about 3:30 in the morning I woke up to the worst stomach pain of my life and ran to the bathroom.

Without getting too graphic (this is the second time I’ve written this the first was much funnier but after reading it I felt it was a little too nasty) for the next day I had was relived of everything inside of me from both ends simultaneously. I was actually eating bananas because they tasted the same when they came back up and that was much more pleasant than the alternative. It got so bad that my host mother who didn’t have a clue what was wrong with me got out the yellow card. The yellow card is the card that PC gives to host families and on it are instructions on who to call if I were not to wake up one morning, or was hurt and unconscious and was not able to call for medical help myself. Needless to say I was a hurting unit. But as bad as something like that is in the states just for a moment try to imagine what that is like in an unfamiliar place in 110 – 115 degree heat with different bathroom and toilet situations! If you need help I could forward you the unedited version of this in an email, but I’m sure you’ll never look at me the same.

However I’m glad that I can now announce that I am alive and well with all systems working properly, and on the bright side I can think about how some people pay a lot of money to purge their systems and I got mine done for 40 cents, a great tasting doner, and good conversation with a beautiful woman! What more can a guy ask for? Things are great in the AZ!!

My Counterpart

August 7, 2007

Just a quick note. I met my counterpart today and I couldn’t be more excited about where I’m going. He speaks a little English but understands quite a bit. At the conference we had an opportunity to get to know each other the best we could with our limited language abilities. Mainly we talked about our families, which always gets interesting when I try to explain how I have 6 sisters and 5 brothers. People here aren’t used to the idea of split families. Then we tried to talk about why I’m 30 and not married. The usual first conversation talk over here.

After all the formal talk we were able to get down to talking about what their expectations are of me and what they envision me accomplishing during my service. He explained that they were completely open to any new ideas and would support almost anything I could bring. He explained that there are tons of youth wanting to attend English conversation clubs (which I thought the best use of my time would be to build a program where I teach the older youth how to run conversation clubs rather than me running clubs that will be gone when I am or when PC is done). Currently they have a bunch of soccer teams as well as some judo and wrestling all for the boys. So I think I’d like to focus some of my time on creating opportunities for girls to participate. One of the NGO’s that have come and talked to us told us about an area that started ultimate Frisbee teams and because it was a new sport gender roles weren’t already established and they got boys and girls to play together which is a completely different concept here. I’ve thought that would be tons of fun, but I won’t really know what they want or need until I spend some time in the community. I’m just excited that they are open and willing to explore new ideas.

The Big 30

August 6, 2007

Wow, what can I say I’m 30! I can’t really say I’ve been looking forward to this day but I guess I’m doing what I really want to do and that’s the important thing. My mom says it’s not hw old you are but how old you feel and I guess if I’m a combination of that and how old I act I should probably be about 12.

When I woke up this morning I got the first call from home since I’ve been here! First my dad called and then my mom! It was great to finally talk to someone from home. I know it hasn’t been that long since I left but it sure was nice to hear a familiar voice. After talking to each of them I had my language class followed by a youth development meeting where all the youth development people came together and they all sang to me. It wasn’t nearly as good as all my nieces and nephews but it was close. After the meeting we got mail and I actually got one of the packages my mom sent to me, which was really great to get on the actual day! (Great timing mom) Then, I went home and my host family had a big birthday dinner party for me!

My host mom invited my aunts, uncles, and a bunch of cousins over to celebrate the big day. She took the day off work so that she could prepare the feast. We had a bunch of salads followed by pomidor (tomato), badimcan (eggplant), and biber (pepper) stuffed dolma.

Dolma is the national meal and this type is my favorite. Normally it’s stuffed in grape leaves and sometimes cabbage. The stuffing from what I can tell is some type of ground meat (which ever type we have at the market that day I imagine) with rice and some spices. That is stuffed or wrapped and then cooked in a pan with considerable amounts of grease, oil or lard. After dinner which was more like 3 or 4 dinners one right after the other, they just keep bringing the food out until it’s gone, we had cake and AZ style ice cream. (I say that because it is ice cream but just… different?) Then we had glass after glass of cay (tea).

It wasn’t salmon on the BBQ with corn on the cob and my mom’s great chicken salad up at the lake after a hard day of waterskiing. But, if I had all those things it wouldn’t be as difficult to be here and the next birthday I have those things I’ll appreciate them that much more. In all I wouldn’t have wanted the day to go any different. I spent my 25th in Egypt and now my 30th in Azerbaijan I can’t wait to learn where I’ll find myself on my 40th?

Zagatala!!!

August 4, 2007

Yesterday we found out where we will be working for the next two years! PC staff gathered us all into a room passed out a folder to each of us telling us not to open them until everyone had one and then all at once we opened it. They let us have about ten minutes to read and run around the room to see where other people are going and then brought us back together and we each went up and placed a pin with our name on the city where we will be working. After the announcements were over they had cake and soda for us and we were able to talk with different staff members to find out more about the site and what the organization was like.

In this process PC identifies different sites and organizations that want a PC volunteer. Each of these has many different personalities and needs. Then the staff meets us and in one short month gets to know us and then they have the difficult task of trying to figure out where each of us would be most successful.

In each of the different interviews I’ve been saying I want to do something with youth and sport, gender issues and I’d like to be somewhere cold as far north as you can send me. The only problem was that everyone was asking for somewhere cold. So in the last interview I told my program director “alright everyone is asking for something cold and I can understand that. However, what I can promise you is this, When it gets really cold way up north I can promise you that I wont be the one complaining about how cold it is I’ll be the one out there playing in it.”

So when I opened my envelope and saw Zagatala all I could think was Yeah buddy someone’s living right! Zagatala is the most northern city PC serves. If you look at a map it may not be on there but if you find Sheki it is about two hours North of there near the Russian and Georgian borders. (You don’t have to worry dad I’m the furthest one from Iran.)

The following is the description that was in my packet. I want to ask each of you to search through the Internet and try to find anything out about the place. One of the things I may be doing is helping to promote tourism and outdoor activities and I want to find out what is already out there about the place, but I don’t have the speed on the internet to do a good search. And it will be fun for you to know more about where I’m going to be living. And then anything you find email it to me!

Zagatela region is situated within the bounds of the Greater Caucasus, in the valley of Ganikh-Arichay. There are 7 rivers flowing through the territory of the region. The relief is mountainous and flat. The Climate is mainly moderate and damp, subtropical. About half of the territory is covered by forest. There are 22 populated points on it’s territory. There are more than 70 archaeological, architectural and historical state protected monuments in this region the beauty of which astonishes everybody. They all are related to the carious periods of the history and are considered to be unique. There is one outstanding monument in Yukhari Chardahlar village located on the steep slope of the Khangildag Mountain. This monument represents the bays situated very high, made in the form of double gates with the wall altar at the depth of the central embrasure. The economy of the region is based on agriculture (grain, cultivation of Tobacco, and vegetable growing.) The food plant, nut-processing factory, tobacco, furniture, and sewing factories are functions here. The population of the region is 107,000 people and is located 385 km from Baku.

The organization I will be working for is Zakatala City Youth and Sport Office. The packet says my main responsibilities will be an English conversation club, helping with youth project planning, creating links with international youth organizations, promote tourism and outdoor activities, and organize camps.

A day after finding all this out I am still on such a high. This is really turning into all that I had hoped and dreamt about! So now this next Tuesday (a day after my big 30th birthday) I will be meeting with a representative from the Youth and sport department and then later this month I will travel out there for 3-4 days to meet my new host family and see first hand what I’ll be doing. Things are great in the AZ

Baku

July 29, 2007

(This post and the next I wrote after the events happened and tried to write fast so I could get some posts up so I apologize if there isn’t as much thought in them.)

Wow what a city. I generally had a good time this weekend but the city has both the things I like and dislike about the U.S. I’ll post a blog later to get my feelings out better after I have a few more experiences there.

I went to Baku with nine other people from PC and we a really good time together. We got there and eventually found our hotel. They give us the PC discount which is 50 Manat a night so we being broke PC volunteers got two rooms for 10 people. When we got there we found out that rooms at mid level hotels in baku are really pretty different than hotels I’m used to staying in. The two beds were not even big enough for one person to sleep in but especially not for two and a half people to fit into. It got interesting but we made it work.

We first went to tequila Junction where we were able to get nachos!! They weren’t the best I’d ever eaten by any stretch but at the time they sure tasted like it. Then one other guy and I went and got haircuts (which was a much better experience than I thought I would have) while some of the girls went out to buy some clubbing shirts. And the rest went back to the hotel to pre funk for the night. (mom that’s not anything really bad. it just means to start drinking before going out so you don’t have to spend as much money when you do go out on all the expensive drinks at bars.).

Later that night we met up with an AZ4 who showed us around a bit and took us to a really cool little bar that we could play pool and darts at. Then we went across the street and danced the night away. Think about me at Dave and Lyndi’s wedding Yeah buddy! I was a dancing fool.


The next morning we eventually got up and around and then headed over to seriously the coolest McDonalds I’ve ever seen. The place way more upscale than any other McDonalds I’ve ever seen. After that we walked around town for a little while before realizing we needed bloody marys. So we went over to the Irish pub and sat in the shade for a few hours. Finally we decided to head over and get some Thai food and then head home.

It was neat to see Baku and all but other than the nachos I could probably do with out the rest for the next two years. As I was riding back to my site I was thinking about how the weekend was great but how I could do all of those things in the states and how that wasn’t why I gave up so much to come out here. But like I said in the beginning I’ll dedicate a blog just to Baku later on in my service and we can see if my attitude will change. It may turn out Baku trips might just be the thing that keeps me going when I feel like I need that little taste of the states. It may be that this time was still a little too early?

Catch Up

July 29 2007

It’s been a week since I wrote last. Things this week have been pretty busy and any free moment I was attempting to study for my first language assessment, which was yesterday. I’ll try to give a quick recap of the week.

Last Sunday I woke up did a little studying and then headed into town to attend an arts and crafts workshop a few AZ 4’s put on. (AZ4 is the class of Peace Corps volunteers that started last year we are AZ5’s) After the workshop I headed down town and hang out with some other volunteers, which turned into about 25 volunteers. We all had a really good time but got our wrists slapped later in the week. We attracted a bunch of attention and a few girls were drinking, which is ok but they want them to keep it a bit more discrete.

Monday and Tuesday were pretty normal just school stuff. Then Wednesday we had our second hub day where all of our class comes together again and we have all sorts of boring lectures on health safety and security. This time though we had the second in command of the embassy come and talk to us about the state departments view about Azerbaijan. It was a really good discussion where he addressed all the real issues and held nothing back. We found out some really interesting things from him that made me even more glad I’m here.

We had some Azeri’s in the room while he was talking and many of them got offended, but I think that was good. The culture here tends to stick with the, if you don’t have anything good to say don’t say anything at all. Then, the media is intimidated by the government with reporters being thrown in jail on charges of slander or being murdered. So the information many people get is not the most accurate and the people that work for PC are some of the best and the brightest with many of them moving on to work in government. So hopefully it will help enlighten them to the understanding that change needs to happen and they can help make that happen.

The next few days I just prepared for my big test on Saturday. The test turned out to be the biggest BS I’ve ever experienced. The tester came in and asked us questions about things we hadn’t even learned yet and talked about ninety miles an hour. The test was recorded so it could be played back to all the LCF’s and they would be able to debate on what rating we should receive. During the test because she was talking so fast I would ask her to repeat what she said, but instead of saying it again or slower she would write it down on a piece of paper in English! Normally, This would be great I wouldn’t complain too much if a tester was trying to blatantly help me cheat. The problem was that her handwriting was so terrible I couldn’t read a word she wrote! So I would ask her again in Azeri to repeat herself and she would just point at what she wrote again. So I just started to answer the questions with things I knew. She could have asked me what I did yesterday and I would answer with “My family is large. I have many brothers and sisters.” And then go on about my family or what foods I liked. It was so bad that all we could do was laugh about it afterwards because it happened to everyone. My rating ended up being novice high which was one step below the highest score people got at intermediate low. In order to pass PST we have to end with a rating of intermediate mid.

As soon as the test was over and we laughed for a while I packed up and went to Baku!!

More Photos

this is joe helping me cook fajitas, my sitemates mom and katie eating, the watchtower, and my friend collen and I drinking our 2 liter beer!

Hiking

July 21, 2007

Today was great fun they got all of us pc trainees together and took us north to go hiking! We went to some old ruins of a 5th century watchtower. These towers stretched the distance of the Caucuses and would light fires to send warnings north. As much fun as it was to be somewhere with such historical significance I was in heaven just to be in a forest hiking. It was cooler (not quite yet cool) and it felt nice to get some physical activity that got the heart rate up.

We got to the top and the tower was massive. A few people climbed to the top but I decided I’d pass on that as I saw rocks crumbling off as they were climbing and there were already too many people up there.

As we were starting to go down our language director (who is a host country national) slipped and sprained her ankle pretty bad. I ran down there and suggested that me and one other guy carry her down. But, some of the other host country nationals said that it would not be culturally appropriate so she attempted to walk which wasn’t working and finally allowed us to at least assist by putting her arm over my shoulders to use me and one woman as a crutch. She was a trooper though she walked with limited assistance about 2 miles barefoot with a really bad sprained ankle. Finally about the last 400 meters it was hurting bad enough that she allowed us to use a branch that she could sit on that was long enough for me and one other guy to hold in front of us as she put her arms over our shoulders. When we finally got her down the ankle was really swollen and got her to lay down and elevate it with some ice and got her some Advil.

It’s difficult to accept or sometimes understand the culture over here. In this case this woman hurt herself more because she didn’t want to be “culturally inappropriate”. If we would have been allowed to carry her we would have been down much sooner to get ice on it and without her walking on the foot it would have torn less and healed faster. I have the utmost respect for the culture here but in cases like this where someone’s health or well being is in question it’s frustrating.