Toys Abound!

Here's a video I shot of the most recent "toy" (wedding) I attended. Just go ahead and turn off the sound because it's so ridiculously loud in there that it immediately blew out the microphone on my camera. It's not exactly a masterpiece of film, being shot on an outdated Pentax 5mp that Kris was kind enough to donate to my mission of showing off Azerbaijan. However, you can see people dancing, eating, drinking, and generally sitting around not talking because the music is too damn loud to do anything else. One interesting aspect is that everyone is expected to make a "donation", i.e. pay for their seat. I feigned ignorance and pretended like I didn't understand, then beat a beeline for the door when this came up. As it is I'm more broke than most of the people in my town, and I am physically incapable of eating and drinking what would be the equivalent of 30 manat (the standard "donation") worth of food and vodka here anyways. For example, at a restaurant you can get 5 kebabs, a full set of salad, pickles, cheese and greens, mineral water, fruit juice, sparkling pear juice, a bottle of wine and about 3 liters of vodka for that much money. Personally I hope I am never able to consume that much of anything in one sitting ever in my life. I just don't have the willpower to aspire to that level of gluttony.

Xoşbəxt Olsun!

(Me chilling at my local restaurant, along with the staff thereof. A bottle graveyard, a testament to the love of spirits here. Yes, those are all vodka and beer bottles, with a couple of wine bottles tossed in for good measure.

Finally, the two signs in Azeri read, respectively, "The martyrs' spirits will live on in our hearts" and "May Allah accept you in paradise".

Since my last post was thoroughly depressing, I decided I might as well spend the rest of my time here in the internet club trying to lighten the mood. So now a positive story! Hooray!

I went to my first Azeri wedding! I'm sure most of you would expect to be quite a different affair from our weddings in America since this is a Muslim country, and you would be right. However, not how you think. The bride and groom dress in Western wedding clothes, just like us. They have a small wedding ceremony at the house, where a red ribbon is tied around the bride's waist and they walk around a mirror three times and a bunch of other stuff I don't understand. Afterwards they are, at least in the eyes of Allah, married. However, this ceremony is restricted to family, and is just a small part of the whole. After this, the bride a groom load up in a Mercedes decked out with ribbons and flowers, and proceed to drive around town, followed by a line of cars, all of which are blaring their horns, flashing their lights, and generally driving like complete maniacs. After a few trips around town the new couple arrive at the "Şadlıq Sarayı", which literally means "Palace of Joy". Then the real party begins. This part of the event is officially known as a "toy", which means wedding. I think the real translation should be "testament to excess". Imagine a banquet/dance party created in collaboration with Madonna and the Shah of Iran, with a touch of Turkish flair...and you get the general idea. It's LOUD, and considering my feelings on Azeri music you can imagine how well this sat with me. It starts benignly enough with the bride and groom being officially married by the state, signing the marriage license, etc. Then the fun beings. FOOD, and I mean a ton of it. An endless stream of soup, vegetables, fruit, cold cuts, kebabs, and everything else in the Azeri culinary lineup. This is accompanied by drinks, and of course by drinks I mean vodka. There are two waiters to every table, and every time a toast is made your glass is immediately refilled. This continues until you either refuse or can no longer walk. Once everyone has been well lubricated by the copious libations and general cheer, it's time to DANCE! Azeri dancing is a rather foolish looking pratice, but increbidly easy to learn. Essentially you stand up, hold your arms out to your side, kick your feet around and look really depressed. I don't know why the last part is important, but apparently it is., because faces completely bereft of cheer dominate the dance floor until late into the night, when the more reserved people have gone home and the floor becomes a land of drunkards and maniacs. These things can go on for hours. I managed to stay for a total of three and felt rather proud of myself for even that much. Hardcore toy-goers can go on for 7-8 hours straight, eating and drinking enough to kill most mortal men.

I've already got two more wedding invitations for the month of December. Next time I'll try to bring a camera and get some upclose shots of the action as it unfolds. Till then, xoşbext olsun! (be happy!)

Spoils of War

(I'd like to reiterate what is written at the title of my blog. There is a reason this blog is password protected, and that is so that I can say some things that Peace Corps or the government of Azerbaijan or the US in general might not agree with. Everything I am about to say it based on my own experiences with people I have met here, and are only that. It has nothing to do with PC, AZ or the US government. The people quoted below will remain nameless.)

I once again apologize profusely for neglecting my blog. I'd like to say it's because I'm busy but it isn't. I'm just lazy. There's an internet club in my town now, so I can check email and such on a regular basis without travelling to another region. However, it's so eat up with viruses that I can't use a flashdrive there, so posting on the blog still requires me to travel all the way to Göyçay. Also, there hasn't been much of anything interesting going on so I never feel compelled to come and spew a bunch of marginalia and nonsense all over the internet; there's far too much of that already.

So, featured above are some pictures from around Ucar, including the stadium (actually just a big mud pit covered in weeds with some bleachers on the far side) and the "Shehidler Xiyabani", or Martyr's Lane. There is at least one in every town, dedicated to soldiers who fell during the war in Karabakh. They are solemn places, but unfortunately most of them are neglected. The one in Ucar is filled with weeds, someone knocked the nose off the main statue, and I've never seen anyone other than maintenence guys there. I had a short chat with one of them while I was taking pictures. I didn't understand all of what he said, he kept talking about the Kurds in Turkey and something about war, but then he went up to a grave and pointed at the date. 1970-1992 it read. A 22 year old kid who was gunned down trying to defend a patch of land that most people in the world have never even heard of. Then the guy pointed to all the other graves. I looked around...and every single one of the soldiers listed was my age or younger. "They're just kids!", I said to the guy, "All kids!". I thought that was the point he was trying to make. But then he said "See here, 1992. All of these children died after Heydar Aliyev showed up. Everyone here talks about him like he is the greatest democrat ever. But him, and his son, they're not democrats...they're dictators. This isn't a democracy, it's a dictatorship!"

I was dumbstruck. This guy, making $100 a month to clean weeds out of a forgotten cemetary, has come out and said to me what most people here are terrified to even let themselves realize. I dunno if he said it to me because I'm a foreigner and he wanted me to know, or he just needed to vent his frustration, but it really got to me. The sort of helplessness felt here is overwhelming, especially considering the war-torn, unstable history of this country.

I've recently started hanging out with a couple of soldiers who were in Karabakh, asking them about what they saw, how they feel about it, etc. Obviously they don't want to talk about it, and if I had seen what they saw I wouldn't either. But one of them, while I was at a tea house, started showing me a video on his phone. It was a bunch of guys getting off a helicopter and walking through a field. I asked him if it was the war and he just said "watch...". Suddenly the camera pans down, and in a ditch is a body...then two...then five...and then the camera pans across the field. As far as the field of vision is a line of bodies, all thrown into a ditch. Azeris, Armenians, Russians....soldiers and civilians all mixed together. I was struck silent, I didn't know what to say. So I asked him "Well, we have these Martyr's Lanes everywhere, the government always talks about the war and uses it for political means, and you were there and saw all of this in defense of your country...what do they do for you now?" "Not a damn thing" he replied, "I drive a taxi for a couple of dollars a day, I do what I can".

It's hard being presented with experiences like this. As a Peace Corps volunteer I'm not allowed to talk about politics, but at the same time I feel compelled to learn about these people's experiences. It puts me in a bind that's hard to escape from, so I try to avoid it when I can, but sometimes people feel compelled to tell me things that they may be afraid to say to another Azeri, and I can't help but feel conflicted, as if they want me, a "foreign dignitary" as it were, to do something about it. In the end I'm just as helpless as them, and all I can do is hope that one day things will change for the better, and these experiences and lives won't be isolated here in this little country on the Caspian.

Bazarda

Some pics from the local bazaar, where you can buy pretty much anything you want or need. Clothes, food, spices, housewares, construction supplies, agricultural supplies, livestock, medicine, even get a haircut, whatever. Most people who I asked didn't want to be photographed, they feel like they have to be all made up at fancy in order to have a picture taken, but I didn't manage to sneak a pic of the nice old lady who I buy pickles from. You can see in front of her piles of pickled cabbage, cucumbers, prunes and cheese and curds, all homemade and super tasty! Also there's a huge pile of herbs which are used in pretty much everything here, or just eaten right off the stalk. Included are cilantro, dill, mint, opal basil, parsely, radishes, spinach and arugula.

Everyday stuff

I apologize profusely once again for my lack of regular updates, but between school recently starting, my continuing translation project at the local history museum, and a debilitating bout of extreme laziness I haven't had the gumption to get off my butt and come to Göyçay to post anything. At the behest of my step-mom I have included some pictures from around town to give you an idea of what I see every day, and hopefully more of these to come in the future once school gets a bit more stable. Also is a pic of my host-mom with her grandson (I guess techincally my host-nephew) and my host-dad sporting the awesome shades I bought in Istanbul.

So, in case you didn't gather from the above paragraph, school is underway. Here in Azerbaijan, that means about a month of absolute anarchy in every public school across the nation, followed by a week or two of relative stability, followed by yet another bout of chaos and then things finally settle down about two months into the process. Right now we're at the one month mark, and things are seeming to finally be set and in order, but I'll not be fooled too easily. I refuse to write down a set schedule for myself until the end of this month, just so I don't get frustrated when I show up for a class at 8am on Friday and find out it's been moved to 1pm on Tuesday.

You may be wondering what all the chaos is about. Suffice it to say that despite the public perceptions--and realities-- of a huge overbearing beauracracy which controls every aspect of everything everywhere, in real life it is basically left up to the schools to figure things out for themselves. This means that the crisp, clean and freshly prepared schedule sitting on the vice-principal's desk is turned into a worn out messy pulp of repeatedly erased paper by the capricious whims of teachers and students alike. Requests are made and arguments insue regarding what time what teacher teaches what class with consideration given to their own personal schedules outside of school, which all conflict with one another. Since my schedule is centered entirely on when I teach, I usually just sit back and watch the chaos or go sit outside when it starts giving me a headache.

On the positive side, now that I've been at school a year I am much more prepared for the job and much more readily accepted by teachers and students. My language skills have improved dramatically over the summer, due to hours spent sitting around by the store near my house and randomly being invited as a guest to tables by complete strangers at the local restaurant. This means when kids start getting out of line I don't have to wait for the teacher to get them to sit down and shut up, because I can yell at them myself. I've decided the height of basic conversational language proficiency is being able to yell at children when they misbehave and yell at grownups when they piss you off. Also, since I've had a year to become accustomed to the local schools I'm not the least bit surprised when a teacher doesn't show up because of some phantom sickness caused by something that doesn't actually make people sick, like cold liquids, wind, or sitting on the floor. I've learned to take it all in stride, and it has made my life decidedly less stressfull. If only I could convince Magnus to be so passive instead of crying incessantly for something--I'm not even sure he knows what it is.

Speaking of Magnus, he has become my official wildlife control agent for my yard. If it has a pulse and resides in the general area surrounding my house, he has murdered and devoured it with extremely extreme prejudice. I found half a frog in my kitchen last week, and two weeks before I found enough feathers to cover the better half of a full-grown chicken strewn all across my porch and yard. The chicken itself was nowhere to be found, so he either got eaten or escaped with decidedly less plumage and a very informative lesson on the disposition of felines towards potentially tasty birds.

That's all for now. If I have some time left at the internet club I'll try to post some more pics I took at the bazaar today. Peace.

Learnings from Istanbul for Make Benefit Glorious State of Alabama

Well, I've got one day left in Istanbul before I head back to beautiful Ujar, and quite frankly I feel I've spent just the right amount of time here. The whole hyper-tourism aspect of this city is starting to get to me, and after spending a year in a small town in a tiny country in the middle of nowhere, I feel a bit claustrophobic around all these damn people. Also, I'm sorely disappointed at how useless my Azeri has been here. Basically the numbers and some basic words are the same, but conversationally it's like I'm speaking English and they're speaking Dutch. Also interesting is the general attitude difference people have here towards Azerbaijan. From what I've gathered, it seems that Turks regard Azerbaijan like a really embarassing cousin; you know, the kind you hope doesn't show up to the family reunion because he'll either get in a fight or tell inappropriate stories about his sex life. I've heard a few people say that Azeris are "they're brothers", meaning that they are also Turkic, but that's about as far as they'll go. It couldn't be more different in Azerbaijan. People there absolutely love Turkey, as far as they're concerned it's the best thing since sliced bread (pun intended...because even when people say "no pun intended", you know it was). They constantly describe their relationship with Turkey as "bir millet, iki dövlet", which means "one nation, two states", and if you ask any Azeri if they are Turkish they will inevitably answer "yes, of course, all Azeris are Turkish". If you ask a Turk if they're Azeri, they'll rarely even have the gumption to respond with a "no", much less tell you how ridiculous such a question sounds. I feel like I'm asking Tony Soprano if he's Byzantine.

But, despite these problems my stay in Istanbul has been nice overall. Despite eating a Turkish chicken dish of questionable history and preparation which left me curled up in a ball on the bathroom floor for about 12 hours, the food has been good, though not much different from Azerbaijan really. I got to see some amazing sights, most especially the Haghia Sophia and the Blue Mosque. Today I took a boat tour out to the islands in the Sea of Marmara, which was very nice, though the islands themselves were pretty boring. Tomorrow I'm either going to the Spice Bazaar or Taksim on the Anatolian side of Istanbul, and on Wednesday I'm back on a plane to Baku at 8am. I'm just going to post a bunch of pictures for the next several posts. If I feel so inclined I might provide some more commentary, but if I don't then bye for now, expect more when I make it to an internet club back in AZ.

More pics

The Hagia Sofia, surrounded by tourists, much like the rest of the city. A view of the Sea of Marmara from my hotel's rooftop terrace. The gate of the University of Istanbul. One of the larger of the dozens of mosques scattered across the city. The Basilica Underground Cistern, a huge cistern built in the 5th century BC by the Romans to store fresh water brought in from the Belgrade forest.

Lessons learned

(An Egyptian obelisk, some Arabic calligraphy on the walls of the Topkapi Palace, inside the courtyard of the Blue Mosque, and one of the hallways of the absolutely massive Grand Bazaar)

So it's my third day in Istanbul and I'm getting the hang of it. I'm staying in a section called Sultanahmet, which is the section of Istanbul which has the most ancient sites to see, and as a result is fueled by a tourist industry that would make Walt Disney roll over in his cryogenic grave. Because of this, most everyone here speaks at least some English, which means I really don't have to use my Azeri, but I still speak it with the hotel staff and store clerks to get brownie points for being pseudo-Turkish. This also means that half the people here are tourists from all over the place. I've never heard so many different languages spoken in one place in my life. Last night I had some beers and played poker with 2 Russian guys, 2 Slovakian girls, an Irish woman, a Kiwi, 3 Turks and a Kurd. Since I was the only one who spoke the respective languages known by each group I ended up being the default translator when they didn't understand each other. It was nice, I talked with the Turks a lot about the differences between here and AZ, and was once again reminded that my Russian is terrible.

I'm starting to notice the differences and, sometimes more striking, the similarities between here and Azerbaijan. The food is similar in restaurants, the language is similar, the customs are similar. However, this is definitely not Azerbaijan. For one, I'm beginning to find that most people here understand Azeri, but with some difficulty. At first I thought it was just because the languages are far more different than most Azeris are willing to admit, but it turns out that a lot of the words that Azerbaijanis use are actually old Turkish words which have been phased out or replaced in modern Turkish. Also, a lot of words in Azeri have been borrowed from Arabic or Persian, and more recently Russian, for which Turks have either their own original words or have adapted from European languages. Also different is the sounds in the language. After speaking and hearing Azeri for a year I have gotten used to the phonetics of the language. It has many sounds which are strange to the English speaker's ear, but which have a soft quality to them which in my opinion makes the language flow easily. But in Turkish many of these sounds are hardened, making it a harsher sounding language. Many words in which Azeri uses the sound "g" is replaced by "k" in Turkish, and "d" becomes "t". Also almost all the normal greetings are different in Turkish, so every time I say "salam aleykum" to someone, instead of responding "aleykum a salam" they say "merheba", which might as well be Vietnamese to me.

Also different is the religious observance. Both Azerbaijan and Turkish are muslim nations, but with significant differences. Firstly, Azerbaijan is the only nation other than Iran which has Shia Islam as its state religion. Turkey, like most of the rest of the muslim world, is Sunni. This carries with it some cultural differences, most of which are slight and are mainly related to expectations of religious observance. However, unlike Turkey, Azerbaijan spent 70 years under the rule of the officially atheist Soviet Union. As a result, people are more likely to have 5 shots of vodka than pray 5 times a day. There is a mosque in Ujar, and it plays the call to prayer 5 times a day, but hardly anyone actually prays and even less go to the mosque itself. That is absolutely not the case here. First off, there are like a billion mosques here, and when the call to prayer plays it comes from every direction at once. I've counted no less than 15 mosques within sight of my hotel's rooftop terrace, and those are just the ones that are nearby. And, when the call to prayer plays, people pray. Not just in the mosque, but everywhere. In the halls of the grand bazaar (pictured above), in the parks, even on the sidewalk, you will see groups of dozens, sometimes hundreds of people lined up on their prayer rugs. I've never seen anything like this in Azerbaijan, even in bigger cities, even on Friday, which is the most important day of prayer in Islam. Furthermore, right now it's Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting. From sunrise to sunset the observant obstain from food during this month, and break fast after the last call to prayer. Here it's taken seriously, and you can see hundreds of people gathered in the park between the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sofia waiting for the last call, and then they break out their meals en masse and break fast together. In Azerbaijan, fasting essentially means that people don't drink alcohol (or at least less alcohol)...at best. For two nations that are considered so similar, it sometimes appears to be two different worlds.

More to come later.

Istanbul Adventure

Greetings all from Istanbul, formerly known as Constantinople, formerly known as Byzantium, and in between that known as New Rome and Augusta Antonina among other monikers. Interestingly enough, despite its long history of being constantly invaded and overrun throughout history by different groups of opposing ideas and cultures, most of the ancient things in this city that were built by previous inhabitants remain here in modern Turkey. Among them are the Hagia (or Aya) Sophia and the Blue Mosque, pictured above. Also pictured is the hottest day I managed to snap a pic of on my thermometer. It topped out at 111 for a couple of days and that's as hot as it got thankfully. Also is a slightly dated picture of my cat Magnus, from back when he first showed up at my house and was all scrawny and sad looking. He's pictured here in his signature pose of incessant whining until I feed him or pet him or do whatever it is that he thinks meowing to no end will make me do.

My first day in Istanbul hasn't been too eventful, I spent half the day inside just resting after the stress of getting here from Ujar. If I had known that it would require me staying awake for almost 48 hours and paying enough to get a round trip bus to and from Tbilisi, Georgia just to get to the Baku airport I would have just gone there instead, but I've been planning this trip for a while and nothing was gonna stop me.

Of course, as soon as I got in Turkey I realized that all the stuff Azeris have been telling me about Turks being able to understand Azerbaijani and vice verse was highly exaggerated at best. Maybe it's easy for Azeris to understand Turkish because they always watch Turkish TV, but so far it seems that most people have no idea what I'm saying here when I speak Azeri and I've understood about 3 sentences that have been said to me so far. The only conversation I've had was with a rug seller who, despite being a rather kind man, was clearly trying to make a sale, which I'm sure influenced his tolerance of my language skills. From what I've gathered, when Turks hear Azeris talk they have about the same reaction as when someone from Birmingham, England hears someone from Birmingham, Alabama speak.

My hotel has internet so I will be uploading photos and blogs all week. Keep you're eyes peeled for more neat stuff from Anatolia!

From the Bowels of Hell: Summer in Ujar

Forgive the title, but if you were here you would understand. With the exception of a week or so it's been at least 100 every day for like 3 months here. At its worst it got up to 110 for about a week and a half, then tapered off to 108 for a couple more and finally fell below 100 last week. The past couple of days storms have been rolling through and brought the temp down to a nice cool 80, though from what I've heard it's not destined to last. I haven't posted in so long because the only working internet club in my town wouldn't really be well aptly described as "working". It's so eaten up with viruses that the net only works only half the time. Furthermore, it's about a 30 minute walk away, and is located inside an unairconditioned box that maintains an air temperature that I would estimate is only slightly higher than the surface of the sun. Considering this, I usually find myself less than enthusiastic about coming here unless I can make the walk without losing 5 pounds of body water in the process. I apologize to those of you, especially my family, who have been waiting patiently by the computer to get news from me. So, here it is.

First off, I've finally planned my summer trip, though by the time I get there it won't really be summer anymore. I'm going to be spending a week in the ancient and lovely city of Istanbul. I've secured my flight and a cheap but reliable hotel room for the week, and the rest I'm playing by ear. I'm flying solo, though a few of the departing volunteers from AZ will be there for a few days during my stay. I'm gonna get to see the Hagia Sophia, the Grand Bazaar, the Blue Mosque, and all kinds of other neat stuff. Plus, since I now speak Azeri (sort of), that means I will be able to understand Turkish (less sort of). I'm looking forward to a break from Ujar and Azerbaijan in general before the school year starts again.

As far as home life goes, I'm basically sitting around reading a lot and trying not to boil in my own heat-stressed bodily fluids. I've become exceedingly good at freecell and solitaire on the computer, and extremely bad a showering regularly. I've adopted a stray cat who was abandoned by its mother in my yard. At first he was totally terrified of me, but now he is just about the neediest animal I have ever seen in my life. He will NOT SHUT UP. Fortunately for him he's cute and I like cats, otherwise he would have been left outside the gate to fend for himself. I have dubbed him Magnus the Brave, on account of the fact that he is afraid of his own shadow. Pictures will follow when I have time to get to a computer whence I can send them.

Finally, I've been trying to get more acquainted with people in my community by essentially doing as they do. This means I spend a good amount of time sitting outside the local store, at the local tea house and the local restaurant/bar hanging out with "the guys". "The Guys" are all people who live nearby me in Ujar, all of varying ages, professions, marital status and walks of life. I've shared countless glasses of tea (yes, glasses. They drink it piping hot, but out of tumblers, so you get used to the end of your fingers having no sensation after a while), beer, and more than a few reluctantly accepted shots of vodka. Out of these interactions I have found a few fundamental truths about the Azeri soul. First off, family, especially kids, is the be all and end all of Azeri life. These guys, or the married ones at least, care more about their kids than anything else, for which I applaud them. However, this also means that anyone older than 20 that isn't married with a kid on the way is considered a bit odd. To them, the proper course of life is 1) grow up, 2)get married, 3)start a family, 4)find means of supporting said family. Because of this they cannot for the life of them understand why I am neither married nor have any desire to get married. Without fail, every single conversation I have with a group of men here will inevitably result in at least one, and usually many, attempts to convince me to find a girl and get married in Azerbaijan. To them, which girl, her personality and our potential compatibility are completely irrelevant. As far as they're concerned, I just need to get married quick and then figure things out afterwards. Outside of family though, most guys here are just trying to live the best they can with what they have and try to have fun with it. Average salary here is around $100 a month, which is very little but enough considering that most households have about 4 incomes and no rent to pay. They like to do some irritating things, like constantly argue about money as if arguing about it makes more of it appear, and when I grew a goatee earlier this summer they constantly gave me crap about it because they think beards look bad. But for the most part they just like to joke and have fun, which is about all there is to do here in this flat, hot, boring town.

That's all for now, I'll post more when I'm in Istanbul. Peace.

Son Zeng

Pictures from Son Zeng ("last bell"), the last day of school, and my extended host family who I visited in the village for a Son Zeng party. Copious amounts of fresh mutton kebabs (super fresh, killed in the yard 2 hours before cooking), bozbosh (a hearty, buttery soup made from beef or chicken and chickpeas), and vodka (by the men only, of course) were had by all.

More pics

Pics from a teachers' seminar in Ujar in May.

Silver Lining of a Very Hot, Boring Cloud

I'm stuck in Baku for three days for a teachers conference that is going to be extraordinarily boring, but the hotel they put us up in is awesome so I get free wifi connection at high speed all week. I'm going to just post pictures randomly for the next few days as I have time, and I'll provide detailed explanations some time in the distant future...or never. This first round of pics is from my trip to Zagatala and Balaken last weekend. Zagatala is a town way up in the mountains, close to the border of Georgia and Russia, and Balaken is north of Zag literally right on the border. They are fairly liberal areas compared to the rest of conservative Azerbaijan, and the mountains and scenery are beautiful. Balaken has a huge Heydar Aliyev (the former president) park with a gondola from the big hill at the end and some carnival rides at the bottom. Also across from the park they have the coolest bar I've ever seen in this country, with tables made out of giant tree stumps and bear and wolk skins hanging on the walls.