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.

Ev Sweet Ev

If it would please the Court, I would like to present exhibits A through E, photographs of my ev (Azeri for "home"). Included are pictures of the porch with two doors which lead into the respective bedrooms, the kitchen (the stove is to the left, out of shot), the house itself seen from the yard amidst the gigantic weeds I've yet to cut down because I don't enjoy cutting an entire yard with scissors, the hamam (shower house) and the dreaded outhouse. Anyone offended by the outhouse picture can direct your comments to one Ms. Linda Neighbors, who specifically requested it. Anyone offended by the rest of the pics has a bug up their butt and needs to either get it out or stop reading this blog.

I present these exhibits for the consideration of the people of the Jury.

I rest my case.

Verdict: Guilty

Journey to Porkland

Having been made jealous by various people I met at our legendarily boring In-Service Training meeting in Ganja (yes, that is the name of a city here), I decided to actually get out of my cave in Ujar and do some travelling. We made a trip to a village called Nij a couple hours west from Ismayilli, a town in the mountains where some friends live. This village is mainly famous for being one of the only predominately Christian areas in a decidedly Muslim Azerbaijan, which means two things for the Western visitor.

Firstly, there are a few very old churches which are quite a sight in their own right but are also a reminder of the once close ties to the peoples of Armenia and Azerbaijan who have since grown to hate one another over long and complicated conflict over the Garabagh region in the southwest of Azerbaijan. Our guide for the trip was a very nice man named Sergei, which I thought rather strange since that is a Russian name and not at all common for ethnic Azeris to have. After a while in the village, though, it became clear that this was not like the rest of the villages of Azerbaijan. While everyone spoke Azeri, the common language was Russian in the town, and also a smaller language called Udi which is only spoken by about 5 thousand or so people in that village and the surrounding areas. The people we met were mainly speaking Azeri for our benefit, because out of the five of us there only I spoke Russian. Furthermore, after a long, high speed and very one-sided conversation between me and Sergei over the history of the region I was reminded that I do not in fact speak Russian so much as stumble around with it in a haphazard fashion, and I was finally able to admit to myself that in only 6 months in Azerbaijan my Azeri skills have far surpassed those I acquired with the equivalent of 3 years of Russian study. Guess it goes to show what living in a country does for language acquisition. Anyways, one thing about this trip to see the churches that struck me is illustrated in the picture of the writing above. This was found above the doorway of one of the churches we visited, and I recognized it as Armenian. However, when asked what language this was (we also thought it might be old Georgian) Sergei claimed he had no idea. We figured out later that he was either embarassed or afraid to admit that there is an Armenian orthodox church standing in his town, while every other remnant of any historical ties with Armenia have been wiped out of the rest of Azerbaijan with extremely extreme prejudice. Also telling was the fact that the church with the Armenian writing lay in decaying disarray while the other church in the region which was devoid of such script had been restored to a pristine condition, complete with gate and visitors rooms. Anyways, it's sad to see that two people who once lived side by side for so many centuries could fall into such a hateful conflict over the posturing of elitist politicians over a small strip of land and some very different notions of right and wrong.

But, this sad moment did nothing to ruin the second (and best) reason to visit the village of Nij. Being Christian, the people of Nij have one thing in great supply that the rest of Azerbaijan is decidedly lacking in: PORK! And due to the recent outbreak of swine flu, we showed up just in time. We learned as soon as we arrived that pork was almost out of supply due to a recent mass slaughter of swine in the area as a precautionary measure. We wandered up to the town restaurant and sat down to the last pork kebabs he had left in the house, and they were D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S! Some of the best pork I've had outside of the roadside barbeque joints in the backwoods of my home state, it was melt in your mouth delicious and accompanied by fresh greens and yogurt sauce and a fruit called "alcha".

Alcha is about the size and shape of a large olive, green in color and tastes a lot like a fruit I used to eat off my neighbors' tree as a kid. My mom always told me they were "crab apples", though in truth I'm not sure what they really were. Anyways, I like tart stuff so I consider myself blessed to have a tree full of them growing in my yard (along pomegranate, quince and persimmon which will be in season come late-summer). My teacher pointed out that I'm not really supposed to be picking my landlord's fruit, but I'm paying twice what an Azeri would pay for rent at the place and the landlord moved to Moscow so I'm going to eat as I please.

Anyways, overall our trip to porkland was decidedly awesome in every way. The people in the village were some of the most genuinely kind and caring people I've met in this country, so much so that our tour guide even refused to take money from us, and the guy at the restaurant undercharged us for kebabs because we didn't have change. The only downside was that there were 5 of us travelling and there were no buses that went there, so we had to take a taxi. This means all of us--5 grown men plus a driver--had to cram into a Russian taxi that was about the size of a Civic hatchback for almost 2 hours both ways.

Winding down

One month left of school, and then it's off for summer. Between trying to find projects to keep myself busy I'm gonna try to do some travelling, both within Azerbaijan and to neighboring countries as time and funds allow. So far my top picks are Russia, Georgia, Uzbekistan or Turkey, with the Baltics and Balkans falling short behind due to the distance from AZ and the relative uselessness of my current language skills in any of those countries. My main problems will be getting a ticket and a visa to said countries, especially Russia, whose love of beauracracy is trumped only by their suspicion of foreigners, making legal entry into the country the international equivalent of a trip to the DMV. I'm sure it'll all work out, and right now I'm just trying to drag myself through the last month of school before I start planning my escape from, as I was told today by a local English teacher I met, "The hottest place in Azerbaijan". I told him I was from Alabama and he could bring on the heat all he wants...he was not impressed. We shall see.

My last month of school is wearing on my last nerve. Problems with my counterparts are compounded by kids who are well aware that summer break is only a few weeks away and have all but zoned out of class for the remainder of the year. You can't blame them really, we all know we were the same way when we were in school. I think every kid in every school in the world has an internal clock telling them the exact time when they no longer have to go to school anymore, like some Pavlovian response built up over years of going to school and suddenly stopping once they weather gets hot. As soon as the rainy season ends here, the kids just lose it, like the one synapse left in their brain that was keeping them tethered to the happenings of the classroom just snapped loose and started waving in the breeze, leaving them struck with a legendary case of ADHD. To make matters worse, half my classes feature magic disappearing counterparts, who start the lesson with me and then leave it midway, officially dooming the class to failure becase there is no way the kids are going to listen to the American with an Azeri teacher around to keep them in line. An unfortunate lack of any type of standardized punishment here means that kids don't respond to anything except physical violence, and the kids know I'm not going to hit them so they just go nuts as soon as I'm alone with them. I just keep telling myself that there's only a month left, and after that I'm going to be free to do what I want till the next school year starts. It doesn't make the days any easier or shorter, but I keep telling myself anyways...

April Showers Bring May Mosquitoes

Pictures of kids in my conversation club. All these kids are in 5th and 6th grade, most of them at my school but a handful of the boys are from other schools.

So, it's April here in Azerbaijan, which unbeknownst to me is the rainy season. This means that for the past week it's been raining every day and freezing cold, which makes me seriously wonder why everyone here celebrates Novruz and the coming of spring right before the weather turns to absolute crap for an entire month. As icing on the cake, either my change in environment or the change in weather gave me the flu, so I've spend the past 4 days locked up in my house feeling like I got hit by a Peterbilt full of influenza. I finally returned to school today, where I was scolded by teachers for being a child and being unable to take care of myself, to which I sincerely wanted to (but did not) respond that compared to the level of maturity of Azeris my age I may as well have the life experience of a Highlander, and at least I'm not 40 years old and still having my mom cook meals for me.

I've been told not to worry about the weather, because in a month it's going to start getting so hot it'll make Alabama seem like Nova Scotia, but I beg to differ. If there's one thing I know about my home state, it's that it's HOT, and I can't wait to see how my sitemate from Michigan reacts to the heat compared to me. Also the mosquitoes are already terrible and only posed to get worse as summer rolls in, but fortunately I've got an awesome mosquito net hanging over my bed to keep me safe from malaria and such. If the heat gets too unbearable I'm just gonna escape to the mountains or head to Georgia or Russia, as school will be out and I'll be out of work and bored out of my mind anyways.

On the positive side, I've got a house! A place all my own, located on the edge of town about a 15 minute walk from my school. Being able to to sit in peace and QUIET has left me quite a bit less nervewrecked than I was with my host family, but it is not without it's difficulties. Foremost is the water situation, which isn't intolerable but is far from ideal. Basically, I've got a hose running in from the street where the water runs for 3 hours a day, 2 in the morning at 9am and then another at 4 or 5 in the evening. It's my job to get this water from the hose into a cistern in the yard and a water tank above my hammam (shower house). Since the water has no pressure coming out of the hose, I have to use an old, worn out and fickle water pump to get the water into said containers. This has provided me with hours of hair-pulling screaming frustration, but I think after a week of messing with it I've finally got it worked out. It involves a process of plugging and unplugging the pump while repeatedly reinserting the feed hose into it so as to get a flow of water running through it, and once this is established it will flow more-or-less steadily until I get enough water in my tank. Once the water is in the tank it doesn't get any easier though, as there is no running water in the house and I have to wash my dishes in a tub in the hammam. And of course, being Azerbaijan, it wouldn't be a house without a squat toilet out in the yard, making midnight trips to the can in the freezing cold and rain quite a special delight.

All told, however, my new house is pretty sweet. I've got two rooms, so there's plenty of space to have guests over (if any of you are planning on making the trip! :). My kitchen is huge, but fairly sparse: two tables, a fridge, a small freestanding cabinet and a range. No oven, no microwave, and no insulation. The neighbors I've met are fairly nice, and it's right down the road from a place which PCVs here have dubbed "The Awesome Store", due to its western supermarket style setup, its selection of imported goods, and a fairly incredible liqour isle. If only I had more than 5 manat a day living allowance I could be dining on Russian caviar, German sausage and a bottle of Chivas Regal special reserve. But alas, one can dream.

To switch gears for a bit, I have a request for the readers of this here blog regarding the pictures you see at the top of this post. I have recently been approached by the director of my school to help make an English education library in my school. Books in English here are in short supply, and the textbooks approved by the Ministry of Education for use in schools here are legendarily awful. Mispellings, bad grammar, confusing texts and complicated lessons that are about as succinct as a Tolstoy novel. So, I would like to ask all of you, when you have the time, to look around at your local thrift stores and such for anything you think might be useful for a kid learning English to read. This includes dictionaries, thesauruses (sadly enough, I'm an English teacher and I don't even know if that's the correct plural form of "thesaurus"), classics of English and American literature, and kids books. Now don't go overboard on finding stuff, as it will cost a ludicrous amount of money to send it all here, but maybe a book or two stuffed in a padded envelope will add up to a substantial collection once they all get here. I'm going to try to find other sources for book donations, but if you guys feel inclined to help it would make a lot of little Azeri kids quite happy. Take care,

Kevo

Zen and the Art of Agglutination

Note: This post is probably going to make little sense to most of you, as it will contain references to a variety of linguistic jargon and general nonsense that probably only Jon, Robb and Ilya will care about or understand. Furthermore, the only other language I'm acquainted with is Russian, and I will use it as a comparison throughout this post, and for those of you who don't know any Russian (once again, everyone but the three people listed above), it will probably be meaningless to you. Forgive me while I indulge in a bit of language dorkery.



So, 6 months into my adventure abroad and out of all the new, strange, exciting, and occasionally unspeakable awful things I've encountered, the one that stands out foremost as both a problem and solution on all fronts is language. Here the spoken language is Azerbaijani, aka Azeri, a member of the Seljuk branch of Turkic languages. It's most closest spoken relative is Turkish, with which it is mutually intelligible, meaning that even though they are two different languages a speaker of one can understand the other. It is also somewhat mutually intelligible with Uzbek and Turkmen, though not as clearly as with Turkish. Additionally, being in the Turkic language family it is also related to Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uighur, Tajik, Mongolian, and a bunch of other smaller languages spoken throughout Central Asia. It is not, however, related to the other langauges of the Caucusus. Georgian is a Southern Caucasian language, in a little family of its own, Armenian is an Indo-European language, therefore related (albeit loosely) to the langauges of Europe and the Indian subcontinent. Talish is spoken in parts of Southern Azerbaijan (aka Northern Iran), but its closest relative is Farsi (Persian).



Grammatically, Azeri is an agglutinative (uh-glue-tin-a-tive) language, meaning that it expresses meaning by way of suffixes added onto the end of words. For an English speaker, this is ridiculously complicated to learn at first, as there are dozens of suffixes which are used with all word types to represent different meanings. Additionally, these suffixes are all dictated by a rule present in all Turkic languages called "vowel harmony". All vowels in Azeri (a i ı o ö u ü, and an inverted "e" that won't display here) Are separated into four categories: round, unround, open, closed. The last vowel in a word dictates which vowel will appear in the following suffix. To complicate things further, various suffixes can be added onto words one after another, meaning that not only do you have to know the correct order in which to say these suffixes in order for your newly enlongated word to make sense, but you also have to take into account the category of the vowels in each previous suffix in order to say the following suffixes correctly. Here's a short example of how these suffixes are used to make sentences:



Biz=we; kitab=book; otaq=room: Bizim kitablarımız otağımızdadırlar= Our books are in our room.



The suffixes mean the following:



-im, -ımız= Possessive case, added to both the possessor and the object being possessed.

-lar= plural form

-da= Locative case, meaning (depending on context) in, at, on

-dır= Present tense third person singular of "to be"



As if this wasn't complicated enough, there are four other cases (ablative, dative, nominative, accusative) and a variety of other suffixes used in adjectives, participles, and other parts of speech.

The syntax isn't much easier either. Unlike English, with is a subject-verb-object(SVO) language, Azeri is a subject-object-verb (SOV) langauge. Therefore, verbs almost invariably come at the end of sentences, with very rare exceptions. This means that my natural inclination as an English speaker to put the verb before the object in a sentence makes me seem like a total moron when I try to speak Azeri. It's the equivalent of saying "I bread eat to like" in English.

The verbs themselves aren't that complicated though. There are no irregular verbs, putting it far ahead of Russian in terms of ease of conjugation and making English look like a grammatical trainwreck by comparison. All the conjugations for all the tenses (present, two past, two future, and a rough equivalent to past progressive) are regulated exclusively by vowel harmony and a couple of simple spelling rules. Overall, once you get the proper endings down for each of the conjugations you can easily conjugate any verb you find. Best of all, you don't have to worry about any of the perfective-imperfective nonsense and seemingly endless prefixes of Russian verbs (just imagine, in this language they only have ONE VERB for "to go"), or any of the ridiculous irregular verbs in English (buy-bought; swim-swam-swum; go-went, etc.) for which I always vehemently blame the French (see 1066 a.d. in any European history book).

Regarding vocabulary, it is mainly Turkish with a variety of borrowings from Persian, Arabic and Russian. The Persian and Arabic borrowings are clear enough, owing to their proximity and the spread of Islam. The Russian comes from 70 years of being under Russian rule prior to and during the Soviet Union. Fortunately for me, this meant that I already knew the vocabulary for all furniture, several food and a handful of other things when I arrived. However, the problems come when some people in certain regions prefer certain words in certain languages, and I have to figure out what they mean. The most common of these is "heshtat", the Persian word for "eighty" which is commonly used in place of the Azeri and Turkish "seksan". There's no telling how many times I overpaid for sodas and snacks at stores because I had no idea how much the guy was asking for.

One thing the Soviet legacy has left on this place is something I refer to as "cognitive dissonance of the foreigner", meaning that when Azeris see a foreigner, they automatically start speaking Russian to them, regardless of whether said foreigner knows it or not. This is not a problem for me, but I am one of only 5 Russian speakers out of over 100 volunteers in the country, and they are continually driven insane by sellers at the bazar who, in spite of being spoken to clearly and directly in Azeri, refuse to speak it back and insist that this white foreigner cannot possibly not understand Russian. Even I, when I approach people in stores or at the bazar, speak in Azeri, only to be responded to in Russian at least 1 out of every 3 times. It definitely keeps me on my toes, but it's also fun because since I похож на русском (look like a Russian) I can get away with claiming that I'm really from Moscow, which is generally less exciting to people here than being an American and therefore makes them leave me alone.

Finally, of all the common words in this language and various exclamations to and swearings upon Allah, there is one verb which drives me nuts: "chekmek". Nominally it means "to pull", but depending on context, it can also mean: to smoke, to weigh, to paint, to draw, to take a photo, and seemingly endless other meanings. Basically, if I don't know the right verb to say in a certain situation, I say this, and half the time I'm right. The only other sound I know which has more common meanings in Azeri is a car horn, which can mean, again depending on slight and variable context clues: hello, how are you, see you later, goodbye, coming through, come outside, answer the door, give me a call, on my way, move, or get the hell out of my way. It's too bad I don't have a car here, or I'd already be halfway to fluency.