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 It's not exactly a masterpiece of film, being shot on an outdated Pentax 5mp that Kris was kind enough to donate to my mission of showing off Azerbaijan.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.