Andrew's Alliterative Adventures in Azerbaijan @repptile - Tumblr Blog

A hike to Qala Alti, a 4th century Fortress in the Greater Caucasus Range in Northern Azerbaijan.

Novruz fire jumping - Baku, Azerbaijan March 2014

My host cousin Rauf's wedding - Baku, Azerbaijan February 2014.

Trip home, Christmas 2013.

Baku Livin'

Things that I am still amazed (yes, amazed DAD) by after 6 weeks of living in Baku. 1. Ice cubes. 2. The fact that my apartment walls seem to be retaining heat. 3. Having a couch. 4. Seeing the Cinnabon right across the street from my apartment every day. I haven't caved yet and bought one but it'll happen one of these days 5. The diversity of appearance here. Skateboard shoes, different haircuts, blondes...I can't stop looking after the homogeny of the village. 6. My weight gain - 12 pounds in 5 weeks. Being able to buy consistent protein and cook for myself seems to agree with me. 7. My view of the city from my 13th story balcony. 8. How much I miss my host family. 9. The already practicing adult softball team I stumbled across and now coach three times a week. Taking them to the children's league championship next weekend to spectate and play a game against PCV's - they are very excited to test their skills and meet other baseball enthusiasts. 10. The fact that I'm coming home, after 27 months, for Christmas to see family and friends - I'm very excited and scared at the same time.

Last Days in the Village

I have one week left in my village.

I’ve kept saying that to myself today and it still doesn’t seem to be registering. After nearly two years in Azerbaijan, and 21 months in this village, I’m finally moving on. In May I applied to extend my service as a Peace Corps Volunteer Leader. New to Azerbaijan but standard in many other Peace Corps programs, the PCVL position involves working extensively with staff on policies, trainings, and otherwise bridging the gap between volunteers out in the regions and the Azerbaijani and American staff working almost exclusively in the Baku office. I move to Baku September 7th, and will stay until mid-May of next year. Three fellow volunteers from my group are joining me in this position, including my best friend Annie and fellow sitemate Mary Ellen. Three out of four Tovuz volunteers in my group extending, must be something in the water… With this extension comes a huge change in pace. I will go from living with a host family in a small rural village to living in the center of Baku, a city of 3 million people, sharing an apartment with an American expat. I will go from attempting to teach English (yes, I said attempting) and coaching my budding softball team to essentially working full time in the Peace Corps office. I’ll have a washing machine, consistent electricity, maybe even ice cubes to go in my drinks.

Needless to say, I’m very excited.

In the past couple weeks I’ve noticed that my host mother has been talking a lot about my service. It’s unusual to speak with a local who really understands what Peace Corps goals are and what I am trying to do by living in an Azerbaijani village and working for free. Most conversations don’t get beyond “wait, you came from America and work here for free? In this village? Why on earth would you do that?”. That being said, it has struck me how extensive of a conversation I can have with my host mother and my host sister, both of whom I’ve grown very fond of in my time here. They are both very open-minded and surprisingly perceptive, willing to talk about anything from the benefits of racial diversity to the culture of tattoos to the daily annoyances of Azerbaijani village living.

My host mother has been making a lot of interesting observations about my service. First of all, she is extremely happy that my host family had the chance to meet and spend some time with my parents when they came and visited. She talks about it almost daily, and seems to place a great deal of importance on our family connection. She understands how important living together has been to how I have learned about and come to understand Azerbaijan and spends a lot of time explaining how society in these parts works.

More recently, she has also been talking about how my Azerbaijani English teacher counterparts have failed in utilizing me as a resource in my two years here. She has seen me try to institute project after project, whether it be conversation clubs or building an English resource room and library, and has seen me fall short of my goals. With remarkable insight, she understands that I have not been successful in this area because I haven’t had the help and support of my teachers. I, too, have felt like this for a long time, and it feels good to have a personal advocate who will continue to argue my case long after I am gone. Personal reputation is of great importance in this world and a Peace Corps Volunteer’s legacy is often dependent on the personal relationship s/he makes during their service.

In other news, I, along with the five other Tovuz PCV’s, recently completed a two-week long summer camp that involved nearly forty children aged 12-16. We conducted a similar camp last year with a lot of success, and wanted this year to focus on making the project sustainable. This means, as it does with any good Peace Corps project, involving local counterparts. We were lucky enough to have seven amazing counterparts, including my host sister Esmet, take the reigns and put on a great Tovuz summer camp. This was my last project as a real PCV and it felt good to see it go so well. I have real faith that our counterparts will be able to continue this project on their own next year if they so choose, and that is a great feeling to have. I’m sure some of you have noticed the lack of recent photos on this blog – I’ve started to use my Facebook to post photos en masse – uploading lots of photos onto the blog is very frustrating with a slow internet connection. I will try and pick out a couple “best shots” from the summer to put up here for everyone one at a time. For those of you who don’t have Facebook and want to see all my photos, I plan on giving photo presentations covering my entire Peace Corps service when I return home for Christmas this December.

Tovuz Summer Camp 2013

Summer Tales

After quite the hiatus from blogging, I thought it was time for at least a quick update. This is what has been happening in the past two months... 1. I introduced my parents to Azerbaijan and everything in it that matters to me - my host family, my school, my counterparts, my students, my softball team, my PCV friends. We ate copious amounts of Azerbaijani food, guested with my host family and teachers, endured long, redundant toasts to our health and happiness, and traveled all over the country from the flashiness and wealth of Baku to the giant forested mountains of Qax to the ancient cities of Sheki and Gence. Overall, we didn't have a free moment and packed as much in as was possible. 2. My softball team, the Xatinli Golden Monkeys, finished the spring half of the season undefeated with 6 wins and no losses, including a couple 1 run wins over strong teams visiting from the center of the country. They looked good in their uniforms and hats too, thank you to everyone who made those a reality! 3. I traveled Georgia and Turkey with my parents and Annie, exploring ancient cave churches in Cappadocia, wandering the gigantic city that is Istanbul, and eating our fill of the amazing food in Tbilisi. Lots of pictures to come. 4. I helped oversee the final preparations, fundraising, "training of trainers" session, and the actual implementation of ABLE (Azerbaijani Boys Leadership Experience) 2013, a national boys leadership camp of which I had the honor of serving as co-director this year. Many hiccups (large and small), frantic changing of logistics, icebreakers, water fights, activities, shirt-making, and presentations later, my largest project and part of my service thus far is essentially complete. Camp was a massive success and I couldn't be happier about how it went. Thank you for all of your support throughout my time as ABLE co-director - I greatly appreciate it. Lots of photos to come soon (if you don't want to wait, see my facebook album I just put up!) Photos are coming! I'll work on uploading them now.

For quite a long time, it has proven very difficult to sit down, reflect, and write - about feelings, about my service, about difficulties, about everything. Honestly, it’s much easier to come home and turn on a TV series, workout, or otherwise distract myself than to sit down and seriously think about my life here.

In the time I have spent reflecting, however, I have noticed that the longer I live here, the harder it is for me to make blanket statements, generalizations, or even cool-sounding blog posts on the culture of Azerbaijan or life as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

So, here I’m going to try and express what I actually do on a daily basis without trying to attach an explanation. All of the below experiences came from the past couple days.

I dream in Azerbaijani.

I talk to myself in Azerbaijani.

I walk down the street with Azerbaijani middle-schoolers, mostly boys, who are the closest people to good friends as I have here (save my Peace Corps buddies I sometimes see on the weekends).

Students ranging from five years old to teenagers hail me on the street and as I make my way into my school building, saying my name, “teacher”, and “how are you” in English – the result of 18 months worth of such walks.

I teach kids how to play softball: how to catch a fly-ball, how to snag a ground ball and get it to first base, how to hit, when not to hit, how to be a good sportsman.

I tell kids not to call other kids “weak” when they don’t play as well as they do or are losing in a game.

I have conversations in English with my host sister about whatever we’re feeling that day. It might be American culture, world history, how I think our village is conservative…whatever is on the docket.

My host mother asks me what I’ve eaten, when I ate, and what I want to eat in the future.

My host father walks in with watery eyes, gives me a hearty “hello, how are you?” before settling into vodka and salad for lunch with a male teacher at my school who asks me, as I’m on the way out my door, if I can cover for his absence by telling whoever asks that his lesson is covered. His lesson is, in fact, not covered, simply because vodka took precedence over teaching sixth graders today.

I call and talk to fellow PCV’s about projects we’re involved with – a national boy’s camp, a English course for hotel staff in the region center, or an exchange program for Azerbaijani youth.

I exercise with heavy pieces of scrap metal in my backyard.

I gratefully eat a PowerBar sent from the States post-workout.

My host family is absent from our compound, another funeral I think - somebody important, a relative perhaps. I’m hungry, so I look under the lid of the solitary pot on the stove and it’s pasta. Good, old, plain pasta. Thankfully, I’ve still got a couple cans of chili leftover from a recent care package that I’ve been hoarding for moments such as these. That and some parmesan cheese does the trick quite nicely.

I get to take a hot shower and life is good again.

I watch a half-season of whatever TV show I’ve got on my hard-drive. There aren’t too many good shows left that I haven’t already devoured in the past 20 months.

I practice handstands.

I shuffle through a dictionary, writing down new Azerbaijani words in a small red journal.

I make five scrambled eggs, every single morning.

I sit and observe my counterpart as she struggles through another lesson that she has not prepared for. She tries to think of good questions to ask our students as I sit at the front of the class and look at the faces of our fifth grade class, children who want to learn but will instead simply memorize facts, paragraphs of history, and math rules for the next six years.

I drink cheap wine, imported from neighboring Georgia, with my Peace Corps buddies while we stay the night at a friend’s house and tune out the outside world.

My host brother asks me where I’m going as I walk down the street to buy some milk. I'm buying milk not particularly because I want milk but because it’s my midday meal.

While scanning documents at the village internet club, I chat with the owner about what America is like and how I miss sandwiches.

My host mom sticks her head in my room to tell me that she’s doing laundry, and that she knows I’ve got some in my room because she hasn’t seen any socks come through in a while.

My mentally disabled host aunt smiles at me and calls me “Angloosh” as I walk out of my door in the morning. She’s sweeping the courtyard, and playfully swats me on the back with her broom as I walk by, earning her a quick rebuke from my host mother. She asks me when I’m going to America, so I can pick her up some Marlboro cigarettes. She doesn’t understand that when I leave I won’t be coming back.

The cat walks into the house as I eat breakfast, meowing for table scraps.

My counterpart passes me on the street and smiles at me, asks me how I am, and continues her mile walk back home in three layers of clothes, in 85 degree heat.

I stand outside on my back porch and look up at the stars at night, the village sky big and bright.

I tell my students I’m leaving town so no softball practice Friday, getting a chorus of complaints and “what will we do without softball” as my answer.

I think about my life back home and what I miss.

I think about my life back home and what it’s going to be like when I return.

I realize that this is normal life for me now, and I am scared to go back.

Some pictures of softball practices in March and April.

My Easter Egg hunt with my 7th grade class (we substituted markers for dye) and spring cleaning at school - during school hours, of course...

Some pictures from our first Softball game of the season, a friendly against neighboring region Agstafa. Gave both teams the chance to get some playing experience before the competitions start on May 26th. The Xatinli Golden Monkeys had a good showing for their first game ever, scoring 27 runs in 6 innings for a final score of 27-6.

Novruz fire jumping, which symbolizes a fresh start and a new year.

Novruz is a holiday that ushers in spring in this part of the world. In Azerbaijan, we celebrate the four Tuesday's before Novruz (which is March 21st). Each Tuesday represents a different element - Water, Fire, Air, and Earth - as the countdown to spring and warmer weather (and all things amazing about this country) commences. These pictures are from Fire Tuesday, where people light bonfires in the streets and jump over them to burn away the bad luck from last year and start anew. And yes, when I see children bringing tires to burn for these bonfires I still think "ohh...that's not good for me, or the earth..." so I still have some integration to go. Fire-Jumping and board games with the sitemates.