Well, ok. At least I’m writing about once a month, right?
I have a lot of stuff to update on in this entry, so here is a list that will, hopefully, keep me from forgetting anything.
1. End of school year/Start of summer
2. Excursion to Georgia, part one
3. Neftchala summer camp
4. What I’m doing in Shirvan this summer
5. Recent visit to the Shirvan art gallery + random thoughts brought up thereafter
6. How traveling is keeping me busy and making my summer fly by
7. Thoughts and anxieties about the near future
I’ll try not to forget anything. I might even be super cool and put up some pictures and videos on this blog entry. *gasp!*
Alright. The weekend before the last day of school, I decided to head down to Masalli and see one of my friends down there. We had a great time, mostly revolving around food and talking, as a lot of social interaction seems to be in Peace Corps. We decided to go on a walk one of the afternoons I was there, and while we were walking around by the river, some kids started yelling “HELlo! HELlo!” out to us. Usually, this kind of annoys me and I just ignore it or say hello to the children in Azerbaijani and keep walking, but my friend started talking to the boys and they ended up being really nice kids. They showed us some interesting spots by the river, took us to meet their adorable dog, and brought out one of their horses and asked if we wanted to ride. It was a nice reminder for me that generally, when kids run after you and yell out like that, they aren’t trying to be obnoxious. Generally, they’re just very curious and might turn out to be really sweet if you just engage them. We also went to a housewarming party for one of her counterparts, whose husband just finished building their big, beautiful house. As tends to happen for me a lot in Azerbaijan, we ended up talking to the adults a little bit, but spent most of our time playing with her counterpart’s adorable little daughter. She was an incredibly imaginative and creative fireball of a child, if not just a little spoiled. We had a wonderful time just talking, playing, dancing and laughing. It was a really nice weekend, and it felt like the last few really relaxing days before a whirlwind of activity in early June.
When I returned to site, we had the school’s Son Zeng, or “last bell” ceremony. At this long and hot ceremony, students sang songs, read poetry, danced, and received awards. I didn’t understand most of what was being said, as my Azeri is not anywhere near that good, but it was nice to see the students and teachers so cheerful and excited. It felt weird and refreshing to know that I am finished with this school year.
The next day, I headed up to Shemkir to stay with another friend for the night before we headed to Georgia. We went guesting with her host family and she showed me her small village, and it was interesting to see what village life is like compared to city life. We woke up fairly early and made our way to Qazax to catch a bus to the red bridge and finally into Tbilisi. Our two other traveling companions weren’t yet there, so we spent a couple of hours in Qazax checking email, having lunch, and visiting with a couple of volunteers there. Finally, the other two girls arrived and we hopped on a bus that would take us to the border. Now, this is probably the coolest border crossing I’ve ever done. Rather than take a bus INTO Tbilisi, you have to get off the bus, walk through customs on either end, and then catch a bus on the other side into the city. Between the Georgian and Azeri customs stations, there is a small portion of road/land that we though doesn’t seem to really belong to either Azerbaijan or Georgia. A woman told us to be careful there, because in this “no man’s land,” there were a lot of ‘bandits.’ We had a wonderful time in Tbilisi eating Georgian food, seeing live jazz, singing karoake, meeting all kinds of people, looking at a multitude of art galleries and interesting shops, walking through the old city, and exploring old churches. One of the girls and I took an afternoon excursion to Mtskheta, apparently the old capital of Georgia. Mtskheta was stunning, a city in the mountains surrounded by green hills and distant peaks. We went to an old cathedral in the city, which was a weird and peaceful place. There was a strange mix of people there to pray, tourists, and what seemed like some kind of memorial service for a beloved priest who had recently passed away. Inside the sanctuary, a group of nuns was singing and their voices resonated in the high dome of the building. We spent about 20-30 minutes at the church, looking at things, yes, but mostly sitting and enjoying the peaceful atmosphere. After this, we saw a small but fairly interesting museum and then walked around for a while until we found a small and very cute cafe. At the cafe, we ate probably the best khachapuri we ate on the trip, delicious mushrooms, and this eggplant and nut paste dish and got to watch the women making khinkali all while listening to the strains of Georgian folk music faintly playing on the stereo. All in all, it was a very peaceful day. While we didn’t really do or see anything huge or exciting while in Tbilisi, it was wonderful to just relax and enjoy our vacation.
After I returned from Georgia, I spent about 3 days at home and then headed to Baku for a meeting, only to leave Baku 2 days later and go back south to Neftchala for another PCV’s summer camp. I was wanting to do a day camp in Shirvan this summer, but having had little experience with camps (never was a counselor and only went twice to catholic camp), I decided to help out with a few other camps this summer and see what I could learn first. I learned, or more accurately, was reminded of a lot of great childhood games that I will be able to use with my students now and hopefully incorporate into my own summer camp next year. The camp was very laid back, 4 hours every day mostly consisting of games and some kind of art project, such as friendship bracelets, fingerpaint murals, and tie-dye. For one of the days, my friend and I taught the kids Running Scared, Azerbaijan’s Eurovision winning song, and made up a ridiculously cheesy dance on the spot to teach them as well. Even though I felt a little silly teaching these kids “choralography” with a lot of big hand gestures, they really seemed to enjoy it. So I suppose it was a success.
After the summer camp, I returned home, where I’ve been for the past week. Though I will be gone almost every weekend this summer for camps or general travel throughout Azerbaijan, I am also doing some projects in Shirvan during the week. My sitemate, Jarrett, and I are teaching an adult beginners English class and a very popular teachers/advanced adult conversation club (that we will probably have to split into two groups because of the somewhat overwhelming response we’ve had). Additionally, I am continuing all three of my own conversation clubs, which I’ve started calling my littles, middles, and bigs. With the littles, we’ve been learning songs and dances, making crafts, and playing a lot of English vocabulary games. With the middles, we’ve been doing similar activities, but I’ve been trying to incorporate more spoken English into them. My “bigs” club hasn’t really started yet, however, as most of the high school age students are busy in the summer and unavailable for the club. In between these clubs, I’ve been trying to sort out the hundreds of ideas I have for new projects in Shirvan to see what I will settle on for the new school year. At this point, I feel pretty certain that I want to start a community theatre group, so I’ve been starting to think about how I can do this. I’ve also been trying to meet as many people as possible and identify any and all interesting resources we might have here, which brings me to my next list point…visiting the art gallery.
Yesterday, I asked one of my best friends if she would take me to the art gallery in Shirvan. We made our way over to the old park, which is somewhat close to my house, but I have never visited it. I immediately loved this park. True, it is extremely run down now and needs a LOT of work and clean up to be restored to what I imagine its former glory was, but it was easy to see what a cute park this must have been before it fell out of use. Though the park is not widely used anymore, the art gallery is still located there. The building is old and clearly a remnant of soviet Azerbaijan, with one small display room and few paintings. We were fortunate enough to meet the director while we were there, and we spoke to him about all kinds of things having to do with life and the arts. I told the few workers at the gallery that my grandmother is an artist and that I am a musician, which they were very excited to hear. I also told them that I would really like to help grow the arts in Shirvan while I’m here. OK, I’ll admit it. Though I wanted to see the art gallery, my true ulterior motive was that I wanted to meet more people in the arts community so that I can start adding to my list of people who might be interested in working with me and coordinating various arts projects. I could not have been happier with the director of the museum. It’s funny… You can go anywhere in the world and see a lot of differences between people, but no matter where you go, if you meet another person in the arts, there is an instant and unexplainable familiarity you feel with them. Though we had just met him, he invited us in for tea. And rather than ask the usual questions about who I am and what I’m doing here, he launched right into a discussion about art and how it can be limitless and cross boundaries that politics can never hope to cross. It was wonderful. While there, one of the girls working at the gallery (there were two) brought out a stack of small watercolor paintings that were by different students of the director or from other community projects they had put on in the past. I came across a beautiful painting of a pheonix that I said was my favorite in the stack. As it turned out, that particular painting had been done by the girl who had brought out the stack for us to look at. Much to my pleasure and surprise, as we went to leave the gallery, this girl brought the painting to me and said she wanted to give it to me as a gift. In turn, I promised to ask my grandmother to send one or two paintings I could give to the gallery as a gift to signify the friendship between our countries. (Grandma, I hope you’re ok with that!)
I did learn one very interesting thing which I found myself thinking about for a good portion of the day. I have noticed as I’ve seen art in Azerbaijan that it seems to pretty much fall into the realm of realism, so I asked the director why I haven’t seen many more abstract styles. What he told me is that as art was evolving in Azerbaijan, Islam was introduced into the country and with the added religious influence, the abstract was not appreciated. He said that the idea was that only God should be a creator and that we should only show what he has already created. Add to this the ideas and oppressions of the soviet era, and we are left with almost exclusively realist art. I thought this was very interesting. The soviet era is an entire other issue, but I found myself thinking about it later in the day and wondering how anyone could ever come to the conclusion that God wouldn’t want us to create art and use our intellect and imagination to glorify God. Perhaps I am a bit biased, but I believe the times I’ve come closest to feeling the divine, whatever you may believe that entails, have all been through participating in the arts. I can only hope that as I work with my students, I will inspire them to unleash their imaginations and create, create, create, through whichever vessel they most connect to.
Anyway, enough of the rant. We’ve reached the last two things on my list, and if you’re still reading this post, I congratulate you on your perseverance and ability to stay awake. Hmm. Summer travel. I guess all I wanted to say about that was that I’m doing a lot of it. Of course, I am doing all of this on weekends so as not to interfere with the other work I’m doing at site, but I feel slightly overwhelmed by the amount of travel I’m hoping to accomplish this summer. Providing my request is approved, I’ll be heading back to Georgia in two weeks with one of the girls I went with before. Unfortunately, after our first night there, she came down with a stomach bug and didn’t get to see much more than the inside of our hostel, so she asked if I’d be willing to return with her so she would get a chance to experience more of Tbilisi. Beyond that, I’m also planning a trip to Baku/Xudat/Nabran/Xachmaz (or, as I’m saying, a north finger tour) next weekend for my birthday. Following the weekend in Georgia, the other weekends in July are filled with trips to Mingechevir, Qebele (for GLOW camp, which will be a full week), and hopefully Beylagan and Saatli. Past this, we’re already into August, during which I want to visit friends in Goychay and the Gence area before I head to Amsterdam for a week with Doug and Ricky. I think when I finally return home for good and start getting ready for school to start, I’m going to be exhausted and broke and ready to stay at site for a few months as the school year begins.
Which brings me to my last listed item…anxieties about the near future. I cannot believe how fast the last 6 months has gone by. For that matter, I can’t quite comprehend how quickly this summer is flying by, and after summer is over the beginning of the school year will surely also fly by as I’ll be busy and hopefully helping with PST activities. Then we’re already into December, when I plan to go home for Christmas, which is a whole other worry in and of itself. Today, I went to the bazaar and for 15 manat, I bought 2 bunches of lettuce, 2 large bunches of green onions, 5 green peppers, a kilo of eggplant, a kilo of cherries, a kilo of apricots, a half kilo of pears, a half kilo of mandarin oranges, a can of beans, and a bottle of olive oil. 15 manat. Keep in mind that one kilo is a little over 2 pounds and 15 manat is the equivalent of $19. I am not looking forward the awful sticker shock I’m sure to experience when I go home for a few weeks and try to buy food. Just to put this in perspective, a kilo of tomatoes is around 50 cents right now. Again, keep in mind that a kilo is a little over two pounds. As I recently learned from a friend stateside, apparently tomatoes are $.75 for ONE tomato. I don’t know how I am going to handle this. I anticipate a whole whirlwind of emotions as I realize I no longer know anything about pop culture, break down in the cereal aise, stare in wonder at the consistent and clean running water, and take 4 showers a day, simply because I still can’t get over that I can just turn on the water and it’s hot. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I will immediately fall into my old routine and then just be sad to leave the land of movie theatres and coffee shops as my trip draws to a close, but I do feel real anxiety about this already. I can only imagine how I’m going to feel when it comes time to go home for good.
Last, but not least, the new group of volunteers is starting to emerge and make a presence online, and my group is very excited about this. As for Shirvan, there is a chance we might be getting up to TWO more volunteers! It would really be awesome to have another volunteer here, especially one Jarrett and I get along with and can collaborate with on projects. I am keeping my fingers crossed that we will be fortunate to get another volunteer, preferably someone who would be willing to sit and watch Star Trek with us on Sunday afternoons.
And with that, I managed to hit all six points AND just barely stay under 3,000! More updates to come soon (hopefully) about my many excursions this summer…
P.S. I tried to upload photos to this entry, but wordpress is stupid and takes FOREVER. So, there’s that. Sorry.
Auspicious Adventures in Azerbaijan 