Chris Sensei in Azerbaijan - Peace Corps CED

Freedom....

2010-02-22T11:52:00.000+04:00

Recently there was a referendum to make a number of changes to the AZ constitution. Changes included removing term-limits on the president(who typically gets 80-90% of the vote), to allow the government to cancel all elections if the country is at war(open hostilities with Armenia and Nagorno-Karabag ended in 1993 but no peace treaties have been signed) and a "privacy" provision which requires one to receive permission before photographing, video-taping or in anyway recording another person.

Ive asked a few local people about these new laws and they all say that, of course, they support the new laws and the democratic right to re-elect the president as many times as he would like, to prevent foreigners & enemies to interfere in their elections and to the democratic right to privacy that these changes provides them......of course.

A report from the Institute for War & Peace Reporting.

New Azeri Law Enrages Journalists

Independent media say ban on unauthorised recordings will hamper reporting.

By Seymur Kazimov in Baku (CRS No.532, 19-Feb-10)

Some journalists in Azerbaijan say changes to media legislation could limit freedom of expression.

The amendments - passed by parliament on February 12 after they were approved last March in a referendum on a number of different subjects - forbid reporters from recording anyone’s voice or image without their permission.

The media law changes were little noticed at the time, as most attention around the referendum focused on a constitutional reform allowing the president to run for re-election as often as he wants.

Arif Aliyev, chairman of the New Generation journalists’ union, said the amendments – the tenth alterations to the media law since it was adopted in 1999 - could restrict freedom of speech in the country.

“This is the most negative change that has been made to the law in the last ten years. When this question was raised in the referendum, the government promised it would allow exceptions in some cases - but this law shows that no exceptions were made, and the ban for journalists is absolute,” he said.

“This means that a journalist, even at normal events, cannot film as he wishes.”

He suspected the amended law, which awaits presidential approval, would lead to more criminal cases against journalists.

“Now anyone who wants to can take a journalist to court just for being photographed, for example at the launch of a book. It is laughable,” he said.

Rauf Arigoflu, the editor-in-chief of Yeni Musavat newspaper, agreed, “These amendments were made specifically to create more and more obstacles to the work of the independent and opposition media.”

He said the amendments would also serve to wipe out investigative journalism in the country. He said he would be forced to adapt to the new law and not create problems for his newspaper’s journalists.

Not all media professionals agreed with their protests, however. Vusala Mahirgizi, general director of Azeri Press, a pro-governmental private news organisation, said the changes were fine.

She said that journalists had lost their chance to object when they did not protest at the time of the referendum.

“Then most journalists focused on different issues, such as on the point removing restrictions on the re-election of the president. And I don’t understand why we should now protest against parliament’s decision,” she said.

“The question was raised at a referendum, and the will of the people was expressed ... In the legal sense there are no problems. We are all obliged to respect the law, and not to go outside it.”

Mubariz Qurbanli, a member of the parliament’s committee on legal policy, said the changes were intended to protect citizens’ right to privacy.

“Here we are intending to prevent interference in private life. These bans do not relate to individuals’ social-political activities,” he said.

Bakhtiyar Sadigov, the editor-in-chief of Azerbaijan, the parliament’s own newspaper, agreed with him.

“The changes to the constitution were made by the will of the people. The population voted for these changes,” he said.

“I am personally opposed to having my picture taken without my permission, or with someone interfering with my private life. This is a violation of an individual’s rights.

“Journalists often interfere with our personal lives. We are Azeris, we have our own mentality, and we do not agree with our personal lives being on general display.”

Opposition members of parliament, however, said they did not believe the law would be used purely to deal with privacy.

Igbal Agazade, chairman of the opposition Hope party in parliament, said the law would make cracking down on free speech much easier.

“A few people claim these bans just apply to people’s personal lives, and do not relate to social-political life. But all these assurances are not reflected in the law. It will be a lot easier to keep society under control and restrict information, and that is the point of these changes,” he said.

Seymur Kazimov is a freelance journalist.

I wonder, do you suppose this law could be taken advantage of by the corrupt who demand bribes or who offer them to prevent there malfeasance from being exposed? I wonder......

Mama, where do babys come from?

2010-01-15T13:17:00.000+04:00

New store in Quba.

And yet more doner. Mexican doner.

2010-01-15T13:03:00.001+04:00

Found a doner shop in Baku that, if you can't read it this sign says:

Turk Doner (standard on bread)
Arab Doner (standard on lavash)
Mexican Doner (two tacos)
Spanish Doner (looks like a meatball sub to me)

For those of ya'll who dont know; the first two, perfectly normal. Spanish doner....gosh knows what that is. But a !MEXICAN DONER!, tacos!, thats a find. And an interesting way of crossing the cultural divide. Explaining to a peoples who often think Americans are part of an ethnic group called Ingilis(unless they're not white or not Christian inwhich case they're not American but whatever their ancestors happened to be), that rice was invented here, and that Japan is in China; crossing that cultural divide to explain the concept of "taco" as a form of doner is amazing.

Sadly the gas wasn't working in that part of Baku so I had to settle for a bloody bland & boring Turk doner. X steps forwrd, N steps back, the answer to X-N (usually) = Disapointment to the inverse square of Bemusement.

The doner is not a lie!

2010-01-15T12:29:00.000+04:00

As mentioned before the notoriously inaccurate Lonely Planet:Caucuses is complete and utter crap. Don't buy it.

It's only saving grace & correct statement comes when it claims that possibly "the best doner in Azerbaijan" can be bought in Quba. In this they are most certainly correct. Mahir Lahmacun, on the main road just 300m uphill from the autovagzal, across from the college you will find the one bastion of culinary perfection.

I typically only go there once a week, sitemate Amy averages atleast twice. The week before Chrismas when we were hosting so many guests we went 4 of 5 weekdays. The owner is very friendly and helpful, the doner chef, an insanely skinny guy named Tofiq, remembers our individual orders and gives us our doners exactly as we want them every time. Amy - no tomato, me - extra sauce and lots of red pepper.

It is one of the few resteraunts in the rayons that you can always know will be foreigner, & more importantly, woman friendly. Though we very seldom see any local women there Amy and the other PCV women folk know they can go there alone and not have to worry about being harrassed by jack-ass local men. This is not true of most other cheap resteraunts in Azerbaijan.
Wich isnt to say you can escape the staring, female or male one can never escape the infernal staring, but you know you won't be bothered.

If you go order the lavash doner. Truely one of the greatest meals you will have in Azerbaijan. A thin flour tortilla tightly wrapped around perfectly grilled & spiced lamb with cilantro, tomatos, a wee bit of mayo and spiced tomato sauce and in the last month theyve begun improving on perfection by adding a couple crispy-crunchy french fries to the mix. This with a side of perashkies, golden crispy brown on the outside, fluffy steamy warm pastry & mashed potato on the inside. Its a meal you won't soon forget at 1.50AZN for the doner and 20qepik for the perashki.

Sadly its difficult to take really good pics of food.....

The burger is a lie!

2010-01-15T12:08:00.000+04:00

In the last 3 months 3 new doner restaurants have opened up in Quba. Indeed there seems to be a trend across the first finger for opening new doner joints across the First Finger. Atleast 5 new ones in Xachmaz and even one in muddy little Devechi to the south.

Sadly they all promise more than they can deliver. Plastered with pictures of a huge variety of incredible foods: salads, roast turkeys, pizza, cheeseburgers, fish, exotic curries. In reality the doner joints very seldom deliver anything more than a doner, usually on a bun but if youre lucky in lavash(a flour tortilla wrap), some cold perashkies(savory deep fried pastries stuffed with mashed potato, meat, or ground liver) and ayran(a yogurt drink).

The new Imperial doner resteraunt in Quba.

The lie. There are no burgers. Never any burgers. Certainly nothing this beautifully delicious looking. The burger is a lie. Always a lie.

The only time a place like this might have a "burger" is when they have a "qamburger". Qamburger is a weird Soviet-AZy bastardization of one of the worlds most sacred and delicious foods. Instead of the burger patty being a delectable mixture of ground meat & spices(or beans & tofu if youre violating God's plan for canine teeth) the qamburger contains a cheap hot-dog weiner, sliced lengthwise, half fried in leftover grease, left to sit around for half the day because nobody wants to eat the crap and then slopped into a bun thats 3times too big. The qamburger is an abomination.

Jake - Im a Little Teapot

2010-01-15T11:28:00.000+04:00

In an evening of boredom sitemate Amy & I took her "Jumbling Towers" game, a cheap "Jenga" knockoff, and turned it into a drinking game by writing challenges, dares, punishments, rewards & requirements to drink on the underside of all the pieces. Some require you to drink, some require others to drink, some require you to show off your Azeri wedding dance skills, and argueably the worst requires you to go to the nearest store to buy 20qepik(cents) worth of any bulk dry good. When the "Jumbling Tower" falls all players grab a random peice an the loser is required to do what they say.

On an evening just a couple weeks ago Jake in Xachmaz was unfortunate enough to pull the "Sing "I'm a Little Teapot" peice. Enjoy.

Pive = Beer = ビール

2010-01-14T12:17:00.000+04:00

Mr. Bean wants you to drink beer.
ミスター　ビン知ってるでしょう？　ミスター　ビンはビールちょう好きそう。

Halloween

2010-01-11T16:41:00.001+04:00

Zombie Chris eats Jack-o-Lantern braiiiiiiiinnnnssss

Jake the DJ Sheep & his evil shadow imp

John, making people feel uncomfortable ;)

Azerbaijani Gothic, Sheepherd Josh and Emma/Tim

Mathias/Marina & Emma/Tim

Traveled out to Zaqatala for the first time for a Halloween party at our fellow PCVs home. If you look at a map of Azerbaijan you'll see Quba is near the top of the First Finger, the first peninsula of land reaching up into Russia. Zagatala is near the top of the Second Finger reaching up toward Russia and Georgia.
After carving Jack-o-lanterns with some local kids good old-fashioned drunken revelry was had by all(except the local kids; they were sent packing). Despite the drizzle we had a bonfire in costume. Sheep & shepherds, boxes, zombies, xanims(Azeri-style babushkas/grannies) & construction workers all attended. But by far the best was Marina & Tim who came dressed as fellow married PCVs Mathias & Emma respectively.

Hernia Surgery in Short 3

2010-01-10T21:05:00.001+04:00

Chapter 3: Aftermath

After 1.5-2hours it was all over. Apparently the hernia, instead of being the normal 2-3cm lesion was 4-5cm, a biggie. Doctor said surgery should have been done a lot sooner and I should have been in pain the last few months. But, for better or worse, I never was in any particular pain because of the hernia belt. The only time it might start to hurt is if I weren't wearing the belt for an extended period of time and my insides started trying to pop to the outside. This would first start to happen after 3-5mn of walking around but it was always easy to shove everything back inside when it first started to protrude. Indeed it felt oddly good to press on it and push it all back in. Kindof like the way scratching a mosquito bite or popping a zit gives one an odd sort of relief.

Slept for the next few hours. Wasn't very hungry when they served dinner but found myself ravenous around 7pm. Asked the nurse for some food but the cafeteria was closed. Sad I never got her name to send her a thank-you card but 10mn later she came and gave me half of the dinner she had brought from home. Bread, cheese, boiled veggies with some meat. Best meal I'd had in a long time.

The docs kept asking if I had used the toilet yet and seemed a bit concerned when I said I hadn't felt the need. So eventually that evening I just forced myself to get up and walk to the toilet. Painful, very painful to walk, but not so terribly bad. Once up, sitting back down on the toilet was yet another challenge but compared to doing the same with a crushed leg back in the day it was a piece of cake. By the next morning I could get up much easier and walk about. By the time Irena came to check me out at 1 the afternoon the day after the surgery I could walk slowly, mostly upright, without any great difficulty.

Spent the next 5 nights at a hotel. I owe a lot of gratitude to my friend Vicky for coming over everyday to take care of me and for bringing a lot of food the first day. Thanks kiddo. I hope I can do something to return the favor someday. Its good to have friends to take care of you.

4-5 days after the surgery I was on my feet well enough to participate in the Hash Walk. The Hash if you hadn't heard of them is an international organization, usually in cities with a British expat community, whose members meet weekly to walk or run a marked trail of arrows with checkpoints and the occasional false trail and then meet at the end for a few drinks and camaraderie. Good times and Ive met a number of new friends & business associates there.

It took about 10-12 days for the wound to heal over so I didn't need to wear a bandage anymore. A few twinges of pain for the next 2weeks but since then absolutely no problems. Left with just a 4cm red line of a scar on my lower abdomen to remember it all by. Good to have it all over and again, thanks to everyone who helped and sent their love. I owe ya'll.

Hernia Surgery in Short 2

2010-01-10T21:04:00.000+04:00

Chapter 2: Surgery

About a week later I had guests. Two new Peace Corps Trainees from the AZ7 group come for a few days site visit to learn more about what PCVs actually do and what the rayons are actually like. Midway through their visit I received a call from PC Medical. The surgeons return to Canada was sooner then expected so if we were to do this I must go to Baku the very next day. I sadly had to abandon the newbies and go to Baku. Though the doctor had said this could be an outpatient procedure Irena(my PC doctor) wanted me to stay at the hospital the nite before because surgery prep would need to begin at 6am and again the next nite to be careful for complications. I very much disliked this idea and was a bit argumentative but some battles must be abandoned that others can be won; as the PCV motto goes “Be flexible”. In hindsight it was the better plan of action. Getting up at 5am to get to the hospital would have been difficult and it was rather painful to walk the next evening.
Spent the night in the hospital, no food or drink allowed, was woken up all to early the next morn by a couple of cute nurses who couldn't believe I spoke Azerbaijani but not Russian and really wanted to practice the 12words of English they knew. They shaved my belly & half my pubes with 10cent disposable razors. 'Twas one of the more awkward, ticklish and scratchy experiences of my life. I was wheeled into intensive care where the other patients were quite surprised to see a foreigner. A fellow who was quite out of it and restrained to his bed became a bit agitated and mumbled incoherently until they placed a screen between us. The anesthesiologist came in and gave my the epidural and I settled in for the next 8hours of paralysis. I waited there, dozing for an hour, before being wheeled into the operating room. Here I was disappointed because there was a screen between my head and the surgery so I couldn't watch. Nor was there a mirror nor camera. Very bummed. I had to entertain myself by listening to the doctors talking in Russian and learning to control the heartbeat/blood pressure monitor. Heartbeat is easy but blood pressure is a hard one. Be it old age or boredom I found it much more difficult to stay awake during the surgery than it was back in Japan. Surprised the hell out of me when I first saw smoke rising from the surgery area. Apparently the were using lasers or cauterizing something. If you want to see what this surgery is like you can watch videos on YouTube or GoogleVideos. Interesting, grisly stuff.

Hernia Surgery in Short

2010-01-10T20:38:00.000+04:00

Hernia Surgery in Short

I wrote this story once. Bloody power failure occur ed mid upload onto Blogger followed by the power coming back on with a surge that caused the bulb above me to explode. Fortunately the office has a couple very good power stabilizors and surge protectors and though my computer survived the upload did not. Major ambition killer it was. Glass shards in my hair, darkness reigning the office, alone, combined with the gas not working that day and the pissing rain outside I decided to go to Baku to get my monthly shower and let this project set for a bit.

But now Im back. The holiday season is over and Im ready to get some work done. Lets start today with the conclusion to the Hernia Saga.

Chapter 1: Preperation

Remember last October. 5 months+, nearly 6months after first being diagnosed with an inguinal hernia I received word from the PC Medical staff that Washington DC in its infinite wisdom finally approved me for an "elective" surgery to sew shut the large hole in the muscles in my lower abdomen that are supposed to keep my intestines on the inside. It seems Washington believes that aslong as a hernia isn't currently strangulated then fixing the problem is elective rather than priority. Most common cause of strangulated hernia is constipation or similar gastric distress. Most common medical complaint of PCVs in AZ – gastric distress. Meh.

I travelled to Baku to inspect Tusi Hospital where AZ-PC Medical wanted to do the surgery and to meet the surgeon. I must say that the AZ PC Medical staff is very caring, informative and effective. Thank you Irena, you're damn good at what you do. We first went to meet the surgeon. He office was at the Oilworkers Hospital in Baku but he often handles surgeries at Tusi. The Oilworkers Hospital was a crumbling Soviet relic, marble floors in the lobby disintegrating, a doorway boarded up with an overturned table and warning tape, we waited a few minutes in the doctors office on a couch with ancient cracked pleather revealing old discolored foam before the doctor arrived and met with us in a conference room. I have been told that in the last few years the government has dedicated many millions of manat to buying equipment and refurbishing but I saw no evidence of this. Dear reader you may gather I did not expect much. The doctor, a tall, balding Russian I expected brusque arrogance, an expert who would disdain the questions of an ignorant patient questioning his "expertise". Let me say here that while this is a frequent attitude presented by "experts" here this is less a commentary on the local or even post-Soviet culture but based more on my experience with doctors in other parts of the world. In Japan I had a few experiences with hospitals and while ta few doctors I dealt with there were very professional(in the idealized Western sense) a very significant number were unwilling to answer questions or to take my concerns seriously. Fortunately there, in the last couple years at least, my language & cultural understanding was such that I could argue, be obstinate, and force them to take my concerns into account. Sadly my Azerbaijani & Russian aren't up to that task here.

Taking a seat in the conference room while my PC Medical escort and the doctor spoke in rapid Russian I expected the worse but insisted on introducing myself. In Azeri "Salam alekum müəllim. Mənim adım Kriş. Çox şadam.” (Salam alekum doctor. My name is Chris. Its nice to meet you.) to which the doctor responded “It's good to meet you to. My name is XXXX. Irena has been telling me about your hernia and I hope we can take care of it quickly.” in slightly Russian accented but quite fluent English. A wee bit taken aback I quickly learned that this doctor had done much of his training and residency in the UK and occasionally went on work trips to Canada. Indeed if he was to do the surgery it would be necessary to schedule within the next month because he was soon going back to work in Canada. As we spoke I learned more about his qualifications and the procedures used in repairing a hernia. He asked me a number of questions about my condition, listened to and answered my questions, took my concerns and requests seriously and promised to accommodate them to the best of his abilities. My main concern was that I not be knocked out by anesthetic. Rather I wanted an epidural(spinal tap) so that I could remain conscious and watch the surgery as I had when they reconstructed my leg & knee after the motorcycle accident back in Japan. The doctor was of course a bit concerned that most patients become distressed by the site of blood and such but seemed to appreciate my interest in his art and all similar engineering puzzles. I was assured that this wouldn't be a problem.

Next we went to visit the hospital where surgery would be completed. This hospital was newly built and indeed as we looked through one of patient rooms one could still find price stickers on some of the furniture. The bathroom was clean and well tiled with a hot shower and Western-style toilet. The nurses were polite and seemed able. On closer inspection later I began to realize that everything, though new, was of low quality and would in a few years fall into disrepair. The doors and corridors weren't built large enough to allow easy access by the patients beds and were severely scuffed and dented. The doctors and nurses where all apologetic but I couldn't be allowed to inspect the operating room for hygienic reasons. This was very reassuring as I had already decided I wouldn't allow surgery to be done in a hospital that would allow such a breach.

A final note about the hospital. When you enter the patient wings of Tusi hospital or the fancy expat dentist Peace Corps sends us to they make you put on little blue plastic baggies over your shoes with elastic bands to hold them on around your ankles. Presumably to keep the street dust, animal feces and dirt out of the hospital. I Japan schools, dentists and lots of hospitals made you leave your shoes at the door and wear slippers. In hospitals these slippers were “sanitized” under UV lights when not in use. I haven't decided yet if this is all still a good idea or just a hold-over from the old, dirtier days. In Japan it doesn't seem necessary anymore but in this country it seems like an excellent idea. It just feels odd to wear plastic bags on your feet.

So it was decision time. Did I feel comfortable doing the surgery here in Baku with this surgeon and hospital or would I insist on being sent either to Washington or to the PC medical center in Thailand? Tempting as a week or to in either place was I could find no rational reason to insist so. Though simple emotional obstinence, “I just don't feel comfortable doing it here!”, would have been sufficient in the end ethics and respect for the tax-payers dollar won out over my desire for a nice vacation.

アプデット　＝ Update

2009-12-06T16:27:00.000+04:00

Heyya loyal reader,

Its been a long time since my last post, pardon. I could say I've been busy, which is true enough, but it would be alot more accurate to say I just haven't felt like writing anything. Alot has happened and I fully intend to update this blog....sometime in the next week when the cleaning lady isn't looking over my shoulder asking alot of questions in Russian.

すごい長い間なにも書かなかったねー。　ちょっと忙しかったし、手術？なった？し、怠け者し、すみませんね。今日友達からメールくれて、「どうしてブログになんか書かなかったの？」って書いた。　じゃあ、本当に頑張る、今週書こう、ぜったい。今無理けど。。。となりに嫌な人がいる。「どうして中国語書いてるの？本当に中国語できるの？中国人嫌い。日本は何？中国と一緒じゃない？」って言ってる。すごい嫌な奴。　もー、行く。　また後でね。

Robot Head Crashes

2009-10-17T13:42:00.000+05:00

A couple months ago my first kitten, Robot Head, went missing soon after the arrival of his brother, HAL 9000. I always assumed he found another home where he got feed more or maybe a neighborhood dog got him.
Well, to my surprise I found him alongside the road the other day while walking home.
A piece here, and a piece there and his little little robot head last. He'd been hit by a car.

Looks like he lived a good life until then though and his brother lives on, getting fat on mice and lizards from my garden.

Good bye Robot Head.

A New Project

2009-10-17T13:24:00.000+05:00

My sitemate and I have begun working with a new project. It's called the Mental Health Initiative(MHI). MHI is a project sponsored by the Open Society Initiative, part of the Soros Foundation. The mission of this project is to provide social, educational & medical to mentally & physically challenged youth in the villages surrounding Quba.

Though the law of Azerbaijan mandates that developmentally disabled people be accommodated in the schools and that certain services be provided the reality in the rayons is that government structure, schools & the populace generally have an old-fashioned & Soviet mindset regarding the treatment of these people.

For example, amongst the populace there commonly exists the belief that mental disabilities such as autism & retardation and some physical disabilities like MS could be “catching” and so these people are generally shut away in their homes or if the family has money or the connections needed to receive assistance they are often sent away to special institutions. Those who are able to go to school often face ridicule from the other children and are often considered a burden by the teachers. Schools and government institutions, though mandated by law to make accommodations or provide services, often see these youth as a burden on their time and resources and much prefer to send them away to special sanatoriums as was done under the Soviet system.

The MHI is a pilot program started last year and currently only operating in Quba and Ismayli. It is run in conjunction with the Social Services Ministry and, at least in Quba, the office is located in the Social Services Ministry building. In Quba there is a psychologist, therapist, a couple social workers and a driver. An end goal of the MHI is to develop an effective & replicable system so that next year the government can take over the program and it will become the official services system nationwide. Inshallah.

What Amy and I have been asked to do is, on the Youth Development(YD) side, to occasionally accompany the staff on site visits to help create game therapies for the clients and to create opportunities for these children to join in other youth events we help organize so they have a chance to socialize and to educate the other children in understanding their conditions.

On the CED side we have been training staff on how to access and use the Internet for e-mail, sending pictures & documents, search and paying taxes. And in using office programs. We also hope to introduce Best Practices procedures and to improve the currently chaotic office communications methods. Finally, I hope to help them develop a metrics system to evaluate the effectiveness & efficiency of their efforts.

Last week we went on our first site visit. It was a fun change of pace to go out to some of the remoter villages, play with some kids and meet their families. One kid especially, 9 years old and he seems to have MS and some mental disability so that everything he sees is he calls “ting!”. I played with him, taught him how to Hi-5 and Thumbs-Up and we talked about tings for a long time.

PC-AZ LIFE WITH A HERNIA

2009-10-14T15:02:00.000+05:00

Azerbaijani word of the day qrıja (greeja) = hernia.

Don't know how but I got one. Didn't really understand what a hernia was before. Just noticed some shooting pains in the groin some evenings when lounging on my comfy chair(the chair made of slate wood nailed together that was found in the garbage pile). Then one day a buddy and I went on a 20km hike from Quba to Qusar. About half way there it became apparent something wasn't quite right. At the end of the trip I hopped in the shower(I love visiting people with real showers, bathing with a bucket and the water pipe in my yard gets old). Anyhow, in the shower, looked down and what should I see but that part of my groin was swollen, red & throbbing; unfortunately not the good part.

5 minutes later I was on the phone with PC Medical in Baku. Doctor Irena told me she couldn't diagnose anything over the phone but to come into Baku sometime that week and she'd check it out. Couple days later I head down, get an examination and learn that I'm the proud father of a little bastard hernia. For those of you who, like me at the time, don't know what a hernia actually is; a hernia is basically a small rip in the abdominal muscles which allow the internal organs, usually intestine, to slip out a wee bit. This generally occurs at the hole where the large arteries and nerves travel from the trunk of the body down into the leg. The doctors say this is something that doesn't heal by itself, surgery is required to stitch it back together.

No idea how I got it but I do a lot of yardwork, gardening, chopping wood, and moving cement bricks & furniture and thats just to relax after walking an hour to work and an hour back. It was all a great aerobic workout, I had lost about 15kg and went from my biggest belt hole down to a new smaller hole. I've since started taking the marshrut up to work{and gained some weight back :)}.

Anyhow since by itself a hernia isn't really dangerous that this is an 'elective' surgery.....'elective' until it strangulates anyhow(thats where the muscles your internal organs are peeking out of decide to clench down, cutting off circulation and necessitating quick surgery before something blows due to pressure or gangrene/necrosis set in). PC-Washington requires a 2nd opinion from a surgeon and then the bureaucracy in Washington decides if it really needs surgery. In the mean time I was given a truss to wear which keeps constant pressure on the problem area and keeps my internals from peeking out and trying to be external.

Fortunately a former PCV in AZ had had a hernia and they had a truss in stock.

Here's what it looks like. Nope, not a self portrait.

Well all of that was last June. In August I got the 2nd opinion and it was last week that Washington decided to give the green light. Since then I've been putting on this damn truss every morning before heading out. It's not terribly uncomfortable but it can be a bit awkward to arrange it all & use a squatty-potty. Also its bloody undignified to put on/remove when Ive got guests staying over in my one room apartment. But, it is a life saver. If I don't wear it it only takes a minute before the hernia starts acting up. When this first happens it's not painful but rather a weird queasy feeling and then I have to apply pressure just the right spot to pop my insides back inside which is an amazingly odd sensation.

If this was PC-South America folks with serious medical conditions would be sent back to the States. If everything can be fixed in 1 month they ship you back to country to keep working, if more than 1 month PCVs are generally Medically Separated. Over on this side of the world we're sent to a world-class hospital in Bangkok. The PC docs tell me that a hernia operation is fairly simple and the last PCV who had a hernia had no problem getting it done in in Baku. This week I will meet with the surgeon the PC docs recommend to do this surgery. They say he trained in the US & Canada and is highly qualified.

Thats all fine but I'd really rather go get this done in Thailand. Not only is the food and weather a lot better over there but I'm told the doctors and nursing staff at this hospital are great. Here many of the doctors Ive met are of the old Soviet mind-set; an I'm the expert, you know nothing, you don't ask question, you will accept anything I say type mind-set. Back in Japan I had the misfortune to visit the doctors a few times and some of the doctors there had a similar idea of the patient-doctor relationship. But there at least I was generally much more fluent in the language and able to argue. Also they are much more polite and curious about explaining things to foreigners. I find 'authority figures' here to be much less patient or open minded.

But the biggest issue I have with surgery here are a couple details I noticed at the hospital where I went to get the 2nd opinion. I went with two female PC doctors to a nice new hospital with modern equipment and we only had to wait 5 minutes. We checked in at reception and started walking to the exam room wing reception directed us to. But as we started climbing some stairs some random Azerbaijani man(I can only assume he was staff as he wasn't wearing any sort of uniform are name badge) started yelling at us and telling my PC doctors they couldn't go with me to the other part of the hospital. The politely explained that they were my doctors and translators but he continued to be belligerent. It was only when they threatened to call...someone, I can't understand fast Azeri arguing, that he finally gave up. Finally we get to the examination. It was a decent exam room with modern exam bed and lighting and it even had a computer with specialized medical record software that the doctor knew how to use(in the rayons not unusual to find places that have computers but the staff doesn't know how to use it or in schools beautiful new computer rooms that are locked because otherwise the children will break them and nobody knows how/has the money to fix them). The doctor was good, she answered my questions and said that though they usually knock the patient out for the surgery they could do an epidural so I could sit-up and watch if I wanted. She seemed to think that was very strange for some reason. But as I lay on the exam bed I noticed that the brand new, exam light above my had some sort of red-brown liquid splashed and burnt-dried to it....possibly old blood, possibly coca-cola. And between the corner and the medicine cabinet there was a bunch of spiderwebs. As is so often true in developing countries, some folk are trying so hard and have the trappings of development but such glaring oversights are made that its heartbreaking.

So thats were it stands as of now. I wear a truss, try to avoid lifting anything that weighs more than I do, shove my guts back into my belly from time to time, and await meeting the surgeon and seeing the hospital where its proposed to do the surgery. If I don't like the looks of it I may insist it be done in Thailand and we'll see what happens from there. More stories to tell the grandkids someday.

Azerbaijani Recipes

2009-09-23T12:09:00.000+05:00

Found a website for a variety of Azerbaijani foods. Lots of pics, a good number of recipes.
The stuffed veggies, pickles, and mimosa salad are my favorites & the rice with dried fruits & chestnuts is incredibly good but only eaten on holidays.

http://www.azcookbook.com/

Bold Statement

2009-09-18T14:37:00.000+05:00

Here is an interview with a guy who is definitely NOT looking for peace and reconciliation with his former enemies........

"In Denmark it is now generally accepted that all known thieves here are from Armenia: Head of Azerbaijan-Denmark Friendship Community" - headline from 2DayAZ newspaper

Stuff Made While Bored - 詰らない時に作った物

2009-09-17T13:45:00.000+05:00

Plum wine made in a 16liter water jug then racked into old PET and vodka bottles. Turned out really good. Alot better than the cheap AZ wine I can get at the shop next door.
梅Wineを作った。スゴイ旨かった。作って終わったらPETやVodka便に入った。１６Lできった！

This is a wee wood table used by xanıms(women) here to make bread dough on. I found one hidden amonst all the junk in my garden. The top was cracked and dirty and no good for making bread anymore and I had been putting it ontop of the iron ring you see in the background to use as a coffee table. In a fit of boredom I decided to make it into a chess board.

こな木の上にアゼルバイジャンのババはパンを作る。庭でこれを見つけた。悪かったからパンの作りかたは無理。

Thank Allah for Sharpies.
チェス?boardは日本語でなんというの？

Here Corey models the corn cob pipe that Elmer(another PCV) helped conceive.

Smoking old school with the corn cob and matches.
アメリカの江戸時代らしいSmokeする。

007 Vodka seemed the most unnatural choice for a vodka watermelon.
I ate him shaken, not stirred.
Vodkaスイカ食べたことがあるの？Vodkaスイカ君を食べちゃって酔うぱらくなってきった。

Yes, he does have a gold tooth and yes, he is smoking a cigarette.
スイカ君はかこいいでしょう！

Behind 007 you can also see some of the many new shelves I've built. This is one of the classy stone & glass brick with rough hewn oak shelves.

スイカ君の裏に作った戸棚がある。いっぱい戸棚でも本棚を作った。

お久しぶりなー

2009-09-09T16:08:00.000+05:00

長い間日本語は書かなかったでしょう。僕怠け者かな。それがInternetあったら働くなくちゃってブログ書けへん。夜に家で僕疲れってなにも書きたくない。まあーね。多分、今月日本語ブログ書いてみる。

News

アパートはすごく優しい。電気で問題があるけどほとんど大丈夫。
庭にいっぱいナスやトマトやピモンやメロンがある。
桜と梅のWineを作った。旨かった！
子猫は大きくなってきた。
仕事は段々忙しくなってきちゃった。よいかも。

Volunteer Reporting Tool/Form aka VRT/F

2009-09-09T14:56:00.000+05:00

There is considerable disagreement over the correct acronym. What the VRT/F is is an Excel spreadsheet all PCVs all over the world have to fill out every 3-4months to report on what activities they have been doing.

Not a bad idea. Bureaucratic & annoying but PC work can seem pretty fluffy and unquantifiable. Seems a good idea to try to figure out what we are actually doing to justify the tax dollars & time spent on it. Having said that PC constantly states that a computer is NOT needed for service....then they require us to fill out this computerized form a few times a year that can only be done on an English version of MS Excell(XP or better) and does NOT work on Apples(which a very significant minority of my hippy/straight-out-of-uni colleagues use).

AZ6 had to fill out our first VRT/F just last month. I've just recently met with my Program Director(Azerbaijani) & Program & Training Officer(2nd in command American) to discuss it and they seem fairly happy with what Ive been doing.

Since I'm too lazy(efficient) to summarize what it says I've decided to cut&paste most of what is written in this form. Some parts have been redacted because they may/have caused some offense or because its boring. In the ACTIVITIES section Ive left out the figures for number of people served vs number who succeeded in activity because its difficult to cut&paste that info. Also this is all completely out of order because I'm in a hurry. I need to design a seminar on entrepreneurship and complete 2 research projects by the end of the week and the internet here is.....sporadic at best.

Enjoy:

Success Story

In a joint CED/YD project PCVs developed a pilot Career day session at one of the local schools. The purpose of which was to have successful community members speak with high-school aged youth about the local job market and about what they need to study and do to find jobs in this area.

Though the project met some initial resistance due to its unfamiliarity we gained support and were able to gain the agreement of a school to host it and a number of speakers. When the day came though most of our speakers were suddenly "to busy" to make it but with a few phone calls we were able to lure more speakers through a mixture of promises, cajoling and threats.

During the session the children showed an active interest and seemed to learn something about what it really means to find a job and to work. Perhaps more importantly all of our speakers were very impressed by the interest the youth showed and commented afterwards that their own thoughts on the challenges faced by the youth had changed and that they came away with more favorable views of this sort of community participation.

Lessons Learned

Nothing is as easy as it seems.

Nothing can be concretely planned.

"Planing" is impossible for any activity more than 12 week in the future.

If you use the word "should" in any of your planning assume it will go wrong.

Independence is more important to me than comfort.

Planned Activities

The Career Day pilot project was so successful that I have approached all 6 other schools in my community about doing it there. I hope to encourage the schools to make it part of their yearly curriculum. And am working with other PCVs to arrange it for their schools.

The Internship Program pilot project though less successful will be continued. A number of students who weren't available for the pilot have expressed an interest and we have worked out some of the kinks in our own planning & procedures. This will be continued and perhaps expanded over time.

I am conducting research & consulting with other PCVs, organizations & community members about developing "Capitalism Clubs"; encouraging youth to work together to create small businesses. We hope to begin work soon.

Work with PSCEP & QMC will continue. We are beginning to focus our projects & will begin to work on creating business associations & other work. I am pursuing training of modern business theory/practices with QMC staff & pursuing 3rd Goal activities with Chemonics staff, many are newly arrived to this country & fail to understand conditions & culture outside of Baku. Further Ive been asked to provide training for BDSs in other Rayons & facilitate work w/ other PCVs.

As the mainstay of the local economy, apples, comes into season I am trying to encourage value-added product production and diversification by introducing apple-based products from around the world. Also pursuing this with other ag-products.

*Note* Goal2 = To teach Azerbaijanis about America. Goal3 = To teach Americans about Azerbaijan.

Goal Two

I talk to community members daily, explaining that America is not just a faceless monolith of Christian imperial power & decadent wealth led by a "n@##$r", apostate or Muslim president.

*Note2* Lots of folk here call black people niggers. They learned this from the Russians/Soviets. It isn't always meant in the derogatory sense. Just as Americans might call British, Brits; or OR Brits call Americans, Yanks; etc....... its just the word they know for black folk and they haven't had the PC word police on their backs.

But, more often than not, it is used derogatorily. I'll write about racism in Azerbaijan another time, maybe. The contrast between what racism means here, in Japan, and in the US is interesting.

Rather that we are an extraordinarily diverse country full of people rich, poor & between, of all shades of color & ethnicity, where almost all the world's religions are represented and that we all live together in relative peace.

Goal Three

I write a blog, host many visiting tourists & international experts and occasionally write to newspapers "comments" sections for Azerbaijan related articles.

PC Initiative Area

Youth Dev

Most of the activities which I have organized or been part of outside QMC have been YD in their nature or YD related.

Materials Created

Ive been working with other PCVs to transfer skills gained thru my previous experience working in schools to train them for TESL teaching, providing/creating materials & activities.

OTHER INFO

KSAs(Knowledge, Skills, Abilities)

I would like to learn at least basic Russian & Lezqi, two very important languages that are used on a daily basis in my area but PC has provided little to no resources in this area.

VRT

This report was nearly impossible to fill out for a variety of reasons. First, it is incompatible with any but the most recent version of Microsoft Excel and even then the security/settings requirements require the use of an English version or the assistance of a computer literate local who can navigate local(pirated & virus filled) Russian versions. This is a problem because most PCVs are using Macs(incompatible), local computers(invariably Russian & insecure) or like myself using OpenOffice a free open-source version of the Microsoft software which is fully compatible with everything except macros. Secondly it is PC policy that computers are not required for PC service, yet this required activity necessitates a computer.

Also, the reporting tool lacks the flexibility to select multiple Objectives when a single project overlaps many.

Sustainability

I have applied for no grants. All of my projects can be completed in community using resources provided in site.

PCV Feedback

The policy of Peace Corps is to pay volunteers a stipend such that they can "live at a level comparable to their counterparts". We in Quba, and indeed most of the regions, do not get paid sufficiently to maintain this level. Since AZ1 there have been many years where inflation ran 10-20% yet PCV pay has not in any way matched these price increases.

My counterparts can afford to eat meat daily. I have become a very unwilling vegetarian because I cannot afford meat nor many of the other things my counterparts take for granted. I have lost a significant amount of weight and muscle mass during my service here.

MASS MEDIA

Was asked by local media at the Novruz festival in Quba to provide an interview concerning PC activities in Azerbaijan but at that time we(PCVs) were of the understanding from Zoltan (*Note3* Zoltan=former Country Director) that we were not allowed to speak with media without prior approval & guidance from the Country Director. Hence, I & other attending PCVs refused and referred the reporter to PC-Baku office.

ACTIVITIES & OUTCOMES

*Note4* This is the most important section of the report. Here we write about the activities we have been doing and provide info on the numbers of people who participated and who learned something from it.

Writing Olympics

Acted as a proctor & facilitator at the school and worked as one of the essay judges in Baku.

International AIDS CandleLight Memorial Day

Participated in this event organized by YD PCVs in Quba & helped facilitate.

Womens Association & Gender Training

Participated in a Gender Training and invited local people to participate. Though only one man attended for a short period the women considered this to be a very successful meeting and have asked to meet regularly and create a womens organization.

Hiking Club

Go hiking weekly with youth.

QMC Brainstorming Session

Quba Marketting Center asked for assistance in finding new income generation activities and exploring the economic situation in the northern area. I organized a meeting of QMC staff, all CED volunteers in this area & the YD PCVs in Quba.

Career Day

Organized an event where respected & succesfull members of the community came to speak with upper-form students about how to find work in Quba, what to study & prepare for finding employment and other advice. Students where able to ask questions & voice their concerns.

English Teacher Training

Provided a seminar and training to all interested PCVs in northern area on how to teach TEFL & organize Conversation Clubs.

Virus Protection Strategies & Technology consulting & training

I provide assistance, advice & informal training on technology(particularly virus protection & alternatives to pirated software) to a variety of organizations & individuals including Ministry of Economic Development, Transparency, QMC, schools, etc.

Writing a blog.

3rd Goal activity.

Training & assistance in writing CV/resume

Have provided training & assistance in writing CV/resumes to interested community members.

Business Marketing Assistance

Assist in preparing English language promotional material, including writing case studies on success stories.

Helped QMC prepare Proposal for Chemonics run USAID program - Private Sector Competitiveness Enhancement Program.

QMC won this contract without wich it would have likely been forced to shut down and lay-off employees.

Business Research

Prepare list of mid-large businesses in northern area, evaluate economic position & determine potential efficacy of PSCEP assistance.

Business Research

Assist in research of northern area businesses to determine economic & market position, place in value chain, SWAT analysis, etc through company visits, community questioning and internet research.

I have assisted in all aspects of these endeavours, from original research, to designing & writing reports, communications & consultation with the PSCEP Baku office, translation of reports from Azerbaijani to English & the consequent training of QMC staff in business English, report writing, business procedures, etc.

Together we have operated with over 25 local mid-large sized businesses, written over 15 reports and multiple revisions.

PSCEP CONSULTING

*Note5* Ive had to redact a part of this.

I have been working very closely with X-consultant & PSCEP staff to provide local insight and act as a cross-cultural/lingual facilitator. Both explaining to American & Azerbaijani staff & management the real situation in the Rayons, and to QMC staff & management the goals & difficulties of Baku & American offices. I have also been consulting & providing advice for the revamping of this project.

I have been asked many times to continue this facilitation and in the future to provide consultation & trainings to BDSs in other areas of Azerbaijan.

Teacher Training

Have been working with my language tutor(vice-principal/guidance counselor at local school) to transfer language teaching & other pedagological skills.

Ramadan

2009-08-25T14:31:00.000+05:00

Its the month of Ramadan when devout Muslims are supposed to fast during the daylight hours; refraining from both food and drink. In some countries this can be taken very seriously, forcing all restaurants & teahouses to close and anyone seen in public violating the fast can be get in trouble though the Koran officially exempts non-Muslims & travellers(ie Haji, tourists, people who are traveling to another city, etc).

Azerbaijan generally isn't very orthodox in it's interpretation of most Islamic strictures. Vodka is common & plentiful(Thanx Russia!), pork is sometimes available, and so on. Ramadan also isn't so strictly observed, atleast up here in the northern Quba-Qusar-Xachmaz area known as the First Finger. Resteraunts and teahouses are open and people are eating icecream & drinking tea in public.

Maybe its just indicative of the people I know but nobody I've talked to observes the fast at all. Indeed, the only possible indication I've seen of the Ramadan season is the removal of the alchohol aisle from our local supermarket, MeqaMarket. Though this occured 2weeks before Ramadan started and alchohol is still sold in the refrigerated aisle.....and rumor mill says it has more to do with the company being squeezed for more "taxes" and the supermarkets imminent shut-down.

Until I got on the internet this morning & read an article about worries that this years very early Ramadan could cause health & dehydration problems for some of the observant I had entirely forgotten it was Ramadan. On the first day of Ramadan I joined in a business lunch with some local entreprenuers & technical assistance experts wich included a bottle of vodka celebrating an agreement to launch a new project and yesterday around 14:00I was pulled into a resteraunt by some aquaintances who were having a kebab & vodka party who insisted I join them. Sadly I couldn't because of a prior agreement but it all goes to show that a number of folk up here a fairly liberal about the tenents Ramadan.

For a random example of how Ramadan can be in other PC countries try this or this blog entry.

"Bacon - A Universal Pleasure" a Mystery aka Food 3

2009-08-20T15:59:00.000+05:00

"The story you are about to hear is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent." - Dragnet

Once upon a time an American was staying with some Azerbaijani people. It was an American holiday and the reminiscing American wanted to eat something that reminded him of home. Liver & Onions fried up with big slabs of bacon and potatoes & gravy on the side he thought, mouth watering. All of the ingredients were readily available; beef liver, potatoes, onions, all widely available in the bazaar. Bacon was slightly more difficult to find in this Muslim country but fortunately it was found at a little shop down the way.

"Do you mind if you cook my food in your kitchen?" the polite American asked the daughter of an imam lady-of-the-house. "Its fine" she said, not wanting any herself but not so disgusted by the whole idea. While cooking the man-of-the-house returned. "Your cooking? What is it?" he inquired, half concerned about the machismo of a male cooking. The American answered honestly and asked "Have you ever eaten pork?". "Oh sure, back in the Soviet army they made the Muslims & Jews eat that all the time! Its good but my wife won't cook it." he said, somewhat wistfully. "Gravy, huh. That sure does taste good. I've never seen it before." he admitted before returning to his work.

Meal fully prepared the American sat down to a heapin-mess o' good food and enjoyed the wonders that can be had from such simple pleasures when the daughter-of-the-house arrived. "Oh, you made liver! I love liver. Can I have a taste?" she asked, greedily. "Certainly." the American answered, generously. "Whats that?" she asked peering hungrily at a chunk of bacon. "That is a meat which we call 'bacon'." he answered truthfully. "Give me some." she demanded hungrily.

The American uncertain about the appropriateness glanced over at the lady-of-the-house whom simply smirked and looked away, slyly. "Here you are." said the American, handing over a fork-full of bacon. She ate the meat and her eyes shined "Oh! Its really good! This is delicious!" she exclaimed. At this the American smiled inquisitively and the lady-of-the-house barked a laugh of good humour. A shadow daowned over the face of the daughter-of-the-house, "This is pork, isn't it?" she exclaimed with some horror. "Yes it is. Good isn't it?" the American asked. "Oh no, horrible, disgusting, yuck, no it's bad." she said, unconvincingly. "But you just said it was very good, delicious you said." said the American, accurately. "No I did not." she lied, leaving the American to enjoy his meal and the lady-of-the-house to giggle to herself.

The American could not finish all which he had cooked and so left a pan of left-overs in the frindge for tomorrows enjoyment. The next day when he opened his pan of left-overs he discovered to his shock that all of the bacon had been picked out of his meal! Where could it have gone?

Was it; the-man-of-the-house, his hunger for bacon unquenched in all these many years? Was it; the-lady-of-the-house, her disgust piqued or perhaps her curiousity aroused? Or was it; the-daughter-of-the house, her irrational first reaction of disgust overwhelmed by the memory of that one bite of glorious flavor?

We shall never know.

PC Engineering aka Food 2

2009-08-20T15:38:00.000+05:00

This was the first time we used the grill I found in my yard last spring. We got some frozen chicken legs at the shop next door(each leg=half a days pay), sprinkled with some Lawrey's Season Salt that I brought from the states and starteg grilling em up. Also got some new potatoes and some onions, threw them on şaşlıklar(shashliklar=skewers{plural}) rubbed them down with salt & chicken fat and put it all on the barbie.
10minutes & a liter of beer later we discoverd that the chicken & potatoes where not only cooking at different rates but the chicken was too close to the coals and causing grease fires....problem.
Solution? Some ersatz-engineering that raised the chicken and let the grease drip down onto the potatoes and everything cooking at the perfect rate thus creating one of the best meals had in this country.

Food

2009-08-20T15:01:00.000+05:00

I was taken out for dinner by some development & technical assistance experts from Baku that were up here in Quba to do some work with one of the project I work on. We ordered "???"(Ive forgotten the word, will figue it out later), which was bloody delicious. Juicy grilled steaks, peppers, tomatoes & badımcan(badimjan=eggplant) with fried potato wedges fried & kept warm on a wok with some burning embers underneath. Damn good stuff.

I recommend trying it if you can make it to the Çinar(chinar) Kafe in Quba.

Things that make you go "Huh".

2009-08-19T13:36:00.000+05:00

I thought this article was interesting. Another interesting event in recent news is the recent blogger case in Baku.

Azeri witchhunt over Eurovision votes

By Shaun Walker in Moscow

Wednesday, 19 August 2009

AFP/GETTY IMAGES

AySel & Arash perform Azerbaijan's Eurovision entry in Moscow

Security forces in Azerbaijan have launched a campaign against dozens of citizens for voting for the wrong entry in this year's Eurovision Song Contest. Authorities in the oil-rich country are apparently tracking down people who voted for Azerbaijan's bitter enemy Armenia in the competition held in May.

The two countries fought a vicious war in the 1990s over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is now under the control of ethnic Armenians but is claimed by Azerbaijan. All borders between the two countries remain closed and tensions remain high, even over such a seemingly insignificant event as Eurovision.

Rovshan Nasirli, a resident of Azerbaijan's capital Baku, was one of 43 people in the country to vote for Armenia's entry "Jan-Jan", sung by the duo Inga and Anush. He told Radio Liberty that he had been summoned to the country's national security ministry last week to explain himself.

"They wanted an explanation for why I voted for Armenia. They said it was a matter of national security," said Mr Nasirli, who voted by text message. "They were trying to put psychological pressure on me, saying things like, 'You have no sense of ethnic pride. How come you voted for Armenia?' They made me write out an explanation, and then they let me go."

This year's contest, which was held in Moscow and won by Norway, was already the most politicised in the history of Eurovision. Georgia, which fought a war with Russia last summer, refused to take part in the contest after it was told to change the lyrics of its entry. The song, entitled "Don't Want to Put in", was widely seen as a pun on the surname of Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and thus broke contest rules that songs cannot be political.

Luckily for Mr Nasirli, he had a cast-iron excuse for voting for Inga and Anush. He didn't like the Azerbaijani entry, which featured an Iranian singer based in Sweden, and voted for Armenia because the song actually sounded "more Azeri".

Lonely Planet - Dont buy it!

2009-07-24T11:28:00.000+05:00

Just don't buy it. It's notoriously inaccurate. No one I've talked to that is living or traveling around the Caucuses thinks its worth its weight in soiled toilet paper.
The only thing good I can think to say about it is:
a) in a pinch you could use the pages as toilet paper
b) it says we have the "best döner in Azerbaijan" here in Quba

(b) Isn't actually true but the lavaş(flour tortilla-like flat bread) döner is bloody tasty at Mahir Lamacun, a place just up the road from the avtovagzal(bus station).

"Now you know, and knowing is half the battle." - said at the end of every episode of G.I. Joe

4th of July - ６月４日の独立祭

2009-07-14T17:21:00.000+05:00

Photo Hall of Infamy

"Barley juice"-bong Tim and his enabler.

Aquafina lemon hangover remedy quaffing Elmer with Jake the storyman.

Camera hogging Auquafina lemon and じんべい(summer festival/pajama) wearing Me.

Cory, AZ record holding winner of the "Cory Award" hanging about The Tiki Bar.

Tim and Xirdalan, king of cheap canned AZy beer.

Site-mate Psychedelic Amy

Master of Ceremonies and builder of The Tiki Bar, Jake.

Josh, the crotchety-old lulə kəbabçi(ground sheep-meat-on-a-stick cooker).

And for anyone who was curious; Independence Day = Müstəqliq Günü(day)/Müstəqliq Bayram(holiday).

Fruit Season & Making Wine pt 1 - さくらんぼのワインを醸造

2009-07-14T16:26:00.000+05:00

Summer is here which means its hot and the fruit is cheap. Especially cheap for me because I've got a bunch of fruit trees in my garden.
Starting in March the alça started to grow. Alça are basically small sour apple-like fruits, one dictionary defines them as sour plums. They start small, taste like rhubarb and you can eat them whole. I made a crisp out of them and it tasted just like the rhubarb crisp back home. Later they get to be golf-ball sized and the pit gets hard. Most of the foreigners here don't really care for them. Munching on them is a lot like those sour-ball candies we ate as kids, its an acquired taste. Now some of them are finally turning into orange-red plum-like fruits. They taste pretty good but the trees in my garden are covered with ants, which means the fruit is covered in ants.

The next fruit crop to come along back in late May was tut or mulberry, and its season hasn't stopped yet. Mulberry trees(note, they come on trees - not bushes as the kids song would have you believe) produce a longish berry, either dark red or pale green/white depending on the variety of tree. When they ripen up the red variety is very sweet but the green/white tends to have a grassy flavor. The problem with mulberries is that they are constantly fruiting and falling off the tree for months. The ground underneath is covered in rotting berries. Folk here tend to harvest the berries by laying tarps on the ground underneath then shaking the tree. Id harvest them to but I can't afford a tarp.
You can eat them straight, make muribə(sugary fruit preserves), or a lot of people here secretly make vodka from them. Mulberry vodka, known as tut araq, samaqol or tufka depending on the region is strong stuff at 60-80% alchohol/volume(120-160proof). The English apparently make wine out of mulberries but haven't heard of anyone doing that here.

About 5 weeks ago cherry season started. Didn't even know I had cheery trees until I noticed a few on the ground here and there! For awhile I thought the neighbor kids were just being careless with their snacks but finally noticed way up in the trees, above all the other trees the cherries hanging up there. One evening I picked two grocery bags full and spent the rest of the night gorging on a few kilos of cherries.....I won't get into how long I spent in the squatty-potty the next day.

A few days later I still hadn't eaten all of them and they were going a bit wonky so I boiled em up, mashed the pulp & juice separate from pits, added alot of sugar, let it cool and added some wine yeast that I had brought from Japan and poured it all into some bottles, using rubber-glove fingers over the tops to act as airlocks. Stupid me, should have done a better job sterilizing the bottles. The two glass wine bottles both grew an unpleasant green/grey mold but the 3/4 full 2ltr plastic Coke bottle fermented nicely. This breaks all my previous experience with fermenting; the unfilled plastic should have spoiled much more readily than the glass but....nothing goes to plan in this country.....

*cultural note* There doesn't seem to be a native Azerbaijani language word for "plan". Instead they use the Russian loan-word "planı". But my Azerbaijani isn't all that great yet so there may be a word out there somewhere I just haven't learned yet.

Anyhow, racked into the big glass "balun" here's what my cherry wine looked like. Thats the Coke bottle it fermented in with the remaining cheery must in the background. I admit my face did scrunch up a bit with the first sip, it was a fairly dry wine lacking in subtlety or sophistication, but it wasn't nearly as harsh or post-Soviet-chemical-hell-scapeish as many of Azerbaijan's manufactured, fortified-wines. Indeed had it been allowed to age more than a month it many have mellowed and become a rather pleasant.

Sonic the Kirpi　－　ハリネズミ掛かった！

2009-07-13T19:24:00.000+05:00

I got a kirpi! Which is AZy for hedgehog. Was playing Civilization 4 the other night when I realized it was 4am and there was a strange kitten outside whinging so I went out to take a look. Walked out the door and saw a small, grey, spiked, soccer ball waddling away from me. Always curious about my hallucinations I ran over and it rolled up into a ball. Really quick like before he could start spinning and collect all the golden rings in the sky I ran back to the shed, grabbed my winter gloves, ran back and grabbed him.
Now, you may have seen(or you should google it and see now) those cute little hedgehogs that folk keep as pets. Well, like almost everything else in this country, kirpis here suck a wee bit. They're slightly bigger, hard spikier, less playful/curious, and smellier than their foreign cousins. But no matter, Ive got one. Haven't decided what to do with it though. Maybe try to keep it as a pet, maybe let him go or give him to someone who needs one for their garden, or maybe eat him.
Thats right! Kirpi is a somewhat rare delicacy here. Mention eating frog legs, sushi, or crab and folk here get all squeamish, disgusted and holier-than-thou but talk about kirpi and the old-timers will smile and talk about how they're mighty tasty stuffed and baked.(Kirpi levengi if ya want to look-up the recipe).

So Ive a small conundrum. Just like the title to Michael Moore's early documentary, are kirpis "for pets or meat"???

Freshly caught kirpi. ハリネズミ掛かった！だいたいハリネズミはかわいいがアゼルバイジャンのはちょっと大きくて臭いだよ。アゼルバイジャン語ハリネズミはKIRPI｛キルピ｝っていういう。アゼルバイジャン人は刺身食べへんけど時々老人ハリネズミ肉食べる！わしこのは食べるかなー？？？

Kirpi and HAL 9000 getting acquainted. HAL９０００っていう子猫とハリネズミはよく友達になるでしょう。

Xinaluq

2009-06-15T17:23:00.000+05:00

The most remote village in all of Azerbaijan, though the new road will get you from Quba to there in about 2hours. The people living here are of a separate ethnic group and continue to use their own language which is quite distinct from all other languages used in the Caucasus. The people here claim that their town has existed for 5,000years. The village is perched above the treeline on a hilltop, nestled in the Greater Caucasus, under the shadow of the tallest mountains in Azerbaijan.

If ever you get the chance I cannot recommend going there enough. A few weeks ago in May I joined a couple AZ5 volunteers for a trip up there. We hired a fellow named Heybet to drive us up in his little 4x4 Russian-made Niva hatchback. Heybet is one of the funniest Azerbaijani men I have had the honor of meeting and though he can't speak any English he can keep any tourist entertained & educated. He was constantly pointing out interesting sites along the road; a bear cave, one of the President's mansions, waterfalls, interesting trees & historical sites, and very, very often, the site where a drunk driver ran of the road, over the cliff, and fell 300m to their deaths. Heybet is a very good driver and apperently one of Azerbaijan's top race car drivers. Given that the fuel for the trip costs 30AZN & he spends his whole day driving & guiding the correct price for a summer trip is about 60AZN for a carload(4tourist + driver) of people. Though if there is any snow or bad conditions you should pay a fair bit more.

When we got to Xinaluq we parked and spent a couple hours wandering around the town. We climbed a hillside overlooking the town and met a sheepherd sleeping while his sheep grazed and then chatted with some of the townsfolk. The buildings in town are made of mountain stone and dung/mud bricks. Some of the richer people in town can afford building materials like tin roofing and some wood. The only buildings that look like typical Azeri archetecture are the newly refurbished school and the military base in a neighboring valley.

As we wiled about the day there we learned we had to head back to Quba early because a townsperson had just died in a neighboring rayon and that they would be bringing the body back for the funeral and many family and friends would following. "100 cars" would be coming up the road Heybet told us and he wanted to get back as quickly as possible before the one-lane road winding up switchbacks through the mountain got jammed. Heybet put his race car driving skills to the test driving as fast as safely possible around the twisties. Great fun, but there where a number of corners where my stomach sank as the tires squeeled and the 300m drop of the cliff was only inches away.

It was only when we got back to Quba that I learned the dead man was the brother of the director of one of the organizations that I work with. Small country, it often seems like everyone is related.

*Cultural Note* In Azerbaijan beards are frowned upon for local men. Having a beard marks you as a Muslim fundamentalist and a probabal Wahabi terrorist, having a trimed goatee marks you as a probabal homosexual(either of these offenses can get you shunned or even harmed....though its better to be a Wahabi). But a thick mustache marks you as a real, macho man. Just the opposite of the US stereotype of the '70s gay porn-stache.
But, when a close family member dies here men traditionally stop shaving for 40 days to mark the mourning period.
Indeed, the Azerbaijani word for to shave = qırxmaq and the word for forty=qırx.

For more information go to www.Xinaliq.com

Random Pics of Me

2009-06-15T14:55:00.000+05:00

Guesting with some local folk in a villiage outside of Tovuz, a town on the boarder with Armenia. I sat with the men folk and ate cheese & bread that had just been freshly baked by the women folk, drank vodka, and listened to one fellow play the Azerbaijani guitar, the tar. Friendly folk but if you go to this area be prepared for the first 30mn of any conversation to be about how evil the inhuman Armenians are.

Qala Alta - This a big wall/castle ontop of a small mountain on the border of Siyazan and Devechi rayons. Joined a group of Azeris, PCVs and PCV family members who came to visit; we all got in a rickety old van with a goat, travelled up to a picnic area atop the mountain, slaughtered and BBQed the goat, and spent the day chatting, eating kebab & drinking vodka. Good times.

Crazy Face - No particular reason. Just the regularly scheduled Friday nite bonfire.

Xinalug - They most remote villiage in all of Azerbaijan. They claim to have been there for 5,000years. A seperate ethnic group with there own language distinct from any other in the Caucases. Above the tree line, nestled in the mountains, economy based on sheepherding and increasing tourism.

Super Adventure Weekend - Our hosts gave us homemade headbands to decorate as we liked. Good time, great(G Rated)party game.

The Garden House = Bağ Evi=庭付きの家

2009-05-20T19:03:00.000+05:00

A month ago I finally moved into my own place. It was a dump. The only furniture in the house was a couple bed frames and a table covered in peeling paint. To make matters worse it was on the edge of town far from my Host Organzation(the place where I 'officially' work). But it was a very private, had a big garden and not many neighbors.

Pretty much everything you see in these pics I found in the garden. The big wood/gas stove, the silverware & dishes, the cabinets, the bricks and boards that make the shelves, all the flat stones on the floor which cover the crumbling, water damaged particle-board floor, all found in the garden. The food, table cloth & gas range are the only housewares Ive bought. The rest of the stuff was brought with me(ie the flag/curtains), PC issued(ie the big brown monsters{sleeping bag} & fire extinguisher), or found in that garden.

This is the only finished room in my house. It has my kitchen in the pic above, turning clockwise we see the door out to the "shed" behind the flag/curtains and here we have the guest bedroom/couch. The "shed" is another, slightly larger room which is unfinished. Its floors & 2 walls are bare stone, two walls are half broken windows and the foil backing to disintegrated insulation board.

Turning clockwise again we find the wardrobe and hanging on the walls are my calender/accounting/events chart. This corner is still kinda empty. They greyness seen on the lower half of the wall is a mix of water damage, mold thats been painted over, and crappy AZy powder paint that washes of when you wipe it down with ammonia to kill the mold.

In this corner is the master bedroom with bookshelves and whatnot.

And finally another clockwise turn brings us full circle back to the kitchen. Thus ending the tour of my room.

Be it ever so humble there is no place like home. It may be a craphole but its my craphole damnit.

Robot Head=ロボット頭

2009-05-20T17:46:00.000+05:00

Let me introduce you to "Robot Head", my new little kitten.　子猫を紹介します！　これ”ロボットヘッド”って言う子猫よ。

He got his name from a bonfire game we played at my place over the weekend. One takes a cardboard box and draws a robot face on it, strategically cutting holes where the mouth, eyes, etc should be. Then you place this "Robot Head" over the fire an everyone chants "Robot head, robot head, robot head" slowly, rhythmically and with ever greater intensity and volume until its completely engulfed in the flames. Beats worshiping a boar's head and breaking Piggy's glasses.　どうしてロボットヘッドって言うのか？。。。説明チョウ難しいだって英語読んで見てね。

Anyhow, they day after that particular bonfire a bunch of us went for a walk around Quba touring the sites. I split off from the group for a bit to visit a local acquaintance who said I could have one of his new kittens. The kitten was finally big enough to take from its mother but it was very unhappy to meet me. How does one make the hour long walk home carrying a kitten who is half wild?

Stick him in a closed cardboard box, with a couple strategically cut airholes and carry it all home in a xanim bag(a cool looking reusable plastic shopping sack). Cardboard box, holes, strangeness, hence "Robot Head".

He's pretty small though. Just got off mothers milk and still has his baby fat. Been feeding him a good diet of yogurt, sausage and table scraps. Problem is he's lonely and whinges alot. And when I pick him up he climbs up my chest and tries to eat my beard.....its been two weeks since my last shower, maybe Im missing some food scraps in there when I bucket bath.... ;) Hoping to get him a little friend this week.　ロボットヘッドはまだスゴイ小さいだ。１月半間前だけ生まれた。母さんと兄弟で恋して泣いてる。　今週、子猫の友達を探して見る。

Here's hoping that in another month he'll be big enough to do something about the rat/mice in my ceiling whose scrabbling wake me up in the nite.　小さいけど多分二三月後,
子猫は天井に住むネズミが食べれる！

Breaking Down Gender Barriers

2009-05-20T16:16:00.000+05:00

After the AIDS Awareness Program Jill accompanied the kids to visit the mass grave site.

Amy, myself, and the ever classy Julia(pictured in the middle) who was visiting from Siyazan decided to go for ice-cream and push the gender barriers a little by visiting one of the nicer çayxana(chai hhana)= tea houses.

Gender roles are fairly well set. Women stay home, cook, clean, don't talk to men outside their family, speak when spoken to, never drink alcohol(when men can see) or smoke cigarettes. To violate any of these rules is to put a big sticker on your chest that says "!PROSTITUTE!".... Perhaps I exaggerate, but not much.

Tea houses here tend to be dingy little places where men go after work to drink tea, smoke, play dominoes or nerd, which is a form of noisy backgammon, and just relax. Some teahouses though are very nice. They may have cake or other small food items or have picnic tables outside in the sun. Here in Guba we have a very nice looking teahouse next to the fountain in the middle of our main park between the main mosque and the Culture House.

We've never seen any women there but this is a tourist town with many of Baku's rich & famous coming every summer and we felt this might be the right time to push the boundry a little bit. To show people that just because your a woman and at a tea house doesn't make you a "bad girl". Afterall, its quite common in Baku and other Muslim countries and over the last couple years the attitude in the regions has been slowly shifting towards being slightly less rigid in these matters.

So here they are. Another crack in the cultural walls boxing women in. Julia & Amy sitting in the park at the teahouse waiting for our tea to come. And the nice thing was nobody really seemed to bat an eye about it. We didnt get anymore stares from the local folk than we get everyday here. The tea came, we drank, relaxed, talked, enjoyed the sun, laughed at the boys who were dunking there heads into the fountain with the green water, it was great!....until that great bane of tea drinking hit - the need to pee. Don't know how they do it but Ive never seen a tea house with a toilet. This place in the middle of the park was no exception.

Final note. One of the little charms you can only find in Quba are these little stones painted like mushrooms. There everywhere in Quba, sprouting in corners, nooks, streetsides and gardens like...well, like mushrooms. Quba is the only city in the country to have this. I'll write more about them later & the "crazy" man responsible.

AIDS Awareness Event

2009-05-20T13:21:00.000+05:00

Over the weekend my sitemates Jill and Amy arranged an AIDS Awareness Day in Quba. They arranged for children from our local equivalent of juvenile hall, some local students and other interested community members to come, listen to a presentation and participate in a Q&A session with a health expert from Baku.
In Azerbaijan presentations & speechs tend to be dull affairs where a speaker gets up, reads a prepared statement in a monotone voice & makes no attempt to engage the audience while the crowd sits and quietly talks amongst themselves. This presentation was no different. It was rather dry and boring for my taste and some of the adults who sat in the back talked amongst themselves. But the kids were surprisingly well behaved, listened and really seemed to learn something. As is usually the case nobody wanted to speak up for the Q&A session but Jill, who understands Azerbaijani fairly well, came with a list of questions she wanted answered for the kids.

Ive spoken to a few men here who frequent prostitutes and they all laugh when I tell them that in America it is standard procedure to wear a condom for preventing deseise and pregnancy. They tell me that its an affront to their manhood and that to prevent deseise all you need to do is urinate right away afterwards....makes me wonder if they think that works for the prostitutes(and their wives) also. I wanted to ask the expert if this was true(obviously I know its not but I wanted the little juvi-kids to know) but sadly my Azerbaijani isn't good enough to ask this diplomatically.

After the presentation & Q&A we all walked down to the park for a candlelight memorial & moment of silence.

Some of the kids.

All in all it was a good day. Oficially there are only 3 cases of AIDS/HIV in Quba but the testing rate is abysmal. And the level of AIDS awareness in this country is unfortunatly low especially considering the high rates of needle use(both for illeagal & leagal drugs), the inavailability of condoms and the frequency with wich I know some married men purchase sexual services. Hopefully the kids all learned something and maybe it'll save a couple lives.

FIVB - International Womens VolleyBall in Quba

2009-05-19T14:09:00.000+05:00

This last weekend Quba hosted a qualifying round for the 2010 FIVB volleyball championship that will be held in Japan. Teams from Azerbaijan, Israel, Ukraine, Belarus and others came to compete.
週末、グバ市にバレーボール大会あった！アゼルバイジャン、イスラエル、ウクライナやベラルーシのチーム来た。
Here to the left you see the Azerbaijani team lined up for the singing of their national anthem. The version played here at the games sounded alot like an awesome old James Bond opening credits theme.
これはアゼルバイジャンのチームだ。

Isreal vs Belarus.
イスラエル　VS　ラルーシ

Former President Heydar's everpresent gaze, watching over his country.

At every event Ive gone to see at the Olympic Center there is always a special section roped off for the soldiers. Its gotta be great R&R for them...plus the always clap & cheer the loudest for Azerbaijan....and boo the loudest for everyone else.

グバ市にある大会いっぱい軍人いつも来る。

I went with some fellow PCVs and we got to sit in the VIP seating because on of the volunteers is family with some big-wigs with the Israeli team.
On my left was the Ukranian Embassy delagation, big guy in the middle is the Ukranian Ambassador to Azerbaijan who seems like a really friendly guy. Despite losing to Isreal he promised to send their team a bottle of vodka in thanks for the vigourous competition.
ボランチアー友達と一緒に見に行った。友達のイスラエル人の家族も来たからわしら外国VIP所に腰にかけた。　これはウクライナの大使だ。すごい優しい奴だ。

Here we have some of the Israeli spectators waving something one doesn't often see waved in a Muslim country.

But of course, a PCVs work is never over. Morning, day or night, weekday & weekend, at the office, on the street & in our homes we are always on duty. This became apparent when I & my sitemate started getting urgent texts from contacts in the Ministry of Youth & Sports. It seems the translator fell through and the organizors of this event needed someone to help translate the press-releases from Azerbaijani to "təmiz inglisca"="clean English". Quba Qang PCVs came to the rescue. I, with translating experience and the Y-chromosome necesary to talk to the male officials and be taken seriously, and my sitemate, Amy, with her superior knowledge of the rules and terminology of volleyball. Not to knock our Azerbaijani abilities but its a good thing that reporter/official spoke decent beginner level English because we could read his notes to save our lives. In the end we translated his press releases fairly well and got invitations to meet him again at the central offices in Baku someday.

notherebuthere: The Fire Land: fostering creativity

2009-05-19T13:44:00.000+05:00

notherebuthere: The Fire Land: fostering creativity

This is a blog posting written by friend and colleague, Alexis. She says many of the things I've been wanting to say about creativity, thought and the evil of Soviet culture that I've been intending to write about. Fortunatly she's saved me the work by writing it herself.

Hanging out in my garden.

2009-05-19T13:25:00.000+05:00

Had some visitors last weekend to watch the Womens International VolleyBall qualifying championship here in Quba. The stadium is just a couple blocks from my place so it was a good place for everyone to meet and get ready.

Here's a pic of myself, the Siyazan volunteers, one of my sitemates and one of the the girls who works at the hair salon whose back door opens into my garden.

Super Adventure Weekend

2009-05-15T13:53:00.000+05:00

Recently, a pair of the volunteers in Siyazan(about 1hour south of Quba, 1hour north of Baku) arranged what they named, Super Adventure Weekend, for area PCVs. Over the weekend about 10 of us got together for a weekend of good food, ex-pat(PCV) conversation/unwinding, sports and hiking up the local holy mountain.
This mountain is called Beş Barmaq (Besh Barmag) or "Five Fingers". (top pic borrowed from Flicker, thanks & rights go to Leigh Newton)
最近、ボランチアー友達たちと一緒に｛べス　バルマグ｝山＝五つ指山に登って行った。

Its considered a holy place and has a hut at the top for praying & chanting. It takes about 2.5 hours to climb the 3km slop up from the rest-stop by the new highway, up the slope, and then up the 700 or so stairs that take you up and around the rock face ascending to the holy-hut at the top of one of the fingers.アゼルバイジャンのいイスラムの人にとしてこ山は巡礼地だ。

If you ask me it doesnt look anything like five fingers but it was a nice climb. From the arid flats covered with scrub, salt, sheep and ground-seep oil at the bottom; to the lower reaches where a new aqueduct is being built and the steep hills become green pasture land for cattle and horses and looks just like the hills over the "Fire Swamp" in The Princess Bride; and finally the uncountable steps(because one gets tired & no-one can agree whether this rock or that ladder should be considered a step) which wind up the crags and through the rocks and past begging xanims finally to one of the peaks where you can get a veiw of all the surrounding countryside and the sea.　でも五つ指に見ないと思う、でしょう？

Here you can see the holy-hut at the top.
山の上に小さい’神宮’がある。

The beginning of the interminable stairclimb.　Everyone had sore legs the next day. この階段がすごい長い。６００脚立より登りちゃった！次の日、足は大変苦しいだったよ。

Micah, another First-Finger PCV, enjoying a fit-of-peak on a crumbling wall overlooking the Caspian Sea.　古い城の壁の上｛やった！｝って

Finally, the holy-hut at the top. Most folk never see it from this angle as it required I do some extra rock climbing/scrambling/falling to get around to the north side. When we arrived at the top there were a number of worshipers and a fellow chanting inside.　山神宮に到着した。

25% Overseas Ballots are Lost - 海外からの不在者投票

2009-05-15T13:03:00.000+05:00

Having been an overseas voter for about the last 7 years İ can attest to the accuracy of the following article.

May 13, 2009

Report: One-fourth of overseas votes go uncounted

Jim Abrams

One out of every four military personnel and other Americans living abroad may have been thwarted in their efforts to vote in the 2008 election because of communications and bureaucratic problems, according to a congressional report released Wednesday.

"Registration deadlines, notary requirements, lack of communication, mail delays, poor address information and state laws that put in place untenable mailing dates are all severe problems," Sen. Charles Schumer, chairman of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, said at a hearing.

Schumer, D-N.Y., said the study prepared by the committee and the Congressional Research Service, while providing only a snapshot of voting patterns, "is enough to show that the balloting process for service members is clearly in need of an overhaul." He plans to work with Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., in crafting legislation dealing with the issue.

The study surveyed election offices in seven states with high numbers of military personnel: California, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington and West Virginia.

It said that of 441,000 absentee ballots requested by eligible voters living abroad — mainly active-duty and reserve troops — more than 98,000 were "lost" ballots that were mailed out but never received by election officials. Taking into account 13,500 ballots that were rejected for such reasons as a missing signature or failure to notarize, one-quarter of those requesting a ballot were disenfranchised.

The study found that an additional 11,000 ballots were returned as undeliverable.

Gail McGinn, the Defense Department's acting undersecretary for personnel and readiness, told the committee that the Pentagon "has taken extraordinary steps to ensure that members of the uniformed services, their family members and overseas citizens have an opportunity to vote."

She said the department will issue a report to Congress in December on the results of the 2008 election and said other surveys, while providing useful information, should be viewed with caution if their results are based on non-random populations.

Schumer later provided data from his home state of New York concluding that two out of every five military absentee ballots go uncounted. It takes as much as 82 days for New York State troops stationed overseas to go through the absentee voting process, he said.

Schumer's office said that because a person living abroad must request the absentee ballot and show a clear intention to vote, voter negligence is not thought to be a major factor.

Rather, Schumer said in a statement, there is a chronic problem of military voters being sent a ballot without sufficient time to complete it and send it back.

Among the states surveyed, California had 30,000 "lost" votes out of 103,000 ballots mailed out. An additional 3,000 ballots were returned as undeliverable and 4,000 were rejected.

The hearing took up possible problems in the Pentagon's Federal Voting Assistance Program, which handles the election process for military personnel and other overseas voters.

___

On the Net:

Senate Rules and Administration Committee: http://rules.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseActionCommitteeSchedule.Hearing&Hearing_id4bbecb7a-f4b9-487b-a1e6-47065a293ccf

The Associated Press

この記事によると、２５％ぐらいアメリカの海外からの不在者投票が消失している。ぼく住んでいた州に海外からの不在者投票のは簡単けど時々問題があった。　
日本人は海外からの不在者投票できるの？難しいの？どんな問題があるの？

Azzy Engrish part 2

2009-05-15T12:52:00.000+05:00

Massive failure when it came to naming all of these products.

Azzy Engrish

2009-05-15T12:38:00.000+05:00

I give you, the Kafe DABLIN, in downtown Baku. 2for1s during Happy Hour every night on their finest selection of watered-down cocktails & 300%marked-up cheap beers. Plus, in celebration of the 250th Anniversary of Guinness Brewery, don't miss 1/2price tap Guinness Stout for only a days pay on a PCV's allowance.
Open from 11 untill...blackout.

BAKLAVA=PAXLAVA=バクラバ

2009-05-01T17:45:00.000+05:00

Baklava comes in all forms and shapes here in Azerbaijan and, indeed, across the region. Here's a picture of Quba's version sold in a relatively clean shop, alongside the local bus station.
アゼルバイジャンの田舎でいっぱい種類のバクラバがある。　＜－－これはグバ（Quba)のバクラバだ。　美味しいけどすごい甘いやべとつくだ。

CONSTITUTIONAL REFERENDUM

2009-04-01T16:20:00.000+05:00

On March 18th there was a referendum held on a proposed 29 amendments to the Azerbaijani Constitution. There was no violence nor even demonstrations that I could see. All of the proposals were passed with 87-92% of the vote.

Follow this link for a copy of the Constitution and all of the amendments.

SKULLS

2009-03-30T19:43:00.000+05:00

The Guba Mass Grave

Here in Guba we have a mass grave site. Its an ongoing archaeological dig that has a roof built over it and is enclosed in blue tarp about 50m by 20m on the side of a hill near our soccer field.

In order to avoid "controversy" all this post will be is some pictures and a transcription of the English language information sign the have there. (spelling and grammar mistakes and choice of words are part of the transcription, not my own)

GUBA GENOCIDE MASS GRAVE

1.ON 1 April, 2007 a mass grave was opened in Guba while doing ground works.
2.As a result of the primary research carried out by the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan from 8 to 11 April 2007 it has been revealed that the site is a burial place of the local innocent civilians massacred by the Armenians in 1918.
3.To provide a more comlete explanation to the problem the Sciense Board of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan proposed thorough arcaeological investigations in the site.
4.A staff of seven researchers of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan have been investigating the place.
The results of the research carried out in 2007.
The first, main stage involved the archaeological investigation of the mass grave.
The second stage was the investigation of the burial place from a historical point of view and on the basis of archive materials.
The third stage included talking to the local residents,mainly the old people.
The total area of the site is 500 square meters.
were found.
As a result of the archaeological excavations two wells and two channels filled withcorpses were found.
All the victims bear signs of mutilation. Exhumations claimed that the victims were murdered cruelly and inhumanely-with dull instruments.The number of murdered were discovered by counting the skulls.
It has been found out that all the remains of the mass grave belong to the Azerbaijanis and members of other ethnic minorities living compactly in Guba.
Most of the skeletal human remains found in the mass grave are of children and women.
Besides the wells, 200 skulls have been uncovered in the mass grave so far.
-50 of them are of children of different ages
-54 are of women and the rest belong to old people
From a historical point of view and on the basis of archive materials is has been identified that in 1918,at the end of April a special “torture regiment”instructed by Stephan Shaumyan , the commissar of the then Soviet of People Commissars and Korganov , a military commissar was sent to Guba Region.
Under the command of the Armenian general Hmazasp about 40 thousand civilianswere severely punished by the regiment.
As a result of the ordeal only in Guba region 1800 children, about 2000 old men and women were murdered.
Part of them was buried in the place where we have been carrying out our research.
The research is still going on.

Here is the picture of the sign I used to make the transcription above

KIDS

2009-03-30T18:45:00.000+05:00

Cause everyone like pics of cute kids.

This is the cutest kid picture ever taken in the AZ. This little girl came to the neighborhood bonfire to celebrate the Novruz holiday last week.

This is the son of a teacher that had to sit in the back of the room while his mom attended a 4hour seminar on how to improve English classes given for Azerbaijani high-school level English teachers.

Here are some of the rugrats that terrorize my neighborhood.

Housing Problems

2009-03-23T18:56:00.000+04:00

So, after 3 months of PST and 4 months at site living with a host family we are allowed to move out into our own place or negotiate our own host family arrangements. I must find my own place. I've lived on my own for over 10 years and find living with other people extremely grating. Living with a roommate is one thing but living in another persons house, not as an equal but as a guest(or worse "as part of the family") is horribly oppressive.

PC Azerbaijan currently provides every Volunteer with 80AZN(about $100USD) per month for housing. I won't go into great detail now about what problems I've had in the search but instead will simply attach the report I wrote to PC about it.

See below-

Quba City, Quba Rayon
Chris Polen, CED

Housing Report

As of April 11th the host family agreement made between PC and the Kerimov family will expire. While the majority of the family is tolerant of my staying for the foreseeable future REDACTED/REDACTED/REDACTED.

I have spoken with my assigned counterpart & host family, all members of my organization, members of various community organizations and with nearly every community member I meet about housing. While everyone has promised to help in this search these community members have also said that the provided 80AZN is laughably insufficient.

I have been to inspect 3 possible housing options. All cost more than the housing allowance, none meet all of PCs housing guidelines.

1.The Mold Dungeon

A local hotel/business merkezi owner showed me around his hotel. In one section of his hotel he was able to offer me a 10ft x 10ft room with no windows attached to a similarly sized kitchen. The kitchen is accessed by a hotel corridor which also accesses 2 other dormitory style hotel rooms which would continue to be available to other lodgers. Also accessible by this shared corridor is a shared toilet and shower room.

The Bad:
-Rent: 80AZN + 15% hotel tax + utilities(it was not explained how/if my utilities could be distinguished from the other hotel rooms)
-The bedroom has no windows or ventilation in a room with a gas peç. When I went to inspect it in January the rooms walls were covered in mold and the smell was intolerable. After 15mn in the hotel I left with congestion due to the mold/smell.
-The kitchen door which accesses the shared corridor is made of flimsy plastic with a simple, small lock.
-The landlord has a bad reputation with my counterpart and struck myself and the other 2 PCVs in Quba as less than admirable.

The Good:
-Living in this setting I would be able to IRB with travelers & entrepreneurs on a daily basis.
-Located only 5mn walk from my host organization and Azerbaijani language tutor.
-Contains a bed, table, 2 chairs, peç, sink, and broken gas burner.
-I could rent the entire floor for 200AZN or less. The other 2 rooms on this floor did not have a mold problem and the entrance door to the corridor is quite secure.

2.The Sick-House Hovel

Last weekend my site-mate and I went for a walk around the 5-story apartment buildings in Quba looking for open apartments. During this walk we met a large group of approximately 15children and gained their assistance in asking all of their neighbors in the surrounding apartment buildings. Though many 10s of residents were asked only one apartment could be found. It was a very run-down one bedroom apartment on the top floor of one of the apartment buildings. The current owner/resident will soon be leaving for an extended stay in the hospital for a very bad cough with bloody expectorant.

The Bad:
-Rent: 150AZN + utilities
-The owners sickness appears to be very severe and of unknown contagiousness.
-The owner hopes to only be away until August before returning. We did not talk about the living arrangement once he returned(nor did we discuss what would happen if he died.....).
-In the bathroom one can see outside the building through the cracks in the wall.
-Unfurnished except for a peç, hotplate and the sickman's bed.

The Good:
-.....maybe he won't die if he receives rent money and can afford a better doctor.....this is not a good place but its better than being homeless.

3.The Free Meat Shack

My appointed counterpart/host-brother hired the local real estate agency recently to help us find a rental property. The agency could only offer one property that was within sight of my stated budget.

The Bad:
-Rent 120AZN + utilities
-Doorways are very low. The mantles are even with my brow.
-On the second floor(a small loft) there is a 7ft long area where one can reach ones arm outside the house between the roof and the wall. This may be a benefit as I could reach out and grab pigeons to get free meat.
-While there is a water pump in the house there are no water lines running to the bathroom or sink. If I lived here I would need to run water hoses and install my own water heater to live at a standard even modestly similar to my counterparts.

The Good:
-In a good neighborhood less than 3mn walk from my host organization.
-Fully furnished with a secure door and bars on the windows.
-The best of what Ive been shown on the budget available.

Local Factors

Rental property is scarce in Quba and what is available for a variety of reasons including:

-President Ilham Aliyev owns a home on the outskirts of town.
-Quba is a day-trip from Baku.
-Quba is surrounded by many resorts & guest houses popular with tourists and Baki's rich & famous for winter skiing, natural beauty and places to escape from the summer heat.
-Much of the new housing is owned by Baku's rich & powerful as second homes, raising land values and prices throughout the area.
-Quba is home to an university and a very reputable but expensive Turkish private school. Locals prefer to rent what rooms are available to Azerbaijani youth than to foreigners.
-Further, the Turks who teach at the private high school are willing and able to pay significant rents.

Finally, the people of Quba simply don't care for unmarried (foreign) men. When originally assigning me to this site my host organization was unable to find any host family that would take in a male. Only when PC staff searched through its records for previous host families in the area was one family finally found. Nearly everyone I have met has been informed of my situation but none have offered to take me in.

Housing History

My work counterpart is also my host brother. This has certain advantages but it is also very trying to be with the same person all of the time. Whats more his fluent English has been a detriment to my learning Azerbaijani and hence full integration into the community.

My current host family hosted a volunteer for his entire service previously. He reportedly spent a good deal of his own money on food, travel and other “perks”, well beyond what PC provides. And, as mentioned above, the lady of the house has expressed her wish that I move out.

The current AZ5 PCV in Quba has had a number of housing issues and problems with host families. She has had to change host families 4 times during her service. Her current shared housing costs 100AZN/month + utilities + food. It has unreliable gas(normal in parts of Quba this year) and no water for more than a month(not normal). This instability has interfered with her efficient service & emotional well-being.

Community Attitudes

-Every community member I have spoken to has said it will be extremely difficult if not impossible to find a host family willing to take in a male.
-Similarly community member have said that a rental for 80AZN is impossible. When told that this is my organization's limit most simply stop thinking about the subject(why worry about the impossible, qizmət).
- Community members all say that 120AZN would be the minimum for something acceptable though not comfortable. But that 150 would be needed to for something almost at the level of my counterparts.
-Many community members have said that a small 2-3 bedroom house with secure compound could be found for 175-300AZN. These community members have suggested that Quba's volunteers simply rent a house together. They've said this type of arrangement is not uncommon for the Azerbaijani migrant workers who go to Russia & Turkey and is widely known to be normal for Russians and Americans.

RECENT EVENTS - PCV Work & Life

2009-03-23T18:54:00.000+04:00

Recent Events

Work -
Work at the Ministry continues. From my point of view the Ministry of Economic Development does little perceivable economic development work. At the local branch level it seems only to write reports for Baku, monitor local prices for foodstuffs & building material, to review contract proposals for area government projects & to offer consultation on credit and a governmental business development fund. Tasks my language level leave me unequipped to assist in.

Further, I've learned that the local branches don't have any budget at all. If desks, computers and the like are needed it must be requisitioned from Baku. There is no company car. The price monito must use his own car to make site visits. Common office supplies like pens and paper must be bought out of pocket, as must expenses for necessary business trips to surrounding cities. They must then request reimbursement from Baku. Generally these requests are ignored. The office only recently received a printer/fax machine. Internet is required to do the work that our office does yet we don't have any connection in the office. Requisitions to Baku for this service have apparently not yet been answered. In order to access the memos/orders sent from Baku to the office, to e-mail reports & to complete research we must use a computer at the computer resource center offered by the anti-corruption organization, Transparency, at the office across the hall from ours.

Pay, though significantly more than mine, is extremely low. PCVs currently receive about 100AZN per month. I hear that government officials start at about 150AZN/month. Common part-time teachers reportedly start at more than 100AZN/month but average at about 200AZN + whatever fees they can charge for tutoring, etc.

I have been working increasingly with an organization called the Quba Marketing Center. It began about 6-7 years ago as the local face for some projects being conducted by the OSCE and USAID. For 4 years it was primarily responsible for conducting trainings, seminars, and consultation for local business as part of USAID's ABAD project. The ABAD project worked in 6-7 sites across Azerbaijan working threw local “marketing centers”. At the end of the project the marketing centers were all to be privatized and left to survive on their own. Only two survived. Quba Marketing Center incorporated as an LLC the other I believe registered as a non-profit and though ostensibly still local, its employees & directors all operate out of Baku. The QMC has been operating as an independent for-profit business for a bit over a year now, maintaining client relations and keeping up with market research but has had trouble explaining to area small & under-developed businesses why they would want to pay for QMCs services.

Back between Chrismas and New Year I helped QMC write a proposal to be hired as the local implementation partner for USAID's Private Sector Competitiveness Enhancement Project(PSCEP). PSCEP is a project that is funded by USAID, subcontracted to a development company called Chemonics, which will implement a program based in 5 geographical areas of Azerbaijan where local business development service organizations will identify areas of greatest growth potential, develop and conduct seminars & trainings on closing gaps in the value chain, creating associations between business, modern methods, technology, finance options, export requirements, etc, and to find local business which is open to bringing in equity investors amongst other things. We found out just recently that, subject to some final negotiations, our proposal has been accepted.

I could easily work on this project full time. But, I'm not interest in limiting myself to just one organization on just one project(no matter how large-scale and important it may be).
Some other irons in the fire include -

Working with other volunteers in the area to improve their skills in teaching English & leading conversation clubs.
Developing relationships with business & organization leaders in the area in preperation for running some focus groups & meetings to see what the locals think their community needs.
Helping the AZ5 YD Volunteer in my town create a practicum(internship/job shadow) program for local youth in a variety of businesses.

This last seems the most important. The concept of an internship is relatively unknown in Azerbaijan. While it used to some extent in Baku it is unknown in the Rayons(the regions outside of the capital). I will write more about this in another post.

PCV Life

PCVs in our “First Finger of Azerbaijan” been having monthly potluck meals. A food theme is selected and we all meet at someones house with whatever we could make for that theme. Currently every one is staying with host-families making this process very difficult. Some places are to small, others are just nervous to have too many foreigners in their homes, others freak out about having mixed groups of males and females. This last I'm still a bit fuzzy about, not sure if their worried about “what will the neighbors say?” or if they're concerned we will be a bunch of sex-maniacs or…..
So far we've had Chrismas, Mexican, Asian, and next week we're doing “whatever side dish you can make that doesn't need warming up because our house only has 1 burner, no oven and no microwave”. It's also Jake's(an AZ6 YD) birthday. Good food, good times, time to unwind and share experiences/advice(“reflection” is the hippy jargon keyword used daily at PST).

AZ6 was apparently the first group in this country to make it all the way threw training and Swearing-In without losing someone to either ETing or ASing(read ass-ing) or early COSing. ET = Early Termination; the Trainee/Volunteer decides to quit for whatever reason. Could be problems here, problems at home, disliking the job/country, could be getting a better offer, etc. Could be any reason. AS= Administrative Seperation; bureaucratic for “fired”. This can happen for gross incompetence(though that very rarely happens), obstinate refusal to adapt to the most important cultural rules(wearing shorts/halter top, smoking and drinking in your community if you're a TEFL) or most likely a rule violation of some sort. As always this last can be a matter of politics and personality. ASing doesn't happen very often, in the vast majority of cases you'll simply be asked to ET and thats almost impossible to fight. Finally, early COS= Close Of Service. COS usually happens at the end of the 27month contract but can happen early if one is diagnosed with health problems that can't be treated effectively in country(or within a month or two back in DC), if the country is evacuated(as happened in Georgia when the Russians invaded last August), or a few other rare reasons.
We were apparently the first group where everyone Swore-In. 61 people is a fairly large number of folk to do that. Well about a month after swearing in and moving to permanent site we lost one. Then in this last month two of my friends have left. It would be inappropriate to write about other folks personal decisions but one left due to family concerns and another because of problems at site and having a better offer back home. And then there was 58. Fortunately I am close enough to Baku that I was able to get to go and see them off both times. Good bye kids, ya'll are going back to a better place.

A few weeks ago I went to the 27th birthday party of a fellow who comes to the Transparency office fairly often. The birthday party was about 8 men sitting around the table with a few courses of food and lots of drinks. The women folk all partied and ate in the kitchen and from time to time the birthday-boy's mother would bring the next course. First was baked chicken pieces that are then placed in beaten egg & scrambled(a boneless version in Japan is called “oyako” = “parent & child”), then stewed mutton fried with greens, and finally “plov”; what we might call pilaf. Basically just rice cooked with some veggies or meat in it then baked so that the rice on the bottom of the pot turns a crunchy brown then flipped out onto a serving dish. And along side it all was the normal green onions & other fresh greens, fruits, pickled cabbage, peppers, tomatoes & cucumbers. All good stuff. The only woman that sat at the table and joined the party was Jill, the AZ5 PCV in Quba. Of the guests, only half of us were drinking. The birthday-boy isn't a drinker but his father offered frequent vodka toasts. Later the birthday-boy gave us a walking tour of his part of the village. Nugedi #1(there is a villiag on the other side of the river called Nugedi #2; the Soviets weren't very imaginative apparently) is a big, spread out, fairly well-to-do, farming village. Between the 2 Nugedi's there are about 18,000 people, the same as Guba City but the houses are all spread out even more so than in the US. Chickens, geese, turkeys, sheep, goats & cows wandering free with only one real paved road and plenty of mud and rock lanes. While there are a number of the usual ramshackle old houses and hovels that one usually finds in villages here, there are also a number of large stone houses, some new some old, some almost mansion sized.

Pictures to be added when I get to a faster 'net connection.

2009-03-05T09:29:00.000+04:00

Here's a quick video tour of the walk from the door to my room at the host family's place.

This is the 14th time I've tried uploading this video. Either connection or electricity at site has cut out every time Ive tried befor. Now Im at the PC Office in the Lounge trying one last time. If it doesn't work you wont get to read this.

Jamboree in the Music Shop

2009-02-27T12:34:00.000+04:00

Host-pa playing the accordion in his music shop.

僕のホスト父の音楽店で。

QOBUSTAN MUD-VOLCANO VİDEO

2009-01-19T13:17:00.000+04:00

This is the first time Ive tried to upload a video here. If it goes well maybe I'll do more.
This video was taken last October during training. All the Trainees were taken on an outting to see the mud-volcanoes.

初めってビデオUPLOADしてる。　出来ればほっかビデオUPLOADするつもり。
このビデオは去年の十月に取った。　皆さんの訓練生と一緒にQobustanの泥火山?へ行ったときに。

FLAT RACHAEL

2009-01-19T10:58:00.000+04:00

This is the story of Flat Rachael.

Flat Rachael is a paper girl who was made at school one day by my cousin's daughter, Rachael. Rachael's class made lots of little flat children who could travel to far away places and send back pictures and stories.

Flat Rachael was very brave and traveled all the way from Wisconsin to Azerbaijan in a big envelope. Azerbaijan is a small country between Russia and Iran.

It has lots of oil and natural gas. It also has lots of sheep and pomegranate trees. Even though it's very small it has mountains, forests, deserts, big lakes and the Caspian sea. In the north the weather is cold like Wisconsin but in the south the weather is hot and humid like Florida. Azerbaijan even has mud-volcanoes! A mud-volcano isn't hot like lava-volcanoes. Mud-volcanoes are places where gas in the ground mixes with the dirt and water and makes mud bubble up from the ground.

Flat Rachael came in the fastest envelope she could but it took more than one month before she arrived in the capital city, Baku. It took so long she had to spend Christmas Day alone in her envelope! But on December 31st, New Year's Eve, she finally arrived at the Peace Corps office where I was able to take her out of the envelope and introduce her to some of the other Peace Corps Volunteers.

On New Years Eve it snowed so hard that the buses stopped running and we couldn't go back to my home. Flat Rachael had to stay with me and the other volunteers in the office! I didn't think it was very comfortable but Flat Rachael said she liked it better than her envelope. We watched lots of movies, played games, and Flat Rachael made lots of new friends.

Finally, after 2 nights at the office we were able to go to my home in the north-east of Azerbaijan. I live in the city of Quba(spelled 'Kuba' on the map). I live in a house with a host family. They are very nice people. My host-family was very happy to meet Flat Rachael. Here's a picture of Flat Rachael eating dinner with them.

After spending so long in her envelope, meeting so many new people at the Peace Corps office, a 4hour bus trip to Quba and then eating a big meal, Flat Rachael was very tired so she took a long nap in my room.

The next day Flat Rachael and I went to work. I work at the Ministry of Economic Development. Azerbaijan is a poor country so we try to help people start new businesses, make better businesses, give trainings and lots of other things. There Flat Rachael met the director of the Ministry, Matlab. Matlab is a very smart man who can speak more than 5 languages! He can speak Azerbaijani, Russian, English, Arabic, Chinese and a little bit of Hebrew and Leski.

Behind Matlab and Flat Rachael you can see a picture of Ilham Aliyev on the wall. He is the president of Azerbaijan. He was elected president for the second time last October. Before him his father was president and some people think his wife will be president next!

In the afternoon we went to an office called Transparency Azerbaijan where some of my friends work. Transparency is an organization that tries to stop corruption and make life better for regular people. They also have free internet for people who want to study and another Peace Corps Volunteer in Quba teaches about America, democracy and English there. Flat Rachel talked to the students in the class and showed them where Wisconsin is on the map. The students were very surprised to learn that Wisconsin and Azerbaijan are almost the same size!

For the next few days Rachael stayed in Quba. She met lots of people, did lots of things with my host family and learned alot about Azerbaijan.

In Azerbaijan people eat lots of bread. Bread is so important that the word for 'bread', 'CHOREK', is also the word for 'food' or 'meal'. My host family bakes their own bread in an old stone oven. They usually make flat, round loaves of brown bread that looks kinda like a pizza crust. It's very good and much healthier than the white bread you get at the supermarket. Here is a picture of Flat Rachael helping to make the bread.

She also helped my host mother to make a traditional food called 'dolma'. Dolma is rice, meat & spices wrapped inside grape leafs or sometimes cabbage. It is our favorite food in Azerbaijan.

One day she taught my host sister English and my host sister taught her Azerbaijani. She learned that 'Hello' is 'Salam' and that 'thank you' and 'good-bye' are the same word, 'sag olun'.

Another day she visited an old graveyard and discovered that in Azerbaijan, when somebody dies, they often engrave a picture of that person on the gravestone.
She also found out that until around 1920 the Azerbaijani language was written in Arabic. But then the Soviet Union took over so everyone had to write Azerbaijani in the Russian alphabet. When the Soviet Union fell apart about 15 years ago everybody changed to Latin letters that look like English. In an old graveyard you can see gravestones written in all those ways! If you look close you can see the old brown stones are written in the Russian alphabet but the new ones on the right are in the modern Latin alphabet.

Next to the cemetery she visited an eternal flame memorial for the people who died here during WWI. It's a sad place but it was nice to get warm next to the fire on a cold day.

When we got home she was cold again so she spent the rest of the day sitting in a chair next to the heater drinking hot tea. Tea is called "chai" in Azerbaijani.

Another day we went to a seminar with some other Peace Corps Volunteers and talked about our jobs and how to teach English. Peace Corps Volunteers have many different jobs. Some of us do business work or community development (like President Obama used to do in Chicago), some do youth development and others teach English in the schools. Flat Rachael talked to one of the Volunteers who teach English and she was very surprised to learn that most kids in Azerbaijan only go to school for half a day. Some children go in the morning and some go in the afternoon! Flat Rachael wanted to go to school here but then she found out that most schools don't have heaters or air conditioning, most don't have clean toilets, and if your a naughty child the teacher can spank you with a stick!

That night we went home and made spaghetti for the host family. The stove in the house doesn't work very good now so we have to cook on the patio on a 'gas-bubble'. A gas-bubble is a burner on top of a steel can of natural gas. Its kinda like camping.

Later she went out to the garden in the backyard and made a snowman. A “gar adam” in Azerbaijani.

People of many different religions live in Azerbaijan and they have freedom of religion here. In Quba there are more than 10,000 Jewish people; more than anywhere else in Azerbaijan. But, about 95% of Azerbaijani's are Muslim. Christianity has three major groups; Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox. Islam also has 3 major groups; Shi'ite, Sunni and Sufi. Most Azerbaijani's are Shi'ite. This year January 7th was the Shi'ite holiday of Ashura. Ashura is a holiday to remember the death of an important man when the religion was just beginning. On Ashura Flat Rachael saw many, many people going to the mosques and she could hear the music and singing all day. It was very interesting. Outside one of the mosques she met a nice boy named Bagr. Bagr taught her many things about Ashura and Quba.

href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8WelFM2Bvbs/SXQvZ5U7dAI/AAAAAAAAAF0/zf4euC-32J4/s1600-h/Rachel+and+Bagr+and+Mosque.JPG">

One of the things she learned is that Azerbaijani people don't like to smile in photographs! See, Bagr wouldn't smile in this picture no matter how many jokes we told him. Even in wedding photos nobody smiles. People here take pictures very seriously.

But when Bagr took a picture of Flat Rachael and I both had big smiles.

Well, thats the end of the story for now. Flat Rachael is going to travel around Azerbaijan for a little bit longer and she'll tell you more stories and pictures of her adventures. If you have any questions for Flat Rachael and me we would be happy to answer :)

Until next time,

Sag olun!

AZERBAIJAN

ASHURA

XMAS & NEW YEARS in the CAUCASES

わしの予定

2009-01-08T16:25:00.000+04:00

８：３０－１０：３０　起こる
だいたい早く起こるけど時々遅くまで勉強するからそんなに早く起こらない。　僕はコンサルタントの用な仕事するから自分の予定を作れる。　朝御飯でXさんの手作りパンとチーズを食べる。　日曜日だ自分の朝御飯を作る、卵とベーコンでもお茶付けでも。　僕はいっぱいお茶持って来て、最近彼女は味噌汁やお茶付け送ってくれた。　スゴイ嬉しい！

９：００－１１：００　仕事へ行く
事務所は９時ぐらい開ける。　社長と後輩が毎日早く行って遅く帰る。　ほっかの二人官僚が家業ないと遅くに来てもいい。　朝に仕事でわしだいたいアゼルバイジャン語勉強する。　社長、ロシア語ペラペラ喋れて、イスラムに信じるので毎日アラビア語熱心勉強しても少し英語と中国語分かれる。　社長と後輩と一緒に英語とアゼルバイジャン語勉強を交換する。　

１３：００－１５：００　昼ごはん
ご飯のために歩きに帰る。　事務所から家まで１５分かかる。　現在、冬から道にいっぱい雪でも氷が張った。　毎日この散歩２回行って来るのでいい運動する。　日本で皆ライスいつも食べるだから食事が’ご飯’って言われるでしょう（＜－－悪い日本語かも、難しい文法）アゼルバイジャンに皆パンいつも食べるだから食事が’パン’って言われる！　アゼルバイジャン語にパンはチョレク（Chorek)だ。（In Japan all meals & food are called 'ご飯＝rice' because Japanese people always eat rice. But in Azerbaijan all meals & food are called 'çorek=bread' because　Azerbaijani people always eat bread.)。それからいつもパン食べる。　Xさんはだいたいスープでもピラフを作る。　時々大好きなキャベツとブドウの葉派ドルマを作る。　ドルマの中に肉とライスと薬味が入て、上にヨーグルトとニンニク取る。　僕、ラー油も取る。

１５：００－１６：００　仕事へ戻る
昼に仕事へ戻る。　仕事仲間と一緒茶飲んで、話して、いろいろ勉強する。　時々グバ市の周りに住んでるPCVｓ（アメリカの青年海外協力隊のボランチアたち）を訪問して仕事について話す。まだアゼルバイジャン言語や文化あまりしらないから仕事少ししか出来ない。　毎日勉強して、現地の人と話して会うはず。　先週去年来たのPCVと孤児院へ行った。　孤児院の社長と会議して孤児たちとUNO遊んでアメリカについて教えた。　昨日、人身売買の上に講義会に出席した。　英語を教えたことがないPCVはあるので来週わし、’英語を教える・絵会話クラブ’ゼミナールを教えるつもり。

１８：００－１９：００　帰る
夜に食べに帰る。　昼ごはんと夕ご飯はだいたい同じ物けど時々魚でも肉もある。　夕ご飯で漬けた野菜（キャベツでもピーマンでもナスでもネギでも）を食べれる。　グバ市がアゼルバイジャンのリンゴの都だからいつもリンゴ食べれる。この国にミカンも人気だ。　夕ご飯でホストファッミリと話してTVを見る。

２０：３０ー２１；３０　自分の部屋
大きいな家に住んでる。　俺の部屋は二階にあってほっかの部屋からちょっと問いにある。　うるさいなったら全然問題ないでよかった。　実はこの部屋は伊勢市に住んでったアパトと一緒大きさぐらいだ。　部屋の中にガス・ストーブとベッドと机と洋服ダンスがある。　TVとラジオもあるけど使わない。　夜に僕は本を読むでも映画見るでも、勉強でも、いろいろする。　ホストファッミリがお酒嫌いので飲みたいと部屋に飲めなければならない。　
　
００：３０－０１：３０　寝る
寝るは寝るだ。　つまらない、話なしでしょう。

遂に日本語書ける、　あけおめ！！！

2009-01-06T17:13:00.000+04:00

皆さま、明けましておめでようございます！　お久しぶりでしょう。
遂にアゼルバイジャンの北山にあるグバ市（Quba)っていう所ホストファッミリと一緒に住んでいる。
このファッミリにお父さんとお母さん、３人弟くんと１人妹ちゃんいる。　
両親たちは優しい人だ。　アゼルバイジャンで結婚した女仕事あまりない、たいてい主婦だけいる。　お母さん一日中料理作って掃除してTV見る。　スゴイつまらなさそうけど幸せそうや作る料理美味しいだ。　それからこのファッミリに皆とても太いだ。　　お父さんは音楽の先生や音楽店持っている。　そして、夜に家でアコーディオン作る。　彼アゼルバイジャン語とロシア語ペラペラ喋られる。すこしドイツ語やとてもすこし英語してる。　　Eっていう弟がいい英語喋られる。　Eと一緒に政府経済開発局(Ministry of Economic Development)で働いている。　彼、経済開発局（MoED）でアルバイトと自分のビジネス持っているから忙しい奴だ。　わし問題なったら、何か分からなかったら、彼と相談できる。　　他の弟、英語全然知らないけどだいたい優しいアゼルバイジャン語話すから少し分かれる。　　妹ちゃん一番太っている。　　悪いけど女性しか立ちなかったら疲れてなちゃう。　それがスゴイ優しくて賢い人だ。　女性少し英語話せ、Mathで頭の回転が速いだ。

今日で時間が少ないけど今週も一回日本語ブログ書くつもり

またね

2008-12-23T12:31:00.000+04:00

These pix took about 30mn to upload. Hope they can be seen.

First is my host-bro/counterpart and I monkeying about.

This is the Pink Lake in Masazir(between Sumgayit and Baku). Its a salt lake that is less than a meter deep at its deepest but stretches a few kilometers across. The only thing that can survive in it is a microbe wich causes the pink hue. Folk collect the salt from the lake by shoveling it into trucks and donkey carts.

Here is a random pic of me taken on Dec 5th, the day of the LPI and Repeal Day in America.

Finally a pic outside the McD's in Baku on our first trip. Charlie and John are rather uncertain if they really do "R heart McDonalds" but the fries were enjoyed by all.

SITE VISIT - Quba without Qastro

2008-12-23T11:57:00.000+04:00

Luckily I live next to the highway that runs straight to Quba and 5mn from my
house is the marshrut stop. From this stop a direct marshrut to Qube runs
whenever it gets full. I left my house at 10:30am and the marshrut left
within 30mn. Perfect timing. Theres alot of construction on that highway now
so it took about 3hrs. When the construction is done it will be a fairly nice
2 lane highway and the trip should take less than 2hrs.
Imagine a minivan running as fast as its 4cyl engine can take it down a 2lane
slab of concrete with no shoulders, passing every car, semi, and dumptruck it can.
Playing chicken with the oncoming traffic wich is doing the same thing.
Both sides swerving back into their own lanes at the last second.
Periodically we passed the wreck of an accident and we saw 2 large lorrys
that had fallen of the side of the slab and tipped over onto their sides
because theres is a 1 foot drop down into a shoulder of loose sand.
The countryside reminds me alot of South Dakota near the Badlands; dry, dusty,
with some rocky cliffs and hills - though not quite mountains. Much like the
area surrounding Beijing though greener. Not many trees but lots of shrubbery.

Within 30mns of Quba the scenery changed alot. The highway was lined with birch
trees and farmers booths. Some selling veggies but most selling the local
specialty, apples. Every variety and color of apple imaginable available.
It looks just like northern Wisconsin if you replace our forests with their
mountains. Good country.

Soon we arrived in the center of Quba. A pretty place, much cleaner than
Tagiyev or Sumgayit, with a comfortable small town feel. I got off the
marshrut called my counterpart and waited for him to arrive. Just as I was
about to find the nearest convenience store a very curious police officer
came over and inquired about my welfare and interests. I thanked him for
his interest and told him all was well, that I would be working with the
government in this town and that my friend would be coming for me soon. My
Azerbaijani still isnt very good...indeed, I would be hard pressed to argue
with a 4 year old...my explanation seemed to concern the officer and he,
most graciously, insisted I come to the station with him to meet his commander.
Much as I would have loved the opportunity to network with the local
constabulary I thought it important to meet my counterpart as planned so I
called my friend the PC Security Director again to help translate. As they
chatted with each other my counterpart and the Direktor of the Ministry of
Economic Development - Quba/Xachmas arrived. They all chatted for a few
minutes and it was decided I really must take a rain-check on the officer's
nice offer.

Turns out the direktor is a cool old guy who had lived/studied in China for
3 months so he speaks a bit of Chinese that he likes to share. He is fluent
in Azerbaijani and Russian and also speaks "Lezki", the language of a local
ethnic group. Not to mention some Arabic and Farsi, some of the local version
of Hebrew because he lives in the Jewish quarter of Quba, and his English
is atleast equal to my Azerbaijani.

I'll be homestaying with a family that had a volunteer stay with them before.
Indeed the previous volunteer stayed with them for his full 2year tour so I
suppose they must be fairly good folk. Theyve a big 2 story house with plenty
big cast-iron gas fireplaces(pech) that keep the place warm. A big screen tv
with sattalite. I can watch FOX News - Turkey wich is a bit strange....still
waiting to see a voiceover version of Bill O'Reilly. Ive only found two
stations with English language news; AlJazeera and "Supreme Master"....
AlJazeera first - forget what youve heard this is a fairly quality news station.
Far less slanted and more hard news than FOX. No "missing pretty white girl" stories
like CNN. Interesting, unlike MSNBC. And everyone has a smarmy British accent like
BBC.
"Supreme Master" is a religious station. Not Christian or Muslim but......Vegan.
Yes, Vegan isnt a religion but Veganism, love of animals and nature,
and absolute reverence of "The Supreme Master ???????" seem to be their only tenents.
The Supreme Master seems to be a Formosan(Sri Lankan?) woman, who grew up with a
mix of Buddhist and Hinduism, moved to Florida sometime around 1990, and has created
a religeon with branches across the world. They seem to be especially big in Germany.
Anyhow, her TV station runs 24hrs a day running plays of her books, or shows about
global warming and the health/eco benifits of Veganism(Did U know that it takes
330gallons of water to make a single meal of beef, 2XXgall for a chicken meal, but
only 98gall to make a vegan meal of rice, tofu and veggies?....then they show
glaciers and ice caps melting....seems a mixed message to me.), and they play the
happy news from around the world. They dont show anything sad or talk about problems,
they just talk about success stories, political prisoners being freed, happy international
agreements. The coolest thing about all of this is that its 90% English but more
importantly they have subtitles for a minimum of 10 languages translating
everything at all times. From top to bottom its usually Mandarin & Cantonese
Chinese, Korean, English, Vietnamese, Azerbaijani/Turkish, German, French,
Portugese, Spanish, Malaysian, Arabic, Farsi, and others from time to time.
Its fascinating to be able to read that many languages all saying the same
bullshit all at once.

Forgive the tangent, moving on. They have a small garden area with one persimon(?)
tree and 2 chickens. Probly some space for a few veggies in the summer.
All in all its quite nice. My only complaint is that they have an outhouse
squatty-potty. Its not the squatty that really bugs me its that from my room
I have to walk down the hall, down the stairs, threw the family room(were folk often
sleep in the winter cause its the warmest room in the house), and go outside
to the potty every single time I wanna pee. When you drink as much tea as I do
this can be a bit exasperating. Especially since there is a toilet and sink that
have been installed in a corner next to my room but the tank hasnt been installed
on the toilet and the water is turned off to the sink because its so cold in that
part of the hallway that the pipes would freeze. Oh, and they havent been walled
off yet so evry time I gotta make a potty run I see that toilet laughing at me with
its gapping toilet seat grin in the corner of the hall.

The family are all good folk. The father, R, is a music teacher and owns his own instrument
shop. He has a workshop in the shed where he spends much of his time repairing used
instruments; accordions mostly. He speaks a few words of English & German, not to mention
being fluent in Russian and Lezgi. The mother, X, is a housewife. She does all the
cooking, cleaning, etc. She is master of all things inside the house. The sister, G,
is a high school student whose favorite subject is math and understands a bit of English.
She hopes to go to the Economics University in Baku. The host brother is also my counterpart.
He is in his latter mid 20s. Works at the Ministry of Economic Development and is partner
in a marketing firm. Works constantly on economic research projects that have him
running around town and the region almost all day. And there is another brother who seems
to be married and I dont seem him very often.

During the site visit I went to my office a few times. Was introduced to all the folk
there. I was also introduced to all the staff of the Transpaerncy-Azerbaijan office
accross the hall from the Ministry. The direktor there is a cousin of my host brother
and they all get along quite well. The AZ5 volunteer in town does a number of
conversation classes at the offices there and theyve invited me to do work there.
Best part is theyve got hi-speed(256kbs) internet with 2 computers free for public
use and which I can hook my laptop up to. Thinkin I might talk to them about
hooking up an old wi-fi box and creating northern Azerbaijan's first hotspot.
It wont help most folk because most dont have laptops with wi-fi but it'll help
both our offices alot. Ive also met the direktor of the marketing firm my
host-bro works with and hope to do some work with them. They also have nice
offices and internet I can use. Was introduced to some people who work at a local
micro-finance institution. Who knows where those connections will take me.
Was also introduced to a few local lawyers, some students, and most importantly
(to my stomach) the owner of the best doner resteraunt in town; best doner in
Azerbaijan according to the notoriously inaccurate Lonely Planet(dont get the LP for
AZ, get the book by Mark Elliot.

-TO BE CONTINUED-

"DETAINED FOR QUESTIONING"

2008-12-23T11:35:00.000+04:00

-I will try to present only the facts, keeping all opinions to myself.-

We arranged for 4 of us to meet on the beach in Sumgayit with the plan to hike
from there, along the beach as much as possible, to my home in Tagiyev where
could have dinner. We met as planned, purchased some items to make a picnic
lunch and set out down the beach.
At one place we found the "Titanic" a ship from the Soviet times that has been
grounded on the beach and has become a rusted-out hulk, half-sunk in the
ocean, apparently popular with fisherman and tourists.
Further down the beach we found some "streams" and impassable swampland so we
walked into the city, found the main road between the two cities and followed it.
Its about 25mn by marshrut....approximately 7km. Roughly halfway there is
the regional power station and a few large factories. One of these factories
is near the beach and has a line a few rusty cooling towers that look like
those in the Simpsons and beyond that a tall tower that has flame shooting out
the top like a methane vent on an oil field or refinery which can be seen for
miles around.
As tourists do(oops, that's opinion isn't it?), we took pictures of all the interesting things we had never seen
before. After one of our number took a picture of the afore mentioned towers
with his large camera we discovered that a police officer was calling out to
us from behind. We spoke with him for a bit and learned that taking pictures
of the factory was forbid en. We thanked him for his concern and for teaching
us of this prohibition and prepared to continue our hike. Another officer came
in a car, then another, then a few plainclothes men. Our language abilities being
insufficient for the situation we called the PC Security Director. The
Security Director spoke with the police over the phone and our cameras were
taken from our possession. There was some confusion about what we were to do.
Another phone call was made and the Security Director said we were to accompany the police officer in his car
to the local station to fill out an incident report, that there was no problem and
it would all be taken care of quickly. The 4 of us piled into the backseat of
an old Russian Lada that was big enough for 2 and we rode down what would have been the rest of our hiking path,
threw my town to the police station on the other side.
At the police station we met a number of police officers who asked a number of
questions. Our language abilities were tested...the officers ability to speak
English was tested. We had had the same polite conversation with a large number
of officers. We had the same conversation with a number of officers all asking
roughly the same questions. One officer after the other, 5-8 officers in all, with
other listening and occasionally throwing in their own question. Every officer had to
ask for himself the same questions and take notes in his own notebook.
After a few more phone calls it was determined that our Security
Director and Staff Director would have to come to the station from Baku to
facilitate the events.
Tea was not available in the police station so we partook of our picnic lunch
and drinks in the offices of the police station. Though tempted we did not
drink the bottle of wine we had purchased to accompany our lunch.
3hours after meeting the first officer and 2.25hrs after arriving at the station
our representatives arrived to facilitate and translate. Incident reports
were finished and after our representatives fully translated its contents and
assured of its acceptability we each signed individual reports, the pictures
were deleted from the large camera and the we were free to go. Though requested
we were not allowed to keep copies of our incident reports.

When I arrived home I explained the events of the day to my host family. Not
knowing much of the vocabulary I had to do allot of miming. There was much
laughing.

One week later I began to receive text messages from various sources; the
national news service had reported in print and on tv that 4 Americans had
been detained for taking pictures of "strategic sites" and suspicious activities.
While the name of the organization with which we are affiliated was not mentioned our
names were published and said on tv(mostly incorrectly).

To clear up some questions folk have asked -
We were NOT arrested.
No handcuffs were involved.
We never even got to see the cells. We sat in offices the entire time.
From the first cop encounter to walking out of the station it all took 5-6hrs.

LINKS & ARTICLE:
US citizens photographed government facility in Azerbaijan arrested

[ 21 Nov 2008 18:35 ]
Baku.
Hafiz Heydarov-APA. US citizens photographed the government facility were arrested in Azerbaijan.

Law-enforcement bodies told APA Corey Stevens, 27, Brandon Rene Houser, 26, Amanda Kay Bruno, 23 and Chris Paul, 28 were detained while taking pictures of Synthesis-Rubber Factory of state-run Azerkimya Company in Sumgayit.
The US citizens were sent to the Ministry of National Security after the preliminary testimony.

Sumgayit City Police Office confirmed the fact and told APA that the US citizens were detained for photographing the Synthesis-Rubber Factory several days ago and sent to the Ministry of National Security.

This is a link to the article:

http://en.apa.az/news.php?id=92415

For the perspective of another of us miscreants go to - Corey's Blog

Yup.

Site Announcement -or- "You live here, is good."

2008-12-23T11:32:00.000+04:00

Before training I tried to do as much research about Azerbaijan as I could...
not much info about the country is out there(in English anyhow). After seeing
how the summer high temps could regularly reach 40+ I knew I wanted to be in
the northern mountains where it was cooler. But thinking on the job was
more difficult. CED here works in 5 major areas; NGOs, MicroFinance, Banks,
Agriculture & Government. Ag & banks didnt interest me. MicroFinance seemed
very interesting particularly as the originator of the concept just got the
Nobel last year. NGOs are a potluck, some have interesting missions & are
effective some don't/aren't. Government is the newest area for CED and has
only had a few volunteers thusfar. Most havent fully finished their service
for a variety of reasons. Though this doesnt necessarily speek to the the
position as the same is true of most areas of Peace Corps. Family
emergencies, health issues, better offers, etc. come up all the time. But
what the government job does lack is a clear definition. Volunteers who
get into this area generally have great independence in finding projects
and work to do. After reading the blog "Ash in Lankeran" I knew this was
what I want to do. The freedom and need to use one's entreprenuerial spirit
was extremly appealing....doesnt hurt that it also fits into my interest to
work in internetional law, business or diplomacy as the next path in life.

So, the same day as giving the presentation and taking the LPI I had a
meeting with the CED director about where I might be placed. Like the
placement process in applying for PC the applicant/trainee doesnt have much
say in the matter. Issues include the needs and job description of the
host organization (the organization which the Volunteer ostensibly works
for/with) and the availability of host families(some families wont take
men/women, no old folk or no youngins, no vegetarians, whatever), the
Volunteers health condition and availability of care, etc.
All these needs take precedence over the desires of the prospective
Volunteer. This being said they say they will try to accomodate ones
desires as much as possible and a number of us have the same or similar
qualifications.
Had the meeting. Told him exactly what I wanted, why I wanted it, and why
I thought I was qualified for the job and to my surprise the answer was
basically "OK".
Two weeks later all the CED and YD trainees(about 30 of us, no one's
been ASed or ETed yet, a PC Azerbaijan record!) all met in Sumgayit and
after a day of seminars, presentations, speeches and other official
tension builders they unfurled a big map and started announcing cities and
calling names. We walked up, got an informational envelope, and stuck
a pin in the map.

From December 11th I'll be going to the northern mountian city of Quba
working with the Quba/Xachmas Regional Branch of the Ministry of Economic
Development. Ya'll can Wiki search it as well as I can tell ya but Quba is
in the north is a medium large city or AZ about the same size and population
as River Falls, the city where I went to Uni.
Nestled at the feet of the Caucuses Mountains just south of the border with
Russia(Dagestan and Chechnya) and east of Georgia, its a temperate
zone like Wisconsin wich is warm in the summer and gets lots of snow in the
winter. It has Azerbaijan's largest(only) major Jewish community, the Region
is home to the town of the Xinalug people who have their own language and who
live in mountainside houses where on persons front garden is the next guys
roof. It has some parks, a nice shopping center, a 2.5-4hr ride from Baku,
skiing and hiking make it fairly popular with tourists.
My job description includes -

Misplaced the papers, get back to ya on this.

Language Proficiency Interveiw (LPI) - The First

2008-12-23T11:30:00.001+04:00

Most of us had the mid-training language test on Fri 24 Oct. but due to
an accident or ilness or something my clusters test was postponed until
the following Monday. The extra time did NOT help. As it was Monday
was also the day I and another trainee had to give a 1hr presentation to
the CED group on "Business Plans". The presentation went well. No probs
there but 10mn after it was finished, just as I was getting interested in
the following presentation I was called in for my LPI.
It is a lot like the level checks I used to do working for the language
school, Nova, back in Japan. Naturally its alot easier to be the testor
than the testee.... The tester was nice enough and tried to put everyone at
ease but it was obvious she was unhappy with the disorganized schedule and
the fact she had to wait on our presentation schedules. We spent 10mn
chatting about languages, teaching methodology & the differences between
English, Azerbaijani, Russian & Japanese. Then the test started.
"What fruit do you like?", "What is your house like?", "What is in your room?"
etc. In the unnatural environment where it doesnt matter what you say
but wether you say alot and show your familiar with all the different
grammatical forms its a bit difficult to think of answers. All of the above
questions have one word to two sentence answers in real-life but for the
test your encouraged to expand ad-nauseum.
I leave it to ya'll to look up what the scores mean but I only got an
Intermediate-Mid. I had been hoping for Intermediate-High. By the end of
training CED & YD trainees are supposed to have Int-Hi. TEFL only need Int-Med.

Blog 2 - Training, cont

2008-12-23T11:26:00.000+04:00

So where did we leave off....ObLaden's desk, I think. This reminds me
I must tell ya'll about the 2 encounters Ive had with the police thusfar.
Spending 5 hours being 'detained for questioning' isnt how I had planned
to spend that afternoon.....
But all that comes later. Now I'm at site! Where I'll be spending the next
2 years living and working, inshallah(god willing). They have
(mostly) reliable, hi-speed (256K) internet here so I should be able to
update a bit more often when I move here from December, inshallah.

First a recap of whats happened so far.
After a week with my host family Ive fallen into a daily schedule
that generally looks like this -

8:30 - Wake-up, get ready, eat breakfast, make sure I did my homework
9:00 - Make the gruelling 4mn walk to school for Azerbaijani language lessons
9-13:00 - Marathon language class. Usually two 20mn breaks. This started
as a class with only the 5 members of our "cluster" but after a few weeks
we merged w/ another cluster then divided back into two classes based on
ability and interests. All in all Im happy with the results of this.
13-14:45 - Go back home for lunch, study,
14:45 - Begin 7mn walk to CED training session but because all the kids
and many of the men stop me for greetings and hand shaking it takes more
than double that.
15:00 CED training session. We have various projects to do, seminars,
guest speakers such as current Volunteers, local experts from universities,
NGOs, various organizations, etc.
17/17:30 - Go home.
17:30-??? - Get home and change out of my 'professional' clothes into a
t-shirt and sweat-pants(shorts seem to be verboten but its been to chilly
wear them anyhow), study, eat dinner with the family, sometimes a neighbor
or extended family comes over to join us for dinner or just chatting
in the evening. If one of the host-fathers brothers comes over he usually
brings a small bottle of vodka over and we(the men) drink it over dinner.
I sit and listen to the chatting trying to understand the occasional word.
Sometimes a question is thrown my way. Mostly we all sit in the living room
around the tv. I study or play games on my computer. A special thanx
goes out to those who gave me all of the ROMs for the old Nintendo games.
Dragon Warrior 4 has been a huge time waster. Without the distraction my
Azerbaijani would be so much better or I would have ETed by now....not sure
which.
I usually go to my room around 21:30-22:30 depending on if I want to watch
a particular Turkish soap-opera with the family. Its called "Melekler Adisi"
(Island of Angels). Its on 6 days a week, new episode every day. I think
its on reruns. Good quality production, very dramatic melo-drama but not
as over the top as some.
Then I generally watch a movie, read a book, or finish whatever homework
I didnt do before.
0-1:00 - Sleepy time

We have language classes 5 days a week. CED session most days. Sundays are
(usually) free.

In Quba

2008-12-14T15:32:00.000+04:00

Ive arrived with almost all my stuff. Big ole box of stuff still being held for me by the h-family in Tagiyev. Ensures I'll be back to visit soon.
My room is pretty big. Almost as big as my last apartment in Japan but Ive gotta walk downstairs, threw the house and outside to use the toilet. Annoying when you drink as much chai as I do. Ive got a big gas furnace in my room that keeps things plenty warm. Ive got a teapot ontop of the heater boiling away all the time to make tea or coffee or cup-ramen whenever I want.
Discovered that my Japanese Wii wich is designed for 100V AC doesnt like it if you plug it into 220V AC for more than 5mn. Fortunatly I unplugged it before the transformer started to smoke too much..... Its all OK but Ill need to find a step-down converter or a Euro transformer before I try to play with that again.
It snowed the day before I arrived and there are still patches of it left in the shade. Snowing again now and by the looks of it we could have a few inches(7-15cm) by morning.
The new host family is good. There where some communication problems with the h-mom at first but now I realize she just sarcastic and always says "No, no" or "Its bad, no good" with a wee smirk when she actually means the opposite. Good food, warm house, no problems. More on all that later.
Start going into the office to work tomarrow. Told theyll be giving me a computer for my desk. Its been sitting on a shelf because the viruses overran it a year or so ago. So getting that baby fired up will be my first task. Also be a test of my Russian as all the software here is in Russian.....should probly learn the Cyrillic alphabet tonite.
Will post more when I can get my laptop hooked up to the network.
Till then "salam".

SWEARING IN

2008-12-11T15:31:00.000+04:00

We all swore in yesterday and Im going to site tomorrow.

Now that Im a volunteer I will be able to update this blog semi-regularly. Until now I had the combined problems of irregular internet access and a Trainee Blog Policy that my conscience would not allow me to submit to. The Volunteer Blog Policy however is reasonable.

Sometime next week there should be a flood of posts including reports about training, local culture, host-family, my new site, and that time I was "arrested"(wasnt really arrested but thats what everyone is calling it).

Until then.

STAGING & TRAINING

2008-10-11T14:33:00.000+05:00

Picture of JFK spotted at a bar behind the hotel where we had Staging.

The following is a quick write up on whats been going on the last couple weeks. I didnt have time to write as it happened so this was all written up spur of the moment when I had a free hour the other day. Also there is considerable disagreement about what the blog policy is. Some staff saying everything must be pre-approved(e.g. censored) or password locked while other staff and volunteers saying to use discretion. Until this is settled and I have more time and better access to the net this is the last of my writings here ----

PS In a couple hours I leave for "site visit", a visit to the site(home/working community) of a PC Volunteer who has been here for a bit over a year. Im going to the opposite side of the country to a place thats usually spelled 'Ganja'.

cut & paste from before, excuse the bad spelling, grammer, sloppiness, etc

TRAVELING - Chinga tu madre Gino-san

Not wanting to get the 6:20 flight out of MSP to Philadelphia for the training that started at 14:00 I sweet talked the PC travel agency into flying me in a day early and putting me up in a room at our training hotel.

Turned out it wasn’t so difficult to sweet talk her as it was the cheaper option anyhow. The evening before flying out was occupied with eating the first American-style, greasy, cheesy pizza I had had in some years. Damn good stuff. Then a marathon packing session. Space wasn’t a problem, I had room

to spare. Unfortunately I was going about 30lbs over the weight limit in one bag and only 10lbs under in the other. I had to drop a few hundred

DVDs, my spare laptop, and a bunch of clothes. Finally got both bags within 1lbs of the 100lbs total limit plus my carry-on(which was stuffed) and a

"personal item" containing my new laptop and a couple of hard drives.

Despite all the DVDs I had to drop I’ve still got a few hundred movies/tv shows on DVDs and on the hard drives; including a load of Japanese movies(gotta keep in practice), almost all of the MST3K flicks(ye who inherited what I left behind best be taking good care of them), zombie and other cheezy-horror movies to be hell, and other assorted movies I either really like or haven’t watched yet. Clothes wise I’m still horribly over packed but I hate clothes shopping (I cant be trusted to buy good clothes) so I hope what I brought will cover me for the interim.

For host-family presents I’ve brought American flag sandal/baseball cap sets, allot of candy for the kiddies(and for me to, black jelly beans and tootsie rolls tend to be rare outside N. America), and a few led keychain flashlights for those midnite runs to the outhouse.

There was an accident on the interstate backing traffic up for almost an hour but we made it to the airport with just the right amount of time to get through

check-in, security and everything. They said my backpack that I’ve used on about 20 flights was oversized but nobody said anything about being over weight.

Got through without any trouble though.

Arrived in Philly, got my bags and went out to wait for the airport bus to the Sheraton. Should have called the hotel ahead of time rather than assuming

that Sheraton would have a bus. The Sheraton bus that did come told me that I needed the other Sheraton bus. The other Sheraton bus that came told me I had to

wait for the Lady Liberty bus. No worries, I thought. I had just discovered my mp3 player had a poker game on it and was learning the ropes of Texas Hold'em.

After an hour of waiting a self described "greyhair"(experienced) driver noticed me and set me straight. Turns out you have to request this particular bus at

the desk in the baggage claim area....5minutes later I was on the road to my hotel. Seems the bus driver had been warned about the flood of PC people coming

because as soon as he saw my bags he asked in a thick Philly accent "Hey, youse shippin out wis de Peace Coa?".

Checked in, got directions to the Liberty Bill and started walking. Philly is a pretty nice city. Fairly clean, people are nice enough, the weather was good

that day. There are lots of lunch trucks selling everything from cheese steaks and burgers, to kielbasa and wieners, to soul food, fried chicken dinners and

jerk chicken(never got around to trying the jerk chicken sadly). Another observation is that they’re big on murals in Philly. Murals everywhere. Murals of

the founding fathers, of brotherly love, of coffee house founders, of all sorts of stuff. I was also very surprised by the number of Japanese restaurants.

During my walk I saw a cop and decided to ask her for directions to the Liberty Bell. Her response, "What’s the address?". Not a question I was expecting and my response was "The Liberty Bell, you know, the bell with the crack in it. Somewhere around Liberty Square I guess.". "Yeah I know the one.

Liberty Square is over that way I think." she said pointing off in the direction I had been going anyhow.

Well, I saw the Liberty Bell from outside the building as it was after 6pm by then. French tourists all over the place. You can only see the back

of the bell from outside so I didn’t get to see the crack. Oh well, its not the Taj Mahal or the Statue of Liberty where its actually more impressive in person.

It really is just a big bell.

From there headed out to #2 on every Philly tourist's list; Pat and Gino's cheese steak sandwich shops. Gino's is all neon lights, chrome, "Support the Troops"

signs, "Freedom Fries", and a sign demanding all customers to speak in English only. Ironically the slang they use for ordering sandwiches there doesn’t really sound like

English to me. Further irony in that this place is in the middle of a Hispanic neighborhood between some Mexican restaurants, just a couple blocks from the

Italian neighborhood and kitty-corner from a German area. So I had a sammich there. Cheese whiz with onions. Then threw a bunch of hot peppers on top of that.

Just across the corner is Pat's. Which looks older, more homey, and definitely more inviting. Ordered the same thing there but with the addition of mushrooms

and some hot sauce to go with the hot peppers and a side of fries that come in a cup and are drowned in melted Cheese-Whiz. I had more Cheeze-Whiz in those 30mn then I’ve had in the whole of my life before then.

All in all I gotta say those places are both horribly over-rated. I've made far better at home. The meat was bland, Cheese-Whiz isn’t cheese, and the peppers

really weren't hot. But, after gorging, as I was slowly rolling myself back to the hotel, I discovered the mix was all a bit much even for my iron guts. I found a yuppie

bar where people sit in tables that are built inside '50s style convertible cars to eat organic food and over-priced drinks. They have very nice toilets there.

Well.....they HAD a very nice toilet there.

PHILLY STAGEING - Meet the Hippies

When I got back to the hotel room I discovered that PC is a bit cheap(no big surprise) and that they had bunked me with another PC guy. Despite snoring like a

chainsaw he's a good guy and as times gone on we've come to be friends. Glad I packed the earplugs. The next day at noon registration began. Handing in all

paperwork we'd done before, signing more forms, putting on a name tag, meeting in a big conference hall, and then the next hour or so was occupied with a

getting-to-know-you activity where there were 60 statements like "Find someone who considers themselves handy with mechanical things" or "Find someone who is

a vegetarian and plans to stay that way", then get signatures. Turns out there are 61 of us shipping out for AZ6. That is to say the 6th group of PC folk

to go to Azerbaijan. About half of us are TEFL(English teachers) 25% CED(Community Economic Development, business folk) and the final 25% are YD(Youth Development).

Welcome to the world of acronyms. I will us them often and without apology in this blog. I'll try to define them only once so ya'll will have to read everything to keep up. Of the folk I'd say between 33-50% are straight out of university or not far out. A fair percentage of us are in the mid-range of 28-45. About 8-10 are over 45, including two married couples and one lady who did the PC years ago in S. America and is about 76 now. She's a tough old bird and

one of the nicest folk you’ve ever met and I don't foresee her having any troubles. Oh, and 4 married couples total. One of the married guys spent a year

studying in Japan so we chat in Japanese sometimes. Finally, the group is kindof blindingly white. With only 3-4 exceptions its all a big loaf of Wonder Bread. But only one other red-head in the group.

The rest of the afternoon and the following day where filled with seminars, speechifying, group activities, Q&A sessions, etc in the conference hall. Water, juice, coffee and, most popularly, cookies were provided. In the evenings folk went around to the restaurants and bars in the area. Lots of socializing and lots of last-whatever’s-for-two-years going on. Good times. Everybody seems to have made a point of trying to meet and socialize with everybody. No noticeable cliques

formed.

Monday at noon we packed all our bags and all crowded into two buses and began the 2hr trip to JFK airport. We went across part of New Jersey, through Brooklyn

and Queens. Saw a guy sitting in a lawn chair on the side of the road with his pants open and some folk saw his nuts were hanging out. Saw not one but two

shops that claimed to sell boars head. After unpacking the buses they gathered us all in a corner, handed out our fancy new government passports, e-tickets

and set us loose to make our way through security. We got more books and paperwork at staging so I made sure I was first just incase they started

cracking down on overweight bags. After that we all settled in for a 6hr wait for the plane to take off. There had been a meeting at the UN about the financial crisis that afternoon so there were allot of big guys with wires in their ears wandering around.

FLIGHTS - What would Goethe do? Get water from the Babywinkleraum.

Lufthansa is a good airline. Free German beer and wine, decent food, and a choice of brandy or cognac before sleepy time. We had a few hour layover at the Frankfurt airport. A few of us went for coffee and beer at the Goethe Cafe. We drank some nice heffe-weiss while a huge statue of Goeth stared down at us balefully.

In a state of jet-lag, sleep deprivation, and mild caffeine-beer buzz this somehow seemed an appropriate beginning to our AZ adventure. After Goethe

we went in search of a water-fountain. Wandered the whole wing of the airport before finding some drinkvater next to the babywinkleraum. Babywinkleraum

is a word that seemed hilarious at the time....maybe not so much now.

ARRIVAL - They came in the night.

Finally arrived in AZ at 21:30. The airport was far nicer than the one in Delhi. The visa check line went quickly. The baggage belt was very squeaky.

Funny in a country that has so much oil. They just waved us straight threw customs, no problems there. As we walked out into the arrivals terminal our PC

welcome committee of current volunteers cheered and clapped. In the waiting area there was a restaurant with No Smoking signs posted all over and ash-trays full

of cigarette butts and sunflower seed shells below them. We were herded onto buses, given bag lunches, and began the 30mn trip to a resort hotel called

Aqua Park on the shore of the Caspian Sea where we would have another few days of training seminars, medical checks and immunizations.

In years past PCTs(PC Trainees - you don’t become a volunteer until after 3months of training and swearing-in) had this training at the Olympic Training Center

in the south. But this is the first year we have come in September and arrived at late at nite so they wanted somewhere close. The Aqua Park was very nice.

Hot water, shower, western toilets, clean towels most days, a pool with not one, not two, but 3 water slides! European pool tables(10ft+ with tiny pockets),

foosball, ping-pong, beach access, and wi-fi internet that worked during the day when we were too busy to use it or in the very wee hours.

AZ STAGEING - Kill the buggers.

CASPIAN SEA - ?METHANE? FACTORY IN THE DISTANCE

Staging at the Aqua Park consisted of sitting around a hugely long conference table and listening to presentations & taking part in seminars. Some where good, some were useful, some were painful. It started at noon on the first day. They sure like keeping us busy. From the second day we split into groups and

had language training in the mornings. It’s an interesting language. Very similar to Turkish. The word order is backwards from English just like Japanese.

For example, in English "I eat an apple." But in Azerbaijani "I apple eat(ing)." = "M?n alma yemir?m" The verb always comes at the end and there is no

difference(at the elementary level) between the present & present-progressive tenses. Anyhow as the days went by and folk weren’t careful about throwing away

their coffee cups and covering the sugar, creamer and cookies, flies began to gather.

I killed more than my share but it provided only momentary relief.

The best part of the Aqua Park was the food. Every meal was provided and served buffet style. Bread, fresh cucumbers and tomatoes, cilantro, basil, dill and

leaf parsley, cheese, sour cream, tea, juices, tea, fresh fruits including the delicious Corinthian cherry(which Id never had before) at every meal. At breakfast there was usually boiled eggs, wieners, little omelet-like things, a few types of porridge, an egg-spinach dish that I tried making in the US before coming, corn flakes, and a few other dishes. Lunch and dinner included kebab, stuffed tomatoes peppers and eggplants, fried potatoes, chicken grilled with spices and veggies, sometimes rice with white raisins cooked in it, and all sorts of other stuff. I don’t think I had anything that I didn’t like the whole time there.....except for the time I took what I thought was a big slice of cheese and when I put it in my mouth it turned out to be salty butter. There was a kind of cheese that looks like feta only a bit drier and smells like Uncle Jim's barnyard; that took some getting used to but it can be good in small amounts mixed with other things.

It was a good time to get to know all the other PCTs, to meet the PC staff, and to meet the host-country national staff who will be training us in the language,

culture, provided medical and security services, and coordinating the programs we will work on as Volunteers. Good folk, all of them.

HOST FAMILIES - Yaxshi

MY HOST FAMILY - FERIDE RAMIZ & MULEHAT

Finally we got on buses depending on what neighborhood we would stay in. Were given our medical kits(inc Tamiflu incase of Bird Flu), water filter, and AZ-Eng

Eng-AZ dictionaries and set out for the host families whom we will be staying with until the end of Training in December. We are staying in and around Sumgait.

A place that could have been a beautiful resort town on the Caspian but instead the Soviets built refineries and chemical factories here. It was one of the most polluted place on Earth for 20+years, with cancer and child mortality at astronomical rates but Independence brought the collapse of those industries. Its gotten much cleaner since then. Many crumbling factories and pipelines remain but the streets are cleaner than those I saw in India and rural China and

the water is clean enough to drink without filtration. Indeed it tastes better than city water in Philly or anything I ever drank in California.

There are some PCTs and PCVs who drink it without boiling but I’ve had my bout of dysentery after Vietnam and Im not interested in trying that again. In the

suburbs most of the roads are unpaved and lack drainage so. It had been raining that morning so as we were being dropped off we had to deal with mud roads and

puddles like small ponds. Most of the housing around here is brown concrete Soviet built apartment complexes and family compounds surrounded by

walls built from brown concrete, limestone, and rusted scrap metal. The outsides seemed depressing at first but years of Soviet oppression taught people

to let the outside look drab and uninviting while the insides are generally very nice and inviting. MY BED

Our bus driver couldn’t find my place so they called my host family and the host mom, Mulehat, walked over to guide us. She was very shy at first and wouldn’t talk but she came with a boy who spoke a little English it wasn’t until later in the evening that I realized he was a cousin, not part of my host family.

I was shown to the house which is quite nice. The usual brown walls around the blot and plate iron gate but inside it a nice flower garden with some trees and roses, a chicken coop, brick patio area. The house is old but nicer than the farm-house I

DESK IN MY ROOM

rented during university. It has hot water, indoor shower/tub(though the shower head is broke so we take bucket showers) and a western toilet. The toilet is a bit awkward from my American/Japanese perspective. TP cant be flushed. It has to be thrown away in a can next to the toilet. I’ve learned to use allot less paper this way :) And no, it doesn’t smell near as much as you might think.

Mulehat made me chai(brown tea) and once she could start doing the motherly stuff she became much less shy. I was shown my room which is bigger than I ever had

in Japan. I have a bed, a desk, a chair, a fan, the families supply of extra pillows and blankets, and a five gallon glass container full of what I thought was water but have since found out is the family's home-made mulberry vodka. What I wouldn’t give for a long straw! Let me tell you that stuff burns all the way down ;)

Later in the evening Ramiz, my host father, came home. He's a fat, bald, jolly old man with a set of gold teeth. He reminds me of Uncle Willard. When he

arrived we sat down for dinner and Mulehat brought us out food and tea. She's just like great-grandma that way and reminds me of the old days and family dinners at her house. She brings out the food for the men folk, cooking constantly, wont sit down and eat until the men are finished or they demand she sit down and join them. We had baked chicken that had been stewed in some broth then scrambled egg mixed in. The have something very similar in Japan called Oyako. It was damn good. Lots of grease to be sopped up with fresh bread and a cucumber, tomato, basil, onion, pepper salad made out of stuff from their garden. During dinner he broke out a bottle of AZ vodka and we toasted each other with a few shots.

After took me to his garden which was just down the road. Again behind the walls with

CENTER OF MY ROOM - THE AZERI FAMILY CHINA HUTCH

a plate iron gate that’s padlocked shut. The garden is huge with all

the veggies I mentioned and eggplant, squash, apple trees, quince, pomegranate, pears and lots of other stuff. Along with the chickens they also raise geese

that are let loose to wander around the neighborhood during the day.

Ramiz is a private taxi driver/chauffer. His car is a brand new Opal which is far nicer than anything I’ve ever owned. He was very proud to tell me it cost $13,000

USD, more than his house! He spends a few hours every day cleaning and maintaining it. But he never works past 17:00 because he wants to be with his family

and work in his garden.

As the day progressed there had been lots of folk in and out of the house. Some where family, some neighbors. Only the boy spoke any English and before dinner

he disappeared. It wasn’t until late in the evening that the only folk in my host family were Ramiz, Mulehat, and their 12yo daughter Feride. The most important word I learned that first day was "Yaxshi" which means "good".

DAILY LIFE - It happens every day

We work 6 days a week. We meet in groups of 5-6 at a nearby school for 4 hours of language training every morning. A couple hours of to walk home for lunch then the long walk to another school where all of the CED PCTs meet for another 2-4 hours of job training in the afternoon. There is a lady in her 60s in my

language group who has to walk 30mn to school every morning! By the time training is done she should be slim and in the best shape of her life.

Some folk are able to take a marshrutka(public transportation minibus) to one or the other schools or home again. Its a standard fare of .20Manat

TYPICAL MEAL AT HOME - BREAD, SALAD, & MUTTON DUMPLINGS(gyoza) COVERED IN GARLIC-CHEESE-YOGURT SAUCE & CARMELIZED ONIONS

(1Manat=$.80USD so about 25cents) regardless of how far you go. I get home in the evening. Study for a bit. Mulehat makes me chai. Ramiz gets home and

we eat. Then we sit in the family room and watch Turkish dramas while the daughter and I sit on the couch and go over flash cards on my computer. I usually

go to bed at 10, watch a movie or read a book on my computer and sleep at around 24:00. Get up at 7:30 or 8, eat breakfast, and start classes again at 9.

We generally get Sundays off, but not always.

RAMADAN - Called Ramazan in AZ

My family isn’t very religious it seems. Ramiz got in the car and went to visit his parents out in the Rayons(the Regions, the countryside, inaka). I stayed

home with Mulehat and Ferdide. Lots of neighbors and extended family stopped in for visits as is common here. Beauty and the Beast was on tv. Dubbed into

Azerbaijani. It was strange to hear a man talk the song "Be Our Guest"...he was ephusive but he just talked it, no singing. The only special food was

Xalva, a paste made from flour, butter, and ground walnuts. Very good stuff. When Ramiz came home his brother??? came over and we had dinner and a few shots

SOVIET APT'S IN MY TOWN

of vodka. The only religiosity I’ve noticed in this family is that Mulehat doesn’t eat pork. Other than that it just isnt an issue. Other PCTs

families run the gamut of very religious to similarly not. I haven’t heard of anyone being with a Christian or Jewish family. Could be wrong but I don’t

think there are any Buddhists here.

THE CHESS ACADEMY IN SUMGAIT.

SHOPPING - I found Usama ben Laden!

The second day with our host families we gathered with our language teachers (LCF = Language & Cultural Facilitator) and took the marshrutka to the center of

Sumgayit to go shopping for cell phones and power stabilizers. PC gives us a 70AZN(AZN is the symbol for the national currency, the Manat) for the purchase of

a cell phone here. Sadly they couldn’t unlock the phone a brought from Japan to use here. The prepaid phone I brought from the States could be unlocked

but its really a crappy phone. Given the possibility I may be in an area with no/unreliable internet access later in my service and the difficulty of getting

it even here, I decided to spring for the cheapest phone that had a camera and could access the net. So one way or the other I can read my email.

Most of us also got power stabilizers. If one watches the lights here you can see them get brighter or dimmer from time to time. This is more than just the

wee surges you might get back in the States(and much less so in Japan). This is the voltage (possibly amperage or cycles...its been a long time since I studied

this stuff) actually increasing or decreasing. PC staff says the whole thing is a myth and that they haven’t had any trouble with their computers ever getting fried thus PC wont pay for it. Besides, they say, computers and other electronics aren’t NECESSARY for our service.....just highly recommended.

I watch the lights go dimm then extra bright and quietly disagree that the danger is a myth. No, your battery or transformer PROBABLY won’t fry, but its life is being decreased at greater rate. Also this staff lives in the big cities not in the Rayons(Regions) were we will be living. What I know for a fact is that my host family doesnt have lots of disposable income but they have 2 stabilizers. One for the TV and VCR and another on for the frige and electric oven. I figure it was worth the 25AZN to protect my sensitive electronic equipment.

Rant over.

FAMOUS GRAFFITI IN SUMGAYIT

While shopping we stopped at a supermarket. Most food is bought from bazaars and neighborhood minimarkets but in the big city they have a little supermarket

like you might find in the States where everything is wrapped in plastic and atleast gives the comfort of an illusion of modern hygiene. I hung out with some other folk outside the market holding other peoples bags and stabilizers when we noticed a desk sitting on the sidewalk off to the side. Near as I can tell it belonged to a shoe shiner who was off taking a break. On the desk was written "USAMA BEN LADEN" in giant letters. So I guess we know where he ran off to and what he's doing now.

In conclusion; all is well, I'm happy with my host family and town, Azerbaijan is a pretty good place, most everyone Ive met has been friendly and interesting, thus far so illness nor injury, and the Earth still spins in the proper direction. My only complaint is lack of election and economic news.

住所

2008-09-17T02:17:00.000+05:00

１月までホストファミリーと一緒に住むつもりだから何か郵便で送ったらこの住所に送ってください。

Chris Polen, PCT
AZ 1000
Main PO Box 77
Peace Corps
Baku, Azerbaijan

何か届いたら税金が入ちゃうから高価そうなものを送らないでね。手紙でも写真でも日本料理でも読みやすい漫画を送ったら、すごい嬉しいよ。

Mailing address

2008-09-16T21:53:00.000+05:00

Until December I'll be staying with a host family while job & language training in one of the larger cities(still don't know which). If ya'll ever want to send me something it should be sent to the main offices in Baku at -

Chris Polen, PCT
AZ 1000
Main PO Box 77
Peace Corps
Baku, Azerbaijan

HELPFUL HINTS

1. Customs Taxes - Are sometimes assessed on incoming packages so anything sent should be taken out of its package, marked as used on any forms, and the value marked as low. Any customs taxes that are assesed have to be paid by me at the post office before I can get the package.
2. Theft - Rare but it happens. If you send something that can be dismantled or separated, do so. i.e. Separate a pair of shoes into two different boxes and send them on consecutive days.
3. Missing letters/packages - Try to consecutively number anything you send so we can tell if something doesn't arrive.
4. Ideas - It's been suggested by other Volunteers that nicer items be packed in something that an inspector might choose to not open. A tampon box, for example. Or to label a box as containing educational or religious materials and perhaps writing a passage from the Bible or Koran on the outside of the box.
5. Prices/Restrictions -

Postcard = $.95
Priority Mail International Flat-Rate Envelope = $11.96
Priority Mail International Flat-Rate Box = $38.95
Priority Mail International Large Flat-Rate Box = $49.95

None of the above is really a big worry. The huge majority of Volunteers never have any problem at all. AZ is reportedly very reliable in comparison to some of the African and South American countries but better safe than I not get my box of Girl Scout Cookies, boxers & Lost Season 4 DVD.

Ya'll will learn my new address just as soon as I do.

最初

2008-09-14T01:18:00.000+05:00

これは俺の初めって日本語ブローグだ。　５年間日本の関西に住んでいたのにまだ日本語下手だから練習のために書く。できれば、月一回日本語ブローグを書いてみる。よろしくおねがいします！

８月まで伊勢市のまわりにある学校に英語を教えた。そんの時は楽しかった、いっぱい習って、友達いっぱいなって、美しいな彼女になって、生徒はほとんどいい子し仕事もよかったが５年後、状況の変化が必要になちゃった。

だから、契約が終わってきたら帰国した。９月２２日から４０人ぐらいのボランティアと一緒アメリカの青年海外協力隊（Peace Corps =　平和部隊）に入って、アゼルバイジャンへ働きに行くつもり。あそこに地域社会経済発展顧問(Community Economic Development Advisor)って言う仕事する。始めって３ヶ月ホストファミリーと住んでいってアゼルバイジャン語や仕事のことを勉強する。　それから、アゼルバイジャンにある違う町へ引っ越して２年間働く。

１９日からペンシルバニア州へ行って他のボランティアと会って準備する。すぐでしょう（汗）荷物はほとんど準備できたけど何か忘れてちょっと心配してる。

早くできるでも次のブローグ書いてみるよ。　それまでよかったら僕の日本語を直してください。

クリス

Staging

2008-09-13T06:27:00.000+05:00

Staging is where all the volunteers who will go to AZ this year meet for 2-3 days of training in Philadelphia. We are the 6th group of PC volunteers to go there, hence we are known as AZ6. I think there will be between 30-60 volunteers in this group. 45 I think is close but I could be completely wrong.

Staging Schedule:
20 09 2008
13:00 Registration
15-19:00 Welcome/Training
Welcome & Intro
PC Approach to Development
Personal Definitions of Success
Safety & Support
Anxieties & Aspirations
Nuts & Bolts

21 09 2008
8:30 - 12
Coping w/ Unwanted Attention
Managing Risk
Policies in Practice
LUNCH
13:30-18
Change 5 Things
Crossing Cultures
Staging Capstone
Bridge to PreService Training
Logistics of Departure
Evaluation & Closing

22 09 2008
12:00 Bus from Philly to JFK airport
21:35 Flight to Frankfurt

The flight is supposed to be about 8hrs. A couple hour layover before a 4.5hr flight to Baku.

What happens after that I dunno but in years past they all got on buses and went to spend a couple days in the Olympic Training Stadium.

As the only flight that could get me from MSP to Philly in time took off at 6:00 and Friday flights are expensive I get to fly into Philly a day early and stay in the Sheraton(where staging is) for free. Never been to Philly. It'll be nice to see the Liberty Bell, eat a cheese-steak sandwich, and do/see whatever is good in Philly. Any suggestions?

Azerbaijan

2008-09-13T04:45:00.000+05:00

Look here to read the Wikipedia page.

Here is the flag:

Here is a map: (click here for a great copyrighted map)

As you can see, Azerbaijan is just north of Iran, just south of Russia, the Caspian Sea on the east is where all the Beluga Caviar comes from and also borders Georgia where we have seen the recent war with Russia over two provinces. It should be noted here that Azerbaijan is a stable country that hasnt experienced any armed conflict since the early '90s when, soon after the dissolution of the USSR, Azerbaijan(AZ) and Armenia experienced a conflict over the south-western regions. See the Wikipedia pages for more info.

Quick Facts:
Official Name Republic of Azerbaijan

Population 8,239,000

Capital City Baku (1,24 million)

Languages Azeri, Russian, others

Official Currency Manat

Religions Muslim 93%, Athiest/Agnostic, Christian, Jew, Zoroastrian, others

Land Area 89,600 sq km (33,436 sq miles)
Note: this includes the Naxcivan Republic, southwest of Armenia.

- Random Fun Facts -

- AZ is about the same size as Maine.
- Has 9 of the world's 11 climactic zones.
- More ethnic/lingustic Azeris live in Iran than in Azerbaijan.
- Prior to the 1900's produced more than half the worlds oil and still produces allot.
- Due to Soviet neglect and exploitation the penninsula upon which the capital, Baku, can be found is considered by many to be 'the most polluted place on earth'.
- Temperatures can range from 40C to -40C depending on the season.

Statement of Purpose

2008-09-13T04:00:00.000+05:00

To quote the Peace Corps website -

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy established the Peace Corps to promote world peace and friendship.

The Peace Corps' mission has three simple goals:

1. Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.
2. Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.
3. Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.

In pursuit of the third goal I'll be writing this blog to share stories and observations from my time "over there". This is my first time to write a blog so excuse any clumsy mistakes and inevitable spelling mistakes. I will also be writing in 日本語 for all my J-friends and students.

I will try to organize this blog into a few categories.

1. WORK - An area that seems to get skipped over in most Peace Corps blogs I've read. I hope to write a bit about the day-to-day details of what a "Community Economic Development(CED) Advisor does. This may be of no interest to anybody except those who may someday join to do the same work.
2. CULTURE - This could be anything from boring details about what kind of hat one should where on National Founding Day, to the slightly more interesting details of how one uses a 'squatter toilet', to a detailed description of how roasted lamb's eyeball tastes.
3. PERSONAL - If I dont know you skip this part. Its none of your business.
4. OTHER - As noted above, Im a blog virgin so I dont what I'll write about, how much I'll write, how I'll write it, etc.

As writing this is technically part of my job I will try to write at least one post per week and to upload it ASAP. But I dont know what kind of internet (electricity, water, heat....) access I will have.

Its important to note that the semi-diplomatic nature of the job I will have to censor myself regarding some some of the things I write. All opinions expressed here obviously do not reflect those of the US government, the AZ government, the Peace Corps, and due to the afore mentioned censorship may not reflect those of myself nor reality. Others have been kicked out of the Corps for reporting undiplomatic observations and opinions.
You have been warned.

Stay tuned.

First Post.

2008-09-12T22:06:00.000+05:00

Testing, testing, 123, testing.

日本語もできるかなー？　できそうね。

Dont knoü hoü to ürite in Azeri yet but can İ uase the text in Blogger,

Chris Sensei in Azerbaijan - Peace Corps CED

Freedom....

New Azeri Law Enrages Journalists

Mama, where do babys come from?

And yet more doner. Mexican doner.

The doner is not a lie!

The burger is a lie!

Jake - Im a Little Teapot

Pive = Beer = ビール

Halloween

Hernia Surgery in Short 3

Hernia Surgery in Short 2

Hernia Surgery in Short

アプデット ＝ Update

Robot Head Crashes

A New Project

PC-AZ LIFE WITH A HERNIA

Azerbaijani Recipes

Bold Statement

Stuff Made While Bored - 詰らない時に作った物

お久しぶりなー

Volunteer Reporting Tool/Form aka VRT/F

Ramadan

"Bacon - A Universal Pleasure" a Mystery aka Food 3

PC Engineering aka Food 2

Food

Things that make you go "Huh".

Azeri witchhunt over Eurovision votes

Lonely Planet - Dont buy it!

4th of July - ６月４日の独立祭

Fruit Season & Making Wine pt 1 - さくらんぼのワインを醸造

Sonic the Kirpi － ハリネズミ掛かった！

Xinaluq

Random Pics of Me

The Garden House = Bağ Evi=庭付きの家

Robot Head=ロボット頭

Breaking Down Gender Barriers

AIDS Awareness Event

FIVB - International Womens VolleyBall in Quba

notherebuthere: The Fire Land: fostering creativity

Hanging out in my garden.

Super Adventure Weekend

25% Overseas Ballots are Lost - 海外からの不在者投票

Report: One-fourth of overseas votes go uncounted

Azzy Engrish part 2

Azzy Engrish

BAKLAVA=PAXLAVA=バクラバ

CONSTITUTIONAL REFERENDUM

SKULLS

KIDS

Housing Problems

RECENT EVENTS - PCV Work & Life

Jamboree in the Music Shop

QOBUSTAN MUD-VOLCANO VİDEO

FLAT RACHAEL

わしの予定

遂に日本語書ける、 あけおめ！！！

SITE VISIT - Quba without Qastro

"DETAINED FOR QUESTIONING"

Site Announcement -or- "You live here, is good."

Language Proficiency Interveiw (LPI) - The First

Blog 2 - Training, cont

In Quba

SWEARING IN

STAGING & TRAINING

住所

Mailing address

最初

Staging

Azerbaijan

Statement of Purpose

First Post.

アプデット　＝ Update

Sonic the Kirpi　－　ハリネズミ掛かった！

遂に日本語書ける、　あけおめ！！！