SKULLS

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

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

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

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.

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

Host-pa playing the accordion in his music shop.

僕のホスト父の音楽店で。

QOBUSTAN MUD-VOLCANO VİDEO

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

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.

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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

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！！！

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