Volunteer Reporting Tool/Form aka VRT/F

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

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

"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

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

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".

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!

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

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

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！

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。