Tovuz Summer Camp 2013

Pictures tell the story best...

It started with a training of trainers (ToT). We taught 8 university aged/upper high school students the summer camp ropes.

All but one of our counterparts.

Then the real fun began...

 Daily Schedule

A counterpart teaching SMART goal setting.

A group presentation about Georgia (the country).

In Brazil, most families have a lot of children.

In Ireland, the landscape is green.

Body outlines with pictures of what's important inside.

A recycled bird feeder.

What you can do with your own hands to help the environment.

A chance bus ride.

Here's the scene:

I'm traveling back to my village on a crowded mid-size bus after a long day of visiting Hacikend with some of the people I work with in Ganja. Our mountain trip lasted a bit longer than I thought it would, so it's just beginning to get dark as I wait for a bus. I barely squeezed onto a crowded, mid-sized "sprinter" as it's one of the last ones heading out west before they stop for the evening. The passengers were kind enough to make room for me so I could sit on a make-shift wooden plank seat next to one of the two other women on the bus. I quickly realized the driver was being obnoxious. He was cracking loud jokes with the passengers, giving everyone a hard time for how much money they gave him as they got off and huffing and puffing at the other cars on the road. He turned what should have been normal stops for a passenger to get off into smoke breaks, time for manly fraternization. Hamming it up with some of the other people on the bus, I suppose it was his gregariousness that prevented a protest from the passengers anxiously anticipating getting home that evening.

Action:

After about forty five minutes on the bus, we were getting closer to my village, and the driver called me up to take the seat next to the door. Knowing I was losing my sense of female solidarity, I shuffled by the men to try and maneuver myself into the seat and attract as little attention as possible. As we're all rearranging ourselves, trying to maintain some level of dignity, the driver abruptly asks, "You're going to A.Ayibli? What business do you have there?" If that wasn't enough to make head turns towards the fumbling foreign girl, he adds with a smirk, "Are you going to visit a friend?" With a slight tilt of my chin and a furrowing of the eyebrows (an expression I've mastered in responding to rude questions), I asked him to repeat himself so I could confirm his impertinence and conjure an appropriate response. Before he had time to finish his sentence, a guy in the row behind me spoke up and said,

"No, it's not like that. She's an American. She works for a peace organization."

"Peace? What kind of peace organization?" the driver asked.

"People from her organization are volunteers. They stay for two years and work in the regions of Azerbaijan. They have assignments, but the most interesting thing is that they share information about America and they learn about Azerbaijan." (Peace Corps' overall goals 1 and 2; something you hear a million times at PC trainings and events, but when you hear it repeated by a host country national, particularly in such a textbook fashion, you have to pick your jaw up of the ground).

The driver turned back to me and much more politely asked me if I worked at a school. I responded, and we were able to speak like normal humans--impressive only because 60 seconds before, that would have been impossible. At the next stop, I turned around to see if I recognized the guy who had stood up to the driver. I didn't, so I asked him how he knew about Peace Corps. It turns out that this guy is a history teacher at a training school for new Peace Corps trainees before they swear in as volunteers. He said he had an American teacher who for three months (the exact length of pre-service training), taught him just a little bit of English before he moved to his official site. I got goosebumps listening to him talk because as much gratitude as I felt towards him for defending me in a time where it would have been really difficult for me to defend myself, I could see the same appreciation in his expression for the kind trainee who went out of his way to help this teacher (who's not an English teacher--any time spent with this guy would have been 100% voluntary on the part of the trainee) learn some basic English phrases.

In that moment, I felt something come full circle. As jaded as many volunteers feel in the later part of their services, I had some faith in PC work restored as a result of witnessing this unlikely cause and effect. Patience and that work you do when no one's watching are immeasurable.

Epilogue:

As I was getting off the bus, I reached to hand the driver my fare. A man standing in the place next to my seat told me not to pay. I looked at the driver, and he was looking at the guy who told me not to pay. The guy insisted I put my money away with a smile as if to say, this driver gave you an unreasonably hard time for no reason, especially as a guest in our country. It happens often on short public transportation rides, Azerbaijanis will exhibit their hospitality by picking up your fare. The ride from Ganja is 2 manat though, a little farther than what's considered normal for a stranger to cover. The driver's face wasn't too convincing, so I waited for him to nod at me to make sure I wasn't shorting him. After I was finally off the bus with my bags, I got the begrudging nod from the driver I was waiting for. I smiled, thanked him, and right before the door closed, I heard the driver say, "No really, are you going to pay her two manat!?" The whole bus was laughing as it pulled away.

Spring Softball.

This past Spring, Chris, a nearby PCV and I decided to start a softball team in my village. There were several factors that went into starting this project. The first and probably most important was the success of frisbee. My village breeds great kids who like to play sports. There are so many kids who want to be part of an organized sport. I have no trouble getting to kids to show up. For example, if I say I'll bring frisbees to school at 6:00, I'll have kids knocking on my door at 5:30 asking if I need help carrying the discs to school. The second factor is that anyone who knows me knows that I don't know much about softball/baseball, but Chris is a former college baseball player. He played most of his life, and he even coached little league before joining Peace Corps. We decided we'd make a pretty good coaching team. 

In the beginning, we knew it would take a while to teach kids how to play. Catching with a glove and throwing with your whole body, not just your wrist, would take several practices to sink in. We also knew hitting would take some time. What we didn't really take into account is how unfamiliar kids in Azerbaijan are with the fundamental principles of baseball. It's something I think most of us wouldn't realize as Americans. All the variations of baseball and kickball, the "diamond" shape field, the concept of touching each point before scoring a point when you return to the spot you started. It seems second nature to us. Even after explaining the rules and the concept of how players hit and move around the bases, it took a lot of learn-by-practice for most kids to start to get the hang of it.

Some things that seemed very simple, but took a laughably long time to teach:
1) Only one player on a base at a time
2) Your foot actually has to touch the base when you run by it.
3) If an outfielder catches your ball in the air, you're automatically out. Don't get mad when this happens.
4) Don't run when someone else hits a ball in the air and the outfield can catch it easily.
5) If you're on first and the next batter hits a grounder towards second base, you still have to run there.
6) The catcher is part of the game. You still have to participate.
7) So is the pitcher.
8) Don't swing the bat like a golf club.
9) You can NOT change the batting order. It doesn't matter if the person you're switching with agrees or not.

Explaining tagging out is in a category by itself..

That being said, my students LOVE this new game. I've reached out to a lot of kids who weren't that great at frisbee but want to participate in sports. I have a tall, lanky left handed kid who couldn't change directions to catch a frisbee if he had to, but can swing a baseball bat like a pro. I have identical twins who drive me crazy in English class for their lack of attention but are the first kids to offer to carry equipment and pack it up after practice. I still can't tell them apart, but one of them excels at third base and the other is a great hitter.

Here are some pictures from our early practices:

Chris demonstrating proper hitting technique.

Check out the pitcher. Only slightly intimidated when Chris is up to bat.

This season, we were able to participate in three tournaments. At the first, we played two games. We lost the first game 11-2 to a team with two years experience. It was a significant learning opportunity for us. It was the first time our team saw other kids playing who know the rules of the game and had even developed strategy. The next game we won 7-5 to another team who also just started this year. Despite our eyeopening first game, we left the tournament smiling.

On the bus, on the way to the first tournament.

Our awesome gear thanks to Katie Crocker's volleyball team's service project. We LOVE them! 

Setting up.

PCV coaches.

All smiles after the tournament.

At the second tournament, with a little bit of experience under our belt, to Chris's and my great pleasure, we actually looked like a softball team. We played better defense, and we had two kids hit homeruns. The lanky lefty had a grand slam. We went 2-0 at this tournament. 

Our boys.

Team chant.

Coming home after the grand slam.

Lining up to shake hands.

We went into the third tournament lined up to play the team we played first, when we lost 11-2, and another team with two years experience. We knew we had our work cut out for us. We played the team we hadn't played yet first. They were a lot bigger than us and had some good hitters, but we kept it tight defensively. We led by one point the whole game and came out on top. The next team was better, but we quickly realized our team had developed significantly since our first game with them. They led us by a few points the whole game until the last inning. Our defense was solid in the last inning, and we were up to bat last. We needed 3 runs to win, and we did it! 

Encouragement.

Cheering on their teammates.

Victory snap bumps.

Happy.

Shaking hands after the first game.

Proud coaches.

Despite all the talk about each tournament, as any real sportsperson will tell you, it's not about the wins and losses. That's just one way to measure athletic progress, but you're belittling sport as a means of self development if that's the only thing you look at. In just a few months, I've seen these kids go from not knowing the first thing about softball to being able to throw doubles, tag runners out, hit grand slams, and still be able to shake hands with their opponent after they lose. Maybe it's because I grew up playing sports, and it's just a part of my make-up now, but what better way can you prepare young people for what the world has in store for them than teaching how to be part of a team, taking personal responsibility for making mistakes, being rewarded for accomplishments, learning to accept defeat, and perhaps most importantly, learning to win humbly? It doesn't all happened at once, but as in our case, it's a work in progress. 

At our last tournament,  although there were four teams there, for time and weather reasons, we played two games. The fourth team was Xatinli, my sitemate Andrew's team. Xatinli, another village in Tovuz, is our biggest frisbee rival, and there are many kids that play on both teams from mine and Andrew's villages. We both have strong frisbee teams, and our teams (not us, of course) have a history of hard competition. Half-way through our second game, Xatinli, watching us play from the sidelines, started chanting Ey-yu-blu, Ey-yu-blu...they were cheering for us. My kids loved that, and thanked them with thumbs up and hand shakes. After the game, I looked over and saw two kids play wrestling. I could tell they weren't being serious, but they were from two different teams, and I didn't want it to escalate, so I told them to knock it off. Once they stood up I realized it was one kid from my team and one kid from Xatinli, but I was confused because they'd switched hats. If that wasn't a sign of solidarity already, a couple minutes before I took this picture they switched jerseys entirely. 

As a side note, our team was able to participate in tournaments in different regions of Azerbaijan thanks to the Azerbaijan Interregional Softball League. It's a Peace Corps project several years in the works. The website will be updated in a few months as the Spring season is preparatory for the Fall season. I've also had a lot of support from friends and family at home. We wouldn't have been able to do what we did this Spring without your loving support. I am so blessed, thankful, and most of all inspired.