Eastern Europe Vacation in Pictures [Budapest] [Split] [Kotor] [Vodice] [Zagreb] [Bdapest]

16 days. 4 PCVs. 4 backpacks. 2 hostels. 2 apartments. 2 plane trips. 4 taxi rides. 4 bus trips. 2 train rides.

Budapest, Hungary

Night train: Budapest, Hungary-->Split, Croatia

Split, Croatia

Bus: Split, Croatia --> Kotor, Montenegro

Kotor, Montenegro

Vodice, Croatia

Zagreb, Croatia 

Budapest, Hungary 

All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.

(written 7/17/12)

I spent my two weeks in Bangkok, mostly torn between wanting to see everything the alluring capital had to offer a visitor fresh out of Azerbaijan, while at the same time accepting the physical limitations. After surgery, I kept on with my trips to the hospital for physical therapy, exercises in the hotel room, and the icing routine, but made time for one afternoon excursion each day. I befriended, Caitlin, a PCV from Kyrgystan, also on medical evacuation. We explored together and saw temples, monuments, museums and numerous places for shopping. We had the chance to eat Mexican, Egyptian, Indian, and LOTS of Thai food. I ventured out from my pad thai ways and tried a variety of soups, curry dishes, noodle dishes and sweet pork! I discovered mangoes and sticky rice, a sweet Thai dessert. After turning my nose up at fish oil because of its smell, my new Thai friend told me that all of the Thai food I was eating (and enjoying to my heart’s content) contained some degree of fish oil. Tastes better than it smells, ok? I bought milk and a granola based cereal from a grocery store so I could eat breakfast everyday in my hotel room. Heavenly! I made a point to indulge in foods I don’t get to eat in Azerbaijan. The Egyptian place we went to had grade leaf dolma on the menu, a very popular meal here in Azerbaijan. It actually sounded good, but I confessed to Caitlin that if my friends in Azerbaijan found out I ate yarpaq dolmasi in Bangkok, I would NEVR hear the end of it. I decided on a tomato, shrimp and rice dish instead, and I was not disappointed. We had interesting conversations on two different occasions with expats who, to my surprise, were both familiar with Azerbaijan. One was a Palestinian Dutchman in Bangkok for business. The other was an Aussie on leave from his work in Mongolia. It was one of my first opportunities to talk about my experience to interested travelers, neither well versed nor ignorant of Azerbaijani affairs. Neither was American, and their slightly different perspectives on things were reflected in their questions. I liked it. Overall, everything from the friendly Thai people, interesting travelers, fellow PCVs in for medical, culinary diversity, cool sights, and a brief excursion from my new reality in Azerbaijan made for a pretty awesome trip to Bangkok. But that’s still not why I can’t stop smiling.

I was returning to Azerbaijan slightly uneasy about what awaited me; not only in terms of environment but also in terms of personal expectations. This surgery’s recovery is different. I can deal with the odd looks from villagers who, unfamiliar with crutches, don’t know whether to be sad, concerned for or totally removed from the American and her strange new addition. I can make do without a gym and an athletic trainer. But it’s different this time because I don’t have soccer to return to. I knew it would be different one week after surgery when I sat down with the doctor to talk about my recovery’s timeline. He said I could return to “normal activity” after another four weeks. That’s not so bad. Granted, I’ll be in Azerbaijan. But on the bright side, that’s 5 months fewer than the other recoveries took.

“You need to take into account your joint health now. You need to exercise and keep yourself active. But, you need to make sure you do this through low-impact exercise. With two bone spurs, a micro fracture and 10% of your meniscus left in this knee, for the sake of your long term health, you need to reconsider the types of activities you’ve been doing.”

“So what are low impact activities?”

“Things like biking, using the elliptical, yoga, walking and swimming are all great. Sports like soccer, basketball, tennis, frisbee and volleyball are all high impact. Your knees bear the brunt of the activity because of jumping and changing directions.”

Tears welled up in my eyes.

My return to Azerbaijan included a 10 hour flight from Bangkok to Istanbul, a 4 hour layover, and another 3 hours from Istanbul to Baku. I got special treatment in between the flights from the airline staff. They wheeled me around in a wheelchair so I didn’t have to crutch. This meant elevators, ramps and no lines! Further, Peace Corps even sent a driver to pick me up at the airport. I was grateful for this because anyone who’s ever been to the Baku airport will tell you getting there and back is oftentimes tricky and almost always expensive. Add crutches and a jet lag daze. 

I called my overly fretful counterpart in the car on the way back to my village. After an interrogation concerning where I am and when I’d be returning to the village, I calmly told her I was on my way back home and that I would come to see her that night. She was so worked up about my prolonged absence, I had to repeat what I was saying a few times for her to understand.  She informed me that after I had been gone for 10 days, she called me everyday to see if I was okay even though, upon my request, my program director called her after my surgery telling her I was fine, everything went well, but that I'd be back a little later than I had originally planned. With apprehension, and still not totally trusting in what I was telling her, we said our goodbyes. At the very end she abruptly interjected:

“Annie?”

“Yes?”

And in all the earnesty that her British-Azerbaijani accent could muster added,  “I missed you very much.”

I came into Peace Corps ready for something new, but I always imagined soccer would be part of my future in some way or another. I’ve been spending these first few days back in Azerbaijan kind of reabsorbing my role. For some reason, I’ve been very happy. I’ve come to realize that I have a home here. I also have a very important job to do.  Being away from it all kind of set that in perspective. After Tovuz summer camp and a vacation in August, I only have one full year left to be a Peace Corps Volunteer. I have work to do, and while I need my health to do it, I don’t need soccer. It will be different, but I think it’s part of a bigger challenge to see further than what I know and what I’m comfortable with. That’s what Peace Corps is all about. Soccer’s given me a lot more than learning to run around on a field and score goals. I’ll take soccer with me where ever I go because it is deeply a part of me. For that, I am forever thankful. 

My digs at the hospital

Bathroom

Is that a flushing toilet?!

Where I watched the Braves game before surgery (and Lord of the Rings after).

The doctor's attempt to explain his post-surgical prognosis in layman's terms. 

What I did on my daily excursions..

Big Buddha

Tuk tuk!

Democracy Monument

Inside a temple

Contemporary art museum

Tempting...

And on the last day, there was live music.

After 9 months in Az..en route to Bangkok! [Part 1]

(written 6/26/12) I landed in Doha around 7:30, and even though it's totally dark, it's hot. 39 degrees celsius. This crowd of people at the airport seems to be the most diverse mass of people I've ever seen. I overheard a man speaking Azeri as I got off the plane and reminded myself that's probably the last time I'll be hearing that for a while. I passed a woman wearing a niqab and suddenly become very conscious of my bare legs. She's looking at me, but I can't read her expression. I can only see her eyes. A young Saudi girl approached me holding her mothers blinged out iPhone and asked me for help sending a text message. A man approaches me in line and asks me a question in Russian.I had to stop myself from responding, "I don't speak Russian!" in Azeri. There were multiple English speakers on the tram that took us from the plane to the terminal. Stop staring, Annie, stop staring! I wanted to ask them all who they were, where they were coming from and where they were going. I can't remember, or rather, I cant imagine how I would be feeling right now if I were sitting in this same seat but had flown here from America rather than Azerbaijan. It would be different. I keep scanning the herds of euro-looking travellers thinking I should recognise at least one of these white people!

The Real Story Behind Little Red Riding Hood

The last day of the school year is referred to as son zeng, the last bell. Each graduating class (the best comparison would be each graduating homeroom) gets one hour in front of the school assembly to thank their teachers, perform skits, sing songs etc... This year, my counterpart suggested some of our students put on a play in English in honor of the graduating class. I jumped at the idea. My counterpart told me that she thinks American teachers are creative, so I should write the skit. The stipulations were it must be ten minutes and funny. It took a mere 30 seconds of thinking for me to realize that I wasn't really up to the task of writing an original, funny 6th grade Azeri skit in English. Thus, after several internet searches for basic scripts for ESL learners, I narrowed it down to Three Little Pigs, Jack and the Beanstalk, the Guest of Honor (a Turkish folktale), and Little Red Riding Hood. I consulted my counterpart and quickly eliminated the 3 Little Pigs. She thought it was hilarious to consider the students acting as pigs. But hilarious as in ridiculous, not funny hilarious. In addition to the fact that Muslims don't eat pork, the Azeri word for pig (donuz) is an insult, and the idea of the students running around dressed up like pigs wasn't quite kosher. Pun intended. This also reaffirmed my decision that not writing a "my idea of funny skit" was a good decision.

We settled on Little Red Riding Hood because there is a Russian tale that everyone here knows, Qirmizi Papaq (red cap), and it follows the same idea. My counterpart insisted we would save time because we wouldn't need to translate it. Fine by me. I printed off six scripts, assigned roles, and held 3 play practices at my house. We hit our first road bump when the student I assigned to be the narrator beat my counterpart to asking the orchestrator of the son zeng events about 6th grade students performing qirmizi papaq. Usually skits are reserved for the 11th graders (p.s. high school finishes after 11th grade in Az). Having no background information about the qirmizi papaq idea from my counterpart, the orchestrator immediately disregarded the student's inquiry. I told my students to start learning their lines anyways, my counterpart would follow up and we'd be back in the game. For whatever reasons though, even after my counterpart explained what we were planning, the orchestrator stuck to her guns and said olmaz (not allowed)! My counterpart tsked at her, muttering something about the school's bureaucracy. We were a bit disappointed, but decided we would do it next year, at a different school holiday. However, to my surprise, the very next day, I was sitting in the teacher's room when the assistant director approached me. She said a long string of Azeri words, the last of which were qirmizi papaq keçəcək! Hazirla! Red cap will pass. Prepare! I was surprised because my counterpart wasn't at school that day, and I hadn't raised the issue of the play again. Someone, however, was advocating for qirmizi papaq. That was all the inspiration I needed. 

We had one week to prepare. One remnant of the Soviet Union's legacy in Azerbaijan's education system is that the students are damn good at rote memorization. For the first time, this worked to my advantage. The first practice was great. Enthusiasm was high. We got down the sequence of who speaks after who as well as spatial orientation. Mother's house-->forest-->grandmother's house. By the second practice, the students had their lines down. At one point, the woodsman got a little swing happy with his pretend axe. I had to point out to that the term "knock out the wolf" means one fell swoop of the axe to the wolf's head. It does NOT mean a complete massacre of the wolf OR a recreation of a deleted scene from the exorcist. To my great pleasure, the students took initiative to invent their own costumes. They supplied everything from little red's basket, to the wolf's mask and tail, to the woodman's axe. I was thoroughly impressed. In an effort to express my gratitude to them for being awesome, I decided to surprise them the day before the big show with ice cream after our final practice. I went to the market and picked up 8 ice cream bars before the dress rehearsal. Unfortunately, only the narrator and little red showed up. This made me nervous for a lot of reasons, but it wasn't all bad because those are the two parts with the most lines. [Note to self: don't feel bad about selecting your diligent students for lead roles]. We went through their lines together, and I helped them a bit with intonation. I realized that even when they understand the meaning of the sentence, intonation can still be difficult. It's a hard thing to teach. After that, we mostly ended up talking about our summer plans and eating icecream. Also, I'm not sure if I can count two people showing up for dress rehearsal as a road bump if I ended up with a net surplus of 6 ice cream bars. 

Son zeng itself, the actual day of the performance, was a great example of the ups and down of Peace Corps work. I arrived at school with grandmother's scarf and name tags in tow at 10 o'clock. I had not been informed of our play's time slot, I just knew it was sometime between 10 and 1. Two of the students came up to me saying no one wanted to perform anymore. I asked if it was because the orchestrator said we didn't have time. They said no, it was because the crowd made them nervous. There were so many people, they thought no one would listen to them. I tsked (a habit I've acquired from xanims to express disapproval) and told them that if they perform just like they did at practice, the play will be a success no matter what. The crowd is not important. Then I whipped out their laminated-with-tape name tags, raising moral at least 5 points, and herded them into an empty classroom for one final practice. At the same time, the director's assistant was calling me to watch the 11th formers performances from a seat at the front of the assembly with the director and administrators. Sometimes, it's hard to get by without ever having an idea of the plan for these things. I politely excused myself for our rehearsal, pinned the tail on the wolf, tightened his mask, adjusted little red's riding hood and put grandma's glasses on right side up. We got one full practice in before being ushered back outside to watch. Sitting next to the director and his administrators for each class's performances, I had a front row seat to the battle for time keeping. If one class even seemed like it might be going longer than the time it was allotted, students from the other 11th grade classes would march right through their skit to the director's seat to ask how much time they had. For each class, it was a race to get through handing every student his/her diploma individually. At the beginning of the day, I had been told that we would perform at the very end. My students were excited because that means it would be the very last thing before the actual, final bell rang. Throughout the course of the three hours, qirmizi papaq was on and off at least 3 times. We had time for it. We wouldn't have time for it. We had time. We wouldn't have time. I could have taken this as a sign of the event's overall time and moral support for qirmizi papaq. I tried not to though. I remained patient, encouraged by my students waiting excitedly and nervously in their costumes when I looked back over my shoulder. 

When we finally got our introduction at the end, my students marched out like the little champs they are and began smoothly. They had the additional factor of handing off microphones to each other to deal with as well. Despite their nerves, they delivered their lines in English with minimal errors, and I was really the only one who could detect those blips anyways. However, I think that not understanding what the students were saying increased the restlessness of the already restless crowd. Just over halfway into the play, the director turned on a previously latent microphone, thanked us for our performance and gave his closing remarks. That type of move from a director is not as abnormal in Azerbaijan as it would be in America. Still, I couldn't help feeling like some of those fears the students had about performing in front of a big audience came to fruition. I tried to encourage them the best I could, telling them that they did a great job with the parts that they got through, but I could tell they were disappointed. It was hard for me to be positive too, as at that time, I was feeling bitter towards being cut short. Mostly, I was thinking about the things I could have done differently to be a better facilitator. I just hated the idea that they could be left with the crash-and-burn feeling when they really didn't crash and burn at all. They did everything they were asked to do.  

Reflecting now though on the whole experience of our first English play, I realize that it was MUCH more than the 6 minutes spectators witnessed at school today. It might take a little while, but I hope that one day when the students think about qirmizi papaq, they remember how special they felt when they were assigned a role. How excited they were when I told them the play was back on after being told we couldn't do it. How un-intimidating memorizing lines in English became when they highlighted just their part. How funny the wolf looked when he was dressed up as grandma. How they made each other laugh. How accomplished they felt when they finally nailed a difficult line. And how often they practiced their "The End" bow relative to the rest of the play. I also hope they know that I was very proud of them for trying something new with a tenacity I don't often witness students exhibiting for school-related things.  

I took this picture and video during practice the day of our performance. I had to edit it down to just one part so I could post it. Notice little red's stellar intonation?  

And some pictures from the son zeng celebration itself!

My view from the front.

11th form skit.

11th form dance circle.

Azeri boy dancing.

One of the 11th form boys dressed up like a clown. Pretty funny.

More dancing.

Qirmizi Papaq.

The cast! Wolf, extra, narrator, little red, grandma, mother and woodsman. 

ABC Song

6, 7, and 8th grade conversation club's rendition of the ABCs! 

My frisbee kids call it frisball

What do you do when 74 kids, first to tenth graders, show up for your frisbee club one afternoon? Hand over the frisbees, abandon any hope of order you naively began with, and start taking pictures. 

My school's yard. You can see my school's main building in the background.

The All-stars.

"Indi sen kimi mensen. Onlara at." Now, you are like me. Throw to them. 

Can you tell I instructed them to catch the frisbee like a crocodile chomps?

This was part of his post-goal celebration dance. 

April is the Cruelest Month

Since I’ve been at site, I’ve attended a handful of Azerbaijani funerals. [I must add a disclaimer here: I am no expert on Azerbaijani funerals. My intention here is to write about my immediate experience and share my cross-cultural perspective with you, my dear blog audience]. So I live in a large village. Considering that everyone from the dead person’s third cousin twice removed to his barber’s niece attends, it’s not unusual for me to go to a funeral in my village, even if I’ve never met the person before. There are five very important days following a person’s death: the first day after, the third day, the seventh day, the fortieth day and the one year anniversary. Each of these days is marked by a large gathering of people at the late person’s family’s home to mourn, drink tea, and eat a meal usually consisting of beef, potatoes, grape leaf dolma and raw vegetables [bread goes without saying]. For the most part, I’ve been a passive observer at funerals in my village. I’ll usually find out about it the day of the event, and before I find out the person’s name or who they were related to, I’ll be whisked away in a herd of teachers from my school. I find myself sitting on a long bench amongst at least two hundred other people, a beautiful display of dishes and silverware in front of me, being served tea with lemons and sweets. Men and women are separated, usually under two different tents, but sometimes just by tables and benches on opposite sides of the house’s outdoor space. Oftentimes, I have to remind myself that I am at a funeral. Although people are wearing black or gray clothing, speaking in hushed voices, and nodding gravely at the late person’s close family members, they carry on normal conversations and catch up on the latest gossip with their neighbors. Ironically, if one were to take two snapshots: one of the attendees at a village wedding and one of the attendees at a village funeral, it would be difficult to distinguish the two. But that’s a topic for a different blog post.

A few weeks ago, I had the unfortunate opportunity to experience a funeral as much more than a passive observer. My host mom’s sister’s daughter (aka: my host cousin), living in Russia at the time, passed away from cancer. She had been sick for a while, but her death came as a bit of a shock. She was only 30 and has two young children. A day or two after she died, her mom, sister, husband and husband’s family members from Russia brought her back to the village on Tuesday evening. They came by plane and then in an ambulance motorcade procession from the capital with other family members who traveled to meet them in Baku. A group of 100 or so people, including my host mom, two host sisters, host aunts and uncles, and me, gathered at their home and waited for them to return. As we waited, all of the women gathered in one room. The close family members (aunts, grandmother and cousins) sat at one end of the room and began to weep heavily while the rest of us, seated on rows of benches, sat solemnly. Some people cried. Most just watched the family members weep.

When the ambulance caravan arrived, the mourners gathered around to welcome the teary-eyed mother and sister. Upon stepping out of the car and seeing the crowd of mourners, the mother burst into heaving sobs. The sister however, turned pale and shot panicky glances around the gathered people. Her expression went from shock to terror as she began to scream. Her high pitched shrieks pierced the sullen silence and punctuated the heaving sobs of her mother. A mob of women gathered around them, most of them in tears, trying to force both of them to drink a medicinal calming remedy. Everyone, including the young men carrying the coffin, was crying by the time the coffin was brought out of the back of the ambulance. Upon seeing its emergence, the sister’s shrieks turned feral. Shaking violently, she looked up to the sky and fell into a chair one woman had put behind her knees. Men and women alike, dabbed their eyes with handkerchiefs and the coffin was brought into the room where the women had gathered initially. The woman standing next to me turned and told me that the sister didn’t know her sister was dead. Her family didn’t think she could bear the truth when someone told her, so they left it to time for her to figure it out. And that’s exactly what she did upon seeing the couple hundred people, teary eyed and dressed in black waiting for her at her house when she arrived. She had been told her sister was in a coma.

When both mother and sister were calm enough to walk, exasperated and empty looking, they led a procession of women behind a mullah into the mourning room—as I’ll call it. The mullah read from the Koran while the immediate family members rocked themselves with sobs. The rest of us took our places on the benches. When the mullah finished, the mother, clearly the leader of the mourning, sat on the ground at the head of the coffin and began to cry out to her dead daughter, speaking to her and about her while the rest of the women looked on. She would build momentum, encouraged by the humming cries of the other women in her family. Several times, her emotions heightened, she beat on her chest with both hands, and as another women forced her hands down, she threw her arms around the coffin. Her passion seemed to come in waves. When she became lost for words, one of her sisters, nieces or daughter would pick up where she left off and lead the room in deeply sorrowful cries repeating their deceased relative’s name over and over again, talking about their sweet memories from the past as well as the things they dreamed she would have been a part of in the future. This went on for several exhausting hours before the guests, slowly began to filter out and go home.

The next morning, the close female relatives gathered around the casket again to cry. A new crowd of people began to assemble starting mid-morning. Men outside, and women sitting on the benches in the mourning room. The mother, aunts, grandmother and cousin wailed their final goodbyes to the casket before it was taken away by the male relatives and carried to the cemetery. At this time, the female relatives wept even harder as onlookers stood by in support. Many women cried. Two of the aunts fainted as they followed the procession out of the house. After watching the men trail off down the street, the women returned inside, washed their faces and hands, and sat down to eat.

The third and seventh day went on in a similar fashion—a gathering of women in the wailing room followed by a large meal. Each successive day saw more people and a little less drama as news spread about the woman’s death. In these seven days, there were at least a thousand people who passed through the house. The meals seemed to recreate themselves..the same plates over and over again. My host mom and sisters would return home late each night, completely exhausted from the days events and turn around and go back the next. The custom is to never leave the immediate family of the deceased person alone for the first couple of weeks. My family upheld their tradition. The whole week, the house was either empty, having been left in haste, or inhabited by a few sleeping people, many of whom I did not know, who returned to catch a few hours of solitary sleep.

This was a unique experience for me. As in all village occasions, I don’t fit into any one social category. I don’t have a clear role. In this case, it was odd because everything was happening around me, and I was never sure of what the appropriate thing to do. I attended the funeral events after I finished my lessons at school and felt myself becoming quite sad. More sad than I’ve ever been at a funeral of someone I’d never actually met. At the same time, I still felt so far outside of my family’s grief. What really struck me was the communal aspect of the funeral tradition. I felt the women’s heaving and wailing to be authentic, the way I imagine one would feel upon losing her child, but also so deliberately public. To me, these things seem to be at odds with each other. I’m not sure exactly why.

Several people at the funeral gatherings asked me about our funeral traditions in America. My response was loose and open ended at best. 

Two weeks later, life at home began to look more normal again. I was happy when Kaklik started going back to school. Although, now I realize that this is not a universal thought to think that going back to work may make someone feel better after losing a loved one. In my mind at least, it was the first indicator that life would indeed return to normal for my family here. It was nice to begin to actually see my host mom and sisters around the house again. And to see Kaklik up drinking tea in the morning, doing her hair for school, without looking completely drained and exhausted did make me feel good. I hoped her mind was on something other than her beloved sister and niece. Thus, I expressed this news with my counterpart one morning as we walked to the lesson we teach together. She asked me how Kaklik was doing, and I cheerfully chimed in that today she’s going back to school. With a slight furrowing of her eyebrows, she responded, “Of course she is, Annie! Nobody dies with the dead.”