pre-mature nostalgia...just a little

nostalgia actually hit me in some forms today. I kept waiting for this to happen. We had our end of service conference quite some time ago and nothing at that conference seemed pertinent. It was, for me, premature. I've been counting down the days to departure (I still am), but the realization that this experience will end is hitting me...in some little ways.
First was buying my first nar of the season. Nar is pomegranite. Nar is a lot easier to say than pomegranite. Anyways, the nars in Azerbaijan are somehow better than the ones in the US. I'm not just saying that now because I'm leaving. This was actually one of the first things AZ PCVs notice when they get to country. We arrive in the late fall, in other words the beginning of nar season. Its almost like we don't know how to eat nar in the states. But, part of it is that the nar skin is thicker in the states and the fruit juice seeds seem farther and fewer between. Maybe not. Maybe I am just thinking this way because I'm leaving soon! I'll never know, because by the time I eat a nar next fall too much time will of elapsed. So, I bought this nar and thought to myself: this could be the last nar I buy in AZ. This is my third fall season in AZ...so it felt like the beginning to the end.
Also, just now I walked out of my apartment and a realization dawned on me. It is hard to describe, but my time in AZ will never seem real again. When I leave, when I go home, this experience will become something only myself and other AZ PCVs could possibly understand. The way this nation functions, looks, smells, acts, etc. is something you don't read about in the news, see in films, or hear about from others. People in the US don't even know that AZ exists. So this whole two year experience will probably seem like suspended time...like two years that never existed. I'll go home and all the people I know here and all the stories I have will solely be onto myself like as if I dreamed it the night before. There is something phenomenal about that...and something strange. When an experience is isolated it can get distorted. We choose to remember some things and forget others. The narrative shifts over time and in thirty years...what in the world will this 27 month span seem like to me? Will I remember how many times I wished for nothing other than to leave? Will I remember all the times I knew how lucky I was to experience something so rare, hidden, and challenging? Yes and no because life keeps happening and I'll keep focusing on current life events. What moments in my future will stop me in my place and remind me of Azerbaijan? I have no idea.
These two years, in many ways, have lasted an eternity. When a PCV arrives in country they have few luxuries beyond time. That is, time is our luxury. We've got nothing but unending time. When the time runs out (and it seems like it never will), it is strange to realize that my one luxury, the one thing I never had to worry about losing, is actually coming to an end. It isn't sad or happy. Ok, well...right now it is a little happy. But it is mind boggling. What did I actually do with my two years? We all assume that if we were in certain scenarios we would act a certain way and accomplish certain things. Well, I actually jumped off the building and joined PC...and what did I actually do? What were my experiences? What have I learned? I can definitely answer a lot of these questions right now, but I have a feeling I won't really be able to fully answer them for a while longer.

Waiting Game

My grant is basically finished. I keep postponing a blog about that because I want to take pictures of the room and post them...but I keep forgetting my camera. Hopefully I will get to that tomorrow.
I have 7 weeks left in the Peace Corps. I'm still working and embarking on new projects, but this mostly feels like a waiting game. I'm meeting with teachers and working with them on teaching skills and Mingechevir is now home to a UEFA grassroots soccer team that I will help with beginning tomorrow. This latter project is rather exciting because all the infrastructure for an actual girls team is already in place. All they need is a helper. I would like to add that it is amazing that UEFA has put this program in place. Very impressive.
Right now I am studying for the FSOT (Foreign Service Officer's Test). I will be taking it on Oct. 6 and I really don't know whether or not I've adequately prepared for it. It is isn't one of those tests you can get a lot information on. To study for it I am studying US History, current events, and sometimes I study basic economics. We'll see. It will be good practice nonetheless.
I've also painted about a billion new paintings. I'll put those up soon. But, these last two months are sort of brutal. Generally my group is ready to leave. We feel it. We've been here for over two years now and, well, the time has come. Hence, the waiting game.

That Super Sad Bear in Shamaxi

I have a video showing the sad living quarters of the sad Shamaxi bear but, alas, it is just barely too large of a file for blogger. I wish I could upload it, but as of this moment I cannot.
Shamaxi is a mountainous area approx. 2 hours outside the capital, Baku. We do have some PCVs serving there. When you are taking a long bus ride from Baku to wherever in the north, you eventually stop for tea somewhere along the way. Often, during the summer, marshrutkas will stop in Shamaxi. A couple of these roadside restaurant areas show off their captured bears. These bears are isolated (one restaurant, one bear) and kept in horrible little cages. They just walk around in circles of their own excrement. I have a video of this, but again I can't upload it just yet. It is heartbreaking.
The second picture has nothing to do with anything...it is just amusing. There is a lot of misunderstood English on clothing in Azerbaijan.

My New New New New Apartment

As in, apartment number four. I like this one. I really do. I did not like apartment 1 or apartment number 3, but 4 is a legit place to live. It is my first apartment in the center of the city. It is has one room, one kitchen, one bathroom, hot water, a fridge, and a balcony. All of these things actually work (so far). I've been living in my new place for approx. one week and it has been soothing for the soul (brain/mentality, etc). Around the same time I found my new place the weather cooled down remarkably and not a moment too soon. I was starting to go nuts in the heat. But, it appears that fall is finally upon us in Mingechevir.

I guess if you are following my blog but you are not talking to me personally, some explanation is needed. I lost my previous housing (not because I did not something wrong, but because of being duped) a couple of months ago. I did not find new housing until recently and, as a result, nearly got booted from Peace Corps altogether. I'm not going to get into the details (I don't think I'm permitted to get into the details anyways), but it made for a really horrific month or so of service.
As a consequence of my homelessness, I lived with my sitemate for nearly a month. It was very kind of her to let me in. However, living there was a little rough. She was out of town for a majority of the time, but while I lived there her gas was shut off (limited cooking options) and it was really really hot. Also, I was in the midst of training teachers in regards to my grant and had to work double time to find a new apartment. Finding a place to live Azerbaijan can be a crappy experience. Women, generally, never live alone and do not go into real estate offices alone. I did. Everyday. And i was treated like an oddity because in Azerbaijan what I was doing was, indeed, odd.
You might ask why Peace Corps did not help me find a place. Plainly: The are not required to. The only thing PC is required to do is find me housing with a host family. In other words, if I want to live alone, well then, that is my choice and I have to accept the consequences that go along with it.
Why don't I live with a host family? Well, coming into PC I always knew that living with a host family (ANY host family) would quite possibly be my biggest challenge. I'm 28 and I've lived independently from my parents for a decade. I'm not used to overseers worrying about me and asking me when I'll do everything I do. But most importantly, I don't like people worrying about my whereabouts and schedule. People worrying about me worries me...increases my overall anxiety. I then become the person they want me to be and lose my sense of individuality. My host family was fantastic but they were confused every time I went running at a different time, or didn't want lunch at the exact same time everyday, etc. I guess, with two months left in my service I just wasn't willing to go back to that. Also, I'm engaged. I'm engaged to someone who lives 8 hours away by bus. It is difficult being in a long distance relationship where communications are rough in general. Texting is very expensive and internet is unreliable. I want to live somewhere in which my fiancee can visit me once a month. So, these feelings and desires preventing me from taking the practical route of just living with a family. Maybe this seems crazy or immature to others, but I know my self and my need for independence and therefore, I do not regret living alone and accepting the extra work that goes along with it.
ANYWAYS...some pics of my new place...

heat...please die down

it is finally approaching the end of my last summer as a pcv and not a moment too soon. the heat is officially making me crazy. i look forward to a day where i don't sweat while i'm eating and sleeping. i also hope for the night i can sleep without fear of the dreaded mosquitoes.
right now life isn't the easiest. i have to find a new apartment and i'm finishing out a lot of grant work. in terms of the grant, things are going very very well. i'm both grateful and proud. i'm grateful because all the individuals who made commitments to me and to the project are, for the most part, staying true to their word. gulshan and i have physically built the English Language Resource Center and the volunteer teachers and students show up every day for training. the trainees are picking up information very quickly and i feel confident that they are interested in protecting their new ELRC resource. we spent a lot of money on books etc, but i can't help still feel like our ELRC shelves are still bare. all the English language fiction books we purchased came from Baku and they are very small in stature and low in quality. but, something is better than nothing! we also received a box of donated books from the states and the children books inside are great.
in terms of finding an apartment, well...it just totally blows. i'm not going to pretend to be enthusiastic about it. this will be the fourth place i've sought out over the last two years in Azerbaijan. the whole process is frustrating and disheartening for many reasons, but i'm just holding on to the hope that this is my LAST move before my service ends in November. keep your fingers crossed for me. luckily, my sitemate laura has let me stay with her for the past three weeks, but i really really need to find something soon. and if the heat would just die down a bit, well, then...i'll probably find an extra cache of patience.

Free labor, no takers: Where are the big environmental projects in AZ? Here's looking at you BP

Approximately a year and a half ago I became a member of the Azerbaijan PC Environmental Committee. Due to budget constraints, etc. this is only a committee of 4: 2 members from my group and then 2 members from the younger/newer group. As PC volunteers we are, to state the obvious, precisely that: volunteers. We want to work towards causes that people can generally agree upon as being beneficial and we want to do it for free. Also, in many ways, PCVs are the best laborers to work with: we live in remote communities, we speak a language most paid ex-pats outside of the regions do not know, and we have community contacts. In this sense, logically, you'd think that organizations would want to work with us. After all, we are the biggest bang for your buck...we'll work diligently in difficult areas for no pay.
But, alas, life just doesn't work this way.
Yes, maybe some organizations don't want to work with us (PC) because we are an American government program. We represent the potential to be political. I can safely say that the US government has never asked me to proselytize or push for an American...well, anything. However, it is a PC goal to inform nations about who were are and what the US is, but then the next goal is to inform US citizens about the country in which we served. It is a cultural exchange program in many ways. But still, the nervousness about our political affiliations exist.
But what about BP? You know BP right? That oil company we love lambasting right now because of that horrific oil spill in the Gulf? Yep, that BP. BP does a ton of work in Azerbaijan and like our spill off the Gulf, a lot BP's work isn't really entirely BP...a lot of work is contracted work...work contracted out to whomever. Well, I met a BP contractor who claims to manage environmental projects in Azerbaijan. I got excited at the prospect of ANY kind of environmental contact inside Azerbaijan. I guess my desperation came off as aggression, however, and the BP contractor was very turned off at the idea of working with Peace Corps. I told this man, let us call him Mr. Hat, I told Mr. Hat that Peace Corps workers were all over Azerbaijan and willing to work for no money and probably almost any project. We don't have to receive grants (though, gosh, any money would be nice....) or get paid, we just want support, or a plan, or the WILL to do anything environmental anywhere in the whole nation. Mr. Hat straight out said "No". And he said he didn't like my pushy approach (I have witnesses who say I was passionate, but not rude. But, I don't know). Mr. Hat said that BP generally does not like working with PCVS and so therefore Mr. Hat would not look into the possibility. This however, is only partly true...BP workers/contractors have indeed offered to help other PCVs...I can think of two off the top of my head. So why the dismissal? He just didn't like me? I don't know. I told Mr. Hat that maybe he could as whomever in BP why there is an anti-PC policy...after all, we are economically awesome from a purely businesses perspective. But, Mr. Hat didn't seem too interested.
It became clear that our mission just wasn't the same. All I wanted to do was establish some sort of possibility for environmental work in Azerbaijan. For whatever reason, with me, Mr. Hat wasn't having it. Therefore, I told him if the conversation was about personal differences then we ought to stop discussing the issue altogether. After all, I just wanted to get to work, not offend. As soon as a person is sold of the idea that you are merely attacking them, then the actual issue at hand gets ignored. He wasn't going to hear me.
This whole situation bothered me on a number of levels. I'm frustrated at myself...Mr. Hat and I were in a very informal setting and I approached him informally. In doing so, I offended Mr. Hat and because I offended Mr. Hat, maybe I burned a bridge. This isn't supposed to be about me...I leave in November! But, I wasn't suave enough to build the bridge. I burnt it...and that helps absolutely nothing.
On the other hand, I do not think I was rude. I think I was very honest and to the point and....well...I hate to say it, but if you are right about a point and you say it right out, other people don't really like it. I think I pointed to the inherent difference in our missions. We were not on the same page and that called into question his intentionality and ethics as a BP contractor working on environmental projects.
Lastly, I'm an American. Mr. Hat is British. Does BP want to fix it's image? If so, then this just didn't help.

Summer Camp in Oguz, Day 2: Creativity and Photography

Summer Camp in Oguz

For a couple of days, a few colleagues of mine and I worked at Oguz's summer camp. Three members of the environmental committee traveled to this beautiful and small town in order to help Oguz's PCVs with environmental day. Environmental day included discussions on water use, pollution, re-use, plastic bags, and trash pick.

Random-ousity

So, for some reason my blogger is being crazy and it won't let me see the pictures and write captions next to them. Therefore, I'll do my best to recount:

1. Weird back picture: yes, that was my spine. It was inflamed like that for 24 hours and I have no idea why. Medical assumes it was a skin issue that disappeared. Ok...

2. The mattress picture: It says "good luck" on it...my friend Colleen and I found that funny.

3. My in the broken down Lada (car): self explanatory.

4. The watermelon advertisement: Summer is here and watermelon's are CHEAP. And tasty. The advertisement reads "...because it is summer!". The advertisement is for a tangy white cheese you find all over Azerbaijan. Azerbaijanis like to eat sweet watermelon with the tangy white cheese. I love it.

Pictures from Novxani...Close of Service Conference