Oh yeah, I'm single

If there is one thing that is known by every woman in this city about me, its that I'm a single man. This isn't a boastful claim or a creepy assessment, but merely standard info on Josh's Azerbaijani baseball card. 'Are you married?' is usually the 3rd question asked, right after 'Where are you from?' and 'Are you a teacher?'. Its such a consistent question that I've become pretty proficient at saying 'If I was married, why would I leave my life in America?'

The thing is, a single man in Azerbaijan is a boy, a helpless creature that would end up naked and starving were it not for the kindness of mothers, sisters, grandmothers, and aunts. While looking for my own apartment last month I was consistently asked how I would live alone, if I had ever cooked before, and did I know how to wash clothes. These were sincere questions, asked with a true concern for the welfare of their new teacher, who was about to show up to school dirty and emaciated.

Flash forward to April and I now have my own apartment where I have successfully cooked and cleaned for two weeks and counting. I am starting to convince my teachers at school that maybe I really did live on my own in America. But there is one person who still remains completely unconvinced-my landlady, a sweet old woman who isn't quite sure about just having rented her apartment to an American who just isn't prepared for this crazy 'ol world.

Numerous times over the past few weeks my landlady has let herself into my apartment to check things out. In America this is a pretty gross eschewal of privacy but here in Azerbaijan its just expected. How else will she learn about who I am and what I'm doing here? And its not like I speak fluent Azeri, so why bother coming when I'm here? But those of us of astute observation are able to discover little clues that indicate she's been here.

For example, the last time I came home, she had rearranged the chairs in my bedroom/living room, cleared off my coffee table and put luggage that was not yet fully unpacked in the closet. She had also moved my drying rack outside and rehung all my clothes. I just imagine her muttering to herself 'I can't believe he left them to dry this way, thats why he needs to get married'. Another time I came home to my kitchen shelves completely rearranged. Whether or not I had spent any time arranging the shelves myself (I had) was of no concern to her, the concern was that I had arranged them incorrectly and thank goodness she was checking in on me or else they would have never been fixed.

At first this drove me crazy; it really is an invasion of privacy by American standards and I wanted to assert the fact that a single male can be an independent human being. But I'm not in America, and, as an AZ7 pointed out, it looks like she's also keeping the place pretty clean. Its true; she's dusting and vacuuming, she's putting my dry dishes away, heck she's even refilling my soap tray. So over the past few days I've been cognitively switching her from 'nosey landlady' to 'free maid' and its really helped me put a positive spin on this. I've always wanted a maid, I just never expected I'd get one when I had the least amount of disposable income. Its also become something of a game, how close can I get to her standard? What correction in my lifestyle will be made this time and what will she eventually compromise on? I've gone to despising this to loving it in just a few days.