A Week of Positive Things

Immediately across the entrance to my apartment building, in the midst of a row of apartment buildings, is 'fuck' spray painted in black letters. I don't really know why its there, but it provides a great landmark to anyone coming to my apartment. 'I'm the entrance across from the fuck.' No one I've told this to has ever forgotten my apartment. Totally convenient.

But alas, somehow this convenient and hilarious landmark isn't enough to get through the days and weeks. Sometimes, despite the fact that I can describe my building as 'across from the fuck,' I get pretty down on Azerbaijan. These past couple weeks was just that sort of funk. So to help myself out of it, I decided I would do a little daily exercise to write one thing I liked about Azerbaijan, hoping positive self talk would help me fake it till I made it. It (plus school ending) worked and below are some of my entries, in no particular order.

1) Shop owners proactively ask your name. At all the shops I go to with relative frequency, I know the names of the shop owners and they know mine. This is such a nice little thing. I can think of at least 10 places in Denver/Boulder that I went to all the time and yet only at one of those places did this ever happen and I loved that place because of it. I really will try and bring this back to the states with me.

2) Excellent cross-country public transportation. One of the great things about Azerbaijan, as a Peace Corps country, is that it has an outstanding infrastructure of public transportation. Not necessarily the greatest roads, but a ton of buses and minibuses are traveling on those roads. Because everyone relies on it, it quite easy and inexpensive to get anywhere in the rayon, area, or country using public transit.

3) Azerbaijan is very green. Its got a bit of its own environmental issues to work on, but Azerbaijan is incredibly fertile and green. Even the cities (again, I live in a big city, though its only about 40K) have tons of trees and flowers around. Fruit and nut trees are everywhere and everyone has porch gardens if they don't have a yard. And once you get out of the city you're driving through real countryside, forest, and mountains. There are farms and orchards but they don't have the cold, efficient look that so many of the US superfarms have.

4) Men are very affectionate with babies and kids. Men have absolutely no hesitation about showing their affection for children. They will coo and play with babies just as women do and far more frequently then I have seen in the US. And its not just fathers, any man who is emotionally connected to the family loves lavishing attention on babies. Its really endearing.

5) All the dudes tucks their t-shirts into their underwear. This is hilarious because, in the summer, it means you can see almost everyone's underwear.

6) The amount of community upkeep and repair that occurs in the Spring is unlike anything I have ever seen in the United States. Its like the city husks its old skin and takes on a new one. Come spring everything is made shiny and new. Everything might not be built to last but it's refreshed yearly and makes for a beautiful spring and summer place.

7) I actually do have time. I'm definitely a busy volunteer, but I was really hoping that, upon joining the Peace Corps, I would have time to do more reading, yoga, and writing and be given an opportunity to create the lifelong habits that I always felt I was struggling for while working in Denver. Its nice that this has come to be.

So there you have it. A week of positive thoughts about Azerbaijan.