Seriously, I've been wanting a desk for a while.

I think I've done a pretty admirable effort of keeping regular updates.  Scanning my blog there are about 130 posts of various observations, obstacles and, uh, avocations?  But there comes a time in any of this where you reach a week that simply has nothing terribly interesting to write about.

I could rehash a previous update and write about camp again.  We finished our second and, thankfully, final week of summer camp.  It was a huge success but all the organizers were thrilled to be finished with it.  Each day, after a morning filled with activities focused on health, goal setting, or environment, we would collapse onto our respective coaches and beds, exhausted and readying ourselves for the next early morning.

Or maybe draw out an explanation on the Writing Olympics Awards Ceremony held in a beautiful building in downtown Baku.  Families traveled from all over the country, some over 5 hours away, to celebrate the Azerbaijani national and international winners .  Proud parents and volunteers watched nervous and smiling kids read their winning essays and happily accept their award.

Or I could recount the hardly safe for work details of that night.  Beginning with a birthday party for JM hosted by her parents (thanks Jackie and Russ!) overlooking downtown Targova Square.  And like swarming locusts, groups of PCVs in Baku that night continued to move from bar to bar collecting into a greater and greater mass of Americans getting louder and louder and less and less coordinated in their dancing.

Or bring up the great Peer Support Network training I, and 3 other volunteers, just received.  PSN is a network of voted upon PCVs to provide a free call in line for any PCV who is dealing with any sort of difficulties (or successes!)  Its completely free for a PCV to use and also completely confidential.  I really enjoyed the training and am excited to begin providing the support that I myself found so useful as a caller.

But honestly, I just did tell you about all of these things.  There really wasn't more than a 3-4 sentence paragraph held within these items.  The current thrill in my life is a 'new' desk, which gives me a place to have an actual workstation instead of just ruining my back hunching over a coffee table.  What can I say?  Summer is coming to a close.

So what do you want to hear about?  Email/comment me back and I will do my best to give a full, interesting, and (knock on wood) funny account of whatever you're dying to know about.

So What's Getting Me Through? Post America Edition

Previously I wrote about successfully avoiding the Post America Hangover due to a exhausting schedule of camp, meetings, and delicious food. It was difficult to get depressed when leading 35 kids through and obstacle course, talking with the ministry about an upcoming training, or preparing my first batch of homemade peanut butter.

However, there were a few other things that really helped in this immediate adjustment period. So, in honor of avoiding the post-america hangover, welcome to 'So What's Getting Me Through? Post America Edition'.

1) Yoga, lots of yoga. This week I started practicing with my site mate Glendene who is a much more practiced yogi than I. Not only does she have a greater bank of knowledge to share with me, but practicing with her means I'm doing daily 60 or 90 minute practices. In edition to some DVDs we're using yogaglo, which I highly recommend for any of you yogis away from a studio. 18 bucks a month for a huge online library of classes with outstanding teachers.

2) The Weeknd and Big K.R.I.T. This week was seriously helped by the fact that I was able to soundtrack it with two new mix tapes from two of the best new artists of 2011. Earlier this year The Weeknd released contender for best album of the year 'House of Balloons' and 'Thursday' continues an exceptional tradition of sexy and dangerous dubstep infused r&b. Big K.R.I.T. is the freshest voice this year in conscious hip-hop and 'Last King 2-God's Machine' continues with great beats, rapid fire flow, and awesome guests.

3) The Best of Roald Dahl. What do you do when you arrive buzzed and bleary eyed to the Peace Corps Lounge after 30 hours of traveling on almost no sleep? Comb through the library for hidden gems. But never, ever do you expect to find this, an infinitely readable and entertaining collection of Roald Dahl's short stories, most of which you've never read before. By the way, if you haven't yet, do yourself a favor and read the 'The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar'.

The Weeknd - Lonely Star

The Weeknd - Lonely Star by The_Weeknd

Big K.R.I.T. - 4eva and a Day

4eva & A Day [Prod By Big K.R.I.T] by iam_ayo

Dodging the Post-America Hangover

Well I'm back in Azerbaijan after two blissful weeks in America. My sister was considerate enough to get married (congrats Meg and Justin!) during my time overseas, thus providing me with the perfect excuse to go home and visit with all my family. I was home for about two weeks which gave me enough time to spend quality time with family while indulging in a BBQ devouring, sushi feasting, beer quaffing lifestyle. And even better, it was long enough of a visit that it ended with me feeling ready to head back to Azerbaijan and get on with the show.

This isn't to say I was happy to be leaving the US. I fully expected the onset of the volunteer-wide despised 'Post-America Hangover,' the depression and lethargy that comes with leaving your friends and family again and returning to all the troubles and frustration that accompany the culture you're stationed in. But I was ready to deal with this in order to begin working towards my goal of successfully completing my service.

But, unlike most volunteers' return trips back to country, I would be jumping, feet first, into a very busy set of weeks. And this work served as my 2am diner run and chugging of water that staved off the ugly hangover.

Most substantially is Khachmaz Summer Camp, which began the day I came back. This is the Khachmaz region's volunteers' flagship summer event and it was over 3 months of planning to have two weeks of summer camp, one in the city of Khachmaz and one in the city of Khudat. Each day took a different theme such as teamwork, health, or diversity and we would have various arts and crafts, talks, and activities focused on these different areas. We decorated team flags, had a trash clean up, made friendship bracelets, and competed in an massive obstacle course. It was a pretty typical summer camp and the kids really enjoyed it.

Summer camp was the exhausting first half of the day and in the second half I was able to do some legwork on some of the future coming projects. Kelly and I are preparing for another semester of the Traveling Teacher Roadshow, putting down prep work for 4 region visits and I met with a representative from the ministry of education to discuss plans for upcoming trainings with primary school age teachers, who will begin teaching a new English curriculum this school year.

And this past weekend my chef friend extraordinaire held a food processor camp at my house. Food processors are all the rage amongst volunteers in the North Finger, largely due to the incredibly delicious things Sanyo was continually whipping up. So, this weekend, Sanyo gave me and a couple other volunteers a crash course in the magic of food processors. After a full morning of kitchen work, we had an afternoon feast of hummus, falafel, pesto, salsa, peanut butter (with m&ms!), and romesco sauce. It was delicious and felt like I was eating at one of my fave restaurants in Denver-City 'o City.

So, the hangover was avoided, or at least delayed. The busyness continues next week with our second week of camp (this time with a 30 minute commute!), and a trip, spilling into next week, to Baki for the Writing Olympics awards ceremony, Peer Support Network training, and training on program design and management. Never a dull moment, which is great and appreciated right now.

ps: many of you have rightly pointed out that you don't really know what Khachmaz looks like. I'm in the process of taking pictures of my site, so I'll soon be able to provide you with a clear picture.

Scattered Thoughts and Time Zones

This past month has been a bit of a blur, and my inconsistency in posting reflects that. Between summer camps, travel to Goychay, Sheki, Zagatala, and a trip to America that included a wedding, I've been feeling a bit scattered in my thoughts.

A lot of people have asked if it was difficult visiting America, if it was difficult to return to this hyper-capitalist land of pork and money. The short answer is no. It was seductively easy and enjoyable to come back to my cultural homeland. It was everything I had been thinking of and didn't disappoint. Seeing family, experiencing incredibly fast internet and extremely cold air-conditioning, eating Chipotle, BBQ, and Sushi-it was all just how I imagined it would be.

Rather the greater difficulty was fast forwarding in time, if only for two weeks, to a point where my service was over and the greater questions of 'what the heck will I am be doing with my life now' sounded loud and clear. I've said many times that I will relish this time, the first time in my life, where I will have almost complete freedom to choose my next step and I still believe that. But this is accompanied by a pressure to choose a 'correctly'

I want to travel. I want to live in Greece and Turkey. I want to backpack around South East Asia, China, and Patagonia. I want to live a life that allows me to teach but not in a classroom. I want to live simply and minimally but also have some sexy designer furniture and unnecessarily extravagant dinner parties. I want to be able to see my family and friends and feel emotionally fulfilled while intellectually stimulated. And I want this in the next ten years, not the last ten.

I feel that my time in Peace Corps, just like all time in life that precedes another time, should be some sort of preparation for achieving these future goals but my thoughts of recent have been scattered as to how to begin. One huge advantage when working for Apple was that there was a boss or a mentor to provide direction when needed. Now I feel like I can hardly keep my head straight on how to begin a simple Teacher Training Project.

They say begin with the end in mind and I guess I should be happy that I know what I want to be experiencing. I'm just finding that I have just as little clue on how to get there, just a whole bunch of scattered thoughts.

Ride the Line Ride: A Real Life Simulator of a Long Line

Special Bonus Video:

Cow Days
Tags: SOUTH
PARKmore...

Currently I'm writing you in a highly air conditioned room in a country with outstanding paved roads and restaurants dedicated to slow cooking pork. I haven't left the Peace Corps, but am lucky enough to come stateside for my sister's wedding. Going home for a wedding in the Peace Corps is the best. There's no concern of not toughing out the full two years and everybody in your community is so excited the American is doing their favorite thing-going to a family member's wedding.

The strongest signal I was returning to my cultural homeland happened in the Moscow airport. As the agent notified passengers he would begin boarding people began to line up, to be helped, in order of their position in line. And I exhaled one of the largest sighs of relief in the past 10 months. Just hours earlier I was in a concert-like experience to check my baggage, positioning my body and extending my elbows slowly inching closer and closer to service.

See, lines don't exist in Azerbaijan. I don't mean this in a funny 'haha' way, I mean this in a fundamental, cultural psychological way. People don't line up to get service. Here's a couple real life examples to show what I mean:

I am waiting to get into the local fun center, a place with small carnival rides and food. I have my manat out and am in the process of getting a ticket from the man at the door. Someone walks right up to him, gives a dollar, and walks in right before me. The man then gives me my ticket.

I am at the post office paying my gas bill. There are two men in front of me, crowding around the cashier's window. I position myself about 10-12 inches behind them. A man walks between me and those men. I mean he literally, quite deftly positioned himself in the narrow space between me and the two men. And never gave a second thought to it.

I am in a crowd of people, waiting to withdraw money from the ATM. I am now in front of the machine fishing my wallet out. A man walks up to the crowd, sticks his card in before I do, and pushes himself in front of me to enter his pin. After he leaves I use the ATM.

First experienced it strikes you as the height of rudeness. Actually, repeated experiences continue to strike you as the height of rudeness. I mean, this is basic stuff people, kindergarden stuff: No cutters! Cutters go to the back of the line! Whenever I see this happen I go on red alert to administer some hall pass justice.

But the more I see it and the more I live in this culture I realize that its not actually rude, its not even considered. Lines, and serving people in a specific order based on the notion of time of arrival hardly exists culturally. There's no idea of 'next person' because there's no idea of 'line'; or maybe its the other way around. Whichever way it is, its really jarring. I am continually thrown for curves in 'waiting for service' situations because I have no clue how Azerbaijanis organize themselves, if they do at all, for service.

This is probably one of the more fundamental differences I've observed. Everything else I feel I've been able to learn, get used to, or accept, but this is something that continues to throw me off every time I experience it. No matter how often it happens I am not expecting it and I can't figure out what I'm not doing that leads people to do it. I don't know how Azeris wait.

Back in Moscow, I'm enjoying my sudden change of luck; waiting in line for the agent to rip my ticket, waiting in line to get on the bus taxiing us to the plane, waiting in line to board the aircraft. Oh yeah, it feels good.

"Hello! What Would You Like Me To Say For You?"

My current measurement of proficiency in the Azeri language is my landlady. She speaks quickly and mumbles a lot, frequently I suspect she's speaking Russian, and no matter what I say, she refuses to listen through my accent. I can't necessarily blame her, there's a sense of 'you can't teach an old dog new tricks' and I'm probably the one and only American she will ever be interacting with. So our conversations continue to bumble along until it gets so bad that she starts clamoring 'Elvin. Elvin zeng vumalisan'

Elvin is the name of my friend who helped me find this apartment and when we are having a particularly difficult time understanding one another she asks that I call Elvin to get things sorted out. Even after 10 months of immersive Azeri study, there are still times when I've needed Elvin as a go between. There have been numerous times (such as when my plumbing broke or she suggesting that her son in law stay with me) where I thanked the heavens for having his help to politely and accurately interpret the situation.

It strikes me that this could be a pretty desirable service. Most of us, when traveling, don't have the luxury to settle into a culture or location long enough to meet friends (and bilingual friends at that) who could help serve as a personal translator for particularly sticky situations. And the fear of language inability is a pretty common source of anxiety for new or seasoned world travelers wherever they may be traveling.

What if there was a business where I could pay a fee to have the luxury of calling an on-call translator to help with whatever situation is thrown my way? Benefits range from confidence in understanding should an unforeseen medical emergency occur; helping oneself get settled for a longer stay, while minimizing the all to common 'language ignorance tax'; or simply asking for accurate directions while site seeing. An on-call translator service could bring a level of comfort and support to world travelers never before experienced.

Current translation services seem to occupy one of two spaces, business and learning. Those services that are focused on business tend to deemphasize personal support. These services take the form of providing conference call translators and document translation. Then there are those services focused on learning. Here the focus is on the individual but does not provide information in a way that would be useful in real-time. I may be able to go online and submit a phrase to be translated, but there is a lag in both speed of answer and place of use, let alone accounting for the local's response. I'm not aware of services that try and provide an on-call, real-time, benefit for an individual, rather than the professional.

What are your thoughts? Is anyone interested in further exploring this idea with me? Send me an email/comment.