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.

[Insert Rapture Joke Here]

The outstanding Dance-Punk band The Rapture are finally back, releasing a new album September 6th. Even better, they'll its coming out on DFA, the beautiful label that brought this great band, LCD Soundsystem, Hot Chip, YACHT, and a million other great singles. Get excited.

Next Post is Positive, I Promise

February is generally acknowledged among the Peace Corps Volunteers here as the worst month. You're past the newness of site an job and wallowing around in the thick of it, with every problem abjectly staring you in the face. Its also the worst month of winter and the month with the least amount of available fruits and veggies. Plus, you've been living with a host family for 6 months at that point.

This past week seemed a reprise of February and it hit me like a ton of bricks. it came out of nowhere and I'm still figuring out what happened in hopes of effectively dealing with it. Everything should be good now. I'm in my own place (with fully functional plumbing), I'm starting to get a bit more familiar with the Azeri language, summer is practically here. And yet, last week was one of the most emotionally, physically, and mentally exhausting weeks I've had. Each morning I forcibly dragged my body out of bed and for a couple days I couldn't even get that far. Nothing remotely like this ever happened in America.

At this point in the school year, school is over. The problem is that every one still goes (except for the smart students who realize that its over). It is mind-numbingly boring, nodding off in class boring, finding yourself staring out the window into nowhere boring. All the review that I've been encouraging my teachers to do throughout the year is compressed into this week. But there is no review, simply reciting multiple choice tests which have answers already circled.

Furthermore, my plans for summer are being very closely watched and tracked. There have been no 'nos' yet, but it has been a lengthy process navigating a series of obstacles that seem to spring up at each turn. Annoyingly enough this is just to get permission to use a classroom in the already open and used school for conversation clubs that students and administrators are incessantly clamoring for, while at the same time impeding.

This whole process of inaction exemplifies the paranoia and victimization that is ever present in Azerbaijan. Coming from a country worshipping the idea of 'picking yourself up by your own bootstraps' this country's pervading feeling of 'everyone is out to get me' is draining. Many times I want to shake the person and yell 'so how are you going to work to improve it?' If Azerbaijan was a person, I would probably not be its friend. In fact, I can think of people I know like this, and I'm not their friend.

Rationally, there are a lot of things I need to keep in mind. The week before summer is like the day before Christmas-the closer it gets the worse the week is. Its also true that initiating things here is always brutal, but the actual doing is usually really fun. And I've basically got a few months coming up dedicated towards traveling around the country with a visit to America thrown in.

My Fave Panel is the Last One

And continuing with this video theme, check out the vid of my favorite conversation club activity-storyboarding. Its a great way to get students to think critically about English, forcing them to both read, draw, and speak.

This is also a good video for you if your Aesop's Fable's Drive is running on empty.

Azerbaijan's Newest Children's Book from josh on Vimeo.

Wait and See - Holy Ghost

Very catchy single from Holy Ghost's new album 'Holy Ghost'. Full disclosure: its from DFA so I'm already a sucker, but its a solid album. Also the video is great.

Holy Ghost! - Wait & See from DFA Records on Vimeo.

In other music, I've been pumping Nicki Minaj's 'Super Bass,' Fleet Foxes' new album 'Helplessness Blues,' and 'Return of 4Eva' by Big K.R.I.T.