Hip-Hop in the Land of Fire: Elshad Xose - Muxbirler Chashib

Continuing our weekly series of Azerbaijani hip-hop is Elshad Xose. According to wikipedia he's one of the more commercially successful rappers in Azerbaijan. This track is from his 2004 album Plagiat.

Elshad Xose - Muxbirler Chashib (which means 'Confused Journalists')
  Elshad Xose - Muxbirler Chashib by joshehr

Everyone Likes a Nice View

School began on Thursday. For those of us who aren't living in Azerbaijan, let me tell you what that means. It means that I arrived at 8:45am for an assembly I was told would begin at 9pm. As the crowd got larger and larger, I slowly moved closer and closer to the side of the building to stay in the ever-reducing shade. At 10:30 the assembly celebrating 'Knowledge Day' began and ended with two first graders ringing bells to open the school.

After the new school year was inaugurated the adorable first graders were ushered through the doors, followed by a mass of people clogging those doors preventing anyone else from entering. 30 minutes later I successfully found myself inside, only to think: 'I have absolutely no clue why I'm here, or what I'm doing'. Aimlessly I walked the halls; no one was in class, no one was in the teacher's room. And no one seemed to have any clue of the schedule.

In fact the schedule made its first appearence the next day. A massive, graphite-smudged, hand-written anachronism; its existence embodying the very argument for Excel. I jockeyed between burley Xanims to copy down my two counterparts schedules, in hopes of figuring out some compromise that would allow me to work with both of them. At this point Tamilla entered and encouraged me not to worry too much because the whole thing would change in a few days. We probably wouldn't see a stable schedule for at least a few weeks.

Thanks Tamilla, what a relief.

But this is the way of things in this country, and this is the way of one's service in this country. Beginnings are slow, changes (to your plan) frequent, and progress gradual. We are warned not to become discouraged and continue on this gradual slope of presumed improvement. Honestly, its not a bad perspective to bring back to the United States. And as frustrating as this incremental progress is, there are certain moments when you are able to step back and see progress being made, a little overlook on your mountain path to show how far you've come. These moments get me a little more excited than an American should get.

I just had one of these moments yesterday with our region's English Methodist, who is responsible for English Education in Xachmaz. We've been meeting throughout the summer discussing an idea for monthly trainings for English teachers on interactive methods. But at the end of this meeting I could see it happening. We had our first one scheduled-October 1st, we had the plan for the second one as well. We even had found another teacher who wanted to help with these, allowing me to broach the idea to him that this could continue after I had left Azerbaijan.

I left this meeting nearly giddy with excitement. 'It's actually happening,' I thought, 'teacher training and training the trainers is actually going to occur in my service'. This summer I'd often stop and wonder if I was bluffing myself, if I was telling myself I was focusing on teacher training simply because I was lazy and disinterested in classroom teaching. Then a meeting like this happens, a brief little plateau in my gradual climb that allows me to look back and see that I actually am headed in the right direction and have come quite a ways.

The Flight (Search) You've Been Looking For

Thank heavens for the internet; from banking, to music discovery, to news, its made so many aspects of our lives easier.  Perhaps chief amongst these is air travel.  Though still an incredibly obtuse system, sites like Travelocity and Expedia made searching for tickets and planning an itinerary simple, by searching across numerous different airlines.

And then new sites (and features) began to crop up.  Sites like Kayak and Hipmunk increased usability with price sliders and nearby location searching.  I still have no clue how airline pricing works, but at least it was easier to get a cheaper fare.

Now Google has jumped into the game with Flight Search and this looks very enticing indeed.  It uses a familiar layout of google maps with some nifty little features, like allowing you to search based on time from city or price limits.  It has some slick graphics to easily see price changes by date, or to narrow your search through a combination of trip duration and price.  Its pretty snazzy and, once they get international flights built in, I see it becoming a first stop for me

(thanks lifehacker for this tipoff)

Hip-Hop in the Land of Fire: H.O.S.T. - Qarada Qırmızı

A lot of volunteers have bucket lists while in Azerbaijan, things they want to do before they leave country.  They may range from the impossible, such as cooking an Azeri Xanim approved national meal-plov, to the illegal, such as driving a marshrutka (minibus), to the entirely attainable, such as partying till the sun, literally, comes up in Baku.

These lists really start to lengthen as one gets closer to end of service, when you only have a few months to achieve your personal goals.  So far I only have three items: 30 minutes in an Azeri style squat; drinking in a rooftop bar in Baku, overlooking the entire city; and becoming an 'authority' on Azeri hip-hop.

So, I'm going to post a track weekly of solid Azeri hip-hop, which will be quite the treasure hunt as I haven't found anything focused on this niche in the the English language.  I don't have much clue what they're saying, but these tracks sound good.

First up: H.O.S.T. - Qarada Qırmızı (which means 'In Red Blood')

 H.O.S.T. - Qarada Qırmızı by joshehr

Answers to Your Questions-Part 2

A lot of you had questions about teenagers and what life is like for a kid in Azerbaijan.  Instead of answering specific questions, I'll try and give a general description of life for a teenager.  There are a few substantial factors that dictate what their life is like here-whether they're a girl or boy, in a village or a city.  I mostly have an idea of what life is like for a city boy in and my answers paint that picture.

Teenage boys in the city have a lot of freedom, certainly way more freedom than a girl.  Boys are the royalty in the household, girls are just girls.  This isn't to say girls are unloved, but there is an obvious gender bias towards boys.

A typical day for a teenager in Azerbaijan during school is wake up, go to school and come home for lunch.  Most children, especially those who are approaching the end of their school years, will study an almost equal amount of hours with tutors on subjects that they will be tested on for college admittance.  So they might take tutoring in english, history, and azerbaijani, but not in math or physics.  Girls are also expected to help with housework, though this load is lessened in their intense after-school tutoring years.  Boys have very little responsibility in housework.

Most children I speak with in the city plan on going to college.  The college entrance here is very different and very centralized.  You must decide very early on, maybe around 8th grade, what 'faculty' you are studying for.  Faculty is similar to a major but it also refers to their section of exams they will take.  The test you take upon completing school (11th grade) is determined by your chosen faculty.  And that test will focus on certain subjects over others.

Based on your test results (and only your test results) the government (not the student) will determine what school you will go to, what faculty you will attend, and whether or not you will be receiving money towards your education.  So, its a pretty big test and the ambitious students usually spend years of extra tutoring to prepare.

Aside from studying, teenage boys do many different things.  Frequently they'll go to an internet club or be online at home.  Facebook is huge here and if you want to be cool you need to be on it.  1st person shooter games are also really popular here and its more common to see people playing those at internet clubs (also called playstation clubs) than anything else.  Many teenage boys do sports or some form of physical activity, wrestling and judo are very common extracurriculars and of course soccer is ubiquitous.

Azerbaijan has a rich and still vibrant folk tradition and music lessons, such as for their national instrument-the tar, are quite common.  Chess is also a common after school activity
and its been more than once that a little kid has beat my ass pretty hard in chess.

There are very few hangouts, in the sense that Americans think of them, in the regions-no movies, malls, restaurants, coffee shops where youth can get together.  Teahouses (serving tea or beer) are quite common, but it is very much an adult male location, not for youth.  There are many beautiful parks and strolling through them back and forth, again and again, is a very popular pastime.  Its also a way that women can be out in the public and not bring on 'the shame'.

Every boy wants a girlfriend, and with the rise of Facebook (and internet access in general) and the ever-presence of cell phones, this is becoming easier and easier to do.  However, dating is very different from the United States.  Boys and girls may be dating and never actually be with each other, instead acting out all the comedy and drama of a relationship through phone calls, text messages, and Facebook wall updates.  Its common to see boys and girls interacting when school is somehow involved (walking home together, talking outside together) but it always gets us PCVs giggling like school girls when we see a coed group on the weekends.

Wow, this ended up being a lot longer than I was anticipating and at some point I have to put an end to a post that is trying to express 12 months of observations.  I'll return to this idea in the future, but do you have any questions that this post brings up that you would like clarified?