Back In The (Former) USSR!

Well, first things first. Let me tell you about our Christmas before I get to telling you about our trip to London and Istanbul. Even though we live in a Muslim country and they don’t celebrate Christmas, they have a strong left-over Soviet influence. This affects a lot of things including the desire to have a decorated tree at this time of year. The week before Christmas they have a holiday where they sacrifice a sheep in honor of when Allah gave Abraham a lamb to kill instead of his son, Isaac. Sound familiar? We’ve been eating that sheep even since we came back. Yum! Anyway, they don’t have Christmas trees, but they do have Yeni Il (New Years) trees! They even have a Shaxta Baba and a Qar Qiz! Shaxta Baba means grandfather frost and Qar Qiz is snow girl. They are basically Santa and his granddaughter, but they don’t give gifts. They just come and stand by a Yeni Il tree and have their pictures taken. I digress. We were able to buy a little tree and lights at our bazaar and my lovely sister Jennifer and her family sent us fun ornaments, so our little room felt very Christmassy!

On Christmas Eve we went to Baku to have dinner and go to church with some of our good friends here in Azerbaijan. We went to a good Mexican restaurant (there was even a band singing classic rock dressed in Christmas costumes… it was just us and a group of British oil men…). After dinner we walked around Baku singing Christmas carols and getting stared at. Then we went to a midnight mass in English at the Catholic Church. It was the only church with a service and it ended up being really nice. It didn’t really feel like Christmas, but it was nice to be with a group of people celebrating.

On Christmas all the other people from AZ5 came into Baku for our In Service Training (IST). It was good to have everyone together again and the training went really well. We had two days full of meetings, trainings, inspiration and fun! We spent Jesse’s birthday with friends at IST and went for Thai food for dinner. Now onto….

LONDON

Day one:
Oh, what a fantastic holiday! It was so nice to be in a place where we are easily understood and where we could walk down the street and not feel like we were in a fish bowl! I think we did everything we wanted to, and ate lots of good foods we had been missing.

The first thing we did on Sunday the 30th was get gingerbread and eggnog lattes at Starbucks! They were just spectacular! Then we went to St. Paul’s Cathedral where we attended a mattins service. It was absolutely beautiful. Everything was sung by the choir and we were sitting under Wren’s magnificent dome. It was a great way to begin our London vacation.

After church we took a Double Decker bus down to the Tower of London and took a tour with a beefeater, saw the jewels then walked across the Tower Bridge. We had fish and chips for lunch with a good beer for Jesse and cranberry juice for me (I had been craving it for months!). We walked along the Thames past the Globe and went to the Tate Modern. There was some interesting stuff there, but it was crowded and not really what we’re interested in, so we just took a quick look in all the galleries. Then we walked home past London Eye, Big Ben, Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus and Oxford Street. We ended up eating dinner at Wagamama, which is one of the best restaurant ideas I’ve ever seen. It has really good Asian type noodles and stuff. It’s set up in a really interesting, inventive way. And it’s really yummy!

Day two:
We had a really nice New Year’s Eve. First thing in the morning we bought tickets to see "Cabaret" that night, then headed down to Buckingham Palace to see the Changing of the Guard. We got the best seats that Rick Steves recommended to us and waited. We were about an hour early and definitely got some quality people watching in. The actual Changing of the Guard was a little less entertaining, since it was a slightly played down version of what usually happens. There were about 8 horses that rode by, without the fanfare and band. It was still cool.

We walked past the Ritz and down Bond Street to Oxford Street. We saw some amazing stores, decorated beautifully for the holidays. We obviously couldn’t afford anything on our Peace Corps incomes, but we did make our way to the sales at H&M. I got a shirt for 1 pound and a pretty coat for 10! Jesse also got a rad shirt for 1 pound. I love H&M!

After shopping we went to an Afternoon High Tea at Brown’s Hotel. It was fun to get all dressed up, go to a fancy hotel on a fancy street and eat some fancy sandwiches! We totally didn’t feel like PCVs! It was a really nice, relaxing way to spend a cold London afternoon and I think I had the best scones of my life!

When we were stuffed with tea and such, we went to "Cabaret." I had seen this a couple times in the states, but this production was far better than I’d ever seen. It was a lot more risqué, with full nudity at multiple times, but this just really led to more powerful imagery at the end when the Holocaust is alluded to. It was beautiful, and I think you all know how I feel about musicals!

We walked out of the theatre into 700,000 people celebrating 2008. It was about 10 and we were planning on going back to St. Paul’s for a New Years celebration with a brass band, but it turned out to be impossible to get there. All the tube stops around Leicester, Piccadilly and Trafalgar Square were closed and we ended up walking all the way from the north end of Leicester to Victoria Station. We almost celebrated New Year’s on the subway, but made it to our hotel at about 11:45. We got Burger King and watched the clock on King’s Cross Station turn over the New Year. It was fun to be with the 700,000 people, but also nice not to be stuck in the mess of people trying to leave the city on the subways after midnight. It worked out perfectly if you ask me.

Day Three:
We started the year by visiting Westminster Abbey. What a beautiful museum! We were really lucky, because it was almost deserted. We got to spend as much time as we wanted looking at all the memorials and altars. It ended up being both of our favorite places we visited in London. We lit a candle and said a prayer for Eugene and St. Mary’s Church. It was really nice to be in Anglican churches again, both St. Paul’s and Westminster.

When we left the museum we walked up Whitehall and got a place up front for the New Years Day Parade. There were a ton of marching bands from the States, but my favorite was this little band of kids and their director. They were so into what they were doing, it was awesome.
After lunch at an Italian restaurant, we went to see "I Am Legend" at a movie theatre on Leicester Square. It was really expensive and really scary, but it was really fun to go to a movie in a theatre.

We then went down and rode the London Eye Ferris wheel. It was dark and rainy, so the city was sparkling as we rode the half-hour ride. It goes so high and has amazing views of Parliament, Big Ben, St. Paul’s and the rest of the city. It was Jesse favorite thing we did and he took some really great pictures during the ride.

Day Four:
The day of museums. We got up early and went down to the British Museum. They had China’s Terracotta Army on display, but we had to go really early to try and get tickets for the exhibit. There was already a really long line and they said they would only have about 500 tickets for the day. We waited and everything worked out perfectly. The permanent collection galleries opened at 10 and we got tickets to the Terracotta Army for 10:50. So we spent almost an hour looking at all the antiquities in the museum. The Rosetta Stone and Parthenon statues were the most interesting, along with the sarcophaguses and ancient Egyptian and Assyrian (that’s basically where we live) statues.

The Terracotta Army exhibit was really interesting. My Granny saw this in China during her travels, so it was really special for me to see it. She gave us a horse figurine from there that I always loved (I wonder where that went…). It was interspersing that the first emperor of China created this massive city of terracotta people because of a desire to become immortal when he died, but even more interesting than that is he began this project when he was only 19 years old! They showed how they built the men and even showed what they would have looked like in their full colorful splendor.

After the British Museum we ate at Wagamama again and went to the National Gallery to follow Rick Steves’ tour of the museum. He definitely hit all the good works! We saw Michelangelos, Botticelli’s "Venus and Mars," Raphael’s "Pope Julius II," Leonardo’s "The Virgin on the Rocks," Titian’s "Bacchus and Ariadne," Tintoretto’s "The Origin of the Milky Way," a Rembrandt self-portrait, Caravaggio’s "The Supper at Emmaus," and of course the Impressionists, our favorites. We saw Van Gogh’s sunflowers, Monet’s lily pond and Japanese bridge, Seurat’s bathers, and Cezanne’s landscapes.

Then we popped into the National Portrait Gallery and took a quick look around at the more modern portraits and some of the temporary exhibits. They also had a photographic portrait contest that was advertized all over the tube, so we wanted to check out the book for that.
That night we went at sat in the front row of "Avenue Q." It was a really fun show and I thought it was neat to be in the front row, because we could see all the work the actors had to do changing between all the puppets. Sometimes an actor would have a conversation between two puppets for whom they provided both voices. It was funny and defiantly not appropriate for the children in the audience, probably expecting Sesame Street!

After the show we went to an all you can eat sushi restaurant. Jesse had been planning this for months, researching the best sushi restaurants for value and quality. He chose a very good one! We had just ordered when the hostess sat two people next to us at the bar… and they turned out to be our friend Whitney who’s a volunteer in our group and her sister! Crazy! We knew she was in London, but hadn’t gotten in touch with her! It was fun to meet her sister and compare crazy reverse culture shock stories from being in London. Plus, the sushi was great and we definitely got our money’s worth!

Day Five:
It was starting to snow as we flew out of England and when we landed in Istanbul, there were a few inches of snow blanketing the city. We checked into our hotel which was absolutely beautiful! It had heated floors in the bathroom, a bathtub (! We both took our first bathes in over 6 months), MTV, BBC, CNN, NBC, and an incredible view of the sea and a 16th century mosque. Come on, when you’re in Peace Corps, even TV channels are amazing, don’t judge us!

Day Six:
Our hotel had a free breakfast, but it didn’t really compare to the one in London (ham, baked beans, scrambled eggs, fried eggs, toast, marmalade, sausage… yum!). We were back to bread, salty cheese, cucumber and tomato, just like Azerbaijan, so we just opted for cold cereal.
We went out onto the snowy cobblestone streets to find the Sultanahmet, which contains the Hippodrome, Aya Sofya, Topkapi Sarayi and the Blue Mosque. It was only 5 minutes away (so, if anyone ever goes to Istanbul, contact my step-mom and she can book this amazing hotel for you! Thanks, Deena!), and the walk through the Hippodrome was fascinating. There is an Egyptian Obelisk of Theodosius carved in 1450 BC that Constantine brought to Istanbul in 390 AD.

We first went to the Topkapi Sarayi, that is the Topkapi Palace or just the place where all the sultans lived. It was started in 1453 and lived in by sultans until the 19th century. We went straight to the Harem to have a look around. It was massive and interesting to see how the sultan, his family and his concubines lived. It turns out that the western idea of what a harem is isn’t quite accurate. It wasn’t a den of sex and drugs as far as we could tell. It was really just the private apartments of the sultan and the other 400 people he had to have around him. We also saw some royal jewels, carpets but completely missed seeing the Prophet room where they keep Moses’ staff and a hair from Mohammed’s beard! Oops!

We then walked down to the Aya Sofya in Turkish, Sancta Sophia in Latin, Haghia Sofia in Greek and The Church of Divine Wisdom in English. This was amazing. It was built by Emperor Justinian in 537 AD. It was considered the greatest church in Christendom until 1453 when Mehmet the Conqueror turned it into a mosque. There are many beautiful mosaics in the church that have been covered and uncovered multiple times. They were created in the 9th century and mostly portray Christ, Mary and saints. It was really impressive to be in a church so important to Christian history and built so soon after Christ’s life.

After eating a mediocre Azeri-ish lunch we went to the Grand Bazaar. We had a lot of fun shopping around in the bazaar. We were trying to find tiles, hookahs, lanterns and jewelry. We talked to a lot of shop keepers and ended up buying three beautiful tiles we will frame when we get home, two hookahs, one for us and one for our host father, and coveting a beautiful lantern that was too expensive. Jesse took a photograph of it that we will also frame and be glad to at least have that! Many of the keepers were impressed when we could speak Azeri, which is very similar to Turkish and were surprised when we said we lived in Mingechevir, because westerners never live outside of Baku.

When we were done shopping we bought some baklava for later and went to the Blue Mosque. It was very beautiful with amazing tiles covering the walls. It was also interesting to go into a functioning mosque. It was built in the 17th century.

We had Domino’s pizza delivered to our fantastic hotel and thus ended our vacation. When we got back to Azerbaijan, it was covered in ice and snow, but we finally made it back to Mingechevir on Sunday in time to have a snowball fight with our host brother (Farid and I totally beat Jesse). The snow still hasn’t melted, but at least it’s better than the miserable heat in the summer! We had a fantastic trip, but it’s always nice to be back somewhere familiar…

P.S. - We are going to upload a web album with more pictures from our trip ASAP, so keep checking back.

Merry Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!

This year marks the first time both Carolyn and I were outside of the States for Thanksgiving. It gave us a great opportunity to see how another culture celebrates this wonderful holiday. From what we could tell Azeris treated the day like…drum roll please…the same way they treat every other day! Turns out Thanksgiving is pretty much just a Western holiday (who knew?!?), so our good friends on the Peace Corps staff and in the embassy were nice enough to put together a nice little party for us. In honor of this wonderful event I decided to write a little poem (in true Robert H. Williams style.)


Twas’ the week before thanksgiving and plans were being made
For a feast so grand that the memory would not soon fade

Volunteers were cooking and packing their food
And journeying to the capital in a festive mood

When, at last, the party had arrived
Our embassy friend flung his door open wide

All our friends came together in one great big room,
The odors of the villages cleansed and perfumed

First we told stories and caught up on old times
Then came the food and talking stopped on a dime

There was turkey and stuffing and green beans, OH MY!
We had soda and juice and even pumpkin pie!

Everyone ate ‘til they were ready to explode
And staggered back upstairs for the talent show

There was singing and dancing and stories galore
And one strange act that left everyone calling for more!

After the songs were sung and the story finally finished
The time came to go, with the spirit far from diminished

So we all made our way home, our bellies full
And everyone had good reason to be thankful.



This party took place the week before thanksgiving actually occurred, so we were left to prepare our own celebration on the day of. We all gathered at our friend Mike’s house and had our site mates Nate and Cindy over. Mike’s girlfriend Kate joined us from Ganja and our good Azeri friend Zamira joined us for her first ever Thanksgiving. We were lucky enough to find a frozen turkey at a local store (we believe it was imported from South America!) and we managed not to burn it! With some help from packages from the states we had mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, apple pie, cheesecake and green bean casserole.

Being here really has made us aware of what we should be thankful for in life. We are of course thankful for our good friends and family. We are thankful for the thoughts and prayers they send to us (not to mention packages and letters!). We are thankful for great site mates and great PC staff members. We are thankful for all the amazing friends we have made our family here in Azerbaijan. We are thankful for the little things back in the states like having a bathroom inside the house and familiar food. We are thankful for music and laughing and playing games.

Most of all I think we are finding that we are most thankful we have each other.

Pictures: 1. Jesse and Carolyn at the house where we stayed in Baku, all dressed up and clean looking. How bout that?!? 2. Some of the amazing food volunteers brought to the Embassy dinner. The Ambassador's chef made the turkey and gravy and all the volunteers brought sides and desserts. We took cookies. 3. Clockwise starting with Carolyn: Carolyn, Joyce, Kelsey, Dave, Amber, Katie, Tor and Shams (one of the greatest Azeris in the world) at Thanksgiving, before the talent show. 4. Avril Lavine and Kelly Clarkson a.k.a. the Lankaran boys Ash and Tom. They did a great VH1 Storytellers performance... I'm sure it can be found on uTube. 5. Our Thanksgiving miracle: frozen turkey in Azerbaijan!!! Looks good, huh? 6. Nate, Mike, Kate, Jesse, Carolyn, Zamira and Cindy. The best site mates (plus some) in Azerbaijan! 7. The greatest Thanksgiving tradition of them all: nap-time. 8. Happy Thanksgiving from Azerbaijan!!

P.S. People have been asking about our Holiday plans so I will share. (this is Carolyn now, btw). For Christmas we will travel to Baku for our In-Service Training. We will be with all the other AZ5s at the same hotel and I'm sure we will go have a great Christmas dinner together. The 26th and 27th is the Training. We will get to be with friends for Jesse's birthday on the 27th as well! We will take the night train on the 28th to Ganja where we fly to London on the 29th. We will be in London for New Years and about 4 days, then on to Istanbul for 2 and a half days. We get back in Mingechevir on the 5th, and back to work. This is a much needed holiday and we are very excited to see more of this crazy world!

For our second anniversary we went to Sheki for the weekend. Sheki is a mountain town about an hour and a half away from here by bus… probably 45 minutes by taxi. It is nestled in the valley of two foothills of the Caucuses. We have been looking forward to visiting Sheki since we first heard we were coming to Azerbaijan.

When we got to the hotel, it was dark, cold and rainy. Since Sheki is a small mountain town, they often don’t have electricity or gas. This was one such night. Luckily the Caravanserai has a generator and they started that up when we got there! When we made our reservation we asked for the simple room. Getting to Sheki we realized that means there is no heat, so we upgraded to the deluxe. Well worth the extra money to have heat in our room if you ask me!



The Caravanserai is an old hotel that was used as a stop for the caravans of camels and goods on the silk route. It is an amazing place! It really felt like we were transported back in time.

There is another hotel in Sheki – the new hotel or Besh Ulduz (5 Stars) as the taxi drivers know it. We chose to stay in the Caravanserai because of the history and ambiance, but that didn’t stop us from eating every meal at Besh Ulduz! They have Americanish food. We ate very well during our anniversary weekend. My favorite was the creamy corn soup and I think Jesse’s favorite was the tomato soup. We also had cheeseburgers, club sandwiches, omelets, spring rolls, pizza and fried rice! Every meal we had in the restaurant, we ran into someone from America. The first night there were two men from the South who were traveling around the Caucus region. The next day we ran into a family of Americans who are working for BP in Baku. It’s weird to see Americans and overhear English conversations, since there are no other English speakers in Mingechevir.

On Saturday we went to the Khan Palace. We took the tour in Azerbaijani, so I’m not totally sure of the history of the palace, but I know one of the Khans built it and it’s very beautiful. Our vocabulary doesn’t quite include historical and artistic words quite yet. We couldn’t get anyone to give us an accurate date for when it was built, but such is life in Azerbaijan. There are amazing stained glass windows that are constructed with glass and wood frames, with no nails or anything. It was beautiful. All the walls inside the palace are intricately painted with wildlife and historical battles. The palace sits on a hill in an old walled part of town. It was very beautiful.

At lunch at the Besh Ulduz, we ran into Dwight and Joel. Dwight was studying her Azeri and Joel came to show us around town. We walked down to the bazaar, which I though wasn’t as cool as the bazaar in Mingechevir. Home town pride, you know? We also got to see Joel’s house, which has the most amazing view of the old walled city and over the city, past minarets to the other side of the valley. Sheki is what I imagined when we were told we were going to Eastern Europe. It’s an old city with cobbled streets and cultural significance. It was great.

We all met Dwight for dinner at Besh Ulduz and then went to Charlie’s house for poker with Jenny and Maria. Charlie is from the third group to come to Azerbaijan, Jenny and Maria are from the 4th. They had made popcorn balls and playing poker was fun.

Photos are: 1. The courtyard of the Caravanserai Hotel. 2. Our hotel room. (Mom, Steve, George and Debbie - You will LOVE IT!!!) 3. Me on our balcony. 4. A view of the Caucuses. 5. Jesse at the Khan Palace. 6. Me with the famous Wolf Man of Sheki. This guy walks around with his stuffed wolf and will light up the eyes and take a picture for a donation. 7. Joel and Jesse walking down a cobbled hill.

Mystery Produce!!

Azerbaijan is the land of interesting produce... Here are some examples.

Not produce, but a pretty purple flower in front of an outhouse at an IDP (Internally Displaced People) camp in Barda. I thought it was pretty. The flower, not the outhouse.
The cabbage here is HUGE. I mean really, really huge! It puts the word "head" to shame, because it's the size of a yoga ball!
Persimmons are in season now. It's kind of disappointing, because I always think they are orange trees, but alas, they are persimmons. I like oranges better.
Speaking of orange... here's a crazy purple carrot held by the beautiful Mere who lives in Barda. Who ever heard of a purple carrot?!?
These are the true mysteries. We found the bumpy thing in a square in Mingechevir and picked it up. There are a bunch that fell from the tree. We are scared to eat it. The little thing is in abundance in the bazaar. It tastes familiar, but like a candy I've eaten.

If anyone can identify these fruits, you win!!! Please leave a comment if you know what they are!

Halloween Ziyafət!

We had our first experience with patience in Azerbaijan last week. Last Friday (the 26th) we spent hours and hours at Mike’s apartment helping him and his girlfriend Kate prepare for a Halloween party to be thrown the next day at School 3. It was really fun getting ready; we got to eat Kate’s spaghetti and Mike’s M&M cookies. We were making decorations, carving pumpkins, planning games and baking cookies until about 11pm. The next morning we went back to Mike’s to finish getting ready. Cindy and Bev came over and helped me peel grapes. Not an easy task. We hailed 2 cabs, loaded everything into them, and drove through rainy Mingechevir to School 3.

When we got there, Sevil, the teacher Kate knows at School 3 was talking to the director. We took everything back to the auditorium to set up. Sevil came back and told us we had to see the director. She informed us that it would be impossible for us to have the party that day. (This would have been no big deal to us, except that we gave up going to the Nar Festival to throw this party!! I was really looking forward to the Nar Fest; apparently last year they had a nar that weighed 2 kilos or something… that’s a big nar!) We planned to do the party on Monday morning. We learned we must be patient and learned that as Mike says, "The more you plan something, the more likely it will fall through." Such is life in Peace Corps, at lease in Azerbaijan.

On Monday we walked (again in the rain) back to School 3. We set everything up and about 30 kids came. Everything went really well! Jesse ran the pumpkin carving station, I helped out with the mask making, Mike led the gross out table (goo, peeled grapes, spaghetti, severed hot dog fingers), Kate played pin the nose on the jack-o-lantern. When all the kids had done every station, we had a pumpkin walk. All the kids got cookies and the winner got one of the carved jack-o-lanterns.

I was really impressed with the group of kids we had. We were told that creativity isn’t really encouraged in schools, but these kids were very creative! Some of the masks they made were amazing and artistic! They did a great job making unique jack-o-lanterns – one even had a moustache and uni-brow. Appropriate.

It was really neat to be part of a Peace Corps project! Even though it wasn’t our project and Kate isn’t even in Peace Corps (she lives in Ganja and is working on her masters degree), it was still good to see how parties work and it was fun to be involved in it.

Kate and Mike leading Pin the Nose...

Some of my favorite masks!

One of Jesse's jack o lantern groups with their finished project!

Six little Jack o Lanterns Sitting on a Stage...

Transportation in Azerbaijan

Hello ladies and germs, Jesse here! I’ve been thinking for a while of doing a series of editorial posts on general life here in Azerbaijan. I will present a wide-range of incredibly interesting topics and if nothing else good reading to put you to sleep. So far I’ve come up with: "The Bazaar: Can you REALLY get cheaper tomatoes at the next booth?" and "Electricity and You: How to stay safe when working with bare wires." I have big plans for those topics, but those will have to wait because you are currently reading the first in a series I like to call:

"Transportation in Azerbaijan: Wow, That Was Close!"

I suppose I should start off with a brief explanation of Azeri Money. The basis of the monetary system is the Manat. A Manat is composed of 100 gapik, much like the US system of the Dollar and Cent. At my local exchange hut here in Mingechevir the Manat is currently trading at 1 Dollar = .846 Manat, thus making it slightly more valuable than the Dollar. For all intents and purposes, though, I usually round up to a one-to-one exchange rate. Now, on with the post.

The main form of transportation within cities is on foot. Pedestrians do not have the same privileges afforded to them in the States, nor are they subject to the same restrictive regulations of America. This means that while there are crosswalks painted on the roads, traffic in no way recognizes the existence of them. On the other hand you are free to cross the street wherever and whenever you see fit, no matter if it is in the middle of a block, on a red light or diagonal through an intersection with a roundabout full of traffic from construction and a police stop. Although dodging traffic can sometimes be a nerve-racking experience, nothing scares me more than an empty intersection. I just stand there wondering "Okay, where are you gonna come from, you sneaky taxi?" Crossing the street can most often be equated to a game of "Frogger," wherein unless you are extremely old, young or police it is best to stop and let the car determine where it wants to go and then make your next move.

If you have a ways to go within the city or wish to travel to another city the preferred method is by minibus or "Marshrutka". These are usually the size of a full-size van and have seats for 15 passengers. In-town a ride costs 20 gapik and longer trips vary according to distance (to Mingechevir from Baku it’s 5 Manat). Not only are these usually the cheapest/faster option, but also the most likely to give you good stories for when you go home. Few marshrutkas run in the early morning and evening, so whether it is a courtesy or sheer greed, the driver puts every passenger he physically can into the automobile. I have consistently been on marshrutkas with 18-20 passengers (3-5 standing hunched in the aisles) and once topped out with 27 passengers (wait, who’s hand is that?). For all its seemingly random behaviors, there are a few set rules to riding in the marshrutka. If a man is sitting and a woman gets on the bus and there isn’t a seat for her, you must give her your seat. This is, of course, if you are not sitting in the front of the bus or in the back with all men. Women have been spotted in the back of marshrutkas before, when a group of them take over and oust the men, however a woman in the front is olmaz (never, ever). Marshrutkas are frequent to break down, have a flat tire or be lacking windows.

They also drive almost constantly (since they only make money when they are driving) and I was in a relatively new marshrutka yesterday that had 450,000 Kilometers (279,000 Miles) on it!

Taxis also abound in every city, no matter its size. It is without a doubt the best way to travel in terms of comfort and speed, however they tend to be a bit expensive. In Mingechevir it is 1 Manat for anywhere on one side of the river and 2 Manat if you cross the river. Baku taxis start at 4 Manat and go up from there. A taxi from Baku to Mingechevir runs a spendy 40 Manat, but you can buy just a seat for 10 (although for a 5 hour trip, this is low by American standards). Other than that it’s pretty much the same as U.S. taxis. Try to figure out what language the driver is speaking, tell him you don’t speak Russian, wonder if he really needs to answer that text message while he’s lighting a cigarette and passing a truck at the same time.

In terms of personal automobiles there seem to be three choices: Mercedes, BMW or the Russian-made Lada. By far the majority of cars you will see on the road are Ladas or some derivative thereof (sedan, stationwagon, 4x4 and traditional). Ladas are legendary in Azerbaijan as being an all-around miraculous automobile. Not only are they capable of breathtaking speed, cat-like agility and all-terrain driving but also are able to move an entire dining room set, complete with 6 chairs, table and hutch, in one trip. You can take a Lada up a mountain side, through a creek or just drag race it on the beach if the feeling strikes you. All of the Ladas I have ridden in have seat belts installed in the front (although with nowhere to buckle them in) and are completely void of the restraints in back. Seating for 5, including driver, although I have heard legends of miserly PCVs fitting 7 in a single car. These cars cost about 3,000 Manat new, while the Mercedes and BMWs seem to cost roughly what they would run in the States.

Unfortunately for us, Peace Corps does not allow us to drive a car or ride on a motorcycle during service, which from the looks of traffic so far is an exceptional idea.

That brings me to motorcycles. While they are far and few between, they always are interesting. From what I have seen there are two different styles of motorcycles. Those that are straight out of WWII (sidecar and all), and those that are used for more utilitarian purposes. These "working" motorcycles are more like three-wheelers with a large covered space in the back for trucking stuff around. They carry anything from building supplies and oil to cabbage and hundreds of loaves of bread.

Oh yes, and the horns. Every vehicle here is equipped with two horns. One normal, like you would hear on any car around the world, and one special horn. The normal horn is used for expressing things such as "Hey, don’t forget to look before crossing the street" or "I am passing you, please don’t run into me!" The second horn usually sounds like a ambulance or air-raid siren or even like those toys we used to have as kids that would make the fake missile shooting sounds. This horn may be used for the same things as the normal horn or for more elaborate discussions such as: "Would you like me to stop and pick you up?" or "Hello brother, are you going to be at the tea house tonight?" or "What do you think of the tense geo-political situation in southern Turkey?" You can hear these types of conversations late into the night, cars chatting away.

There are also trains that run throughout the country, although mostly on a Rayon to Baku route. Fares generally run 1-2 manat less than marshrutkas, but take 1-2 hours longer. For example, the train from Mingechevir (which also runs through Yevlax, Ujar, and Kurdimir) to Baku takes roughly 7 hours while a marshrutka takes around 5 hours. There are several night trains that run to communities throughout the country that leave about 9 PM and arrive in Baku about 6 AM. This is slow going, but you can get a sleeper car and from what I hear it’s pretty comfortable. Mingechevir touts one of the most comfortable trains in the country, it’s electric (so there’s no smoke and it’s relatively quiet), it has air conditioning and they even serve tea! How nice is that?

Other forms of travel include planes and boats. The boats run from Baku to Turkmenistan and Kazakstan and I’ve never heard of anyone taking these boats (especially because Peace Corps doesn’t allow us to ride on motorized vehicles on inland waters). Planes fly regularly out of Baku and have a few major airlines operating out of it (British Air and Turkish Air), along with some smaller national and discount airlines (AZAL and Baltic Air). Aside from Baku, there is an airport in Ganja, out of which flies (from what I can tell) one airline, Turan Air. They fly to several locations including some in Russia and to Istanbul on Wednesdays and Saturdays. We will be flying this airline when we take our vacation in December, flying into and out of Istanbul. Cost for this flight is 240 Manat roundtrip per person and you can book your flight one month in advance. Tickets are in true Azeri style; hand-written.

Aside from the modes of traveling, there are several sayings with which you will need to be familiar. The first is "Mashallah." Which means "Protect us from the Evil Eye" and is usually seen painted on a ceramic blue and white eyeball-looking thing. I’m not quite sure what the evil eye is or how it originated, but it seems pretty straightforward. The second is "Allah Gorursun" which means "God Forbid." This is normally written across the front or back windows of the bus in big letters. The translation on this one strikes me as a little odd, but yeah. The third is actually not a saying you want to hear in reference to your trip, but you should know anyway. "Inshallah" means "If God wills." I say this because it is normally used to mean "Probably not, but maybe." So when you ask if a bus is going to a certain destination and the reply is "Inshallah," it’s probably best to find other transportation. In other situations the use of Inshallah is perfectly fine and normal and is closer to its true meaning. Such uses include: "When will you have kids? In four years, Inshallah." "Will you come back to visit? Yes, Inshallah."

Finally, to wrap things up, no editorial blog would be complete without a small mention of the oil and gas situation here in Azerbaijan. Even though Azerbaijan is exporting banner amounts of oil, the price of gas remains relatively high in my opinion. From what I’ve heard the price is fixed by the government, which recently upped the price. That means that the gas stations paint the prices on their signs since it changes so infrequently. Currently the price is 55 qapik per liter, or for you lazy readers out there $2.44/Gallon. To me it seems a bit high for the oil supply that this country has, but who knows.

Will the price come down in the future? Inshallah.

We are still around...

I just thought I would post something so everyone knew that we are still alive and well. It's been a while. Jesse is working on some great blogs to put up, but they're not quite perfect yet. So keep checking back... it will be soon and totally worth the wait!! Hope all is well on the homefront. It's almost autumn here.... inshallah!

Photos

Photos are apples, not quite Deterings, but still tasty! The lasagna we made at Mike's house, also the red over I mentioned in a previous post. Our bookcase with fun things that make us happy - photographs, Roger the frog, Azeri dolls made by women in Barda, Leroy Jenkins, the book Katrina made us, etc. My new haircut! Our bed and world map. Our room and windows.

Enjoy!

Also, there's a new blog below...

Never in our lives would we have thought we would...

…be awoken every day by a rooster crowing.
…put our down comforter on our bed when it reaches 80 degrees… brrrr!
…hear prayer calls from our bedroom.
…live in a time zone 12 hours different than Oregon.
…learn a language from the Turkish language family.
…walk by a woman selling live chickens out of the trunk of her car everyday at a bazaar.
…live so far away from an ocean.
…live in a country bordering Iran and about 300 miles from Iraq.
…need to have something translated from Russian to Azerbaijani in order to understand it.
…be mistaken for a Russian or German everyday.
…share a squat toilet with 15 people.
…live with a woman fasting for Ramadan.
…be so happy to eat at a McDonalds four times in one weekend.
…see pomegranate trees in every yard.
…live in a former Soviet Republic.
…see Elton John in Baku
…get so many shots and have to take anti malaria medicine.
…plan a week-long vacation that includes both London and Istanbul.
…burn our trash.

Let's see... I cut my hair. Ever since I got here, my hair has been falling out a lot. I think it's the poor diet, heat and stress. It happened to a lot of us. No big deal. It was getting gross, so I decided short hair falling out would be less messy than long hair. I stood in front of my mirror and cut away! I'd never cut my own hair before, but I think it went well. :)