Mingechevir, Baku and Elton

Buckle up, this is going to be a long one!

We have been in Mingechevir for two weeks now. Everyone was right… once you get to site everything changes. Training was grueling. Training was hot. Training was long. Now we have more freedom! Yay! We still have to answer to a host family, but our host family is awesome!

Our host father, Tahir is a retired sports teacher. He’s 54 years old. Bibixanim is our host mother and we call her Bibi. She’s an art teacher at my school. She’s in her 30s I think. They have a son, Farid who is 11 and is in one of the English classes I might end up teaching. He’s really cool, very sweet, helpful and funny. There used to be a dog, Shaka, but we haven’t seen him for awhile. Tahir said he went hunting, we hope he comes back. He’s an awesome dog – a rarity here! He reminds me of mom and Steve’s dog Cabby, he lays the same way that she does.

Our family also rents a couple rooms to female college students who study here in Mingechevir. There are about 9 of them and it’s really great to see them here! Usually if a woman wants to go to college, she has to live with family members. It’s almost like a dorm here for them, and I think that type of a living situation is really good and fun! They are really nice girls and they giggle a lot. They like to watch Jesse help with things like laundry, cooking and dishes. If one of them notices him working, she gets the rest and they stand around giggling. It’s very cute.

These past two weeks I’ve been going to school 13 and watching various English teachers give their lessons. There are 12 English teachers and I need to pick 2 or 3 to have as my counterparts. I like quite a few of them, so that makes my choice both easy and difficult. It’s easy because at least there are multiple teachers who I feel I could work with, difficult because how do I decide?! I’m supposed to teach 15 hours a week, so I suppose I’ll just pick the teachers, watch them in their classes then choose which classes I want to work with. Wish me luck!

Jesse has spent the past 2 weeks observing different parts of his office. I’m sure he’ll correct me here, but his business gets money from Oxfam and gives it to people who want to open small businesses. This week Jesse has been going to loan officers to visit some of the people who have taken advantage of the business. He’s visited stores, barbers and drank a lot of tea. He really likes the people he works with and is excited to figure out how his skills can best help them.

This past weekend we went to Baku (sin city). There were 34 of the AZ5s there (out of 51) and 15 or 20 AZ4s. It was a lot of fun to catch up with our friends and hear how their first week had been. Everyone is pretty happy with their sites. As always in Baku, we indulged our tastes with a plethora of culinary experiences. Chicken strips, nachos, mu shoo pork, sweet and sour chicken, Big Macs, tuna melts, Americanish pizza. Good stuff!

Jesse had to go back on Sunday night, but I got to stay for a meeting on Monday. Two amazing things happened Sunday night. First of all, I got to stay with Shane and his wife. Shane did Peace Corps in Bulgaria about ten years ago and he met his wife there. Now he’s in Baku doing something with the embassy, so they live in embassy housing. Oh my god. When I walked into his house I felt like I had walked through a vortex into America. It smelled like an American house, it had American furniture, American carpets, two – TWO- refrigerators, a toaster, dishwasher, American children! It was heaven. It gets better. They had a phone that is a free direct line to America with no delay! I wasted no time in calling my parents and Katrina (I would have called everyone, but there were other PCVs waiting and I didn’t have everyone’s number…. Next time I will take everyone’s number!). It was amazing! Amazing!! After I was done on the phone, I lounged on the couch and watched BBC. At one point I thought to myself, "Oh, my gosh! I haven’t forgotten how to do this!" You see, there is no lounging in Azerbaijan.

The second amazing thing was that I saw Elton John in concert. Below is what I wrote about the experience in my journal.

Photos are as follow: 1. Carolyn (with the backpack Katrina made) and friends walking down a Baku street. 2. Our house in Mingechevir. 3. Our kitchen. To answer some questions previously asked, that oven is not used. There is a little electric oven that everyone in AZ has. The stove is gas. So far the gas, electricity and water have been more or less constant. As you can see, this house is a step up from Sumgayit Station. 4. These are the lovely chickens that live right outside our window. They like to wake us up very early and we eat their eggs. 5. Shaka. 6. Part of the Elton John concert extravaganza! 7. Me looking very dirty and happy at the Elton John concert. 7. You can see Elton sitting at the piano if you squint!

Elton John Bakida

I live in Azerbaijani and I went to see Elton John. Not exactly what I expected to do during my first week as a PCV. Although not very common to the PC experience, I’m sure I will remember the experience well.

First of all, buying the tickets was an experience. Unlike with Ticketmaster, we were able to barter the price down to 10 manat. How could I pass that up?

Second, we had to breech multiple polis checkpoints to even enter the stadium. There was a throng of people being blocked by officers when we got there. I don’t know it it’s because I’m reading a novel about the French experience of WWII, but I felt like my companion and I were in a military zone attempting to reach the other side of freedom. We got through the first line of guards by showing our tickets and by, as far as I can tell, being Americans.

We walked 100 hundred feet of no man’s land into a group waiting at a fence. Every now and then the gate would open a foot or two and the crowd would force a few lucky survivors in. The music was starting so I approached an officer and said, "Niya biz gedmirik? Billetlar var!" Somehow he understood and took us to the gate. We were in!

But it didn’t end there. We were herded through a metal detector that went off for everyone (but no one was stopped…). A guard felt my backpack and seemed concerned, "Bu nadir?" I don’t know the word for sunglasses, but got the point across that I had my sunglass case in my bag. We walked to the fourth group of officers waiting at the stairs to the stadium. We were ushered to the next group of officers lining the top of the stadium, and then ushered to better seats than the ones on our tickets.

From across the field, Elton was a small dot of blue satin and sequins. He looked great, and sounded fantastic. For the first half of the concert, the crowd was mellow, a few people dancing in their chairs. But then Elton started "Sacrifice." The Azeris sang every word passionately. The stadium became aglow with everyone’s cell phones and lighters waving over their heads. It was quite beautiful. The same happened during "Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word." I admit it – I am a fan of Elton John. I grew up listening to him and knew all the words of most of the songs he played. It was interesting that those were the songs that the Azeris in their 20s knew. I feel like in America it would be "Tine Dancer" and "Your Song" that would get the crowd response. Nevertheless it was amazing to be surrounded by thousands of people singing retro British pop at the top of their lungs with thick Azeri accents.

Elton and his band played all his biggest hits, those listed above along with "Crocodile Rock," "Candle in the Wind," "Benny and the Jets," "Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me," "Philadelphia Freedom," and "Burn down the Mission." I was especially excited to hear "Daniel." I’ve always loved that song. I think because Daniel is my brother, and he is older than me and he’s going to New Zealand, which I imagine is like Spain.

All in all, good times were had. It was a great cross cultural experience and I learned a lot.