This afternoon I watched my host dad nail a large sheet of plastic to the outside of my bedroom window to block the wind and the cold from getting in. The chair he was standing on wasn’t tall enough to reach the top of the window sill so what did he do? Make a ladder from the extra 2 by 4s in the front yard. Took him five minutes. In Azerbaijan, you adapt. Can’t find the teacher you’re working with to review the lessons for the day? Adapt. Still waiting for a bus because the ten that just passed you were too full? Adapt. No toilet paper? Adapt. You don’t like drinking soup made out of oil for dinner? Now you do.
A typical day (Except I haven’t had two days that were the same yet)
**All Azeri words are written with English letters and not in the correct Azeri way**
Every morning there’s a donkey tied to my front gate. It’s not my host family’s. I don’t know whose it is but have yet to see the owner. It is gone by the time I come home. Next a herd of goats and two cows walk down my street followed by a large flock of small black birds flying across the still rising sun. Next I wait for about twenty minutes for a bus. Sometimes they understand perfectly where I want to go, sometimes they don’t and make me get off, and sometimes they do understand, but I don’t understand and I get off and then the driver honks at me to get back on. Arriving at school means having a throng of students say, “Ello! Ello! What is your name?” or they say “Ni how! Ni how!” a trillion times because they don’t think I speak English. Either or. It’s all same-same. Chai at every meal. I can never get tired of chai. However, my host family asks me why I don’t drink it with a lot of sugar or candy and I say “Chin, yok.” Chinese don’t. When I get home (lately it has been before dark, thank god.) I am greeted by my almost two years old host sister who says “Baji, baji, baji!” (“Sister. Sister, sister!”) Then we sit together and eat a lot of candy and she gives me hers with her constantly sticky hands. (Azeris love candy and sweets and this loving relationship with sugar starts at an incredibly young age. Makes me wonder what the diabetes and cavity rate is here.) Then we go to my room. She sits on my lap. I give her an index card and a pen. I study and she draws. Dinner is around 8:00. Sometimes I help Ayten, my host mom cook. Faiq, my host dad, comes home from his shop which is two blocks away around 7:30. We watch Turkish, Russian, Azerbaijani, and American “mega stars” music videos as we have dinner. Food has been really tasty but really oily. There’s a lot of carbs (potatoes and bread at every meal) but not much vegetables. Dolmas are amazing. Tonight we’re having macaroni. Then more chai and more sweets. My host dad taught me to drink tea by sticking a cube of sugar in my mouth and then taking sips with the cube still in there. Then I try to study more but really I just try to talk to my family using the dictionary and the little grammar I know. My host mom and I have figured out a system of hand gestures and a mixture of English and Azeri. I think we both get most of it. I try to go to sleep early every night, but I always end up staying up with them. I finally go to sleep (Aysel, my host sister almost always stays up later than I do. My host family all go to sleep late and wake up late.) Then the next day starts again and it is a day that is so similar, yet so different than any I have experienced previously here.
I am finally getting a better grasp at life here. It is hard to imagine two years but this past week I have been here feels simultaneously like one day and like a month. The language is easy to understand grammatically but difficult to say and use. I am still trying to figure out the gender dynamic and how I fit into it as a foreigner. I have taught English classes for the past two days and I say this humbly yet proudly, I am surprised at my success with it. There is more than enough room for improvement but they went much better than I ever expected. I found that strict but friendly teacher tone deep down in me. However, tomorrow is a new day and I have classes with 8th graders which is the age I absolutely hate in all cultures.
To be honest, since I’ve been on constant overload the whole time I haven’t even had time to think about what I’ve left at home. This does not mean that I don’t miss home terribly and love the ones out there less. Maybe that affection has actually grown due to the fact that I am actually here and doing this with the support of those there. Just the Peace Corps, being in a different country, fully absorbing a new culture, and teaching English is all so… real. This is REAL.
<3 Clarissa
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