Rugless

Bare floors. Tile, linoleum, wood, it doesn’t matter. Their commonality is that they’re hard and often cold. This past week, I slipped and landed on one. HARD. Not literally, thank goodness….having a hip replaced would be a real drag at this point, regardless of the possibility of traveling to Thailand to have it done. No, I fell on the bare floor quite figuratively enough, but it was just as shocking and hurt a lot just the same.

Feeling like a fish out of water in Azerbaijan is to be expected. It’s a different culture, the people don’t look like folks in the US do, the obvious language difference, the not-so-obvious behavioral differences. Dorothy, you are no longer in Kansas. Welcome to Oz. Or rather, AZ. This is not yo momma’s country no mo.  

Before I left the US for this two-year tour, I did my research. I found just where the heck Azerbaijan lies on the globe, learned a few key introductory phrases…you know, the basic stuff everyone does when they get ready to travel somewhere new. New alphabet? Okay…not so horrible; only six additional letters. Meh. Bring it on. Business track….”community economic development?” Not exactly what I had in mind when I applied, but okay. I’ll figure it out.

First couple of weeks, I was golden. Things went positively swimmingly, if I do say so myself. The culture is fascinating. Learning to live in a close-knit family after so many years either alone or with one or two grown-ish children has been an adjustment, but not too much of one. Even the language immersion hasn’t been too terribly painful. Until last week. Ten days ago, I was extremely confident and was catching on to new concepts quickly. Then I hit a wall. Even if I understood new things in class (and we were learning something new and more complex on a daily basis), when I went home and did the homework, I was messing up. Understand this: Azerbaijani only has about 3,000 individual words. But the meanings of these words change completely depending on which and how many suffixes are added to them. So if you have a basic noun like talimchi (trainee) and you add, say, -yam to it, it becomes talimchiyam, or I am a trainee. Consequently, if you add –lar to it, it then becomes talimchilar, or trainees. And if you add –larizim to it, it becomes talimchilarizim, or we are trainees. Depending on the final vowel in the word receiving the suffix(es), the vowel in the suffix will either be an i with or without a dot, or a u with or without an umlaut. There are different suffixes for plurals, possessives, objects, adjectives….it’s completely crazy. At least to my feeble little brain it is, anyway. Someone asked our language instructors how many suffixes there are in Azerbaijani and they just laughed, saying there are far too many to count. OMG, okay? Oh my gravy.

So, as I said, things were going along SWIMMINGLY. Then the wall. But, I reasoned, even if I stumbled in my language classes, eventually it would all click and I’ll bounce back. Just a minor slip up. No worries….I was still competent in the technical training bit. I had that leg to stand on until both feet were back beneath me. Then somebody pulled that darned rug. Technical training suddenly became just that….technical. Lots and lots of business terminology and things and best practices with which I am unfamiliar. Panic. Boom. The floor came rushing up to hit me. Suddenly, I wasn’t standing on one wobbly leg. I was standing on NOTHING. I had nothing to lean on; nothing to brace me up. I was on that hard, bare floor, lip trembling, just as helpless as I have ever been. I had one tool….my voice. I used it and someone heard. Someone heard!! Oh god, someone HEARD me!

One of my classmates asked me to take a walk and told me everything reassuring she could possibly think of, and then some I’m convinced she pulled out of thin air. We walked out into the schoolyard, she with her arm around my shoulders, speaking soothing reassurances to me, and I cried. It only caused a very minor scene with the twelve-year-old boys clustered out there, but quite frankly, they were not my concern. At my lowest point, when I thought I had nobody who understood, nobody who cared, I was dead wrong. I had my friend.

We walked, talking and sniffling, and halfway around the block, met up with two other classmates who had gone the other direction. They were all amazing….one offered me a good, tight hug, another plied me with a huge bag of cheese potato chips he wouldn’t stop sticking within reach of my hand. I haven’t eaten that many chips in I don’t know how long.

Several someones heard. It’s all going to be okay. I am NOT alone.