Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! What the heck?! WHY is someone trying to beat down my door?! With one eye on the stew I just started reheating on the stove, I open my front door to find…nobody.
But there is a hat.
Okaaaaaayyy. Umm, why?
So I grab the hat and lean over the stair railing, calling out in really, really bad Azeri, “why do I have this hat?” Nobody answers. “Salam? Salam?” A girl pokes her head back and yells something, making gestures I never learned in mime school, so I stand back up to see the neighbor woman across the landing standing in her door smiling at me. “Başaduşmiyirəm (Basha-dush-mir-am)(I don’t understand),” I say. She tells me something I can only guess at, then tells me to come, come. From her hallway, she drags a container of wrapped candies, fills the hat with them and I finally get it. OH! They’re trick-or-treating!
It’s just, you know, NOT Halloween. It’s March. This is Novruz.
Novruz is the celebration of the coming of Spring. It starts four weeks prior to the equinox, and for four Tuesday evenings, Azerbaijanis celebrate with special pastries, holiday foods and by making and jumping over bonfires. They generally let the fires burn down until they’re small before jumping so nothing catches on fire. But as they jump, they leave all of the prior year’s troubles and problems behind to start this year anew. Refreshed. Cleansed by fire, if you will.
Problem, though, in that my newly-friendly neighbor is telling me to come in, come in for tea. I tell her I’m cooking and gesture several times back toward my open door, making what I think to be wry faces, but she won’t take no for an answer, so I go turn off my stew and head back over to her place for çay. I’ve been exchanging smiles and greetings with her two kids for a couple of months now, and they’re so excited that I’m coming to their apartment they’re almost giddy. So while their mom bustles around heating tea and making sure I take some pastries, the kids take turns keeping me company.
I find it really easy to talk to the kids. Yes, they have a larger vocabulary than I do, but they understand when I’m baffled and offer alternative words (unlike most adults who tend to scoff and go silent). We talk about kid stuff. How old are you? Are you in the 5th and 6th forms at school (yes!)? Interestingly, the question which seems to stump them the most is, “What do you like to play?” I offer up, “futbol?” It doesn’t get too much of a response, even when I tell them I have played futbol. But we chat about their favorite foods (dolma, naturally) and foods I don’t like (cilantro, which is, like, Azerbaijan’s national herb). When their mom comes in, she talks and talks so eagerly and I have no idea what most of it is about. But we manage. Kind of.
After a cup of tea, a pastry and a half, a plate of plov (rice pilaf) and some slices of fruit, I finally beg off and head back home. At the door I finally think to ask her name, so we go through all of our names. I think I can remember hers, her daughter’s and husband’s. I’ve already informed the son, though, that I will probably never, ever remember his. And for the life of me, I honestly cannot remember it now.
And it’s only been 30 minutes.
