Baku, city of dreams. Or at least ham sandwiches.

Well, it finally happened. After all of these years, I am finally getting to use my bachelor’s degree. No, I wasn’t an English major, but thanks. I studied something equally obtuse, though. I majored in Geography. From childhood on, if you gave me a map I’d be entertained for hours. I still can’t label a blank map of the world with all of the current countries, darn it, but I can teach you how to read a topographic sheet, tell you a bit about landscape formations and the pros and cons of a grid traffic system in a city. But now I landed a juicy spot on a new committee, something I’ve been wanting to do for the past year when I first heard about this project. All hail the new member of the Peace Corps Azerbaijan mapping committee.

We’re working on developing a crowdmapping tool of Peace Corps volunteers’ sites and projects within Azerbaijan. With any luck, we’ll make it into a tool of such usefulness as to encourage PC Headquarters in DC to implement it worldwide. As it applies within our country, we are beginning with volunteers creating reports online about their sites...reports about their organizations, about secondary projects they are implementing, about transportation to/from/within their towns and regions. Everything is being mapped, and everything should be available for the groups of volunteers to follow us. That way, people don’t always have to reinvent the wheel, so to speak. We can get ideas from each other. We can collaborate, share knowledge. I personally have dreams of being able to collaborate with volunteers in other countries. I mean, this could be big. When I came to live at my site, I had nothing to go on; there hadn’t been a volunteer in my region for at least five years, if ever (I’m not really sure), so I did have to start from scratch. Hopefully this new mapping tool will make my own situation less common.

At any rate, I was asked to come into Baku for a committee meeting to be held on Saturday. It’s a five-hour bus ride from my region, so this means a three-day trip. BUT, because it was official business, the Peace Corps springs for two nights at a pretty stinkin’ nice hotel, and I’ll get mostly reimbursed for travel and meal expenses in my next paycheck. This is not a bad thing. Kind of like a mini-vacation with a meeting stuck in the middle. I can deal with that.

My bus ride Friday was perhaps my most uncomfortable ride to Baku to date. Not because the woman next to me wanted to talk (she didn’t) or because it was overly hot (it wasn’t), but because the guy in front of me decided to lay his seat allllllll the way back to facilitate napping. This wouldn’t be so bad, but apparently my legs have grown several inches in length lately, because when he reclined, my knees were suddenly crunched right into the back of his seat. I do admit I yelped a little and took a certain religious figure’s name in vain, but it didn’t change anything except maybe make me feel a micron better and startle the woman next to me who had been industriously attempting to fade into the landscape beyond the window. Knees now rendered immobile and with a seat back about eight inches from my nose, I just concentrated on breathing and not panicking with the occasional ripples of claustrophobia. At least I had a slight breeze from my air vent. Until he reached up and snapped it closed, that is. That’s okay. I reached up and snapped it right back open. Cut of MY air, will ya?! I think not!

I arrived in Baku a wee bit grumpy, I guess you might say. I went out in front of the bus station to wait for a city bus. It was windy and I waited. And waited. After about 20 minutes the bus I needed still hadn’t come and I was worried about getting to the office before everyone left for the day, so I jumped on the next one which would take me close, to Chirag Plaza. Now I would just need to (successfully) negotiate the nightmare which is traffic in the intersection in front of Chirag Plaza, an intersection affectionately referred to by volunteers as The Circle of Death. The Circle of Death involves four lanes (in each direction) of weaving traffic barreling down the road pretty much nonstop. The trick is to be strategic and stealthy and ultimately light on your feet, keeping in mind that, in Azerbaijan, pedestrians most certainly do not have the right-of-way. Ever. Oh, you can be bold and pretend you own the road, but more than one volunteer has had a near-death experience crossing this intersection. The Circle of Death is not to be taken lightly. Sacrifices are sometimes necessary. (Note for the picky: in the photo below of TCoD, you might be inclined to point out that there are only three lanes in each direction. You would be wrong. Baku drivers don't pay any attention to lane markings.)

I made it, alive, to the Peace Corps office and was delighted to find several other volunteers in the lounge. Greetings and hugs dispensed all around, I discovered a secret friend had left a pack of Oreos in my cubbie (!!!!), which I immediately offered to share. I was urged, in turn, to partake of an open bag of popcorn (“it’s cheesy!”), and settled down into what developed into a lively, bawdy discussion of questionable suitability. (There are times where being the oldest volunteer in the room allows me to just shock the pants off of my colleagues, prompting them to view me in a new light.) It was awesome.

Ah, Baku. City of insane traffic, packed buses, grilled ham and cheese sandwiches, alcohol, nightlife and firm, clean beds. And hot showers where both hands are free.

Coming to grips with the downslope

When, exactly, did I lose it? I remember noticing it happening four years ago when I took my then-16-year-old stunning daughter to Costa Rica. That’s when I found that I would forever be invisible as a woman when she was around. But she isn’t around now. She’s literally on the opposite side of the world, living her life. So I can’t unload this on her. Not now. Now it’s on me. Now I’ve become invisible all on my own.

I’m not talking about when I’m waiting in line at a store and people pretend I’m not there. This is much more personal. This is about dealing with something I figured was coming…you know…someday down the road. After applying to the Peace Corps there is a lot of medical testing and poking and prodding to go through. Things to be discussed with doctors and decisions to be made. This happens in two phases; once for pre-medical clearance and again, more intensely, once you receive an invitation. Well, in my own situation, I had to decide whether to continue taking a hormone-providing medication or not. I weighed the pros and cons and decided I really didn’t want to take a chance on having to deal with possibly going through menopause while I was in a foreign country trying to learn a new language and impress people. I mean, how impressed would they be with a woman who suddenly had to stop everything and start flapping her clothes? Things were going to be stressful enough…menopause could wait! Meds are my friends while I’m here.

The downside to hormone medication is, well, even when you’re older you still have hopes that you’re attractive to the opposite sex. You still feel vivacious. You still look at men and, well, wonder. You still hope.

The downside to being over 50 and a single Peace Corps volunteer is most of my cohorts are half my age. The young women are pretty and flirtatious and competing with them is completely out of the question. The young men, even if they’re attractive, are most certainly not looking at me “that” way. I could be most of their mothers. And this kind of sucks. Because I’m not ready for that yet! I’m not ready to be brushed aside and overlooked. I’m not ready to be gender-neutral, a piece of the scenery. I’m already a source of complete confusion for the people of Azerbaijan, what with my short hair, athletic build and fondness for my one pair of jeans. A friend told me her counterpart saw my photo and actually asked her whether I was a man or a woman.

So with the locals, I’m used to the uncomfortable staring. It’s just harder to take, somehow, when your fellow Americans, the ones who actually understand most of what you’re going through, act like you’re not there. When you see you missed a call then check your texts and have them tell you your number was dialed on accident. When you get a message from a guy you have secretly thought about for a year only to have them be asking for another woman’s phone number. When you go out in Baku with the younger set (because you love to sing and dance and want to make friends) and end up being ignored by the time a couple of hours have gone by. I get it. Nobody owes me anything. They don’t owe me attention. It’s not their job to make me feel wanted or desired or anything. Honestly, I understand and accept that. But it doesn’t make it an easy pill to swallow.

For the next year, then, I’ll keep swallowing those pills. And maybe by then I’ll have come to grips with this downslope of life as a 50+-year-old woman.

Camera yoxdur

My camera died. It wasn’t my favorite camera to begin with, but it was still a huge setback since it was my only one. And naturally, it happened during prime seed-sprouting season and wedding season and iconic-photo-opportunity season. So I bought a new one….a Canon this time (the dead camera was a Nikon, my first and probably my last). I tried to buy a camera here in Terter but they wanted 250 manat for a Fujifilm model and I just wasn’t going to pay that (over $300). So I went to A Big City, Ganga, and enlisted some PCV and university student help in finding something good for a reasonable price. Canon in hand at a discount (110 manat), I returned home happy with life once again. I took the new camera straight out to my garden project to document the changes which are so rapidly happening…seeds sprouting, new patches being tilled and furrowed, the greenhouse being constructed, everything is happening at once! I knew the battery had just a little charge from when they charged it a bit in the store, so when it died I thought nothing of it. I’d just go home and plop it in my new battery charger.

Which, apparently, doesn’t work.

So today, finding out my new, shiny camera was useless, I headed to my first village toy (wedding party) a little down in the dumps. I’ve been to a city toy and a town toy, but not a village toy...they’re a little different. City and town toys are normally held in big saraylar, or wedding palaces. Village toys are held in specially-constructed tents in the backyard. They are also basically segregated by gender, with a men’s tent and a women’s tent, and the food, rather than being professionally catered, is prepared by the relatives and friends of the wedding pair’s families. And, as I discovered today, is REALLY GOOD. Not that the catered toys aren’t delicious, but I had a salad today that knocked my socks off. Or would have, had I been wearing any.

Here are some of the things I wish I’d had a camera or video to record:

My outfit: a black clingy number from Bebe (obtained years ago from my niece….thanks, Erin!) which, because it is inappropriately low-cut for Azerbaijan, I had to manipulate and pin into something more respectable. I would have also liked to have gotten a photo of myself clad in this dress and its whispy scarf (tied around my shoulders to hide my inappropriately bare skin) and my decidedly unglamorous flats, worn in an attempt to navigate the gravel and broken pavement between here and my office building without breaking my ankle. I did take strappy heels for the actual party; don't think I wasn't going to represent America in proper fashion!

The parking area at the toy location: cars parked everywhere except for beneath one tree, where a saddled horse was happily tied, watching all of the comings and goings.

My greeting by the groom’s mother and subsequent entry into the women’s tent: the groom’s father is the agronomist with whom I work on my garden project, so I know him, but I’d never met his wife (Sədagət) until today. She greeted me like I was her long lost friend, laughing and falling all over herself, her faced creased with smiles. She took my arm firmly in hers and led me to the tent, wherein she announced to everyone there that Leigh From America had arrived and they were to welcome me. We proceeded down the aisle between all of the tables arm in arm, with every single woman checking me out, some smiling, some not so much. I felt like The Queen and was very, very happy to make it to my seat without tripping.

The food: how to describe an Azeri toy….how about this: more food than you can possibly ever eat. They have individual place settings at toys, but the food is all put in the center of the table and is served family-style. There are plates of salad items (herbs, cut cucumbers and tomatoes), cold meats (sliced sausages and cold chicken pieces), hot dishes (hunks of stewed beef and potatoes served in an oily broth), lamb kabobs (my favorite are the chops on the ribs), sheep or lamb sausages (ick)(just a personal preference), a mayonnaise salad (today’s was The Best EVER with peas, carrot, egg, onion, meat….everything possible diced and mixed with mayo), and plates of sliced fruits. Often there is also plov (rice pilaf with meat, onions and dried fruit on top). But all of this food is served on tapas-sized plates and ends up being piled up, dish on top of dish, so the center of the table is just a huge mountain of food. You never, ever eat within several hours of going to a toy.

Pictures with the wedding pair: the bride and groom are seated at a table separate from everyone else and generally don’t partake in the feasting. They also don’t smile much and kind of look like this is the most miserable day of their lives. From what I can tell, their main function at the toy is to watch all of their friends and family eat while everyone comes periodically to have their picture taken with the lucky couple.

The children: little boys are little boys around the world and they love to flit in small packs from table to table, stealing a piece of sausage here, an orange there, then dash off before an adult can say anything.

The weather: just picture perfect….low 20s (high 60s) with clear skies and brilliant sunshine

The trip home: the young man, pitchfork balanced on his shoulder, walking out of the sun down the lane toward the main road

Damn you, battery charger!! Foiled again.

Bağ adventures

One of my fellow volunteers moved into a new independent housing situation last month. She lives in what we would call in New Mexico the “mother-in-law quarters,” a separate small house in someone’s back yard. The landlord of my friend has hosted foreigners in this little house for many years…people from Europe, other Peace Corps volunteers, everyone. So she’s familiar with non-Azeri ways and expectations. We thought.

My friend got permission to install a vegetable garden in the main yard and her landlord enthusiastically approved. The intention is to have familiar (for my friend) fresh foods which you can’t find easily in rural Azerbaijan such as lettuce, kale, broccoli and summer squash. This is also a chance to introduce these new items to her landlord and co-workers, perhaps expanding their knowledge of gardening methods in the process. Plus, it’s going to be a comfort to my friend to be able to putter in the dirt, brush up against the tomato plants and smell that astringent smell. So Sherry (my friend) asked if I wanted to come help her get the garden started and naturally I jumped at the chance.

The landlord showed us the area for the garden, which looks like it was used for this purpose in the past. As she was showing it, she was very specific about which square meters of the overall rectangle we could use. She has some tulips planted in a few rows, so those were obviously to be avoided. But she specified we should go ahead and use the paths between her rows of tulips. Now, maybe I’m being persnickety, but I think we just need to be worrying about a basic rectangle shape, not a rectangle with legs, so Sherry and I conferred and decided to leave those path areas for her. If she wanted something there, she could choose what to plant herself.

The day we started was just gorgeous…upper teens (Celsius, so low 70s) with a light breeze and lots of sunshine. Tee shirt weather. We began by trying to clear the weeds off of the main garden area and quickly found the soil to be more difficult to work than we’d anticipated. It was just chock full of rocks. Every time we put the shovel or pitchfork in, we’d only get a few inches before being stopped cold. Granted we don’t have hiking boots, but still. You would think we’d be able to dig! Sherry’s director from her organization came by with another of her coworkers and they helped us quite a bit, mysteriously being able to dig down a good six inches. We were so grateful to them; they literally turned the soil for about half of the garden area. It took me just about as long to less-effectively turn an area less than a quarter of the size. Exhaustion was setting in rapidly. We stopped and had çay, during which I discovered that my friend has fantastic Azerbaijani listening comprehension. I am still at the point of hearing words, stopping to translate them in my head and, in the process, completely losing track of what’s being said.

The men left and Sherry and I struggled on with the rocky soil. At one point her landlord came over to where I was raking stones, pointed out the pathways between the tulips and said, “Dig here and here and here.” I told her, “bilerəm,” (I know) then she came and pointed and told me to dig closer to the driveway. Maybe I was grumpy because of how hot and tired I was, but at that point I stopped digging and told her, “Hə, amma çətindir!” (Yeah, but it’s difficult) She seemed non-plussed and asked, “oh, it’s difficult?” like she hadn’t considered that. After that exchange, though, she stopped trying to tell us what to do, which was lovely. If there’s one thing I can say about the people I have encountered in Azerbaijan, it’s that they all feel they know the best way to do something and have no problem showing or telling you how to do it. However, some are really nice about it, and obviously just want to help. There were some construction workers on the property that day, too, and one of them watched us work for awhile then took pity on us, came over and asked Sherry for the shovel, and proceeded to dig until his supervisor called him back to help with something.

We finally got most of the garden area cleared of weeds and decided to stop for the day. I didn’t have to leave until the next afternoon, so we went grocery shopping and made dinner. During the night the wind picked up. We woke to no electricty or heat; each time we tried to light her peç (gas heater) the wind would come down the exhaust pipe and extinguish the flames, so as the temperature dropped outside, it got much colder in her house. Then it rained, and the rain turned to snow.

It’s all in the timing.