Pocht Adventures

During a break in school the other day, I went for a walk around the block in a direction I hadn’t yet explored. A volunteer who was in town staying with my family for the week advised always making yourself known to the workers at the local post office where you might receive mail someday. Post office workers here can be pretty mean and sometimes rude, I was told, but it’s still a good idea for them to know who you are.

So I came to the pocht (that’s phoenetic, as my current keyboard doesn’t contain some of the letters of Azerbaijan’s alphabet), and popped inside. There is a bulletin board and a counter, with several women working behind the glass barrier. I introduced myself as an American (man amerikaliyam) and then got lost in a pantomime, trying to find out if they had any boxes for mailing packages. No, they have no boxes. So I thanked them and went back on my merry way around the block. Around the corner I discovered a largish grocery store with a LOT of food labeled in Russian and, naturally, Philadelphia cream cheese. Because you never know.

Later in the day, another couple of trainees (talimchilar) wanted to go down and mail a letter to the states, so I went with them. While one was working on the letter and I was busily trying to decipher the items on the bulletin board, the one of us with the most language proficiency was being addressed by one of the workers. Unexpectedly, I hear, “Leigh, can you help?” So I go over and try to understand what this very gregarious, friendly woman is saying in rapid Azerbaijani. I think I hear her ask for my name, so I give it to her, but she apparently thinks it should have more syllables or something, because she doesn’t recognize it as a name. As she continues to try to get her point across and I continue to look more bewildered, suddenly, out of her mouth pops, “Wie hiesst du?” My mind goes instantly back to high school, where I studied German for years….I’m sorry, but are you really speaking German?? “Sprechen Sie Deutsch??” She laughs and reintroduces herself, at which point I repeat my name and we all introduce ourselves and briefly tell her why we’re there.

As we leave the pocht, laughter follows us out the door. This is a good thing…I have a package to mail this weekend and I could use some sympathetic patience from them when I go back.