Sunday mornings

Through the wall behind my bed, I can hear the woman next door starting to do things in her kitchen. My room is barely getting light, and I turn over underneath my covers, determined not to let her industriousness influence me. Alas, it is bazar gün, also known as Sunday, and it’s the day I go to the main bazar in town to do my grocery shopping. I could conceivably go on other days, but I did that once only to find that the number of women selling dairy products is cut by about 75%.....bazar gün is definitely the day to go. Unfortunately, this means getting out of bed. By about 10am, the best food is pretty much gone (Azeri women would say by 8:30, but I really don’t like getting out of bed when it’s cold out), and since it takes me a half hour to get to the bazar, I need to get up.

I didn’t used to worry so much about my dairy products. In the States, I relied on half gallons of homogenized, pasteurized milk from the super market, vacuum-packed blocks of cheese and little 6oz cups of Yoplait yogurt, cherry and orange-cream, if you please. But here in Azerbaijan, I’ve gotten hooked on the real stuff. I don’t buy the fresh milk yet, because it intimidates me that I would have to boil it, and then what do I do with the cream (except mix it with a little sugar and pile it on some fresh bread)(which is bad)(well delicious, but bad)? I don’t buy the milk, but I do buy the fresh pendir (cheese) and qatıq (yogurt). The qatıq is plain (aka, kind of sour) and I will admit here and now that I have become addicted to it. Every morning I eat about 10oz of it, and when I don’t have it I’m very sad. So I have this huge jar I use to buy my qatıq….it’s a ‘bring-your-own-container’ system at the dairy section of the bazar. My huge jar, which holds at least two liters, costs a manat-20 to fill with fresh qatıq, which is about $1.60. I think that’s the same price as two or maybe three of those Yoplait cups.

When you buy qatıq, you find it doesn’t all taste the same. If you don’t like sour yogurt, and, take my word for it, it gets more sour by the day in your fridge, the best thing to do is ask if it’s şirin (sweet) and then taste it. There’s a method to the tasting, which caused me much embarrassment before I knew the deal. What you’re supposed to do is hold out your hand (palm up or down, it doesn’t matter), then the potential vendor will spoon a little onto your hand and you lick it off. You do NOT try to take it off the spoon, either with your fingers or mouth. Trust me. So the dairy section of the bazar is always my first stop, then I get anything else heavy and solid, like potatoes, onions, stuff like that. I try to be strategic when I shop, as I have to carry everything home in a bag on the bus, and it’s easier to pack as I shop rather than try to rearrange everything later.

Last on my list are always the yamurta (eggs) and çörək (bread). I have found that even if the price of eggs is 15 or even 20 qəpik per egg, if I ask for one manat’s worth, they always give me extra. Which is awesome, especially since it’s inevitable that I will break one on the way home. Part of this is because they ‘pack’ the eggs in a plastic bag, but part is because by the time I buy them, my bag is full and heavy, and I get clumsy as heck.

This morning I wore my special “lucky” necklace, a stone of lapis lazuli which my brother-in-law brought home from Afghanistan and had set as a Christmas present for me. If you didn’t know, lapis lazuli is purported to bring good luck to its wearer. It worked. Because even though spinach cost 30-qəpik a bundle, when I asked for a manat’s worth, she gave me five bundles. And I received 8 eggs for a manat when their price was 15-qəpik each. AND, when I went to buy my bread, the guy saw me waiting and had my order ready for me when I walked up!

It made sacrificing and having to pry myself out of bed kind of worth it after all.