Things have been going well lately. Yesterday the trainees took part in an environmental clean-up initiative sponsored by a new recycling company in the area. Until now, there has been no system set up for the recycling of plastic bottles in the Sumqayit region. Bottles, along with most other waste, has been disposed of by burning. With the help of this new company, however, there will be an opportunity for people to dispose of their plastic trash in an environmentally safe way.

The trainees met yesterday near the beach by the Caspian Sea, armed with rubber gloves and garbage bags, with the goal of picking up plastic bottles. Although the large truck was filled up quickly, we made only a small dent in the overall plastic problem near the beach. But the important thing is that it was a start, and media coverage of the event might publicize the dangers of plastic to the environment. I hope that it will be possible to take up similar initiatives in my permanent site community.

In completely unrelated news, I was bitten by a dog for the second time this month a couple of days ago! Luckily I already had my rabies shots, but it hasn't done anything to reduce my newfound fear of dogs. I hope that my permanent site is a dog-free zone, although I'm not going to get my hopes up! :)

I'm sorry that I haven't been updating this blog as much as I had hoped, but I will try to post more frequently in the near future.

I just returned last night from my visit to Bilasuvar, which will be my permanent site for the next two years. It was an interesting experience, to say the least!

The village that I will be staying in is pretty small, and the majority of the people don't own cars (not even the boxy, Soviet-era ones that people in other areas drive!). Instead, my host family owns an ancient motorcycle with a big side-car.

When I first arrived in Tagiyev two months ago, I was somewhat shocked at the lack of many of the comforts that I had taken for granted in America. While staying in Bilasuvar this week, I began to miss the relative comforts that I had taken for granted in Tagiyev! For example, in Bilasuvar, the electricity operates on a schedule: it is available from about 7am-9am, 11am-1pm, and 7pm-2am. To make matter worse, the only windows in my bedroom looked into the living room, so when the power was shut off I was unable to read or do much of anything. Instead of the American-style toilet I had become accustomed to at my host family's house in Tagiyev, my new host family's bathroom is a hole in the ground which is located in an outhouse not connected to the house. Instead of taking a shower like I do in Tagiyev, in Bilasuvar my shower consists of soap, a bucket of water, and a cup to pour over my head! I'm told that they are in the process of building a shower, but I have a feeling this is an excuse they gave to Peace Corps and that I shouldn't hold my breath (except when I'm pouring water over my head with a cup!).

The worst aspect, however, is how much tea (chai, as they call it) they drink and make me drink. My Tagiyev family gives me one cup of tea in the morning, and as soon as they leave the room, I promptly dump it down the sink: "problem yoxdur!" (no problem!). My Bilasuvar family insists that I drink at least three cups at every meal, and they eat at least four meals a day (at least it seems that way). On top of this, whenever I met a new member of the community, that person would invariably ask me to drink tea with them. My counterpart, a very intelligent man who has been teaching English longer than I have been alive, told me that Azerbaijani doctors have proven that tea prevents headaches! I tried to explain to him that the caffeine in tea makes the drinker's body dependent, and then when it is deprived of the caffeine it causes headaches, but he remained unconvinced. It reminded me of scene in the Borat movie's deleted scenes where Borat tells a doctor that "doctors in Kazakhstan say that smoking is good for you!"

Another Borat-ian moment occurred while I was riding on the bus to return to Tagiyev. A woman sitting next to me had a cardboard box sitting on her lap, all covered in duct tape. I dozed off for a while, and when I woke up I saw a live chicken's face inches from my face!! I let out a loud exclamation, something to the effect of "What the fuck?!?", before realizing that the box contained a live chicken with a small hole cut out for the chicken's head to stick out of!

In other chicken-related news, I had my host family LOL-ing when, in my ignorance of the Azeri word for "rooster", I referred to a rooster as "toyuq-kishi." Instead of my desired intention, to refer to the rooster as a "male chicken," I had literally called it "chicken-man"! After that, whenever one of the roosters in the yard would start walking towards the table, my host-grandfather would exclaim, "Watch out! Here comes the Chicken-man!" or "Listen...the Chicken-man is speaking!"

My host family is very nice, and they seem very honored to have me stay with them. The host-grandfather is a semi-retired construction worker who is also a mullah (a Muslim religious leader). My host-father, who bears a striking resemblance to SNL's Norm McDonald, doesn't appear to be currently employed. Also living in the house is the grandmother, a fifteen year-old boy, and a younger boy and girl. There is also a cousin, maybe in his early twenties, who spends a lot of time there. He appears to get his fashion advice from the movie "Grease" and the tv show "Happy Days."

More updates to come!

Sag ol!

This has been a pretty trying week, but everything is going well now. I spent the last couple of days recovering from what I'm told might have been food poisoning. Luckily, though, the medical staff was very helpful and I feel completely better today. My host family had some interesting approaches to helping me feel better. These home remedies included sitting on a hot plate wrapped in newspaper and tying a sheet around my stomach tight like a girdle! I'm not sure if it was the steaming hot plate or the medication, but I'm just grateful that I'm back to 100%! I'm going to view the sickness as an initiation rite...I just hope my next challenge will be intellectual instead of physical! : )

Today was the first "Hub Day" we've had since all of the trainees were assigned to individual host families and began language training. It was really nice to see all of the other trainees and catch up with them. Tomorrow we're celebrating the 4th of July (better late than never!): we'll be going to a restaurant and watching a live band. Pre-service training has kept us very busy, but overall it's been a very satisfying experience.

Before I go, here are a few things that I really miss from the states:

* ICE -- Even though the weather is incredibly hot outside, and fans and air conditioners are unavailable or unused, Azerbaijanis never put ice in their drinks. In fact, most don't even drink cold drinks!

* SHORTS -- As a Mainer, I'm used to wearing shorts while there is still snow on the ground. In Azerbaijan, men never wear shorts.

* NON-CARBONATED WATER -- Bottled water is pretty easy to find in Azerbaijan, but almost all of it is carbonated. I was told that this is because Azeris feel that there should be something extra in it to make it worth paying money for.

Last night was the first time that I stayed with my host family. I was really nervous, but they're wonderful people! My host-mother and host-father are both teachers, and my host-brother is a 26 year-old lawyer who is fluent in English! I chatted with him in English for a long time, about everything from the Azerbaijani language, Islam, the Red Hot Chilipeppers (his favorite group!), and the movie "Casino"! I need to leave, but I'll keep you updated! Sag ol!

Tonight is my last night in the U.S. for 27 months. After a two-day staging orientation in Philadelphia, my Peace Corps contingent is leaving for Azerbaijan tomorrow morning. I don't think that it has truly sunk in yet, and I'm guessing that it won't until I step off the plane in Azerbaijan.

Many of my fears have subsided over the course of the orientation process. I think that it really helps to meet all of the other volunteers and discover that they share most of the same goals, aspirations, and fears that you do. I am also very glad that I was given ample time to get to know those who will be serving with me in Azerbaijan. Instead of arriving in a country where I will not know a single person, which is what I was expecting, I can enter in this new adventure with fifty-three other people whom I have talked with, joked with, and performed countless wacky ice-breaker activities with over the past two days!

I still have a fairly vague notion of what to expect once I arrive in Azerbaijan, but this fact no longer seems terrifying (well, maybe still a little!).

In a few hours I will officially begin my journey! Although my plane from Bangor to Philadelphia for the pre-service staging doesn't leave until Sunday morning, I'll be on my way south to Bangor this morning. I'm pretty much done packing, although I'm now thinking of several things that I have already forgotten (like a toothbrush, a backpack, quick-dry towels, and many other necessities).

My mailing address for the next three months will be:

Eric Pelkey, PCT

AZ 1000

Main P.O. Box 77

Peace Corps

Baku, Azerbaijan

I hope that I will be able to update this blog soon and share with you my initial reaction!

Azerbaijan has been in the news since yesterday. Here's an excerpt from an article in today's New York Times:

On Thursday, Mr. Putin surprised Mr. Bush with an offer to build a joint missile defense system in the former Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan after months of angrily rejecting a White House plan based in Europe.

The proposed system, designed to guard against a missile attack from Iran, poses serious diplomatic and technical challenges, experts said. But the fact that it was suggested by Mr. Putin, and not immediately rejected by Mr. Bush, indicated a desire on both sides to cool the hostile exchanges that in recent months had driven relations to a low point in the post-cold-war era.

The offer came during a much-anticipated private meeting between the two presidents at a gathering of leaders of wealthy democracies. Mr. Bush said that Mr. Putin had put forth "some interesting suggestions," and the two agreed to form a working group of military and diplomatic experts to examine how they could cooperate on missile defense, an issue that has long divided Russia and the United States.

"This will be a serious set of strategic discussions," Mr. Bush said, standing by Mr. Putin's side outside the Kempinski Grand Hotel, the luxury resort in the Baltic Sea town of Heiligendamm where the leaders gathered for the Group of 8 meeting. "This is a serious issue and we want to make sure that we all understand each other's positions very clearly."

For Mr. Putin, the offer seemed to accomplish two purposes: giving the appearance of willingness to compromise on missile defense while calming jitters over his recent threat to again aim missiles at Europe. "This will make it impossible — unnecessary — for us to place our offensive complexes along the borders with Europe," he said, speaking through a translator.

[...]

With tensions between Washington and Moscow rising over Mr. Bush's plan, a senior White House official said Thursday that Mr. Putin indicated before the meeting that he wanted to raise an idea directly with the president. But Mr. Bush was not aware of the details.

Experts say that Mr. Putin's proposal faces a number of daunting, and possibly insurmountable, hurdles. Russia leases but does not own the radar station in Azerbaijan, for instance, and the facility is an early warning system, not the X-band radar that is used to guide anti-missile interceptors, and which the Bush administration wants to build in the Czech Republic.

Those of you who know me well are aware of my obsession with sneakers. In mental preparation for my upcoming service in Azerbaijan, I sold almost every pair of my Air Jordans, Air Force 1s, and Timberlands! While doing this, I kept in mind the words of Tyler Durden from Fight Club: "The things you own end up owning you."

I just got my hands on a copy of the Azerbaijani-English Dictionary & Phrasebook, so my next goal is to learn some of the most useful phrases in Azerbaijani, like "Where is the nearest bathroom?"

Less than three weeks and counting!

Hello everyone! I'm now one step closer to completing the Peace Corps process! Today I sent in my applications for my visa and my passport. I also completed my "aspiration statement", which requires volunteers to answer 5 questions in the form of short essay answers:

A) The professional attributes that you plan to use, and what aspirations you hope to fulfill, during your Peace Corps service. B) Your strategies for working effectively with host country partners to meet expressed needs. C) Your strategies for adapting to a new culture with respect to your own cultural background. D) The skills and knowledge you hope to gain during pre-service training to best serve your future community and project. E) How you think Peace Corps service will influence your personal and professional aspiriations after your service ends.

Here is the statement I sent to them:

A: The professional attribute that I believe will be most helpful to me during my service in Azerbaijan is my intellectual curiosity. I still remember the new world that was opened up to me as a college freshman when I read Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” in a philosophy course. Much like the protagonist in Plato’s tale, I decided that being satisfied with superficial answers and surface meanings would inevitably lead one down the much-traveled, but existentially shallow, path of least resistance. Socrates’ famous observation that “the unexamined life is not worth living” may seem a bit cliché in an era of postmodernism and globalization, but this apparently simplistic dictum reflects the spark that has ignited generations to raise their era’s most burning questions. I intend to carry this spark with me to the land that the Zoroastrians once dubbed “The Land of Fire.”

I’ve discovered throughout my teaching experiences that the best a teacher can hope for is to help each student find and develop his or her own enthusiasm and questioning nature. Without this sense of passion and excitement, even the most gifted student will likely never escape his or her own allegorical cave. As an English major in college, I was lucky enough to have a few teachers who aroused in me a passion for the English language. My aspiration is to be able to kindle a similar flame in the minds of my students in Azerbaijan.

B: The most effective teams are more than just a sum of the individuals on the team; rather, success requires each member to emphasize the strengths and minimize the weaknesses of his or her teammates. My strategy for effectively working with my host country partners is to view my role not merely as a “secondary school English teacher,” but equally as a student in every sense of the word. I often (and unapologetically) tell my students that I have learned more from them than they could ever hope to learn from me. I will view my host country partners not only as “co-teachers”, but more importantly as co-learners. I look forward to discovering new methods of teaching and interacting with students. Of course, any partnership (especially one that unites differing cultures and languages) may result in some conflict and dissonance, but this friction is what causes individuals to begin posing new questions and positing new answers in the dialectical struggle between thesis and antithesis. Seeing oneself as a small player in this dialectical process of trial and error does wonders in checking one’s ego!

C: In postmodern American multiculturalism, far too often cultures are celebrated in a way that dehistoricizes them and leaves them as “empty signifiers.” We may learn about the local cuisine and the style of clothing. We may even become familiar with a few famous members of that culture. But without a proper historical context, such information does little to bridge the gaps and lead to a true cultural exchange. For instance, knowledge of traditional Native American clothing and housing is little without a knowledge of the Wounded Knee Massacre or the American Indian Movement. On the other hand, one cannot truly grasp the complexity of a culture merely by the piecing together of grand historical narratives or abstract ideologies.

In order to gain a better understanding of the various cultures of Azerbaijan, I have begun reading about the history of the area. Although I have not yet set foot in the country, I have already gained a great amount of respect for a nation that founded the first Muslim parliamentary republic in the world, endured Soviet colonialism and the threat of Nazi attack, and has survived an ongoing conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. With that being said, I am still aware that this tells me about as much about what it means to be an Azerbaijani in the 21st century as reading The Federalist Papers informs one about life in the contemporary United States. Over the course of the next two years, I plan to completely immerse myself in the surrounding cultures and to give others a small glimpse into the cultures that have shaped me as a person.

D: The success or failure of my ultimate goals will probably be decided during the three-month pre-service training. I believe that the most crucial aspect of training will be whether I can adequately master the language of Azerbaijani. I can already imagine the frustration that must result from trying in vain to find the right words to express one’s ideas in a foreign tongue. I know that such experiences are unavoidable, and I am already preparing for such breakdowns in communication. After the pre-service training is completed, I hope to have the linguistic building blocks upon which I can build throughout my service.

I would also find it very beneficial to learn many of the customs and rituals that are commonly observed by the Azerbaijani people. If at all possible, I would like to avoid inadvertently insulting or annoying my host family or neighbors because of my ignorance of their values or taboos. From all that I have heard, the people of Azerbaijan are very friendly and understanding, but any embarrassment that can be avoided would leave me the opportunity to err in other areas without as much scrutiny!

E: I think that my Peace Corps experience will help me grow both personally and professionally. Growing up in a homogenous, rural working class town limits one’s ability to travel abroad and interact with other cultures, so I have little doubt that this opportunity will broaden my horizons. I believe that if I can prove myself and succeed in the Peace Corps, any other subsequent challenges I take on will be achievable and within reach.

I also feel a responsibility to those who are in a similar economic and geographical situation as myself and might not have the ability or the means to experience diversity firsthand. By sharing the lessons I have learned with others in my hometown, I can give back to my community and expand their knowledge of a world they will probably not have the opportunity to see.

Hello everyone! After several months of dental and medical appointments (and four less wisdom teeth!) I have finally been given my dental and medical clearance by the Peace Corps and have received my assignment. I will be teaching English as a foreign language at the secondary school level (approximately ages 9 to 16) in the Republic of Azerbaijan. I will be leaving for my "staging" in the U.S. on June 24th, and two days later I will be en route to Azerbaijan for 3 months of training and 2 years of service.

Azerbaijan is a former Soviet state which gained its independence in 1991. It shares borders with Russia, Georgia, Armenia, Iran, and the Caspian Sea. The vast majority of the Azerbaijani people are Shi'a Muslims, although the country itself is secular. The primary language spoken is Azerbaijani, a Turkic language which is also spoken by a significant amount of Iranians.

I still have a few more forms that need to be completed and mailed, but everything finally seems to be falling into place! I'm getting very excited about beginning my assignment, although there are so many things that I will need to do before I depart (I'm already freaking out just thinking about the prospect of packing for a two-year stay in an unfamiliar country!).

Keep checking back, and I will keep you all updated!