Recently there was a referendum to make a number of changes to the AZ constitution. Changes included removing term-limits on the president(who typically gets 80-90% of the vote), to allow the government to cancel all elections if the country is at war(open hostilities with Armenia and Nagorno-Karabag ended in 1993 but no peace treaties have been signed) and a "privacy" provision which requires one to receive permission before photographing, video-taping or in anyway recording another person.

Ive asked a few local people about these new laws and they all say that, of course, they support the new laws and the democratic right to re-elect the president as many times as he would like, to prevent foreigners & enemies to interfere in their elections and to the democratic right to privacy that these changes provides them......of course.

A report from the Institute for War & Peace Reporting.

New Azeri Law Enrages Journalists Independent media say ban on unauthorised recordings will hamper reporting. By Seymur Kazimov in Baku (CRS No.532, 19-Feb-10) Some journalists in Azerbaijan say changes to media legislation could limit freedom of expression.

The amendments - passed by parliament on February 12 after they were approved last March in a referendum on a number of different subjects - forbid reporters from recording anyone’s voice or image without their permission.

The media law changes were little noticed at the time, as most attention around the referendum focused on a constitutional reform allowing the president to run for re-election as often as he wants.

Arif Aliyev, chairman of the New Generation journalists’ union, said the amendments – the tenth alterations to the media law since it was adopted in 1999 - could restrict freedom of speech in the country.

“This is the most negative change that has been made to the law in the last ten years. When this question was raised in the referendum, the government promised it would allow exceptions in some cases - but this law shows that no exceptions were made, and the ban for journalists is absolute,” he said.

“This means that a journalist, even at normal events, cannot film as he wishes.”

He suspected the amended law, which awaits presidential approval, would lead to more criminal cases against journalists.

“Now anyone who wants to can take a journalist to court just for being photographed, for example at the launch of a book. It is laughable,” he said.

Rauf Arigoflu, the editor-in-chief of Yeni Musavat newspaper, agreed, “These amendments were made specifically to create more and more obstacles to the work of the independent and opposition media.”

He said the amendments would also serve to wipe out investigative journalism in the country. He said he would be forced to adapt to the new law and not create problems for his newspaper’s journalists.

Not all media professionals agreed with their protests, however. Vusala Mahirgizi, general director of Azeri Press, a pro-governmental private news organisation, said the changes were fine.

She said that journalists had lost their chance to object when they did not protest at the time of the referendum.

“Then most journalists focused on different issues, such as on the point removing restrictions on the re-election of the president. And I don’t understand why we should now protest against parliament’s decision,” she said.

“The question was raised at a referendum, and the will of the people was expressed ... In the legal sense there are no problems. We are all obliged to respect the law, and not to go outside it.”

Mubariz Qurbanli, a member of the parliament’s committee on legal policy, said the changes were intended to protect citizens’ right to privacy.

“Here we are intending to prevent interference in private life. These bans do not relate to individuals’ social-political activities,” he said.

Bakhtiyar Sadigov, the editor-in-chief of Azerbaijan, the parliament’s own newspaper, agreed with him.

“The changes to the constitution were made by the will of the people. The population voted for these changes,” he said.

“I am personally opposed to having my picture taken without my permission, or with someone interfering with my private life. This is a violation of an individual’s rights.

“Journalists often interfere with our personal lives. We are Azeris, we have our own mentality, and we do not agree with our personal lives being on general display.”

Opposition members of parliament, however, said they did not believe the law would be used purely to deal with privacy.

Igbal Agazade, chairman of the opposition Hope party in parliament, said the law would make cracking down on free speech much easier.

“A few people claim these bans just apply to people’s personal lives, and do not relate to social-political life. But all these assurances are not reflected in the law. It will be a lot easier to keep society under control and restrict information, and that is the point of these changes,” he said.

Seymur Kazimov is a freelance journalist.

I wonder, do you suppose this law could be taken advantage of by the corrupt who demand bribes or who offer them to prevent there malfeasance from being exposed? I wonder......

Found a doner shop in Baku that, if you can't read it this sign says:

Turk Doner (standard on bread)

Arab Doner (standard on lavash)

Mexican Doner (two tacos)

Spanish Doner (looks like a meatball sub to me)

For those of ya'll who dont know; the first two, perfectly normal. Spanish doner....gosh knows what that is. But a !MEXICAN DONER!, tacos!, thats a find. And an interesting way of crossing the cultural divide. Explaining to a peoples who often think Americans are part of an ethnic group called Ingilis(unless they're not white or not Christian inwhich case they're not American but whatever their ancestors happened to be), that rice was invented here, and that Japan is in China; crossing that cultural divide to explain the concept of "taco" as a form of doner is amazing.

Sadly the gas wasn't working in that part of Baku so I had to settle for a bloody bland & boring Turk doner. X steps forwrd, N steps back, the answer to X-N (usually) = Disapointment to the inverse square of Bemusement.

As mentioned before the notoriously inaccurate Lonely Planet:Caucuses is complete and utter crap. Don't buy it.

It's only saving grace & correct statement comes when it claims that possibly "the best doner in Azerbaijan" can be bought in Quba. In this they are most certainly correct. Mahir Lahmacun, on the main road just 300m uphill from the autovagzal, across from the college you will find the one bastion of culinary perfection.

I typically only go there once a week, sitemate Amy averages atleast twice. The week before Chrismas when we were hosting so many guests we went 4 of 5 weekdays. The owner is very friendly and helpful, the doner chef, an insanely skinny guy named Tofiq, remembers our individual orders and gives us our doners exactly as we want them every time. Amy - no tomato, me - extra sauce and lots of red pepper.

It is one of the few resteraunts in the rayons that you can always know will be foreigner, & more importantly, woman friendly. Though we very seldom see any local women there Amy and the other PCV women folk know they can go there alone and not have to worry about being harrassed by jack-ass local men. This is not true of most other cheap resteraunts in Azerbaijan.

Wich isnt to say you can escape the staring, female or male one can never escape the infernal staring, but you know you won't be bothered.

If you go order the lavash doner. Truely one of the greatest meals you will have in Azerbaijan. A thin flour tortilla tightly wrapped around perfectly grilled & spiced lamb with cilantro, tomatos, a wee bit of mayo and spiced tomato sauce and in the last month theyve begun improving on perfection by adding a couple crispy-crunchy french fries to the mix. This with a side of perashkies, golden crispy brown on the outside, fluffy steamy warm pastry & mashed potato on the inside. Its a meal you won't soon forget at 1.50AZN for the doner and 20qepik for the perashki.

Sadly its difficult to take really good pics of food.....

In the last 3 months 3 new doner restaurants have opened up in Quba. Indeed there seems to be a trend across the first finger for opening new doner joints across the First Finger. Atleast 5 new ones in Xachmaz and even one in muddy little Devechi to the south.

Sadly they all promise more than they can deliver. Plastered with pictures of a huge variety of incredible foods: salads, roast turkeys, pizza, cheeseburgers, fish, exotic curries. In reality the doner joints very seldom deliver anything more than a doner, usually on a bun but if youre lucky in lavash(a flour tortilla wrap), some cold perashkies(savory deep fried pastries stuffed with mashed potato, meat, or ground liver) and ayran(a yogurt drink).

The new Imperial doner resteraunt in Quba.

The lie. There are no burgers. Never any burgers. Certainly nothing this beautifully delicious looking. The burger is a lie. Always a lie.

The only time a place like this might have a "burger" is when they have a "qamburger". Qamburger is a weird Soviet-AZy bastardization of one of the worlds most sacred and delicious foods. Instead of the burger patty being a delectable mixture of ground meat & spices(or beans & tofu if youre violating God's plan for canine teeth) the qamburger contains a cheap hot-dog weiner, sliced lengthwise, half fried in leftover grease, left to sit around for half the day because nobody wants to eat the crap and then slopped into a bun thats 3times too big. The qamburger is an abomination.

In an evening of boredom sitemate Amy & I took her "Jumbling Towers" game, a cheap "Jenga" knockoff, and turned it into a drinking game by writing challenges, dares, punishments, rewards & requirements to drink on the underside of all the pieces. Some require you to drink, some require others to drink, some require you to show off your Azeri wedding dance skills, and argueably the worst requires you to go to the nearest store to buy 20qepik(cents) worth of any bulk dry good. When the "Jumbling Tower" falls all players grab a random peice an the loser is required to do what they say.

On an evening just a couple weeks ago Jake in Xachmaz was unfortunate enough to pull the "Sing "I'm a Little Teapot" peice. Enjoy.

Zombie Chris eats Jack-o-Lantern braiiiiiiiinnnnssss

Jake the DJ Sheep & his evil shadow imp

John, making people feel uncomfortable ;)

Azerbaijani Gothic, Sheepherd Josh and Emma/Tim

Mathias/Marina & Emma/Tim

Traveled out to Zaqatala for the first time for a Halloween party at our fellow PCVs home. If you look at a map of Azerbaijan you'll see Quba is near the top of the First Finger, the first peninsula of land reaching up into Russia. Zagatala is near the top of the Second Finger reaching up toward Russia and Georgia.

After carving Jack-o-lanterns with some local kids good old-fashioned drunken revelry was had by all(except the local kids; they were sent packing). Despite the drizzle we had a bonfire in costume. Sheep & shepherds, boxes, zombies, xanims(Azeri-style babushkas/grannies) & construction workers all attended. But by far the best was Marina & Tim who came dressed as fellow married PCVs Mathias & Emma respectively.

Chapter 3: Aftermath

After 1.5-2hours it was all over. Apparently the hernia, instead of being the normal 2-3cm lesion was 4-5cm, a biggie. Doctor said surgery should have been done a lot sooner and I should have been in pain the last few months. But, for better or worse, I never was in any particular pain because of the hernia belt and it was always easy to shove everything back inside when it started to protrude when I wasn't. Indeed it felt kinda good the way scratching a mosquito bite or popping a zit does.

Slept for the next few hours. Wasn't very hungry when they served dinner but found myself ravenous around 7pm. Asked the nurse for some food but the cafeteria was closed. Sad I never got her name to send her a thank-you card but 10mn later she came and gave me half of her dinner she had brought from home. Bread, cheese, boiled veggies with some meat. Best meal I'd had in a long time.

The docs kept asking if I had used the toilet yet and seemed a bit concerned when I said I hadn't felt the need. So eventually I just forced myself to get up and walk to the toilet. Painful, very painful to walk, but not terribly bad. By the next morning I could get up much easier and walk about. By the time Irena came to check me out at 1 the afternoon the day after the surgery I could walk slowly, mostly upright, without any great difficulty.

Spent the next 5 nights at a hotel. I owe a lot of gratitude to my friend Vicky for coming over everyday to take care of me and for bringing a lot of food the first day. Thanks kiddo. I hope I can do something to return the favor someday. Its good to have friends to take care of you.

4-5 days after the surgery I was on my feet well enough to participate in the Hash Walk. The Hash if you hadn't heard of them is an international organization, usually in cities with a British expat community, whose members meet weekly to walk or run a marked trail of arrows with checkpoints and the occasional false trail and then meet at the end for a few drinks and camaraderie. Good times and Ive met a number of new friends & business associates there.

It took about 10-12 days for the wound to heal over so I didn't need to wear a bandage anymore. A few twinges of pain for the next 2weeks but since then absolutely no problems. Left with just a 4cm red line of a scar on my lower abdomen to remember it all by. Good to have it all over and again, thanks to everyone who helped and sent their love.

Chapter 2: Surgery

About a week later I had guests. Two new Peace Corps Trainees from the AZ7 group come for a few days site visit to learn more about what PCVs actually do and what the rayons are actually like. Midway through their visit I received a call from PC Medical. The surgeons return to Canada was sooner then expected so if we were to do this I must go to Baku the very next day. I sadly had to abandon the newbies and go to Baku. Though the doctor had said this could be an outpatient procedure Irena(my PC doctor) wanted me to stay at the hospital the nite before because surgery prep would need to begin at 6am and again the next nite to be careful for complications. I very much disliked this idea and was a bit argumentative but some battles must be abandoned that others can be won; as the PCV motto goes “Be flexible”. In hindsight it was the better plan of action. Getting up at 5am to get to the hospital would have been difficult and it was rather painful to walk the next evening.

Spent the night in the hospital, no food or drink allowed, was woken up all to early the next morn by a couple of cute nurses who couldn't believe I spoke Azerbaijani but not Russian and really wanted to practice the 12words of English they knew. They shaved my belly & half my pubes with 10cent disposable razors. 'Twas one of the more awkward, ticklish and scratchy experiences of my life. I was wheeled into intensive care where the other patients were quite surprised to see a foreigner. A fellow who was quite out of it and restrained to his bed became a bit agitated and mumbled incoherently until they placed a screen between us. The anesthesiologist came in and gave my the epidural and I settled in for the next 8hours of paralysis. I waited there, dozing for an hour, before being wheeled into the operating room. Here I was disappointed because there was a screen between my head and the surgery so I couldn't watch. Nor was there a mirror nor camera. Very bummed. I had to entertain myself by listening to the doctors talking in Russian and learning to control the heartbeat/blood pressure monitor. Heartbeat is easy but blood pressure is a hard one. Be it old age or boredom I found it much more difficult to stay awake during the surgery than it was back in Japan. Surprised the hell out of me when I first saw smoke rising from the surgery area. Apparently the were using lasers or cauterizing something. If you want to see what this surgery is like you can watch videos on YouTube or GoogleVideos. Interesting, grisly stuff.

Hernia Surgery in Short

I wrote this story once. Bloody power failure occur ed mid upload onto Blogger followed by the power coming back on with a surge that caused the bulb above me to explode. Fortunately the office has a couple very good power stabilizors and surge protectors and though my computer survived the upload did not. Major ambition killer it was. Glass shards in my hair, darkness reigning the office, alone, combined with the gas not working that day and the pissing rain outside I decided to go to Baku to get my monthly shower and let this project set for a bit.

But now Im back. The holiday season is over and Im ready to get some work done. Lets start today with the conclusion to the Hernia Saga.

Chapter 1: Preperation

Remember last October. 5 months+, nearly 6months after first being diagnosed with an inguinal hernia I received word from the PC Medical staff that Washington DC in its infinite wisdom finally approved me for an "elective" surgery to sew shut the large hole in the muscles in my lower abdomen that are supposed to keep my intestines on the inside. It seems Washington believes that aslong as a hernia isn't currently strangulated then fixing the problem is elective rather than priority. Most common cause of strangulated hernia is constipation or similar gastric distress. Most common medical complaint of PCVs in AZ – gastric distress. Meh.

I travelled to Baku to inspect Tusi Hospital where AZ-PC Medical wanted to do the surgery and to meet the surgeon. I must say that the AZ PC Medical staff is very caring, informative and effective. Thank you Irena, you're damn good at what you do. We first went to meet the surgeon. He office was at the Oilworkers Hospital in Baku but he often handles surgeries at Tusi. The Oilworkers Hospital was a crumbling Soviet relic, marble floors in the lobby disintegrating, a doorway boarded up with an overturned table and warning tape, we waited a few minutes in the doctors office on a couch with ancient cracked pleather revealing old discolored foam before the doctor arrived and met with us in a conference room. I have been told that in the last few years the government has dedicated many millions of manat to buying equipment and refurbishing but I saw no evidence of this. Dear reader you may gather I did not expect much. The doctor, a tall, balding Russian I expected brusque arrogance, an expert who would disdain the questions of an ignorant patient questioning his "expertise". Let me say here that while this is a frequent attitude presented by "experts" here this is less a commentary on the local or even post-Soviet culture but based more on my experience with doctors in other parts of the world. In Japan I had a few experiences with hospitals and while ta few doctors I dealt with there were very professional(in the idealized Western sense) a very significant number were unwilling to answer questions or to take my concerns seriously. Fortunately there, in the last couple years at least, my language & cultural understanding was such that I could argue, be obstinate, and force them to take my concerns into account. Sadly my Azerbaijani & Russian aren't up to that task here.

Taking a seat in the conference room while my PC Medical escort and the doctor spoke in rapid Russian I expected the worse but insisted on introducing myself. In Azeri "Salam alekum müəllim. Mənim adım Kriş. Çox şadam.” (Salam alekum doctor. My name is Chris. Its nice to meet you.) to which the doctor responded “It's good to meet you to. My name is XXXX. Irena has been telling me about your hernia and I hope we can take care of it quickly.” in slightly Russian accented but quite fluent English. A wee bit taken aback I quickly learned that this doctor had done much of his training and residency in the UK and occasionally went on work trips to Canada. Indeed if he was to do the surgery it would be necessary to schedule within the next month because he was soon going back to work in Canada. As we spoke I learned more about his qualifications and the procedures used in repairing a hernia. He asked me a number of questions about my condition, listened to and answered my questions, took my concerns and requests seriously and promised to accommodate them to the best of his abilities. My main concern was that I not be knocked out by anesthetic. Rather I wanted an epidural(spinal tap) so that I could remain conscious and watch the surgery as I had when they reconstructed my leg & knee after the motorcycle accident back in Japan. The doctor was of course a bit concerned that most patients become distressed by the site of blood and such but seemed to appreciate my interest in his art and all similar engineering puzzles. I was assured that this wouldn't be a problem.

Next we went to visit the hospital where surgery would be completed. This hospital was newly built and indeed as we looked through one of patient rooms one could still find price stickers on some of the furniture. The bathroom was clean and well tiled with a hot shower and Western-style toilet. The nurses were polite and seemed able. On closer inspection later I began to realize that everything, though new, was of low quality and would in a few years fall into disrepair. The doors and corridors weren't built large enough to allow easy access by the patients beds and were severely scuffed and dented. The doctors and nurses where all apologetic but I couldn't be allowed to inspect the operating room for hygienic reasons. This was very reassuring as I had already decided I wouldn't allow surgery to be done in a hospital that would allow such a breach.

A final note about the hospital. When you enter the patient wings of Tusi hospital or the fancy expat dentist Peace Corps sends us to they make you put on little blue plastic baggies over your shoes with elastic bands to hold them on around your ankles. Presumably to keep the street dust, animal feces and dirt out of the hospital. I Japan schools, dentists and lots of hospitals made you leave your shoes at the door and wear slippers. In hospitals these slippers were “sanitized” under UV lights when not in use. I haven't decided yet if this is all still a good idea or just a hold-over from the old, dirtier days. In Japan it doesn't seem necessary anymore but in this country it seems like an excellent idea. It just feels odd to wear plastic bags on your feet.

So it was decision time. Did I feel comfortable doing the surgery here in Baku with this surgeon and hospital or would I insist on being sent either to Washington or to the PC medical center in Thailand? Tempting as a week or to in either place was I could find no rational reason to insist so. Though simple emotional obstinence, “I just don't feel comfortable doing it here!”, would have been sufficient in the end ethics and respect for the tax-payers dollar won out over my desire for a nice vacation.

Heyya loyal reader,

Its been a long time since my last post, pardon. I could say I've been busy, which is true enough, but it would be alot more accurate to say I just haven't felt like writing anything. Alot has happened and I fully intend to update this blog....sometime in the next week when the cleaning lady isn't looking over my shoulder asking alot of questions in Russian.

すごい長い間なにも書かなかったねー。　ちょっと忙しかったし、手術？なった？し、怠け者し、すみませんね。今日友達からメールくれて、「どうしてブログになんか書かなかったの？」って書いた。　じゃあ、本当に頑張る、今週書こう、ぜったい。今無理けど。。。となりに嫌な人がいる。「どうして中国語書いてるの？本当に中国語できるの？中国人嫌い。日本は何？中国と一緒じゃない？」って言ってる。すごい嫌な奴。　もー、行く。　また後でね。

A couple months ago my first kitten, Robot Head, went missing soon after the arrival of his brother, HAL 9000. I always assumed he found another home where he got feed more or maybe a neighborhood dog got him.

Well, to my surprise I found him alongside the road the other day while walking home.

A piece here, and a piece there and his little little robot head last. He'd been hit by a car.

Looks like he lived a good life until then though and his brother lives on, getting fat on mice and lizards from my garden.

Good bye Robot Head.

My sitemate and I have begun working with a new project. It's called the Mental Health Initiative(MHI). MHI is a project sponsored by the Open Society Initiative, part of the Soros Foundation. The mission of this project is to provide social, educational & medical to mentally & physically challenged youth in the villages surrounding Quba.

Though the law of Azerbaijan mandates that developmentally disabled people be accommodated in the schools and that certain services be provided the reality in the rayons is that government structure, schools & the populace generally have an old-fashioned & Soviet mindset regarding the treatment of these people.

For example, amongst the populace there commonly exists the belief that mental disabilities such as autism & retardation and some physical disabilities like MS could be “catching” and so these people are generally shut away in their homes or if the family has money or the connections needed to receive assistance they are often sent away to special institutions. Those who are able to go to school often face ridicule from the other children and are often considered a burden by the teachers. Schools and government institutions, though mandated by law to make accommodations or provide services, often see these youth as a burden on their time and resources and much prefer to send them away to special sanatoriums as was done under the Soviet system.

The MHI is a pilot program started last year and currently only operating in Quba and Ismayli. It is run in conjunction with the Social Services Ministry and, at least in Quba, the office is located in the Social Services Ministry building. In Quba there is a psychologist, therapist, a couple social workers and a driver. An end goal of the MHI is to develop an effective & replicable system so that next year the government can take over the program and it will become the official services system nationwide. Inshallah.

What Amy and I have been asked to do is, on the Youth Development(YD) side, to occasionally accompany the staff on site visits to help create game therapies for the clients and to create opportunities for these children to join in other youth events we help organize so they have a chance to socialize and to educate the other children in understanding their conditions.

On the CED side we have been training staff on how to access and use the Internet for e-mail, sending pictures & documents, search and paying taxes. And in using office programs. We also hope to introduce Best Practices procedures and to improve the currently chaotic office communications methods. Finally, I hope to help them develop a metrics system to evaluate the effectiveness & efficiency of their efforts.

Last week we went on our first site visit. It was a fun change of pace to go out to some of the remoter villages, play with some kids and meet their families. One kid especially, 9 years old and he seems to have MS and some mental disability so that everything he sees is he calls “ting!”. I played with him, taught him how to Hi-5 and Thumbs-Up and we talked about tings for a long time.

Azerbaijani word of the day qrıja (greeja) = hernia.

Don't know how but I got one. Didn't really understand what a hernia was before. Just noticed some shooting pains in the groin some evenings when lounging on my comfy chair(the chair made of slate wood nailed together that was found in the garbage pile). Then one day a buddy and I went on a 20km hike from Quba to Qusar. About half way there it became apparent something wasn't quite right. At the end of the trip I hopped in the shower(I love visiting people with real showers, bathing with a bucket and the water pipe in my yard gets old). Anyhow, in the shower, looked down and what should I see but that part of my groin was swollen, red & throbbing; unfortunately not the good part.

5 minutes later I was on the phone with PC Medical in Baku. Doctor Irena told me she couldn't diagnose anything over the phone but to come into Baku sometime that week and she'd check it out. Couple days later I head down, get an examination and learn that I'm the proud father of a little bastard hernia. For those of you who, like me at the time, don't know what a hernia actually is; a hernia is basically a small rip in the abdominal muscles which allow the internal organs, usually intestine, to slip out a wee bit. This generally occurs at the hole where the large arteries and nerves travel from the trunk of the body down into the leg. The doctors say this is something that doesn't heal by itself, surgery is required to stitch it back together.

No idea how I got it but I do a lot of yardwork, gardening, chopping wood, and moving cement bricks & furniture and thats just to relax after walking an hour to work and an hour back. It was all a great aerobic workout, I had lost about 15kg and went from my biggest belt hole down to a new smaller hole. I've since started taking the marshrut up to work{and gained some weight back :)}.

Anyhow since by itself a hernia isn't really dangerous that this is an 'elective' surgery.....'elective' until it strangulates anyhow(thats where the muscles your internal organs are peeking out of decide to clench down, cutting off circulation and necessitating quick surgery before something blows due to pressure or gangrene/necrosis set in). PC-Washington requires a 2nd opinion from a surgeon and then the bureaucracy in Washington decides if it really needs surgery. In the mean time I was given a truss to wear which keeps constant pressure on the problem area and keeps my internals from peeking out and trying to be external. Fortunately a former PCV in AZ had had a hernia and they had a truss in stock. Here's what it looks like. Nope, not a self portrait.Well all of that was last June. In August I got the 2nd opinion and it was last week that Washington decided to give the green light. Since then I've been putting on this damn truss every morning before heading out. It's not terribly uncomfortable but it can be a bit awkward to arrange it all & use a squatty-potty. Also its bloody undignified to put on/remove when Ive got guests staying over in my one room apartment. But, it is a life saver. If I don't wear it it only takes a minute before the hernia starts acting up. When this first happens it's not painful but rather a weird queasy feeling and then I have to apply pressure just the right spot to pop my insides back inside which is an amazingly odd sensation.

If this was PC-South America folks with serious medical conditions would be sent back to the States. If everything can be fixed in 1 month they ship you back to country to keep working, if more than 1 month PCVs are generally Medically Separated. Over on this side of the world we're sent to a world-class hospital in Bangkok. The PC docs tell me that a hernia operation is fairly simple and the last PCV who had a hernia had no problem getting it done in in Baku. This week I will meet with the surgeon the PC docs recommend to do this surgery. They say he trained in the US & Canada and is highly qualified.

Thats all fine but I'd really rather go get this done in Thailand. Not only is the food and weather a lot better over there but I'm told the doctors and nursing staff at this hospital are great. Here many of the doctors Ive met are of the old Soviet mind-set; an I'm the expert, you know nothing, you don't ask question, you will accept anything I say type mind-set. Back in Japan I had the misfortune to visit the doctors a few times and some of the doctors there had a similar idea of the patient-doctor relationship. But there at least I was generally much more fluent in the language and able to argue. Also they are much more polite and curious about explaining things to foreigners. I find 'authority figures' here to be much less patient or open minded.

But the biggest issue I have with surgery here are a couple details I noticed at the hospital where I went to get the 2nd opinion. I went with two female PC doctors to a nice new hospital with modern equipment and we only had to wait 5 minutes. We checked in at reception and started walking to the exam room wing reception directed us to. But as we started climbing some stairs some random Azerbaijani man(I can only assume he was staff as he wasn't wearing any sort of uniform are name badge) started yelling at us and telling my PC doctors they couldn't go with me to the other part of the hospital. The politely explained that they were my doctors and translators but he continued to be belligerent. It was only when they threatened to call...someone, I can't understand fast Azeri arguing, that he finally gave up. Finally we get to the examination. It was a decent exam room with modern exam bed and lighting and it even had a computer with specialized medical record software that the doctor knew how to use(in the rayons not unusual to find places that have computers but the staff doesn't know how to use it or in schools beautiful new computer rooms that are locked because otherwise the children will break them and nobody knows how/has the money to fix them). The doctor was good, she answered my questions and said that though they usually knock the patient out for the surgery they could do an epidural so I could sit-up and watch if I wanted. She seemed to think that was very strange for some reason. But as I lay on the exam bed I noticed that the brand new, exam light above my had some sort of red-brown liquid splashed and burnt-dried to it....possibly old blood, possibly coca-cola. And between the corner and the medicine cabinet there was a bunch of spiderwebs. As is so often true in developing countries, some folk are trying so hard and have the trappings of development but such glaring oversights are made that its heartbreaking.

So thats were it stands as of now. I wear a truss, try to avoid lifting anything that weighs more than I do, shove my guts back into my belly from time to time, and await meeting the surgeon and seeing the hospital where its proposed to do the surgery. If I don't like the looks of it I may insist it be done in Thailand and we'll see what happens from there. More stories to tell the grandkids someday.

Found a website for a variety of Azerbaijani foods. Lots of pics, a good number of recipes.

The stuffed veggies, pickles, and mimosa salad are my favorites & the rice with dried fruits & chestnuts is incredibly good but only eaten on holidays.

http://www.azcookbook.com/

Here is an interview with a guy who is definitely NOT looking for peace and reconciliation with his former enemies........

"In Denmark it is now generally accepted that all known thieves here are from Armenia: Head of Azerbaijan-Denmark Friendship Community" - headline from 2DayAZ newspaper

Plum wine made in a 16liter water jug then racked into old PET and vodka bottles. Turned out really good. Alot better than the cheap AZ wine I can get at the shop next door.

梅Wineを作った。スゴイ旨かった。作って終わったらPETやVodka便に入った。１６Lできった！

This is a wee wood table used by xanıms(women) here to make bread dough on. I found one hidden amonst all the junk in my garden. The top was cracked and dirty and no good for making bread anymore and I had been putting it ontop of the iron ring you see in the background to use as a coffee table. In a fit of boredom I decided to make it into a chess board.

こな木の上にアゼルバイジャンのババはパンを作る。庭でこれを見つけた。悪かったからパンの作りかたは無理。

Thank Allah for Sharpies.

チェス?boardは日本語でなんというの？

Here Corey models the corn cob pipe that Elmer(another PCV) helped conceive.

Smoking old school with the corn cob and matches.

アメリカの江戸時代らしいSmokeする。

007 Vodka seemed the most unnatural choice for a vodka watermelon.

I ate him shaken, not stirred.

Vodkaスイカ食べたことがあるの？Vodkaスイカ君を食べちゃって酔うぱらくなってきった。

Yes, he does have a gold tooth and yes, he is smoking a cigarette.

スイカ君はかこいいでしょう！

Behind 007 you can also see some of the many new shelves I've built. This is one of the classy stone & glass brick with rough hewn oak shelves.

スイカ君の裏に作った戸棚がある。いっぱい戸棚でも本棚を作った。

There is considerable disagreement over the correct acronym. What the VRT/F is is an Excel spreadsheet all PCVs all over the world have to fill out every 3-4months to report on what activities they have been doing.

Not a bad idea. Bureaucratic & annoying but PC work can seem pretty fluffy and unquantifiable. Seems a good idea to try to figure out what we are actually doing to justify the tax dollars & time spent on it. Having said that PC constantly states that a computer is NOT needed for service....then they require us to fill out this computerized form a few times a year that can only be done on an English version of MS Excell(XP or better) and does NOT work on Apples(which a very significant minority of my hippy/straight-out-of-uni colleagues use).

AZ6 had to fill out our first VRT/F just last month. I've just recently met with my Program Director(Azerbaijani) & Program & Training Officer(2nd in command American) to discuss it and they seem fairly happy with what Ive been doing.

Since I'm too lazy(efficient) to summarize what it says I've decided to cut&paste most of what is written in this form. Some parts have been redacted because they may/have caused some offense or because its boring. In the ACTIVITIES section Ive left out the figures for number of people served vs number who succeeded in activity because its difficult to cut&paste that info. Also this is all completely out of order because I'm in a hurry. I need to design a seminar on entrepreneurship and complete 2 research projects by the end of the week and the internet here is.....sporadic at best.

Enjoy:

Success Story

In a joint CED/YD project PCVs developed a pilot Career day session at one of the local schools. The purpose of which was to have successful community members speak with high-school aged youth about the local job market and about what they need to study and do to find jobs in this area. Though the project met some initial resistance due to its unfamiliarity we gained support and were able to gain the agreement of a school to host it and a number of speakers. When the day came though most of our speakers were suddenly "to busy" to make it but with a few phone calls we were able to lure more speakers through a mixture of promises, cajoling and threats. During the session the children showed an active interest and seemed to learn something about what it really means to find a job and to work. Perhaps more importantly all of our speakers were very impressed by the interest the youth showed and commented afterwards that their own thoughts on the challenges faced by the youth had changed and that they came away with more favorable views of this sort of community participation.

Lessons Learned Nothing is as easy as it seems.

Nothing can be concretely planned.

"Planing" is impossible for any activity more than 12 week in the future.

If you use the word "should" in any of your planning assume it will go wrong.

Independence is more important to me than comfort.

Planned Activities

The Career Day pilot project was so successful that I have approached all 6 other schools in my community about doing it there. I hope to encourage the schools to make it part of their yearly curriculum. And am working with other PCVs to arrange it for their schools.

The Internship Program pilot project though less successful will be continued. A number of students who weren't available for the pilot have expressed an interest and we have worked out some of the kinks in our own planning & procedures. This will be continued and perhaps expanded over time.

I am conducting research & consulting with other PCVs, organizations & community members about developing "Capitalism Clubs"; encouraging youth to work together to create small businesses. We hope to begin work soon.

Work with PSCEP & QMC will continue. We are beginning to focus our projects & will begin to work on creating business associations & other work. I am pursuing training of modern business theory/practices with QMC staff & pursuing 3rd Goal activities with Chemonics staff, many are newly arrived to this country & fail to understand conditions & culture outside of Baku. Further Ive been asked to provide training for BDSs in other Rayons & facilitate work w/ other PCVs.

As the mainstay of the local economy, apples, comes into season I am trying to encourage value-added product production and diversification by introducing apple-based products from around the world. Also pursuing this with other ag-products.

*Note* Goal2 = To teach Azerbaijanis about America. Goal3 = To teach Americans about Azerbaijan.

Goal Two I talk to community members daily, explaining that America is not just a faceless monolith of Christian imperial power & decadent wealth led by a "n@##$r", apostate or Muslim president.

*Note2* Lots of folk here call black people niggers. They learned this from the Russians/Soviets. It isn't always meant in the derogatory sense. Just as Americans might call British, Brits; or OR Brits call Americans, Yanks; etc....... its just the word they know for black folk and they haven't had the PC word police on their backs.

But, more often than not, it is used derogatorily. I'll write about racism in Azerbaijan another time, maybe. The contrast between what racism means here, in Japan, and in the US is interesting.

Rather that we are an extraordinarily diverse country full of people rich, poor & between, of all shades of color & ethnicity, where almost all the world's religions are represented and that we all live together in relative peace. Goal Three I write a blog, host many visiting tourists & international experts and occasionally write to newspapers "comments" sections for Azerbaijan related articles.

PC Initiative Area Youth Dev Most of the activities which I have organized or been part of outside QMC have been YD in their nature or YD related. Materials Created

Ive been working with other PCVs to transfer skills gained thru my previous experience working in schools to train them for TESL teaching, providing/creating materials & activities.

OTHER INFO KSAs(Knowledge, Skills, Abilities)

I would like to learn at least basic Russian & Lezqi, two very important languages that are used on a daily basis in my area but PC has provided little to no resources in this area.

VRT This report was nearly impossible to fill out for a variety of reasons. First, it is incompatible with any but the most recent version of Microsoft Excel and even then the security/settings requirements require the use of an English version or the assistance of a computer literate local who can navigate local(pirated & virus filled) Russian versions. This is a problem because most PCVs are using Macs(incompatible), local computers(invariably Russian & insecure) or like myself using OpenOffice a free open-source version of the Microsoft software which is fully compatible with everything except macros. Secondly it is PC policy that computers are not required for PC service, yet this required activity necessitates a computer. Also, the reporting tool lacks the flexibility to select multiple Objectives when a single project overlaps many.

Sustainability

I have applied for no grants. All of my projects can be completed in community using resources provided in site.

PCV Feedback The policy of Peace Corps is to pay volunteers a stipend such that they can "live at a level comparable to their counterparts". We in Quba, and indeed most of the regions, do not get paid sufficiently to maintain this level. Since AZ1 there have been many years where inflation ran 10-20% yet PCV pay has not in any way matched these price increases. My counterparts can afford to eat meat daily. I have become a very unwilling vegetarian because I cannot afford meat nor many of the other things my counterparts take for granted. I have lost a significant amount of weight and muscle mass during my service here.

MASS MEDIA Was asked by local media at the Novruz festival in Quba to provide an interview concerning PC activities in Azerbaijan but at that time we(PCVs) were of the understanding from Zoltan (*Note3* Zoltan=former Country Director) that we were not allowed to speak with media without prior approval & guidance from the Country Director. Hence, I & other attending PCVs refused and referred the reporter to PC-Baku office.

ACTIVITIES & OUTCOMES *Note4* This is the most important section of the report. Here we write about the activities we have been doing and provide info on the numbers of people who participated and who learned something from it.

Writing OlympicsActed as a proctor & facilitator at the school and worked as one of the essay judges in Baku.

International AIDS CandleLight Memorial Day Participated in this event organized by YD PCVs in Quba & helped facilitate.

Womens Association & Gender Training Participated in a Gender Training and invited local people to participate. Though only one man attended for a short period the women considered this to be a very successful meeting and have asked to meet regularly and create a womens organization.

Hiking Club Go hiking weekly with youth.

QMC Brainstorming Session Quba Marketting Center asked for assistance in finding new income generation activities and exploring the economic situation in the northern area. I organized a meeting of QMC staff, all CED volunteers in this area & the YD PCVs in Quba.

Career Day Organized an event where respected & succesfull members of the community came to speak with upper-form students about how to find work in Quba, what to study & prepare for finding employment and other advice. Students where able to ask questions & voice their concerns.

English Teacher Training Provided a seminar and training to all interested PCVs in northern area on how to teach TEFL & organize Conversation Clubs.

Virus Protection Strategies & Technology consulting & training I provide assistance, advice & informal training on technology(particularly virus protection & alternatives to pirated software) to a variety of organizations & individuals including Ministry of Economic Development, Transparency, QMC, schools, etc.

Writing a blog. 3rd Goal activity.

Training & assistance in writing CV/resume Have provided training & assistance in writing CV/resumes to interested community members.

Business Marketing Assistance

Assist in preparing English language promotional material, including writing case studies on success stories.

Helped QMC prepare Proposal for Chemonics run USAID program - Private Sector Competitiveness Enhancement Program.

QMC won this contract without wich it would have likely been forced to shut down and lay-off employees.

Business Research

Prepare list of mid-large businesses in northern area, evaluate economic position & determine potential efficacy of PSCEP assistance.

Business Research Assist in research of northern area businesses to determine economic & market position, place in value chain, SWAT analysis, etc through company visits, community questioning and internet research. I have assisted in all aspects of these endeavours, from original research, to designing & writing reports, communications & consultation with the PSCEP Baku office, translation of reports from Azerbaijani to English & the consequent training of QMC staff in business English, report writing, business procedures, etc.

Together we have operated with over 25 local mid-large sized businesses, written over 15 reports and multiple revisions.

PSCEP CONSULTING*Note5* Ive had to redact a part of this.

I have been working very closely with X-consultant & PSCEP staff to provide local insight and act as a cross-cultural/lingual facilitator. Both explaining to American & Azerbaijani staff & management the real situation in the Rayons, and to QMC staff & management the goals & difficulties of Baku & American offices. I have also been consulting & providing advice for the revamping of this project. I have been asked many times to continue this facilitation and in the future to provide consultation & trainings to BDSs in other areas of Azerbaijan.

Teacher Training

Have been working with my language tutor(vice-principal/guidance counselor at local school) to transfer language teaching & other pedagological skills.

Its the month of Ramadan when devout Muslims are supposed to fast during the daylight hours; refraining from both food and drink. In some countries this can be taken very seriously, forcing all restaurants & teahouses to close and anyone seen in public violating the fast can be get in trouble though the Koran officially exempts non-Muslims & travellers(ie Haji, tourists, people who are traveling to another city, etc).

Azerbaijan generally isn't very orthodox in it's interpretation of most Islamic strictures. Vodka is common & plentiful(Thanx Russia!), pork is sometimes available, and so on. Ramadan also isn't so strictly observed, atleast up here in the northern Quba-Qusar-Xachmaz area known as the First Finger. Resteraunts and teahouses are open and people are eating icecream & drinking tea in public.

Maybe its just indicative of the people I know but nobody I've talked to observes the fast at all. Indeed, the only possible indication I've seen of the Ramadan season is the removal of the alchohol aisle from our local supermarket, MeqaMarket. Though this occured 2weeks before Ramadan started and alchohol is still sold in the refrigerated aisle.....and rumor mill says it has more to do with the company being squeezed for more "taxes" and the supermarkets imminent shut-down.

Until I got on the internet this morning & read an article about worries that this years very early Ramadan could cause health & dehydration problems for some of the observant I had entirely forgotten it was Ramadan. On the first day of Ramadan I joined in a business lunch with some local entreprenuers & technical assistance experts wich included a bottle of vodka celebrating an agreement to launch a new project and yesterday around 14:00I was pulled into a resteraunt by some aquaintances who were having a kebab & vodka party who insisted I join them. Sadly I couldn't because of a prior agreement but it all goes to show that a number of folk up here a fairly liberal about the tenents Ramadan.

For a random example of how Ramadan can be in other PC countries try this or this blog entry.

"The story you are about to hear is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent." - Dragnet

Once upon a time an American was staying with some Azerbaijani people. It was an American holiday and the reminiscing American wanted to eat something that reminded him of home. Liver & Onions fried up with big slabs of bacon and potatoes & gravy on the side he thought, mouth watering. All of the ingredients were readily available; beef liver, potatoes, onions, all widely available in the bazaar. Bacon was slightly more difficult to find in this Muslim country but fortunately it was found at a little shop down the way.

"Do you mind if you cook my food in your kitchen?" the polite American asked the daughter of an imam lady-of-the-house. "Its fine" she said, not wanting any herself but not so disgusted by the whole idea. While cooking the man-of-the-house returned. "Your cooking? What is it?" he inquired, half concerned about the machismo of a male cooking. The American answered honestly and asked "Have you ever eaten pork?". "Oh sure, back in the Soviet army they made the Muslims & Jews eat that all the time! Its good but my wife won't cook it." he said, somewhat wistfully. "Gravy, huh. That sure does taste good. I've never seen it before." he admitted before returning to his work.

Meal fully prepared the American sat down to a heapin-mess o' good food and enjoyed the wonders that can be had from such simple pleasures when the daughter-of-the-house arrived. "Oh, you made liver! I love liver. Can I have a taste?" she asked, greedily. "Certainly." the American answered, generously. "Whats that?" she asked peering hungrily at a chunk of bacon. "That is a meat which we call 'bacon'." he answered truthfully. "Give me some." she demanded hungrily.

The American uncertain about the appropriateness glanced over at the lady-of-the-house whom simply smirked and looked away, slyly. "Here you are." said the American, handing over a fork-full of bacon. She ate the meat and her eyes shined "Oh! Its really good! This is delicious!" she exclaimed. At this the American smiled inquisitively and the lady-of-the-house barked a laugh of good humour. A shadow daowned over the face of the daughter-of-the-house, "This is pork, isn't it?" she exclaimed with some horror. "Yes it is. Good isn't it?" the American asked. "Oh no, horrible, disgusting, yuck, no it's bad." she said, unconvincingly. "But you just said it was very good, delicious you said." said the American, accurately. "No I did not." she lied, leaving the American to enjoy his meal and the lady-of-the-house to giggle to herself.

The American could not finish all which he had cooked and so left a pan of left-overs in the frindge for tomorrows enjoyment. The next day when he opened his pan of left-overs he discovered to his shock that all of the bacon had been picked out of his meal! Where could it have gone?

Was it; the-man-of-the-house, his hunger for bacon unquenched in all these many years? Was it; the-lady-of-the-house, her disgust piqued or perhaps her curiousity aroused? Or was it; the-daughter-of-the house, her irrational first reaction of disgust overwhelmed by the memory of that one bite of glorious flavor?

We shall never know.

This was the first time we used the grill I found in my yard last spring. We got some frozen chicken legs at the shop next door(each leg=half a days pay), sprinkled with some Lawrey's Season Salt that I brought from the states and starteg grilling em up. Also got some new potatoes and some onions, threw them on şaşlıklar(shashliklar=skewers{plural}) rubbed them down with salt & chicken fat and put it all on the barbie.

10minutes & a liter of beer later we discoverd that the chicken & potatoes where not only cooking at different rates but the chicken was too close to the coals and causing grease fires....problem.

Solution? Some ersatz-engineering that raised the chicken and let the grease drip down onto the potatoes and everything cooking at the perfect rate thus creating one of the best meals had in this country.

I was taken out for dinner by some development & technical assistance experts from Baku that were up here in Quba to do some work with one of the project I work on. We ordered "???"(Ive forgotten the word, will figue it out later), which was bloody delicious. Juicy grilled steaks, peppers, tomatoes & badımcan(badimjan=eggplant) with fried potato wedges fried & kept warm on a wok with some burning embers underneath. Damn good stuff.

I recommend trying it if you can make it to the Çinar(chinar) Kafe in Quba.

I thought this article was interesting. Another interesting event in recent news is the recent blogger case in Baku.

Azeri witchhunt over Eurovision votes By Shaun Walker in Moscow

Wednesday, 19 August 2009

AFP/GETTY IMAGES AySel & Arash perform Azerbaijan's Eurovision entry in Moscow Security forces in Azerbaijan have launched a campaign against dozens of citizens for voting for the wrong entry in this year's Eurovision Song Contest. Authorities in the oil-rich country are apparently tracking down people who voted for Azerbaijan's bitter enemy Armenia in the competition held in May. The two countries fought a vicious war in the 1990s over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is now under the control of ethnic Armenians but is claimed by Azerbaijan. All borders between the two countries remain closed and tensions remain high, even over such a seemingly insignificant event as Eurovision.Rovshan Nasirli, a resident of Azerbaijan's capital Baku, was one of 43 people in the country to vote for Armenia's entry "Jan-Jan", sung by the duo Inga and Anush. He told Radio Liberty that he had been summoned to the country's national security ministry last week to explain himself. "They wanted an explanation for why I voted for Armenia. They said it was a matter of national security," said Mr Nasirli, who voted by text message. "They were trying to put psychological pressure on me, saying things like, 'You have no sense of ethnic pride. How come you voted for Armenia?' They made me write out an explanation, and then they let me go."This year's contest, which was held in Moscow and won by Norway, was already the most politicised in the history of Eurovision. Georgia, which fought a war with Russia last summer, refused to take part in the contest after it was told to change the lyrics of its entry. The song, entitled "Don't Want to Put in", was widely seen as a pun on the surname of Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and thus broke contest rules that songs cannot be political.Luckily for Mr Nasirli, he had a cast-iron excuse for voting for Inga and Anush. He didn't like the Azerbaijani entry, which featured an Iranian singer based in Sweden, and voted for Armenia because the song actually sounded "more Azeri".

Just don't buy it. It's notoriously inaccurate. No one I've talked to that is living or traveling around the Caucuses thinks its worth its weight in soiled toilet paper.

The only thing good I can think to say about it is:

a) in a pinch you could use the pages as toilet paper

b) it says we have the "best döner in Azerbaijan" here in Quba

(b) Isn't actually true but the lavaş(flour tortilla-like flat bread) döner is bloody tasty at Mahir Lamacun, a place just up the road from the avtovagzal(bus station).

"Now you know, and knowing is half the battle." - said at the end of every episode of G.I. Joe

Photo Hall of Infamy

"Barley juice"-bong Tim and his enabler.

Aquafina lemon hangover remedy quaffing Elmer with Jake the storyman.

Camera hogging Auquafina lemon and じんべい(summer festival/pajama) wearing Me.

Cory, AZ record holding winner of the "Cory Award" hanging about The Tiki Bar.

Tim and Xirdalan, king of cheap canned AZy beer.

Site-mate Psychedelic Amy

Master of Ceremonies and builder of The Tiki Bar, Jake.

Josh, the crotchety-old lulə kəbabçi(ground sheep-meat-on-a-stick cooker).

And for anyone who was curious; Independence Day = Müstəqliq Günü(day)/Müstəqliq Bayram(holiday).

Summer is here which means its hot and the fruit is cheap. Especially cheap for me because I've got a bunch of fruit trees in my garden. Starting in March the alça started to grow. Those are basically small sour apples, one dictionary defines them as sour plums. They start small, taste like rhubarb and you can eat the whole thing. I made a crisp out of them and it tasted just like the rhubarb crisp back home. Later they get to be golf-ball sized and the pit gets hard. Finally now some of them are turning into orange-red plums. Pretty good but the trees in my garden are covered with ants.

Next, a month or so ago mulberry season started and hasnt stopped yet. Mulberry trees(note, they come on trees - not bushes as the kids song would have you beleive) produce a longish berry, either dark red or pale green/white depending on the tree. When they rippen up red is very sweet but the green/white tends to have a very grassy flavor. The problem with mulberries is that they are constantly fruiting and falling off the tree. The ground underneath is covered in rotting berries. Folk here tend to harvest the berries by laying tarps on the ground underneath then shaking the tree. Id harvest them to but I can't afford a tarp. You can eat them straight or a lot of people here secretly make vodka from them. Ive had some of the mulberry vodka, known as tut araq, samaqol or tufka depending on the region. The English apparently make wine out of them.

About 5 weeks ago cherry season started. Didn't even know I had cheery trees until I noticed a few on the ground here and there! For awhile I thought the neighbor kids were just being careless with their snacks but I finally noticed way up in the trees, above all the other trees the cherries hanging up there. One night I picked two grocery bags full and spent the rest of the night gorging on a few kilos of cherries.....I won't get into how long I spent in the squaty-potty the next day.

A few days later I still hadn't eaten all of them and they were going a bit wonky so I boiled em up, mashed the pulp & juice separate from pits, added alot of sugar, let it cool, added some wine yeast that I brought with me and poured it into some bottles and put rubber-glove fingers over the tops to act as airlocks. Stupid me, should have done a better job sterilizing the bottles. Strangely the two glass wine bottles both grew an unpleasant green/grey mold but the 3/4 full 2ltr plastic Coke bottle fermented nicely. This breaks all my previous experience with fermenting; the unfilled plastic should have spoiled much more readily than the glass but....nothing goes to plan in this country.....

*cultural note* There doesn't seem to be a native Azerbaijani language word for "plan". Instead they use the Russian loan-word "planı". But my Azerbaijani isn't all that great yet so there may be a word out there somewhere I just haven't learned yet.

Anyhow, racked into the big glass "balun" here's what my cheery wine looked like. Thats the Coke bottle it fermented in with the remaining cheery must in the background. I admit my face did scrunch up a bit with the first sipp, it was a fairly dry wine utterly lacking in subtlty or sophistication, but it wasn't nearly as harsh or post-Soviet chemical hell-scapeish as many of Azerbaijan's manufactured fortified-wines. Indeed had it been allowed to age more than a month it many have mellowed and become a rather pleasent little number.

I got a kirpi! Which is AZy for hedgehog. Was playing Civilization 4 the other night when I realized it was 4am and there was a strange kitten outside whinging so I went out to take a look. Walked out the door and saw a small, grey, spiked, soccer ball waddling away from me. Always curious about my hallucinations I ran over and it rolled up into a ball. Really quick like before he could start spinning and collect all the golden rings in the sky I ran back to the shed, grabbed my winter gloves, ran back and grabbed him.

Now, you may have seen(or you should google it and see now) those cute little hedgehogs that folk keep as pets. Well, like almost everything else in this country, kirpis here suck a wee bit. They're slightly bigger, hard spikier, less playful/curious, and smellier than their foreign cousins. But no matter, Ive got one. Haven't decided what to do with it though. Maybe try to keep it as a pet, maybe let him go or give him to someone who needs one for their garden, or maybe eat him.

Thats right! Kirpi is a somewhat rare delicacy here. Mention eating frog legs, sushi, or crab and folk here get all squeamish, disgusted and holier-than-thou but talk about kirpi and the old-timers will smile and talk about how they're mighty tasty stuffed and baked.(Kirpi levengi if ya want to look-up the recipe).

So Ive a small conundrum. Just like the title to Michael Moore's early documentary, are kirpis "for pets or meat"???

*pics to follow*

The most remote village in all of Azerbaijan, though the new road will get you from Quba to there in about 2hours. The people living here are of a separate ethnic group and continue to use their own language which is quite distinct from all other languages used in the Caucasus. The people here claim that their town has existed for 5,000years. The village is perched above the treeline on a hilltop, nestled in the Greater Caucasus, under the shadow of the tallest mountains in Azerbaijan.

If ever you get the chance I cannot recommend going there enough. A few weeks ago in May I joined a couple AZ5 volunteers for a trip up there. We hired a fellow named Heybet to drive us up in his little 4x4 Russian-made Niva hatchback. Heybet is one of the funniest Azerbaijani men I have had the honor of meeting and though he can't speak any English he can keep any tourist entertained & educated. He was constantly pointing out interesting sites along the road; a bear cave, one of the President's mansions, waterfalls, interesting trees & historical sites, and very, very often, the site where a drunk driver ran of the road, over the cliff, and fell 300m to their deaths. Heybet is a very good driver and apperently one of Azerbaijan's top race car drivers. Given that the fuel for the trip costs 30AZN & he spends his whole day driving & guiding the correct price for a summer trip is about 60AZN for a carload(4tourist + driver) of people. Though if there is any snow or bad conditions you should pay a fair bit more.

When we got to Xinaluq we parked and spent a couple hours wandering around the town. We climbed a hillside overlooking the town and met a sheepherd sleeping while his sheep grazed and then chatted with some of the townsfolk. The buildings in town are made of mountain stone and dung/mud bricks. Some of the richer people in town can afford building materials like tin roofing and some wood. The only buildings that look like typical Azeri archetecture are the newly refurbished school and the military base in a neighboring valley.

As we wiled about the day there we learned we had to head back to Quba early because a townsperson had just died in a neighboring rayon and that they would be bringing the body back for the funeral and many family and friends would following. "100 cars" would be coming up the road Heybet told us and he wanted to get back as quickly as possible before the one-lane road winding up switchbacks through the mountain got jammed. Heybet put his race car driving skills to the test driving as fast as safely possible around the twisties. Great fun, but there where a number of corners where my stomach sank as the tires squeeled and the 300m drop of the cliff was only inches away.

It was only when we got back to Quba that I learned the dead man was the brother of the director of one of the organizations that I work with. Small country, it often seems like everyone is related.

*Cultural Note* In Azerbaijan beards are frowned upon for local men. Having a beard marks you as a Muslim fundamentalist and a probabal Wahabi terrorist, having a trimed goatee marks you as a probabal homosexual(either of these offenses can get you shunned or even harmed....though its better to be a Wahabi). But a thick mustache marks you as a real, macho man. Just the opposite of the US stereotype of the '70s gay porn-stache.

But, when a close family member dies here men traditionally stop shaving for 40 days to mark the mourning period.

Indeed, the Azerbaijani word for to shave = qırxmaq and the word for forty=qırx.

For more information go to www.Xinaliq.com

Guesting with some local folk in a villiage outside of Tovuz, a town on the boarder with Armenia. I sat with the men folk and ate cheese & bread that had just been freshly baked by the women folk, drank vodka, and listened to one fellow play the Azerbaijani guitar, the tar. Friendly folk but if you go to this area be prepared for the first 30mn of any conversation to be about how evil the inhuman Armenians are.

Qala Alta - This a big wall/castle ontop of a small mountain on the border of Siyazan and Devechi rayons. Joined a group of Azeris, PCVs and PCV family members who came to visit; we all got in a rickety old van with a goat, travelled up to a picnic area atop the mountain, slaughtered and BBQed the goat, and spent the day chatting, eating kebab & drinking vodka. Good times.

Crazy Face - No particular reason. Just the regularly scheduled Friday nite bonfire.

Xinalug - They most remote villiage in all of Azerbaijan. They claim to have been there for 5,000years. A seperate ethnic group with there own language distinct from any other in the Caucases. Above the tree line, nestled in the mountains, economy based on sheepherding and increasing tourism.

Super Adventure Weekend - Our hosts gave us homemade headbands to decorate as we liked. Good time, great(G Rated)party game.

A month ago I finally moved into my own place. It was a dump. The only furniture in the house was a couple bed frames and a table covered in peeling paint. To make matters worse it was on the edge of town far from my official Host Organzation(the place where I officially work). But it was a very

Let me introduce you to "Robot Head", my new little kitten.

He got his name from a bonfire game we played at my place over the weekend. One takes a cardboard box and draws a robot face on it, strategically cutting holes where the mouth, eyes, etc should be. Then you place this "Robot Head" over the fire an everyone chants "Robot head, robot head, robot head" slowly, rhythmically and with ever greater intensity and volume until the head is engulfed in the flames. Beats worshiping a boar's head and breaking Piggy's glasses.

Anyhow, they day after that particular bonfire a bunch of us went for a walk around Quba and I split off from the group for a bit to visit a local acquaintance who said I could have one of their new kittens. How does one make the hour long walk home carrying a kitten who is half wild?

Stick him in a closed cardboard box, with a couple strategically cut airholes and carry it all home in a xanim bag(a cool looking reusable plastic shopping sack). Cardboard box, holes, strangeness hence "Robot Head".

He's pretty small though. Just got off mothers milk and still has his baby fat. Been feeding him a good diet of yogurt, of sausage and table scraps. Problem is he's lonely and whinges alot. And when I pick him up he climbs up my chest and tries to eat my beard.....its been two weeks since my last shower, maybe Im missing some food scraps in there when I bucket bath.... ;) Hoping to get him a little friend this week.

Here's hoping that in another month he'll be big enough to do something about the rat/mice in my ceiling whose scrabbling wake me up in the nite.

After the AIDS Awareness Program Jill accompanied the kids to visit the mass grave site.

Amy, myself, and the ever classy Julia(pictured in the middle) who was visiting from Siyazan decided to go for ice-cream and push the gender barriers a little by visiting one of the nicer çayxana(chai hhana)= tea houses.

Gender roles are fairly well set. Women stay home, cook, clean, don't talk to men outside their family, speak when spoken to, never drink alcohol(when men can see) or smoke cigarettes. To violate any of these rules is to put a big sticker on your chest that says "!PROSTITUTE!".... Perhaps I exaggerate, but not much.

Tea houses here tend to be dingy little places where men go after work to drink tea, smoke, play dominoes or nerd, which is a form of noisy backgammon, and just relax. Some teahouses though are very nice. They may have cake or other small food items or have picnic tables outside in the sun. Here in Guba we have a very nice looking teahouse next to the fountain in the middle of our main park between the main mosque and the Culture House.

We've never seen any women there but this is a tourist town with many of Baku's rich & famous coming every summer and we felt this might be the right time to push the boundry a little bit. To show people that just because your a woman and at a tea house doesn't make you a "bad girl". Afterall, its quite common in Baku and other Muslim countries and over the last couple years the attitude in the regions has been slowly shifting towards being slightly less rigid in these matters.

So here they are. Another crack in the cultural walls boxing women in. Julia & Amy sitting in the park at the teahouse waiting for our tea to come. And the nice thing was nobody really seemed to bat an eye about it. We didnt get anymore stares from the local folk than we get everyday here. The tea came, we drank, relaxed, talked, enjoyed the sun, laughed at the boys who were dunking there heads into the fountain with the green water, it was great!....until that great bane of tea drinking hit - the need to pee. Don't know how they do it but Ive never seen a tea house with a toilet. This place in the middle of the park was no exception.

Final note. One of the little charms you can only find in Quba are these little stones painted like mushrooms. There everywhere in Quba, sprouting in corners, nooks, streetsides and gardens like...well, like mushrooms. Quba is the only city in the country to have this. I'll write more about them later & the "crazy" man responsible.

Over the weekend my sitemates Jill and Amy arranged an AIDS Awareness Day in Quba. They arranged for children from our local equivalent of juvenile hall, some local students and other interested community members to come, listen to a presentation and participate in a Q&A session with a health expert from Baku.

In Azerbaijan presentations & speechs tend to be dull affairs where a speaker gets up, reads a prepared statement in a monotone voice & makes no attempt to engage the audience while the crowd sits and quietly talks amongst themselves. This presentation was no different. It was rather dry and boring for my taste and some of the adults who sat in the back talked amongst themselves. But the kids were surprisingly well behaved, listened and really seemed to learn something. As is usually the case nobody wanted to speak up for the Q&A session but Jill, who understands Azerbaijani fairly well, came with a list of questions she wanted answered for the kids.

Ive spoken to a few men here who frequent prostitutes and they all laugh when I tell them that in America it is standard procedure to wear a condom for preventing deseise and pregnancy. They tell me that its an affront to their manhood and that to prevent deseise all you need to do is urinate right away afterwards....makes me wonder if they think that works for the prostitutes(and their wives) also. I wanted to ask the expert if this was true(obviously I know its not but I wanted the little juvi-kids to know) but sadly my Azerbaijani isn't good enough to ask this diplomatically.

After the presentation & Q&A we all walked down to the park for a candlelight memorial & moment of silence.

Some of the kids.

All in all it was a good day. Oficially there are only 3 cases of AIDS/HIV in Quba but the testing rate is abysmal. And the level of AIDS awareness in this country is unfortunatly low especially considering the high rates of needle use(both for illeagal & leagal drugs), the inavailability of condoms and the frequency with wich I know some married men purchase sexual services. Hopefully the kids all learned something and maybe it'll save a couple lives.

This last weekend Quba hosted a qualifying round for the 2010 FIVB volleyball championship that will be held in Japan. Teams from Azerbaijan, Israel, Ukraine, Belarus and others came to compete.

週末、グバ市にバレーボール大会あった！アゼルバイジャン、イスラエル、ウクライナやベラルーシのチーム来た。

Here to the left you see the Azerbaijani team lined up for the singing of their national anthem. The version played here at the games sounded alot like an awesome old James Bond opening credits theme.

これはアゼルバイジャンのチームだ。

Isreal vs Belarus.

イスラエル　VS　ラルーシ

Former President Heydar's everpresent gaze, watching over his country.

At every event Ive gone to see at the Olympic Center there is always a special section roped off for the soldiers. Its gotta be great R&R for them...plus the always clap & cheer the loudest for Azerbaijan....and boo the loudest for everyone else.

グバ市にある大会いっぱい軍人いつも来る。

I went with some fellow PCVs and we got to sit in the VIP seating because on of the volunteers is family with some big-wigs with the Israeli team.

On my left was the Ukranian Embassy delagation, big guy in the middle is the Ukranian Ambassador to Azerbaijan who seems like a really friendly guy. Despite losing to Isreal he promised to send their team a bottle of vodka in thanks for the vigourous competition.

ボランチアー友達と一緒に見に行った。友達のイスラエル人の家族も来たからわしら外国VIP所に腰にかけた。　これはウクライナの大使だ。すごい優しい奴だ。

Here we have some of the Israeli spectators waving something one doesn't often see waved in a Muslim country.

But of course, a PCVs work is never over. Morning, day or night, weekday & weekend, at the office, on the street & in our homes we are always on duty. This became apparent when I & my sitemate started getting urgent texts from contacts in the Ministry of Youth & Sports. It seems the translator fell through and the organizors of this event needed someone to help translate the press-releases from Azerbaijani to "təmiz inglisca"="clean English". Quba Qang PCVs came to the rescue. I, with translating experience and the Y-chromosome necesary to talk to the male officials and be taken seriously, and my sitemate, Amy, with her superior knowledge of the rules and terminology of volleyball. Not to knock our Azerbaijani abilities but its a good thing that reporter/official spoke decent beginner level English because we could read his notes to save our lives. In the end we translated his press releases fairly well and got invitations to meet him again at the central offices in Baku someday.

notherebuthere: The Fire Land: fostering creativity

This is a blog posting written by friend and colleague, Alexis. She says many of the things I've been wanting to say about creativity, thought and the evil of Soviet culture that I've been intending to write about. Fortunatly she's saved me the work by writing it herself.

Had some visitors last weekend to watch the Womens International VolleyBall qualifying championship here in Quba. The stadium is just a couple blocks from my place so it was a good place for everyone to meet and get ready.

Here's a pic of myself, the Siyazan volunteers, one of my sitemates and one of the the girls who works at the hair salon whose back door opens into my garden.

Recently, a pair of the volunteers in Siyazan(about 1hour south of Quba, 1hour north of Baku) arranged what they named, Super Adventure Weekend, for area PCVs. Over the weekend about 10 of us got together for a weekend of good food, ex-pat(PCV) conversation/unwinding, sports and hiking up the local holy mountain.

This mountain is called Beş Barmaq (Besh Barmag) or "Five Fingers". (top pic borrowed from Flicker, thanks & rights go to Leigh Newton)

最近、ボランチアー友達たちと一緒に｛べス　バルマグ｝山＝五つ指山に登って行った。

Its considered a holy place and has a hut at the top for praying & chanting. It takes about 2.5 hours to climb the 3km slop up from the rest-stop by the new highway, up the slope, and then up the 700 or so stairs that take you up and around the rock face ascending to the holy-hut at the top of one of the fingers.アゼルバイジャンのいイスラムの人にとしてこ山は巡礼地だ。

If you ask me it doesnt look anything like five fingers but it was a nice climb. From the arid flats covered with scrub, salt, sheep and ground-seep oil at the bottom; to the lower reaches where a new aqueduct is being built and the steep hills become green pasture land for cattle and horses and looks just like the hills over the "Fire Swamp" in The Princess Bride; and finally the uncountable steps(because one gets tired & no-one can agree whether this rock or that ladder should be considered a step) which wind up the crags and through the rocks and past begging xanims finally to one of the peaks where you can get a veiw of all the surrounding countryside and the sea.　でも五つ指に見ないと思う、でしょう？

Here you can see the holy-hut at the top.

山の上に小さい’神宮’がある。

The beginning of the interminable stairclimb.　Everyone had sore legs the next day. この階段がすごい長い。６００脚立より登りちゃった！次の日、足は大変苦しいだったよ。

Micah, another First-Finger PCV, enjoying a fit-of-peak on a crumbling wall overlooking the Caspian Sea.　古い城の壁の上｛やった！｝って

Finally, the holy-hut at the top. Most folk never see it from this angle as it required I do some extra rock climbing/scrambling/falling to get around to the north side. When we arrived at the top there were a number of worshipers and a fellow chanting inside.　山神宮に到着した。

Having been an overseas voter for about the last 7 years İ can attest to the accuracy of the following article.

May 13, 2009Report: One-fourth of overseas votes go uncountedJim AbramsOne out of every four military personnel and other Americans living abroad may have been thwarted in their efforts to vote in the 2008 election because of communications and bureaucratic problems, according to a congressional report released Wednesday."Registration deadlines, notary requirements, lack of communication, mail delays, poor address information and state laws that put in place untenable mailing dates are all severe problems," Sen. Charles Schumer, chairman of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, said at a hearing.Schumer, D-N.Y., said the study prepared by the committee and the Congressional Research Service, while providing only a snapshot of voting patterns, "is enough to show that the balloting process for service members is clearly in need of an overhaul." He plans to work with Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., in crafting legislation dealing with the issue.The study surveyed election offices in seven states with high numbers of military personnel: California, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington and West Virginia.It said that of 441,000 absentee ballots requested by eligible voters living abroad — mainly active-duty and reserve troops — more than 98,000 were "lost" ballots that were mailed out but never received by election officials. Taking into account 13,500 ballots that were rejected for such reasons as a missing signature or failure to notarize, one-quarter of those requesting a ballot were disenfranchised.The study found that an additional 11,000 ballots were returned as undeliverable.Gail McGinn, the Defense Department's acting undersecretary for personnel and readiness, told the committee that the Pentagon "has taken extraordinary steps to ensure that members of the uniformed services, their family members and overseas citizens have an opportunity to vote."She said the department will issue a report to Congress in December on the results of the 2008 election and said other surveys, while providing useful information, should be viewed with caution if their results are based on non-random populations.Schumer later provided data from his home state of New York concluding that two out of every five military absentee ballots go uncounted. It takes as much as 82 days for New York State troops stationed overseas to go through the absentee voting process, he said.Schumer's office said that because a person living abroad must request the absentee ballot and show a clear intention to vote, voter negligence is not thought to be a major factor.Rather, Schumer said in a statement, there is a chronic problem of military voters being sent a ballot without sufficient time to complete it and send it back.Among the states surveyed, California had 30,000 "lost" votes out of 103,000 ballots mailed out. An additional 3,000 ballots were returned as undeliverable and 4,000 were rejected.The hearing took up possible problems in the Pentagon's Federal Voting Assistance Program, which handles the election process for military personnel and other overseas voters.___On the Net:Senate Rules and Administration Committee: http://rules.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseActionCommitteeSchedule.Hearing&Hearing_id4bbecb7a-f4b9-487b-a1e6-47065a293ccfThe Associated Press

この記事によると、２５％ぐらいアメリカの海外｛かいがい｝からの不在者投票が消失している。ぼく住んでいた州に海外｛かいがい｝からの不在者投票のは簡単けど時々問題があった。　

日本人は海外｛かいがい｝からの不在者投票できるの？難しいの？どんな問題があるの？

Massive failure when it came to naming all of these products.

I give you, the Kafe DABLIN, in downtown Baku. 2for1s during Happy Hour every night on their finest selection of watered-down cocktails & 300%marked-up cheap beers. Plus, in celebration of the 250th Anniversary of Guinness Brewery, don't miss 1/2price tap Guinness Stout for only a days pay on a PCV's allowance.

Open from 11 untill...blackout.

Baklava comes in all forms and shapes here in Azerbaijan and, indeed, across the region. Here's a picture of Quba's version sold in a relatively clean shop, alongside the local bus station.

アゼルバイジャンの田舎でいっぱい種類のバクラバがある。　＜－－これはグバ（Quba)のバクラバだ。　美味しいけどすごい甘いやべとつくだ。

On March 18th there was a referendum held on a proposed 29 amendments to the Azerbaijani Constitution. There was no violence nor even demonstrations that I could see. All of the proposals were passed with 87-92% of the vote.

Follow this link for a copy of the Constitution and all of the amendments.

The Guba Mass Grave

Here in Guba we have a mass grave site. Its an ongoing archaeological dig that has a roof built over it and is enclosed in blue tarp about 50m by 20m on the side of a hill near our soccer field.

In order to avoid "controversy" all this post will be is some pictures and a transcription of the English language information sign the have there. (spelling and grammar mistakes and choice of words are part of the transcription, not my own)

GUBA GENOCIDE MASS GRAVE

1.ON 1 April, 2007 a mass grave was opened in Guba while doing ground works.

2.As a result of the primary research carried out by the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan from 8 to 11 April 2007 it has been revealed that the site is a burial place of the local innocent civilians massacred by the Armenians in 1918.

3.To provide a more comlete explanation to the problem the Sciense Board of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan proposed thorough arcaeological investigations in the site.

4.A staff of seven researchers of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan have been investigating the place.

The results of the research carried out in 2007.

The first, main stage involved the archaeological investigation of the mass grave.

The second stage was the investigation of the burial place from a historical point of view and on the basis of archive materials.

The third stage included talking to the local residents,mainly the old people.

The total area of the site is 500 square meters.

were found.

As a result of the archaeological excavations two wells and two channels filled withcorpses were found.

All the victims bear signs of mutilation. Exhumations claimed that the victims were murdered cruelly and inhumanely-with dull instruments.The number of murdered were discovered by counting the skulls.

It has been found out that all the remains of the mass grave belong to the Azerbaijanis and members of other ethnic minorities living compactly in Guba.

Most of the skeletal human remains found in the mass grave are of children and women.

Besides the wells, 200 skulls have been uncovered in the mass grave so far.

-50 of them are of children of different ages

-54 are of women and the rest belong to old people

From a historical point of view and on the basis of archive materials is has been identified that in 1918,at the end of April a special “torture regiment”instructed by Stephan Shaumyan , the commissar of the then Soviet of People Commissars and Korganov , a military commissar was sent to Guba Region.

Under the command of the Armenian general Hmazasp about 40 thousand civilianswere severely punished by the regiment.

As a result of the ordeal only in Guba region 1800 children, about 2000 old men and women were murdered.

Part of them was buried in the place where we have been carrying out our research.

The research is still going on.

Here is the picture of the sign I used to make the transcription above

Cause everyone like pics of cute kids.

This is the cutest kid picture ever taken in the AZ. This little girl came to the neighborhood bonfire to celebrate the Novruz holiday last week.

This is the son of a teacher that had to sit in the back of the room while his mom attended a 4hour seminar on how to improve English classes given for Azerbaijani high-school level English teachers.

Here are some of the rugrats that terrorize my neighborhood.

So, after 3 months of PST and 4 months at site living with a host family we are allowed to move out into our own place or negotiate our own host family arrangements. I must find my own place. I've lived on my own for over 10 years and find living with other people extremely grating. Living with a roommate is one thing but living in another persons house, not as an equal but as a guest(or worse "as part of the family") is horribly oppressive.

PC Azerbaijan currently provides every Volunteer with 80AZN(about $100USD) per month for housing. I won't go into great detail now about what problems I've had in the search but instead will simply attach the report I wrote to PC about it.

See below-

Quba City, Quba Rayon

Chris Polen, CED

Housing Report

As of April 11th the host family agreement made between PC and the Kerimov family will expire. While the majority of the family is tolerant of my staying for the foreseeable future REDACTED/REDACTED/REDACTED.

I have spoken with my assigned counterpart & host family, all members of my organization, members of various community organizations and with nearly every community member I meet about housing. While everyone has promised to help in this search these community members have also said that the provided 80AZN is laughably insufficient.

I have been to inspect 3 possible housing options. All cost more than the housing allowance, none meet all of PCs housing guidelines.

1.The Mold Dungeon

A local hotel/business merkezi owner showed me around his hotel. In one section of his hotel he was able to offer me a 10ft x 10ft room with no windows attached to a similarly sized kitchen. The kitchen is accessed by a hotel corridor which also accesses 2 other dormitory style hotel rooms which would continue to be available to other lodgers. Also accessible by this shared corridor is a shared toilet and shower room.

The Bad:

-Rent: 80AZN + 15% hotel tax + utilities(it was not explained how/if my utilities could be distinguished from the other hotel rooms)

-The bedroom has no windows or ventilation in a room with a gas peç. When I went to inspect it in January the rooms walls were covered in mold and the smell was intolerable. After 15mn in the hotel I left with congestion due to the mold/smell.

-The kitchen door which accesses the shared corridor is made of flimsy plastic with a simple, small lock.

-The landlord has a bad reputation with my counterpart and struck myself and the other 2 PCVs in Quba as less than admirable.

The Good:

-Living in this setting I would be able to IRB with travelers & entrepreneurs on a daily basis.

-Located only 5mn walk from my host organization and Azerbaijani language tutor.

-Contains a bed, table, 2 chairs, peç, sink, and broken gas burner.

-I could rent the entire floor for 200AZN or less. The other 2 rooms on this floor did not have a mold problem and the entrance door to the corridor is quite secure.

2.The Sick-House Hovel

Last weekend my site-mate and I went for a walk around the 5-story apartment buildings in Quba looking for open apartments. During this walk we met a large group of approximately 15children and gained their assistance in asking all of their neighbors in the surrounding apartment buildings. Though many 10s of residents were asked only one apartment could be found. It was a very run-down one bedroom apartment on the top floor of one of the apartment buildings. The current owner/resident will soon be leaving for an extended stay in the hospital for a very bad cough with bloody expectorant.

The Bad:

-Rent: 150AZN + utilities

-The owners sickness appears to be very severe and of unknown contagiousness.

-The owner hopes to only be away until August before returning. We did not talk about the living arrangement once he returned(nor did we discuss what would happen if he died.....).

-In the bathroom one can see outside the building through the cracks in the wall.

-Unfurnished except for a peç, hotplate and the sickman's bed.

The Good:

-.....maybe he won't die if he receives rent money and can afford a better doctor.....this is not a good place but its better than being homeless.

3.The Free Meat Shack

My appointed counterpart/host-brother hired the local real estate agency recently to help us find a rental property. The agency could only offer one property that was within sight of my stated budget.

The Bad:

-Rent 120AZN + utilities

-Doorways are very low. The mantles are even with my brow.

-On the second floor(a small loft) there is a 7ft long area where one can reach ones arm outside the house between the roof and the wall. This may be a benefit as I could reach out and grab pigeons to get free meat.

-While there is a water pump in the house there are no water lines running to the bathroom or sink. If I lived here I would need to run water hoses and install my own water heater to live at a standard even modestly similar to my counterparts.

The Good:

-In a good neighborhood less than 3mn walk from my host organization.

-Fully furnished with a secure door and bars on the windows.

-The best of what Ive been shown on the budget available.

Local Factors

Rental property is scarce in Quba and what is available for a variety of reasons including:

-President Ilham Aliyev owns a home on the outskirts of town.

-Quba is a day-trip from Baku.

-Quba is surrounded by many resorts & guest houses popular with tourists and Baki's rich & famous for winter skiing, natural beauty and places to escape from the summer heat.

-Much of the new housing is owned by Baku's rich & powerful as second homes, raising land values and prices throughout the area.

-Quba is home to an university and a very reputable but expensive Turkish private school. Locals prefer to rent what rooms are available to Azerbaijani youth than to foreigners.

-Further, the Turks who teach at the private high school are willing and able to pay significant rents.

Finally, the people of Quba simply don't care for unmarried (foreign) men. When originally assigning me to this site my host organization was unable to find any host family that would take in a male. Only when PC staff searched through its records for previous host families in the area was one family finally found. Nearly everyone I have met has been informed of my situation but none have offered to take me in.

Housing History

My work counterpart is also my host brother. This has certain advantages but it is also very trying to be with the same person all of the time. Whats more his fluent English has been a detriment to my learning Azerbaijani and hence full integration into the community.

My current host family hosted a volunteer for his entire service previously. He reportedly spent a good deal of his own money on food, travel and other “perks”, well beyond what PC provides. And, as mentioned above, the lady of the house has expressed her wish that I move out.

The current AZ5 PCV in Quba has had a number of housing issues and problems with host families. She has had to change host families 4 times during her service. Her current shared housing costs 100AZN/month + utilities + food. It has unreliable gas(normal in parts of Quba this year) and no water for more than a month(not normal). This instability has interfered with her efficient service & emotional well-being.

Community Attitudes

-Every community member I have spoken to has said it will be extremely difficult if not impossible to find a host family willing to take in a male.

-Similarly community member have said that a rental for 80AZN is impossible. When told that this is my organization's limit most simply stop thinking about the subject(why worry about the impossible, qizmət).

- Community members all say that 120AZN would be the minimum for something acceptable though not comfortable. But that 150 would be needed to for something almost at the level of my counterparts.

-Many community members have said that a small 2-3 bedroom house with secure compound could be found for 175-300AZN. These community members have suggested that Quba's volunteers simply rent a house together. They've said this type of arrangement is not uncommon for the Azerbaijani migrant workers who go to Russia & Turkey and is widely known to be normal for Russians and Americans.

Recent Events

Work -

Work at the Ministry continues. From my point of view the Ministry of Economic Development does little perceivable economic development work. At the local branch level it seems only to write reports for Baku, monitor local prices for foodstuffs & building material, to review contract proposals for area government projects & to offer consultation on credit and a governmental business development fund. Tasks my language level leave me unequipped to assist in.

Further, I've learned that the local branches don't have any budget at all. If desks, computers and the like are needed it must be requisitioned from Baku. There is no company car. The price monito must use his own car to make site visits. Common office supplies like pens and paper must be bought out of pocket, as must expenses for necessary business trips to surrounding cities. They must then request reimbursement from Baku. Generally these requests are ignored. The office only recently received a printer/fax machine. Internet is required to do the work that our office does yet we don't have any connection in the office. Requisitions to Baku for this service have apparently not yet been answered. In order to access the memos/orders sent from Baku to the office, to e-mail reports & to complete research we must use a computer at the computer resource center offered by the anti-corruption organization, Transparency, at the office across the hall from ours.

Pay, though significantly more than mine, is extremely low. PCVs currently receive about 100AZN per month. I hear that government officials start at about 150AZN/month. Common part-time teachers reportedly start at more than 100AZN/month but average at about 200AZN + whatever fees they can charge for tutoring, etc.

I have been working increasingly with an organization called the Quba Marketing Center. It began about 6-7 years ago as the local face for some projects being conducted by the OSCE and USAID. For 4 years it was primarily responsible for conducting trainings, seminars, and consultation for local business as part of USAID's ABAD project. The ABAD project worked in 6-7 sites across Azerbaijan working threw local “marketing centers”. At the end of the project the marketing centers were all to be privatized and left to survive on their own. Only two survived. Quba Marketing Center incorporated as an LLC the other I believe registered as a non-profit and though ostensibly still local, its employees & directors all operate out of Baku. The QMC has been operating as an independent for-profit business for a bit over a year now, maintaining client relations and keeping up with market research but has had trouble explaining to area small & under-developed businesses why they would want to pay for QMCs services.

Back between Chrismas and New Year I helped QMC write a proposal to be hired as the local implementation partner for USAID's Private Sector Competitiveness Enhancement Project(PSCEP). PSCEP is a project that is funded by USAID, subcontracted to a development company called Chemonics, which will implement a program based in 5 geographical areas of Azerbaijan where local business development service organizations will identify areas of greatest growth potential, develop and conduct seminars & trainings on closing gaps in the value chain, creating associations between business, modern methods, technology, finance options, export requirements, etc, and to find local business which is open to bringing in equity investors amongst other things. We found out just recently that, subject to some final negotiations, our proposal has been accepted.

I could easily work on this project full time. But, I'm not interest in limiting myself to just one organization on just one project(no matter how large-scale and important it may be).

Some other irons in the fire include -

Working with other volunteers in the area to improve their skills in teaching English & leading conversation clubs.

Developing relationships with business & organization leaders in the area in preperation for running some focus groups & meetings to see what the locals think their community needs.

Helping the AZ5 YD Volunteer in my town create a practicum(internship/job shadow) program for local youth in a variety of businesses.

This last seems the most important. The concept of an internship is relatively unknown in Azerbaijan. While it used to some extent in Baku it is unknown in the Rayons(the regions outside of the capital). I will write more about this in another post.

PCV Life

PCVs in our “First Finger of Azerbaijan” been having monthly potluck meals. A food theme is selected and we all meet at someones house with whatever we could make for that theme. Currently every one is staying with host-families making this process very difficult. Some places are to small, others are just nervous to have too many foreigners in their homes, others freak out about having mixed groups of males and females. This last I'm still a bit fuzzy about, not sure if their worried about “what will the neighbors say?” or if they're concerned we will be a bunch of sex-maniacs or…..

So far we've had Chrismas, Mexican, Asian, and next week we're doing “whatever side dish you can make that doesn't need warming up because our house only has 1 burner, no oven and no microwave”. It's also Jake's(an AZ6 YD) birthday. Good food, good times, time to unwind and share experiences/advice(“reflection” is the hippy jargon keyword used daily at PST).

AZ6 was apparently the first group in this country to make it all the way threw training and Swearing-In without losing someone to either ETing or ASing(read ass-ing) or early COSing. ET = Early Termination; the Trainee/Volunteer decides to quit for whatever reason. Could be problems here, problems at home, disliking the job/country, could be getting a better offer, etc. Could be any reason. AS= Administrative Seperation; bureaucratic for “fired”. This can happen for gross incompetence(though that very rarely happens), obstinate refusal to adapt to the most important cultural rules(wearing shorts/halter top, smoking and drinking in your community if you're a TEFL) or most likely a rule violation of some sort. As always this last can be a matter of politics and personality. ASing doesn't happen very often, in the vast majority of cases you'll simply be asked to ET and thats almost impossible to fight. Finally, early COS= Close Of Service. COS usually happens at the end of the 27month contract but can happen early if one is diagnosed with health problems that can't be treated effectively in country(or within a month or two back in DC), if the country is evacuated(as happened in Georgia when the Russians invaded last August), or a few other rare reasons.

We were apparently the first group where everyone Swore-In. 61 people is a fairly large number of folk to do that. Well about a month after swearing in and moving to permanent site we lost one. Then in this last month two of my friends have left. It would be inappropriate to write about other folks personal decisions but one left due to family concerns and another because of problems at site and having a better offer back home. And then there was 58. Fortunately I am close enough to Baku that I was able to get to go and see them off both times. Good bye kids, ya'll are going back to a better place.

A few weeks ago I went to the 27th birthday party of a fellow who comes to the Transparency office fairly often. The birthday party was about 8 men sitting around the table with a few courses of food and lots of drinks. The women folk all partied and ate in the kitchen and from time to time the birthday-boy's mother would bring the next course. First was baked chicken pieces that are then placed in beaten egg & scrambled(a boneless version in Japan is called “oyako” = “parent & child”), then stewed mutton fried with greens, and finally “plov”; what we might call pilaf. Basically just rice cooked with some veggies or meat in it then baked so that the rice on the bottom of the pot turns a crunchy brown then flipped out onto a serving dish. And along side it all was the normal green onions & other fresh greens, fruits, pickled cabbage, peppers, tomatoes & cucumbers. All good stuff. The only woman that sat at the table and joined the party was Jill, the AZ5 PCV in Quba. Of the guests, only half of us were drinking. The birthday-boy isn't a drinker but his father offered frequent vodka toasts. Later the birthday-boy gave us a walking tour of his part of the village. Nugedi #1(there is a villiag on the other side of the river called Nugedi #2; the Soviets weren't very imaginative apparently) is a big, spread out, fairly well-to-do, farming village. Between the 2 Nugedi's there are about 18,000 people, the same as Guba City but the houses are all spread out even more so than in the US. Chickens, geese, turkeys, sheep, goats & cows wandering free with only one real paved road and plenty of mud and rock lanes. While there are a number of the usual ramshackle old houses and hovels that one usually finds in villages here, there are also a number of large stone houses, some new some old, some almost mansion sized.

Pictures to be added when I get to a faster 'net connection.

Here's a quick video tour of the walk from the door to my room at the host family's place.

This is the 14th time I've tried uploading this video. Either connection or electricity at site has cut out every time Ive tried befor. Now Im at the PC Office in the Lounge trying one last time. If it doesn't work you wont get to read this.