Protected: An Open Letter to My Grandma

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The Advantages of Being Helpless

This week I did not have water in my house for two days. It really sucked, you know, not being able to shower, having to awkwardly use bottled water to wash my face and brush my teeth, and of course having dishes pile up in my sink was a nightmare (I can stand a bit of a mess, but dirt makes me crazy). Yeah, I have real life problems, no first world problems ’round here.

Honestly, these thing happen. Even in the US, a pipeline can explode or something, not like this problem is unique to Azerbaijan. As we say here, what can you do sometimes?

So, I was not so much bothered by the fact that the water wasn’t working as the I was perturbed by not being able to do anything about it. In the US, I’d call up the water company or the city and see what’s up. Here I couldn’t do that because, well, I don’t speak Azeri and my broken Russian was somehow not well-understood. Luckily my MBA students were nice enough to call on my behalf and we were able to figure out the situation. It was great of my students to help, but it served to remind me how helpless I am here. I don’t speak the local language, I have to go through my university contacts for everything… they are super helpful, but I’d like to be able to do things on my own. I am so used to being independent that the loss of that is, well, challenging to say the least.

You’d think the Russian is helpful, but I often run into people who do not speak Russian so what I know doesn’t serve me.

I have to say this is probably the greatest obstacle I have here. Over and above becoming a good teacher, planning lessons, working in a different work culture, teach in a society that has different attitudes towards education… being able to take care of everyday problems myself. I am learning to be way more resourceful than I have ever been before, and come up with wildly creative solutions to such problems.  If I am ever going to make a career out of working abroad, I must work on these skills, so in a way, this is a good thing. On a personal level, I have always been vert adamant on being totally independent and I have a hard time asking for help when I need it. Thus, enlisting my students’ assistance and letting go a bit is also helping me grow.

Ashura

Today was Ashura, the 10th day of Muharram month in the Hijri calendar, a day that is especially significant to Shi’a Muslims. Ashura commemorates the martyrdom of Imam Husein, the Prophet’s (SAAS) grandson.

In different parts of the Muslim world this event is memorialized differently. In Azerbaijan, from what my friends have told me, there are a number of practices. For one thing, in the ten days leading up to Ashura and the thirty following it there are no wedding celebrations; it is believed that it is bad luck to have a wedding in this time period. I can also imagine that it is seen as a sign of respect. Locals also flock to the mosques, more so than usual. I got to visit one of Baku’s mosques today with a friend from work, and I liked it. It was similar in a lot of ways to mosques I have seen in Morocco and Bahrain, and I find these commonalities really charming. There is something so powerful about how certain traditions and elements of the religion tie people from all over the globe together. Some Azeris also do not but new cosmetics on this day. Lastly, from what I can recall, they make a special kind of sweet in honor of Ashura. I got to try this thing, which they refer to as halva I believe, and it’s quite tasty; I had a hard time discerning exactly what the relationship was between this dish and Ashura, but it is eaten just on this day.

I find this day to have a powerful social-political significance: it shows how cruel and tragic the use of violence to resolve disagreements really is. Sadly this violence pervades, still. When I googled Ashura today to learn more about it, I ran into an article about how Shi’ites in Iraq were attacked by their Sunni brethren, resulting in numerous deaths. The victims came out to Karbala to recall a shared tragedy and were met with chilling cruelty. The impetus for these attacks? The same disagreement that brought about the violent end of Imam Hussein. Of course, violence in the Sunni-Shi’a clash has been mutual, so this is not an accusation or denouncement of Sunnis. It is a denouncement of violence. Violence only breeds more violence, more hatred, more pain. So many Hadiths revolve around the importance of forgiveness, love, and compassion: “No one of you becomes a true believer until he likes for his brother what he likes for himself” and Someone said to the Prophet, ‘Pray to God against the idolators and curse them.’ The Prophet replied, ‘I have been sent to show mercy and have not been sent to curse.’ perhaps best exemplify this notion. One can only hope that these words of goodness and peace will one day be the prevailing force in the Sunni-Shi’a dynamic.

Related articles

• Shia Muslims Around the World Mark Ashura (thejakartaglobe.com)
• 7 killed Ashura blasts in Iraq (edition.cnn.com)

Brilliant

This weekend was Flag Day in Azerbaijan so we got Monday off, as well. Since we had this extra time, a few of my friends and I decided to go on a trip to the magical, beautiful Dubai. We got an amazing deal on tickets and a good apartment, and off we went.

Our adventure began on Friday night, after what was a long day at work for me. In fact, I did not get home until 8:30pm and had to rush through packing, which I am already decidedly terrible at. But after all the chores were done, I was finally free and amped for the trip. I was especially excited since I absolutely LOVE the Arabian Gulf (the Arabic name is الخليج العربي); I spent time there last summer, when I worked in al-Manama, Bahrain. My time in Bahrain was incredible and one of the best experiences of my life, so I was psyched to visit another GCC state, as it brought back good memories and positive associations.

Dubai, of course, did not disappoint. As soon as we stepped out of the airport, into the warm sidewalk, and saw the pristine, futuristic landscape I was in love.

We had some great adventures, for sure. We got to go dune-blasting, which is this thing when they take you in jeeps into the desert and speed up and down dunes, like a desert roller-coaster, basically. The experience came complete with dinner and a show in the middle of the desert, at night, which was spectacular. I really like belly dancing, personally, so I enjoyed the performance.

Not to mention, the beach in Dubai is STUNNING. Sitting there, looking at the crystal-like water and golden sands I could not help but feel awed and inspired at the great marvel of creation. Funnily enough the day we went happened to be ladies day, which worked out perfectly for us girls. I have to say, it was nice to be in a space with only women where I felt like I could be really free or rather not self conscious. Women’s experiences with harassment in public places has been on my mind a lot lately and being a male-free zone certainly gave me a lot to think about in that regard (have not yet formed cohesive thoughts on that, I’ll update when I do).

I also have to confess that having American brands, namely dinning chains, available made the trip extra awesome. Of course I did the most Bostonian thing imaginable and bolted to a Dunkin’ Donuts as soon as I spotted it… the sweet taste of delicious coffee is something I have been missing (Azeris are big tea drinkers so it is difficult to find moderately-priced, good coffee in Baku).

I was also really glad to enjoy some of the Gulf treats I came to love so much in Bahrain, like mint lemonade (the most delicious drink in the universe), hummus (and I mean the good kind), and moutabal. Of course finally having the chance to speak Arabic was great, too. I’ve been worried about my Arabic muscles atrophying but that was not the case, thankfully.

Overall, the trip was an immense success. It was a relaxing and fun break from work and gave me a lot of energy for the next half of the semester.

I Love My Students

A good part of this blog has been dedicated to my teaching struggles. Certainly, the challenges have been abundant and I stand behind every word.

But yesterday something amazing happened: I had a great lesson and left feeling HAPPY. Until the now the best I could expect was “not livid”, but this new group of students is something else. What’s the difference? This group actually wants to learn; they’re engaged and interested. They do the activities I ask them to do and elaborate on them independently in class. In this last lesson, for example, we were doing this Halloween activity (I didn’t get to do a Halloween lesson with them before) in which we create a spooky story together: every student adds a line. The story quickly went from scary to silly, and it reminded my kids of this national tale/myth, which they excitedly told me about. It was so awesome to see them so enthused to tell me about this and hear them use their English to do so.

They are also very curious about America, which I appreciate. They had tons of questions for me and asked if we could talk about Boston in the next lesson. Naturally, I agreed and I am so excited to implement this lesson. Honestly, if there is one thing I learned from this experience so far it’s that the most important quality in a student is will. When students want to learn, it is easy to teach to them. And it’s fun, too. I can sincerely say I am looking forward to tomorrow’s lesson and telling my students all about the amazing city of Boston, my home. This group inspires me to keep working hard and improving as a teacher, because my efforts have a positive outcome.

PS- as if I didn’t love them enough, after class I heard my students say that I’m pretty in Russian (the vain diva in me really got kick out that one).

Culture Wars

A couple of weeks ago I started volunteering at this center that does English conversation clubs. The group I work with has fairly good English and one of the things that came up in our discussion was that they all wished that Americans knew more about Azerbaijan. I thought that was a reasonable aspiration and was inspired to create a communal blog in which I would summarize things the students told me about the different facets of life in Azerbaijan: the people, culture, history, etc.,

This past Friday I wanted to us to talk about holidays and traditions for the blog. One would think this is the easiest topic in the world to talk about; it’s a happy-go-lucky subject that evokes memories of family gatherings, decorations, and delicious food, right? WRONG.

The discussion started out positively with people explaining what Novruz Bayram was to me (it’s the Azeri celebration of the new year/spring) and what some of the traditions are that people follow on that holiday. However, the conversation took an unfortunate turn when a woman said “lets talk about the etymology of the name ‘Novruz’, it’s a ctually Persian for,” of course she was cut off by another group member who absolutely insisted the holiday was one of 100% Turkish origins, nothing Iranian at all. This sparked an intense debate, which of course quickly went from English to an Azeri yelling match.

I quickly wrapped up the conversation, since it was the end of our hour anyway and I really did not want the conversation to go any further, not like this, at any rate. I plan to dedicate the next lesson to learning how to debate and argue, at least in my classroom. I expect my students to respect each other’s ideas and respond to disagreement with thought-out responses not raising their voices. Perhaps that comes off as Western arrogance or something, but honestly people should not disrespect each other like that, no matter what culture they are from; besides, I could tell the woman was mortified that she was basically not afforded the opportunity to fully make her argument.

Anyway, the fact that this even happened pointed at something that I found interesting- it was the first time I witnessed a cultural differences within Azerbaijan. Until now I have heard exclusively about Turkish-oriented cultural cohesion so it was definitely interesting to see someone, who mentioned being of Talysh origins, express a different sentiment. The Talysh are an Iranian ethnic group that speaks a language with the same name and are indigenous to the region between modern-day Iran and Azerbaijan and make up about 1% of Azerbaijan’s population. I am not certain how significant this divide is, but it is definitely a topic worth exploring. Considering the ongoing cultural-political rivalry between Iran and Azerbaijan, this Iranian minority group is likely in a complicated position; since very little is written about it, it is difficult to tell whether or not this is actually the case.

If nothing else, I was inspired to research the history and culture of the Talysh people. Since I have been able to find only scraps of information about them, it will certainly make for fascinating research.

Related articles

• Iran urges UNESCO to reject Azerbaijan’s claim on ancient Polo game (theiranproject.com)
• http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-10-14/world/35500049_1_iranian-regime-caspian-sea-nagorno-karabakh
• Azeri Court Jails Ethnic Minority Newspaper Editor For Five Years (rferl.org)

Spanish Conversation Club

I cannot believe it took me this long to post about this, but a lot has been going and I have actually been mad busy, so I did not really get a chance until now.

So, here in Baku I found myself a nice group of internationals and Azeris who are fluent in English to be friends with. Everyone in the group is pretty much awesome, it’s great. Amongst this cool group of people are two Spanish dudes, and a bunch of us happen to speak Spanish so someone came up with the idea that we should all meet up and practice.

On Sunday a couple of weeks ago two of the other Fulbrighters, an Azeri dude, the Spanish guys, and myself met up in the old city for our little adventure/conversation club. We got around to using Spanish a little, maybe not as much as we should have, but the whole evening was great fun. We went on the Baku Funicular and saw the view of the entire city at night; it was gorgeous. We also visited the memorial for those who died fighting for Azeri independence (from Russia).

After our night tour, we went out for tea and sweets. After tea and discussion (mostly in English, lets be real) we decided to go visit the Flame Towers. It was my first time visiting there, and it was a fantastic expereince. Our Azeri club member knows a guy who works at the Fairmont Hotel (one of the towers, the other two are business and residential), so we got the grand tour of the place. We got to see the different (beautiful) suites the hotel offers, not to mention the view from the top floor. Looking down was a little scary, I have to admit.

At around 11:30 we parted ways following a successful and enjoyable night. On my way home, my friend and I stopped for shwarlinis (or fesili as they are actually called). Shwarlinis are a mix of shawarma and blini, with the wrap being a blini and the stuffing resemblign shawarma; it was a great late-night snack.