Cultural moment and animal stories

Cultural moment

Over the last three weeks, my organization has been attending a four session leadership training class. The trainers are native English speakers with some awesome Russian and Azerbaijan language skills. They have been assisted by one of the best translators I have yet to meet. One of those incredible people that you want to listen to even if you don't know what they are saying. So each day of training we had two-two hour sessions. The first session was delivered in English and translated into Russian. My organization's administrative language is Russian. Services are primarily in Azerbaijan. The second session was primarily in Russian.

At the second to last session, we were discussing our personal work goals. One of doctors, who is in his early 50's, stated that it at this stage of employment is the time to rest and let the younger workers take the lead. Retirement is around 55-60,depending on your employment. I was aghast, since I plan on working into my mid-70's and feel that I still have a lot to contribute.

Then I realized that our cultural norms are very different in this area and while I feel that I inhabit this culture in a fairly comfortable way, this is still a different culture and I will likely get a bit of  reverse culture shock when I return to the States next year.

Animal Stories

I woke up a couple of days ago to some activity outside my house. I figured it was one of my landlords out in the yard and went back to sleep. Soon I discovered what the earlier activity was about. Outside my bathroom is a small chicken coop which when I first moved in housed several chickens. They were moved in with the turkeys in a larger coop across the yard in early winter and during the snow were moved up to the vacant second floor of the main house. Well the early morning activity was a single rooster being returned to the small coop. Now I wake up at all hours to his crowing. I think he likes to let the chickens in the big coop know that he is still around. There appears to be some "twilight bark" effect to his crows. Even the male turkey lends his voice from time to time.



Mr. Rooster

This morning I was walking to work and saw this single cow walking down the road with her minder. Now that it is spring, I see an occasional small herd walking down the street or munching in a vacant lot, but a single cow is not common. She was a little concerned about me and crossed over to the far side of the road to avoid coming in contact. You'll have to blow this picture up to see her, since she is off in the distance.

Ms. Moo

Bits and Pieces

Spring now appears to be in full swing and I thought I'd write a few bits and pieces since last time.

It snowed on March 30th, the first time it has snowed in recent memory after the first day of Spring, which is celebrated by the Novrus holiday.  I will post more on that holiday later. Other than an unusual thunder and lighting storm last weekend, the weather is quite pleasant.

March 30 snow

I am gaining new baking skills.  I make a mean Banana Sour Cream muffin with nutella filling. I am also perfecting my pita baking skills. As I indicted earlier, my oven, which is called a red pec, is basically a little larger and slightly more robust Easy Bake oven. In order to make a good pita, you need to have a really hot oven. So I crank that baby up to its highest temperature and let it rip. Each pita bakes by itself for 2 minutes the first side and 1 minute the second. A batch makes 8 pitas. I think I have the whole process down to about 2 1/2 hours. I freeze most of them and then take them out one at time.  I'm mostly filling them with egg, tuna or chicken salad. If I take it out on my way to work, it is defrosted perfectly by lunch time. It is so much better than buying bread. While bread is inexpensive, I can't eat a whole loaf before it gets stale or moldy. When I do buy bread I usually by a flatter bread called tandoor.

Pita Bread

Some expat-women volunteered to update my organization's kids area. It is beautiful.

Children's Zone

A bit of unfortunate news - a new group of trainees was expected to come to Azerbaijan earlier this month, unfortunately circumstances arose that necessitated that their arrival be cancelled.  Peace Corps hopes that next year a new group of  volunteers will come. As we say in Azerbaijan, Inshallah.

I have been busy at work; attending a series of leadership trainings (half in English translated into Russian and half in Russian translated into English), working on a grant application, creating a small database in Access and working with the organization on strategic management and financial reporting. A little bit of this and a little bit of that. It has been amazing how much of the training in Russian I have been able to follow at times. Many business/technical terms are similar and if you know the general topic and catch a few words here and there, I can pick up the gist of the conversation. But I'm glad that it is translated. All the staff of my organization speak Russian, for some it is their first language. But not all speak Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan has only been the official language since the early 1990's, when Azerbaijan gained its independence.

Till next time - Patti