Thoughts from a Prostitute on Women's Day

Today was International Women's Day. It's celebrated all around the world with a lot of fanfare, though not as much in the U.S. The staple answer is because every day is "women's day" in America. It is also a governmental holiday so there was no school or work.

This morning in the middle of making pancakes I ran short of ingredients. So I set out to the store and not two blocks away encountered a group of boys in their late teens. As I walked by one of them yelled "red woman!" (prostitute) at me as his friends laughed and high-fived.

I was still thinking of cutting replies when I stumbled across one the sweetest women I know on her way to a friends house. "Happy Women's Day!" she exclaimed, giving me a kiss on the cheek.

All day I got text messages of congratulations and notes on facebook. Women called congratulations and holiday wishes across the streets to each other. Gifts of flowers, underwear, scarves, figurines and glassware were exchanged. I find myself grinning at just about every woman I pass.

All year women bring dinner and tea to men who never say thank you. Some are not allowed to work by their husbands and some are not even allowed to leave the house. There is statistical documentation that this is one country of many that have "missing daughters", meaning that there are statistically less girls born than should be, having been aborted after the ultrasound.

To paraphrase Julia, I'm not sure that saying "Happy Women's Day" and giving me a bottle of perfume makes up for that.

I've noticed that Women's Day is primarily celebrated by women themselves. The teachers get together and pitch in to throw themselves a party. Female friends give each other gifts (To be fair, I did get a lovely tea set from three of my seventh grade boys). A PCV friend said, "I like this better than what we do, because I may never get to be a mother", which is a good point.

And it really is an uplifting holiday. I saw genuine pride on the faces of women all weekend. It's like they know or hope that they are deserving, important, special and for the long weekend the answer is a resounding yes you are!

Which brings me back to the boy who called me a prostitute. Was he just trying to make sure I didn't get too uppity what with all the congratulations? Or maybe after 18 years of practice, it's just too hard to break the habit, even for one day.

Happy Gurban Bayram!

This year Thanksgiving weekend also happened to be Gurban Bayram or Sacrifice Holiday. Gurban Bayram is a Muslim holiday which celebrates and remembers when God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son and then sent a ram to take the sons place. This is the same story many Americans are familiar with but for a small exception-the son in question is not Isaac but his half brother Ishmael. The holiday is celebrated quite literally-those who can afford to do so actually sacrifice a ram. The meat is then divided into little plastic baggies and distributed among those who do not have the means for their own sacrifice or as a donation to the poor. Of course being PCVs, we qualified for a plastic baggie :-)
We actually witnessed the whole thing as it took place in our yard. Women to not do the killing of animals here (not even chickens) nor did they attend. I got to watch our landlord and a friend dispatch the ram because we don't have curtains on our windows yet and I was still in bed. As I quickly got dressed the rest of the family filed into the yard to watch the butchering part. I came out to watch and was sent back inside to get a warmer coat. Our landlady told us that you can't drink vodka with the meat from the sacrifice. It's my understanding that Muslims aren't supposed to drink at all but Azeri Muslims are like Easter Catholics-they just make sure to hold off on sacrifice day.
After the main guts are out, the women take over. You can see in the above picture that I got to help! After the meat was distributed and everything cleaned up, all that was left was the fur and the head which were left in our yard for a few days, much to Baby Cat's delight.
I really enjoy Gurban Bayram and especially this year as it was juxtaposed with our own musings of what we've been given and perhaps, what has been sacrificed for us.

Fourth of July!!

Fourth of July was extra-special this year, living outside of the States. Our friend Jon was in to visit and the three of us celebrated all day:

We began our day by hiking up to the Gülüstan fortress ruins overlooking Şamaxı. We then ate lunch on top of what used to be a castle wall and argued about whether or not a professional baseball player could throw a baseball into the river below.

Mathias cooked a delicious meal while we hung around the kitchen and discussed how much we love the United States and the freedoms that come with being a citizen. We listened to a soundtrack that featured "Freedom" by Akon. We ate Freedom Food. We enjoyed free friendship. Even the faucet decided it wanted to be free:Unfortunately, a little too free. Jon turns it into a lesson about freedom without responsibility:We even enjoyed the freedom of phoning our family!!:
It was probably one of the most appreciation filled 4ths I've ever spent. If you want to get an even better idea of what got us so excited about our freedom fest feel free to follow this link where you can compare different countries (maybe the one you live in with the one I live in).

In other summer news, we had a great time travelling around Azerbaijan with our friends Grenville and Ross. A blog post with photos of the trip is in the works!

Holiday Month!

Call it March Madness if you will, but I'm writing another blog post!
There's been a lot going on here lately and I'll try and update:

March 8th was International Women's Day-a big holiday here in Azerbaijan. Mathias and I happened to be in Baku (on business) and everywhere people were selling flowers and candy. I got many a text messege of congratulations. Todd and Mathias seemed to take much pleasure in congratulating "An International Woman" on my day. Apparently this is a big holiday everywhere in the world except in the U.S. When people asked me why we didn't really celebrate it I blurted out "Because in America, every day is womens day!" Some people thought it was really funny, some just looked disturbed.

Mathias and I also have the rest of the month off from work due to the Referendum and Novruz.

The Referendum is taking place on Wednesday and is a country-wide vote on changes in the constitution ranging from making taking pictures of people without their permission illegal to effectively removing the Presidential term limit. I tried to find a good article link to give more information without giving my own political opinion but came up short. It might be fun to google though.

Novruz is a huge holiday here in Azerbaijan. All week I explained to my conversation club students that this is my first Novruz and therefore I need them to write as much as they can in English about it so I will know what is going on. This is what I learned:

• Novruz is a National Holiday of Azerbaijan
• The four Tuesdays leading up to Novruz represent the four elements: Fire, Water, Earth, and Air. At dusk each of these Tuesdays, people light bonfires and jump over them.
• On Novruz itself (the 20th and 21st) People will again light big bonfires and jump over them 7 times. There is also something about burning things for luck but that part wasn't very clear.
• Boys get to throw their hats into peoples yards, knock, and then run away and hide. Then the hats are filled with sweets like Baclava. I asked what the girls do and was told "The girls get to listen!"
• There is a plate of wheatgrass with a ribbon around it. At least that's what every kid draws when asked to draw a picture about Novruz.
• There is a Novruz man who is skinny, bald and has a beard. There is also a "Spring Girl".
• "Mom cooks great food."
• Everyone "causes" eggs. This is a translational probelm. Every child wrote this and it is how the dictionary translates what they are trying to say. But through acting and picture drawing I have discovered that what really happens is everyone decorates eggs. phew!

So that's what's in store for us in the coming weeks! I let you know if any fun stories come of it!!

~Emma

Photos # 3

Our host brother and host sister-in-law just had a baby, as in this morning at 7am! This is the sweater that Emma made for the baby boy, Ali Mustafa. Congrats to the proud parents!

This is Şamaxı from my second floor classroom window. The large buildings are apartment complexes.

This is Şamaxı in the morning. Just beautiful.

Our room from the door. Emma is in bed, wrapped from head to toe because once again we are without heat. Ha ha ha. I actually really like it. No joke. I want to relocate to Alaska. Sort of.

Our room from the other side.

A fun picture of the peç.

About two days ago both the electricity and gas went out for around ten hours. Here I am lesson planning by candlelight... (My mom is reading this and loving every word)

Same photo, for the most part, but with the flash. The outfit I am in is one that I wear to school everyday. Actually, I have worn this exact outfit to school everyday that I have taught in Şamaxı. A little over a month. It is very common for teachers to only have one school outfit. And yes, I teach in my coat and hat. I also have three layers of underwear, two thermal, one normal, under my coat, dress shirt, sweater-vest and scarf. Still kinda want to go to Alaska.

Almost everyday, I receive some type of junk food from my students at school. This happened to be a pretty good day. Most of them are little cakes and cookies. However, if you look closely you will see there is a handful of sunflower seeds wrapped in an old piece of note book paper. There were literally notes from the day before written on it. Pretty funny for sure. Still, the most comical snack food from school is a Russian item called purashki. It is fried dough with mashed potatoes inside. They seem pretty harmless, but they are served in pieces of old text book. You know to protect your hands from the grease, ha ha. I have heard stories of unfortunate children receiving an exceptionally hot purashki AND having a, let's say soviet history lesson, tattooed to their hands. Awesome.

This is a photo of Ismayıllı. A town about an hour from ours. We took a weekend trip to support two volunteers and their youth development photography project. Youth from Mingeçevir and Ismayıllı attended photography classes and then photographed their respective towns. The end result was a photo exhibition held the weekend of January 10-11th in Ismayıllı. It was great!

These carpets were on display in the same Museum as the childrens' artwork.

Emma and me in Baku on New Years Day! This tree is in a really famous area of the capital called Fountain Square. We spent the 31st - 3rd in Baku because of a crazy blizzard that hit Azerbaijan, making it almost impossible to travel for a couple of days. We were lucky because right after we took this picture we went to the Peace Corps lounge and found out we could stay there if need be. We ended up spending two nights on a couch in the lounge. It was great because we had free Internet, a TV and DVD player, as well as the company of around ten other stranded volunteers.

A McDonald's advertisement in Fountain Square. They truly are everywhere.

This was our Christmas Tree and Stockings set-up. You can see we have our gifts placed around the bottom. Emma received 3 spools of yarn, a scarf, a travel beauty kit and some chocolate. I got dominoes, cards, a new hat and a pipe.

That's about it. Hope all is well.

Love and Miss,

Mathias