June 14
I came across a blog I wrote during my 11 months traveling the U.S. with Americorps, NCCC in 2004 (if you want the address, let me know in a comment). It was interesting to see how things had changed. It was funny to think that then I didn’t have a computer, internet access more than once a week and no real access to media of any kind – no T.V., no magazines, no radio (It is for this reason I never really understood or caught on to the “Paris Hilton” phenomenon).
I now live more than 6000 miles away, have a computer with internet (usually) every day in my house. I have satellite T.V. on which I can watch CNN, BBC and Aljazeera (in English). I don’t always watch it, I have never been a newshound, but it’s available. This is in addition to my Newsweek magazines Peace Corps provides, making me more up to date on global news than I ever was in the states.
What I noticed about this blog was how many details I gave about my day to day life. I haven’t really done that here, so here is a little story about a trip I took a few months back over the Novruz holiday:
There are two volunteers who live about an hour south of me. We planned to travel 10 hours north to Zagatala, a town near the Caucasus Mountains bordering Georgia and Russia. We planned to visit some friends along the way, bypassing traditional bus stops for more of a “travel by the seat of our pants” experience.
The trip from my site to Baku is 2 hours. There is a city about half way between Baku and me that takes 1.5 hours to get to. From there to Baku it is about 1.5 hours. This makes no sense. Anyway….
They met me at my site and we traveled to our friend’s house. The evening was uneventful and we went to bed early in anticipation for our adventure the next day. The next morning we woke up and got to the road just in time as a bus going to the neighboring town was coming by. This would be the only such instance of the rest of the trip.
We got to the town of Hajicable, which is just a big round-about in the middle of nowhere that many buses pass through. Everyone assured us that once we got there it would be very obvious what we were supposed to do next. “Just get off the bus at the circle. There will be a man directing everyone where to go and you just stand on the road until you see a bus. The man will flag down the bus for you”. Not so. We stumbled off the bus with our various belongings into an ambiguous circle with a lot of people standing around in various places on various corners, none of whom was directing anyone.
Of course everyone stared at us like we were from Mars. After orienting ourselves to the 4 cardinal directions, we decided to cross the street and wait in an uncrowded spot in front of a shop. We continued to search for this supposed man with all the answers, but never did find him. Instead we began asking people which direction buses to Sheki we going (Sheki is another town we wanted to visit on the way). As it turns out, we were in the right place.
About 5 minutes later the shopkeeper came out to inquire about the strange foreigners standing in front of his shop. He was very nice and immediately brought out a bench for us to sit on (which we very much appreciated later). He offered us tea (of course) but we politely refused, explaining that we would be jumping on the next bus, which we assumed would be coming quickly. Not so. Or rather, lots of buses passed, but they were all full due to the holiday which we neglected to consider.
After about 1 hour of waiting the shopkeeper insisted we drink tea (to the point of pouring it anyway, despite our insistence) and eat apples (mealy, gross looking apples). We thanked him for the apples, but tried to explain that if we drank tea, we would then have to pee (demonstrating this 5 minutes later when we all suddenly had to go and had to use his families’ bathroom). Finally he got the point.
10 minutes later he returned with a baby goat. “Do you have these in America!!!??” Meanwhile, the baby goat is squirming like all get out and he hands it over to me. I found myself holding this squirming baby goat as he then hands me a bottle of milk (some of which spilled on my coat making me smell vaguely like goat milk for the remainder of the trip). He brought out another baby goat which he handed to my other friend. Our goatless friend quickly grabed our cameras. Bad idea. After seeing the cameras the shopkeeping asked us a slew of common questions “how much is that?” “did you buy it in America?” “That’s cheap” “If I give you money will you buy me one?” “Why not?”
After waiting 2.5 hours more (or maybe it was longer) we compromised and decided we were never going to find a bus to Sheki or Zagatala and we should just settle on one to Ganja, the second largest town in Azerbaijan, which would also have buses going out the next morning.
When a big bus finally came along it too, was full. However, by this time we were desperate and convinced the driver to allow us to sit in the aisles. We spent the next 4 hours on crates ignoring the displeased looks of the other passengers (though this practice is not at all unheard of).
We called a friend in Ganja who agreed to let us crash on her floor for the night. She was cooking pot-roast (oh the glory of volunteers being able to live on their own!) and we got a couple bottles of wine (which I would later regret).
In the middle of the night I awoke with terrible stomach cramps and spent the rest of the evening and into the morning writhing in agony. Determined to keep going, I told everyone we should leave extra early to make sure we got on the earliest bus. My pleas were ignored with “you only have to get there 20 minutes before the bus leaves, it never fills up”. Not so.
We got there 20 minutes early and sure enough – the only bus to Sheki was completely full. There were, however, buses to Zagatala, which goes through Sheki. Drivers usually don’t have a problem with a couple of people getting off early (it’s about 2 hours from Zagatala). Not today.
We finally convinced a driver to allow us on his bus – though he wasn’t leaving for another hour. 45 minutes passed. He put us in the most uncomfortable seats in the bus, yelling at me when I explained that I couldn’t sit there because of my hip (I pointed at my leg and said “doesn’t move”) but he wasn’t having it. Another bus then came along and he kicked us off saying that the other bus would take us and was leaving in 20 minutes. Not so.
An hour later the new bus started to move. This driver, however, was thrilled to have us along for the ride. We could hear him announcing to all the passengers how this was a special ride because there were American girls on board. It was hilarious.
As anyone who knows me will attest, I have the world’s smallest bladder. Therefore, on the obligatory “rest stop” I convinced my friend to come with me to the “bathroom”. After being assured that the driver wouldn’t leave us behind, we asked where the bathroom was. A man pointed behind some buildings.
When we got there, there was no structure except a dilapidated building. There was another area with bathrooms, but it was fenced off. Maybe we just went the wrong way? After conspicuously circling the entire area like the very confused Americans we were, we were finally told that there was no bathroom, the dilapidated building was it.
We swallowed our pride and our modesty and both hiked up our skirts and squatted down trying to pee as fast as possible before anyone else came by without peeing on ourselves. We were mildly successful. We quickly pulled down our skirts and ran off toward the bus which was surely gone by now. Not so.
Our friend who had been waiting in the bus told us that everyone had been exchanging worried looks and words about the missing American girls who ventured off to go to the bathroom and never came back.
We got back on the bus and our journey commenced. We got to talking to the men in front who were very curious about us. Finally, 3 hours later we arrived in Sheki – or rather, the outskirts of Sheki – as far as the bus would go. Luckily, the man who we were talking to was also getting out and happily shared a cab with us into the city.
Once in Sheki we met up with another friend whose journey was not so interesting and had arrived the night before. We made a great dinner of pizza and visited with the 5 or so volunteers who live there.
The next morning we got up extra early in order to catch a bus to Zagatala, which we did with no problem.
The rest of the journey was less eventful. We spent about 2 or 3 days in Zagatala, visiting a school in a neighboring village for the holiday celebration on the way almost being eaten by a rabid dog.
My friend and I decided to take the nighttrain back so we went a day early to get a ticket but they said they were all sold out and to come back the next day (the day we were to leave) when there would be tickets. Dubious as that sounds, it worked and we were able to get one of the bunks on the train. However, it was in the general compartment, not one of the 4-bed-to-a-room compartments. This means lots of people and lots of noise. Oh well. At least it wasn’t a 7-hour bus ride back to Baku.
That night we boarded the train about 8:30. It was torturously hot and instead of talking to one another, we quickly fell into heat comas at around 9:00 and slept almost the entire time – my face pressed close to the window for whatever air might make it through the cracks (the windows do not open, but are luckily poorly insulated).
We arrived back in Baku around 7:30, bid our adieus and returned to our respective sites. Now perhaps this explains why I say that traveling in Azerbaijan really isn’t all that relaxing. What a “vacation”!

June 2008
It has been awhile, I know. A statement I heard second hand from a volunteer can best describe my absence, “I can’t even write home anymore because I no longer know what’s interesting. That’s kind of interesting”. It really is.
This morning I awoke early in order to do some laundry before the oppressive afternoon heat rears its head. Yesterday was the first very hot day. The kind of day all you can do is sit still and allow the force of your own heat and the heat around you to lull you to sleep until it passes. Expecting every day to be this way from now on, I’ve become proactive. I get up early to boil water, go to the bazaar and do any housework I might have before 11.
Admiring my developed forearms while wringing out my clothes, I began to muse about my life here; specifically, the “foreigner factor”. Gone are the days when my life revolved around the complexities and surprises of my own bowels and physical discomforts. Gone are the days when simply moving around in this strange land excited and bewildered me to the point of exhaustion. I’ve been here just under a year now, and I’m on to bigger, deeper complexities.
Over the past couple months I’ve grown to know some young Azeris in my town. Mostly women, they are strong, inspiring, intelligent and incredibly beautiful (both physically and otherwise). In the time that I’ve been able to hold conversations with them I’ve heard the same phrase over and over, “Jenni, you don’t understand”.
This is the first time I’ve been a foreigner for any substantial length of time. I can be uncommonly naïve about certain things, and my status, what it means to be a foreigner, was/is no exception. I’ve been reading a lot of books this year about foreigners, specifically Americans, in foreign lands. I’ve watched my fellow foreign Americans interact in their communities and carve out their niches. Each experience being unique and molding itself to each specific individual and circumstance. Mine experience is no different.
I’ve been asking a lot of questions lately. “What if X has a bad reputation (“bad reputation” in this context means a female who’s rumored to sleep with married men – though in actuality (I think) was talking on the phone to an old friend whom she just recently discovered was engaged and didn’t tell her), and I hang out with X – will I then have a bad reputation?” “No, Jenni, you are a foreigner, people expect you to be different”. “Can I go to a restaurant here?” “Of course, Jenni, you are a foreigner.” “Can you go with me?” (laughs) “No, of course not”, “What would happen if you just defied your parents? What if you took a job in Baku (the “liberal” capital city)? What if you applied for a program and got in and went even though your father and mother said no?” (forms an amused look and laughs) “Jenni, this is impossible. You don’t understand. This is not America”.
She’s right. I don’t understand. For the first time in my life I am realizing how much I seek harmony and agreement. I am realizing the strength of my desire to “fit in”; to be like those around me. But I cannot be. I am an American. I don’t understand. Despite all of the similarities and shared moments, my mother would never, at 25 years old, insist on walking me two blocks down the street after dark. My father would never refuse to let me travel 2 hours a way to a town I new well (or any town for that matter). And no stranger (or anyone I know) would ever call me out of the blue to tell me that they had “decided” I was “fit” to marry. It is this that I can never empathize with. It is on this subject I have no advice to give. “Do you ever feel alone?” she asks. “Of course. I AM alone here. But I think everyone feels alone at some point…” I go on about the idea of loneliness, the feeling of alienation. “Maybe” she says. “I asked because I feel alone a lot”. I berate myself for not understanding her question. For going on and on like she wanted me to explain something to her, to philosophize, when really she wanted to express to me how SHE felt, she wasn’t really asking how I felt.
I have been affected. Before I left I religiously listened to the song “Across the Universe” covered by Fiona Apple. It’s a beautiful song with the refrain “nothing’s gonna change my world”. When I listen to that song now I get sick to my stomach. What arrogance, what ignorance, I had. How could I travel more than 6000 miles away from home, live in a town where I am the only American in 40,000, do the only natural thing, which is build relationships with those around me and think, for one moment, that “nothing’s gonna change my world”. My world has been changed. I can feel it beneath my eyes.
Back to this “foreigner card” I keep reading about and witnessing. Don’t ask me why, but I never considered not trying to conform to this society. I dress in long skirts and high-necked shirts. I clean my shoes every day. I wear lipstick when I go out. I am quiet on the bus, I don’t walk with headphones in, I don’t make eye contact with men in the street and I don’t smile and say “hi” to people I don’t know. I don’t smoke and I don’t drink in public (outside of Baku). I sit with my legs crossed (never underneath me), I don’t sit on tables and I don’t sit on concrete without something under me. I drink hot tea on hot days, take off my shoes inside and I never walk barefoot outside. I made it, right? I’m integrated. Nope. I will always be “the foreigner”, someone everyone expects to be different. I will always be a curiosity. I will always be “the other”. Don’t ask me why this is news to me.
I am a strong observer. I see how the PCVs operate in their towns. I marvel at the way some are able to keep their American identities so strong and still work within the community. Because of my strong desire for acceptance and approval, I could never do these things. Maybe if I wasn’t the only one here. Maybe if there was someone here before me who paved the way (there were actually 3 volunteers before me, but none made it the 2 years for various reasons).
In the past I’ve been fairly quiet. I try to listen and not speak because maybe I don’t understand. I’m not swift to voice my opinion in areas I haven’t personally experienced and don’t have extensive information about. I will very rarely debate “right” and “wrong” because very few things are “black” and “white” to me. So I listen. I listen and I learn and I observe and I think. But in my time here of listening, learning and observing there are a few things I cannot help but to form a strong opinion about. Is this the time to speak? Or will I be faced with, “Jenni, you don’t understand”?
All of the nuances of living in a strange place still occur. Geese accost me on my way to work, I almost trip over severed cow heads in the market, older women are constantly molesting my clothes to wipe off any speck of dirt that may have accumulated. I fear the bees in the bathroom, wake up to the voices of roosters, go to bed amongst the voices of nightingales. I stumble, fall, and get back up.
But, I ask myself again, “Is this interesting”? I don’t know. I hope so.