My Birthday Party

I know it’s a little late but I wanted to include a few pictures from my birthday party (which was on December 6th for those of you who forgot!) that my students threw for me. It was complete with Azer-cake, Azer-video recording, Azer-dancing and Azer-gifts. It was a lot of fun and I didn’t feel so bad about turning 28.
The day started out with some minor computer problems and then dealing with the unfriendly post office people. Then I took it all as a sign to stop working and take the day off from work even though I had a lot to do to prepare for a big event that I was organizing at the Ganja Central Library.
I had told people that I was going to have a party at one of the NGO’s in town where I conduct a discussion group. So I went there to get things ready and try to get my computer fixed. The computer guy was at lunch so I waited around until some of my students came by and shooed me out. I went with one of my students to by some drinks and a cake. When I came back preparations were already well underway. I ran home to change my clothes and get my camera when I cam back a few minutes later the place was fully-decorated and packed with many of my students and friends. I entered to the electronic bee-bop sounds of “Happy Birthday to You” Azeri style, with three video cameras zoomed in on me. They even made a sign in balloons for me and another cake had appeared alongside the one I had bought at a bakery in town! Many of the kids had even gotten me presents. I was really touched at their thoughtfulness- even if the gifts weren’t exactly my style. (note big bangly necklace and earrings and flower vase in the photos). We turned up the music ate cake and danced the afternoon away. The funniest part was trying to teach the guys how to swing dance. They didn’t quite get it. Still very much stuck in only Azeri style of dancing, which is interesting for the first 2 or 3 songs but not ALL the TIME! The party had to end at 6 because it was getting dark and people had to go home. So here are some funny pictures for you to enjoy.

New Years in Georgia

I know this is a long time coming but I'm finally getting around to writing a little bit about our New Year's adventure in Georgia. Mike and I left Ganja on the 30th of December. We were still uncertain as to how we would reach Georgia but we had been assured by several Peace Corps volunteers that getting to Georgia was no problem.
At the Ganja bus station we arrived just in time to hop on a minibus going to the last town in Azerbaijan before the border. We crammed into the back of the van with about 12 other Azeris and sat back and enjoyed one of the three movies that are shown in all long distance transportation vessels. It was a sketch comedy show that was taped in Baku I have no idea how many years ago. The show was amusing the first two times but after seeing it 10 times it is ceases to draw many laughs from me. But our fellow passengers found it to be hysterical. I imagine they hadn't been traveling around Azerbaijan as much as we had. We reached our destination, Qazax, in about two hours. Then we had to worry about getting to the border. After some finger pointing, waving and waiting at the curb one of the drivers arranged taxi transport to the border. We had read about come 'difficulties' with the Azerbaijani border patrol as far as letting us into Georgia without a bribe but we just hopped out of the taxi and walked up to the run-down border patrol buildings much to the amusement of the many soldiers who seemed to have little else to do but gawk at the strange foreigners and their large back packs. After our passport numbers were written down in a tattered notebook we were allowed to proceed and headed to the Georgian side and entered a nice modern building with an electronic passport scanner, turnstyle and even a bathroom!
We were assured by other Peace Corps Volunteers that once you crossed the border there would be plenty of busses and taxis to take you to Tbilisi, which is about 40 Km away. Once we left the border check there was nothing in sight so we started walking. It wasn’t too long before a taxi came by and the negotiations began. Luckily he was Azeri so we at least could understand some of what he was saying. After much haggling over price he finally agreed to take us. We arrived with little problem at the “Hotel Nika” which is a nice little place run by a woman who offers very cheap but comfortable rooms to Peace Corps Volunteers.
The first culture shock came when we were asking for our room. A woman who was working there asked us if we were boyfriend and girlfriend and we looked at each other and thinking ‘crap’ they’re not going to let us stay in the same room together”- as is the situation in Azerbaijan if you are not married! (see Christmas blog) Unable to lie quickly enough we said yes- and she broke into a smile and then showed us to our room. It was great- in Georgia nobody cares if you’re married or not!!!
We dropped our stuff in our room and then headed into the city. Not knowing the subway system we decided to explore on foot- which turned out to be a bit of a longer adventure than we anticipated. Eventually we came to the downtown area where the streets were brightly decorated for the Holidays. We wandered down the main street in awe of the architecture and festiveness. There was a completely different feel to the city and people. It was like a huge weight had been lifted off our shoulders. People did not stare at us or ask us questions. There was a huge variety in the clothes that young people wore. We even saw street musicians in an underpass who only did Dire Straits covers! We definitely felt like we were in Europe. The coolest thing we saw the first night was a musical fountain- even better than the one in Ganja (See post on Ganja) What was neat was that it was so cold that the water was forming ice all around the spickets and there was a group of three guys sliding to the music on the ice. The other more garish thing we saw was the three-storey Mc Donald’s.
We returned to the hotel and got ready for our trip to Gudauri, the only ski resort in the country. I was a little nervous because we were going to have to tackle the subway and the minibus system all at once. This would not be too bad if either of us spoke Georgian or even knew the alphabet. I had tried to learn the letters and had made little index cards with the alphabet on them. Georgia has its own unique language and alphabet different from any other languages in the world. The writing is in my opinion very beautiful- many soft rounded letters. On the maps we had the names of the stations- some in Georgian and some in Latin letters. So it actually wasn’t too difficult. The bus station, where we were to find our transport to Gudauri was a mad house!!! But it is amazing how easy it is to find the right bus. We just told people where we wanted to go and they pointed us in the right direction. We found our minibus in no time and even met a guy also traveling to Gudauri who had lived in the U.S. for a while so he helped us out and told us a lot about Georgia.
The ride up to Gudauri was interesting. Amazing how nice the roads were! Georgia is working very hard at developing its tourism industry and has started by improving its infrastructure. Although the GDP of Georgia is significantly lower than in Azerbaijan the roads are much better, the cities are cleaner and there seems to be less abject poverty. The villages we passed however did look quite similar to Azerbaijan.
The other major differences, which is indicative of the different predominant religion, that in Georgia instead of herds of sheep everywhere, there were herds of PIGS!! They were so cute and some were very, very hairy.
We traveled narrow winding roads into the foothills of the Greater Caucuses mountains, and after about 2 hours we finally reached our destination. Gudauri ski ‘resort’ was definitely a work in progress. It was clear from all the construction going on that their were big plans for the place. There were several buildings that had clearly been built in the 70’s and our little ‘Sno House’ bungalow was one of them. It was only about 1:00 so he rushed about getting settled in with the hopes of getting a few hours of skiing in.
Finding rentals was a bit more challenging than expected so by the time we got all suited up it was already 3:00 and their were no ½ day tickets. So we decided to head back in and be sure to be out all the earlier the next day.
Our lodging was a little space pod like house where the proprietor spoke no English but Russian and Spanish so communication was interesting. Luckily both Mike and I know some emergency Spanish but it turned out that the cook was Azeri so we could talk with her. The irony of the situation though was that we were so excited to come to Georgia to I hate to say it but ‘get away ‘ from Azeri cooking. Both Mike and I had been living with host families for 6 months and we were aching for something a little more compatible with out palates. And we come to Georgia and we can’t escape the food!!!
At dinner we met another couple he was from Holland and she was American but of Turkish heritage who were working in the NGO world in Tbilisi and they invited Mike and I to join them in their New Years celebration activities.
We had a very fun and interesting evening, with a few fire works and a new disco. It was definitely a memorable evening!

The next morning we got up early to be the first on the slopes. When we got up to the second lift we found it hadn’t opened yet, even though it was 10:00 I guess people weren’t too excited about skiing after the night’s jovialities. We finally made it to the summit where we were out of the cloud cover and had an amazing undercast. And also great views of what we were about to ski down. Essentially the top part of the mountain had only one groomed trail down the back side and the front face was basically a free for all. You get down anyway you can. There was disturbingly little snow in spots so I was a little nervous on my first run of the season. And being a corduroy skier, the unforgiving wind-packed powder and ungroomed conditions proved a bit daunting. But we made it down, only after taking the photo up at the top!

We made it down with little grace but all of our limbs. We were just so excited to be outside in the snow that we didn’t care about the conditions. We tried the groomed travel several times and then Mike, having skied mostly in Colorado tried to show me how to powder ski, which basically turned into face plant lessons but we had fun anyway.

The next day involved much of the same. The area is known for its heli-skiing and we saw snowboarders trekking to another peak nearby and watched their descent. It was amazing!!! We also got a big kick out of the unique menu item at the slope-side restaurant. I really hope it was a typo!
In two days we had MORE than exhausted the skiing opportunities there. But provided that global warming doesn’t take away all the snow, this place has great potential to be a wonderful little ski town.







Back in Tbilisi we tackled the sights of the capital city. There are hundreds of beautiful old Churches and also an enormous new one- recently finished and is the largest in the Caucuses. We hiked up to the fortress above the city and over to the huge metal woman overlooking the city. In the evening we hiked up to the big cathedral which was beautifully lit that evening.
The next day wee stumbled upon a Max Ernst exhibit and then ate dinner at one of the famous restaurants overlooking the river. Unfortunately I ended up with a fever and did not enjoy the food or the atmosphere as much as I wanted to. Later we found an art gallery in the basement of the Marriot hotel which exhibited several modern Georgian artists. As they were close to closing we got a personal tour by the two employees there.
FABULOUS!! I had forgotten how much I enjoyed looking at ‘real’ art. Unfortunately there is very little in Azerbaijan. There are a few small galleries in Baku but there does not seem to be a thriving art community at all.

The next day found us facing our greatest challenge of the whole excursion- getting back to Azerbaijan. We first went to the southern bus station where our guidebook indicated that there would be busses to Azerbaijan. This turned out NOT to be the case. Then we went back to the central station to try our luck there. Again- nothing. We asked several people each one pointing us in the opposite direction. We found a bus with Azeri license plates and Azer-looking people but the bus was not returning to Azerbaijan. Finally after two hours wandering around we bit the bullet and negotiated a taxi to the border where we were ‘positive’ that we could find a way back to Ganja.
We just found it so amusing how difficult it was to get back to Azerbaijan! As if someone was trying to tell us something!

20 dollars poorer we arrived at the border and went through the whole process in reverse and quickly found a mini-bus going to Baku that grossly over-charged us for a ride to Ganja. Cozily packed in with 15 other Azeris we bumped back to Ganja and sadly to our challenging and frustrating work in Azerbaijan.

My Christmas in Azerbaijan

Personal Note to my readers! As many of you already know, since Thanksgiving I have a new partner in crime in my adventures in Azerbaijan. I’ve mentioned Mike in round about ways in some of my previous entries but I thought it was time to make the official announcement so that clarifies the ‘we’ in my blog entries. Having him to travel around with was the best Christmas present!

I had a great Christmas this year! I’m actually surprised because that doesn’t usually happen when I’m abroad. I started the holiday by taking a 7 and a half hour bus ride to Baku on Friday December 22nd. I think it gets longer every time. They are doing construction on the road (its about time!!) but their pavement eater is way ahead of the pavement replacer so half of the drive is on a dirt/ or in this case mud as it was pouring rain- which of course did not add to our traction! But we arrived safely in Baku just in time for the rain to turn to snow!!! It was absolutely beautiful but horrific at the same time. I thought Azeri drivers were bad on dry roads- its so much worse on snow. They have NO IDEA how to drive in snow. I got to the bus station- and made my way to the metro- anyway- I don’t want to go into too much detail and bore you all to death- so I got my room at the Absheron with a bunch of Peace Corps Volunteers- they were having training the past week so I had a cheap place to stay.

In the evening we went to another Caravansarai (see blog about Sheki) this one was even more rustic and spectacular and had a great dinner- well great for Azeri food. I have to admit that I have become less then enthusiastic about Azerbaijani cuisine. It’s basic ingredient is oil. And it is really quite repetitive. Not a lot of variety in the different dishes. But I digress as usual this is supposed to be about Christmas and not about food. The Caravanserai was very atmospheric- we had our own little private cavern with big gas stove. We were probably the only customers in the place but they had an Azeri band- playing tastefully (for once and not at 10,000 decibels) outside in the central courtyard. I have also become less than enthusiastic about Azerbaijan traditional music. Because I hear it in every corner here it is really starting to grate on my nerves.
So we spent a couple of days in Baku- living the ex-pat life on a less than ex-pat budget, but having a good time pretending we had tons of money.

We spent Christmas Eve on the night train to Mingachavir- a small city on the largest reservoir in Azerbaijan, where Mike is working and has to stay. The train ride was amusing as usual. I love taking the train-especially the night train. They provide you with cute little sheets and blankets with trains printed on them and the conductors wake you up hours before the train reaches the station. Then they will rip the sheets out from under you if you are still in your bed when they want to collect the bedding. Its pretty funny, unless of course you are the one in the sheets.

Anyway this trip was amusing because we were getting off in Mingachavir, which doesn’t really have a station. The old woman conductor woke us up around 6:00 and then we scurried around our little cubicle organizing our things and went to the door. The woman kept opening the train door and sticking her head out to see where we were. Finally the train slowed down- but there were no station lights to be found and the woman practically threw us off the train with our baggage after us. There was no platform so the landing was a little hard. It also happened to be the foggiest night I had experienced here so we had no means of orientation. Because the station is not directly in the city its actually about 15 km outside we had to make sure we got a taxi for the ride into town because it’s a long walk in the pitch dark. So Mike ran in what we hoped to be the right direction to get a taxi before it was filled up. Thanks to his nimbleness we secured our transport and started our journey into Mingachavir and passing several travelers who were not so successful in their taxi hailing skills. We embarked upon one of the scariest car rides ever. As I mentioned before, it was foggy, very foggy and drivers- as with snow- do not take weather conditions into account and still drive at breakneck speed down winding roads with practically 0 visibility. I just shut my eyes and hoped that I still had a few of my nine lives left.
After about twenty minutes we finally entered the city and went to find a hotel room but all were closed at so early an hour. So we went back into the city center and picked up another taxi to go to Mike’s host family to wait out the morning until we could find a better place to say. “why not stay the whole time with Mike’s host family” you may be thinking. Which is a good question. His family is not overly keen on Mike being there much less on him having guests- especially female guests. So we could only sneak in and hope she didn’t throw us back out onto the street.

Because we couldn’t stay with Mike’s host family we had to go and find a hotel. Ordinarily in a city of over 50,000 people hotels should not be hard to come by. In Azerbaijan it is a different story. About mid-day we hailed a cab to take us to the one semi-decent hotel in town. Peace Corps staff stays there when they do site visits, so it couldn’t be, too bad! Despite the dubious outer gate and hotel exterior the place didn’t seem incredibly awful. One of the guys there showed us to our accommodations. It was this big cement ‘cabin’ complete with two rooms, bathroom, plunge pool and sauna! Of course the plunge pool was empty (see picture) and the sauna was out of commission. It was very strange to say the least. All seemed to be going well- we were working out a deal with the hotel manager when he asked us if we were married. Being the silly honest people that we are we said no. Then he proceeded to tell us that we could not stay in the same cabin together, we would have to rent two rooms. We argued with him for quite some time about this when he finally agreed to let us stay together but we had to pay a higher price. I guess it was an immorality fee. Then he wanted to show us all the luxuries of the room- especially the cable TV. which made the price of the room worth it. He flips on the TV.and we get a glimpse of some extremely explicit pornography. I really thought my eyeballs were going to burn off. He doesn’t seem overly concerned – doesn’t even apologize to us. But after he left we had quite a laugh about the irony of the situation.
After settling we decided to enjoy the beautiful and WARM day- it was probably around 50 and took a long walk around town and then headed out to the reservoir. We definitely took the scenic and more pungent route, over muddy paths and through cow patties. The views, however, were well worth the dirty tromp. We had a lovely although not overly nutritious Christmas lunch and enjoyed the scenery, this is one of the few beautiful places here in Azerbaijan. (see pictures). After walking back on a more well-traveled road we had a real dinner at a local Turkish restaurant. The other highlight of the Christmas holiday was a very random party that Mike and other Peace Corps Volunteers in Mingachavir were invited to. Lots of singing and Azeri dancing as well as belly dancing and a visit from Schaxta Baba and the Gar Giz (Santa and his granddaughter the snow girl) It was really surreal- especially the hip-hop version of jingle bells. This was another unforgettable Christmas.