Saturday, April 5, 2008

3/11/08

International Women’s Day
March 8th
Like Mother’s Day but for children, grandparents and single ladies, too
Lots of gifts, including:
six murraba or lemon saucers,
from a shy 7th-form student who asked his friend to hand me the unwrapped gift: a makeup kit with orange lipstick, hairspray and perfume that smells like baby wipes,
a porcelain plum covered candy dish depicting two Greek ladies entertaining a man holding a water jug, handmade by Hbast & Czjeks, since 1792,a blue mug and saucer proudly illustrating Mecca, contrary to Volunteer belief, not made in China but in the Czech Republic
A speech by the director, a long one as usual
Performances by kiddies, memorized dutifully like good post-Soviet Union children do
A quick something by me, about how International Women’s Day is sadly not celebrated in America, except for at some college campuses like SFSU where we speak about gender inequality in other nations but like it doesn’t exist, not in America
Applause for the English teacher who still speaks with a translator
More dutiful performances
More long speeches I can’t understand
Off to the doctor’s to unclog my left ear, on the way hearing, “Teberik edirem!” “Congratulations to you!”

Novruz

Springing to life, March 20 and 21
One, two, three bonfires stretch across our lawn. This is fire jumping, which culminates the weeks of Novruz.
Khanam announces we will jump over each fire, three times over for a prosperous year. I remind Khanam that if my leg burns I will be sent home, which would be pitiful, not prosperous. Khanam, having learned ‘pitiful’ hours before when we saw a child in a shop bawling for candy, reminds me that I am only here for two years. “Not pitiful Sasha. Fun.”
And so with this information, I gather my thoughts and conclude like I so often do here: Ok, everyone else is doing it, and no one’s dieing, at least that I see.
I watch Khanam jump the flames first. Her short stature and strong torso make me think, if given the chance, she could champion the Olympic Gold Metal in the 50k. Khanam’s physique is cute and suits her sweet character well. Still, every morning I see her downstairs doing pull-ups on the gas pipe (yet another disconcerting activity not questioned in Azerbaijan). Weeks ago while in the upstairs kitchen she told me it’s not to harness strength (why would she do that?) but to stretch her body up, up to be less like a five-year-old and more like a true adult. I laugh at this notion and say, “First of all Khanam, look at my body, I am an adult, and secondly, it doesn’t work.” “I saw it on TV,” she says, like I just told her the world is not round. (There was a time in American history when people stretched their bodies using elastic instruments sold on after-noon infomercials. That was just 50 years ago. In so many ways the people of Azerbaijan are at least half a century short of where America is; that is, if you don’t count the Ancient-Mesopotamian act of fire jumping.)
Khanam’s short legs take her over the fires like a baby gazelle. In less than 90 seconds she’s planted like Super Woman in front of my face. In between pants, “Ok Sasha, you go.”
My host father continues to build the fire with damp branches from the yard. The flames measure maybe three feet though they feel as tall as our two-storey house. I want to hold my breath and close my eyes and let an imaginary force carry me over the fires. I back up for a shot I hope will catapult me between each, but the first, second, third to the last jumps are awkward and off kilter: one leg dangles centimeters from the flame and the other makes small leaps on the grass to carry the weight of the rest of my body. “Oh my God!” and “Mommy!” come with each pathetic stretch. I bounce with my legs in an L-shape across the yard. I make it back and Khanam applauds with a laugh at my effort.
My host father, finished piling wood to my distress, stands to the side wondering why I’m so old yet know so little about life.



Novruz reminds me of several holidays at home. As Easter celebrates the vernal equinox and spring’s renewal of life, so does Novruz. Children even paint boiled eggs to display in baskets.
Although Novruz is celebrated by most Muslim nations, much like Halloween, it pre-dates current religion and culture. Kids wear masks and go trick-or-treating for nuts, baked goods and candy to drink with chai. (This version is much more dynamic—a hat is secretly thrown into a house, then children run from the door to hide. While the hat is being stuffed with the goods other children in the house may try to find where the child is hiding and who is behind the costume. The child secures his or her identity at all possible costs. Then the hat is placed in the yard to be snatched back from the masked candy thief.)
Like Christmas, Novruz is celebrated with heightened anticipation. It was the first holiday my host family in training spoke about, as Christmas is the first family gathering in so many American children’s memories. Decorations, laughter and baked goods subsist in every last drop of the day.
The bright lights and embers along our dirt road remind me of Independence Day. Khanam told me that no more than four years ago all the kids from the neighborhood gathered to jump the community-wide bonfires. Her mother would call them in at 11 pm, but they refused. They set rubbish and twigs ablaze far into the spring night, making wishes to the spirits of long ago. I was never really into the hullabaloo surrounding lighting anything on fire, but her story reminds of every summer on July 4th, two hours after hotdogs and a cool Pepsi, sitting on the Carmichael curb, with the sun partly behind the horizon, partly breaking through the big drifting clouds, watching the fireworks race from behind the trees to the sky.
If you ask an Azeri child why Novruz is celebrated, unlike Ramazan, he can’t pin down even close to a reason of why it could possibly be on the calendar. If pakhlava’s served, the history behind anything doesn’t matter. Isn’t this like so many holidays in America?



4/4/08

Safe in my Slumberjack in my new pipe rotting, electricity-sometimes, slightly-leaning-to-the-east apartment. Ah, what it’s like to be home.
After six months as Peace Corps Volunteers in Azerbaijan we can move out of host family’s and into a Peace-Corps approved rental unit.
With that, I moved into this old Soviet building on April Fool’s Day, and what a joke on me it was.
Pots and pans were caked in not cake, but dirt and grime and amber stickiness that’s only found—I don’t know, I don’t know how it gets on cooking ware. Vodka bottles dating from the early 19th century amassed the top half of the peeled cupboard. The sink and stove were plastered in dust as if a woman hasn’t been staying here once a month for the past three years. The potatoes were dusty, as was the saffron and licorice dried at the bottom of six metal Russian tins.
After intense boiling of pots and scrubbing of metal crevices, the three-day cleaning ordeal is over; in the kitchen, that is. Next is the toilet room, skipping the bathroom with plans to replace the brittle pipes, going on to my room where I’ll deal with dusty Cyrillic manuscripts and shake three carpet cutouts, the room adjacent needs a heavy dust-over, aside from a closet cleanout, and the room across from that needs a trash sweep of the whole refrigerator (and why wouldn’t the fridge be in the room with the coach?).
On the up-and-up, the building is a two-minute walk to my school. If neither of the buildings would fall apart while doing it, I could zip line from my classroom to my balcony.
I will miss my host family immeasurably, but homemade salsa and a messy room I will reclaim.