Azerbaijan: the first three months or so

The thing I must start with here is a glossary of Peace Corps acronyms. This will no doubt help you as you read the remaining portions of this blog.

PC — Peace Corps
PST — Pre-Service Training
PCT — Peace Corps Trainee
PCV — Peace Corps Volunteer
AZ8 — Peace Corps Azerbaijan Volunteer, Group 8
TEFL — Teaching English as a Foreign Language
CED — Community Economic Development
YD — Youth Development
HCN — Host-Country National
HF — Host Family
LCF — Language and Culture Facilitator

I think this is a good start. Furthermore, I will write Azerbaijani words in Azǝrbaycana so that the idiosyncracies of the language may flow freely.

Now then, I gambled with the notion that I would have more time to write, and thusly blog, once I got to site. The first part of this assumption is correct: I have plenty of time to write. But, seeing as I am stationed in a small village near the rayonu border of Quba and Xaçmaz, I do not have an Internet cafe in close proximity to me. I do have one in Xaçmaz, and even though it is no more than 20 kilometers (approximately 12 miles) to get there, the transportation to get there is an undertaking. It would consist of arranging a car, negotiating a price, waiting for the four-person car to be filled with six persons, and then driving the 9KM rutted, dirt road to the highway. There, the car will either continue on or I can flag a bus to take me the rest of the way. A one-way trip can cost between 2 and 7 AZN manat (1AZN is equal to 80 cents), which can add up quickly on a PCV stipend. Therefore, I will approach this as a periodic project, taking my time to write but trying to get something done every couple of months.

OK, so let me fill you in on what has happened up to this point. Three months ago we started PST in Sumqayıt. I was assigned to the TEFL B group, and cluster Tağıyev 19. There five others in my cluster, six others in our sister cluster Tağıyev 6, and five more down the road at Tağıyev 32. Each cluster is assigned an LCF who is our language and culture teacher as well as being our go-to contact for any problems we were having. We lived in Tağıyev, a suburb, of sorts, northwest of the city of Sumqayıt, which is on the north side of the Abşeron Penisula and relatively close to Bakı. Much of the charm of Tağıyev and Sumqayıt may be seen in the iPhoto albums I've posted on Facebook. The other groups (CED, YD, and TEFL A) lived in different neighborhoods in between Sumqayıt and Bakı.

PST consisted of this: language training, technical instruction, group meetings, and cultural events. These components were put into a six-day-a-week schedule that usually took up most of the day. In addition, we all lived with host families. This meant that before and after our studies we would interact with our HFs, so we were 'on' almost all of the time.

The language is as such: Sentences are formed in the order of SUBJECT—TIME—PLACE—VERB. So a sentence such as 'I run to school in the morning' looks like 'I in the morning to school run'. Or 'Mǝn sǝhǝrdǝ mǝktǝbǝ qaçirǝm' in Azǝrbaycana, where mǝn is I, sǝhǝr is morning, -dǝ is in, mǝktǝb is school, -ǝ is to, and qaç is run with a first-person, present tense suffix of -irǝm.

As you can see, this language makes use of a lot of suffixes. So many suffixes, in fact, that the word suffix can make any one of us cringe when we hear it. I have a quick example to illustrate how suffixes can change a word. Take the infinitive form of the to direct, which is istiqamǝtlǝnmǝk. A sentence that says 'They must not direct' would look like this: Onlar istiqamǝtlǝnmamalıdırlar. That turns a 15-letter infinitive verb into a 24-letter conjugated verb, expressing third person, negative action, and necessity — the -mamalıdırlar suffix, which has so many parts that I won't bore you by breaking it down.

I think this will do for now. The important points are: training is over, I am at site, I've finally gotten a regular yoga practice going again, and now it's time to do the job.

One last Swami's sunset

Here is a picture of the sunset I watched Sunday night at Swami's. It was a good moment to reflect on the job I'm about to do.

One thing that has come to light is that the address to write to me during training has technically changed. It is this now:

PCT Michael Dolan
Peace Corps Azerbaijan
Sumgayit Şahari
Azerbaycan Pr. 15
Merkezi Poçt

This address will get mail more directly to me. Letters will be delivered to the city — Sumgayit — from which my training will be administered. The previous address — the one for Baku — is no longer valid. Anything sent there likely will get to me, but future items should be sent to the address listed above.

Also, 760-807-1367 is still an active number for emergencies only. And even then it should a text message rather than a call: $4.99/min for phone versus $.50 per text. I'll have an additional in-country cell phone once I am over there. However, e-mail, blog comments, and Facebook stuff is the best way to communicate with me.

Maps

Here are some good maps of Azerbaijan:

The Peace Corps Has Invited Me to Serve

The long fight is over. At least, it appears to be over. I have an invitation in my hand, offering a position to serve in the Peace Corps as a Secondary School English Teacher in the country of Azerbaijan. It is a job I knew I would be doing when I was finally invited, but the country is a proverbial "out of left field" selection.

Since finding out my assignment, I have been taking in a crash course in Azerbaijan and the Azeri culture. The State Department, CIA, and the Peace Corps all provide extensive dossiers on the country; yet there is a lot to learn about this country, culture, and language.

This post simply introduces my job. I leave on Sept. 23, 2010 and serve until Dec. 2, 2012. According to my Days Until iPhone app, I have 853 days ahead of me until the experience will be complete. That'll go by quicker than I probably can imagine. And I can't wait to get on the plane to Philadelphia for a couple of days of staging before flying on to Azerbaijan.

As I work through the invitation paperwork and toward staging, I will update the blog and hopefully have time to reflect on the process. It's been a long road with many intriguing twists, so it would be fun to share the highs and lows of what I went through.