Support ABLE Camp 2009!

I’ve mentioned it a couple times on my blog, but in case you haven’t heard, I’ve been heavily involved in a project that has been among the best experiences of my Peace Corps service.  ABLE Camp is a summer camp for boys that aims to instill a sense of leadership and civic duty in young men from the under-served regions of Azerbaijan.  ABLE stands for Azerbaijani Boys Leadership Experience.  This year will be the fourth annual camp, which was started by Peace Corps Volunteers in 2006.  This year, we’ve tried to expand camp to reach more students, as well as incorporate more involvement from our local Azerbaijani counterparts in the management of the camp.  We’re planning on bringing 48 students from 15 regions of Azerbaijan.  If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s a video of the camp last year:

ABLE Camp 2009 is funded by four sources:

• The Royal Norwegian Embassy – $16,500
• FLEX Alumni Grants Program – $2,060
• Contributions from the local community – $2,462
• Peace Corps Partnership Program – $2,487

That last bullet, the Peace Corps Partnership Program (written by Jon Elkin a PCV from Boston), is where ABLE Camp needs your help.  Peace Corps Partnership Program (PCPP) is a grant system for Peace Corps Volunteers to develop projects during their service which are funded from individual donors from back home in America.  100% of contributions go to the project itself, which is being managed by Peace Corps Volunteers and other volunteers from the communities in which we serve.  By contributing as much as you can to the project, you’ll not only be helping out the PCVs in their efforts, but you’ll also be assisting the youth of Azerbaijan.

These kids that come to camp have demonstrated to be among the best and brightest in their communities.  ABLE Camp is not only a reward for the hard work that they’ve demonstrated, but also a great chance to sit down with these kids and give them the confidence, knowledge, and skills they will need to be the future generation’s leaders.  One of the anectodes from camp that is always passed on to new PCVS is that one day during the 2nd ABLE Camp one of the campers was so excited to be a part of camp that he stood up and yelled “This is the best day of my life!”  I didn’t see that happen myself, but I know from my experience at ABLE that the experience will absolutely stay with these campers for the rest of their lives.

The camp itself is divided into three main components:

1. Participatory Information Sessions
2. Team Building Activities
3. Project Planning

Information Sessions explain concepts of leadership, teamwork, and community responsibility to the campers.  Team Building Activities reinforce these concepts.  Finally, campers discuss issues that they see in their own communities and use the concepts discussed at camp to create community projects that aim to make their communities better.  Past examples of these projects include a clothes-drive for a local orphanage and informing their fellow students about a study abroad opportunity.  The projects are admittedly small in scale, but they provide a valuabe experience for the campers that they will build on for the rest of their lives.

To donate to ABLE Camp, please click this link that will take you to the Peace Corps Partnership website.  Please contribute as much as you can.  At this time, we’ve recived $150 from a kind soul out there, leaving us with $2,137 to go.  Even a small donation gets us closer to holding camp for these kids.  Please feel free to send the link above, or a link to this blog to spread the word about this project.

Thanks for your time.  If you’ve got a question about ABLE Camp, please email me or leave a comment below and I’ll get back to you promptly.

Different Kind of Milestone

I’ve been writing the “X Months Left” post as a way to countdown my exodus from Azerbaijan, but last week marked a milestone that marks not how much time I have left in Azerbaijan, but how long I’ve been here.  Two years ago, on July 27th, I touched down to Baku, Azerbaijan.

Looking at that, and considering I’ll be leaving on September 2nd, I realized that my blog title is a bit misleading.  Maybe it should be “26 Months and A week in Azerbaijan.”  That’s a bit wordy, though.

We’re Number 20!

Well not me exactly, but according to Business Weekly, Baku, Azerbaijan has been recently named the 20th most expensive city in the world. I’m not shocked by this at all.

Baku has always been overpriced in my opinion.  What really gets me about this list of expensive cities is the value that they give for your overpriced buck.  Sure, Tokyo is consistently one of the most expensive places in the world, but you get the benefit of all the crazy stuff they have going on over there.  In Baku, when I went in a couple of months ago for some official siteseeing, I was shocked at how quickly it all went by.

The expensiveness of Baku has to be a huge turn off for people considering traveling through the region.  This is especially true when you see that number 21, 22, and 23 on the list are Berlin, Vienna, and Moscow respectively.

The other bone I would have to pick here is that living in the regions of Azerbaijan is pretty cheap.  People commonly ask me how much money I make, and when I tell them it’s a couple hundred bucks a month, they are usually shocked and tell me that it’s nothing.  I usually counter with “Well, look where we live.  There isn’t really any place to spend my money.”  It’s an exaggeration, but it’s not like I’m tempted to blow my monthly living allowance on movie theater tickets.

I guess I just don’t understand how such expensive cities exist in such poor countries.  The lack of parity is actually pretty common on this list of cities though, with Abuja, Nigeria and Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo coming in right before Baku at 18 and 19.  And surprisingly, Luanda, Angola (which I have never heard of) is number one on the list.  Talk about not getting value.

Little Wedding

When there is a funeral here, large, temporary tents are constructed in the street in front of the residence of the deceased. Yesterday, I noticed that my neighbor was putting one up outside of his house, which I thought was strange because I hadn’t noticed any grandmas or grandpas living there. I was a bit annoyed by the whole thing though, because the way our street is set up, blocking off that side of the road was going to turn by ten minute walk to the store into a 40 minute one. I was worried for nothing though, because on my way out today, I noticed a small passage way to the side, and was able to skirt around it.

As I came home, I ran into my neighbor in my yard. He often passes through to go to the house behind mine, which is strange, but simply the way things are done here. I asked him who died and he laughed.

“No one. We’re circumcising my son.”

Circumcision parties are called “little weddings,” and the boy, who is around 4, gets dressed up and gets paired up with a little girl and they have a fake little wedding.

I got over feeling dumb for confusing a funeral with a circumcision pretty quickly because I feel bad for the kid. He’s about to enter a world of pain. Then again, I heard they get a ton of loot for this, so it’s not all bad.

Election in Iran

I’m not sure how much press this is getting in the U.S. but the Iranian presidential election is today (Friday the 12th). Considering my proximity to Iran I’m excited about the election there. Not because there’s a big Iranian influence here, but because Iran doesn’t seem that abstract to me anymore.

I’d also say that there are a lot of parallels between this election and the one the U.S. had last November. Are we ready to show the world that we are really a reasonable people who want to be part of the world, or will we continue to make the same decisions? The similarities are pretty amazing considering how much our governments want to tell us that it’s different.

3 Months

After a loooong weekend in Baku, I’ve returned to the heat of Ujar.  Should be around 95 today and it’s going to be like that all summer.

I’ve got three months left in Azerbaijan, and actually, a bit less than that.  Our Country Director has given volunteers who are finishing their service, the option of going home anywhere from the 2nd to the 11th of the September.  Considering that ABLE Camp is my big project this summer and that’ll be over in early August, I’ll be aiming to get out of here sooner rather than later.

I’m excited about my last three months here.  I’d like to check out some of the farthest corners of this place and leave feeling like I really know it.

I’ll update my post-PC plans as any news comes up.

That had not occured to us, Dude

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned to a teacher at my school that I wanted to take a couple kids from our school to ABLE (Azerbaijan Boys Leadership Experience) Camp this summer.  I have known this teacher for quite some time, and while he’s generally a pretty good guy, he can a bit selfish.  Last year, when he told me that he wanted to go to camp, I told him that we already have a local teacher from Ujar who has been a part of ABLE since it’s inception, and that there wasn’t room for him.  I could tell he was offended, but that’s his problem.  He can’t just walk into a project that has been developed over three years and just expect to be accommodated.

So this year rolled around and he asked me about camp and whether or not he could go.  I  gave him the same run-down, and stuck to my guns even though I could tell that he was upset by the whole thing.  It seems like he thinks he should be invited because he’s an important guy at our school, and in our town in general, but I just don’t see what he could offer the camp.

Yesterday, while I was talking to a fellow English teacher at school (they’re all doing end-of-the-year stuff) the assitant director of my school comes up to me and says “I heard you’re taking some of our students to a camp this summer.”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Why didn’t you tell the director about it?”

“We weren’t sure if we were going to be able to find the money or not.”

“Why aren’t you taking Mr. X (aforementioned teacher)?”

“He’s not coming.”

“Take him.”

“No.”

He walked away and I continued my conversation with Rasmiyya when I hear a holler from down the hall,  “Jeff.  The director wants to see you.”  The director was already in a bad mood because apparently there’s a ton to do at the end of the year and everyone was nagging him about little things that he didn’t care about.  I went downstairs and as soon as I saw him I could tell he was mad.

“Why didn’t you tell me that you were giong to take some of our students to a camp?”  he asked.

“It wasn’t 100% so I didn’t want to say anything.”

“How is it not 100%? “

“Well, we were looking for money.  Camp is expensive.  We needed to find money before we would know if there was a camp.”

“Wait.  When would you take them?”

“August.”

“Oh.  Well you need to tell me before you go.”

“No problem.”

There were a couple of things at play here.

Mr. X that I had introduced earlier had try to pull a fast one on me.  Hurt because he isn’t coming to camp, he tried to put some salt in my game and outrank me in order to put the brakes on the whole thing unless he was a part of it.  He led our director to believe that we were leaving that day, or soon after, and that I had neglected to tell him.  The director was surprised when I told him that camp was to be in August.  The crisis was averted and camp is still a go.

The other part of the story is that I totally lied.  Camp is 100% happening and I definitely forgot to tell the director.  I wasn’t trying to get away with anything, it just didn’t occur to me.  From an American perspective, would you even consider informing your school’s principal if you planned on attending a summer camp?  If you were running a camp, would you make sure and ask permission from the local Education Departments?  No way.

There’s a strong order to society here.  It’s a part of daily life, and it isn’t all that different from the Confucian order of things that I saw in Korea.  Kids do what adults tell them, women do what men tell them, adults do what the elderly tell them, and everyone does whatever the public officials say.  If I were to go back about a month ago, I would have told my director, and probably the head of the local Education Department.

I went to the Education Department once before, to let the head guy know that I was doing a conversation club at the local chess school.  He really didn’t seem to care.  I just got a simple, “alright” and that was that.    I suppose this chian-of-command system here is like any other set of rules in any society.  Rules are rules, but no one cares about them when they’re followed.  Break them, and people will soon let you know.

Son Zang

If there was ever a day to reflect on my Peace Corps service, today is it.  I just got home from Son Zang, which means Last Bell in Azeri.  It’s the Azerbaijani equivalent of an American graduation ceremony, but with Azeri additions like singing, dancing, and a seemingly endless string of speeches, including one by yours truly.

Son Zang itself is actually kind of boring, and most people seem distracted during the event (and it probably doesn’t help that I couldn’t understand all of what was going on).  People were chatting it up on the side, and few had the interest to hear from all the people that were speaking unless they knew them personally.  Still, the speech-giving had to go on, and those in high places must give their respect to one another.  I could probably just sum it up by saying it was a very Azeri event.  It seemed like everyone was ready to move on, which was the order of the day.

After the speeches the final bell rang and the graduating students (they finish in 11th grade here) danced to traditional Azerbaijani music while everyone celebrated.  Graduated students wrote on each others’ shirts instead of yearbooks, and everyone got their pictures in on their last day as students.

I don’t know many of the students from the 11th grade because I decided I wasn’t going to teach students that old (they had learned English, or they hadn’t, but the younger kids could still be influenced).  But there were a couple of them I’d spent some time with over the past two years (including Aganur, who attended ABLE Camp last summer) and it was great to see them so happy.

There were a couple harder moments that really made me realize that as strange as it sounds, Ujar, Azerbaijan is my community and I feel at home here.  I saw two of my girls from my 8th grade class for probably the last time.  As we got our picture taken together, they told me, “Thank you for everything.  We can speak English now.”  I got a little choked up and told them that it was an honor to be able to know them.  As much of a headache that teaching can be, and even though there are times when I really can’t stand being here, having students like these girls has made it all worth it.

The assistant principal at my school had a few tears, too.  When I told her I didn’t think I would see her again, she started to cry and told me “You’re a good boy.  I’ll miss you.”  This is the same woman that when I introduced her to my mom, she gave her a big hug as if they were old friends that hadn’t seen each other in years.  It’s these kind of memories that I’ll take home with me.

Teaching at my school over the past few years has been an incredible experience.  I don’t want to over sell it, because there were plenty of frustrating times.  The other programs in PC Azerbaijan, Youth Development and Community Economic Development, seem to have much more interesting projects under their belts and there have been more than a few times that I wish I had held out for something other than TEFL.  But the advice that was given to me by a former Volunteer has held true throughout my time here: “When it gets tough, think of the kids.”

When I think about how random it is that I ended up in Ujar, my head spins.  Of all the countries to go to, why Azerbaijan?  Of all the cities, how did I end up in Ujar?  It seems like someone spun a globe and threw a dart at it do decide where I’d spend my last two years.  And in all that randomness, I feel content, and in a word, blessed.

Now that school is out, I’m really just counting down the days until I return to America.  I’ll be helping out with other PCVs projects along the way, in addition to preparing for ABLE Camp in August.  In reality, though, that’s about a 5-10 hour work week.  It’s going to be a long, hot summer where I get to see the far corners of this place before I pack up and go home.

It’s been an unbelievable two years.

Here are a few more photos from Son Zang:

Republic Day – May 28th

Yesterday was a national holiday, celebrating the the anniversary of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic.  Ali gives some info on his frontline blog:

On 28th of May, Azerbaijan marked 91th anniversary of its first republic. Azerbaijan Democratic Republic or ADR as known by its initials is considered the first democratic republic in Muslim East with a functional parliament and clean record of human rights.

It’s a really interesting post that I recommend you read if you’re curious about Azerbaijan.

UPDATE: In Nigar’s blog, she adds a bit more to the history of the ADR:

During two years of its existence ADR had to struggle for recognition in the World, including negotiations with W.Wilson, fight the Dashnaki and Bolshevik invasions as well as Irani resentment and, what is more difficult, brake inner prejudices of the centuries-old slaved Azerbaijani nation.

After only two years of independence we were slaved by Soviet Union again. According to Vladimir Lenin the invasion was justified by the fact that Soviet Russia could not survive without Baku oil. On April 28, 1920 we became Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic.

Relief

I just got confirmation that our summer camp project has been awarded $16,500 by the Norwegian Embassy. This was fantastic news because we were getting to the point where we were worried if we’d even have a camp or not. If we were, it was going to be a bare-bones version of the camp we’d envisioned.

More personally, I’m very relieved that we got the money to run the camp, because it makes me PC service feel much more significant. I had been worried that without the funding, my service seemed dull. Especially now that I’m looking toward my post PC life, I’m relieved to be able to say that I wrote a proposal and it was funded, than simply I tried to get some money for a project and it didn’t work. It’s a game changer.

Now the real work starts. This is going to be a great way to finish out service.