December 24, 2010
Last year Christmas, while all my PCV friends were celebrating the holiday with other site mates, I was alone in Sumgayit. My host family is Muslim, so Christmas for me in 2009 was just another ordinary day except that day my host family killed a cow in the back yard. I still remember that awful sight. This year, Christmas is going to be entirely different. Mariel from Shamakhi (2 hours bus ride) invited me to spend Christmas with her, so I asked Susan, my new site mate to come alone. Christmas Eve, I was very busy cooking and baking. I cooked a roasted Chicken with lots of local vegetables just to treat myself. (I normally could not afford to buy meat) Also, I wanted to bake a cake for Mariel.
I admit, I am not good at baking but I tried. After putting all the ingredients together, I put the cake in the “Azerbaijani Oven”, which is just a Tin box with electrical power. Vivian warned me about using this kind of oven
. You have to constantly watch it, rotate the baked item every five minutes because the temperature inside is not even. The first time I used it, Megan helped me, so my cake turned out fine, but not this time.
I set the temperature and forgot all about it until I smelled the burned. When I ran to the oven, all I could see was black smoke coming out from that little box. Immediately, I opened the oven door, and what I saw was a badly burned chocolate cake! I had to open all my windows to let the smoke out. I was sure all my neighbors could smell the burn. I caught all their attention since day 1 I moved into this apartment. A single woman living alone in this country is an Omas! (forbidden). Now I burned my cake, they must have endless things to say about me tomorrow.
“Who is that Cin?”
“She lives by herself? Is she married?”
“She burned something last night!”
“I don’t think she can cook.”
“She does not know how to cook, what kind of woman is that?”
Oh well. Then, I decided to go for a walk and pick up my mail on my way home.
As soon as I went up to the window, this mean lady (always has a mean face, only smile when I gave her tips) started shooting “Azeri bullets”, yelling at me with thousand words a minute. She complained that I should have checked my mails often. A letter has been sitting at her desk over a week now. The letter was from Peace Corps, just a monthly news letter which I already read it on line. I did not really need it.
“Shut up!” I said it quietly to myself. I ignored her, thinking that next time when I receive a package, no tips for you! I should have bought the burned chocolate cake with me and “S” it to her month or somewhere else. I had bad day!!!! Forgive me God.
Last year Christmas, while all my PCV friends were celebrating the holiday with other site mates, I was alone in Sumgayit. My host family is Muslim, so Christmas for me in 2009 was just another ordinary day except that day my host family killed a cow in the back yard. I still remember that awful sight. This year, Christmas is going to be entirely different. Mariel from Shamakhi (2 hours bus ride) invited me to spend Christmas with her, so I asked Susan, my new site mate to come alone. Christmas Eve, I was very busy cooking and baking. I cooked a roasted Chicken with lots of local vegetables just to treat myself. (I normally could not afford to buy meat) Also, I wanted to bake a cake for Mariel.
I admit, I am not good at baking but I tried. After putting all the ingredients together, I put the cake in the “Azerbaijani Oven”, which is just a Tin box with electrical power. Vivian warned me about using this kind of oven
. You have to constantly watch it, rotate the baked item every five minutes because the temperature inside is not even. The first time I used it, Megan helped me, so my cake turned out fine, but not this time.I set the temperature and forgot all about it until I smelled the burned. When I ran to the oven, all I could see was black smoke coming out from that little box. Immediately, I opened the oven door, and what I saw was a badly burned chocolate cake! I had to open all my windows to let the smoke out. I was sure all my neighbors could smell the burn. I caught all their attention since day 1 I moved into this apartment. A single woman living alone in this country is an Omas! (forbidden). Now I burned my cake, they must have endless things to say about me tomorrow.
“Who is that Cin?”
“She lives by herself? Is she married?”
“She burned something last night!”
“I don’t think she can cook.”
“She does not know how to cook, what kind of woman is that?”
Oh well. Then, I decided to go for a walk and pick up my mail on my way home.
As soon as I went up to the window, this mean lady (always has a mean face, only smile when I gave her tips) started shooting “Azeri bullets”, yelling at me with thousand words a minute. She complained that I should have checked my mails often. A letter has been sitting at her desk over a week now. The letter was from Peace Corps, just a monthly news letter which I already read it on line. I did not really need it.
“Shut up!” I said it quietly to myself. I ignored her, thinking that next time when I receive a package, no tips for you! I should have bought the burned chocolate cake with me and “S” it to her month or somewhere else. I had bad day!!!! Forgive me God.
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