My Life in Azerbaijan - A Journey Home

August 28, 2011

Autumn has set in. For days the sky wept. During the entire COS conference, it rained everyday! but it was nice to see all my friends again. Perhaps this was the last time we would be together as a group. After the COS conference, one by one will leave this country and head home.

When the sun finally comes out today, the temperature drops to a very comfortable level. I think summer is officially over. It signals another beginning. With only two months left, I will be saying goodbye to this country for good. Deep down inside, I am aware that I will never come back here again……

Today, I begin systematically going through one drawer to another, sorting out things into three piles, items that I want to bring home, items that I can giving away to neighbors and items that should be discarded. Hard to believe that I have cumulated so much junks over the years. Lots of CDs that I used to love; now they become a burden to bring home. I will give them away to kids.

As I go through some old papers, I discovered a pile of package slips. Over the past two years, I have received more than 16 packages from friends and family. I purposely saved those slips to remind myself, how lucky I am to have friends and family supporting my Peace Corps mission. Their packages mean a world to me…..really…thank you all. I have to find a way to reciprocate their kindness someday.

A strange sensation emerges as I start preparing my journey home…….can not fully comprehend that emotion..…I think I am not the same person who left New York two years ago….I have changed and it frightens me.

My Life in Azerbaijan - The Beginning of the End

August 19, 2011

COS (Close of Service) conference is next week. The event marks the beginning process of the end of our Peace Corps commitment. Any “work-in-progress” project has to be wrapped up or transferred to the AZ8s. For the next two months, we, the AZ7s will be dealing with lots of administrative procedures, filing out tons of paper works and forms, scheduling medical checkup, sorting out our personal belongings, donating some of our clothing to charities, arranging travel plan, closing Peace Corps meager allowance bank account, attending the conference, exit meeting with our country director, telling our Peace Crops stories, exchanging good wishes to other PCVs and saying farewell to Peace Crops staffs in Baku, etc. It is hard to believe that the end of my Peace Corps journey is actually near. Time flies.

Few nights ago, I looked up to the sky and saw a plane flying out of Baku. I pictured myself on that plane looking down to this dusty town that had been my home for more than two years, sadness surged….…. Maybe because of the emotional stress, I became sick next day. I have not been sick for a long time. The daily exercise keeps me very healthy in Azerbaijan, but Friday morning, I woke up with a sore throat, running nose, and headache. Saturday, with 101 degree fever, I could not do anything except sleep and sleep. But 24 hours later, I fully recovered with just minor cough. In the past, a cold usually lingered 4-5 days, but now it only lasts 48 hours. I have grown much stronger physically. It all due to the daily run/walk. Exercise indeed does my body good!

When I return home, I will keep up with the discipline, exercise everyday. But I realize that something will be missing from that daily routine. For sure, there will no more olive trees growing along my running path, no more breezes blowing in from the Caspian Sea, no more “Salam” greetings from my Azeri friends, no more little kids running after me and definitely no more staring from a stranger.

My Life in Azerbaijan - Reflection

August 16, 2011

Vivian and Carol were my teammates during the pre-serving training. Over the past two years, we have developed close friendship. After the training, we went on our separate assignments. Both of them currently live in Ganja, about 5-hour bus ride from where I live. Nevertheless, we manage to stay in touch and try to visit each other as often as we can.

Vivi, (name that I give her) was once a famous “Party Planner” in Dallas, she had some impressive clients; like Ronald Reagan and Prince of Saudi. Even Martha Steward called her for an advice. I enjoy cooking with her. Carol, is the Yale graduated and schoolmate of Hillary Clinton. For the past few months, Carol has been my “resume writing” advisor. Vivi and Carol are very different. Carol is extremely intelligent, calm and rational. Vivi is funny, dramatic and emotional. I like them both. If I have to make a list of my best Peace Corps experiences, “Knowing them” has to be the top item on that list.

I always assume that Carol is “Book Smart” and Vivi is “Street Smart”. Today, I realize that I am wrong. Not only Viv is “Street Smart”, she is simply SMART. Here is section of Vivi’s daily journal about her life with Peace Corps:

“…It’s not that I am smarter, just that my mind is a lot more “open” than before. I still hear things in the news that just makes me scratch my head and run to the kitchen. But I think about humanity in a broader sense, about true differences in world cultures, deeper spirituality and everything that flows with it. It is incredible how you feel as you listen to the Call to Prayer 3 times a day. I always stop to reflect for a moment, even at 4:48 AM every single day. This hauntingly beautiful cry is not just about Muslims; it transcends the boundaries of religion for me and brings me to a peaceful place to consider “ME” and how I want to continue living. Since I am getting anxious to get home and start this new living, I need to keep listening to the Call and feel the patience (no urgency) in its cry. “

Somehow, Viv’s profound spiritual revelation frees me from weeks’ of self-inflicted despair, urges me to forgo the past and inspires me to continue living intensely and richly after Peace Corps.

Like Vivian, I also eager to start a new life.

My Life in Azerbaijan - Azeri Summer

The temperature in the sun is 54C, or 129F. Standing directly under the hot sun, you think your brain is melting. If my friends complain about the 90s degree heat in New York City, I would gladly exchange places with them just for one night here in Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan is in the middle of summer, everywhere is hot, hot and Çox isti. Between the hours of 12pm to 4pm, the street is nearly deserted, not many living or non-living creatures around. Taxi drivers, construction workers and street cleaning ladies all nap/hide under trees, birds refuse to sing, cats stretch out with their flat belly on cool sands, policemen hide in teahouses, chickens burrow under bushes. Cars, trucks and bicycles are abandoned on shaded sidewalks. Not a single soul is willing to venture out in the open.

My balcony faces south. Normally if I open my balcony door, there is a light breeze flowing in directly from the north, which makes my apartment cool in summer. Three days ago, when I opened the balcony door, I noticed the shift of wind direction. The cool breeze was replaced by blast of hot air. Instead of blowing from the north, the sizzling wind charged in from the south. The temperature inside my apartment changed from warm to scorching hot. I could not sit, stand, sleep or walk. The boiling heat combined with high humidity liquefied me. I found every inch of my body covering with sweats. I stayed half-naked whole day inside my apartment. (Thank God, I do not have a roommate!) Repeated cold showers could not alleviate me from the agony. For once, I wish for winter. (I normally hate the cold) The heat lingered deep into the night, by midnight, my apartment remained hot like an oven. I lay wide-awake until dawn.

Remember once my Azeri friend told me that there were two kinds of wind blowing in Azerbaijan: the north and the south wind. The south wind is notorious for its high temperature. It sets off from the Saudi desert. Summer when it swifts through Azerbaijan, sometimes it can destroy crops and kill farm animals. These past three days, I have experienced its power. Once I understand what it is, my altitude towards the “devil heat” changes. Instead of hating it, I accept it, respect it and make peace with it.

“Harmonize with nature “

Another Chinese wisdom ricochets from memory.

Three days later, the wind changed direction. Now it is once again blowing from the north. What a relief! Even daytime temperature remains well above 110F, but if you stand under a tree or hide in a shade and do nothing, it is not so bad. By evening, with a light breeze, I can go out for my normal run. I, once again LIVE.