Over the past few weeks, I was able to travel to a few of the other regions in Azerbaijan for the purpose of visiting and to make myself useful. One of my friends lives in a village of Yevlak, where she works as a Youth Development Volunteer. As with many YD Volunteers serving in places where English is desired but not practiced, she has adjusted to becoming something of an ad hoc TEFL (Teacher of English as a Foreign Language). About a month ago, she asked me to come and meet her students and help teach a few classes. It was an interesting experience to say the least and if anything, the trip reinforced my confidence in the immense potential resonant in the youth of Azerbaijan as well as the monstrosity of logistical and material challenges separating promise from actualization. My friend teaches a small group of young people four times a week in basic English language conversation and vocabulary skills. While the students are bright and obviously enthusiastic, they conduct classes in a structure with no functioning floor to speak of, complete with renegade nails. After sessions, we would head back to the house to “talk PC shop” and eat some of the tandir bread, compliments of the bakery residing on the ground level of the house. Traveling to see other volunteers is an interesting exercise. In a country the size of Maine, one is surprised by the variety of people, landscapes, and ideas it houses. Yet there is also consistency: the imperative of placing bread and tea on the dinner table, the drive of students, and the general resilience of PCVs. The combination of constants and inconsistencies often blurs the lines between “olar” and “olmaz” (allowed and prohibited) for PCVs seeing to navigate an emotional and social landscape different from their own.
Another interesting piece of news: I am famous amongst the Salyan Regional postal service—and likely at the Baku office as well. Why? I am fairly certain that on a particular April day not-unlike-today, I was the only inhabitant in the state of Azerbaijan to receive a package containing kimchi. For those of you who do not know, kimchi is a traditional Korean food which occupies about as much cultural significance for Koreans as bread does for Azeris. A culinary experience perfected over many, many generations, kimchi exists in over 300 forms, consisting of a strongly fragrant fermented combination of cabbage, onions, peppers, salt, and other spices. Despite the potency inherent to mot varieties, kimchi itself is considered to be one of the healthiest foods available. Anyone who went to college with yours truly know that this sainted food is a staple, getting her and some brave friends through long paper-writing nights senior year. Naturally, I have become quite homesick for it and as a result, my ever-supportive parents decided to send me a box of the red-pickled stuff. Surprisingly, it arrived in Salyan un-confiscated and--given its smell—undisturbed. I was in Baku at the time of the blessed arrival and was excited to get a message from my site mate: “when are you back? Your kimchi is here and the postal workers say that it is stinking up the whole office.” True enough, upon entering, the one room Poçt did in fact carry a smell reminiscent of a Korean grocery store. Nice for me, bad for postal worker who gladly handed over a sack that had apparently been kept outside.
Overall, the combination of experiences visiting other PCVs and administering my own activities has resulted in continued thought concerning the notion of vocation and development on a personal level. As many of you know, I left for Azerbaijan entertaining competing ideas of law school, PhD programs, and, recently, the Foreign Service. The last five months has hailed the advent of yet another unexpected possibility. I am increasingly aware of the fact that while there are many things that I enjoy in the professional capacity—academics, theory, activism, application to name a few—there is one activity which makes me feel fantastically, consistently, deliciously alive. That activity is teaching. I find that I am at my best and most driven when I teach. What? Speech, language, sports, yoga, research, reading, argumentation, the list goes on…Why? I have always been of the opinion that theory and the way that we think is infinitely more than just words absorbed by the walls of a privileged ivory tower. The ideas that reside in our minds shape how we view the world, how we understand our own agency, and inevitably how we act. With any luck, students refine this ability both at home and in school… In my few months at this job, I have been inspired by how education, when met with inquisitiveness and dedication, has given individuals the will to question, to challenge, to demand from the world more than that which has been given them. In A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Betty Smith writes of her main character’s first profound experience with education as a means toward efficacy: “school opened up new worlds for her that took her beyond the one she was born into and showed her that these worlds were not inaccessible.” In any case, still debating but I figure that I have a while to weight all of the options as well as my capacity for chalkboards over seminar power points or the Foreign Service exam…
This has been the substance of life and its persistent questions these days. In a few weeks I will head off for Baku for Early Service in-service training with the other AZ 7 Youth Development and Community Development volunteers which should be a healthy break. I hope that everyone at home is healthy, happy, and full of good spring cheer. I hope that your own burdens are not too difficult to bear and that you find time to enjoy the pleasure of each other’s company.
Peace, Love, and all that good stuff,
Beth
P.S. Pictures to come...
0 comments:
Post a Comment