More adventures to report, though rather small and some glimpses of my new city.
A week ago, Sunday I was hanging around in the afternoon with my host mother, and she was cooking up a storm, which is nothing unusual. I was thinking about taking a walk, when she asked me if I wanted to come up to the mountains with the her and her husband. So I said sure,
( passing up a special opportunity to be alone in the house, which is Snoopy-dance time for me).
By the way, all this asking and answering which I make sound so easy, is actually a pretty laborious process, she chatters away at me in Azeri, I think a bit, try and say back to her what I think I understand her to say, and we manage to hammer out a consensus. Sometimes I am discouraged by how slow I think I am going, and sometimes I am amazed at what I can already understand.
We get in the car with some fried cutlets, three loaves of bread and a couple of jars and drive off to Xanlar and into the mountains (near the border of the bad place, the country we don’t name here. Also known as Armenia.) We go through Hacikend, a little village with the most gorgeous, dilapidated houses, Justin you would just love them. There are two in particular that are the coolest. One is a three-story house right on the edge of a drop-off. It looks like three different houses all stuck together, the middle one is lived in and is red brick with blue trim and geraniums on the balconies, The house on one end is falling off, all weathered wood and glass, just melting off the side. Another wonderful house is a Victorian-gothic-cottage with well worn turquoisy-blue trim. Looks like something out of a Baba Yaga fairy tale. It’s not a small house, but all the out-sized trim amd the ways the years and weather have shaped the walls, makes it look all little and squished up like a dwarf house.
I have been to the mountains twice with my Genja family, but we just roar through the village and on to our destination. I really hope to take some photos of those houses.
When we got to the mountain house, (it is someone’s abandoned project, huge, with an unfinished swimming pool in the basement), we had tea, naturally. The house is a white elephant, in this tiny village of about 15 old, crumbling houses. My family knows the owner and is just camping out basically in part of the house. They have made it pretty comfortable, by bringing a truckload of furniture from their house in the city. Since I was there the first time in mid-July, they constructed a tidy little out-house in the back yard. No running water, but a few light bulbs worth of electricity, and enough to run the electric kettle.
Then we took a bunch of group photos, which they were nice enough to include me in, and then we ate the food my host mother cooked back in Genja.
After dinner, the two sisters asked if I wanted to take a walk and to be sure and bring my camera, so out the big black gate we all went, One sister with her baby and stroller, and the other sister helping. Outside the gate, is a stream of women and children from the village, and like you always see in Azerbaycan, they are wearing everything from soft house slippers to heels to high-wedge shoes. We are all going to go on this nature walk together to the top of this high ridge above the village. And up we go, these three tiny, tiny boys, the size of a one-year-old in the states, but probably about two, climbing up the steep road, everyone shouting when a car approaches, Mashin, Mashin, One of the tiny boys was screaming with excitement when a tractor came by. He also wanted to hold onto the stroller with the baby in it and when he was very gently thwarted by his grandmother he threw himself in the road and started screaming. It reminded me very much of two dear little boys that I cared for.
Up the procession wound, off the road and up a grassy track onto the ridge. While we were climbing, the cow herds started coming down from the mountain pastures, (can’t you just see me in braids and a dirndl – I felt like I was in Heidi, or maybe part of the von Trapp family.) Off in the distance to the North was this craggy mountain peak, just coming out of the clouds lit by the setting sun colored lavender and pink. Sigh……….. Briinnggg…. the ring of a cell phone – got to go back, my host mother wants to get back home.
This may be my fault, because the Peace Corps doesn’t want us out in a car after dark, or they may not want to drive after dark themselves. It is REALLY SCARY.
About my city: It is the second biggest city in Azerbaijan and has about 200,000 people, so it is about the size of St. Petersburg (Florida, not Russia). It has a busy down-town with a big, magnificent municipal building, which looks very British/georgian/colonial style. There are tons of little markets, natch, and an old mosque. The mosque is being restored for use as a mosque. In Soviet Times it was used as a library. The mosque has a park, and right down the street from my work is a park. I have to tell you that every tree here is painted white on the bottom, about 3-4-four feet up. It does not add to the beauty. But I am kind of getting used to it. The park has some huge plane trees which are the trees of Genja. It also has three outdoor cafes with colored umbrellas and you can sit there and just order bottled water or even bring your own food. Parks here are different from parks at home, they have lots of paved walkways and there are there are curbs along the walkways, and inside the curbs are the areas where the grass (maybe) and trees are. Nobody ever walks or sits in these spaces. There are always benches on the walkway parts. The smaller parks have the look of an old-timey putt-putt golf course, that will give you an idea of the look and the layout. The curbs are usually painted a kind of faded red color and when you add the white tree trunks, it’s kind of a strange effect. Genja park are very clean, there are ladies who sweep the whole park in the morning, with these twig brooms, they are wearing these long, shapeless, print housedresses and scarves on their heads. And if they work for the city clean up crew, they have on bright yellow smock, lab-coat thingys with bright kelly green trim. These are the colors of Genja.
Across the street from the big park, is a children’s area with 50s era ancient kiddy carnival rides all painted red, blue and green and faded with the years. There is a bumper car ride that still works. It would make a fabulous movie set for a slasher film. You can buy cotton candy there, and they spin it on thin sticks of bamboo.
There is a favorite color here for the walls and houses, a soft, clayey/terracotta/pinky color, very close to the color of my old living room in my house, some of you will remember it. When I first got here I thought that some of the streets had gotten some kind of cheap paint deal, because whole blocks of walls and buildings were painted this color. But as I have gotten around town more, I see the color everywhere, it’s just a Genja color. Also, all the windows have bars on them, (some very beautiful and decorative) this is true all over the country. I keep asking people why, since there really doesn’t seem to be much crime. Apparently it is a remnant from the bad days after freedom from the Soviet Union, when gangs robbed and looted and people were afraid to leave their homes.
There is a big bazaar where they sell all the fruits, vegetables, nuts, bread, and mostly food stuff. There are other bazaar streets where they sell clothes, appliances, etc. You can buy just about anything you want here, but not a lot of Western-taste style things. Except I can buy Diet Coke, how good is that?
I still am amazed at the way people dress here, the young women are all very, very thin. I would say the average size is a 2. The words used to express beauty in young girls are gazelle, and deer. Here in the big city, they wear tight jeans or pants with spandex tight-fitted tops. Usually paired with very high heels. Or else they are wearing what looks like cocktail party attire, satin or chiffon swishy skirts with handkerchief hems and some completely unmatching top also with sparkles or lace or ribbon or some kind of ornamentation. Again with a very, very pointy high-heeled shoe, or wedge. I can’t figure out how they manage to walk. The interesting thing is that although the girls look all sexy, there is NO DATING or mingling with the opposite sex. It is all very Victorian, with marriages still pretty much arranged with the consent of the parents.
People don’t own very many clothes and when they leave the house, they usually wear their best clothes. Inside the home, people wear their house clothes, which are more casual.
Most of the older women wear the party-like swishy skirt variety of clothes out on the street and the shapeless mu-mu housedress at home.
I actually could fit in here, because my coloring and appearance is very similar to some of the people, but I bet you are laughing to think of me in a swishy skirt and high-heels. Ha! Not going to happen.
There are a lot of people here that look Iranian, with dark, amost Arabic features, but there are a few redheads and blondes and plenty of people who could be dropped onto a street anywhere in America and fit right in. I see people with dark blue eyes all the time, though my color green is somewhat unusual.
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