My new family has running water, no rodents, no crazy grandma, and has no plans to move to Baku. They are what we call in Azerbaijan “normal”. Just like all those other Azerbaijani words—noutbuk (laptop computer), biznes (business), kofe (coffee) and maşın (machine).
Of course, they are “Azerbaijani normal”, which means before I had been living in the home 24 hours, I knew (without asking) how much money they made, how much they spent on everything and got a rundown of their family background and history, including their medical history and issues with relatives and was asked all of these things about myself.
The home is on a wide major street and is an apartment on the second floor of a two-story building. It is considered to be a nice home on a nice street in a nice section of town. The apartment has a living room/dining room combination, a kitchen, shower/toilet room with a sink outside the door, two large bedrooms and a balcony. My family has a husband and wife, a 20-year-old son and a 16-year-old daughter.
The husband, who has a degree from the local scientific college, is an engineer, although I am not sure what he actually does at work. He works 7 days a week for about 12 hours a day. The wife is a third-grade teacher. Teachers work from about 8:00 to about noon. She then has students to tutor for about two hours in the afternoon and makes extra money doing this.
This family, like all the Azerbaijani families I have lived with, is very friendly, supportive and understanding. They take me with them if I want to go with them on errands, to visit relatives or just to the market. They guide me when I do something incorrect--like cross my legs on the bus--and try to understand when I don't follow their advice--like continue to go to internet cafes when most Azerbaijanis feel that only "bad women" go there.
My host brother is unemployed after having recently lost a job in which he drove a truck to local markets, selling them toiletry and soap products. He worked from about 9 a.m. to about 9 p.m. seven days a week. My host sister has finished high school and is in a special course to study for university entrance. Those who do well do not have to pay tuition.
Peace Corps volunteers, when speaking with each other about their families refer to our "mom, dad, sister and brother." So although I have been older than all my moms, I still call them that. My host father makes about 160 AZN a month, which is about $200. My host mother, between her teaching and her after-school students makes AZN140 a month, which is about $175. Out of the AZN300 they make, they spend AZN200 on their daughter’s prep course for university. This course is for 9 months.
They spend nothing to live in their home, as Azeris own their own homes—they were given homes by the government. Their utilities run about $40 per month—gas, electricity water and phone. Food and clothing is their only other expense. Food is about $25 a week and is very meager—today we have two loaves of bread to eat (about 50 cents each), some spongy potatoes, some small, old apples, a can of fat, a few carrots, some onions and a little pasta. As I previously mentioned, the markets are full of beautiful locally grown produce, but we don’t have any of it.
My host parents sleep in one of the bedrooms, my host brother sleeps on the couch (and always has) and I inhabit my host sister’s room, so she sleeps in her parents’ room.
Once we are in our permanent assignments for four months, we are able to renegotiate our contracts with our families. I have renegotiated mine so that beginning April 12, I can pay them for my room only and buy my own food. I will have about AZN3 a day, or $3.60 to buy food. I am really looking forward to this because I can eat adequately on this sum—goodbye to spongy potatoes and white bread.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Food in Azerbaijan
I love the food here. I feel the food is of a better quality, more types of food are available, and it is healthier. Besides the fact that almost all the food here is locally grown without pesticides, most Azerbaijanis are excellent cooks and enjoy cooking.
The market in my town is amazing. It covers about four square blocks with huge quantities of lush, beautiful produce. This time of year, there are mountains of shiny, plump tangerines from southern Azerbaijan, cartloads of apples from northern Azerbaijan, every kind of winter vegetable you can imagine, the most beautiful spinach I have ever seen, and loads of freshly cut herbs.
There are stalls of freshly made yogurt, homemade cheeses and sausages, dried and fresh spices. Beautiful dried apricots, figs and prunes are displayed. The food is organically produced, but is not professionally certified, so is not technically organic. The food is inexpensive and mostly does not come in packages. Do you want yogurt, milk or cottage cheese? Bring your own buckets. Do you want eggs laid yesterday? They will be put into a small plastic bag instead of a carton. Round loaves of bread are stacked without any covering. As a result, Azerbaijani families generate very little trash.
The recipes are mostly quite different from the foods we eat. One snack food is lavash that is sprinkled with goat cheese. Different green herbs are chopped up and sprinkled over the lavash. It is then rolled up and eaten. This is made and eaten at home. Delicious. Another is a huge pot of freshly made yogurt with a couple of eggs, stirred on the stove until it boils. Then chopped herbs are dropped in and it is served. They also make a great sauce for meat and vegetables by mincing garlic in yogurt and leaving it sit for a day or so.
But snacks are not what they are in US. Azeri people in my town eat at meals, not in between. They don’t have paper cups or plates or plasticware because they don’t eat away from home. They don’t eat on the bus, drink while walking down the street or stash food in their purse or pocket. They are not very interested in eating out as the food is the same at the restaurant as it is at home. But they like to entertain and have guests often.
Men shop for food at the markets as well as women and men and women seems to be equally represented in owning and operating market businesses.
One of the disappointing things is that quite a few Azeris don’t much like fruits and/or vegetables. Bread and potatoes are staples as are paint-can sized buckets of beef fat. A family can easily use up one of these cans in two weeks. And my families have not spent much on food, even though it is cheap, so I go weeks at a time with only apples for fruit. Apples are the cheapest fruit in the winter. Of course, it is not appropriate to demand different fruit, so I eat apples.
Why is there so much cheap food here? One answer is that the food can’t easily be exported, as the transportation system is so poor. Bad roads, poor railroad tracks and little mechanization result in an inability to move crops out of the country easily. In Soviet days, the transportation system was better, and many canning factories existed to process food for the entire Soviet bloc, creating many jobs, which no longer exist. (In fact there are abandoned factories of many types in several regions of of Azerbaijan, especially near Baku. Near our training village, there are long stretches of road with huge plants abandoned in 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed. It is eerie to see the deteriorating infrastructure of huge buildings, pipelines, railroad tracks and abandoned boxcars that were ready in 1991 to take the goods to market.)
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, crop production is down some 75 percent as irrigation systems and machinery that existed then are no longer available. Also, as the collective farms were split into small farms for families to run, the abilities of the families to manage their acreage and basic knowledge of how to farm varies widely. It is estimated that 20 to 40 percent of crops spoil in the fields for lack of a market or the ability to get it there.
My current host family makes different hot and cold soups, and has lots of bread and potatoes on hand. All of it is covered in fresh herbs. Despite the abundance of cheap food, many families have very little cash to spend. I will cover this topic and meat in future blogs.
Beginning in April, though, we will be able to renegotiate our agreements with our host families and just pay them for our room. This way, we can keep the food money, buy and cook food ourselves. I am looking forward to this arrangement, although my budget will still be limited.
The market in my town is amazing. It covers about four square blocks with huge quantities of lush, beautiful produce. This time of year, there are mountains of shiny, plump tangerines from southern Azerbaijan, cartloads of apples from northern Azerbaijan, every kind of winter vegetable you can imagine, the most beautiful spinach I have ever seen, and loads of freshly cut herbs.
There are stalls of freshly made yogurt, homemade cheeses and sausages, dried and fresh spices. Beautiful dried apricots, figs and prunes are displayed. The food is organically produced, but is not professionally certified, so is not technically organic. The food is inexpensive and mostly does not come in packages. Do you want yogurt, milk or cottage cheese? Bring your own buckets. Do you want eggs laid yesterday? They will be put into a small plastic bag instead of a carton. Round loaves of bread are stacked without any covering. As a result, Azerbaijani families generate very little trash.
The recipes are mostly quite different from the foods we eat. One snack food is lavash that is sprinkled with goat cheese. Different green herbs are chopped up and sprinkled over the lavash. It is then rolled up and eaten. This is made and eaten at home. Delicious. Another is a huge pot of freshly made yogurt with a couple of eggs, stirred on the stove until it boils. Then chopped herbs are dropped in and it is served. They also make a great sauce for meat and vegetables by mincing garlic in yogurt and leaving it sit for a day or so.
But snacks are not what they are in US. Azeri people in my town eat at meals, not in between. They don’t have paper cups or plates or plasticware because they don’t eat away from home. They don’t eat on the bus, drink while walking down the street or stash food in their purse or pocket. They are not very interested in eating out as the food is the same at the restaurant as it is at home. But they like to entertain and have guests often.
Men shop for food at the markets as well as women and men and women seems to be equally represented in owning and operating market businesses.
One of the disappointing things is that quite a few Azeris don’t much like fruits and/or vegetables. Bread and potatoes are staples as are paint-can sized buckets of beef fat. A family can easily use up one of these cans in two weeks. And my families have not spent much on food, even though it is cheap, so I go weeks at a time with only apples for fruit. Apples are the cheapest fruit in the winter. Of course, it is not appropriate to demand different fruit, so I eat apples.
Why is there so much cheap food here? One answer is that the food can’t easily be exported, as the transportation system is so poor. Bad roads, poor railroad tracks and little mechanization result in an inability to move crops out of the country easily. In Soviet days, the transportation system was better, and many canning factories existed to process food for the entire Soviet bloc, creating many jobs, which no longer exist. (In fact there are abandoned factories of many types in several regions of of Azerbaijan, especially near Baku. Near our training village, there are long stretches of road with huge plants abandoned in 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed. It is eerie to see the deteriorating infrastructure of huge buildings, pipelines, railroad tracks and abandoned boxcars that were ready in 1991 to take the goods to market.)
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, crop production is down some 75 percent as irrigation systems and machinery that existed then are no longer available. Also, as the collective farms were split into small farms for families to run, the abilities of the families to manage their acreage and basic knowledge of how to farm varies widely. It is estimated that 20 to 40 percent of crops spoil in the fields for lack of a market or the ability to get it there.
My current host family makes different hot and cold soups, and has lots of bread and potatoes on hand. All of it is covered in fresh herbs. Despite the abundance of cheap food, many families have very little cash to spend. I will cover this topic and meat in future blogs.
Beginning in April, though, we will be able to renegotiate our agreements with our host families and just pay them for our room. This way, we can keep the food money, buy and cook food ourselves. I am looking forward to this arrangement, although my budget will still be limited.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Nice New Family—and Rats?
My new family lived in what could be called a compound. There was a large gate off the street which opened into a courtyard. There were four buildings on the ground floor, all small and one-room—the first was a hamam, with a shower and hot water heater. The second, a toilet (squat) building, also with a water heater, which acted as a furnace for keeping the building warm in the winter. Another was a tailor shop, my new host mother’s business. The fourth was my room.
My room had a sofa which I used as a bed, a dresser, sink, table, chair and for heat, a gas stove plopped along one wall. The family instructed me to turn on one burner when I was cold. There was a window, but the room was dark and very damp. The family lived upstairs in a home that was balanced on top of my building and the tailor shop.
Besides my mother, a widow, the family also had a daughter-in-law, a 3-month-old baby and a son who worked in Baku, about 7 hours by bus, and tried to come home as often as he could. A bonus for me is that the family had a small terrier and four 4-week-old puppies, which lived in the warm hamam. I was to go upstairs for meals and for any other time that I wanted. The host mother was an excellent cook, the baby and puppies were adorable and the daughter-in-law friendly and nice.
The first night after dinner I went to my room to study and heard rustling after awhile. Shortly, a mouse emerged. I went upstairs and the family came downstairs, found a hole, patched it and we all went to bed. I slept all night.
The next night, I heard some loud scratching noises coming from the ceiling. I thought the dog had gotten into the house, and went back to sleep.
The third night I heard the same noises before bedtime and went out to look for the dog. She was outside my door. I was puzzled about the scratching, but went to bed. I was awaked at 3 a.m. by loud scratching in the ceiling coming from several parts of the ceiling. It persisted for several minutes and I could hear different sets of feet that sounded much too large to be mice.
I decided right then that I could not sleep in that room another night. I reached for my phone and began texting the Peace Corps and a friend to I hoped to stay with the next night. The noises became so loud that I felt I would not be able to have a conversation with someone without raising my voice. I use the “record” feature on my phone to record the sounds. In the morning, I wondered if I had been dreaming, but listened to the recording and began looking for another house.
My host family was sad, but understood that I was afraid of rodents. They offered to move the tailor shop into my room and convert the tailor shop into a new place for me. By this time I had found another family.
Monday, February 9, 2009
The Nana, Part 2
My Nana Part 2
We left my nana in an earlier post when she was pounding on the door of my room and screaming to be let in. After this incident, she would only speak to me when spoken to and did not look at me.
I was already set to leave this family and possibly return in two months. My nana’s daughter, in whose home we were living, had been unexpectedly asked by her employer to move to Baku for a couple of months. Everyone in the family was upset by this move, as the daughter has a side business which she would have to abandon while she lived in Baku. Also, they had committed to housing me through April so they were upset and embarrassed at having to ask me to leave.
I found a new home and my nana and her daughter had a relative take their baggage to Baku. Moving day came—I was getting ready to put my things into a taxi and they were taking a train to Baku the same evening. As I moved my things to the front door, I noticed my nana busily packing up some china, directing her daughter to pack food from the refrigerator in bags and putting pots and pans in boxes. She always kept her purse with her, although had left the house only a handful of times in the past year. She gets a small pension from the government and sends her grandson to the ATM for the payment each month.
I was puzzled about the packing and asked what they were doing with the boxes and bags. The daughter, who speaks English, explained that her mother was directing her to pack up the pots and china to give to me, as I might need them in my new home. Also, they were not sure my new family would have my favorite foods on hand, so my nana had sent my host mother to the market earlier to get them.
After I had thanked them and refused the pots and china, I took the food—I figured they could not take it to Baku. My nana still was not looking at me, but asked how much Peace Corps would pay for the taxi trip across town with my belongings. I told her that they would not reimburse me. She began speaking angrily in Russian and my host mother told me she was again denouncing the Peace Corps (she does not understand the concept of volunteerism and is angry because she knows I don’t get a salary. She spoke on the phone regularly with relatives about how terrible the Peace Corps is to ask me to work for no salary).
I said goodbye and gave her a note I had written to thank her for being part of my host family. When I got to the taxi three flights below, she had her head out the window and was yelling at the taxi driver in Russian, while waving her purse. As I watched, she yanked opened her purse, retrieved some bills and began tossing them out the window while she yelled at him.
I asked him what was going on and he said she wanted to pay for the taxi because the American government is terrible. I waved, yelled my thanks and went to my new home.
Friday, January 30, 2009
The Nana
I am sitting in my lovely room in the home of my host family. It is in a nice section of the downtown area of my city. I like my family. They are a mother in her '50's, her son, who is 21 and in the army and my host mother's mother, my nana, who is 84. However at this moment, my nana has gone wild. She is flinging herself against the locked door of my room while she screams at me in Azeri. (She can also scream in Russian).
I am worried, because my nana has bad eyes and high blood pressure. I don't want her to hurt herself.
It all started when I wanted to shower. In the winter, it is not at all certain that a shower is available. It depends on if the water pipes are frozen. I asked her if it was possible to take a shower. She took me to the bathroom and began pointing to all kinds of hardward and pipes and going into a long explanation, none of which I understood. I told her that it was fine if I could not shower, just let me know yes or no. She started over angrily with her unintelligible explanation. I asked the yes or no question again. Finally I said fine and told her I did not need a shower. She was still angry.
Then I began working on some flip charts for work. She did not like the room I was using. I moved to another room. She followed me to say it was too cold in that room and I should wear a sweater. I was already wearing two sweaters and told her so. I let her feel the sweaters in case she could not see them. She still insisted that I put on another sweater.
I picked up my flip charts and went into my room to work on them. When I heard her approaching, I locked the door and told her that I needed to work alone. That is when she went crazy. She soon gave up and muttered on the other side of the door. She then called her daughter to report on the locked room. She was told to leave me alone.
Normally, nana and I get along fine. She has two basic topics-- food and why I don't eat enough of it and the mothers-in-law of her grandchildren, who are apparently all terrible.
I will not remain with this family as the mother is being posted to Baku for two months and they are moving nana to another relatives home for the duration. They told me I am welcome to come back in April, but I wonder about enforcing boundaries with a determined Azerbaijani nana.
I am worried, because my nana has bad eyes and high blood pressure. I don't want her to hurt herself.
It all started when I wanted to shower. In the winter, it is not at all certain that a shower is available. It depends on if the water pipes are frozen. I asked her if it was possible to take a shower. She took me to the bathroom and began pointing to all kinds of hardward and pipes and going into a long explanation, none of which I understood. I told her that it was fine if I could not shower, just let me know yes or no. She started over angrily with her unintelligible explanation. I asked the yes or no question again. Finally I said fine and told her I did not need a shower. She was still angry.
Then I began working on some flip charts for work. She did not like the room I was using. I moved to another room. She followed me to say it was too cold in that room and I should wear a sweater. I was already wearing two sweaters and told her so. I let her feel the sweaters in case she could not see them. She still insisted that I put on another sweater.
I picked up my flip charts and went into my room to work on them. When I heard her approaching, I locked the door and told her that I needed to work alone. That is when she went crazy. She soon gave up and muttered on the other side of the door. She then called her daughter to report on the locked room. She was told to leave me alone.
Normally, nana and I get along fine. She has two basic topics-- food and why I don't eat enough of it and the mothers-in-law of her grandchildren, who are apparently all terrible.
I will not remain with this family as the mother is being posted to Baku for two months and they are moving nana to another relatives home for the duration. They told me I am welcome to come back in April, but I wonder about enforcing boundaries with a determined Azerbaijani nana.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Duh
The Language
Azeris speak Azerbaijani, a language that is mostly just spoken in Azerbaijan. It is similar to Turkish and I am told the Azeris can be understood by Turkish speakers. Most Azeris speak Azerbaijani, but not all can write it well as they may have studied Russian in school. Most Azerbaijani people speak Russian also as most study it in school.
To prepare us for our two years of serving the Azerbaijani people, we had language instruction 5-6 days a week for about 10 weeks and continue with our language study at site if we choose to. The training classes were wonderful, with great teachers and a lot of practice and different methods of teaching. My perception was that I would be speaking Azeri fairly fluently and understanding what people say to me. My perception was based on the fact that the instruction we received was good and totaled almost 450 hours, that I studied on my own every day and since arriving here 3 weeks ago have studied about 70 hours so far, some of it with a teacher who had taught Azeri to Peace Corps workers.
How wrong I was. Some of it, I am convinced, is that I apparently don't have a facility for languages and the other is that it is difficult to get to the place where one is fairly fluent and even harder to know what people are saying.
The Azeri language is different from English in that the words appear in a different order in a sentence. The verb is always last. Also, the words have endings on them that indicate possession and tense. So for example the sentence
I went to the store with my brother reads:
I store to my brother with went.
On the end of "brother" is an added ending that varies with the sentence. Some sentences will have words with up to three added endings, which are basically like conjugating a verb with each sentence. We don't use these endings in English, some of which indicate punctuation.
So sister is baci, but my sister is bacim, your sister is bacisi, my sister's is bacisinin. So if you forget the endings or mix them up, you sound really bad or confusing, especially if there are several words with different endings in the sentence.
I make regular mistakes like saying "I ate vegetables tomorrow" or "you went to the store" when I meant that I went. I also make serious mistakes like when I recounted a story about the US in which I was trying to say that I fed the puppy. What I really said was that I ate the puppy. My friend then asked me if I only recently became a vegetarian and was kind enough to explain what I said to her!
Also, I practice hundreds of words every few days that I have never used yet. I would hate to not be able to say a body part--like arm--if I needed to or a color--brown. But in my rudimentary conversations I don't use any of these words nor do I recognize if anyone is saying them to me. I find that my memory is a hindrance as it takes me a long time to remember and use a new word. Sometimes I start a sentence and forget the last part.
A typical conversation is that I say something that I have composed in my head and if possible checked a reference--like "I am not able to print this document." The answer I get is something that I don't recognize or understand. So my co-workers have learned that I can say one sentence to them, (usually a question) but they will have to find some other way to get the answer to me.
Some Peace Corps volunteers never learn to speak more than a rudimentary version of Azeri to get them through basic situations. They work with an English speaking counterpart or are just creative in the ways the express themselves. I am determined to speak the language at a higher level and study in different ways every day to accomplish it. However, the results are currently negligible.
I have gradually stepped up my studying as I realize I am not improving quickly. I also recruit local students who want to improve their English. I meet with them for an hour--for 30 minutes we speak Azeri, 30 minutes English. I talk with my family, study the PC materials, have two two-hour lessons a week, do the homework my teacher assigns and read on my own. I study an average of four hours a day, some of it at work.
Azeris speak Azerbaijani, a language that is mostly just spoken in Azerbaijan. It is similar to Turkish and I am told the Azeris can be understood by Turkish speakers. Most Azeris speak Azerbaijani, but not all can write it well as they may have studied Russian in school. Most Azerbaijani people speak Russian also as most study it in school.
To prepare us for our two years of serving the Azerbaijani people, we had language instruction 5-6 days a week for about 10 weeks and continue with our language study at site if we choose to. The training classes were wonderful, with great teachers and a lot of practice and different methods of teaching. My perception was that I would be speaking Azeri fairly fluently and understanding what people say to me. My perception was based on the fact that the instruction we received was good and totaled almost 450 hours, that I studied on my own every day and since arriving here 3 weeks ago have studied about 70 hours so far, some of it with a teacher who had taught Azeri to Peace Corps workers.
How wrong I was. Some of it, I am convinced, is that I apparently don't have a facility for languages and the other is that it is difficult to get to the place where one is fairly fluent and even harder to know what people are saying.
The Azeri language is different from English in that the words appear in a different order in a sentence. The verb is always last. Also, the words have endings on them that indicate possession and tense. So for example the sentence
I went to the store with my brother reads:
I store to my brother with went.
On the end of "brother" is an added ending that varies with the sentence. Some sentences will have words with up to three added endings, which are basically like conjugating a verb with each sentence. We don't use these endings in English, some of which indicate punctuation.
So sister is baci, but my sister is bacim, your sister is bacisi, my sister's is bacisinin. So if you forget the endings or mix them up, you sound really bad or confusing, especially if there are several words with different endings in the sentence.
I make regular mistakes like saying "I ate vegetables tomorrow" or "you went to the store" when I meant that I went. I also make serious mistakes like when I recounted a story about the US in which I was trying to say that I fed the puppy. What I really said was that I ate the puppy. My friend then asked me if I only recently became a vegetarian and was kind enough to explain what I said to her!
Also, I practice hundreds of words every few days that I have never used yet. I would hate to not be able to say a body part--like arm--if I needed to or a color--brown. But in my rudimentary conversations I don't use any of these words nor do I recognize if anyone is saying them to me. I find that my memory is a hindrance as it takes me a long time to remember and use a new word. Sometimes I start a sentence and forget the last part.
A typical conversation is that I say something that I have composed in my head and if possible checked a reference--like "I am not able to print this document." The answer I get is something that I don't recognize or understand. So my co-workers have learned that I can say one sentence to them, (usually a question) but they will have to find some other way to get the answer to me.
Some Peace Corps volunteers never learn to speak more than a rudimentary version of Azeri to get them through basic situations. They work with an English speaking counterpart or are just creative in the ways the express themselves. I am determined to speak the language at a higher level and study in different ways every day to accomplish it. However, the results are currently negligible.
I have gradually stepped up my studying as I realize I am not improving quickly. I also recruit local students who want to improve their English. I meet with them for an hour--for 30 minutes we speak Azeri, 30 minutes English. I talk with my family, study the PC materials, have two two-hour lessons a week, do the homework my teacher assigns and read on my own. I study an average of four hours a day, some of it at work.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Questions
Everyone is curious about what Azeri people are really like. If someone asked me what Americans are like, I would say they are all different. But we do have some things that are true for many of us. Some of these things are that we like to dress casually when we are away from work, it is acceptable to eat and drink in our cars, many people outside of urban centers have cars, married couples tend not to live with other relatives, we have many different religions.
So I will tell you a few things that are true for many Azeris, but not all. I have found these things true in the three large cities I have visited and lived in. My Azeri friends say they are true for many Azeris.
To Azeri people, there is apparently no nosy question. Age, marital status, income, how much any article you own cost to buy, why you do or do not have children, what is the reason for marital discord of anyone in your family--all of this seems to be in the public domain in Azerbaijan. At first, I thought they were just curious about Americans--but Azeris ask each other these questions too and expect answers. I am frequently asked if my teeth are real. A friend is asked if she is concerned about her weight.
When I show pictures of my children, they want to know how much Dave's salary is in the miltary, when he will marry, if he would marry an Azeri woman, how much his apartment costs per month and how much money he has saved.
For Kelly, they want to know why she is not married, how much her school costs, will she consider marrying an Azeri man, if she would marry their son, where does she live and why would I allow her to live there.
They ask in a friendly way and then everyone marvels at the answer and tells me all their personal business and that of their family. Most of it I don't understand, but I see patterns of mothers-in-law interfering in marriages, problems when men go to Russia to find employment (one statistic is that one in eight Azeri families has a breadwinner in Russia due to the shortage of jobs here), problems in finding a suitable marital partner for their children (the family assists in finding a proper partner) and pride in the educational accomplishments of their family members.
Young Azeris are rarely overweight. They tend to be quite slender. Women tend to put on weight as they age and men do too, although not as much. They rarely play sports, but eat smaller portions of food, do not usually eat between meals, drink a lot of tea and do not walk around drinking and eating things, nor do they snack on buses or in cars. It seems to me that drinking soda and fruit drinks instead of water is a big source of calories for Americans. Since Azeris drink tea, which has no calories and drink much less soda and calorie laden drinks than we do, they probably consume many fewer calories than we do in drinks. While they eat cheese and meat, the amount is much less than Americans eat.
Many Azeris speak Russian. It is taught in school as a track. In many Azeri schools, parents can choose for their children to study Azeri, Russian or English. Many parents choose Russian and the great majority of Azeris are bilingual in at least one other language. Many parents prrefer their children to learn Russian since it is likely to be used and understood by other Azeris and in case they would want to work there.
Most Azeris do not read for pleasure. As there are only 8 million people in the country, relatively few books are published in the Azeri language. Russian books exist, but books are considered expensive. Newspapers exist at a few newstands, but I have never seen an Azeri home with a newspaper inside and have never seen a Azeri person actually reading a newspaper. The habit of reading outside of school seems to be missing here. It may be different with wealthier Azeris, but I have not met any of them.
I was looking for a few books for young children so I could read them as part of my language training, but did not find any. I met a woman who is the head of the languages department at a university in my city. I asked her if there was a public library. She said she thought there was one, but she was not sure where it was located.
Overall, Azeri people I have met are very friendly and kind with good hearts. They share whatever they have with me and assume the best.
So I will tell you a few things that are true for many Azeris, but not all. I have found these things true in the three large cities I have visited and lived in. My Azeri friends say they are true for many Azeris.
To Azeri people, there is apparently no nosy question. Age, marital status, income, how much any article you own cost to buy, why you do or do not have children, what is the reason for marital discord of anyone in your family--all of this seems to be in the public domain in Azerbaijan. At first, I thought they were just curious about Americans--but Azeris ask each other these questions too and expect answers. I am frequently asked if my teeth are real. A friend is asked if she is concerned about her weight.
When I show pictures of my children, they want to know how much Dave's salary is in the miltary, when he will marry, if he would marry an Azeri woman, how much his apartment costs per month and how much money he has saved.
For Kelly, they want to know why she is not married, how much her school costs, will she consider marrying an Azeri man, if she would marry their son, where does she live and why would I allow her to live there.
They ask in a friendly way and then everyone marvels at the answer and tells me all their personal business and that of their family. Most of it I don't understand, but I see patterns of mothers-in-law interfering in marriages, problems when men go to Russia to find employment (one statistic is that one in eight Azeri families has a breadwinner in Russia due to the shortage of jobs here), problems in finding a suitable marital partner for their children (the family assists in finding a proper partner) and pride in the educational accomplishments of their family members.
Young Azeris are rarely overweight. They tend to be quite slender. Women tend to put on weight as they age and men do too, although not as much. They rarely play sports, but eat smaller portions of food, do not usually eat between meals, drink a lot of tea and do not walk around drinking and eating things, nor do they snack on buses or in cars. It seems to me that drinking soda and fruit drinks instead of water is a big source of calories for Americans. Since Azeris drink tea, which has no calories and drink much less soda and calorie laden drinks than we do, they probably consume many fewer calories than we do in drinks. While they eat cheese and meat, the amount is much less than Americans eat.
Many Azeris speak Russian. It is taught in school as a track. In many Azeri schools, parents can choose for their children to study Azeri, Russian or English. Many parents choose Russian and the great majority of Azeris are bilingual in at least one other language. Many parents prrefer their children to learn Russian since it is likely to be used and understood by other Azeris and in case they would want to work there.
Most Azeris do not read for pleasure. As there are only 8 million people in the country, relatively few books are published in the Azeri language. Russian books exist, but books are considered expensive. Newspapers exist at a few newstands, but I have never seen an Azeri home with a newspaper inside and have never seen a Azeri person actually reading a newspaper. The habit of reading outside of school seems to be missing here. It may be different with wealthier Azeris, but I have not met any of them.
I was looking for a few books for young children so I could read them as part of my language training, but did not find any. I met a woman who is the head of the languages department at a university in my city. I asked her if there was a public library. She said she thought there was one, but she was not sure where it was located.
Overall, Azeri people I have met are very friendly and kind with good hearts. They share whatever they have with me and assume the best.
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