Jack and His Hammer

I don't know if someone screwed up during construction or if the next door neighbor just wants a moat around his house, but he has hired a couple of guys in suits to create a two foot wide trench around the very wide perimeter of his very large house. They are creating it with a jack hammer. They are jack hammering every morning beginning promptly at nine, seven days a week, no exceptions. Seven days a week includes Saturday and Sunday even here in Baku (which may be normal workdays for all I know) BUT I think every noise disturbed citizen deserves a couple of days relief every week, no? They can give me Monday and Tuesday, fine with me.

And because I promised in my last post....

We had to pay a dollar for the privilege of seeing what was under the blanket.

The Road to Qebela

The original plan was to drive up to Quba last month but my severe little case of Baku Belly put the kibosh on that idea. We decided to go once I had recovered but then Ali found out that a good stretch of the Quba road is down to one lane so he came up with an alternative. We'd go to Qebela which is on the west side of mountains, where Quba is on the east. He assured us it was a very beautiful place, lots of green, lots of fresh air and lots of sunshine.....he didn't mention the lots of mother's brother's children part till we got there. Nope, nothing about the cousins.

We got up early and left at 7:30 AM. I don't think I've seen Baku from the early bird's perspective before and there were definitely fewer cars on the streets which might be worth getting up for if there actually was someplace to go before 10:00 o'clock. This is not a divided highway. This is a pretty typical arrangement of the vehicles on the road out of Baku, except closer to the city there are a lot more cars.....some of which want to drive on your side of the road....facing you.



Love the open back trucks full of bricks. Makes those uphill climbs through the mountains WAY more interesting! We only had about 5 close calls.....each way. About one per hour of road time, not too bad. The terrain around Baku allows for a lot of visibility....couple that with a 3.8 liter engine Pajero (gas is still very cheap in Azerbaijan) and you've got the makings of a nice fairly safe ride. Once you get used to it.

Carolyn didn't get used to the skinning of sheep on the side of the road, though I was doing okay with that aspect of our trip by the second or third one. This is a little less graphic than most......but you get the idea.



I think I saw more sheep on the hoof and on the hook than I have ever seen in my life. My main goal that day, however, was to avoid getting any on my lunch plate.....no matter how good someone swore the kebabs tasted.

The distance from Baku to Qebela is 200 kilometers. A trip like that should take about two and a half hours, but since the road is a teeny tiny thing full of humps, bumps and switchbacks......


.......not to mention various and sundry forms of domestic wildlife, it took us five hours.


We made a few pit stops along the way, the first one for breakfast at this place that looked like a picnic park but was really a restaurant.


You just park by your table, a few guys come over, talk to you in a foreign language but get the idea that since this is a restaurant, you want something to eat. They bring you a nice table cloth, some cutlery and dishes, and a pot of tea with lemon. Pretty soon some fried eggs show up in a cast iron pan, as do warm loves of bread.....you've got breakfast. They keep the warm bread coming which is one of the very best things about Azerbaijan.....warm, stone-baked-over-a-wood-fire, bread. When you get up to go they come and tell you how much, you pass them a few bills, and you're done. It was actually quite lovely and the smell of the meat cooking on their big barbecues was amazing...though I knew damn well it was a sheep who had gotten up that morning thinking about nothing more than a little grazing time on the hillside...but such is life in the mutton belt. Ali judges the quality of a restaurant by how many sheep they slaughter, on premises, in the morning. I guess the more sheep, the more popular the place. Simple math.

Somewhere along the way, I'm not sure how far up the road we were but it couldn't have been more than an hour out of Baku, Ali pulled the car over to the side of the road and jumped out. He said he'd explain when he got back. We were sitting next to a green building with a garden and there were other cars parked along the road with us. In the garden there were families taking photos and people seemed to be quite dressed up. Carolyn and I looked at each other in total bewilderment...."Why are we stopping?" We looked at John, from whom we expect an answer....he shrugged. When Ali returned he didn't exactly fess up the reason for the sudden stop until I pressed him for an answer. Apparently, this was the house of a relative of Mohamed and he stopped there to pray. I guess those wrong side of the road drivers are even more scary from the front seat.

I took these photos along the way. It was hard to believe the transition from arid steppe - practically desert - into beautiful lush, green mountain sides. Things were growing! Lots of things. See the little tiny sheep way over yonder?



This is a winery but I think a little vodka first, before the passing of the corkscrew, might improve the vintage. Of course, alcohol would kill anything.....and I'll call this a vintage winery. Go look for it at Kroger's.


Can't fault the scenery, though.





Sometimes it's hard to imagine that there are still large areas of this world mostly undiscovered. The tourist traffic is very light over here, though I think there is a move on to change all that. Resorts are being built. I'm glad I've been able to see these places as the really are......in a real people living their lives kind of way. The other day Carolyn said it was a privilege to see these things before the commercialism hits and it changes forever. Well......I'm going to confess to wishing there were enough tourists and sufficient commercial demand to create a need for toilets with bowls and seats. Those would be nice despite the fact that I now know exactly what the liquid capacity, and the relative strength of my bladder is.

Knowing that I wasn't going to find a regular, or as Ali says "normal," toilet anywhere outside of Baku, I kept a close eye on the fluid intake once I'd left the comforts of home. Not having a Tim's or a Starbucks along the way helps but having tea with relatives doesn't. This is the sign that announces you've made it to the Qebela Region.


There is a sign for juice a few hundred meters beyond it. That pomegranate juice pictured on the right? I highly recommend it, next time you're in the neighborhood.


There was no sign of the relatives until we stopped at a construction site along the highway. Since there is no word for cousin.....we met Ali's mother's brother's son. He owns a restaurant. (I wish I had a picture.) In the spirit of Azeri hospitality, he wanted us to come to his restaurant but since we had only eaten an hour and a half before, and we could sense that we would soon make it to the town of Qebela we begged off. Well, we actually made our apologies to Ali, who we assumed made our apologies to his mother's brother's son. After the exchange of few pleasantries and handshakes we were all off in our respective vehicles. In a few minutes, it became apparent that we were following Ali's mother's brother's son's red Lada. I quietly tapped John on the shoulder, flicked him a quizzical eyebrow, at the same time responding to Carolyn's quizzical eyebrow with a shrug.

I think you have to get used to the not knowing. Turned out that plans had been made for us to detour to Ali's mother's brother's son's village which was just a short way from Qebela. There would be a very nice river there and good places to take pictures. Sounded good. Before we left the main road, however, the red Lada pulled over and we pulled in behind it. More quizzical eyebrows are passed around the backseat while Ali got out and conversed with the son of his mother's brother. The plans had changed and we were getting a rain check, the MBS couldn't make it after all, he had something to do......but son of mother's brother's son (who was driving the red Lada) would lead us to the village. We followed him down a tiny dirt road spotted with chickens, littered with goats, and owned by a herd of cows. I'm thinking this is going to be a very cool village.

I was a little perplexed when the red Lada pulled up to a large pair of solid steel gates and we pulled up behind him. There was a bend in the road just beyond the driveway with the solid steel gates and the son of the son pointed, out the window of his car, in that general direction. I assumed that meant the village was that-a way....and he was done with us and going home for his lunch. But no, we drove inside the gates and Ali explained that this was the village of his relatives. There were a few houses surrounded by walls and connected with gates between them. Carolyn gave me the "what are we doing here?" look, John was totally enjoying himself and I flipped through the latest edition of "Go with the Flow for Dummies". I noticed there was a turkey tied by his leg to a tree. There was a barn with a real live hayloft....


and something I had read about and heard about in fairy tales, but never seen in real life.....a haystack.


And then I saw the outhouse....


"Go with the Flow for Dummies" had no reference on what to do when faced with a hole in the ground outdoor facility. I had to revert to Plan A which was curtail all fluids. This, at the same time a table was being moved out of the house to a nice shady spot under the trees. I knew in my bladder of bladders.....er.....heart of hearts that this meant tea. It would be a great insult to refuse, an embarrassment to Ali ,and a dishonor to his family. We had tea....and fruit....and cakes....and cheeses.....and cookies.....and jam.....and juices....and Coke & Sprite. Yep, Coke & Sprite. All set under a big old tree in the yard with the turkey kept at bay by the rope on his leg. The table was set with a white lace cloth and the cups were made of fine porcelain.

Other relatives came out of their houses to meet us. A small group of grandsons peeked at us from a distance but scampered off giggling when we spoke to them. We met several women who magically appeared out of nowhere. (I think a cell phone alert had gone out.) None of them came out to join us for tea but I think the presence of so many hands was the reason it was set up in minutes. I don't THINK they were expecting us....but maybe they were.

Ali, John, Carolyn and I sat down to the table and our afternoon feast. We weren't there long when Ali's mother's brother's son showed up after all. He was the only member of the family to sit with us for tea. I think he is the head of the household village. I managed to sip on a cup of tea, eat a few cakes for absorption purposes, and after a little bit of group picture taking we were on our way. Following the red Lada.....to the river. This is the river.....

The rivers in the mountains in Azerbaijan only fill with water when the spring run off fills them. During other months they are rocky bedded streams. It took us another half an hour of driving to get to the river.....that was supposed to be just around the bend. On the way we passed shepherds dressed in the traditional shepherd's costume......the suit.


And since a whole half hour had passed since we had anything to eat or drink, it was decided that we needed to have something more. The river destination was the restaurant of mother's brother's son but I knew I couldn't even have so much as another spot of tea, and I was wondering why we had up and changed venues......except for the fact that the view was downright amazing. But tea is liquid, and should not be consumed in mass quantities on road trips.....especially within earshot of a waterfall. That much was in "Go with the Flow for Dummies." It was in the Chapter "When You Really Have No Way to Deal with the Flow." I got out of there without having anymore tea. But it sure is hard to just say, "No."

When we finally get back on the main road, and I think we are just about to finally get to Qebela, I find out that we had passed through Qebela before we stopped at the "village." I remembered a market, and some mini-marts but I didn't exactly see anything historic....but so be it. I was pushing the limit and still had five hours drive to go. We turned around and headed back to Baku, making only one major stop on the way.

I wanted to buy fruit and in doing so met three of the most charming women ever.


I've never had as much fun buying produce as I had that day. They sell fruits and nuts and homemade preserves, and their fingers and hands are stained black from the dye in the nutshells they have been handling all of their lives. The woman on the left offered me berries from the bag and, not knowing what they were or why her hands were as black as coal, I didn't want to take any. She kept trying and Ali kept trying to encourage me saying, "gift." And then it hit her.....I wouldn't take the berries because I thought her hands were dirty. She wiped them on her skirt and her sweater to demonstrate that they were clean, and Ali explained to me about the dye from the nuts. Ya learn something new everyday they say. That day I learned that my smiley little poker face isn't as good as I thought it was.

We bought some nuts and tomatoes and apricots. I took lots of pictures. Carolyn being younger and braver tried all of the samples offered.


I have no idea what half of this stuff is.


Sometime in the early evening we made it back home safe and sound. I did a fair bit of complaining about the suspension in the Pajero both up and back. I think every bone in my body was rearranged and during the 12 hours we were gone. But "Go with the Flow" says to take that experience and translate it into a lucrative bull riding career. There are things out there with a less comfortable ride I'm sure.


And they come with a driver, too.


Love the suit.

Gazebo Master

I wonder if Azerbaijan has any military jets. I sure hope so because a half dozen or so flew over the house the other day in formation, did a big loop out over downtown then came back over the house again. If there aren't any military jets in the heavy artillery bag, then I'm curious who was dropping by for a look see. I'd bet, whoever it was has heard about this.



It isn't a base or a barracks, despite its size. It's just a gazebo....well, not JUST a gazebo. It's more like the granddaddy of all covered outdoor spaces. I might have to rename it a band shell. Ali tells me that you can cruise along the boulevard in the evening and hire musicians to play at your parties right on the spot. They'll climb into your car, and go right on home with you for a pre-negotiated price. If Ali is smart he'll take John and cruise the boulevard on my birthday. I think a little quartet action in honor of turning...um....yeah....that old......would complement those roses very nicely. Did I ever mention that the number of flowers in bouquets have to be odd for happy occasions and an even number is for sad ones? John learned that little tidbit when he bought Aynur some roses on the Azeri equivalent of Secretary's Day. Ali gave him a heads up and so he had to go in and slip one out of the bouquet on her desk while she went to search the office for a vase.

So, about the gazebo.....a perfect example of be careful what you wish for. The neighbors in the twin house have one, the twin house being the identical but mirror image house that faces us....we have the same landlord. I saw their gazebo when we looked at this place back in October, and asked if we could have one, too. The landlord agreed but when John moved in here in December, only the stone foundation was in place. The landlord explained that it was too cold at the time to send master to build our gazebo. He would do it in the spring. Fair enough, no need for a gazebo in January or February anyway. Gazebo master turned up in early April and so began the framing of my summer palace, the place I would barbecue week-long wine marinated, mallet-pounded, flat slabs of cow before it got too hot to be outside without air conditioning. The place where we could wile away summer evenings before my next trip back to Nova Scotia where the black flies make it impossible to sit outside after sundown.



Well, now it's almost June and the promised completion date of April 30th has come and gone. It's a good thing I didn't start any cow slabs soaking in anticipation. Master's been building this thing alone and by hand. He has notched each piece of lumber with his little hatchet. He's got his table saw set up in the vacant lot next door. He doesn't have a plug on the end of his table saw cord, so he's stripped the insulation off its end to expose the bare wires which he sticks into a socket in my little mechanical house.....which is close to the main electrical panel and the main gas line. He's afraid of my dog....way more than he is of the building inspector. Oh...wait....I don't think there is a building inspector. Duh!

This isn't the dog he's that he worries about. This is the poor mangy cur from a few blogs back. Her pups are gone...somewhere.....and she's now living alone in the vacant lot among the building materials and construction debris. I call this picture "Her Master's Voice."



I'm getting pretty weary of living in a construction zone. Master's been showing up here and there, doing a little work, then disappearing for a few days. He leaves his tools and debris all over the side yard of the house. John hammers the big spiky nails out of the boards he leaves laying around on the grass. This whole gazebo thing is getting old and I wish I had never asked for it in the first place. Maybe gazebo master is just like our contractor for the basement renovation in Newfoundland and has three other jobs on the go in addition to ours. John's theory is that he isn't getting paid. When he gets paid, he shows up. When he doesn't, he stays home. I know I have seen him padding about the neighborhood in his construction slippers every now and again, and wondered why he wasn't over at my place pounding some boards. I'm beginning to think John is right and it's time to go after the landlord to get this thing finished. I think he is expecting the next six months rent at the end of the week. I'd call that decent leverage. Whatever the reason he hasn't finished this thing yet, it just goes to show you that getting a construction job done even close to on time is universal...one of the commonalities of all mankind. There should be some basis for world peace there. Someone just has to think up the right angle.

And speaking of universal, while I was sitting here yesterday contemplating the fact that I grew up believing mig jets flying overhead were a very bad "duck & cover" kind of thing, I heard chanting coming from outside my window. Lots of chanting that began to get louder and closer. I got up and looked out the window in time to see a funeral procession making its way down my dusty little road on foot. At the beginning were the pall bearers carrying a pallet on their shoulders. A body on the pallet was wrapped in a gold colored tapestry shroud. I called Carolyn to come see and we stood back from the window, out of sight, and watched....about two hundred men, but not one woman, make their way past our house. Carolyn asked me does who shows up if a woman dies? I didn't have the answer to that one.

Finland Finland Finland

That's the country for me.....How strange, that when the kid and I got to the Air Canada check-in counter to drop off our bags there were 3 strapping guys in light blue and white hockey jerseys ahead of us in line....and when they turned around, emblazoned across each of their chests was "Finland." Doesn't matter if they were in Halifax for the international hockey championship. It made me kind of nostalgic for New York City, the end of Clay's run in Spamalot, and well, I just wanted to break out in some sort of fish schlapping song. The kid said she'd harmonize as long as I didn't actually schlap her with a fish (as if I would ever schlap her in the first place). What an auspicious start for the trip back here to Baku. That was on the night of the 12th, about 9:30. At 2:00 AM on the 14th we landed in Baku along with a plane load of people from Scotland returning for their rotations. Not a Fin in sight.

John and Ali were waiting for us to get through the immigration lines....Ali with the usual bottles of water in to give us as we came through the sliding glass doors. He is the coolest of dudes, seriously! I'm glad I went hunting for those Cadbury Mini-Eggs he likes so much when I got home. They weren't easy to find, a week past Easter, but eventually some turned up at Joe's Corner Store on Main Avenue.

I've been back for 2 weeks, and I'm rethinking what I was previously thinking about 6 weeks being too much time to be away. Maybe 6 weeks isn't so long after all. But....I have to add a proviso....a good dose of Baku Belly can make anyone want to run for the hills (as well as the bathroom). I swear from now on I am only eating local food. Something gets lost in translation when local meets western. Going back over what I ate in the last few days, there was only one difference in what I had and the rest of the family didn't....I knew I should have gotten the double cheeseburger like everyone else.....but no.....I had to have that other murderous thing. Luckily there were 3 Cipro left in the bottle and when that last one is gone at 3PM this afternoon, someone is going to have to make a trip down to the SOS clinic to reload. Must always have Cipro in the cupboard.

Speaking of local food, the whole gang from the office had dinner, last Sunday, at an Azeri restaurant where we had a choice of dining in an outside hut, an inside hut, or in the grand hall. We started in an outside hut but figured it would later get too cold and moved inside to the Grand Hall. Inside, there would be live entertainment and dancing beginning at 8:00. The food was delicious and the service incredible.....and hilarious....at the same time. The food was presented in serving dishes on the table, just like a big family dinner back home, but picking up the dishes to serve yourself is a no-no. Just so much as reach for a dish and a waiter magically appears gently removes it from your hand and spoons what you want onto your plate. The same goes for the drinks. There was an assortment of juices and water laid out at one end of the table and the waiters were continually topping us up.....even with the Miller Genuine Draft. I have no idea what most of what was in these little serving dishes but it tasted fresh and pretty darn good.

It was a very fancy place that also caters to weddings. The kid is still trying to figure out the logistics of a wedding dress and this.....


Yes, that's a squat toilet. I somehow think pants and the squat toilet might be tougher, especially without practice. The kid figured it out when she just couldn't hold it anymore thanks to the non-stop flow of the MGD. I totally stopped the beer when this situation was first reported. But I have been wondering, ever since, if bathroom duty falls to the maid of honor or the mother of the bride.

Homework Avoidance Issues

I'm halfway through my last bag of Latvian Ketchup Chips. I saw them at Ramstore this morning and again at New World Supermarket and I didn't buy one bag!......Only because I'm going home in two days and no one else will eat them but me. I wasn't going to open this last bag, either, thinking that if I ate them all I'd never get my shoes back on after consuming all this salt and flying for 6 hours. But the hell with it, I'm living dangerously today. Tomorrow I can live bloated and drink lots of water.



New World Supermarket had been closed but has now reopened all fixed up and remodeled. I think I am going to like that store, it has fairly reasonable prices and Aunt Jemimah Just-Add-Water Pancake Mix. They also had Betty Crocker Cake Mixes for 2.40 manat, which is way better than the 6.00 manat I saw the last place I went. I haven't exactly bought a cake mix in about 5 years it's comforting to know they're out there.

I came across an English weekly newspaper the other day which had an article on the traditions of Novruz. What I found really interesting is how similar traditions can an be across cultures and religions. It also enlightened me about some things that seemed just plain odd around the neighborhood. First of all I couldn't figure out why people were tending the gardens of the houses that are unoccupied on the street.....unoccupied meaning a cinder block skeleton still under construction. For a lot of them, there hasn't been any building activity going on at all but last week people were out working on the yards. Cleaning up the gardens to be, turning the soil around trees and generally sprucing up their construction sites. There is a house across the street that has a large lot attached to its side full of sapling trees. Two men spent the week there, in that dust patch, primping those leafless trees.

I figured they should probably work on the house instead.

Anyway, I learned that Novruz is the New Year celebration and it's full name is Novruz Bayram. And like I said before, almost everyone is off work for eight days. It signals the end of winter and the beginning of spring and the symbolic beginning of a new clean life. The first order of business to get that new clean life is a top to bottom scouring of one's house. Old and useless things are discarded.....the article qualifies that husbands are kept. Once everything is perfectly clean, then the other preparations for the holiday can begin. The cleaning carries out into yards which must have all debris, including dead leaves from trees removed and burned. It was an amazing thing to see the concentrated effort on city boulevards and in front of office buildings.....there seemed to be this real sense of purpose I had never seen displayed by the gardeners on the boulevards of Katy, Texas. They were gardening well into the night and they were planting flowers and raking with the same kind of fervor one sees at the mall on December 23rd.

John and I decided to get in on the home improvement thing, bought a pair of weed diggers and set to work on some of the gnarly bits growing up in the courtyard grass. John kept reminding me that the landlord was responsible for the yard work but it didn't seem right somehow that the whole city was up to its elbows in horticulture and we were sitting around doing nothing but watching our weeds grow. As a reward for at least taking a stab at it we found that one of the cedars was full of lady bugs.....hundreds of lady bugs.



The preparations for the holiday begin four Tuesdays ahead of the actual holiday and there are festivities on each of those days that relate to the four elements: water, air, earth, and fire. Bonfires are a big part of Novruz.....just like New Year's Eve on top of the levies in New Orleans....except I doubt they're torching salvaged wood from crack houses. The fire gives warmth and light, and burns away all of the bad that happened during the previous year. Each Tuesday people gather around bonfires they build in their yards and one by one they jump over the flames. As they jump they say..."All bad things of last year go into the fire and all of the good things stay with me." Ya think flame retardant underdrawers would show pantie lines? The fire has to die on its own and its ashes, which contain all the bad stuff, are thrown far away from the house to keep it from coming back...the same trick I tried with the empties one New Years Day morning.

The tip off that there was some kind of big holiday coming up was when these plates of grass started to show up everywhere. It didn't matter where I went, I encountered one of these plates called semeni. I found this "Chia Plate" at a car show.


Traditionally, housewives will start the plate with kernels of wheat and the bright green grass grows as a symbol of spring and the new year. It provides the centerpiece for the holiday, like our Christmas trees do.....and in the same way, you can also buy one down at the grocery.

It is believed that the way you greet the new year is the way you will spend it, so no crying or anger is allowed on Novruz. Enemies must be forgiven and the poor not forgotten. I think that the day the white Mercedes cut us off last week was the fourth day of the holiday and I'd lay money that's why Ali apologized to him. Near the start of the holiday, a Monday, a black cat crossed our path on a narrow street as we were driving to the office. Ali immediately pulled the Prado to the curb and spat three gigantic ones out the window in the direction of the cat, who slithered off behind a fence. I slithered down in my seat a little in case anyone was watching....but made a mental note to remember it....spit three times at a black cat. Got it.

If I was a single girl, on Novruz I would have thrown a shoe over my right shoulder towards the door. If it landed with the toe pointing toward the door then I'd be married by the time the year passed. If it landed the other way, I'd be spending another year in my father's house. I wonder who, in a house full of sisters, gets the lucky Manolo? Maybe a nice cross cultural twist back home would be for the bride to throw a white satin pump into the waiting throng of single women at her wedding instead of the bouquet. A good pair of shoes will take a girl a lot farther than a handful of flowers any day.

Babble

I can’t believe that it’s already time for me to pack again. It really does feel like I just got here, but on Friday morning I’m flying out of Baku for Halifax. No more Latvian potato chips for a while for me. I’ll be spending Friday night in London and will arrive in Canada Saturday afternoon. Somehow, I think I should be planning what I’m going to take with me, but my head hasn’t gone there yet. It feels too soon to leave. Before I go, I still have one Azeri language class (plus the homework) and dinner at Ali’s tomorrow night to think about. John is planning to take Thursday afternoon off and if Roza can’t reschedule our 3 o’clock lesson to an earlier time, I think we’re going to pass on this one so we can spend the day together, wandering the streets like a couple of tourists. (Here’s to Roza being all booked up tomorrow so I can also avoid my homework and pack….or watch Desperate Housewives.)

Last night John took all of the staff out to a Turkish restaurant for dinner….nothing fancy but great food, menus in three languages, and big huge slabs of warm flat bread brought to the table. I think I had the best chicken soup I have ever tasted in my life last night for less than two bucks. The entire bill for a party of eight with beer, appetizers, soups, entrees, tea, desserts, and tip came to $125. On the way out the door, we each got a free squirt of lemon hand wash…..which I was told is what is done when you leave a Turkish restaurant.

During our dinner, the conversation turned to the subject of Ali’s sister’s wedding which is coming up soon. First will be the bride’s family’s reception which will be attended by the bride’s friends and relatives, and close relatives of the groom. We’re talking 400 people, here. The following week it’s the groom’s family’s turn to put on the spread which will be heavily attended by his friends and family, and close relatives of the bride’s. I’m not sure when exactly the actual marriage takes place but I do know that it’s a civil ceremony and that the bride goes back to her father’s house for the week in between. I guess that would mean they aren’t married until the groom’s party is over because that’s when they go off to their new place. The groom’s family buys the couple a house and it is the bride’s family’s responsibility to outfit that house with EVERYTHING! I’m not sure who gets the better deal here. Ali and his family had been out shopping all day for electrical things: refrigerator, TV, DVD player, washing machine, espresso machine, iron, toaster, hand mixer, kettle, and so on. I think they’ve already bought the furniture and still have to get the sheets, towels, curtains, rugs, cutlery, dishes, and all that other stuff. Ali said they have to buy everything for the house.

In order to pay for all of this, the whole family must contribute. His brother is supposedly selling his car, and John mentioned something about Ali trying to sell a cow back in January….for the day that they donate animals to feed the poor. (Usually it’s sheep but if you have lots of money a cow is considered an appropriate donation.) I’m not sure if he was kidding or not when he offered the cow to John….. we’d be sheep level donors back in the States. And if I get into how they bring the sheep into the city so people can buy them for slaughter that day, I’ll get way off track….so I’ll save that for later….except, I hear that they actually kill them for you on the side of the road. And, well…..someone like me isn’t about to lead a sheep home at the end of a rope for slaughter in the backyard, so I see that there’s a reason to provide the service…but still…..I know it’s for charity and all that….but…ick! I believe that’s on January 10^th and I could definitely arrange to be still back home on that day…….or learn not to be such a baby.

So….back to the wedding which I am sadly going to miss….John will go for both of us and leave an appropriate monetary gift at the door. Money is the traditional wedding gift (since they seem to have everything else right down to the salt and pepper shakers). The money is used to pay for the wedding. The amount of your gift depends on two things; your closeness of your relationship to the family, and how fancy a spread they put on for the party. Someone will be waiting at the door to record your gift in a ledger as you enter…..I love it!

Novruz is coming to an end now and that means the traffic will be back to its usual crawling by the weekend. It’s been great getting around the past week or so. The only real congestion has been right in the downtown core and it’s been much better, even there. I guess the only bad thing about less traffic is that four lanes of partially open road (more than 2 car lengths in front of you) encourages people to drive a lot faster. I have no idea how entire families, toddlers included, can venture out into the middle of speeding traffic to negotiate crossing eight lanes of cars moving at fifty miles per hour. I tried it once…..standing frozen on the center line, while a herd of Mercedes Benz’, BMWs, and Range Rovers competed for three lanes of space with a bunch Ladas, and old rickety trucks. It was enough to make me pee my pants in anticipation of becoming the latest piece of road kill. John was there, too, and he pushed me as I stood immobile on the yellow line…”GO!” I went….but crossing the big ones isn’t for me. You have to commit or you’re doomed. Running back and forth between lanes like a frightened fox on the interstate will get a Toyota logo branded into your backside for all eternity. I guess that’s why they take the babies out there, so they learn how to do it properly from the time they are old enough to wander out between parked cars. I mean…..these people look so calm out there and for all the crazy-make your own lane-pass wherever there’s a free inch-drive on the wrong side of the road kind of driving, there aren’t really many accidents. I don’t remember seeing one since I’ve been here. **Edited to add that there are usually over 400 car pedestrian accidents in Baku a year.**

Maybe that comes from attitude. The other day, this guy in a white Mercedes cut us off….big time close call and Ali’s hand flipped out the open window. White Mercedes guy’s hand flipped out his window and they had a little hand to hand as we sped along to the next red light. There, Ali pulled up behind him, stuck his head out the window and apologized. When was the last time I saw that happen?

The people here are very nice….to each other….to everyone. That is the biggest impression I’m taking away from my first month in Baku.

Drive By Shooting

Having a driver isn’t exactly the same thing as having your own car in the driveway and hopping in it every time you get the urge for a coffee or a donut. Having a driver means you have to call to have him come get you to take you places, and in my case, since I’m sharing Ali with “Mr. John”……”Miss Sally” often loses out to meetings, refilling ink cartridges, and company banking….really really important things like that. Such was the case this week when all I wanted to do was go out and buy a few more countries for the fridge….my own little game of Risk so to speak. (I’m happy to report that Hungarian bacon and American pancake syrup are now present and accounted for.) This week trying to get to the grocery store was like having one car in the family and trying to get the keys back from your husband and kids.

Much of the blame has to go to traffic. It’s the beginning of Novruz, the biggest holiday of the year in Azerbaijan. It lasts for eight days…as in the bank closed today and won’t open again until March 29^th! People who actually work for a living will appreciate that…people like me who don’t do all that much in the run of a day are a little freaked out. I have been told the restaurants will be open. Thank God! But a side effect of no one having to be at work has been that the normally insanely congested traffic in Baku deteriorated into the same situation I remember when the BIG blackout hit Toronto a few years back…..since everybody has someplace to go other than the office.

It took three days to finally get it done but luckily the traffic situation eased quite a bit and we were able to make it out for food. Ali was on the hunt for yellow printer ink for the office but had no luck since all the cartridge masters had taken the day off. If you build, fix, repair, or replace anything in Baku, you are “the master.” I am becoming the master of this….I call it Drive By Shooting….since I have to take most of my pictures from the front seat of the Prado.

There are an incredible number of statues around the city....poets, politicians and the like.

I'm getting a thing for the balconies, too.

This is a corner of the Academy of Sciences.

These were when I was parked outside The Corner Bar during the ink hunt.

Male members of a wedding party taking sweets to the bride's house.

Hope they aren't in a hurry to get there.

These guys are probably not in a rush to get where they're going.

Inescapable......Cola Wars....everywhere you go in this world.

I met three masters this past week. The cable master came, climbed up this ladder that he accessed from the master bedroom window, and hooked up our cable TV. Digital! Seventy channels!

I now have some English channels….four of which are fashion channels. (I have yet to see anyone in a hoodie at Ramstore.) There’s CNN and ESPN and lots of sports and some American shows, too. Last night I watched the Simpsons ….of all things. There are a couple of channels that carry network shows like ER, Gray’s, Ugly Betty, and Day's of Our Lives. I even saw Tyra Banks interview Kim Kardashian.….I’m not sure if they are current or behind but if a person wants current, a trip downtown to the Hong Kong store will keep you up to date on everything…..for a very few bucks. Why, one could even get a lovely Prada bag to go with them, all at the same time........and for only a few dollars more.

Of course, if you ever see me carrying a Prada bag you'll know it's a real one, right?

My other master encounters involved the washing machine, which Lena told me wasn’t working. I checked it out and sure enough it wasn’t advancing from the wash cycle to the rinse cycle on its own. I called Ali, who called the landlord, who called the master. Master shows up only two hours late which is really prompt service around here and begins to give me washing machine lessons in Russian. I immediately understood when he told me there was nothing wrong with the washer having seen the same look on John’s face countless times in the past. Then I nodded my way through a hand signal lesson on the use of a front loading washer. Master left….but not before finding the English page of the appliance manual and making sure that I earmarked it. HA! I took it upstairs and tossed it into the cupboard with the rest of the appliance manuals and then went downstairs to run a load of laundry. Later that afternoon, I called Ali who called the landlord, who in turn, called the master.

I guess one master wasn’t enough because two masters showed up the second time. Obviously, I had a huge problem…..but since John was home and Ali was there to interpret, I disappeared upstairs to the quiet of my room to contemplate the fall from domestic goddess in my old country to failing basic laundry skills in my new one. I sat on the bed and contemplated getting a taxi license. I wasn’t there long when I heard John calling me back downstairs to face both masters (and a fully functioning washer) who both asked me for the English instructions, and who both used sign language and a lot of dial pointing to show me what I was doing wrong. Ali wasn’t a huge help since I doubt he does a lot of laundry and I conceded that I was just going to have to read the manual before I inflicted a third service call on the landlord. So, how was I supposed to know that the cycle advance wasn’t automatic on programs four through seven in the permanent press mode? Kind of putting a fine point on things if you ask me. And who uses automatic laundry gear in Baku anyway. This is one of the more common sites around the city, though not all are as color coordinated as this.