So THAT'S why I get a funny look when I say my name...

Today I discovered what my name means in Azerbaijani. I’ll get to that momentarily.

I had my first day at the Academy and it went really well. The IR head picked me up and drove me in. He was very nice, with excellent English. He was a lot younger than I expected and it turns out he’s only 28. I got my first chance to practice my diplomacy as I was warned about in Washington when he started asking me about why I was doing this. I told him I wanted to get a better understanding of other cultures and other people and how they view the United States since I’m interested in foreign relations. Furthermore, in order to effectively practice international affairs and have a positive influence it's my opinion that you must understand everything from all sides, especially how non-Americans view the decisions that we make that affect the world. Then he started asking about what people think about the United States outside of the U.S. and what I thought of that, if I agreed, etc etc. I navigated that minefield by talking about how it depended on the person and country and a lot of things have been changing over the past couple of years with the war, and if people view the idealism behind it as good or bad. I’ll spare all the political jargon I started babbling away about but he seemed pleased with my answer. Who knows. He also started talking about 9/11. Never a dull moment.

It took about 35 minutes to get there which was a bit of a hassle and I had about 8 different people explain how to get there via metro and bus and I’m still lost. I’ll stick to getting picked up until I’m forced to use public transportation.

Anyways I met with the head of the English language department who was super nice and friendly. Her English is really quite good. She was Russian and most of the other women in the department are Russian as well, with some younger Azeri girls. She greeted me with “well, we hadn’t thought about what we were going to do with you yet, but we’re very excited to have you!” which is always a good sign. So I awkwardly introduced myself to a whole bunch of people and basically said “I’m here to do whatever you need- lead classes, help out, have discussions, anything.” I just smiled a lot (they probably think I’m an idiot) and pretended like everything was normal. Honestly though, they were all very nice and we decided that I would lead discussion sections 3 days a week- Monday, Wednesday and Friday. A lot of the women were hesitant to talk to me since they were nervous or embarrassed about speaking English in front of a native speaker. Some of the women who were more comfortable introduced themselves right away but a lot of the women took their time getting to talk to me. It was actually rather endearing. Besides the head of the department, two women took to me right away and started talking to me, asking me a lot of questions, showed me the computer labs, asked me about the U.S., what I thought of Baku, where I was living, and if I was married. When I responded very firmly, “no”, I got blank stares, so I started explaining that I just graduated from college and I’m only 22, and I got further blank stares. I think this is a losing battle.

Then I sat down for a bit and women one by one would apprehensively approach me and start talking to me in English, and then they started offering me sweets, tea, candy, and cake. In typical Russian fashion they kept telling me to eat all the candy all while never eating it and talking about how they were on a diet. I didn’t want to look like the fat American but then again I didn’t want to be rude so I ate a piece of candy and a piece of cake and sipped my tea. They kept trying to give me more tea (burning hot tea by the way, and I was already sweating to death in this boiling hot room in a silk shirt) and kept asking me why I wasn’t drinking it. By the way- none of them were drinking tea. Just watching me drink it. Typical. This continued on for about an hour and a half, various women who got up the guts to approach me started chit-chatting with me in English and they were all very pleasant and nice. Not everyone came up to me, some stayed across the room huddled over the schedule yammering away in rapid Russian mixed in with Azeri (which gets really confusing). I’m sure it will take a while for everyone to feel comfortable talking to me. I made sure to repeat a lot that my Russian is terrible and that everyone’s English is much better than my Russian is in an effort to quell any nerves. Honestly if I had been one of those women I wouldn’t have talked to me since I would be too embarrassed of my own language abilities. The fact that about 7 women out of 10 had the guts to talk to me was really impressive. They all kept saying how excited they were to have me there, and they all also kept asking me if I was single. One woman asked me if I was single and when I said yes she started talking about her son who she wants to send to Canada. This worries me slightly. My motto for now: smile and nod.

They also started asking me about my name and because firstly Anna is a Russian name, and then my last name is a strange Russian-German mix (which they all pronounce Schvee-del. I’m just going to have to deal with it.) and I told them that my great-grandfather was from the Ukraine. This got everyone in the room visibly excited, I guess because this makes me a bit more similar to them, not just a random American. I’m also about 17 other nationalities but that’s besides the point. So then I had various people coming up to me and telling me that so-and-so in their family is from Ukraine, and people asking me (in Ukrainian) if I can speak Ukrainian (which clearly I can’t). For awhile they were happy with just Ukraine but finally a man from another faculty came in and was talking to one of the women and was trying to talk to me and asked me where in Ukraine my family is from. When I said Odessa he goes (in Russian) ‘ohhhh many Jews there!!!’ to which I just smiled and nodded to. They didn’t seem to care or ask if I was Jewish or if anyone in my family was Jewish, which is a good sign.

After this I told him my name and I was met with a look of total confusion. I had noticed this before when I told people my name they would stare at me for a second and ask again. It turns out my name (if you pronounce it Ana which I have been) means ‘mother’ in Azeri. No wonder. Can you imagine? I’ve been at the coffee shop and they ask me my name so they can call it when my order is ready and I’ve been saying ‘mother’. The jokes are endless with this. I might start going by Anya since it’s easier and most people will probably get that it’s a Russian diminutive.
So I got a bit of a tour of the campus but I’m sure I will get another one when I go back on Monday. I have tomorrow off, since they’re not doing much except for preparing the schedule. On Tuesday actual classes start but I still don’t know if I’ll be leading a discussion section for a while since they want to see what the students want, I’ll sit in on a couple classes, etc. I’m very happy with this. I think it’s better to get introduced, get familiar with how everything works, and then I’ll start leading discussion sections. On Monday I’m giving the English teachers a presentation on American TOEFL methods. I’m not sure what I’m going to do for this but I’ll think I’ll look through some of my books, a lot of the notes I took in DC, suggest websites and other multi-media activities. I’m not so sure how helpful it will be for the other teachers but maybe they’ll get some new ideas from me. I have to remember to speak very slowly since not all the teachers have perfect English.

One of the things I noticed already when speaking to a lot of these women was that I had to be very careful when I spoke. I never noticed how many long words I use in conversation- for example when they were asking how I felt about coming to Baku I couldn’t say “I’m getting acclimated” I would have to say “I’ve been walking around and getting comfortable”. I also noticed that in English we use a lot of hypothetical questions. I was talking about the beaches with one of the teachers and I asked “can you go swimming in the water?” and she started answering that yes, of course, she knows how to swim. Incidentally, I meant it more as a general question- do people in Baku go swimming in the water, not her in particular, but after she answered like that I realized how that could be confusing. I’m sure this will happen quite frequently.

As I was walking around the campus all the new students were gathered in the quad. The campus, by the way, is really pretty. There are a lot of trees and gardens with very attractive buildings. Anyways- although when I looked online at the website for the Academy there were pictures of women, almost all the people gathered in the quad looked male. In fact, I didn’t see a woman. Apparently those pictures were strategic. All the English faculty were women and some were younger, definitely around my age. The head of the department made some comment to me, “the students are going to like you” which sounds a little ominous but I’m going to be positive and just hope she meant that it’s because I’m an American.

After we left my newfound friend, the head of the IR department, drove me back home and he told me that everyone really likes me, and they’re all very glad I’m young. Again- not sure what this means or how I should take it.

All in all, I had a very good morning being there. Everyone I met was incredibly supportive and nice. I think it’s going to be a good assignment and I like that I will be there 3 days a week. It will keep me busy, but not overwhelming. I’m also very glad that I will be easing into the discussion sections- I think this is best. Now I just need to coordinate a schedule at the museum and decide if I want to apply for this internship that I’m thinking about. I think having an internship with an NGO while I’m here could be great experience and a different break from just teaching. Hopefully I could do it on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and into the afternoon. We’ll see if this plan pans out.

Stay tuned.