Still not married.

I know, I know… I haven’t updated in a while. I was sick for a couple days last week so I didn’t do much except watch ’30 Rock’ (which is a great show- everyone should watch it!) and I was lazy about connecting to the internet. I have also been having trouble accessing Blogger since apparently it’s blocked now in Azerbaijan so I might have to sneakily find a way to do my postings.

I had my first day on Friday leading a discussion group with the teachers at the Academy which just ended up being all the women in the English Department wanting to practice their English. We chatted for about 40 minutes, and then in their typical fashion we were down and I was being whisked downstairs and shoved into the front seat of the car. As for the discussion group, I just tried to make sure everyone talked at least one about some sort of holiday or cultural tradition, asked questions, and spoke about my own experiences. It didn’t last as long as I had hoped, so I might need to work on a better format. This Wednesday I have my first discussion group with students, and the topic is still undecided. I have Monday and Tuesday off since it is the end of Ramadan (Ramazan as they call it here), so I have to kind of get some stuff together in the next two days in terms of figuring out my schedule with the Museum. The director doesn’t speak much English and I have to call him and attempt my Russian, which should be a fun phone call.

Anyways, I learned a fair amount from the women during our discussion group and then afterwards. They were eager to talk about Ramazan and explain it to me despite my protests that I do know about it and we have Muslims in the states who observe the holiday. The man who drives me in seemed pretty impressed when I said that there were people in the U.S. who observed Ramadan. I thought that was interesting- I had heard some hints from various people that a lot of Azerbaijanis don’t believe that there are really many Muslims, or even observant Muslims in the U.S. (which is clearly not true) and here was the first sign of that. Moreover everyone assumed that I would have no clue about any Muslim holidays since I’m an American.

After this discussion we talked a bit about weddings and I got more information about marriage. By the way- I had already been asked several times that day if I was married. I finally found another woman my age who is not married! She said she was still looking and seemed upbeat about it but then about five minutes later she got pretty sad and said she wanted to have children. But she also seemed reassured when I said I wasn’t married. Another woman asked me if I ever wanted to get married and I assured her that I do, just not now. I tried explaining how it goes in the U.S. but they don’t seem too interested. Most women get married at 22, so it turns out I’m actually at my prime age and I guess I should be looking this year. However, you can get married younger. Once you’re married, the woman pops out a kid right away and I think the race is on soon to have another. Neither men nor women really wear wedding bands on their fingers here so it makes it really difficult to figure out who is married and who isn’t. I thought that this one woman who worked in the Department was my age and probably not married yet, but it turns out she is and she has a two-year old daughter.

As we were discussing marriages and weddings one of the women said she was going to a wedding on Tuesday and if I wanted to see an Azeri wedding that I should come along. I told her I would love to see it, and she got all excited and told me she would take me, and I would meet her family, and I would get to observe the wedding. I have her number and I’m supposed to give her a call later and figure out the details. Needless to say, this should be an interesting experience.

I’ve also been encountering the problem of a lot of people asking me for help with their English. A lot of the women in the faculty have been asking me to work with them one-on-one, or to help their children. The students have also found out about me and one of them cornered me and asked for individual help since he needs a special certification. I want to help them but I know that I can’t take everyone’s requests so I keep telling them to ask me in a week once I know my schedule a bit better. The problem is, once I do figure out what I’ll have time for, I’ll have to pick which people I help and that presents a problem. I’m sure I have time for a couple people, but once I take one person on in the department then I think I will have to help everyone.