Note: I wrote this article originally for my German sending organisation „European Intercultural Forum e.V.“. You can find this as well as other interesting articles from volunteers in Georgia and Armenia on their homepage. Just click here.
„Well, how was it?“ This question. Which I expected, which I somehow feared, leaves me speechless now. How can I put my last nine months into words? And how can I summarise them without going beyond the boundaries of time? I could spend hours describing my experience in Azerbaijan as a European volunteer. But I assume that nobody wants to listen for such a long time. I have tons to talk about but everything is unorganised in my head. The impressions are still recent. And I haven’t had a lot of time to reflect and somehow organise my experiences since I’m back home. That’s why I try to come up with a short answer to the question. One that satisfies my counterpart. Maybe I can even find an answer that could lead to a more precise inquiry. And because I believe that experience can be best explained with little anecdotes and snapshots in time, I ponder about which story would give a proper insight into my life in Azerbaijan to my counterpart.
Pictures appear in front of my mind’s eyes and disappear again quickly. My little house with the external walls painted in pink shows itself. And I feel again the spring heat burning down on my head while I hang up the laundry which is still soaked from only been washed by hand due to the non-existence of a washing machine in the courtyard. And I remember all the laughing fits of and irritated looks from my European couch surfers and guests when they had to use the toilet for the first time. Or when we had to tell them that there’s no water in the house again which makes showering impossible. And I think about all the evenings which I spent with my flatmate, who was my co-volunteer too, in our courtyard with a glass of wine in my hand and looking at the stars.
A smile crosses my face while the next moments get ready to show themselves inside my head. I become aware again about my arrival in Baku. The illuminated house facades of the capital of Azerbaijan seem now, in my memory, almost peachier. How astonished was I at the time when a taxi picked me and my co-volunteer up from the airport and drove us through nightly Baku. Everything was brightly polished and I asked myself for a second if I had flown to Dubai by mistake. And then the complete opposite when the illuminated buildings of the city centre of Baku disappeared in the rearview mirror and Azerbaijan embraced the car with a darkness that was almost unknown to me. No street lights far and wide. And the houses were covered by the darkness as well. Only at the break of dawn could I recognise that the houses did not resemble the magnificent buildings in Baku’s city centre. I saw simple, grey houses with courtyards where chicken roamed freely under laundry blown by the wind. And then I remember the first day at my host family where I lived the first month of my volunteering service. I was totally exhausted from my journey and my impressions and just wanted to sleep. My host mom, however, who was so happy about my arrival, thought differently. She wanted to know everything about me on my first day and introduced me to all her private tutoring students. It was impossible to think about sleeping then.
And anyway, thinking about Azerbaijan makes me feel tired again. As if this country is something like a charm against insomnia. But it were the impressions, the different language which I tried to learn in order to communicate, the constant concentration so as to absorb as much as possible and not to act culturally ‚wrong‘ at the same time, that made me tired. And probably the winter which appeared endlessly and in which we were chilled to the bone and which stole the last bit of energy. I can still see myself with layers and layers of clothes and blankets, laying in bed and wondering when the winter will finally be over. And at the same time, my co-volunteer and me waited for our residence permit. Our visa had already expired and we were basically in a state of suspension of deportation. This feeling of maybe having to leave the country at any moment, the uncertainty, the anxiety about the future – all this takes hold of my soul again and I wonder if asylum seekers feel like this. And then I think about Novruz this more than symbolic clearance. The winter was finally over. The cold was gone. And all bad spirits which were left were destroyed with jumps over the bonfire. Azerbaijan came to life again. All the sudden it was a different country. People were smiling and enjoying their lives. The last months of winter seemed forgotten. Only I was left behind wondering why adequate heating systems could not have been installed in the first place to make the winter less overbearing and depressing. But nobody wanted to hear the question. It was spring now. Shortly followed by summer. And those are the seasons when nobody wants to think about the cold winter. And not only for Azerbaijan was the end of the winter delightful. I was also getting better once my sister came around for four weeks and we spent countless hours with Azerbaijani families, European volunteers in Georgia and in busses, called marshrutka. Most of the time laughing and accompanied by a soft toy which was noticed in astonishment by all Azeris. And even our attempt to explain our silent companion as an art project was somehow not succesful.
The bewilderment of Azerbaijanis, however, did not surprise me at all. I had already been used to the stares. I stood out with my light skin, not brown eyes, and not black hair. People could tell from far away that I am not Azeri. Whether I arranged a soft toy for a photo or not didn’t make a difference in the amount of stares anyway. And sometimes I wondered if not everybody in Ganja knew me already anyway. The boss of my hosting organisation and I were invited to the morning show of the local TV channel for the International Day of Volunteering. There, I talked with the hosts of the show about my volunteering work and my life in Azerbaijan. And I had the chance to demonstrate my Azerbaijani language skills. I chose a random Azerbaijani set phrase as I knew that everybody loved it when I said any of those. The hosts laughed as well. And after this show, I was greeted with this set phrase in a lot of Azerbaijani homes. My respective hosts had apparently seen me on TV and seemed to have appreciated my language skills.
Sometimes, I want to try and explain my development. My change of perception. I want to explain how furious I was at the beginning of my volunteering service when men did not greet me. I felt completely ignored as they talked with my male co-volunteer. Or at least greeted him. I didn’t care if this was done out of respect towards me or ignorance. I was just angry. And then, at the end of my service, my perception had changed and I was indignant when male strangers talked to me directly instead of addressing my male companion. I wondered why they even thought about the possibility of talking to me directly. And this makes me smile to myself because, apparently, it is not possible to please me.
But what I remember most when I try to reflect my time in Azerbaijan is dancing. No matter which kind of dancing. Always. Permanently. I remember my dance interlude with my co-volunteer on a street in Georgia. Or my attempt to dance Salsa with my mentor in a park in Ganja while there was a concert near by. And my countless amusing hours in my dance course. How nice it was to just move around and have an indirect cultural exchange at the same time. My Azerbaijani dance students showed me the Caucasian way of dancing while I explained them the different ways of European dancing. We covered everything from Salsa to Waltz. I still hear the laughter of my students in my ear when my co-volunteer and me tried new dance moves but we weren’t in total agreement about it. (Which was usually based on the fact that my co-volunteer had to remind me that men lead when dancing. My female dance students considered this an odd but funny problem.) What’s more, one approximately seven-year old dance student and this one time when she taught us a choreography to „Womanizer“ by Britney Spears has been soundly shaped as a memory.
And my participation in an Azerbaijani wedding one week before my flight home where I impressed the other guests with my attempt of Caucasian dancing and, therefore, led to me dancing with the groom, will most probably be one of my most favourite moments in the Caucasus.
Those snapshots whir around in my head and I try to find the right one to tell. Or maybe one of the thousand other little or big impressions. My emotional ups and downs, my process to get used to the new surrounding and culture, my weak moments, my great moments of happiness, my fear of failure. How can I cut down all those experiences, impressions, and deep emotions in one short answer? And while I still reason, I hear myself saying: „It was exhausting. But it was worth it.“
Ela en voyage 