The Manhattan tower shown in the foreground continues to descend another 78 below the high-water mark. It was sunk by means of a pneumatic caisson. It was by far the hardest part of the work and took a lasting toll on the Chief Engineer Washington Roebling who never fully recovered from decompression sickness. The goal to reach bedrock was never achieved and to this day the tower rests on ancient sediments.
Earlier in the month I had finished reading David McCullough’s book “The Great Bridge”. Its strange how we take some things for granted, or more, we just don’t think about where they came from. The Brooklyn Bridge has always existed in my mind until I read about how it was built and the people who built it. It was my first visit to it in a long time and my first time on the promenade. While atop I tried to imagine the Manhattan panorama as it would have been in 1883.
Since I returned in September I have met up with four of my fellow AZ5 volunteers. First there was Meredith in South Carolina, then Jeff in New York City. This was followed by David in Philadelphia and now Colleen. I wish I had more opportunities to head out for the territories and spend some time with my Peace Corps friends.
I think that it is safe to say that Azerbaijanis love thriftiness. Where ever you went on buses, at your friend’s houses or in the streets you would hear people talking about the different prices of chickens, flour, electricity and everything in-between. We all found that a great ice breaker with anyone was to talk about the differences in the prices of produce between American and Azerbaijan. The other day I found pomegranate in the supermarket going for $4 each. I remember buying them for .80 cents a kilo. However, back in Azerbaijan it was hard to ever find bananas for .49 cents a pound.
Barda was one of the main chicken producing regions in Azerbaijan. You could buy a live toyuq for about 6 manat. I was never a very big fan of owning and raising chickens. I understood the economics of it and the appeal of finding fresh eggs in your yard. However, the amount of mess that they created was enough to out weight any positives.
A view of Nargony-Karabagh from the Tar-Tar river in Barda. This mountain is over 4000 meters and was only visible under clear and dry conditions. Being from the flatlands of New Jersey, I never tired of looking at it.
Peace Corps housing is very hit or miss. My friend David is standing proud in front of his private residence in Goranboy.
My Peace Corps experience was unique in many ways – every volunteer’s time is different. For me the difference was Meredith. She shared my entire two year experience in Barda and even some of my three months training. She was there every step of the way with me and I with her. For many people when they arrive back home they don’t have people to share some of their moments with, their friends just weren’t there. For me, I have Meredith.
Instantly recognizable to any Azeri or AZ volunteer, I would like to leave this description blank intentionally to provoke people’s thoughts on what is happening.
It’s not that Azerbaijan is particularly cold, it’s just that heating is a issue. January of 2009 I went to visit my friend Amber (far left) for her birthday, her gas had been off for a while and we were in the midst of a winter storm. While we spent most of the day out of bed, at one point all five of us wound up there trying to get warm. Its these moments in life, that are funny and trying at the time,which are the most enjoyable to recall.
Nezami Ganjavi 1141-1209 is the national poet of Azerbaijan and considered one of the greatest in Islamic history. He was born in Gange, Azerbaijan and it is believed that he spent his entire life in the Caucasus regions. One day I was walking to work and found them dismantling this statue. When I later showed it to my Azerbaijani counterparts they expressed sadness and remorse saying that they would never see the statue again. The story was that they were building a new Nezami park and that this space was going to be used to build a new music school. The new Nezami park was never built and the statue remains absent.
From left to right in the back row: my brother Bradley, his girlfriend Miriam, me, my sister Shavawn, my maternal cousin Mathew, my maternal cousin Jenna and her husband Dan and my maternal uncle Kevin. In the front from left to right is my father Sanford, maternal grandmother Vera, my maternal Aunt’s mother Elise, and my maternal Aunt Nora. Ok, and the dog Fred. Holidays 2009.
His face is omnipresent is all parts of Azerbaijan. Depending on how you look at it, the national leader either saved Azerbaijan from collapse or started the new republic down the path of a totalitarian dictatorship. Regardless, Heydar Aliyev is the central historical figure of Azerbaijan. Before becoming President of Azerbaijan, Heydar’s static resume included Major-General in the KGB, Secretary of The Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic and even a five year stint in the Politburo. Today, his son President Ilham Aliyev continues the family’s hold on the nation. The party of Aliyev is “The New Azerbaijani Party” which is ironically very similar to the old Soviet communist party.
I started teaching basketball to male and female youths at the end of the summer of 2008. Luckily this court was in decent shape and all we needed were some good basketballs. A quick grant later and we were holding practices and playing full games. The sport came naturally to them, much easier to teach then softball. The next summer we gathered small contributions to buy a few buckets of white paint to restore the original lines. Later, in what was one of my fondest moments, I found kids playing pickup games of basketball, something that had not been doing before. They even were able to referee themselves and keep the fast paced and physical game in order.
The vast majority of schools in Azerbaijan are in very poor shape. For towns located near the disputed Nargo-Karabagh, the schools were still partially inhabited by IDPs. For my area, this is a great looking classroom. It was the project of a former Barda PCV who took an ordinary room and turned it into a great English resource room. To get an idea of the context I will later post a picture of something quite different. The students in this picture would attend my class after normal school hours to practice their English. They were very bright and enthusiastic about trying different methods for learning the language.
Peace Corps is not all fun and games. There is a different element that cant be shown through a camera lens. The grown man in the photo is Elsevar, the former director of the now defunct Barda Care for Children NGO. I was assigned to their organization as a volunteer to help in any capacity that I could. However, they were resistant to any involvements with their operations. It later came out that they were supposedly committing massive fraud and embezzlement. The number was allegedly around 400,000 euro. This lack of oversight from the donor organization was a central factor in my deciding to go to law school.
ABLE 2009 was high in the Caucasus mountains and it was wet for most of the days. The day that acting U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan Donald Lu came it had already rained for more than two days straight. Regardless, the youth and volunteers alike were excited to have such a high profile visitor. I have had the opportunity to hear him speak before and he is an engaging speaker. The former Peace Corps volunteer spoke for more than a half an hour about the obstacles that the Azerbaijani youth face and challenged them to answer the call of leadership for their country. After his speech I had the chance to speak with him directly for some personal advice. The advice was regarding law school and work in international law. His advice was a real help for me. There was a great inside joke that went along with this story.
It seems that everything I have posted so far is from my Peace Corps era. This is a picture of me in Zurich, Switzerland looking about 5 years younger in 2005. It was my second time in Europe, I was there for a while but wished I could have stayed longer. A side note, Zurich is beautiful as can be. However, visiting it on a Sunday will be particularly strange. The streets were nearly completely empty and all the shops and stores were closed.
Like a small pilgrimage, most Peace Corps volunteers in Azerbaijan make their way to this statue to take pictures. During the visit I was greeted by a friendly local who offered to help take some pictures and explain how the statue came to be rest in the field and halved. The story was that in the final days of the Soviet Union a group of men in a large truck toppled the statue which used to reside in front of the municipal center. They simply tied a rope around his waist, attached the other end to the truck and drove off. He told us that for a while just the bottom half of Lenin stood at the town center. The statue appeared to be made of granite and was section in a few pieces. The man was proud of the Lenin statue and should us chips in the statue that he claimed were from bullets.
Azerbaijani people love to have their photos taken. However, you will rarely see many smiles in any of the photographs. This picture was taken in December of 2007 at a “Child Wedding”. The party being held in the tent behind us is for the boy with the red ribbon tied on his arm. Tomorrow he will be circumcised according to Islamic traditions. In Azerbaijan, as in many Muslim regions, boys may be circumcised at later ages than is typically found in western societies. This boy was about 7 years of age which is typical for Azerbaijan and the region. The party was a grand affair and attended by nearly 75 men, women and children. In this photo I am flanked on my left by my host father Arif and on my right by his father. Standing next to Arif is his long time friend who served with him in the Soviet army around 1980. They had great stories from the era and how when they were stationed in Siberia they saw a polar bear.
Our 2008 Barda Bandits! From Left to right in the back row; Jason, Ina, Aziz, Rahim and I. In the front from left to right are; Murad, Avas, Samir, Hasan and Meyharach. The 2008 season was a lot of fun and a lot of hard work. We took this rag-tag group of kids and taught them how to play softball. It is not a game that comes easy to some people and the rules are about as foreign to us as cricket. However, with enough time they were making plays like pros.
The softball season was the work of a group of volunteers and funded through a partnership grant. The grant allowed for the formation of four teams in four nearby cities. That season we held a decent record of 2-3. I was really proud of how well they played during the competitions.
I was accepted into the Peace Corps way back in 2006 and assigned to the “youth development” sector. I had little idea of what such a broad term as youth development could actually be. Later I found that it is anything that you make it. For me it was organized sports. It’s not that I am a very athletic person or a big fan of basketball. For me it was the idea that male and female youth can learn a lot from organized sports. I didn’t just teach how to play basketball, but how to play fairly, work as a team and most importantly feel accomplished in training and hard work.
This photo was taken shortly before my service was over in a small nearby village named Hesinguyya. The balls were purchased through a grant that I had written that helped to bring the sport back to the area for the first time since soviet collapse. The gym that we are playing in was exceptionally well done. It was renovated a few years prior to this photo through a grant written and organized by a fellow site-mate of mine. All the kids were very athletic and trained rigorously for judo and wrestling. Their hard work and athletic talents easily carried over to the sport.
I entered Peace Corps at a full 210 pounds (I’m about 6’4”). Within three months I was down to a lean 178 despite eating as much as possible and doing as many pushups as I could in the mornings. This picture was taken by my first host brother Ismail shortly after I arrived in the town of Sarray. The haircut that I am sporting is the highest in Azerbaijani men’s fashion.
ABLE is stands for Azerbaijani Boys Leadership Experience. The week long leadership camp brings Azerbaijani youths from all over the county together and is counseled by both volunteers and regional Azerbaijan counterparts. I was lucky enough to participate in both 2008 and 2009, both years being equally memorable. Quite possibly some of the best work that we did was through ABLE and the young women’s camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World). I was the official photographer for 2008 and I will never forgive myself for setting this up with such bad lighting.
Easily, one of the best days of my life was the day I was dropped off to my first host family. I had been in country for all of 4 days and my ability to speak Azerbaijani ranged from “Hello” to the number 10. I lived with them for my three months training before being sent to my permanent town of Barda. I have many fond memories of the family over minor mishaps, friendly misunderstandings and a lot of laughs. The picture was taken during the farewell party that they had arranged for me before I set out for Barda.
Water buffalo are everywhere in Azerbaijan. In the streets, rivers and occasionally in the center of town, this hairy beast was one of my favorites for their scruffy beards and expressive faces. True to their name, water buffalo love the water and will submerge themselves up to their head. More interesting is that their milk is known to be very fatty and nutritious.
Shawn’s visit was for just two weeks, but it seemed like a lot longer from the amount of place and people we met. Here we are posing with my host family from Barda on a cool autumn night. Standing next to me is my host father Arif. Next to him is wife Rahile and daughter Nurane. Kneeling on in the foreground is one of Arif’s brothers and his daughter affectionately nicknamed “Semeechka” or sunflower seed. In the background you can see the pomegranates which had just came into season.
Tblisi is a beautiful city built on a long and winding river with a fortress built upon an overlooking palisade. My only time out of Azerbaijan during my 27 month service, Mare and I absconded along to the Georgian capital for new years eve 2009. We met up with our fellow Peace Corps Azerbaijan friends for a memorable start to the New Year.
Lankaran is hot in the summer time. A beautiful town with a great sprawling bazaar, its location makes it a desirable summer destination for many Russians. It is also close to Astara which is a border town with Iran. That day we put a thermometer out under the direct sun and it got up to 117 degrees Fahrenheit.
