We received a shipment of peanut butter yesterday, yeeeehah! We're back on the PB and Honey train. Not that we mind getting those freshly made, yummy pastries each morning, but a little Jif will shake things up. It's probably a healthier way to start the day too. It is hard for me to be too concerned with health when I've had a sore throat for two weeks that is most likely a result of pollution. All the Echinacea in the world can't ward off the effects of petrol in the air.

I read an article the other day about the "C" word and it's effect on Azerbaijan. That is "C" for Cancer. I learned that most Azeris won't go to the doctor if they're sick because they just don't want to know if it's cancer or not. Even if someone goes to the doctor and the diagnosis is cancer the doctors won't tell them. They are afraid that if they do, the patients will lose all hope and, as a result, greatly lessen their chances for survival. I guess they get so distraught, thinking it's a definite death sentence, that they stop fighting and die, sooner or at all. What happens next? Anyone who survives cancer doesn't know it. When someone dies of cancer word spreads like wildfire thus perpetuating the myth that cancer is always a death sentence. This "don't ask, don't tell" way of life blankets the entire culture. When we first arrived in Azerbaijan we were trying to find out what to do in the case of an emergency. The people we asked reacted as if we were wishing these things on ourselves by asking what to do if they happened. (dramatization) "What if one of us breaks a nail while bargaining with the peasants?" "Oh my...well let's hope that doesn't happen...why would you say such a thing?" That was it, not "...why say such things but here's the number." Finally we got the information out of them but only after we were sufficiently reprimanded for wishing ill on ourselves.

Not to end this entry on a bad note...but...we saw the most horrific thing yesterday. We were walking home from school when we approached a group of 25 or 30 men who were standing around observing another man being forced to drink large quantities of vodka. One guy was holding the drunk man - so drunk he couldn't even hold up his own head - by the collar. No one was laughing or joking, they were all just standing around like a bunch of apes, arms crossed and scowls on, watching this man being physically held up and forced to consume alcohol. As if stupid fraternity pranks (redundant, I know) aren't bad enough, these were grown men. As least frat boys are young, don't know any better and are drunk most of the time anyway. I thought of all the possibilities and I just couldn't come up with one reason why this was acceptable behavior. I felt so bad for that man. Nothing gets my ire up more than seeing someone singled out to be picked on, especially by a group of silent observers. Group think is pretty goddamn scary.

- S

We've certainly started to see the humor and interest in daily life again. Today on the street, when we needed water, I stopped to buy a bottle from a street vendor, an old man with one of those great Russian fur hats and a few gold teeth. He gave me the bottle and I handed him the 2,000 manat that is the universal price for this particular brand, but he let forth with a stream of aggrieved Russian - after much lame wrangling in Azeri, I determined that he wanted 500 more manat. Now, I know I can get a bottle of this very same water, and one that isn't a dust-covered version that's been sitting out on the street for months, for 2,000 manat at any store on this very street, and I've only stopped here at this old man's ramshackle stand because I remembered at exactly that moment that we need water and lo and behold, here it is - so when I hear this absurd price (and yes, the difference is only 11 cents, but there's not only a very serious principle at stake here, this is more like a dollar if you adjust this to my $150/month salary), I say to myself, "Fine, I'll take my money back and get it for the fair price in another 10 yards," but when I tried to grab my 2,000 manat back and hand the old man the bottle of water, his fingers holding the two 1,000 manat bills suddenly turned to claws. I could feel the disproportionate strength of his grip as I foolishly tried to exchange his bottle for my cash - he was not about to let this sale slip through his fingers, literally. There was a brief tug-of-war before I realized that he now understood that it was necessary to sell me the bottle for the fair price. A small victory it might be thought, but very important in psychological terms, and both Shanon and I got to see the look on this man's face as I tried to dissolve the transaction - panic would describe it best, though perhaps he was just amazed that I would rather not buy the water than pay his inflated price - I'm an American after all, and everyone knows how rich and careless with money Americans are.

So things are feeling better when in fact there hasn't been much objective change in the surrounding environment - well, maybe a few things. For one, the fountains in fountain square were running today for the first time since we got here (elections are on Sunday, so maybe that was a feel-good-about-your-government move). The weather is also pretty glorious - sunny, crisp autumn days where the pollution isn't so chunky as before. And then tonight, when we decided to head out into the city to take in some external entertainment, we found ourselves in the middle of an Azeri karaoke night. This helped continue the movement from depressed and despairing back to glad we decided to do this and amused and intrigued by our surroundings. And I still have six more acupuncture treatments, which means my body is getting more flexible, my muscles more relaxed, my energy purified, and my Zen outlook refined. Tomorrow we go to an Azeri wedding, where there should be many interesting things to see.

- Jack

"I'm American...and...this is my first Azerbaijan wedding. Um, I'm very glad to be here, I'd like to thank Zeidulla for inviting me and my husband."

"Say something about the food, the music."

"I've been enjoying all the music so much, but you are definitely the best singer so far." I said to "Franky" who had been singing his heart out.

"Now say something about the bride."

"I haven't actually met the bride yet, but I wish her luck and happiness in her new marriage. And...she's a beautiful bride."

This has been a transcript from "Americans on Parade at an Azerbaijan Wedding." "Franky" (not his real name), the fourth and by no means final wedding singer of the evening, is also an English teacher. He is a pal of The Big Z.

We got a call on Friday afternoon from The Big Z telling us that he's "changed his opinion" on our driver. Instead of Kameran and his wife we'll be picked up my Ishmael. Ishmael, I was told, is an aged man who drives a red car. Jack finished his acupuncture in time to get dressed and get out the door to meet Ishmael. We found him on the designated corner. He ushered Jack into the front seat and me into the back. Ishmael, as The Big Z told me over the phone, speaks fluent German which was just perfect for us since we can say, "Gesundheit." Ishmael speaks a little English too, just enough to distract him from the task at hand: staying alive on these treacherous roads. At first he seemed to be a fine driver, that is until he almost nailed a ped and his German Shepherd. Ishmael was spending entirely too much time telling us how many daughters he has and not enough time obeying the basic laws of traffic and common sense. We drove by the wedding party on their way to the hall. I was hoping that that meant we were fairly close to base and therefore out of harms way. We careened around the row of cars following the official wedding vehicle, each one with their hazards on and horns beeping in celebratory abandon. Ishmael then makes a WIDE left turn. And the guy coming from the other direction makes a WIDE right turn. Fade to slow motion as the two cars gravitate toward each other, finally obeying one set of laws - too bad they were the ones dreamed up by Newton not the crack police officials in Baku. Luckily it was only a minor scraping of paint on paint as both cars completed the wide arcs that their drivers believed were turns. Ishmael said a few choice words in Russian and gestured with his hands the international sign for, "What the hell is the matter with you, buddy?" Both drivers got out to examine the damage. Only now do I realize how truly clueless our driver is as to where his car begins and ends. Ishmael doesn't even know where to look for damage on his car. His right front bumper ran along the entire left side of the other car yet he's looking at the right back fender for damage. When he doesn't see any damage or not enough in comparison to the other guy's car he gets back in our car and bolts. Leaving the other driver with a parting comment - that I believe is Russian for "So long, sucker." - as we drive off. At this point Ishmael, our aged driver back in his red car, is a little shaken. Not because he was in a minor fender bender and he drove away, but because he was in a minor fender bender and he drove away with a couple of Americans, who he's been entrusted to deliver to a wedding, in his car. The last thing Jack or I wanted at that point was a shaken Ishmael behind the wheel. Let me correct myself, a shaken and lost Ishmael. Even though I didn't know where we were I could tell we had made a least one circle. Now I'm officially nervous, I start holding onto Jack's shoulder from the back seat, as if I can stop him from becoming one with the dash at a point of impact. It makes me feel better though. If these people didn't remove the seatbelts from their cars we wouldn't have to worry quite as much. I'm reminded again how great it is to live in the city center where we rarely if ever need taxis.

Finally we arrive, safe and as sound as one could expect. Ishmael delivers us to the banquet hall, leaves us to our host and, I'm sure, begins a hunt for chilled vodka. We are seated at a table with other Azeris who speak English. The Big Z tries to introduce us but it's pointless as the music is so load it's like having dinner at a rock concert. Once we are seated we really begin to take in the environment. There are eight TV's mounted in various places along the walls of the banquet room, two stages at the front, each stage has lots of colorful and blinking lights on and around it.. There are more colorful and blinking lights on the walls and the ceiling - I was speechless except to say, "Killer light show." There was the obligatory big ass disco ball in the center of the room. I won't even go into the food which is the basic Azerbaijan spread: which, no doubt, laid end to end could circle the earth at least one time. We estimated the number of people in the room to be 300, later I learned it was 400. People are eating, dancing and smoking but not talking much. The music is so load that you can only speak to the person directly beside you. Even then you can only be understood when you give a good solid shout directly into their eardrum.

The waiters diligently fill our juice, water and vodka glasses when they get within an inch from being empty. I notice that banquet workers are the same all over the world. They appear to be very focused on taking care of you, but really they are thinking about their next smoke break, or where they will go when this pony show is over to get a couple drinks for themselves, and maybe how late they will sleep the next morning.

The video on the TV screens suddenly change to things happening presently. A few shots of the hall and then outside shots of the bride and groom arriving. The have been terrorizing the city all this time, beeping and blinking. The band plays the traditional Azeri wedding music as the the couple and entourage walk up the aisle. People clap and smile. As soon as the betrothed get to the front the guests immediately go back to eating, drinking and shouting at each other, oh yes, and watching the wedding on TV. It's very useful to have the TVs within everyone's view because no one can really see what's going on from their seat. I wouldn't recommend it, but it's useful. We watch the bride and groom sign the certificate while the band plays the music that is often heard in America as the newlyweds leave the church. The signing of the certificate is the only ceremony we see. We were told that earlier in the day there was small ceremony at a mosque. We were also told that according to Muslim law they must sign a pre-nuptial agreement prior to signing the certificate. This certificate signing is the last thing to tick off the list of things-to-do-before-I-can-have-sex. I'm not sure when they exchanged rings since this usually happens at the "girl's wedding party." This is the only wedding for this couple. She wore a white dress with a red sash (symbolizing a long life together). Did I mention that the bride and groom can't drink vodka at their wedding because it could hurt the child they are going to create that night?

After observing the Olympic-like coverage of the wedding we realize that the family didn't just give their cousins a couple video cameras and ask them to record the party. This is a professional production team, with headphones and everything. The control booth was located at the back of the room where they called the shots, the fades, the angles, etc.

Now that we are sufficiently acclimated to our environment our task was to avoid being dragged out onto the dance floor. Not that I'm anti-dancing, it's just the constant pressure you get at weddings, this one especially, to dance, dance, dance. Where people who have been sitting in one place the entire night will ask you why YOU aren't dancing. As though if you don't dance you are going to ruin the good time for everyone else. I figure if people are that dependent on me for a good time than it's time to cut 'em loose anyway. Or there are the people who are dancing and thoroughly enjoying themselves, but still feel the need to halt their fun long enough to physically drag you out onto the dance floor with them. It's that sect of wedding guests who either assume you aren't having any fun because you aren't dancing - they arrive at this conclusion based on the fact that they are having so much fun dancing it must be the only way to enjoy the moment - or they seem to think that unless everyone is having fun dancing, then they may not be having as much as they thought. Which is where the physical dragging and cajoling comes in handy. But I digress.

In this situation, the only people I can't outright refuse are my hosts. They know this and use it to their advantage on "their big day." First, Mrs. Big Z gets us on the dance floor. A harmless slow dance that we even enjoyed. I think I enjoyed it mostly because I thought I was off the dancing hook for the evening. Sure.

Not only was the evening a video production but it was also part Vegas lounge act. On the stage to the left sat the bride and groom, and four carefully selected friends. Behind them blinked two huge wedding rings intertwined. In front of the bride was a large oval mirror that faced her. The reason for the mirror could be one of many things; to admire her beauty or even to imprint on her the memory of her wedding night from the outsider's perspective. Most likely it provides her with the opportunity to get one last look at herself as the virgin that everyone knows she is. I'll report back if I discover the reasoning behind it.

The stage on the right is the bandstand. A 10 or 12 piece band sits in ties and white shirts as they watch the revelers and remember what they'd planned to do with their accordion playing genius. There is a microphone booming through speakers somewhere in the vast hall, that is passed from one entertainer to another. We have no idea what is being said but we clap and smile along with the other 398 people. One man is apparently reciting poems about love. He is, we decide, the Chuck Woolery of this event. Various flashy, monochrome dressed singers saunter into the hall, sing a few passionate songs and exit. Every transition is flawless. No one read from a piece of paper, every speech appeared to be memorized or impromptu. It didn't look like anyone had the official role of MC, the entertainers just knew when to enter and when to exit. There was even a stand up comedian, who, by judging the response, was a funny little man.

Seeing the graceful exits of each singer, we began to plan our own exit. When have we stayed long enough? It was a very interesting event, but in the end not that different from the average gaudy American wedding - where the meaning is lost among the blinking wedding rings. It didn't make it any better that we couldn't have a real conversation with the other people at our table. The volume of the music wouldn't allow it, all 12 people at our table spent the evening watching the TV nearest to them. We felt we'd had our fill.

The current singer, and one of the only male singers, looked like the Franky Valley of Azerbaijan. One of our tablemates informed us that he is a personal friend of Zeidulla. Enter, The Big Z himself, asking Jack for permission to dance with me. Jack mutters something equivalent to, "Do whatever you want, man," in an awkward moment of being asked to give me permission for something. Now it's me and The Big Z tooling up the aisle to take in a slow dance. He's a good head shorter than me and I felt a little like I was in Jr. High School again. I notice one of the big cameras just inches from our faces as we dance. I tried to make conversation because now I realize we're are being broadcast on all eight cameras in the room. Later, Jack informed me that is was the Shanon and Z show for a good while. The Big Z suggests that we go over to his friend/fellow English teacher/wedding singer to say hi. We perform the classic dancing and walking jig until we arrive within shouting distance of Franky. The Big Z speaks into his ear, meanwhile Franky is spitting out a lovely ballad. The song ends and I'm about to zip back to the sanctuary of our table of 12 silent people. Not so fast. My new friend Franky is saying into the mic, "somethingsomethingsomething...American friend...somethingsomethingsomething..." Then the microphone is in my face. At first I thought he was telling me to sing, which I would have done if that was what they really wanted - I was ready to break into some Lee Greenwood if necessary, "I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free..." - but he was saying "say." They wanted to show off the American who is interested in Azerbaijan culture and who is a friend of the father of the bride. After I gave my speech which was received with a round of applause - applause is always nice - the band gave Franky a bouncy 'C' and he got ready to start a new song. However, he wouldn't begin until I started dancing. My first reaction was that it was ridiculous to ask, at their whim, for me to dance alone in front of 400 strangers, but quickly I realized that this was probably only going to happen once in my life, so I went ahead and got my best groove on. Jack was on the dance floor in minutes lending support. Apparently I was a hit and an instant celebrity. When we were leaving one of the women at our table told me that she loved me. She was the same person who had given Jack the thumbs up after he repeatedly stuck out his tongue and gave the peace sign when one of the cameras rested on him for too long. Most of the Azeri's put on their best stoic mask when captured on video. When the grandchildren review the footage it'll look like no one was having any fun at all.

After all this we felt any exit any time would be as graceful as it needed to be. We thanked The Big Z and got a taxi home. Needless to say we we both sat in the quasi safety of the backseat. The ride home was uneventful, there was a little drama when we got there. I swallowed a bug right out of the air (as though it was my only source of food). It was one of those deals where it feels like the bug is trying to crawl back out with little regard for any effort to drown it with glasses and glasses of water. As they say on the BBC, grotesque. Also, one of our hall lights blew when we flipped the switch, leaving the bulb hanging 15 feet up, dangling from the filament. Nothing is so high that a table and a ladder can't reach.

- S

Afterwards I spent some time chopping up ginger and garlic and peppers and such to make dinner while Shanon filled the Russian cyclotron to do some laundry - a typical Sunday-afternoon domestic scene. Shanon even trimmed my hair, which is getting quite long. It's starting to get to that length where people will think I'm gay, even if I walk around with a woman on my arm - after all, Americans are known for their odd habits and outlandish lifestyles. Speaking of local impressions about Americans, and at the risk of bringing the tone back down, yesterday a student of Francois' (he's another CEP teacher in Baku) told me that a friend of hers married an American and now her neighbors call her a prostitute, even though she's married and presumably on the right side of the preeminent morality. This came up because we were discussing the state of intolerance and gender relations in Azerbaijan - Francois has put together a public debate on the usefulness of feminist theory for understanding and changing the situation in Azerbaijan, and I volunteered to coach one of the two teams. Ironically (if that's even strong enough), the debate probably won't come off because the students' fathers don't want them to participate (they're all women - the two men in the class didn't even want to think about participating, even on the con side of the debate, because that would've been tacit recognition that there's even something to discuss) - of course, these students have all told Francois that they're "sick," but he knows that he's being beaten left and right by the local patriarchy. Two out of his ten students did show up for the coaching session, even after he had negotiated with several students to meet in public - but not at a restaurant for god's sake, that's too provocative - because their families were worried about their gathering in the apartment of a professor (and these are Master's level students, from age 22 to 25). Well, there isn't much to do with two students showing up to prepare for a public debate, so we just sat over tea and I asked a bunch of questions about Azerbaijan, hoping to get some information that will help me figure out why this place is so intolerant and happy about it. That's when I got the marry-an-American-be-a-prostitute story, along with a lot of other information that made me depressed as hell. There were other things that weren't so surprising but it was good to hear them from an Azeri, like the fact that people here don't really love President Heydar Aliev as they say they do, they merely fear him.

Apropos of election day, here's a joke that same student told me: an Azeri has a television that breaks down, so he calls the repairman. The repairman comes to the house, looks at the TV, and pastes a picture of Heydar on the front of the tube. He tells the man, "I'll be back with a new picture tomorrow." Yuk yuk. We don't watch TV because it's all in Russian or Azeri, but I gather that it's just about entirely the Heydar Aliev Show (FYI - Heydar is a former member of the Politburo in Moscow and was once the head of the Communist Party in Azerbaijan, but now he's the great Democratic Savior and not a Tyrannt, seriously folks). Heydar isn't up for election today - it's only the Parliamentary elections, he won his five-year term in 1998 - but his son, Ilham, is running. We've been seeing his picture pasted up around the city for about two weeks, and I'm glad the election is over, because he's a dim-witted looking guy with a weak chin and a dopey expression (this is the best photo the ruling party and local dictator could come up with?), and I'll be glad not to have to look at his face anymore. The dope on this guy is that he really is stupid, and weak and corrupt to boot (according to reliable sources, the reason there's no more legal gambling in Azerbaijan is that he stole something like $20 million from the state-run casino, though someone else was made to take the fall on that one) - this election will not only put him in Parliament (there's really no doubt about his winning), which doesn't mean much because Heydar more or less runs the show around here and Parliament is just something that the pesky foreigners can be shown about when they ask about democracy in this country, but apparently Ilham is going to be chosen Speaker of Parliament, and according to the Azerbaijan Constitution, the Speaker becomes President when the President dies. Heydar is 77 going on dead - you do the math. How's that for a nice bit of "democratic" maneuvering to pass the crown from father to son? Of course, it's awfully hard to criticize this kind of familial annointment when George W. Bush is on the verge of becoming the President of the United States, and he's probably not a lot brighter or more competent than Ilham the Idiot, but it bothers me in America and it bothers me here too - in fact, it bothers me a lot more in America.

It occured to me today that I shouldn't leave the country, because things seem to fall apart when I do - during my year in Romania, the disastrous 1994 Congressional elections brought control of Congress to the Republicans, and now The New York Times thinks that Bush 2 is headed to the White House. I'm still holding out hope that American voters can't possibly pick that guy on Tuesday. I'm saying to myself, no matter what the polls say, when people get in that voting booth, they just won't be able to make their finger pull the Bush lever - I'll know in three days if this is merely wishful thinking, but right now, when I'm still increasingly unhappy with the unrepentent intolerance around here (even if I am getting more equanimity about it), I need something to hold onto, even if it is something as flimsy as the sensibility of the American voter. But as Shanon says, if Bush wins, we'll be able to go home in June and say, "We leave for one year, and look what happens!" We voted at the Embassy last week, so at the very worst, let's hope that Washington State is crucial and it comes down to the absentee ballot count, because two Gore votes are winging their way stateside as we speak.

- Jack

When people ask me general questions about the US like, "How do Americans dress?" I never know what to say. Americans dress...differently. Sure, I could start in Florida and work my way up to New England but that would take too long and I'd still have the bikini-clad roller bladers in Cali and the fleece-lovin' dotcom-ers in the PNW to deal with.

These women have few choices and none of them are very appealing. Either they don't get married and continue to live with their parents, where, by the age 28 they are called "old maids." Or they get married to the best suitor they can find, prior to age 28, and put up with a jealous (I've yet to hear someone say that Azeri men aren't "crazy jealous"), quite possibly abusive, totalitarian husband. It's almost impossible for them to live alone or even with another woman - though that is what most of them would prefer - because their families would never allow it and they would constantly be ridiculed. One woman said that an unmarried woman can't even walk down the street with another man, even a friend, without the rumors flying about her purity or lack there of.

One potential way to get your freedom (which is the word these women used in class today) is to get married to some chump and divorce him. Divorce is still very much frowned upon but not as much as an unmarried woman striking out on her own. I was told that often the woman's family won't even let her get a divorce. At that point I had to tell them that you just don't have to do what your family says. If you let your family push you around then it's also easy to blame them when you aren't happy. It certainly wouldn't be an easy life and their family might give 'em the boot. When you're forced to pick the lesser of two evils you're better off picking the one that has the potential to become even less evil down the line. It's going to take a lot of women to decide to live on their own before this society will change their ways. While it's no fun being the first, somebody has to do it, ask Susan B. Anthony.

At this point I'm just happy to hear women telling it like it is. I wouldn't want to trade places with any one of them. It's going to be a while before things change here, but I really think they will. The men are lazy and the women are smart, how long can it take?

- S

Now where was I? Right - this morning at 10am, there's another knock on the door and I see that it's the same guy and we got Natali's email last night telling us to wait for the master, so I open right up and gesture him in. He spews Russian at me and I shrug several times, and then apparently he decides it doesn't matter and he takes a quick look at the wire outside the front door and points out to me that there's my problem - the wire has broken itself because of age and/or poor construction. To demonstrate this further, he yanks at the wire in another place and shows me how brittle it is. He spews more Russian and I shrug some more and begin adding a few meaningless gestures just so I feel like I'm actually participating in the conversation, and then he slams the broken wire bit on the ground, presumably to indicate to me what shit it is, to which I agree by looking down at the wire with deep chagrin. The master is now into the gesturing spirit, catching on at this point that I really don't speak Russian, that I'm not faking it just to be a pain-in-the-ass and make his life more difficult, and he points out that the entire wire up to the roof and into the stairway is similarly shit. I shrug again because even though I think I know what he's saying, I don't know what to do about it - he's the master, not me. He hits me hard with some more desperate Russian and then makes a finger-walking gesture on the wall and it hits me that he needs a ladder, which we happen to have left behind by whoever painted our apartment before we moved in. I bring him the ladder and go inside to get warm and to update Shanon that the problem has been located and a ladder has been fetched and a solution is on the way. This is where my run-in with corruption begins - he has a big roll of brand-new wire, beautiful, sturdy black stuff that can and will be our link with the outside world in a matter of minutes, but it quickly dawns on me, as the master says something in Russian and points at this beautiful wire and rubs the tips of his fingers together, that he's asking me to give him money to install said wire. I play dumb for a second and shrug and point at the wire and smile hopefully, but he says something more urgent and rubs his fingers together again and now I know I'm going to have to address this issue with some of this non-verbal communication we've been establishing. I'm not about to do this by playing the "money talks" game - there is no way I'm going to pay this guy to do his job, so while he is rubbing his fingers together and cradling the roll of wire, I begin gesturing back and forth between the wire and the line up to and along the roof where this wire must go in order for our phone to work again. At this point I also get mad enough that I start talking in English, which I almost never do in Baku with people I know don't understand me because I realize it doesn't do any good - I've come to this conclusion by having people talk to me in Russian or Azeri when it should be obvious that I don't know what the hell they're saying, and they know it but I guess they can't help it or don't know what else to do or don't feel that they should be reduced to gestures when I'm in their country and why don't I speak Russian, or at least Turkish or maybe German or something, and usually I understand and sympathize because all of that really is my fault. But in this case I'm not about to take an affront silently, and I'm certainly not going to pay, and I'm definitely not going to let this guy and this wire leave here without fixing my phone, so I start saying, as I point from the wire to the wall, "Just do your goddamn job and put that wire up. There's no way I'm giving you any money. Just do your goddamn job. Put the wire right there. I know you can do it. Forget about it. I'm not paying you." etc. Once I've made this perfectly clear to myself, I go inside to tell Shanon what's going on, hoping that he'll just do it. Apparently I've gotten my message across, and/or he realizes that asking a functionally deaf-mute person for a bribe is a huge waste of time and he could be done here and ripping someone else off if he just hangs the wire and goes about his day. Not that he didn't give it one more try after the phone was fixed, which was kind of futile in my opinion since what would my motivation be for bribing him for something that was already done? However, at that point I wasn't so sure that he wasn't now asking me to fork over the real charge for this service. There was no way that I could even consider gesturing that since the problem was with outside line and not inside my apartment, the phone company should be responsible for doing all repairs for free, so I just gave him Natali's phone number and figured that if some legitimate charge had been incurred, she, as a speaker of both Russian and Azeri, would be in the ideal position to take care of it.

- Jack

Today in class with my Master's Students (about half of whom are male, most of these unapologetically tradition-minded) I decided to stop sparring with this Tradition thing and go in and throw some punches - I argued that things like fireworks on Independence Day or fasting during Ramadan are traditions worth maintaining, while traditions that treat one group badly for the sake of another group, whatever those groups are, should be gotten rid of, no matter how old or sacred or desirable they are to the dominant group. This all fit in with the topic I was discussing, which happened to be fairness and equality in society - in fact, it came up because I was talking about how the principles that dictate our social and political lives should be derived in a way that seems rational to everyone in society, which means that they should be plausible and convincing to all kinds of different people and that judgments against any individual members of any group simply for based on their membership in that group and not because of their traits as an individual is prejudice and prejudice has no place in this rational derivation of social and political principles. So there I was at a point in my lecture when I needed an example to drive this point home, and I thought that the belief that I've heard widely spread here, that women should cook for and take care of their husbands, was a perfect example of prejudice and judgment about what a person should do with their own life.

That's when the issue of tradition arose - one of the male students, who has brought this exact thing up before, told me that they (Azeri's) have their constitution (which contains an explicit clause about the legal equality of men and women) and they have their tradition, which I took to mean (and I found out quickly that I was right) that the inequality of Azeri tradition takes precendence over the legal equality of the Azerbaijan Constitution. It was at that point that I went into my spiel about good versus bad traditions, and I stated quite firmly that the fact that Azeri tradition has women cooking for and generally taking care of men in a way that is in many cases against their will - I'm not even going to get into the not-being-allowed-to-go-out-after dark stuff, among other terrible things, that goes along with men's traditional domination of family and social life here, or the tremendous social pressure exerted to keep women from being independent - means that Azeri traditions stink. This same student, who was literally jumping out of his chair wanting to set me straight, cheekily asked me who cooked in the United States - I'm sure he was convinced that I was going to have to sheepishly admit that it was the women, and then I would be silent for a moment and everyone would be silent with me knowing I'd been bested, and then I would go on with my lesson shamefacedly but chastened, and that I would finally stop trying to tell them that their biased ways were bad. But no - I had to go and tell them the truth, I had to say, "Sometimes the women do and sometimes the men do. In my family, I do the cooking."

That was when the laughter erupted, and I'm sure that it wasn't because they thought that I was being funny but that I was in fact asking for open ridicule. The strength of this response hit me quite sharply - the students here are so conditioned to respect and obey teachers (except when the teachers ask them to be quiet) that I knew that a display like that must've required an extremely overpowering reaction against the idea of a real man cooking. I don't mind the laughter - if I couldn't take it, I wouldn't still be here, and I also believe that facing down this sort of derision is one small way of making people rethink their knee-jerk beliefs - but I do find it disturbing that the men here can't get their minds around the idea of cooking for women. What other more crucial forms of equality are beyond their comprehension or aspiration?

- Jack

Friends of ours were international observers of the Azerbaijan "election" and they confirmed the information below. In fact, they told even more outrageous stories. Anyway, here is a little info for you all to compare and contrast the goings-on in those United States.

...Opposition candidates immediately claimed fraud and maltreatment of their supporters. Musavat party leader Isa Gambar charged YAP supporters with massive ballot stuffing and said that police had detained or driven off more than 100 representatives of his party, which he said had actually won 60 percent of the vote.

Ilzam Kazimov, pro-rector of the Slavonic University and a Musavat election observer, was one of those taken into custody. "The reason for my arrest was my demand to check the contents of the ballot boxes. I was accused of hooliganism and fined," he said. An observer from the DPA, Jamil Mamedov, said that the authorities had "interfered in every way," adding that "the chairman of our committee did not sign or stamp the election results, and arbitrariness reigned supreme."

YAP countered accusations of fraud by claiming that opposition representatives had attempted to disturb the course of elections and intimidate voters. The CEC reported that only "insignificant" deficiencies had resulted from a lack of experience in holding elections.

International observers, however, didn't see it that way. "The elections were marred by numerous instances of serious irregularities, in particular, a completely flawed counting process," read a 6 November statement by the International Election Observation Mission, a joint effort by the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). "Observers reported ballot stuffing, manipulated turnout results, premarked ballots, and production of either false protocols or no protocols at all. ... The international observers express their concern at what seems to be a clear manipulation of electoral procedures," the statement continued.

At a press conference, German election observer Manfred Mueller said he had witnessed serious violations, including a voter filling out 151 ballots in favor of one of the political parties. Mueller said he had also found improperly sealed ballot boxes in the offices of some commission chairmen. Two other OSCE observers who had participated in monitoring in the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic told reporters they were "shocked by what they had seen."

- S

I had a surprise crew of six teachers come to my "open reading" class this week to observe. I didn't mind that they came to observe. I did mind that they came under the guise that they wanted to learn about different teaching styles when what they really wanted was to bring me into their office after class and individually tell my what I'd done wrong. Keep in mind, they never asked for my qualifications before they whisked me into the job. All they wanted was an American English speaker and that's what they got. What they really wanted was a pitcher not an underwear stitcher. Anyway, it was a silly, annoying and somwhow pathetic. They want me to make the students read the majority of each chapter aloud in class. Only two of the seven students are anywhere near qualified as translators so they want me to teach them everything they haven't been taught in the past three years. I only have four more classes with these students anyway. "The chief" (the director of the department) forgot, until I reminded him, that the students don't have classes next semester, instead they get internships. Shouldn't he be giving me this information? Who's the underwear stitcher now? I decided to silently protest this event, I stared directly at each person as they gave their critique (showing no signs of agreement of disagreement) and refused to drink the tea they brought for me (this is a mid-size insult, it may have been immature and uselss but it felt good at the time). I knew if I said, "If you wanted me to teach them idioms you should have told me that two months ago." or "If you hadn't allowed most of these students to pay their way through college for the past three years they'd know the language well enough to participate." or any other righteous thing that might have made sense to a more intelligent crowd, it would have served only to frustrate me even more. The situation didn't even justify defending myself, which, as a general rule, I try to avoid . If they only knew we'd talked about women's rights just the week before and spent only 20 minutes on the book...the horror.

I'm making one final effort to feel as though I've accomplished something in my classes with the little devils. I've decided to pair them up and give each pair one of Aesop's Fables which they will use to create a fable of their own. Then they'll read both fables to the class and they'll try to find the moral. This entire process should take three classes which only leaves me with one more class to fill. Possibly they'll get a test, we shall see. I also have to tell the director not to come into my class anymore. He came in twice last week to tell the kids to be quiet and to tell me how to keep them quiet. (I tried the "it's your responsibility to be quiet, I'm not going to tell you." bit last week. It was not a success.) It doesn't do any good for him to barge in and yell in Russian, because as soon as he leaves it's business as usual, except for the fact that my authority (what there is of it) has been undermined. I know now that the only way to keep them silent is to threaten them and yell at them constantly, so they've told me. That doesn't sound like any fun to me which is why I won't be teaching there next semester. One of my friends here said, "Wouldn't you prefer to leave Baku feeling like you overcame the problems with them..." Ummm, no.

There was supposed to be a protest today. I guess some people finally realized they didn't want to live in a dictatorship with a constitution that reads like a democracy. We had our cameras ready but the protest never surfaced. The police had supposedly sanctioned it too so I don't know why it wouldn't happen. Maybe we missed it. We did see a new part of city though and it looked like the rest of the city; lots of cars, lots of freshly slaughtered barnyard animals.

- S

On a different note, we had a great time in Tbilisi, but that's for another entry. We took some pictures with the digital camera that Bret sent us, so the journal will soon be spiced up by photos from around the city and the region. For now, you'll have to be satisfied with a view of our "earthquake- and unpacking-damaged apartment." It's going to take a post-Soviet command of the blame-mechanism to get disaster-relief funding for our laudromat bill. Wish us luck...

-Jack

click here to see more pictures of our apartment

On our way back down to the city we came across some Georgians making wine. Actually they had already made it and they were now siphoning it into new containers. They saw us peering in and invited us into the courtyard. (They were making the "shoo, shoo" motion with their hands, luckily we know that means "come here" in Georgia or we might have scurried off.) The Georgians are forever hospitable so it wasn't long before we were drinking homemade wine and eating cheese and bread. It was a wonderful surprise for a Thanksgiving spent far from family and friends. They spoke English very well so we had the opportunity to learn more about Georgia. There were many toasts made; to us, to them, to peace, to strangers, to our unborn children, etc. The Georgians love to toast. (At every meal one person is given the title of Tamadan which gives them the responsibility of keeping the toasts gong throughout the evening. You're supposed to drink the entire class of wine with each toast, but most Georgians allow you to "kiss the wine" instead. It's really just a polite way to call you a sissy.) By the time we left our new friends we were feeling pretty good. Mostly from experiencing such generosity from strangers...but a little from the wine too.

The next day we went to the State Museum of History. It was very cold and I fell down the stairs (not because it was cold but because the stairs were made of marble and, I'm convinced, covered in talcum powder)...but we saw lots of artifacts and stuff so it wasn't a total loss. We intending to go to the State Art Museum, later we learned that the art museum is behind the history museum. So we ended up getting schooled instead of cultured.

We definitely fell in love with Tbilisi - and not just because we can get espresso there. It has more of a European feel and the people seem much friendlier (than in Baku). Although, one of the lecturers living in Tbilisi doesn't think people smile at all. I think it's the difference between Muslim and non-Muslim culture. We hope to have a chance to go to Armenia to see how it compares to the other Caucuses countries.

It was refreshing to see our "old" friends from Georgia, Armenia and Russia while we were in Tbilisi. The CEP folks are a great group of people. We were there for a student conference so we had students from the four countries with us as well. It was amazing to see students from Azerbaijan and Armenia exploring the city together, since the two countries are still technically fighting over territory. They haven't done any actual fighting in years but the issue remains unresolved. Most of the students have a good handle on what needs to change to help these countries become stronger. It's encouraging for the future. - S

click here to see more pictures of Tbilisi