Back to School

I am now in Ganja after traveling for 6 hours with the Caucus mountains on my right  and a very friendly Azeri English teacher on my left.  I arrived in Ganja and finally met Halima and her family and today I accompanied her to school.  Like in many parts of the world, the students here go to school for half a day.  They begin around 8:30am and finish at 1:00pm, another group of students then study from 1:00pm-6:00pm.  Halima's school has around 1,000 students and includes grades 1-12.  She works with grades 6-12.  Students wear a uniform and enter the school in a far more orderally and quiet manner than the students at most American schools.  I am introduced to the Principal, a couple teachers and then we make our way to Halima's first class.  Her first class is small, only 8 students, all girls. I wondered if classes were gender segregated, but Halima informed me that there are two boys in this class but they are not here today.  We are in a history classroom so there are pictures of war heros from Azerbaijan's recent war with Armenia (early 1990's), along with historic artifacts like water jugs, spinning wheels etc.  The students stay in this classroom for all their classes and the teachers move from room to room. The students are in 9th grade, around 15-16 yrs old.  The have a very basic level of English which they have been learning using a book heavily focused on grammar and vocab.  I have brought a book of pictures about Washington, DC which I share with the class. I talk about monuments, important buildings and a little history.  They let me know they know of two US presidents, George Bush and Barack Obama. 
After my mini-presentation they begin to ask me very typical questions for 15 year old girls, "Are you married or single?", "Can we see pictures of your child?"  I was just happy they felt comfortable enough to ask me questions in English.  They promised me that the next time I come to their class they will tell me the history about Ganja.....and their favorite Brazilian soap opera (this was a randomn piece of information I found out during our 40 minutes together, they like to watch Brazilian soap operas, having just finished watching Caminho das Indias, I am intrigued by this).

The second class I visited was that of another English teacher who was preparing students from grades 1-7 to participate in an English presentation on Friday. The students will be reciting poems, singing and acting in front of the entire school.  I liked that these students were doing a mixed age/grade presentation. It made for an interesting dyanmic between the students and the material they were presenting.  I helped a couple girls with their pronunciation and watched all the students rehearse for their big show. 

I love how easy it is for a teacher to feel right at home in a school on the other side of a planet.  It is that inate desire to teach, share and learn that allow educators to work anywhere with any student. 

Protests, Gentrification & Food - Day 1

I arrived in Baku around 7pm and was picked up by Halima's sister, Nushaba.  Nushaba was a little late which resulted in about 5 minutes of panic on my part.  Once she arrived she wisked me off into an awaiting taxi and we were off. Nushaba explained to me that she was late because she was busy editing film from the day's protests.  Nushaba is a photo/video journalist for "Radio Liberty" / "Radio Free Europe".  She spent the day covering the Freedom protests, which resulted in mass arrests in one part of the city, with police even arresting passerbys not only protesters.  While the protest was not on a grand scale like those in many other parts of the Muslim world, they have been quite signigicant for the people of Azerbaijan.  They have had the same family (father then son) ruling their country since the break up of the Soviet Union.  Nushaba feels as though not much will come of these protests at the moment because there is not viable alternative to the those currently in power. 

While she was describing her busy day I was looking out the window and admiring row after row of beautiful, ornate buildings that lined the highway. Everything looked new and very clean. These buildings had intricate stone work on the facade and were well lit so to empasize their grandness.  I commented to Nushaba about these buildings and she proceeded to tell me about a report she recenlty completed about them.  She explained to me that these buildings replaced older buildings so that foreigners traveling from the airport would have a great impression of Baku/Azerbaijan.  The previous inhabitants were vacated and more affluent residents have now moved into these buildings.  Gentrification - Central Asian Style.  Once we turned off the highway the buildings were older, not so pretty, kind of run-down.  Nonetheless, Baku seemed like a city in the middle of big changes. There was obviously money to fund such big modern projects but there is still an old feel to the city. 

Like all good hosts, once we arrived at her apartment Nushaba offered me some food. She had a type of cherry jam.  Basically it was as if  you made jam with the whole fruit and didn't mash it. Sweet and yummy. Later for dinner we had Dolma, stuffed peppers, a yogurt drink and bread. A great first meal for my first day in Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan, Here I Come!

My visa just arrived, so now I know I am definitely on my way to Azerbaijan.  I applied for the TEA program a year and a half ago, so my upcoming departure has felt like distant almost fictional event to me.  Since I found out that I would be traveling to Azerbaijan instead of Jordan in November,  I have spent countless quick minutes on Google looking up the map of Azerbaijan, the Wikipedia history, the CIA factbook info, Lonely Planet touristy info, Azerbaijani food, culture and dress.  I even managed to find out about a famous Azerbaijani Jazz singer, Ella Leya who has a new album, “The Secret Lives of Women.” 

What I feel completely clueless about is Azerbaijani education, which is the reason I am going to Azerbaijan.  I have no idea about their system of education. Is it vastly different from the Russian system (which I am also clueless about)?  Do they stress standards and testing like we do over here? How are their teachers trained, Are they unionized? Are they respected?  What are class sizes like? How do they deal with differences in their student population? I am filled with questions.  I love being filled with questions, that’s why I love to travel.  I will try not to bombard my wonderful host Halima with all my questions at once. 

Halima is a bright and exciting person who has clued me in on some small details about education in Azerbaijan, which has helped me put together the workshops I will be doing with the teachers over there.  Halima spent five weeks in Nebraska last year, which for a long time East Coaster seems as remote and unfamiliar as Azerbaijan.  I look forward to meeting with her and staying with her family. Halima’s enthusiasm about her country, her students, her profession is intoxicating.  Every time we have Skyped  I have felt more invigorated about my own teaching & students.  I know this trip will be amazing!