AzerbaiJAN! As in former Soviet Republik. As in oil boom on the Capsian Sea's left coast. As in.... a trickle of life in the West that warms my heart, fills my belly, and keeps me groovin' to post-Soviet techno-pop and cheesy hits from the 80s. Ah, a girl could spend a lifetime here!

So it's been a month since I last updated this blog. Where has the time gone, I ask. I will try to reconstruct.....

In Pondicherry, at approximately 2:26AM the morning I was supposed to leave, I woke up and wondered.... what was it that woke me up? I never wake up in the middle of the night. Ah, yes. Vomiting. I rushed to the bathroom in just the nick of time, and proceeded to spend the next 12 hours watching the meager contents of my digestive system go down the not-so-clean squat toilet. A French guy that I had met offered me a spot in his taxi back to Chennai, where I could catch a train to Vellore, but when he came to pick me up, my stupid hotel manager told him that I wasn't in. In a state of misery, I had to get on a bus and ride 5 hours back to Vellore where I had stored all of my stuff. Thankfully, the bug in my tummy had decided it'd had enough, and there was no spewing during the bus ride.

Godsend of Godsends, I arrived in Vellore on Feb. 9th to find my friend James was still in the house where we were staying after the building project was done. He, too, had been struck ill a few days prior, and hadn't gone travelling as he had intended. James was my guardian angel. He's a funny, wicked smart, kind and gentle person who is self-described (roughly) as a grumpy old fart with too much time on his hands. He bought me food, made sure I rehydrated, and arranged my train ticket to Chennai while I foggily recuperated.

The next day, I boarded the overnight (36 hours!) train from Chennai to Delhi. Approximately 2200 kilometers. Long trip made easier by virtue of the fantastic company in my berth compartment. There was a middle-aged German woman who displayed a curious blend of New Age hippie and no-nonsense Teuton matron; a fun Tamil couple who were on their way to Delhi for the woman to interview for a mathematics lecturer job at the university; and a whacky older Indian guy who didn't speak much English at all but who really enjoyed playing the role of patron and protector to the group. We chatted about spitiruality, joked about gender roles in the modern Indian household, and stumped each other with an unending series of logic puzzles and riddles. All in all, Indian railways gets my vote as one of the best forms of transportation in the world.

In Delhi, I got in touch with my friend Rana, who worked on the school building project with me and who was in the city for a computer geekfest of some sort. I hitched a ride with him and his English friend Gary out to Tashi Jong, a small village about 50km outside of Dharamsala. Tashi Jong is known primarily for its Buddhist monastery, and many of its residents are Tibetan. I spent a week doing just about absolutely nothing, lounging in the chilly mountains that stand dwarfed by the distant Himlayas. Read some. Worked on my knitting. Hung out with Rana and Gary. Ate lots of noodles. Went for walks. Chatted for hours with Rana's mom and grandmother (neither of whom speak English, and of course I don't speak Hindi, but we had fun anyway!) And then it was time to head back to Delhi for some last-minute shopping and to solidify my plane ticket reservation to Azerbaijan....

.... which was the most hellish two-day experience I've had to muddle through in a long long time. Uzbekistan Airways wanted a copy of a government-stamped invitation letter, which the Azeri government doesn't require. They also wanted to see a plane ticket in hand out of Azerbaijan (like I would want to overstay my visa!) And so two days of emails and calls and faxes and visits to other airlines & travel agents ensued. I did no shopping. I shipped no gifts or souvenirs home. I saw not the International Museum of Toilets. I called and waited. I sat in the airlines office and waited. I emailed and waited. I plead. I explain. I poke and prod and cajole and beg and promise and sigh and go away and come back later to start all over again. I remember to eat. It was a long two days.

At 4:30PM, the day my flight is supposed to leave (at midnight), I leave the Uzbekistan Airways office with my prize - a one-way ticket to Baku, Azerbaijan, via Tashkent Airport in Uzbekistan. Life is markedly less exacerbating. Even the 9&1/2 hour layover (starting at 3AM) in a converted Soviet mansion that served as the Tashkent International Airport was not all that bad. (Though I would not recommend the experience to anyone who has other options available.) The airport personnel were nice enough to walk through the 500 people crammed into a lounge designed for 100 and wake people up to ask if they were on the next departing flight. As I lay curled up on the cold marble floors, scarf draped over my eyes to keep the light out, a young woman in a tight green miniskirt, black stiletto-heeled books, and white blouse (apparently the airport uniform for women), would shake me awake and ask in a thick nearly-Russian accent: "Meeess! Meeess! Are you goink to Frankfurt?" No, I would mumble, I'm going to Baku.

An hour later: "Meeess! Meeess! Are you goink to Lonedone?" NO, I would assert, I'm going to BAKU.

Forty-five minutes go by. "Meeess! Meeess! Are you goink to Mozgow?" No. I'm goink to sleep.

I bust out my notebook and a Sharpie and draw up a sign that reads
I'm going to:
BAKU
with arrows pointing to my shivering carcass. It worked. No one woke me up again. Lots of non-native English-speaking passersby, however, could be heard slowly deciphering the message, and then heartily guffawing when they reached the "Baku" part. They sounded like The Count from Sesame Street. "Baku! Baku! Ah! Ah! Ah!" Their laughter drifted into my hazy slumber, and I smiled at the humor that my highly effective labelling had produced.

So the past week I've been in Azerbaijan, visiting my cousin Laura who is here on a Fullbright scholarship to research issues faced by refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) due to the conflict with Armenia. Our friend Mathilde is also here. We've done some touristy stuff, like carpet shopping, visiting momuments and historic buildings in the city, going out to see the mud volcanos (mini-volcanos that gurgle and fart and erupt gray mud). We also took a trip to visit some of the programs being run by the International Rescue Committee for refugees and IDPs. Although people the fighting with Armenia stopped a decade ago, people are still living in dugouts that formerly sheltered livestock. They have to walk 3 hours to get drinking water. They live 9 people to a room. I talked with the project director about different building techniques using mud and straw that could drastically improve the housing conditions, and would likely be even better than the uninsulated cinder-block houses built by other aid organizations. He seemed interested, and asked lots of questions. Who knows but I may come back to Azerbaijan?

We are now roughly caught up to today, and it is time for the girls to head out into the blustery cold and wage war on the giftshops and carpet sellers. I think my haggling skills, finely honed in India, will be an asset here. Anyone want a camel-motif kilim?? ;)