Lisa Tresch in Azerbaijan

Salam,

We arrived in Ganca (pronounced Genga) on Saturday evening after a long, wild and bumpy ride in a rented mini-bus across the flat terrain of Azerbaijan. We took the quicker route instead of the road that runs through the Greater Caucasus Mountains because there were ten of us and our luggage crammed into the bus, and the driver was concerned about the bus overheating. We obliged him because although we are up for new and exciting adventures, being stranded on the side of the road is not one we wanted to experience. We arrived in Ganca around dinnertime and joined our hosts for a delicious meal of beef stew and potatoes.

The weather is beautiful here. If you close your eyes you might think you were back in the midst of an Oklahoma autumn, but with open eyes you would see that you were many worlds away. If you stand in Azerbaijan and turned to the south you would be facing Iran. Turn north and you are facing Russia. Look west and you will be looking toward Armenia. Turn east and you are facing the Caspian Sea. But we are here to look at Azerbaijan and to see the people here. And they are a beautiful people. Their dark piercing eyes seem to look us over with a mixture of curiosity and wonder, and perhaps with a little suspicion.

We visited the market on Sunday morning and our senses were overloaded with the sights, sounds and smells. Row after row of merchants were selling everything from fresh pomegranates (a favorite and plentiful Azeri fruit) to a sheep’s head. Some of us walked through the fresh meat section of the market. The smell is what you might expect from freshly slaughtered pigs, chickens, lamb and cows and they are hanging only a few inches from where you walk. We didn’t linger.

In other parts of the market piles of bright green fresh herbs, red tomatoes, orange carrots, black grapes, green cucumbers and bags of nuts are arranged neatly in baskets, and behind the arrangements sit the vendors: women with deep lines etched into their olive skin smile warily at us. The men all wear dark suits since the summer in Ganca is coming to an end. It is their preferred way of dressing. Even construction workers can be seen toting piles of lumber wearing the standard black suit. They dress up here in Ganca because appearances matter. Even if they don’t have enough to eat, they won’t leave the house looking underdressed.

It is Tuesday as I write this, and we have visited the baby orphanage, the vocational school, and the psychiatric hospital where we sat in on the art and sewing classes. It is an experience we will not soon forget. The women in this hospital will probably live here for the rest of their lives. Some have been placed here by their families because they could not take care of them. Some, however, have lived their entire lives in an institution – from the baby orphanage to the children’s orphanage to this hospital. “You have brought us joy today,” one of the patients – a young girl - told us before we left. “And you have brought us joy,” we replied, because they did. We laughed and joked with them and they wanted to talk about American music and singers and movies.

The men will be painting a room in the baby orphanage while we are here. They were going to paint it orange, but when they paint went on the walls, it turned out pink. But it looks nice and smells fresh.

We have met quite a few Azeris and enjoyed their hospitality, which always consists of a pot of tea, some pastry sweets and talk of family. Marriage and children are high priority, but family structures can be complicated arrangements of several generations living under one small roof. Life is not easy here.

We are here in Ganca for a few more days and will then take the night train back to Baku. Melanie and I will share a compartment and hope to get some sleep on the eight-hour ride across the rails. Until then, we will be visiting another orphanage, another psychiatric hospital, an international school and perhaps the market again. We hope to meet more Azeris before we leave on Thursday evening. Although we are confined to communicating with them through interpreters, we grow richer through each conversation we share.

We appreciate your continued thoughts for us.

Sag ol (goodbye) from Ganca, Azerbaijan,
Bill, Mark, Bob, Melanie and Lisa