My Host Family + Pictures

Welcome to my host family house~!

Kitchen with washer

Bedroom

The living room

Yup..the hole in the ground I agreed to use

Hallway

My bed

This is the little garden I walk through to get to my door

Of course they have cats!

So each of us got a host family which is the integral part of learning/practicing our language as well as integrating into the community for the first 3 months. I stay in an area called Saray which location wise is maybe an hour from the capital-Baku. Let’s say Saray is like a town..not so much a village. Part of the roads are paved and others are just dirt and trash. It’s half and half. There are a lot of stray dogs and cats and some mild attempts at garbage pickup. Ok neither here nor there, back to my host family. So I was placed with a family that does not have children (THANK YOU GOD!-I’LL EXPLAIN LATER) and they have the main house and a guest house which is completely re-done. My host mom’s name is Yagut. She is an English teacher that doesn’t speak English. She also goes back and forth between Azerbaijani and Russian which is very confusing. Her husbands name is Hamdil who is a musician. I guess this is true because his snoring beats any big band horn section. ( I need to say this for my own humor-not yours). When I first got here I was very nervous. I had no idea what to expect. It was like SURPRISE-HERE’S YOUR NEW ‘FAMILY’ and the anxiety of that alone is overwhelming. I was super scared but remained intact up until the point I bumped my head exiting the main house of my host mom. The tears just came. Mostly because I was experiencing culture shock and because I miss home so much. And the remainder part of that is because hitting my head really did hurt to the point of warranting tears. Where I stay is in a small house behind their main house. I have my own kitchen, bathroom, bedroom with lock/key and television.  Sounds great right? HA! They live in this house too! Matter of fact when I get home from Language Classes, the father is usually sitting on the couch watching Russian news (he’s probably pooped from all that music he’s been playing) and the mother is not too far behind to come cook for me. They do not have any children, but they do have a cat or 2. Now I’m not really partial to Azerbaijani kids just yet. I have to warm up to them as much as I have to warm up to my parents.  They are very silly, happy, and curious. It just adds an extra layer of unnecessary while I’m trying to adjust. After I’ve been gawked at (Azerbaijan is the land of the gawking), pointed at, laughed/giggled at (which I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing yet)-then the last thing I want is to come back home and get barraged by children who encompass all these behaviors in one single dose.  So I was spared. My pct(peace corps trainee) next door unfortunately has not been.  I’m definitely stressing a simple family for my next host family (yup..i get 2).   Overall however, and this is the most important thing, I really do like them. My host mom is not new to hosting Peace Corps volunteers and it’s just comforting to know that she gives and respects my privacy as well as the many emotions I’m experiencing. Also for the record-you may be wondering how I can tell the difference between when my host mom speaks Russian and Azerbaijani to me. When I was crying-she waved her hands and said words that ended in ‘ski’. I knew she was saying something to the effect of: OUCH! THAT MUST’VE HURT. IT’S OKAY-CALM DOWN, CALM DOWN!   Oh and she has 2 gold teeth, which is a sign of wealth. Oh, Oh and she wears really bright pink lipstick. So that’s my host family. Enjoy the pictures of my place. I’ll be staying here until December.

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