The non religious experience of Laying Hands

A couple of days ago I confessed about being in a piss poor mood. To no one's fault honestly. We are just coming out of winter dread and seemingly the slowest February I've ever experienced in my entire life. I have two "not so nice" words for February and I will leave it at that. In a self-motivating effort to make a dent in my emotional slump, I decided to meet the Sun at the park close to my apartment building. I brought my book with me just in case I started to look weird just sitting there soaking up rays. I sit down on a bench, crack open my book, and ease into what it feels like to be normal. I can't speak for other Americans but for me, I find it rather normal to go to a park and simply read a book. I got my headphones on, my book pried for the read and the face of a person that says "bothering me is probably not a good idea my friend."

So this !Sucka! walks up to me speaking some of that good old Azeri jargon. It's not registering to me but it sounds like he is straight up trying to play me for that $5 dollar an hr girl. I don't want to jump to any conclusions so I shew him way explaining that I'm sorry but I'm not understanding.

He sits down. Ok so maybe what I'm saying isn't registering. I think I should move. That's exactly what I did. This !Sucka! follows me to the next seat and proceeds to sit down again. At this point I'm running out of the many different ways to verbally/physically say  that I'm not interested in being bothered at the moment and perhaps I should move again.

Oh he gets real bold by coming to sit down with me at the next bench (the third and final bench). Because it's not enough for me to wear headphones, carry a book, not make eye contact, walk with my head down looking at the cracks in the ground,  and shake my head no profusely when I genuinely don't understand. Nope..that's not enough. What is enough however is a nice firm grab of the throat and all those spectacular words to back up that I mean what I say-whether I say it or not. And that's just what he got from me: yanked up. I yanked him up faster than he could remember his first and last name. I yanked him in the name of every Azebaijani girl that couldn't enjoy the park without being teased. I yanked him for all the volunteers that can't go from point A to point B without being ooggled and googled. I yanked him in the name of  real Azerbaijani men who would never stand for such foolishness. I yanked him in the name of my own peace of mind. That park has benches for anyone to sit and enjoy-be it mothers, fathers, children, girls who want to giggle about life as a girl, young lovers, sunflower eating teens, old men lamenting on times passed, grandmas selling their roasted nuts, so on and so forth.

On any other bright sunny day I would have just strutted home with my tail between my legs. I would have picked up the phone, called my security officer and huffed about being harassed in the park when my real intention was to try to read this book. But I couldn't. I was already feeling some kind of way and the one wrong 'anything' from any !sucka! would have resulted in New Jersey's world famous Knuckle Sandwich with the Sauce on the side. Especially if I'm giving all the signals that point in the direction of No.

Now mind you, this little confrontation is totally against anything Peace Corps tells us. Our go to reaction is pull our phones and get to dialin' the Security Officer. I laid hands on him on my own will and very well could have been met with someone who was high off life, carrying a weapon, have nothing to lose and straight up give me a classic KGB laced arse woopin'. He could have-ya know. Not to make light of anything, but I'm not at 'home' and that could have easily happened.


I guess I just have to find some comfort in knowing that I was defending myself. I felt threatened. All of that "I'm going to follow you from bench to bench and mistake you for a hooker because you're obviously a hooker with your books and headphones and stuff" is not going to be met with blushing smiles.You are just asking for 5 finger face time in my opinion.

After contacting Peace Corps, I got all the support in the world believe it or not. And that means the most especially when you could potentially feel a bit guilty about being American straddling cultures. 

In other news~I got marshmallows and I'm going to make s'mores for my beginners conversation club. Novuz is coming up!

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