Wedding It Up

Over the last three weeks, I have been to not 1, not 2, but 3 weddings! All the young women getting married have been my or other PCV's counterparts.

Now, I have talked about weddings [link] several times [link], but as I found out last night, not every tradition I have learned is expressed in exactly the same way. For example, I just learned that it depends on how far back the family holds the tradition, but at the girl's wedding, sometimes it is just the girl (all decked out) that shows up!

That definitely threw me for a loop. Never heard of that!

So, it goes to show that no matter how long I am a PCV, I have barely scratched the surface of Azerbaijani culture. Ugh. So much to learn, such little time left...

Yeah...that is right. I straightened my hair for this wedding...

Have you people seen this?

If you have not heard, Azerbaijan won Eurovision [insert - what the heck is Eurovision? - question here] this year! That means, next year, Baku will be hosting the 2012 Eurovision contest and what an event that will be.

I am kind of considering returning just to be here for that awesomeness, but that is a whole other story...

At any rate, check out this music video aimed at educating ya'all about the coolness of Baku, Azerbaijan (and increasing tourism) for Eurovision. Of course, the two singing are PCVs here...wicked sweet huh?

The Sanctity of Bread

If I can impart any one lesson on you all, dear readers, it is this:

Never disrespect the bread [in Azerbaijan].

It's not the cheek kissing or the Allah phrases that will mess you up, it's the odd behavior when it comes to bread. I first encountered this when I accidentally dropped a piece of bread on the floor. I had never seen my host mom move so fast, but in 3 seconds flat she had that bread picked up, kissed three times, and placed on top of the refrigerator. She looked at me sternly (like I had intentionally dropped the bread) and returned to stirring the milk.

We never spoke about it again.

To this day, I am still a unsure as to why bread is so important; I just know that it is. If I drop the bread now, I immediately scoop up the offended piece, kiss it, and place on something high up. I try to never throw old bread away, but if I have to, I wrap it up in a plastic bag and hang it from my door. It is always gone by morning.

Now, I surmise that the beliefs about bread here stem from the Zoroaster days because when Novruz [link] hits and all that wheat grass pops up, it seems like Azerbaijanis can't get enough of spring, planting, and abundance. You just seem to know that Azerbaijanis respect the Earth for giving them food and show that respect through treating bread with kid-gloves (it coming from one of the most valued and basic grains).

Of course, I could be entirely wrong, but I kind of think I am right.

It kind of goes with many of the other Azerbaijani beliefs and actions about food, but we will talk about that at a later date...

Anyway, the point is that if you ever come to the 'Baijan, don't waste bread. Don't drop it; don't throw it away, and certainly don't throw a chunk at your friend on the other side of the table. That is a big no-no...

Places to Go: İlisu?

Last week, I went to one of the most infamous places in all of Azerbaijan: İlisu [link].

Now, after all the hype, I was kind of expecting unicorns and waterfalls. Instead, I got a quaint little town and a tea house.

...

Do not get me wrong. The mountain breeze was nice and the several tourist traps spoke of an increasing Azerbaijani interest in catering to visitors, but eh. I get all those things in Zaqatala.

What it really came down to was my [American] idea of side-tripping and the Azerbaijani idea of vacationing are so dissimilar you need to build a state-of-the-art subway system between the two to find any common ground.

I mean, follow me here folks. In Americastan, when it comes to vacation, we Americans Do. It. Up. We are talking waking up at 5:30 a.m. to catch our 8 a.m. flight and then heading straight to the beach. After that, we reserve a nice table and drop a few hundred on drinks and delicious food. The next day, we are up again at 6 a.m., except this time it is snorkeling and sunburns. We have a tours on horse-back and maybe a day or two on a bus touring around the island. We never take a break and we get the most bang for our buck*.

Compare that to Azerbaijanis who visit a quaint little town with a tea house. They spend a month waking up super late, breathing in fresh air, drinking tea, and maybe bathing in the natural hot springs. Most evenings are spent strolling through town with your families and spending hours chatting on the porch*.

Seriously. The difference between these two vacationing styles is so vast, it boggles my mind. Of course, over the last three years, I have come to appreciate pieces of both styles and hope to continue to find a perfect mix of the two, thus creating my perfect vacationing style. However, I still cannot get down with just the teahouses. I need an amusement park or something.

*Some artistic license was taken with descriptions. Don't sue me.

Describe friendship...

A couple of posts ago, I talked about what I hoped to be my lasting impact on my community: friendship [link], but it wasn't until last week when really began to understand exactly what kind of project I was trying to undertake.

Last Saturday, I asked my Women's Conversation Club to describe the characteristics of a good friend.

Of course, an hour later, I felt like we really hadn't made any sort of progress. Several girls mentioned keeping secrets and having someone to talk to that was just like them. Most of the girls disclosed that they, in fact, didn't have any friends and thought the topic was uncomfortable.

Huh?

It took me a few days, but during an impromptu tea, I had the opportunity to sit down with a small contingency from this Women's Club and kind of get at the heart of the matter: friendship definitions are culturally based.

In Azerbaijan, generally women do not really have "friends". Sure, they got acquaintances, school chums, their husbands, but that American definition of a confidant, a supporter, a devil's advocate, does not exist. I am assuming something similar happens with men, but since cross-gender friendships culturally inappropriate, I have no idea. My closest male friends are my closest Azerbaijani girl friend's brothers. I just figured out how to pronounce all their names last month (this is my 3rd year folks).

Now, for you American readers, if you sat down right now, you could easily make a lengthy list of attributes you hoped for in a friend. In Azerbaijan, that gets tricky. The concept of a friend is foreign, so during my conversations, an actual list was never really solified. Yes, women were looking for confidants and supporters, but they want someone who would not try and steal their husbands or become jealous of their possessions.

Huh (again)? Now, I do not know about you, but I know my girl friends back at home have never had to fear that I would covet their significant others or with their iPhones.

It makes me wonder if I bit off a goal that is just too big to chew. I am coming from such an American place on this friend thing that half the concerns expressed by these Azerbaijani women make no sense to me. I mean, come on now, if you don't want your friend stealing your man, don't try and steal hers! But is that simplifying the matter too much? Is the man stealing an underlying issue of something larger that I just don't understand?

Ugh, stuff like this is a constant in my life. The cultural differences between Azerbaijan and the U.S. are immeasurable. It is easy to think that some things are universal, but I've quickly learn that those things are few and far between.

So yeah. What to do now?

Toyin It Up

Serendipity is exactly how this happened.

Earlier this week, I was invited to a boy's wedding.

Now, I had no idea it was a boy's wedding. I arrived thinking that the father of the bride had invited me. Turned out, he was the father of the groom.

Anyway, 98% of all my friends in Azerbaijan are 20-something girls, so the probability of me ever going to the "boy's wedding" has always been pretty low. Wonderfully enough, after a few awkward moments, we came to realize that the wedding was indeed a boy's wedding...let the fun begin.

First, a boy's wedding and a girl's wedding follow the same exact patter. Look at my previous post [link] to know what that is. The only real differences are:

1. The bride wears a white dress with a red sash around her waist; and,
2. The bride does not return to her parents' home after the ceremony.

Otherwise, normally, the boy's wedding is bigger and attended by both sides of the family. Things go pretty normal - about 4 hours (maybe 5 if you are lucky) of dancing, eating, and drinking.

Personally, 4 hours is my cut-off. I usually leave after the special wedding rice pilaf has been brought in. Unfortunately, many people think this is exactly when the party gets started. Most of time, I end up having to dance myself out.

The Girl's Wedding

As previously mentioned [link], this month we are taking about Azerbaijani weddings.

So...did you know that the bride and groom have their own weddings?!

Yup. That is right. As a bride, you get two (TWO) parties to celebrate the momentous occasion of marriage. At the girl's wedding (a few days before the boy's), the girl wears a colored dress, enjoys the company of her family, and smiles, a lot. She then goes back home and prepares for the boy's wedding which will happen in a couple of days. The boy's wedding is a much more traditional affair, complete with white dress, red sash, and no smiles. The girl does not go home after this party. Instead, she starts her life as a married woman.

Last week, I went to a girl's wedding. My friend, Ş, wore a lilac dress and smiled up a storm. I wore a black dress and sat a lot because I had recently hurt my Achille's tendon in a tiger-street fighting accident (actually, it is not so dramatic and a much longer story).

The best part about this wedding? I got to MOW DOWN. U.S. wedding food has got nothing on Azerbaijani weddings. We are talking at least 5 courses of salads, meats, kebabs, and special wedding rice pilaf.


For this wedding, my friends and I arrived at 6 p.m. and stayed until about 11 p.m. Food started arriving at 7 p.m. - so..that is about 4 hours of foodage. Mix in toasts and dances every six minutes or so and you got yourself an Azerbaijani wedding. Oh yeah, do not forget the 10 decibel tar-centric music.

Weddings in Azerbaijan

Welcome to my newest label, Azerbaijani Ed. Over the next 6 months, please join me in learning more about Azerbaijani culture and communities. If you have any questions or comments - click the Comment link below!

This month, we be focusing on Azerbaijani weddings.

Okay guys, dig in because this is a pretty big topic. I definitely do not have enough space in this post to talk about the whole shebang, so I am going to break it off into smaller pieces. The most important thing to know is that weddings in Azerbaijan, although called weddings, share few similarities with American weddings.

Firstly, weddings are big deals. Actually, they are the deal. My counterpart (a few years my junior) has been to as least 60 weddings in her life. There is no US equivalent to describe how big a wedding is in Azerbaijan, so it is kind of hard to wrap your head around unless you have lived here.

Secondly, the prep of a wedding kind of follows that expected path. There is an engagement party, a bachelorette party (usually where henna is used), a girl's wedding, a boy's wedding, and then the day-after party.

Last week, I went to a bachelorette party. Amid Turkish traditions and probably some Persian customs, we ate, drank tea, and danced. One tradition is to henna your future mate's initials into your palm. I did not do this, but the future bride certainly did!


Next week, the girl's wedding!