A Visit to the Homeland

So it’s true, distance does make the heart grow fonder, but it’s also true that the grass is always greener on the other side. In fact, during my ten-day vacation in June to the Great States of America, I found myself missing tandir bread, crumbly cheese, and cups of tea.

Within thirty minutes of touching down in Florida, it was as if the last ten months of my life had not passed in some forlorn Islamic country in the Caucuses. It felt exactly the same as before: I was in a car on a wide, smoothly paved highway, lit up neatly with endless individual reflectors. Air-conditioning blasting full-force on my face while the air outside was wet and heavy. I was on the right-hand side of my man. We went to a Denny's. I had a milkshake. There were no feelings of specialness, no nostalgia at all. Why weren’t the paved roads, air conditioning, and Oreo milkshakes of my Azeri fantasies as thrilling and wonderful as I’d made them out to be?

Because I'd been living with this shit for 22 years. Ten months in the Land of Az is just a drop in the bucket (I did the calculation; it’s 3.8% of my life) when I consider American Kaylee versus Azerbaijani Keyli. Sixteen more months (the remainder of my service) in the land of Az is sure to bring me down with a more acute case of reverse culture shock for when I return. For now, it’s interesting to see how this little drop has changed things.

I joined Peace Corps to experience new things, to get out of the ordinary. And it has fulfilled that desire. My days in Azerbaijan scarcely resemble the ones at home: the pace, language, food, customs, indoors and outdoors, everything is exotic. Exotic doesn’t necessarily mean pleasant, however, and it comes at the expense of familiarity, plus all the great stuff we have in the States. PCVs have the habit of romanticizing together about the things we enjoyed back home that are absent here. It’s another fun way to compare and contrast our countries, and we shouldn’t make it more than that, into a self-pitying commiseration of poor Americans in a (poorer) foreign land. But it is easy to build up Denny’s into a perpetually welcoming heaven of homestyle food, when it’s just a 24-hour restaurant with cheap food (cheap as in poor quality— I couldn’t believe the prices at that place!). Our deprivation of American stuff doesn’t turn the actual American stuff into super star-spangled gloriousness; rather, it gives us a simple, humble appreciation of it. A quiet buzz that doesn’t effect the senses, just the spirit. And I don’t think it will ever fade.


Americans love cold stuff. Refrigerated fruit, ice in every drink, and air conditioning set around a chilly 68°. This is something that even before I came to Azerbaijan I had problems with. I was so cold all the time! But my intolerance to the cold has only multiplied because Azerbaijanis have an outright phobia to all things below a toasty warm. Tea must be served with boiling water, and if you let it sit for a while, rendering it comfortably hot, they will tell you your tea is cold and you need a refresher (in summer it is served this way too). Forget about finding relief in a nice breeze. If the windows on a bus are open wide, you will be hastened to narrow them, lest you catch a cold. Same with the oscillating floor fan. They refuse to sit in front of it and implore me not to, for fear that I will incur aches-a-plenty from its debilitating whooshes. Now cold drink is the grandpappy of all tickets to illness. At the least, it will make your throat hurt, and at the worst it will bed rid you till you die of pneumonia. (By this point, I am exaggerating for satirical purposes, but you get the picture.)

In my position of diplomacy, I offer these words to the warring Heat and Snow Misers: Azerbaijanis could use a little more tolerance to cold things, and also Americans should give heat a chance too. A message to my fellow citizens! If walking into your home from the sweltering outdoors doesn’t give you the same refreshment as walking into a refrigerator might, it’s ok. If you choose to dance around your house like a maniac (like me), don’t expect your home’s a/c to help you maintain a comfortable cool. Sweat it out!

On my side, I encourage the Azeri nation to drink cool water when they’re hot. I keep my window open on the marshutka, practically hanging my head out of it like a dog. I make skeptical faces when advised to wrap my belly when I’m ill, or told by someone that her neck is sore because last night she rode in a car with the windows down. It’s all about moderation, folks.

Americans love to joke about their “personal bubble.” But when it’s popped, it’s no joke. It’s very important to them. Azerbaijanis, on the other hand, would never even consider coining such a term. Because there are no “personal bubbles” here; all area around your body, and even your body itself, are open fields for bumping past, squeezing between, sidling up, and even huddling against (for warmth). I’ve become accustomed to this body culture. Before, I’d get huffy when someone “rudely” shoves past me at the market, and when it came to waiting my turn, I’d serenely stand in my place as if when I arrived mattered, not if my face is the next to be seen, and thusly addressed.

This Middle Eastern closeness I’ve developed clashed with Western distance while I was home, in a Target, where a particularly crabby and vocal American was upset by the fact that I walked in front of her shopping cart, leaving only a couple of feet to spare, to enter the aisle to her right. She thought that was cause for a private exclamation. I just smiled amusedly to myself. I do the same thing with cars over here.

Pedestrians and moving vehicles have just as intimate a relationship as bodies do in Azerbaijan. We weave serenely amongst each other, yields calculated only on whim and emotion. On the Baku episode of The Amazing Race, the racers were scared to death by this proximity, but there’s a system to the seeming chaos. I wish so badly I could drive here, because there are so few rules to stop you on your way (but there are cows and flocks of sheep that may). This more casual manner of road etiquette rubbed off on me when I got home. I parked my car lazily at the end of Eder’s long driveway, not particularly tucked away, because of the large amount of space available. As soon as I got out, Eder told me I should move it, maybe down the driveway more, or into the yard where it’d have a nice pocket of protection. In its current spot, the neighbors across the street might be hindered while backing out of their driveway. I told him there’s nothing wrong with it there, there’s plenty of space, why do Americans have to be so anal about where cars go? After a while of dealing with my stubbornness, he let it go. Later in the evening, we got a call from his dad telling me to move my car, the neighbors might get angry. I gave up. I’ve learned it’s much easier to do the simple things that oblige people’s arbitrary cultural preferences rather than defy and try to change them.

To change a culture, phew, now that’s one thing I know needs monumental force. A rag-tag group of 100 or so Americans, starry-eyed and charismatic as we are, will never change a culture that’s been rooted since, literally, the Stone Age. Likewise, as progressive and open-minded as we Americans think we are, the Peace Corps doesn’t alter the tide of our nation’s lifestyle. In reality, it’s the PCVs ourselves who change the most, pretty substantially in fact. I feel so fortunate to be one of these people, a part of the very special and very spread out community of Denny’s believers and Azeri dreamers.