Muganlo; The Pit of Despair???

Well in case you were thinking that I’d get a break on my site placement or get a “hookup” since this is my second time doing this, think again. Muganlo is the name and hard times are the game. Wow! I’ve just returned from a three and a half day site visit and let me tell you these are going to be two tough years.

But, let’s start with the good news. The good news is, my host family for the most part is super cool. My host father, Akhib is Azeri and speaks Russian well and even knows some broken English. He also drives the only Chevy pickup truck I’ve seen in this whole country, so bonus points there. My host mom was not there during my visit since she was in Azerbaijan visiting some relatives. There is also a host brother who is 12, a brother who is 25 and his 23-year-old wife and their 7-year-old son. So if you’re counting along, with my arrival that makes 7 people that will be living in this two story home. The place is nice and has a great shower, but the toilet is in the back of the garden and is true outhouse style. Oh well. My room is super small and as of now does not meet Peace Corps’ living standards due to a lack of a dresser or anywhere to store my clothes. My host-father has promised this would be different when I returned, so we’ll have to wait and see. Water is an issue since even they don’t drink it, but my PC issued filter should do the trick.

The whole family speaks Azeri and some of them speak Russian. A few of them speak Georgian when they have to, but Azeri is the home language. Russian is the common language of the village but Azeri is preferred followed by Georgian. Muganlo is made up of 4,500 people and I’d say 80% of them are Azeri.
The town itself is just one road that leads off the main highway about 35 miles outside of Tbilisi. The closest town is at the main highway 2.5 kilometers away. There are no cafes or anything and if you need the police or a hospital, you’re going to the town at the highway, cause Muganlo doesn’t have either.

Ok, negativity aside for a second, this is a huge challenge and if anybody can get up for it it’s me. Right now I’d be surprised myself if I make it; I’m not going to lie or kid myself. But, I’m going to give it my best shot.

I’m just kind of surprised that Peace Corps would place me here since it seems to me that as hard on us as they are about safety and security that I’m in a town with bad water, no police, no hospital, no phones, no transportation options and a school that should be shutdown for repairs (We’ll get to that in a second). I’m serious when I say this school is bad. I’ve seen some bad ones and this one is bad. And it’s not like I don’t have experience. I can do a good job if given an environment willing and motivated to learn and improve. But Muganlo looks like a place where hope is, like my host family, sending your kid to the next town to go to school, not working to improve your own. I was also disappointed after all the education volunteers had our “site debrief” session. Everyone has a better situation than mine. People with air-conditioned schools, swimming pools, cafes and pizza places, tourists visiting their cities, public transportation and Internet. Wow. People that live here don’t even know where Muganlo is. I asked my program director about why Muganlo was chosen as a site simply because after listening to everyone else’s stories I was wondering how I got there. She said that it has a huge need and that a motivated volunteer could make a huge impact there. True. And like I said, if anyone is up for a challenge, it’s me. I wasn’t too impressed though when I asked her if she had even been inside the school and she said no. Yeah, sure it looks ok from the outside, but when you step in it’s a different story. I’m just in a little state of shock right now that’s all. And, Peace Corps is all about stretching yourself. I should be able to integrate into this community and make some kind of difference; I just hope I don’t get stretched too thin.

Here is what I mean: My school is a major downer, but again, let’s start with the positive. My school’s director (Georgi) is also pretty cool. He speaks Russian well and I had no problems communicating with him. Ok, so now that we’ve covered the positive aspects, let’s move on. My Counterpart, the person whom I’m supposed to be working with speaks only Georgian, and some Russian and French. French? Seriously? Yeah. Like that’s going to be helpful in the middle of nowhere. You know which two languages she doesn’t speak? Azeri and English. Ok, I take that back she does speak some English, but I taught students in KZ that would blow her out of the water. Her first statement to me after we exchanged hellos was, “If Director asks, tell I speak English good.” Yeah, I’ll get right on relaying that message hun. She, along with my director doesn’t even live in Munganlo but the next town over. Because it’s like the representative from the Education Ministry said when I met her this weekend, “Why would you want to live in Muganlo?” Nice.

The school itself is like a prison without a budget. It was built in 1976 and hasn’t been remodeled or maintained since. Half the first floor is unusable (seriously, it’s closed off) and I’d say a little less than half of the windows are boarded up due to broken glass. Every floor and every class has water damage and there is a definite mold issue. The “sports hall” is just indescribable and has old dusty mattresses on the floor for gymnastics exercises. I could go on with the description of this place, but I’d rather not. The only thing that concerns me apart from the ceiling falling on my head one day is the toilet situation. There is no running water at the school because they are afraid that the children will drink it. So when they get done using the outdoor toilet where do they wash their hands? They don’t! I asked my director about this and he didn’t seem to have any real solution and came up with about the same answer I got to a lot of questions. “Hey, this is Muganlo.”

The problem is that this community is pretty much self sustaining and has been left to sink or swim. But, they’re just treading water. The first day I met my director and asked him what some major issues were that he wanted me to work on he came up with two. One, the students and the community as a whole don’t care about education as a whole and he wants me to work on motivating the whole community to change this. Two, girls don’t go to school past 8th grade because their families are concerned they’ll get “bride-napped” or they’ll go ahead and marry them off to avoid the whole kidnapping situation. And what married woman needs to go to school when she can be at home looking after her family right? So those are the two major issues I need to work on aside from improving my Counterpart’s English skills so she can leave ol’ Muganlo behind and get a higher paying job working for some company in Tbilisi and move in with her sister’s family.

Oh and did I mention that neither my school director nor my counterpart live in Muganlo? Yeah they live in the next town where all the resources and nice houses are. So do most of the other teachers at my school. Oh well. It’s time to put all this venting behind me and move on. It has felt good just to type it all out and I’m sure I’ve even missed some points.

The only other drawback, aside from the above mentioned, is NO PORK! Azeri equals Muslim in this case. And whether practicing or not, they don’t dig on the pig. Y’all know how much I love me some pork now! They do grill up a lot of lamb, but it’s just not the same.

I’ll have another post below this one if you want to read about my other experience in Muganlo. It’s not as informative but much more of a cultural introduction that I was thrown into. I hope this post hasn’t worried any of you, but I just thought you’d like to know my first impressions of my new home away from home… Muganlo!


The Loss of a Brother

When you live in a small community isolated from your native people and left to live or die on your own, every member of that community is an asset. So when Muganlo lost a brother this past week, then whole community suffered.

I came down from writing some reports and having a rest in the afternoon heat on Friday to a small dinner and an unusually quiet family. After we ate in an awkward silence, my host brother motioned me to follow him to the place where the night before all of the men in the community had sat, drank tea, smoked and discussed the business of the day. I thought we would have a repeat of the activity and was looking forward to learning some new Azeri phrases and meeting some more of the community.

However, we rounded the corner just as a large white van arrived and was quickly surrounded by all of the men in the men in the village. The scene that followed blew my mind and broke my heart. The casket was lifted out of the back of the van by as many hands as could be used and taken to a communal table surrounded my women dressed in black. It was laid down and the top lifted off. This is when it began…

The sound is indescribable. If you can imagine 500 voices beginning to cry at a single moment, then you may have an idea. Those immediate family members were the ones closest to the casket table and the ones who began to tear away the sheet covering the body of their husband, father, brother, uncle, and cousin. They are the ones who had to be restrained and assisted by all the others who were also in tears. Grape vines were torn from over head and waved to try and awaken those who had fainted away and fallen to the floor. Chairs were brought from out of nowhere and limp bodies were lifted onto them. The death sheet was moved away and the body lay as if asleep. The whole of the body was being touched and prayed over. The widow moved around it slowly stopping only to wail, pray and kiss the feet of her dearly departed.

The tears flowed like rivers for what seemed like hours. Women standing by the wall to the side needed it for support and to hide their faces. When they moved away the wall was so wet it looked to have been weeping as well. When handkerchiefs were so full they were of no use, they were hung like flags of sorrow on a line off to the side. The men, usually stoic and hard were all off in the back together so as not to be seen but their tears flowed together in silence with no less force than those of the women.

As the sun went down the ceremony began. And here is where death affects the living. Those who were not immediately related to the deceased moved on and back to their homes. But the widow sat at the head of the casket surrounded by her mother, sisters and daughters. As soon as the natural light began to fade she untied her long naturally black hair streaked with grey and let it fall over her shoulders. She pulled it into her hand and brushed it across her husbands face for the last time then tied it on top of her head. Her mother then brought the black headscarf. The widow bent her head and prayed as her mother tied the scarf into her hair where it will be tied everyday for the rest of her life. She will wear only black, she will eat alone, she will sleep and wake alone, not because she has been left alone, but because of her love for her husband and her respect for his memory.

Now that she was in black and the whole earth had turned black, and electric light was produced and hung above the body. The sudden brightness shocked me awake from my amazement and I became aware that I had not moved in over an hour. I watched as the widow and her family were brought a pitcher of water to drink for the night for they would sit there watching and morning the dead until the sun rose at their backs.

Until the third day they would watch over him and pray for his soul as it made its way to the afterlife. And on that Sunday morning as I prepared to leave I heard the widow speak for the first time since the scarf had been tied to her head. It was a prayer that I did not understand but knew its meaning. She must have prayed for her dead husband and told him how she would respect his memory in this world while he awaited her in the next. And then the casket was closed and the tears of the community flowed once again. As I walked away I heard the tears fall and the voices cry out, but my heart could not break again and my eyes could no longer witness the pain of a lost brother.