Duffys in BakuAngela and Leo Duffy are volunteering in Azerbaijan. The following extracts from their emails give a taste of their adventures…
Week 1 Baku AzerbaijanWe have arrived at last, our plane landed at 11.30 in the evening, at 3 o’clock in the morning we finally got through passport control and Visa control, not a very efficient airport, one man hand writing over 100 new arrivals.
Our home for the next three months is a communist era grey crumbling block of flats 9 stories high, nothing works properly, there is a 3ft square lift that looks like it will fall apart any minute none of the buttons work properly, it takes you up very jerkily - one floor at a time and we are on the seventh floor!! Twice, we have been unable to get out and have had to go back to the top floor and down again.
The lights don’t work on the stairs and it's pitch black coming home at 9 in the evening.
Today we have had an introduction to the staff and pupils, all very friendly and they have made us very welcome. The centre itself is very run down and in a very bad state of repair, but as Fr Martin told us, it’s who is in the building that matters,.
The biggest problem is that most of the students speak very little English and all the computers are in Russian (that I will have to sort out), but from now on they will have to learn English in my lessons also.
Will let you no how we go on next time.
Cheerio for now.
Leo
Azerbaijan Week 1 Day 3Not sure we can stay the pace, we leave here and catch the bus to the centre at 10am, tried walking to the centre on Wednesday but decided it was far too dangerous, the roads are very wide and no footpaths, full of large pot holes so the traffic swerves about trying to avoid them. Luckily we get a lift back to our lodgings at 9 o’clock each night. I think we both agree that it is one of the most interesting place we have ever worked in.
Fr Stefan set the centre up 10 years ago for refugees from Iran and Iraq - over one million are here - he had three teachers; they now have 27 and over 300 pupils.
All of the costs are covered by private sponsors, the centre works in a totally different way to a normal school, most of the staff are teaching staff from the university who come here in the afternoon to earn more money, but quickly become dedicated to the philosophy of Don Bosco, i.e. teaching young people who are less fortunate than themselves. Speaking to the teachers we find they are not much better off than the pupils as they only earn £50 a week, and the cost of living is slightly higher than at home.
The range of subjects taught is amazing: 4 languages - Russian, Azeri, Italian, and English, Maths, Welding, Music. In computer lessons - Word, Excel, Publisher, Power Point, Access Database, AutoCad, Graphic Design, Weaving Carpets, Dress Design, etc. The furniture designs are unbelievable all in 3D. The Graphics Design department teach a programme that designs tractors and cars that actually move on the screen, and the engines turn - The teachers do it for less than £50 a week!
The conditions we have to work in are the worst we have ever seen, I have the luxury of a wood burning stove in my computer room. Angela’s room is very damp and cold so she is covered in blankets.
The demand for a better education is so high here. There are 20 parents waiting every day, trying to get their children into the centre, many adults enrol for English and computer lessons in the evening and it is not unusual to have 12 year olds and 49 year olds in the same group. Most of the classes only have groups of 4 to 8, so it is all very intense.
Cheerio for now.
Leo.
Week 2 Baku Azerbaijan
Another fascinating week, this centre was set up 10 years ago to cater for some of the 1 million refugees that came from Iran, Iraq, and Armenia.
As soon as they become efficient in English and computers the Canadian government has a program for the refugees, they give them an interview and in many cases can get a visa to live in Canada. Everybody is quite sad when they leave, many of the ones who leave are the brightest ones, and there is very little chance of a Christian getting a job here. Our centre has not yet had accreditation to practice as a school and it is viewed very warily by the authorities.
One Christian student from Iran that I had got to know very well has left for Canada.He told me it just wasn’t safe for him to go back home.Today we had the KBG, or secret police, come in to the centre to check what we were doing and who was here but all were friendly.
Yes the Salesians work under very difficult conditions.
This is the first time we have worked in a cold country, and it’s really cold, no central heating in the house we live in, and very little heating in the centre, I started off with one pair of thermal underwear, now I have 4 and I’m still frozen, even our two Salesian priests are never without a thick woolly hat.
One thing that makes up for all the hardship, is the people here, they are so friendly and helpful they just cannot do enough for you, each day one lady has brought an article of clothing for Angela to keep warm, not very fashionable but who cares if it keeps you warm? All the teachers and students wear thick overcoats or leather coats in the class, the animal rights people wouldn’t sleep at night if they saw the number of fur coats here. We are not complaining it’s amazing how quickly you acclimatise to everything and after a week you look at everything as normal.
We are just about getting to know our way about on the buses, it costs twenty pence to go anywhere. The people are very well mannered on the bus, if an old person gets on, the men immediately stand up, if a lady gets on every male stands up, if I get on the whole bus stands up, bit embarrassing at times, I still don’t feel that old. One thing about the buses they come every 5 minutes and you are crammed in like sardines, always twenty to thirty standing, if you want to get off three or four have to get off as well!!!!!!
I love working with the young students, I learn as much from them as they do from me. Teaching databases and graphic design often requires a two-way conversation to get it right. (Three languages are spoken here so can imagine many mistakes can be made, I’m now very good at sign language especially having taught deaf & dumb students computers last year)
Cheerio for now.
Leo
Week 4 Bacu Azerbaijan
This week my email is to all the wimps back in England.
Switch off your central heating, your hot water supply, limit your running water to one hour each night, intermittent electric, the gas going off (when it comes back on you either gas yourself, or blow the block of flats up).... I will then withdraw the term wimps.
Angela has a one bar electric fire, I think now seven or eight layers of clothing. We keep the bath full of water so we can fill buckets to flush the toilet, yes very primitive here - though quite educational.
Today we are off to Sheik, to what we are told is the most historical area of Azerbaijan, it also has the oldest Christian church in the world.
We got off to a very bad start, we needed to get a new passport for Angela, she has no more room to put a Visa in, without a visa she will have to leave the country if picked up by the police, so up bright and early to get Angela’s new passport from the British Embassy.
We get into our lift to take us down the seven floors only to find the lift doors would not open, luckily in our three foot square lift, we have Fr Stefan who is taking us to the bus station, he speaks Russian, so with his mobile phone he was able to make contact with the repair man for the lift. After nearly one hour he arrives but is unable to fix it, out comes a crow bar and one hour later we are eventually let out. Unknown to us he was asking for payment for letting us out but, not understanding Russian, we didn’t find out till afterwards, he probably won't let us out next time!!!!
When we get to the bus station (three hours late) all the buses are full, we decided to negotiate with a taxi driver a price to take us to Sheki. Finally a price of £40 was agreed, not bad for a 200 mile journey over the Caucasian mountains in winter (diesel here is 40 pence a litre).
At this time of the year the Caucasian mountains are covered in snow, so we know we are taking a slight risk, when an old Larda arrives as our taxi, it definitely does not look very safe to take us over a 2000ft mountain pass - the fro
nt seats are held upright with the seat belts, a few cracks in the windows. The driver also decides it’s not very safe and agrees to get a slightly better car at the same price.
The journey was interesting especially the toilet stops, at one of the cafes they had a bear in a cage - it looked in dreadful condition. The next stop was at a restaurant where the area was covered in deep snow. The owner showed us inside the fridge where he had some mangy looking chickens which we had to choose from, he proceeded to light a wood burning stove to keep us warm, while we waited for him to barbecue the chicken, one hour later we recommenced our journey.
By this time it was going dark, we were not sure what our accommodation was going to be like, all we knew was that it used to be an old camel station used by the camel herders on the Old Silk Route for past three hundred years, it sounded interesting in the guide book but, we were not sure what we were letting ourselves in for. When we arrived it looked like cross between a jail and a castle, the entrance door was twenty feet high, much like Strangeways Prison, with a door cut into it. We let ourselves in through the small door and found a fifty foot circular stone entrance with a gallery running all round the top. A man eventually appeared from an opening in the wall, he gave us a large key then led us down a dark passage way that led into an open space which looked liked the inside of a jail or monks cloister. He led us along a stone vaulted passage to a door that opened into a stone cell, it was absolutely freezing no central heating.
Here there were two small beds and the thickest blankets I have ever seen, over 1inch thick and as heavy as lead, just what the Camel herders would have used. We quickly locked the cell door and got into bed were we were quite warm and soon fell fast a sleep!!!
I will leave now and tell you in the next instalment how we, in England, are probably blood relatives to the people in this remote village high in the mountains of the Caucasus
Cheerio
Leo
Week 5 Bacu, Azerbaijan
Sheki
Well worth the discomfort of getting here, it’s a small village high in the Caucasian mountains but acts as the administrative centre for the area.
The accommodation we are in is one of two very similar camel stopover centres for the camel herders on the way over the old silk route Together, the two would have probably catered for about a thousand camels in a huge compound outside and the camel owners inside this fortress so I think Angela is classified as a camel owner and given a stone cell as a privilege.
Today we have booked a taxi to take us to another village called Kish were the first century Christian church is. It was built by the Albanians but not by the Albanian country we know it - they are a small sect of the Azerbaijanis. Like we would call ourselves Lancastrians, they call them selves Albanians
On reaching the village I see a statue of Thor Heyerdahl (made famous by his Kon Tiki expedition) with a small plaque underneath. He suggests that the Norwegians originally came from Azerbaijan.
More info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor_Heyerdahl#Heyerdahl.27s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZJ1-cIAYMc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCQ257vpvqU&feature=related
Cheerio good reading and listening
Leo
Week 6 Baku
Everyday we make our way to the Miriam centre by bus; it cost 16p, all journeys cost the same wherever you go. Angela has a 9ft square damp room with no heating situated outside of the main buildings she takes six groups each day with 6 to 8 students, teaching English conversation it’s quite interesting what they have to talk about.
Mongols, Iranians, Arabs, Ottomans and Russia, etc have all occupied this country at different times in its history; it is only since the fall of the Berlin wall that they gained their independence. In the last 2000 years it has been occupied for all but 2 years, the boundaries of this country have been set many times in different places and changed many times in history, hence the problem with Armenia.
At the beginning of the 7th century Azerbaijan was nearly all Christian and up to the 17th century it was still mainly Christian but, with the invasion of the Ottoman Empire and 70 years of Stalin, Christianity was almost wiped out. Most of the present leaders are remnants of the old soviet hierarchy.
When Fr Stefan came here, there were only 20 Catholics at his first mass. Now we have about 1000, many of them expats. One old lady was telling us that when the Russians were here and in the process of destroying all the churches, a group of 27 parishioners wrote to Stalin asking him to spare their church. He saved the church but sent the KGB round to their houses and shot them all.
It takes a lot of courage to become a Christian in a Muslim country, many young people do convert, and 80 percent of our congregation are now young people.
Cheerio for now
Leo
Week 7 Baku Azerbaijan
50% of all the oil money is now being spent on the infrastructure. The other 50% goes on bribes or as they call it here Appreciation money or Honour money. (If someone gets you a job you pay him. If you get a job as a policeman you pay your superior a weekly income of all the fines you have taken, it’s normally £3.00 for every car you stop----not a bad income each week!!!!)
Corruption is a big problem. Two of my students told me they could only get their degree if they paid the tutor £500. Our centre has not been accredited for the last ten years because as a Christian organisation we can not pay a bribe, even the church has not been accredited, without accreditation it causes lots of problems. The government just don’t want to trust anyone from the west; you can understand this after being occupied for 2000 years. They can’t understand why western people come here to look after old people and disadvantaged children. Pensioners get £20 social security each week but many have to beg or sit at the side of the road selling lemons, most are refugees without visas so they cannot get work
Back to my work, I now have a slightly better room than Angela, I have a large table to prepare my work, and four computers, still no heating but, it is starting to warm up.
The main programs I teach are Graphic Design and Databases. I have had an influx this week wanting word and excel. Half my pupils only speak Russian or Azeri, so I have problems trying to get over what I want them to know but, we are achieving it and their English is improving. They are now quite good at using English programs thanks to Angela, although the keyboards are still in Russian 33 letters and 32 sounds.
It still amazes me how many students want to come here it is the most dilapidated building I have ever worked in. Angela and I have three doctors who come to learn English and one of the doctors works for BP.
BP will not employ anyone unless they have been to England to be checked that they are properly qualified and good English is a must. One of the doctors said if you have a bit of knowledge about a subject you can then buy a degree, even a doctor’s degree!!!!!
Most evening I am teaching English conversation. Angela sends her difficult students to me. This evening I had three adults who spoke a little English. One of them was a professor from the university, she was a strict Muslim wearing a head scarf and her first statement was: “Do you object to me covering my head?”, followed by “You hate the Italians?”. I told her “No”, she replied “Julius Caesar invaded your country so you must hate them; you also hate the French because the Normans conquered you”. Then you hate us because you invaded us in 1916. You also invaded Turkey in 1915 (i.e. The Dardanelles were sent there by Churchill). The English have invaded every country in the world”.
I did retrieve myself by saying I thought Muslim girls dressed more respectfully than our girls.
This girl is 26 she has studied all the English classics. Shakespeare, Dickens, Jane Austen, W.B. Yeats. When she was leaving me she stated that “for my next lesson I wish to discuss English politics”---ha ha..
I told her that the Azerbaijanis were driven from their own country by the Romans in AD 79, they then invaded Norway in AD 90 and called themselves Vikings, the Vikings then invaded Britain on 8 June 793. The (Vikings) or Norsemen destroyed the Abbey on the island of Lindisfarne so, it was the Azerbaijanis who became Britons and invaded the rest of the world.
It does tend to make them think about their history. (Anyone who can come up with a better story let me know quick.)
I think I will to stick to computers, if anyone wants to come out who is an expert on history they may be able to prevent the next war. People here just never forget the past, they know very little of other countries’ history and are unable to move on.
However they are the friendliest people I have ever met and I enjoy my constant battles with them.
Cheerio for now
Leo
Info about the project:
AFTER SCHOOL TUTORING PROGRAM RUN BY THE MARYAM CENTRE Where is it?The program is held in a building that was a café which the church buy situated in Ahmedli, a suburb in Baku. The Centre is called The Marian Centre.
Why an After School Program?The Catholic Church has been in operation in Baku for the past ten years and during this time the church wanted to help the community in the most meaningful way and decided that what better way than through Educating Young People.
Why is the Maryam Centre located in Ahmedli?The Church looked for the most needy and poorest community in Baku which is Ahmedli where unemployment is at its highest and the income per household is extremely low.
How many children are currently enrolled in the program?There are currently 350 children enrolled in the program ranging from age 10 to 25, all of whom go to school in the area but require assistance in one or more of the following subject areas: English, Mathematics, Russian, Azeris, History and Geography. The school offers Computer Literacy to all students. Also students here can learn to make carpet, cooking, welding, elektrication…
Who are the teachers?There are 40 teachers all from Azerbaijan, who live in the area.
How is the Program funded?The program has been generously funded by (ADC) the Austrian Development Cooperation and the Jugend eine Welt organization, Renovabis and Irish society. More sponsors are being sought as the funds received would assist the program for only 3 more years.
What are the Days of operation for the Maryam Centre?The centre is open from 10:00 to 6:00 pm from Tuesday to Friday.
How can you help the Marian Centre?The Centre is in need of the following:
• Volunteers to teach English, German, Spanish, Singing and Guitar
• Volunteers for the Conversation Club
• Volunteers to help run workshops for the Summer Camp
• Sponsors from Companies or Organizations
• Donations of cash
• Donations of used books, stationary, computers
• Your Prayers!!!
If you wish to assist the centre please contact Father Stephen at 055-679-25-46
Week 8 Azerbaijan
Another fascinating week! A friend of mine David Smart from Greenhalghes bakery came to demonstrate baking bread, the English way. There are only few types of bread here, unlike probably 30 or more in England, I think he certainly enjoyed the experience - I know our students and teachers did…only four more weeks left, time just flies. At least we are leaving the teachers here with a better command of English and I am leaving my teachers with knowledge of a few more programs that will help them. As Fr Stefan says, just being here is enough.
I don’t know how the five priests cope with all the problems that occur on an almost daily basis, funding centres like this is the biggest problem, their faith that God will provide is amazing and he does, from the most unexpected sources.
Many are used to hardship, having trained as underground priests under Communism, with the constant threat that any new trainee priest could be a spy trying to find out who the local bishop was so all could be arrested. Most of them had to work in factories as it was an offence not to work, all the studying had to be done without anyone knowing that they where training to be catholic priests - even their own parents didn’t know.
In our centre religion cannot be taught, there aren’t any signs that we are a religious organisation but, all our students and parents know.
85% of the teachers and students are Muslim, they have great respect for Fr Martin & Fr Stefan who run the centre, you can see them both playing volleyball and table tennis every night and they have a great rapport with everyone who works here.
Muslims here are very different than the Muslims we know in Britain, they dress just like any youngsters in England; they like pop music (just as loud) and many girls wear short skirts, they walk about with their boyfriends holding hands, no different than England.
Cheerio for now
Leo
Week 9, Bacu Azerbaijan.
Our time is rapidly drawing to an end in the Marian Centre, very different to any of the other countries we have worked in. We were both slightly apprehensive at coming to work in a Muslim country, Azerbaijan proved very different - it prides itself on being friendly to everyone.
The young people are free, they go out and enjoy themselves as our children do, Alcohol is available but very few drink it, most of the male population wear a black suit and drink tea in the many cafés. Now that summer is here many are starting to dress the same as at home, all the groups of boys behave very maturely when walking along the boulevards - we have never seen any rowdy behaviour anywhere.
Vandalism is a word they don’t even know, hundreds of thousands of trees are being planted everywhere, and beautiful parks are being created with both mature trees and sapling. Ornate cast iron balustrade are built around the parks, in the three months we have been here we haven’t seen any damaged trees or balustrades.
Yesterday was my 75 birthday I could not have wished for a better one (they have great respect for older people), the teachers and students prepared a BBQ for me followed by a film show of my life here with them - just where the slides came from amazed me. Lots of presents, one of the best was a mug with the photographs of the teachers and the students I have been teaching with one of me in the centre wearing a Russian fur hat. This was then followed by traditional music with the boys teaching me the local dances - Zorba the Greek has nothing on me now. A film show has been made to prove my expertise, not that I will be showing it to anyone.
The area we work in was chosen by the Salesians because it is the most run-down and poor in Azerbaijan. We now have three hundred and fifty students coming in every week from twelve years old to fifty year olds. Class sizes are from one to six although Angela often has up to ten and could have many more. I still only have three or four, teaching computer programmes in Russian and Azeri not easy.
One of the big problems for this country is the enormous number of refugees from Iraq, Iran, and Armenia (over a million). One of our families has three young children who are not allowed into a local school because their father has worked in Russia for most of his life, he hasn’t the correct paperwork so he is stateless. His children are being fed three times a day here at the centre and also getting an excellent education.
All this requires money; every single student only has to pay 80 pence a month!!!!
The Salesians have to sort out all these problems on a daily basis..
Cheerio for now
Leo
Our Final Week
Bacu Azerbaijan.
It’s always sad when you are leaving good friends knowing, that you will probably never see them again.
You always ask yourself has it been worthwhile and what have you achieved? You have to admit you are just a pebble in an ocean and hope that the few seeds you have sown will mature when the next two volunteers take over from us on the 2nd of June.
What have we achieved? I think Angela has about 40 students who now speak much better English and have the confidence to talk to people in English.
The two programmes I have been teaching have given many students the skills to work in any publishing house, publishing magazines or news papers, or working with a Graphic design company.
Look on any news stand and you will see there are plenty of jobs.
As regards Access Data Bases I’ve certainly not been here long enough, they can write a simple data base in either Russian or Azeri suitable for a school, a small business or a doctors’ surgery but not for a large company.
As we are getting ready to leave the weather has changed dramatically, we are now in the 80s, and the trees are full of leaf with small fruits, nuts, and olives being the main crop.
Lifestyles have changed with the weather, 95% of the people live in flats, the parks are coming into their own. Most of them are full of people till very late at night, the newer parks that have been built are about 10 minutes away from our depressing area they are attractive with lots of fountains walkways and cafes.
One thing slightly different to home is that they are mainly full of men often with their children just drinking tea. You don’t get any of the rowdy behaviour you get with our teenagers; the youth respect everything and everybody.
Dads still have a strong influence on the family and the children generally respect him even, if he tells his daughters to be in by 9 o’clock, irrespective of age.
The news papers and TV don’t undermine family values and generally back them up.
The one thing that is very bad here is corruption, how they will ever stop it I don’t know, it is holding this country back and they will never catch up with the West until something is done about it.
Do we carry on doing what we do? Yes - As Rabbi Menahem summed up the never-ending nature of the journey: “He who thinks he is finished is finished”
Cheerio and God bless.
Leo