The best TDY of my life: Georgia and Azerbaijan

Although I’ve never had a sore thumb, I’m sure my coworker and friend Charles Samuel sticks out like one. He’s an early middle-aged black man from the Caribbean island of Antigua who lives in Tbilisi, Georgia. I would say there are probably two other black men in the entire country (who are probably just passing through as roadies or Americans working at the embassy). But neither of them have thick Caribbean accents like my buddy Charles.

Charles is in charge of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ support to a 10-year, DoD-funded assistance program to help the Georgian government get on its feet after 70 years of being in the Soviet Union. He’s been in the beautifully mountainous country of Georgia for five years and, after our first day together when I asked lots of questions about what living in a poor, corrupt, ex-communist, isolated country like Georgia was like, he said that it’s impossible to explain all that he’s been through.

Pshaw, I thought. What’s he been through? Well, after a few days there an in Azerbaijan for work, I agree completely. You just can’t easily convey daily life.

Here’s a sampling:
First, there’s the traditional third world stuff. Electricity goes out often, even at the embassy. Stray dog processions line every street. Dead dogs line every highway. Speed limits are bound not by signs but by how fast you can go around errant cows, horses, donkeys, sheep, and pigs who find themselves lost and scared on highways. Grocers without cash machines still use abacuses (I shit you not). A “family car” is one that is able to hold a family of four, a sheep, four hay bails, and two mattresses.

The list goes on. But the best stories to share about the Caucasus countries all involve the experiences you can’t get in America.

I was in the area for work, obviously. And one of the projects I visited was a school we’re constructing for children living in a poor Kurdish community near Baku, Azerbaijan (next to Iran). These people are the poorest I’ve ever seen, living in poorly made dirt-floor cinderblock houses with holes instead of windows and no sewage (or drainage or electricity or utility) system.

After seeing the impoverished at their worst, we returned to our $220/night hotel to work out at the members’ only gym (the nicest in the city) shower in our mammoth bathrooms (complete with bidet), and get ready to go out to dinner at a Russian restaurant called Yolki-Palki (which is apparently like “damnit” in Russian).

Although we were in Azerbaijan, we ordered in Russian. And although Azerbaijan is a Muslim country, we ordered white wine, red wine, and, of course, vodka.

There was an older Jewish couple who passionately sang, danced, and played the accordion. At times, they would come to our table and violently jerk myself and Charles (who they loved … how many black men to these people see in person?) on the floor to clap, dance, and sing along to their Russian/Azeri/Jewish songs … which we’d have to do even though we didn’t know the beat, steps, or words.

Then came the toasts. Apparently it’s a cultural faux pas to go a meal without making several toasts. It’s also a faux pas not to drink (which I tried to do at first in keeping with my New Year’s resolution). It’s also a faux pas to listen to a toast and then not toast back in return (the equivalent, I was told quite crudely, of having a women satisfy you and then you having the gall to not satisfy her). It’s also a faux pas to refuse drinks from those who buy them from you. And, as our luck would have it, the three old, drunk, wart-y gentlemen at the table next to us somehow got word that Charles was an Army general (he was not) and so decided to ask us to drink and dance with them – and sing happy birthday to one of the geezers.

So, there I was, eating borscht (Russian), sturgeon (Azeri), drinking copiously (against my will), making toasts for the health and well being of people’s families who I didn’t know, and occasionally clapping, dancing, and singing old Jewish country songs I didn’t know, and holding hands (a Muslim thing) with old, wart-ridden men who kissed me on my cheeks for saying such nice toasts about their families during my toasts (which I didn’t want to make in the first place).

As awful as all that sounds, I had the most wonderful time I’ve had on all my TDYs.
We finished up the night by crowding (all four of us) into a beat up Lada (an old and unreliable Russian car) with a cracked windshield that had to be pop-started downhill by two young Azeri boys. I was drunk, sated, and absolutely jovial at having one of the best nights of my adult life – all in a place and in a way that was completely new to me. Weird. Hard to describe. But wonderful all the same. And I owe it all to a man who must feel even more out of place than me.