National Pride and the Excellent Slacks...

It's been quite a while since I have been able to write, and for that I apologize. Certain things about working in this area make life challenging at best! But, here we are...

When last I was preparing this post, the Olympics were on. (I did say it had been a while!)

There was a moment that made me think about the choices we make, the lessons we learn and the things that really matter.

Bob Costas made a comment on the opening day of the Vancouver Olympic Games that really made me smile. Looking at the photo above, you can see why... In the often conservative opening ceremony march of the athletes, we rarely find countries stepping right out, making such a sartorial statement. Ok, yes there is usually there is a quotient of cool, but what country was this, to be so bold?

As Bob Costas announced the delegations filing by in alphabetic country order, Azerbaijan being among the first, parlayed its position into 15 minutes of fame by wowing the audience with its team apparel. Bob Costas immortalized the Azerbaijan delegation noting the team was sporting "an excellent pair of slacks".

I loved that moment, quite frankly.

For Azerbaijan this was the most wonderful compliment they could receive. What pride to hear broadcasters around the world announcing -anything actually- about your country, and for a small country in an Olympic venue dominated by Russia, China, the United States and of course in these Games, Canada, this was recognition that money could not buy.

More than the money or the fame though, for Azerbaijan it was a case of national pride. We often hear about wearing your heart on you sleeve, or flying by the seat of your pants, but in this case Azerbaijan had shown its national self in the traditional colors, shapes and symbols of its country with every step it took, every day of the Games.

Not many people would know the symbolism evident in those pants, with the three colors, red, blue and green being highly symbolic, colors of the flag, each having a meaning for the nation, and the shapes as well speak to the roots for the country. It was fun to know the inside story on the message being displayed with each step in the march. To feel the national pride from the smile of each athlete.

But it also reminded me of a summer in Baku when I was at my lowest point. The summer of 1999. Recently divorced, frustrated by the inability to move forward, unable to go back home- I felt stuck. I was writing a column for Azerbaijan International magazine and found it hard to write about "positive changes" when I just wasn't seeing any.

I had been in Baku, teaching and working, for 4 years that summer. I wanted to see the results, to see changes in Baku, and I wanted to get on with life in a new way. Summertime meant that nearly 150 kids, many of whom were my students, were about to go to the USA for a school year as future leaders exchange students- both to learn about the US and, just as importantly, to teach others about Azerbaijan and its culture. I wanted them to be proud of their country but things that had happened that year made me doubtful that they would be.

That's when the Life Lesson was given to me, by my students, naturally.

And this is the importance of the "excellent slacks".

From the week I spent with these kids preparing them for their year long journey, I wrote an article about growing up and what they had taught me on that long dusty bus ride to the seaside Sanitorium (health "resort"- Soviet style, remember!).

http://www.azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/73_folder/73_articles/73_bakudiary.html

During the hot bumpy bus ride- think open windows for air "conditioning"- these kids started singing their recently adopted national anthem... just let that sink in for a moment. Regardless of how big, how modern (or how not modern) their country may have been, it was theirs to love and support.

And here with the excellent slacks, was another moment just like that. I'm sure those hearts all swelled with pride as they saw their delegation being recognized, maybe not atop the medals podium, but on a world stage just the same. I was reminded anew what an awesome feeling appreciation can be.

As Memorial Day and Independence Day have come and gone, this little example of national pride makes me wish for an excellent pair of slacks, too.

Good steam, she said, after I almost blew up the boiler!

I first arrived in Baku, in the mid 90's, just as Azerbaijan was getting itself together - the tanks had left the streets, the subway bombing was over, and the latest president was settling in. Beyond the sadness over so much tragedy, there was an air of anticipation that had not been felt in a long, long time according to the friends I was staying with.

The sorrow over loved ones lost in the war would be revisited on the anniversary of their death that year, with a funeral dinner to which everyone would come. The national outrage that became known as Black January* would continue to be remembered on January 20th each year. My friend said in Soviet times they had money, but nothing to buy. Now they were seeing things to buy, but had no money. Indeed, the government had not paid many workers in 5 months when I arrived.

Against this backdrop, it was interesting to see free enterprise setting up shop like a snake oil salesman in our own wild west.

I walked most everywhere in town as I went from the university where I was also teaching, to my own office, or to a downtown cafe. I looked in many of the shops as I passed by- the combination cheese and shoe shop being my favorite. The meat shop also sold nylons from time to time.

One morning I needed small batteries for my travel clock and the family I was staying with showed me a place near the bazaar where you could buy anything- including sacks of USAID rice marked in English, "Not for Resale" as if everyone could read English in those days... We found old Soviet light bulbs, parts to radios, old keys, sponges, loose unwrapped bars of soap, and boxes of "BARF', an Iranian laundry powder (the word is supposed to mean "snow"... a rather unfortunate choice of names for the export market). With the economy being newly opened, Turkish and Iranian goods were everywhere, but so were Italian, Polish and German. British goods were still too expensive and US goods were too far away to be distributed here yet.

There were big bazaars where you could go to buy fruit and meats, and those that sold furniture and household items- things that the newly 'middle class' could use to fix up their dacha. I loved going to the bazaar- when I arrived it was still a relative novelty to see an American woman wandering around, and rarer still to find one who could speak a little Russian or Azeri and wanted to chat.

I went with my friends to the bazaar one Saturday morning shortly after I arrived, when I was still hunting for my own place. We went to the fish stall to buy some sturgeon for kabobs.

There was a big tree stump in the middle of the stall- whether the stall was built around the tree or the stump was hauled in I don't know, but the stump was the butcher block. "$15/kilo," he said as the sturgeon was laid out on the stump and slit open. The butcher took a small scoop and ran it down the middle and dropped the contents into a bucket lined with a plastic bag. "What's that?" I asked, referring to the 5-gallon sized bucket of black stuff. "Caviar," my friend told me. "Do you want some? We can have it free with the fish." That was how we ended up having caviar, with bread, butter and cheese for breakfast those next 6 months. (And why I am sooo over caviar to this day!)

After our morning excursion, it was time to head home to their flat. We were having family for dinner that night (I say "we" but I mean they were, though it seemed everyone was related- if not by blood, then by circumstance) and I need to get some laundry done before they arrived.

If you think food shopping was unique, you'll enjoy laundry day...

Water wasn't always on- you got water, or you didn't. When water came, everyone showered and washed. There was a line that hung across the courtyard where we hung clothes. Though I preferred to hang my washing out at night if I could, sometimes I got home from the library too late to allow that, mainly because the window through which the line was attached was in the boys' bedroom and I would awaken them with all the squeaking of the pulleys. This week I had to do wash on Saturday, whenever the bath tub was free, if water was still running.

My usual routine was simple: I would fill a kettle with water when it came, boil it and add it to a bucket of cool water, spoon in some BARF and soak my underwear. Then, when the tub was free I would drain the clothes (saving the water for another load if I could), then rinse and wring them for hanging.

This day however, since the little kitchen was busy with preparation for dinner, I thought I would save time and stay out of the way by taking a shower and rinsing my clothes at the same time. Since everyone else was busy, I would be the first to take my shower.

The bathroom was a closet sized space with a half sized tub- a sitzbath, if you will- with a wooden stool to sit on while you showered. No curtain, just a drain in the floor. At the shower end of the tub was a 3 gallon hot water heater that had to be lit when you got ready to shower, all the while hoping the water would continue. Once lit, it was good for the whole family if they hustled. Water rarely flowed very strong due to so much calcification in the pipes. But I learned I could shower (and wash my hair) in three litres of water. That was the beginning of many discoveries. Another would be about Soviet gas pressure...

Figuring that lighting the pilot was in the "how hard could it be?" category, I decided not to bother anyone else- I would do the "American" thing and be self sufficient.

Life Lesson: American ingenuity works in America, but it doesn't always work everywhere. When in Rome, as they say- with good reason!

Taking a long piece of rolled up paper, I went to the stove and lit the paper, hurried around the corner to the bathroom, turned on the gas. I opened the little door to light the pilot, and kaboom! I burned my fingers, singed the hair on my arms and eyebrows- and sent soot flying everywhere! Not to mention scaring the daylights out of the household! Fortunately, no damage was done, except to my pride. I was on boiler probation for the rest of my stay.

Whenever someone in Azerbaijan takes a shower, it is customary to wish them 'Slocum Parum' or "Good Steam". Apparently, I had gone against the cultural grain, tried to do it myself, and had gone off without letting anyone wish me "Good Steam". I ended up with sooty undies and singed eyebrows as a result.

So the next time you get up a good head of steam about something, remember this lesson. Make it 'Slocum Parum'. I wish you "Good Steam".

* Photo Credit- Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty http://www.rferl.org/content/Anniversary_Of_Black_January_Events_In_Azerbaijan/1934203.html

What to do when the neighbors come to call?

Keeping in mind that these Life Lessons are recalled in no particular order, I want to tell you about the day my neighbor gave me an invitation I "couldn't refuse".

It was Baku, 1996. Not long after the cease fire and the election of Heydar Aliyev, and the beginning of stability in Azerbaijan.

My first office was in the M.F. Akhundov State Library- a grand old place that was slowly being refurbished by ex-pat companies making donations of services and equipment, if not books. (I know they had books, but they were all kept underground and students made requests, then waited, sometimes hours, just to look at them. One of my students showed me a book her brother had requested- all the pages from 62-87 had been ripped out!)

After realizing that the rent on the 100 sq. meter room, some $1950US, was being split between various individuals and not going to the library (imagine that! Only $90.42 actually made it to the Library, I later found out from Leyla-Khanum, the head Librarian), I decided to make a change. My office manager, Sabina, and a lovely real estate friend, Natella, found an apartment in a pink building near the center of town, 3rd floor walk up with a view of a central park. It was perfect! Tiny but independent, and the landlady, Svetlana, was very accommodating, especially after the embezzlement problem was discovered.

From this office, we taught classes in two rooms and had a computer lab in the larger front room- what would have been Sveta's living room once upon a time. One classroom was a small bedroom in the middle, and the second may have been a kitchen/dining room area just off the entryway. After walking up three dark flights of concrete stairs, a bolted metal door greeted all visitors. A bell rang inside to alert us to go let students in. We had a short walk over an exposed walkway to another door that also had deadbolt locks. All in all, it was a pretty safe environment. Until...

For whatever reason, our bell quit working. Things being what they were at that time in the former Soviet Union, parts weren't readily available and it couldn't be fixed right away. So the outer door at the end of the balcony walk was not locked- students could cross the balcony and knock on the office door directly.

We taught classes from 10:00am until 9:00pm Monday - Saturday, myself and 3-4 teachers. On Tuesdays, I didn't take any evening classes so that I could attend the Rotary Club which had just started up in Baku. I thought it was a good opportunity to meet others and to expose my students to professionals where they might find employment after graduating. It worked to everyone's advantage for the most part.

On one particular evening, I was teaching alone, in the dining room area, teaching a class on Office Skills to a group of maybe 4 young ladies when there was a knock on the office (inner) door. I went to answer it and found two men asking for Sveta. "She is not here, she is in Moscow," I said in Russian, closing (and bolting) the door.

A few moments later, another knock on the door. This time I could see 5 men through the peep hole.

I opened the door and this time they identified themselves and 2 men from Zhek (the housing authority) and 3 police. They said my "neighbor" below had sustained water damage in her apartment and they needed to inspect our apartment for the cause. I explained that this was not an apartment where we used water- we used it as an office, no showers. Still, the leader of the group insisted that I had caused water damage and they wanted to come in and "inspect" the cause. I ask when this supposedly happened. He said he was told it happened "last Tuesday". Aha, I tell him that there is no one here on Tuesday's as that is our Rotary Club night! Yet he persists...

Here is a tricky thing. I am a guest in this country of Azerbaijan, I have no reason to suspect the police would harm me, but I have students- all female- inside. What to do? If I refuse they could take me to jail- or worse. If I let them in, who knows what happens next. So we compromise- "One of you can inspect, others must wait outside." The leader comes into the entry way, sees there is no longer a kitchen, just a bunch of computers and books. So I figure he is satisfied.

Life Lesson: Never assume the pretext is the whole reason for asking.

Now, this was not my first experience with, shall we say, "intercultural business norms" - local ways of doing business in unknown places. But it wasn't dawning on me just yet that the inspection was a pretext for anything more.

I went back to the class, a little irritated, but not overly concerned. Until...

After about 10 minutes another knock on the door. This time, there are now 8 men! At this point, one of my students, a feisty young lady named Nigar, decided that a local girl could talk sense into these men- she knew what was happening and proceeded to tell them in no uncertain terms what they could do with their plan! Before things got too far, I retrieved Nigar and calmed her down. She was embarrassed that her countrymen were treating her teacher so rudely.

This time when I opened the door I was beyond irritated. These men were carrying guns, growing in number each time they came back and becoming more ridiculous in the stories they were fabricating. I repeated in Russian that I was not Sveta, I had not caused anyone water damage. I asked them, "Why do you come to my office with guns? Do you see any guns here?" Opening the jacket to my business suit, I said, "I may be from Texas, but I don't carry a gun. Is this how you treat your guests here?"

This time the leader told me they understood that I was in Baku illegally- they had been told I had no visa. They wanted to see my passport. (Now, this is considerably more serious. They could haul me off while they "investigate"). I paused for a brief second, incredulous at what I was hearing. "Nyet, eta ni logeechni (no, that's not logical!) "I came here from the greatest country on earth. Why would I leave the US to break into this country? Why would I come here to teach your people if I had not been invited?" For this impassioned response they had no answer. They huddled amongst themselves and I hastily bolted the door.

I called the US Embassy on my cell phone and told them what was happening. An embassy guard named Parviz told me to keep the door closed under all circumstances until he got there. The quickest 6 minutes of my life passed while I waited for Parviz and the Embassy support.

(Quick pause for a commercial message: the US Embassy is your friend if you are abroad. Register, let them know who you are, and what you are doing, before you need help- it's much easier that way!)

In no time, Parviz arrived with the cavalry and discussed the situation with our friends outside. He knocked on the door and I let him in. He told me that a neighbor had tipped them off that an American was here illegally and they needed to check my visa. He looked over my passport and visa, established that all was in order and went back outside.

When it was all settled he came back in and said that everything was ok now, but that I needed to register with the police, to be accounted for as a foreigner. I asked Parviz why it took 8 of men with guns to tell me that. He was puzzled for a moment... "What 8 men? Didn't you see the other 10 in the courtyard?" I looked out, and there was the neighbor, peering around the corner. 18 men indeed... No payoff tonight, too bad.

The next day I sent my office assistant to the police department to see what registration involved. I now own a $450 piece of paper, stapled in my passport, saying I am allowed to be there, bribe free.

Who says these are under-developed business systems?

Which came first, the screw or the lily?

It's fitting that the snow is falling outside today, as it reminds me of the lesson I learned from the lily and the screw.

It was winter 1999, and Dave Churchman had convinced me (with not much hesitation on my part as you'll see in a moment) to take on the Executive Director's position at the local AmCham office in Baku, Azerbaijan.

That I was excited to do it was beside the point at that time- I needed to make some money to pay back-taxes that my bookkeeper was supposedly paying. I had gotten a call in September from a friend, a local lawyer who helped set up my business, saying that the bank had closed my account because the taxes had not been paid. "Nyet, Nyet! That's absurd," I told him in my best Russian. "I have the paperwork to prove it." I took him the papers and he confirmed that his signature had been forged and that the taxes had indeed not been filed.

That was how I came to be working at the newspaper with John Boit. Until it folded, in its second month, leaving us both wondering what we were going to do... which is how we got to the Wharf on that particular day, having decided that a drink would help us think better... doesn't iced tea always help?

At any rate, I had taxes to re-pay, salaries due and a cat to feed. My second job at the University provided me with a small apartment but any money I earned from my business services office went to pay salaries for teachers and, presumably, taxes. I got a third job editing at the newspaper so that I could re-pay the taxes. (Welcome to embezzlement 101- I later discovered that my accounts receivable had been siphoned off to buy a visa to America, secretly being "arranged" at a hefty fee on the street, outside the Embassy knowledge or control.)

So, on that day when Dave asked me to step into his "office" as it was, I took a look at the figure he wrote on the bar napkin and thought I had been delivered. I could be an honest woman again. And it seemed it might be that way until... the Swindle.

The first thing I had to do in my new capacity as the Executive Director was to oversee the build out of the new AmCham office. The Board had agreed to a fine plan to take this group to the next level- you know, the one that called for this "high powered Oil Guy". Well he would apparently need a nice office from which to court new influential members. And, it just so happened, there was an architect-designer in town who just fit the bill.

Now, stop and think about this for a moment... here we are in Azerbaijan, not exactly a household name yet with those in America. And yet we have an architect-designer from the states who happens to have the perfect solution to the need of the hour? I have to say I was more that a bit skeptical. But of course, you remember Dave's famous line, "You won't have to do a thang, darlin'."

The Board had approved Brian's plan and he had been advanced $13,000 to buy supplies in Europe... Keep in mind that this $13,000 "advance" was 10x the annual salary of a professor, or 86x more than my secretary made per month! Yeah, that's what I said too!

The office was supposed to be done in September, then November, then by year end. It wouldn't have been much of a problem except that we had planned a gala grand opening kick off party for the new office, and had invited the President of Azerbaijan, along with the Prime Minister, several key figures, the US Ambassador and dozens of guests and media types. This thing had to be done by New Year's at the latest.

Now a swindle wouldn't be good without some drama, so that even though you know the train is coming- you can see the lights approaching- you have too many other details to distract you to really focus on how big it's going to be. And this turned out to be a doozy- a Louisiana businessman overseeing a sweetheart deal with a shady architect. What could be better?

On the night before the grand opening, after many assurances that we were almost there, I finally got to see the office when one of the workers left the door unlocked by mistake. 24 hours to go and what I saw was breathtaking- and not in a good way! Sheets of plastic, bare studs on the 'focus wall' (which needed to be padded and covered in a cocoa colored suede fabric as a background for custom made chrome lettering), the fabric for the chairs was stacked in the corner (not on the chairs) and wires hung from everywhere... What the ??? (OMG hadn't been coined yet, but that would have been next!) I gasped, then got angry, then called Dave.

He had a few choice words of his own and then finally tried to reach Brian on his cell phone. It seems Brian was making a heroic sacrifice by flying to Europe himself, to personally pick up the fabric for the wall. But he assured us that we would have the opening as scheduled.

Where had all the money gone? What had they been paying him for all this time? Life Lesson: When someone tells you "You won't have to do a thang" start making a back-up plan just in case!

We got all the workers back over to the office and everyone worked all night, some tucking fabric over the chairs, some assembling the furniture, others fixing the lights- of which there were many. In an office that was the size of a good bedroom, perhaps 12'x20', there were 16 lights of various sizes and kinds wired up throughout. We had downspots over the conference table, uplights for the eventual lettering, focus lights for a piece of art (which someone later came to repossess off the wall) and these upturned crescent shaped "dentist" light things at each desk. Plus, the building had fluorescent lighting overhead as well. There was something Freudian about all those lights- a guy with so much to hide, wiring in that many lights?

The rest of the swindle details emerged fully over the next few months, and kept the Wharf buzzing for weeks, but this brings us to the screw and the lily.

Given all the drama of the last 24 hours, I could hardly look at this guy and yet, like a true diva to the end, he still could not admit that he had done anything but look out for the "image of the chamber by making a real statement with this office"- ughh... The Prime Minister was on his way, I went in to take one look at what we had to present for the ribbon cutting, not knowing what to expect- and there was Brian, standing on the table, wedging a 3 inch screw into a can light (literally taped to the ceiling) to hold it at the right angle so the light would shine on the art piece we "bought" but were about to lose... how poetic. We had stapled fabric on the chairs, missing window coverings, lettering held up with straight pins and all he could see was the angle of the light.

I had bought a bouquet of carnations from a street vendor on the way in, thinking they would look nice in the vase on the table. But Brian had removed these to the wet bar (yes, a wet bar!) and had carefully placed 5 calla lilies in the vase and laid a sixth one- just so- across the table in front of the vase, and had focused (screwed?) a solitary spotlight on the lone lily.

Which came first, the lily or the screw I really don't know. But I smiled when we entered the office for the first time after the ribbon was cut. My secretary whispered to me that she had seen the lily "the one that fell out of the vase", and had been sure to put it back. I had to laugh... poetic justice indeed.

After all the drama of the months leading up to the opening, after the security surrounding the Prime Minister and others, the Board finally had a chance to relax and enjoy the uniquely un-finished product. I grabbed my digital camera and rounded up the Board members for what is now a most historic photo, the first one posted here... and as far as I know, the screw is still in that light fixture. Isn't that fitting, after all?

Life begins at 40... or so they say!

The Setting: City of Baku, Capital of Azerbaijan, "CIS", former Soviet Union.
The Year: 1999
The Background: Though technically still at war with its neighbor, an uneasy cease fire is holding 5 years after the "Contract of the Century" was signed.

In the years since independence was proclaimed in 1991, would-be leaders like Mutalibov, Elchibey, Col. Surat Huseynov, and Rasul Quliyev have quickly arrived and been ousted. By 1994, when I arrived, the tanks are gone though the bullet holes remain, and Heydar Aliyev, returned from Nakhchivan to serve as President, is managing to hold things together and business is growing. Enough business, in fact, that a business group has decided to establish an overseas office connected to the American Chamber of Commerce, AmCham Azerbaijan.

The fledgling organization of businessmen (it turns out, I was the only American woman business head at that time, though there were females at the Embassy and within the oil majors) had as its first Executive Director, a man named Don Stewart who arrived there with his wife Janet, a key component of the BP office in Baku. Don made good strides in establishing the office and had completed his tenure. Don turned the reigns over to another young man, and that lasted about a year- some say he left in the middle of the night, owing local businesses a sizable bar tab.

By this time the Board was getting impatient to make something happen, to become a key player in the advocacy of business issues.

As it happened, I stopped by our favorite ex-pat hangout, the "Wharf" restaurant one day with a journalist friend of mine, John Boit, to have a stiff drink, which in my case meant I would be having maybe 2 iced teas instead of one... :) It hadn't been a very good day... We had both just found out the newspaper venture we were working on, had folded (come to think of it, also in the middle of the night- seems like that happened a lot in those days!)

As we were sitting there wondering what to do next, our friend, the owner Dave Churchman, local business entrepreneur and ex-pat leader from down 'Nawlins' way, said, "Joe-Nelle, step into my office. I wanna talk to you." His office, was an oak barrel sitting over by the water's edge. He told me about the AmCham office dilemma and said they were "looking for a high powered Oil Guy to take this to the next level," but would I come over and help them for three months on an interim basis. Never believe a Louisiana businessman if he says, "You won't have to do a thang..."

Thus began the next chapter in my life, the Beginning of Life, as I came to know it. Tomorrow I'll tell you about the embezzlement, the big Swindle, as well as the screw and the lily that led to the group picture you see here.

Why Life Lessons?

I thought about blogging for quite a while before I decided that what I was thinking would be fun to share- this accumulation of knowledge and experiences serves no purpose if not for others to share.

It seems that everyday someone is starting a new blog about almost every subject imaginable. So what makes this blog any different- or better?

I suppose what makes this unique is the places I have been, doing business, at times that most people find curious. "Why in the world would you want to do that?" is a common question I get when people I meet at a party hear what I was doing for a decade in the wild west of the former Soviet Union. I have laughed hardest at the stories when I hear myself telling the things that happened- what was I thinking? But I lived to tell the story and that's what matters- and that I share the stories with you, and you share your stories with me and others.

Here is the framework: a little of then, a little of now. Life before, and life after- as the memories unfold and connect to what they have made me today.

I hope you enjoy the process and get involved by sharing a cultural experience that a day's post reminds you of, or ask questions about what it would be like to do something you're hoping for.

So, what's the significance of today's photo? This one marks the beginning of my life in many ways. It's the dedication of the new AmCham Azerbaijan office, January 2000. I'll tell you the story of how that came to be...

All the best to you,

- Jonelle