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?