Salam, Sağ Olun … Pomidor!

Letters from Khankendi

Week 1

“Where do I even start?”

How about, People. Land, music, people. People, music, land. Food, too, later. Stories, sounds, silences, scents, Time passing at the speed that aligns, that matches. Matches what. My open-heart, opening to existing. To waiting. Translating. Silently listening. Laughing, playing. Teasing. Perceiving. Marvelling. Looking truly closely at something tiny. Veins like pixels on a falling fall leaf. All one. Together in solitude. Lost and found in Translation. Community.

The first person was Tunar. I’m glad I re-remembered his name and wrote it down before it swam away again. Like Tuna. You can remember Tuna. You were going to make a joke. But considering Google Translate’s interpretation it’s a little funny already in itself, the attempt. The gaps between the punchlines. The silences and pauses. Yet, his little smirk each time he reads a translation, however nonsensical- still communicated some playful, boyish charm.

“Russian girls are very nice,” He jokes.  
“Yes, and beautiful, too.”

We were chatting about countries he visited, and his favourite. Bantering with Google as the wingman.

There was something romantic about it. The daze after 20 hours of travel. Arriving in the dark, picked up by a stranger holding a sign with your name. A gentleman. Takes both your overweight suitcases. Asks if he can pause for a smoke. Then opens the car door.

No contract, no address. But yes, you got some cash, and 1GB of roaming data. Given there’s signal.

5 hours of driving. Two lane road. Mountains, lights, stars. 24/7 supermarkets on the side of the street. 9pm. 10pm. Water, just water please. A woman squatting by the stone oven making something like scallion pancakes but with cilantro and sumac. He gets 2. I give him one, he gestures, “it’s for you”. I’m like an alien on another planet, looking at the drinks in the fridge. Gazes are on me. I pick up a sparkling tarragon green apple juice. It’s bizarre and delicious. More driving. He’s playing Azeri pop music videos. I feel like I’m in some trance. 10pm. 11pm. We stop for gas and toilet. It’s behind some storage building. Squatty toilets. Floor wet and muddy.

There was something romantic about it. Tokyo Taxi. “We’ll stop at a restaurant to eat.” Okay. Nod nod. Before Sunrise. We pull over the side of the highway. Back up into some gravel. Could be a cliff. The stars are even brighter. There’s nothing but silhouettes of rolling hills and mountains. Across the street are beautiful lights. A restaurant, outdoor garden patio. He looks left and right, chuckles mischievously, then gives me his arm to loop through, and leads me sprinting across the highway. I laugh too. Laughing is universal.

I truly am an alien. Baby alien. Another species. He observes me observing. What is this. What is that. Like I’m tasting and breathing for the first time. Lamb? Liver? Sumac, herbed salty yogurt drink. “Eat well, we still have 4 hours to drive.” The ease and casualness in between charged silences. He takes a call, laughing. Mixing the salad calmly and carefully. He serves me first. I nod and say thanks. Waiting. We have somewhat of a conversation at 0.5x speed with our phones. Each time he waits for me to type he’s already grinning. And he grin widens when he reads the translation. I wonder if Google added something ridiculous.

How absolutely bizarre, that it felt like some surreal blind date. Like I was kidnap and dropped in some foreign country, suddenly having this charming sit down 11pm dinner with this stranger I’ll never see again. The food comes and again he first puts a lamb kebab on my plate. Something tickles in my chest. “Take your time to eat and relax,” he says and leans back nonchalantly on the chair, one leg propped up.

Midnight. We finish and run back to the car. I start dozing off, he pulls over and offers for me to sit in the front seat so I can lie down. 1am. 2am. 3am. I blink, more dazed. Security at the entrance of the city. “Khankendi” in giant letters on the side of the street. We’ve arrived. Police checks my passport. We enter. Where on earth.

The first impression. No impression, just perceiving. The disbelief. This is here. Here. My new ‘home’. He points out the majestic Karabakh University. I stare at everything.

We arrive at a building. Another car is waiting. Tural, faculty assistant and ‘jack of all trades’. The next character in the story. The two men take my luggage and help me up to the guesthouse. They figure out the gas and hot water. They tell me to rest well, and finally I say goodbye to Tunar. A funny little 5-hour rendez-vous that will stay with me.

Hello, Azerbaijan. Hello, Khankendi.

It’s the People. The people I want to write about. Yes, of course, first there are the colleagues. First line of contact. (But is it, though?) School of Arts faculty, teachers, admin, students. The University staff, assistants, building managers. Everyone, every interaction has been so warm, so full of care and attention. From the very first Sunday brunch with Dean Turkar and his beautiful family, showing me around the city, personally taking me to the phone store to set up my SIM card, to Asifa (international HR) driving me to complete health exams and inviting me to the IJMA community, to Tural (faculty assistant) and Kamran (housing manager) helping me with the nitty-gritty details of the apartment – clogged drain, springy mattress, leaking floorboards... to all the music school faculty directly offering to help my transition in anyway, eager to hangout and chat ... every day, each greeting, each Salam, Sağ olun, each nod, smile, wave to the giggling students, the slightly shy security guard ... every gesture is an invitation – a welcome, to this place, its land, its hope and history, reconstruction, stories old and new, family chosen and fostered. It’s truly remarkable. Admirable. I already deeply respect the ecosystem here. The genuine, authentic care and dedication the piano faculty has for not just their colleagues, their duties and responsibilities, for the art of play and celebration and drinking and eating – but for being a part of building that very real future for the next generation of musicians from this music-filled, music-loving, people-loving country.

What a privilege to witness. The process. The process of the building, being built. Of the deconstruction and reconstruction. The beautifying. The reimagining. The openness to listen, hear, embrace.

//

But also, it’s the becoming – becoming a part of the local community. How?

By braving, daily. Each day, tiny triumphs. First in the grocery stores, learning how to use the scale to get price stickers for the produce. Finding and not finding household essentials. Then, entering the general stores, daring to look, daring to be observed, daring to ask for help and allowing for – the wait, the silences, the rhythm to slow to what it must beat for two languages to resonate in one dialogue. Dashgin, who learned English 20 years ago, who just came out of his store again this afternoon to say hi, to ask if I needed help. Who laughed with me and helped me find each random item I was hunting for. Now, my friend. Dostum. Menim dosum. Like the Tamstore lady who now smiles at my inability to communicate, who perhaps was at first annoyed. Like the curtain maker who was so passionate about the specific measurements and fabric and sewing of the elegant draping folds that I had to visit three days in a row to finally acquire my custom-made goods.

Blessings came in the most unexpected ways. Within one week, I played volleyball three times. That’s a space I find belonging like no other. That’s a space where I dare take up space. One of the faculty members said it perfectly, “volleyball’s a universal language, after all”. Sincerely. How many universal languages do we actually share that we don’t normally think of? If we dare to brave our differences, our discomfort, our pre-conceptions.

On the court, I come alive. I reconnect with a deep core part of myself. Spunky, bold, fierce. The physical muscle memory, the high fives, team cheers, the deeply ingrained habits.

From volleyball to hiking, how the family grows. The enthusiastic English teachers, the families, the sharing of maple syrup cookies and charcoal grilled chicken, mushrooms, hot tea, sitting together in the rain, exploring the forest, climbing the treehouse, smelling the first fall leaves.  

“Welcome, welcome.” Everyone says. So many individuals reaching out to extend such genuine invitations. To walk together. To wash and cut vegetables together. To eat and talk and exist a while on tgus peaceful Saturday afternoon just sitting outside in the rain, under the same awning, warmed by smokey charcoal and wood-fired tea. To be within this circle. Wow. “Welcome, please don’t hesitate to ask for help. We’re so glad you’re here.”

Me too. Me too, truly.

There are things I miss. Simple silly things. Soy sauce, candles, my memory foam mattress, coffee beans, oven, running in Parc Lafontaine. But somehow, even with the limitations, the daily inconveniences, surprises, challenges – it’s still, perfect. Going to the grocery store every day just to discover one new ingredient to add to the kitchen. Treating myself to an Azerbaijani beer with sunflower seeds at the end of the day. Raising a toast to the dreamers and the dream-makers. Breathing the fresh air, walking back and forth from the dark paths of rubbles and ruins to the dazzling lights of Palace Hotel and Victory Park, cautiously avoiding the stray barking dogs roaming the streets, sitting down at my table to enjoy an Azeri-Asian fusion Dakdoritang or miso canned salmon rice. Somehow, in a seemingly small and quiet and ‘boring’ at all city like this - I do not feel alone at all. Not lonely. Just, “all one”. "One and all.”

Tiny triumphs. “Even a leaf”.

The spectacularly simple, simple fullness of this beginning, this tempo, rhythm, peace and passion, calm and excitement, rest and energy, observing and emoting. How perfectly natural it is, that I find myself in this space, this version of my universe. Smiling the most earnest smile as I wash tomatoes in the stream. Pomidor. Pomidor. Like a spell. From the first word, to here, now.

Sağ olun.

Happy Khankendi Day. September 20. Even from here I can hear the music. The celebration begins, and continues.

I’m going to go say Hello, Salam now.