To The Mommas...

"The most important things are the hardest to say, because words diminish them." - Stephen King
So thank you - we hope that we can show you how much we mean that - because words will never be enough.

Earth Day Project

Here are some more pics of the Community's Environment Club and their earth day project...

and here is a link to contribute to this movement...

Full Circle Azerbaijan

In the Immortal Words of the One and Only, Beyonce...

Who Run the World?... GIRLS... So much for subject-verb agreement - but I must admit, it adds a little sass.

For the last few months, my main focus here in Ganja has been RUN THE WORLD (RTW)...a girls' club for students in 9th grade through University. The goal is to create a safe and uplifting environment where girls can come to feel safe, strong, and confident. We choose monthly topics for discussion and activities...body image, health and fitness, leadership, etc.
This may not sound like much in a world where a girl can do just about anything she pleases - but that's not the kind of world these girls live in. These are girls that are struggling with limited options, little-to-no say in their futures, and a culture where their value is often limited to the kitchen.
The girls of RTW are seeking some help with funding for the summer and fall activities. If you are so inclined, you can help us out by making a tax deductible donation through the following link...

Peace Corps Partnership Program

Thanks so much for your help! These girls can run the world, and it'd be a much better place if they did.


RTW - Decorating for their "International Women's Day" (March 8th) Party...

 

RTW - Women's Day Party



RTW - Making "Media Says" Collages...which we then proceeded to destroy with scissors...

RTW - Discussion about the media's distorted representation of "beauty"...

Peace and Love and Thankful Hearts - from RTW, Ganja, AZ...

Here It Comes...

...after five months of frozen water and frozen toes, we're finally starting to thaw. This past week Azerbaijan celebrated the Novruz holiday - a Zoroastrian tradition celebrating the spring and the new year - which means we got a nice week off. In the last few months we've hit several major milestones - 7 years of marriage and a 30th birthday. Also, we're now well past our halfway point and have gotten our official "close of service" date - November 9th -- see y'all around Thanksgiving!  Here are a few shots from the last few weeks...

The first sign of spring in our backyard - a little color in a world full of gray does good things for the soul, my friends...

 

My AzETA Counterparts - Humay and Shahla. Shahla is pulling out one of Humay's hairs to do a little fortune telling - a Novruz tradition for most women in Azerbaijan.



Most of the "fortune telling" has to do with marriage and babies. Shahla's taken Humay's hair and wrapped it around my wedding ring - they dip it in the water three times, then count how many times the ring hits the side of the glass - that's the age they'll be when they get married...

In an Azeri classroom - "Dream Babys"...love it...

A statue in one of our favorite parks - she seems a little weepy - I think i would be too if I was sitting in the snow all day.



...Soviet Swan...



Sunset in Ganja

Ganja's Russian Orthodox Church

The "Bottle House" -- a Ganja attraction - a house...covered in bottles...and other stuff

The Birds

In Ivanovka - a little Russian village in AZ



My Micophone Event

Following is a link to a video about the open microphone event we started in our city....

My Microphone Azerbaijan

Youth Environment Club

We helped start the city's first student run environment club. Here are a few pictures they took around the city to raise awareness...

Hand me a microphone, man…I’ll change the world

“Hand me a microphone, man…I’ll change the world.” We’d been sitting at a street side café under the canopy of a huge umbrella on one of the multitudes of public squares in Wroclaw, Poland drinking beer and indulging in a bit of sidewalk philosophy – everything from parenting to politics. We’d met our friends, Nat and his wife Haley, in Germany where he was stationed with the U.S. Army, then travelled to Poland to see the sights. Our conversation that day had been quite the marathon – the kind of conversation that lasts for hours and when you’ve finished, you’ve solved all the problems of the world. Nat’s line has become famous in our household…first as an endearing tribute to Nat the character, now as a mantra of truth and possibility. Why the change? Very simply, we joined the Peace Corps, and moved away from a world of luxury – luxury not measured in material goods, but in the freedom to express ourselves with variety and volume.

We serve in the city of Ganja, Azerbaijan; an ancient city of over 300,000 which houses five Universities and a host of international NGOs. You’d think, that in a city whose heart beats with youth and education, the town would be a hot bed of thought and activity. However, with a tradition of Soviet stoicism and a current economic climate inhospitable toward creative pastimes, the city’s youth have struggled to find positive outlets.

After a few months at site, I realized that the city’s youth aren’t without thought…aren’t without passion…aren’t without identify. They are simply without an outlet by which to convey them - and in the Spring of 2011, Ganja, My Microphone was born. It all began with a group of volunteers teaming up with the local NGOs and youth centers to mix interest with action and create a safe place for artistic self-expression. The event draws on the country’s rich history of poetry, music, and dance. Participants, most of them high school or University students, are given 5 minutes at the mic. Soon, an organic growth of both eastern and western artistry began to emerge – traditional dance, choreographed hip-hop, mugham, the poetry of Nizami Gencevi, the poetry of e.e. cummings, rap, beat box, traditional Azeri music, saz, tar, violin, piano…all merging and melding  to create the new voice of the youth of Ganja.

The event is held monthly in an old Russian Orthodox church, now a state puppet theater, on the banks of the Ganja River. I can’t help but enter the building with a sense of reverence, not only for the building itself – the intricate inlaid wood floors and the solemn slope of the rafters - but for the history and the future of the building itself – for what it has witnessed. A house of worship that once swelled with the sounds of praise to an all-powerful creator now fills with the sounds of a generation of hope. This building breathes life itself.

I think of the voices that have changed the world – the words of humble men and women who had a chance to speak and an outlet with which to convey their voice to the masses, and I can’t help but scan the faces in the room searching for that voice. There’s no way to adequately express the sensation of watching a young man or a young woman walk slowly to the mic, head down, voice quavering…and to see that same person walk away changed – new and energized and full of both the realization of self and of community. As the one year anniversary of the event nears, with an average of 120 students in attendance each month, with 25-30 performers at each event, and with My Mic now spreading into neighboring regions, it is evident that as voices emerge and praise for expression abounds, hope itself grows.

“Hand me a microphone, man…I'll change the world.”

Kelly Windham