Ganja - Going rural

Today was the first day we got truely out of Baku, and got to see something different from the buildingboom of the metropol.

Our destination was Ganja, a town approx 320 km east of Baku.
I had previous to my travel heard that the pictures of the old and new presidents are hanging everywhere. I had not seen much of this in Baku and quite thought that people has exatuated the number of pictures hanging around. But here in Ganja they hang on every corner, three meters high on every officiel building; Heydar Alijev and his son Ilham shaking hands looking prestitious and important.
Except from the trmendous amounts of colourful pictures of presidents, Ganja i sa rural town with a population being a bit more conservative than what is to be found in Baku. Two of the participants in our group were told off because they touched the Quran, which was on sail together with other religious objects in a street souvenir shop. At the same time it is also very unusual to see a woman in one of the many street caffees. Women walk in the park with their children and sit at the benches there. None of them venture in to a caffee to enjoy a çay or a kafe. This is a mans world, here they play Nard and talk and enjoy the shadow. Nard is a game resembling Backgammon and you often both in Ganja and Baku see a group of old men playing it at a caffee.

It was not by coincidence that ganja became our chosen destination for the summer university. One of the organizers is originally from here and I am at the moment sitting in the yard of his familywritting my travelblog on a sheet of paper. We came early this morning after a night on ht etrain and as tired travellers we were welcomed by the mother and aunt with the most amazing breakfast. Cake, turkish yoghurt, white cowcheese, homemade bread and sweet bread, coffee, tea and baklaba from Ganja. Never have I met such hospitality. While we went for a tour of the city and to the Scientific Academy for two looong and tirering speeches of how Ganja was a center of covilization, his relations went for a picnicplace in the mountains nearby to get ready for Kebab and other delicious specialities of Azerbaijan. All of it for us. We ate and we ate and listened to music while enjoying the atmosphere and using every last space on our cameras memorycards. Afterwards we went for a walk in the mountains, truely discovering Azeri rural life.

We past a village were chickens were running in the street which at the same time was a rather large road were mercedes and BMW from the city passed by. The locals seemed to have only old cars and very often Ladas. They lived in houses put together of all kind of materials, but still they did not seem poor.

I was told later that the village was a refugee village which explain the very interesting houses made of everyday life. Earlier ,it had been a German settlement, but after the German minority in Azerbaijan left, the village was empty. Due to the problems in the Karabagh region, many Azeri families escaped over the mountains and settled there, including in this village. Now they have made a life there, though probably hoping one day to return to Karabagh.

Now I am sitting here while writing before we will enjoy our dinner, which is once again homemade by this fantastic family. The mother and aunt are in the kitchen while the grandfather, father, uncle as well as the cousin and her one year old child are enjoying the evening in the yard. The most of us are relaxing inside after a day full of activity.

Home by bus
In the busses in Ganja and in the busses going to and from Baku (I am sitting in such a bus right now, once again with a sheet of paper) all the seats are covered with a white piece of fabrique depicting a draing of a boat and with the name Titanic written under. I really hope we arrive to Baku safely!

Waking up at the. Tired. Plastic palmtreesx in various blinking colours. GFlittering. All the Azeriguys smoking their slim cigarets, looking at the foreign people. One busdriver in particular is starring - out from his window in the bus, satisfyingly smiling at the view. The toilets off course are Turkish and no one is there to clean them, no toiletpaper either, but that is normal. It smells and the butterflies of the night gather inthousands on the white bathroom wall while an Azeriwoman helps her daughter to wash the hands with the one piece of handsoap whch is shared by all. I am tired, but will I be able to sleep again?

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