Balaken: Day 4

Today was, by far, my favorite camp day. The schedule stayed the same with music and photo sessions being the main focus for the day. Today, however, for photo we broke students up into smaller groups and then took them on treks into town.

The first group I had was an older group of students (ages 14-16). As we wandered around town we picked figs (I had never had one before, they were delicious!) which were hanging off into the street, took photos and talked about our future lives. I spent my time with about 4 girls who told me they wanted to be lawyers and economists. As I walked and talked with them, I realized what I would like to focus on in my post-Peace Corps life (I'll try and post about that later, this blog post is about camp). I enjoyed hearing about the girls' plans, but sometimes I wonder how many of them will continue on with their plans or, especially here in Azerbaijan, change their plans and instead marry before being able (or perhaps instead of being able) to pursue their career or life goals. I think here in the northern part of the

country, the focus is just a little different. As I talked with one of my fellow friends and PCVs (who lives and works in this region), he told me of a conversation he had with one of the girl's fathers. Her father summarized by saying, "My daughter is smart, who am I to tell her she can't? She can do anything she wants." The outlook in this region just seems so much different.

My second group, was a younger group of girls (ages 11-13) and these girls were some of my favorites (favorites! I'm not supposed to have favorites!), favorite as in I enjoyed my time with them a great deal. As we went to explore the city our group didn't make it very far, as we started to pass the local mosque, the girls wanted to go in and take photos. I spoke with the man at the gate and he gave us permission to come in and take photographs, he also allowed us to climb the tower that resides on the property (it's the location of the speakers which announce the call to prayer). As we climbed the narrow tower stairs, we discovered bird eggs and a pair of birds nesting on the stairs near our feet. When we got to the top, there was a short railing which made me extremely paranoid, as I then went into "mom mode" and envisioned "plummeting to their death" scenarios. The girls were extremely excited to be so far above the city and the view of the mountains and of Balaken city were beautiful (despite my heart racing the entire time, because I was certain I was going to have to call and notify parents). We spent the majority of our time on the mosque grounds taking pictures of one another. I took close to 200 pictures there alone.

Later in the day there was a capture the flag game. One of my favorite photos from the day was this last one where we had all the flag participants leap into the air after the game.

It was a great day. Tomorrow I travel home to Mingachevir a little sunburned, but a lot happy.