These Are a Few of My (Least) Favorite Things

I love the location of my computer in my apartment. I set in on the table in my living room, near a giant window and occasionally, when I'm writing, I can pause and look outside to the green of the trees and clothes hanging on clotheslines.  However, sometimes the reason I'm looking out the window is due to a noise that startles me.  An odd "thump" as something makes its way onto the balcony.  This thump is most commonly trash (although, once it was the world's largest grasshopper).  The trash being thrown from windows makes. me. crazy!  (Littering in general makes me crazy, but this is a whole new level.)

Littering in Azerbaijan is extremely common.  Walking down the street, you will witness individuals of all ages throwing trash on the ground as they walk: candy wrappers, empty cigarette packs, cellophane, cell-phone kontour cards, etc.  One day, while walking to work, three buses full of school children were parked outside the local theater.  It was during the lunch hour and the children were piled on the buses to eat; animated laughter and conversation could be heard from a block away, which was enjoyable.  The trash from their snacks and lunches which was scattered along the street?  Not enjoyable.  As I walked by, more was being tossed casually from open windows.  As the buses pulled away, there were hundreds of empty cookie and chip packages lining the street.

Photo courtesy of RFE/RL

Littering, as you might guess from my initial paragraph, is not limited to just the streets.  Individuals also liter from balconies, apartment windows and anywhere that allows their trash to be swept up in the morning.  Yes, here's the part I have yet to mention.  My city is fairly "clean" in comparison to others, mostly in the morning.  In the early hours of morning, usually at about 6 or 7 am, you will find women across the city in yellow vests sweeping up the liter from the day before.  They're put into piles and sometimes towed away and other times hidden in the holes of sewer indentations (sometimes they're swept into piles which are left there and then the wind picks them up and we're back to where we were the day before).  Mingachevir is especially unique because it has public trash bins (which people sometimes use and other times completely disregard).

Littering bothers me in particular because it's completely unnecessary.  The streets, especially in the evenings, are strewn with trash.  I even witnessed one of our students, who has helped in environmental projects, throw trash on the ground (I had him pick it up and teased him that I was going to tell his Peace Corps Volunteer/Teacher, to which he begged me not to).  In Ming, we have trash pick up (not all communities do, burning trash is a common practice, it smells awful).  My building in particular, has a trash shoot, making it easy for people to dispose of their trash; we don't even have to take it to the garbage truck (some people have to make sure they catch the garbage truck to have them take their trash, it's not the most efficient system).  In other cities, there is a giant trash dump located behind buildings.  In my last host family, we even had garbage cows, cows which "grazed" in the garbage and ate it (chickens too).

The trash which flutters to the ground from the apartments above me makes me crazy.  It's our neighborhood, why wouldn't we take care of it? (I can make this same argument for neighborhoods in America.)  I have found on my balcony: nylon packages, cigarette butts and wrappers/packs, cereal plastic, sunflower seed packages and a lot of candy wrappers.  I know this is cultural and that I have been programmed since childhood to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle and to never be a litterbug, but it still makes me crazy.  I equate the annoyance level to someone constantly flicking me in the forehead. (It should be noted that although I am complaining right now, I think people in Azerbaijan are much better at reduction and reusing than in America).

One of my other "least favorite things" is smoking.  I will openly confess I have smoked before in my past.  I will also confess that living in Azerbaijan has been the most effective anti-smoking campaign I could have ever asked for.  I loathe cigarettes.

Cigarette smoking is everywhere.  Men smoke in cell-phone stores, in real-estate businesses, in markets, in homes, on the street, in cafes, on buses and on marshrutkas.  Young children can be seen outside schools smoking in huddles, I think the youngest child (yes child), I've seen smoking was around 7.  I told him (and his other friends) I was going to tell their teachers and they just shrugged at me.  They're not supposed to be smoking, it's against the rules, but there isn't much done about it either.  One PCV gave a presentation at a school about not smoking, it was done through the youth ministry, and the doctor who gave the presentation to the kids was then seen outside the school smoking.  There's something that doesn't add up there.

Street food vendors smoke and then serve food, once I saw someone smoking while serving food.

And it's not just one cigarette, it's chain smoking.  In my first host family, my host dad smoked in the house.  He could go through a pack in about two hours.  Cigarettes are CHEAP here.  I think they're about 1 manat a pack (about 1.30 USD).  With the ability to smoke anywhere, the lack of taboo, prices being extremely low, nicotine addition and a lack of health information (although, most know it is bad for them from Russian programming), there isn't much to deter people from smoking.  (Although, some of the men who refrain do so because of their religious teaching, for others this isn't a deterrent.)

Littering and smoking, these are two of my least favorite things.