Gala Kend and Family

Another day of Social Entrepreneurship training- and I have a comment on why I haven't said much about it. You see, this training was incredible. Not only was our speaker, Mr. Togrul Alakbar, captivating and intuitive, but everything he spoke about was so inspiring and his presentations alone are the main reason to why I've decided to go down the track of social work. And as much as I would love to pass along all the insight he gave our little group, I would never be able to accurately capture all that he taught, and he deserves more credit than I can give. 

I woke up super early this morning to get to said training- although we still arrived late- after this lovely breakfast my host mother made for me. 

Jam, always jam. 

An omelette with "greens"- more on this later.

*Side note- In Azerbaijan, it's super rare to have pets, especially in the city. There just isn't enough room. But I saw so many stray animals, some in good condition and others not so much. Kittens were more taken care of, but dogs suffered more. While no locals seemed to even notice the stray animals due to it being a normality, my heart was in pain every time I saw one. However, my family did have a dog. He lived outside, which he had plenty of room to run around it, but wasn't incredibly groomed. I felt kind of bad for the guy, but he was sweet.

Georgie

After a lunch at the nearby cafe, we headed to the Gala Kend Preserve for a three-hour tour. First was the section made to look like an old-fashioned village, with peaks to how life was like in Azerbaijan before modern-day technologies.

First, there were maybe two rooms in a house, so the family slept together in a room such as the one below. Notice the rugs- they've been tradition for a long time.

An entryway. I can't tell you why it was like this, for what, or when, but I still think it's cool. 

 The tree below was a wishing tree. The guide had us all grab hands around this tree, close our eyes, and make a wish. It was a rather spiritual experience, and hey, why not take an opportunity to make a wish?

Those wood tables are for bread making.

We were taught quite a bit about the everyday home life back in the day. It wasn't much different from any other old-fashioned society, other than the Azerbaijanis had gorgeous, hand-woven rugs to spruce up the house. 

The main part of the museum

This statue was outside of this walled-off tower. We never learned if he had a certain historical influence, but we did have fun posing with him.

Camels- why not? These guys were friendly. 

 To the right here is what the magi lived in. It was an extremely modest hut, with practically no processions. We weren't let it, but it looked cool in there!

After the inside portion of the museum (pottery and tea kettles), we went to the third section, this tower. We were old this was a strategic battle tower, residents could see their incomers from miles around. 

There was a gorgeous view. 

This was under the tower- it was used as a passage way for soldiers, and had secret tunnels all around. Photo credit in this to Natasha Palmer. 

The view looking up.

 After exploring the tower, we were led to the final section of the tour- tea time!! But for this tea time, we had to work. We split into groups- one group went to make friendship bracelets and learn how to weave a rug (give those who can actually accomplish this credit. They deserve so much.)- which none of us came close to succeeding at.

Then then groups switched and the next task was to make lavash- basically, a tortilla. Except we were able to do it in the traditional way. We entered this long room and each knelt down to a circular board and kneaded a dough made of simply flour, water, and a little salt. Then we stretched the dough so it was as thin and circular (*snorts*) as we could manage, then we took our turns at this... floor pan? It was about two feet in diameter, completely flat and was heated from coals in the ground. Floor pan is the only way I can describe it.

The floor pan cooked this tortilla in about ten seconds flat. Impressive. We were told that when these are traditionally made, the hot lavash is put on top of this hat (called a taqiyah, it's a traditional Muslim cap) and let it cool. So whether that was true or not (as far as I know, we were never told anything incorrect. Thanks for not taking advantage of our ignorance, guys! I hope no one in America did that when you came!), we walked around with homemade bread on top of our hats for a while.

We had tea, of course, with our lavash. And the customary tea-time snacks. Yay. 

All of us in our taqiyahs, full from tea and tired from the day.