Progress...

Possibly one of the coolest things about living in a developing country is getting to watch it, well, develop. Over the past 2 years, so many things in Azerbaijan have changed and improved. I'm not talking about the gazillions of high rise building sprouting up in Baku, although construction in this country is a fascinating process. I'm talking about smaller scale changes that will probably have a bigger impact. Here are a few of my favorite examples...

Cars and Travel...
When I first arrived, the majority of the cars you saw were Russian made Ladas and a hand full of Mercedes. Incidentally, the Ladas are almost always white. Don't know why. Anyway. There are still plenty of Ladas on the roads, but now you see almost as many foreign cars. I stopped in my tracks the day I saw a Ford Focus driving around Lankaran. My students tell me that there are apparently a few Hummers here although I've never seen 'em. There are car dealerships of every manufacturer imaginable all over the country. There's even a Chevrolet dealership in the region just north of me.

The roads have improved too - or are in the process of being improved. The first few times I made trip between Lankaran and Baku it felt like we were off-roading. It was uncomfortable and often too bumpy to even sleep through the trip. Now, the road is redone and repaved, making the trip much more enjoyable. I'm one of those people who often gets car-sick, but on our new road, I've even been able to read on the bus. A lot more the roads in town are paved than they were before. And, just a few weeks ago, they painted a line down the middle of the main road in town to help control traffic.

Luxuries...
Washing machines and air conditioners seem like a fantasy to most PCVs. And for most families here, that is still the case. You struggle through summer, sweating profusely, with at best a fan in the apartment and everything from jeans to shirts to socks to carpets gets hand-washed. But as I've been looking around recently, I've seen a lot of the apartments in my neighborhood install air conditioners (I'm trying to make friend with all of them!) And washing machines are becoming more and more prevalent. In the past year alone both my counterpart and old host family have gotten washing machines in their homes. I'm a little sad I moved out before that improvement happened!

Last but not least comes perhaps my favorite example - Milk...
2 years ago, the majority of the milk you could buy came straight from the cow. In bigger cities you could sometimes find long shelf life Russian milk, but that was usually only in one or two stores (at least here in Lankaran). About a year ago, the Pal Sud (Pal Milk) factory opened right here in Lankaran. Very quickly we saw Pal Sud coming into almost all of the stores in town. Slowly it spread to Baku and then the other regions. Now, Pal Sud can be found in every region of Azerbaijan. But there's more. As Pal Sud has gotten bigger, so has their product line. The first thing on the shelves was 3.4% milk. A few months later, 2.4% started showing up. Then came qatiq (yogurt) and some other azer-dairy products. The crowning moment was when I walked in a store and discovered 1.4% milk!!!! Oh, how far we've come!

Now I know a lot still needs to change and improve here, but to watch a country go from Ladas to SUVs, from hand washing to washing machines, and from straight-up cow milk to choices in fat percentage in your milk is pretty rad. Seeing these examples and other things - like heaters being installed in the schools and little girls outside playing and rarely losing electricity - makes me hopeful and makes me think. If this much can improve in 2 years, what will Azerbaijan be like in 10?