Villages, Hills, and MUD

Photos: amazing eyebrows, host family, MUDDY hill

Oct. 16, 2022-Khinalug, Azerbaijan Never have I ever eaten so much food, and they’re making us eat dinner too. Breakfast was two rooms of buffet delight from shakshuka to halvah. I circled like a shark collecting my goodies. Lunch was in the wilds of Khinalug with the family pictured. Everything was home grown and homemade including cheese, bread, lamb, and jams. Latif insisted we stop at a roadside stand for freshly made crepes stuffed with dill, cilantro and mint called qutab. And we had dinner at seven. The good news is we survived to eat that dinner. The road northwest to where the Khinalug minority lives became progressively treacherous the higher we went (12,000 feet). Forests of oak and beech surrounding picnic grounds and resorts gave way to switchbacks and single lane rollercoaster washouts. The beauty of the first snows on the Caucasus and gleaming waterfalls was lost on us. The graffiti did grab my eye. We zoomed past one rock with “bisexual” writ large and I teased Latif that they were everywhere. He shook his head and smiled. The Khinalug are a group of about 2,000, living 40 miles from the Russian border. They are one of twenty-six minorities each with their own language who live in the mountains. They speak Azerbaijani as well and used to learn Russian in school. Now they learn English. They are nomads, but when some adults move to different pastures in summer, the children stay behind in village dormitories with teachers and other villagers. Students are encouraged to go to university and are given an incentive to return to their village to teach for five years. The village is primitive but connected to the modern world. Every family has a car, internet, cell phones, outhouses with squat toilets, and heats with dung. They also live on a steep hillside that is navigable by mountain goat and Alpine trekkers. Unfortunately, we are neither. Our village walkabout consisted of slipping in MUD, sliding on MUDDY rocks, and avoiding MUDDY dung. Uphill or down, it was dicey. Latif enlisted a villager to steady some of us and we arrived back unscathed. When David got to the top Latif was thoughtful enough to call a car to take him down the treacherous incline to our host’s house. What we didn’t know at the time was that he could have ridden the van to where we had lunch. It was parked outside the house, and as David approached the unmentioned alternative dawned on him. Our hosts were in their 50’s and had seven children and many grandchildren all living in one house. Oh, and, yes, the widowed mother in law. The man worked for the government inspecting monuments in the region. Two of their boys were at university. Several family members had blue eyes. When Latif is asked a question, he answers with a history lesson. The blue eyes were explained by Viking remains found in the Caucasus, resulting in the eye color and word “Caucasian.” I edited his answer down from 15 minutes. Yes, I did use that squat toilet before lunch. It was awkward, painful, and I had Vicki on standby to haul me up if needed. Victory was sweet and I escaped with clean pants and dignity intact. I’ve been practicing squatting for months. It paid off. BTW, I drank nothing with lunch. Tomorrow we head back south to Baku, Toby