Charity

Big business in Azerbaijan: oil...

'Do you think a person's name can somehow impact his life?' This question comes out of the blue, like most things Mohammed says or asks. I smile, realising we're about to take the conversation a few steps beyond the harmless small talk that usually comes with the kind of lower-intermediate English classes he's taking. 'It feels like these classes have untied my tongue', he told me earlier that morning.

Sonja, my host in Ganja, a city in the west of Azerbaijan, has organised a field trip to Xanlar, a picturesque village not far from town. This German girl is here for a three-month teaching stint, and she's doing a marvelous job setting up all kinds of projects for the local youth. German and English classes, political discussions, a women's club, sightseeing trips in and around town: her pupils, Mohammed included, simply lap it up.

...and gas. Anyone for a cuppa?

Sonja is not the only foreigner in Ganja involved in community work. I also happened to meet a few members of the Peace Corps, the American volunteer program set up fifty years ago by John F. Kennedy. The Peace Corps is active in over seventy developing nations worldwide, and in Azerbaijan alone you can find at least one or two volunteers in any decent-sized town.

You've got to hand it to them: these boys and girls are a hardy bunch. When they sign up, they commit themselves for a twenty-seven month period, not knowing in which part of the world they may end up. Moreover, their wages are in step with the local average pay.

There is no doubt the classes these volunteers teach and the funds they help raise and the advice they give to NGOs and small businesses all serve a good purpose. But it's hard to shake off the feeling that there might be a hidden agenda: to create goodwill for the American cause, or, more specifically, to clear the ground for fresh investments from overseas. In the end, even charity is a matter of checks and balances.

Now, it's easy to criticise the workings of a charity moloch like the Peace Corps, especially for a mere passerby. But this passerby rather unexpectedly found himself holding up his hand. Having ended up in Shirvan after another long day, unwilling to cough up the dosh for an overpriced room in the only hotel in town, a member of the Peace Corps came to my rescue. I was fed, given a roof over my head and, more importantly, I didn't have to spend the night talking to myself. Upon leaving the next morning I felt strangely uplifted. Sometimes it only takes a little nudge to see things from a new perspective.