Flower Holiday.

Once upon a time, I took things seriously. Well, serious enough. I don't know if that's the case so much anymore. There's a lot that goes on here that I can't take serious. Like this, for example. I read about it awhile ago and forwarded it on to a friend. You can read what his thoughts are about it here.

I don't use this medium as a place to really talk about this country per se, but more of me in this country. I do this because I would definitely have an issue being PC (in PC, haha). And, that's an issue because, as PCVs, we're supposed to take the middle way in a lot of instances. Anyone who's really ever talked to me knows this is just not my style. So, I save my opinions, for the most part, for Skype dates, emails, and any other means of communication.

I bring all this up because today was the culmination of what I find absurd here. Today was Flower Holiday. I understand the need to celebrate random things. Fremont has the Daffodil Festival, Wilmington has Azalea Fest, and, heck, Mt. Olive has a Pickle Festival! I find all these quite entertaining. I think I understand these a bit more because they're quirky, particular, and little small town/regional things and not National Holidays. To be fair, though, Flower Holiday was something added onto the celebration of Heydar Aliyev's birthday and was not originally just some random thing to celebrate. But, still, there's something up with that original celebration.

I provided a rather lengthy article, so if you're not into reading all that, read this (even with the nonsensical English, you get the gist):

It is necessary to page chronicle of life of this nice person, read, study and propagandize reading, studying it, because the life of Heydar Aliyev is a history of Azerbaijan we lived through.

...He left us at his 81st year - at the top of wisdom, leadership. However, he had become apart only partially. Heydar Aliyev will always stay with us with his ideas, with the works, which he couldn't finish, big plans, desires in 10, 20, 50, 100-year future of Azerbaijan. Heydar Aliyev was raised to this top by nation, its trust and belief. The highest top he was able to conquer was the soul of the nation. From that top along with yesterday and today of Azerbaijan, the future, prosperous tomorrow can be seen obviously. Let us be able to move in the light of that top thinking about tomorrow of Azerbaijan...

This was from one of the main (and only) news sources. It's legit press. Nationalistic and not too free press. Here's a link to an Azeri blogger that has some of the same thoughts as me.

Don't get me wrong, I like getting flowers as much as the next girl and I received a lovely bunch of them today (seen above) from one of my favorite students, Nigar. But, this is the snowball of the ridiculousness that is life here sometimes. One absurd thing leads to another... to another.

Oh, Azerbaijan...