[Editor’s note: Jeff Bailey, a 23-year-old Coos Bay native, is in Azerbaijan, where he is serving in the Peace Corps as an English education volunteer. This is the third in a series of columns Bailey plans to write for The World about his experiences there.]

I’ve learned a lot of things in my short time in the Peace Corps. The list could be drawn out if I were to get down to the gritty details like, “A squat toilet really does get easier over time,” or I could make it shorter by being more general in my topics and categories and fill the list with gems like “cross-cultural communication is essential to my success as a volunteer.”  Either way, sitting down and drawing out a list is tough because I don’t think of the things I’ve done and learned as being categorical, but instead I just look at them as being different pieces that make up my life. But one of the more surprising revelations that I’ve had is that I would never, ever want to be a celebrity.

Sure, there are perks to being famous. There would be no more waiting for a table at a restaurant. Ridiculous wealth. Being the envy of those around you. You know, the good part. The part that I don’t have.

Instead I have only part of the lifestyle that comes with being a celebrity, we call it “living in a fishbowl.” It’s an odd, but appropriate, metaphor that suggests that the whole world is looking at your tiny, transparent existence, and all you can do is uselessly move around a bit. Maybe that’s a bit extreme, because the world that is peering into my life is really only a small town in Azerbaijan, and the only thing people really know about me is that I’m an American volunteer who teaches English at one of their schools, but the feeling of having all eyes on me is quite real.

Perhaps if I had a sunnier disposition I could greet all the eyes that stare at me with open arms, but it isn’t easy for me. I’m a pretty awkward person even back in the United States. Sometimes, when I walk past a person, thoughts race through my head, “Do I smile? Say hello?  Maybe they are looking at the person behind me. What if they don’t recognize me?” At which point I act as if I am answering a call on my cell phone and pretend not to have seen whoever it was causing me such anxiety.

Here there is no such luck. I do have a phone, but my role in the community has changed. I have gone from being a nobody to someone that people either know about or want to know about. That, and in these first formative months of my Peace Corps service we are encouraged to remain “approachable,” a quality that is said to make our role as community development workers easier as time goes on. So I have to engage the gawking along with the curiosity.

The standard conversation usually starts and ends with children running up to me, yelling “Hello!” (in which there is an emphasis on the ‘E,’ rather than the ‘O’). Occasionally, a gutsy student will ask how I am, or in a state of confusion, ask how old I am. And every so often I’ll get someone who offers a bit of English that they’ve learned from American pop culture, which ranges from the lewd to the ridiculous, like the time a kid said “Hello. My name is Jean-Claude Van Damme. I love you.”  

After appeasing the kids, I usually move on to the adults that are standing around in the street and at the local tea houses. My interaction is usually a simple, and generally pleasant greeting in Azerbaijani. “Salam. Natarsan?” (Hello. How are you?). The strangest interaction though, is when people ask me about something that they shouldn’t really know about.

After a trip to the capital a few weeks ago, a complete stranger asked me, “How was Baku?”  I was a bit shocked that he knew I had taken a trip there, but the turn-of-events didn’t really surprise me. I imagined a friend of his might have been one of the people observing the American on the train in the past weekend, and mentioned it to all his pals when he got home.

Though my fishbowl experience is usually a normal thing that must simply be dealt with, it occasionally works in my favor, too. The other night I was walking home and someone pulled up along the side of the road and asked if I would like a ride home. I had no idea who the person was, but they knew my name and where I lived. Every day, I have to decline offers to sit and drink tea with people, though I try to sit and meet the residents of my neighborhood when I can. In another context, it would be weird and uncomfortable, but here, it’s the standard course of events.

While the attention I receive here can be quite pleasant and generous, I’ve decided that it’s not the life for me because ultimately, the attention leaves me feeling isolated. Communication barriers often prevent deep and meaningful relationships. Having the same kid ask me every day how old I am and if I like Azerbaijan simply makes me feel as though I’m a novelty. Often, they don’t care what I say, they just want to see the American speak in his weird language. And while I try to take myself and my work seriously, it’s true, I am an outsider, and I always will be. Despite their best intentions, the hellos and stares only remind me of this, even if it’s just in the back of my mind.