AROUND THE WORLD IN 23 YEARS~AZERBAIJAN

Sheki, Azerbaijan

This trip was a study in contrasts, the glamour, and luxury of the capital Baku and its Caspian Sea oil deposits and the third world poverty of its rural countryside and medieval agriculture. I was there to improve the latter, but what I found was surprising.

In the end, it's not about oil or vegetables, it's about the human spirit.

I took this photo of a 5th generation farmer and his 7th generation grandson after his wife had served us a modest lunch of homegrown vegetables and pork, the meat sliced razor-thin to stretch their budget after entertaining western visitors. I've never had a better meal, before or since.

Forget Baku and their moguls, the real Azeri's live on the farms, that's where I discovered how wonderful life can be, fewer conveniences and more love.

This man was the perfect host, he offered us what he had, no shyness, no apologies just knowing that what he had would be more than enough.

My life in the developing world changed me. Back home in the States, people would say to me, "Nick, how could you stand living like "those" people live?" My answer was easy, "those people are the only people I've ever met that know how to live. We in the developed world merely exist, surrounded by those who love themselves and their things more than you."

When I look back on some of my experiences through journal notes and photos, I wonder why the history of mankind has been a history of jealousy and the conflict that it causes?

That's one of the reasons I write, to put emotions into words, and express what many of us feel but are too embarrassed to say.

My Jesuit teachers in prep school taught me that, they were the strongest men I've ever met. They were learned educators devoted to liberal education, they taught us how to think, not what to think, there's a difference.

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