Souvenirs

I have received two very special gifts since arriving back in Baku. The first one I received Sunday evening and the second one last night.

When we arrived back at S and P’s villa there was a message waiting from their friends that own The Wharf restaurant. One of the local waitresses, Katya, from their restaurant had gone home, climbed the stairs in her apartment building and had been assaulted. The attacker did not take any money or sexually assault her. He did stab her between the ribs just missing her liver. The blade punctured her lungs three times. He left her in the darkened hallway. Luckily a neighbor found her and got her to the emergency clinic.

We dropped our bags and headed to the clinic. It was like stepping back into a third world country. The stairs were filthy, the floors were filthy, and wards were about 25 feet by 18 feet, with about 6 beds along each wall. These hospitals are nothing more than a room. The patient brings the bandages needed, the drugs, the bed linen, and the food required for the stay. The conditions are truly deplorable. She was very weak. We visited with her for a few minutes and told her we would return later that evening.

From the hospital we headed to The Wharf. We huddled with their friends about what we could do to help. It was decided that The Wharf would donate all of Monday’s receipts and S and I said that we would match them dollar for dollar. We found out that it was also Katya’s birthday. So we left the restaurant and went shopping for birthday and get well gifts. S and I let P do the shopping while he and I discussed plans to castrate her attacker if he were ever caught. However satisfying that might have been to us it wouldn’t have helped Katya at all. That’s when S and I came up with a new plan. By the time P had returned we were in complete agreement about what we were going to do.

When we arrived at the clinic P went to the ward with the gifts. S and I found her doctor and told him our idea. He told us that our plans were just what Katya needed. He left to make the arrangements and we headed to tell Katya and P. We found them talking to her mother who looked so worried. S told them that he and I had talked to her doctor and that we were having Katya transferred to the new American hospital where all Westerners are treated and that S and I were going to pay for her stay. For once in her life P was speechless. But the look of relief on Katya’s mother’s face is the special gift I was speaking of. It was far more valuable than anything S and I could ever give.

By Monday afternoon it seemed that the entire American ex-pat community had heard about Katya and was lining up to help. A fund has been set up to help her when she is released from the hospital.

Later that evening we went out to dinner with an Azeri gay couple that S and P befriended. Dimitri is the assistant manager at the Hyatt and Ayas is a pilot for Azerbaijan Airlines. The guys have been together for eight years. They have to be very careful as Azerbaijan is a very conservative Muslim country. We had a great time and I really enjoyed watching the two of them interact. They reminded me a little of BC and I. They also reminded me that love is eternal, it never truly ends. That was my second gift.




So I am ready to head home on Wednesday. I have decided to spend a day in London instead of New York. This has been a really good trip. I got to visit and travel with my best friends. I got to help someone in need. I had my soul nourished by the commitment of two gay men. And I’m taking those gifts home with me.

Oh yeah, just in case you mistakenly think I’ve become all selfless and think only of others now, you should know I’m leaving my altruism in Baku as there isn’t room in my suitcases. Because I’m also taking home the great antique rug I bought in the old city, a fur Cossack hat, the sapphires that P bought me in Bangkok (which I will have made into cufflinks), two bottles of fine Russian vodka, and several jars of cosmetic volcanic mud because I am that gay. Told you I don’t travel light.