Margmenia

Spring...Is that you?

2011-03-28T07:31:00.000-07:00

I returned late last night from my "Spring Break 2011". That included a long road trip 11 hours north to a friend's home for two nights and then back to Yerevan for an attempt at seeing the European Championship playoff game between Armenia and Russia. Despite having tickets we had all ready paid for we did not get into the game. Still, I had a great time shaming Armenia with other Armenians for their corruption. The positive outlook also comes from us being given quite a few free drinks too. The taxi couldn't pick us up until 3 in the afternoon to take us home so we did not arrive in Kapan until 10pm but...I am so glad to be home!
Today as I was walking the stairs down in the sunshine(yay my knee is well enough to handle the downhill hike!) I was greeted by an adorable puppy clumsily running toward me. Instant love. Puppies are back on the street and I am aching for one.
I had a meeting with World Vision who I will be working with a lot now on the Green Camps that I am directing in 5 different towns throughout Armenia. They will take place this summer leaving enough time for preparations and planning but having this connection with the NGO will be very beneficial. So, the meeting went well and I am excited and grateful about that. I needed to do some errands, and while purchasing some veggies was forced into buying some greens which I later figured out was stinging nettle. Awesome, now I have to figure out how to prepare that. For lunch though, without the stinging nettle, I made a lovely Caesar salad, even coddled an egg, for Robyn and myself which we enjoyed on the balcony.
I had to go back down to Kapan to tutor my Meri and was again force given a bouquet of violets from a very old tatik barely able to walk. So I now guess her staring at me every morning is not out of hatred, but kindness and curiosity, and that feels great. Then I was stopped rather abruptly in the street as a car came barreling toward me and slammed on its' breaks right as it got to me. "Margo jan! (continue incoherent Armenian question)". I look at the two men who clearly know who I am and realize I have never met or to my knowledge even seen them before. I notice in the back seat they have just purchased from the new, ridiculously large kiddie store an electronic car for one of their children. Out the window they shove at me instructions that are written in English, I ask them, "what" and they repeat the incoherent question again. I quickly graze the instructions to try and figure out what he is asking, find it, and reply. They could not have been more thankful. Men in Armenia being thankful, especially to women, is something you do not encounter very often. Naturally I am thrilled.
I met with Meri outside because the weather was so nice and I felt I did my part today to impart environmental awareness onto Armenians. We discussed the new Dolfinarium just opened in Yerevan and how it is awful and a perfect example of animal cruelty especially since there is no ocean anywhere near this country. Meri actually enjoys animals and responds, "yesa margo i know, a, because, a i watch da animal channel" She means Animal Planet in Russian. Small breakthrough. Then I also taught her "terms of endearment" and actual examples of terms. So there is at least one Armenian learning English who now knows the word "schnookums".
Lizzie and I made taco salad for dinner and enjoyed more sunshine before I headed back up the hill home. I was again accosted by teenage girls who now recognize me from the English Creative Writing Olympics and Poetry Recitation contests which I was a judge and facilitator for a few weeks ago in town. I expect to get several phone calls from them daily now.
It is still light outside today since we had our daylight savings this last Saturday and the local boys are playing soccer right outside my bedroom balcony door. A few of them saw me as I came into my room and gleefully waved. Of course this makes my heart soar.
I can attribute this new found optimism in the Armenians and myself to only one thing: spring is here.

March Madness

2011-03-17T21:51:00.000-07:00

I desperately needed to pay my landlord since I had not paid since the beginning of January. February I had the excuse of not being able to walk, and then I just hadn't had the time to make the trip out to her house since returning from Italy. I cleared my afternoon schedule to head out to the villages. This is a full day adventure usually. This time was no exception. I show up and we of course drink tea. The usual chit chat. I am harassed by Lena the 4 year old. We do some building. I get to look at every picture in the family photo album (again). Lunch is prepared. I say, in all seriousness, I need to leave at 3. We finish lunch and I ask what time it is, "3:20". GREAT. I scurry home to watch the last of the documentary films being shown by the British Council for our very own Film Festival. Riveting stuff.

She might be one of the only Armenians that smiles in photos.

Lena shows me her dance moves

Lena helps me build the castle

Our creation, sort of

Then the new guitar came out. She played and I danced. Tatik laughed.

Also, in honor of Women's Day we had another contest for Armenians to write an essay or draw a picture explaining the importance of women in leadership, or about a woman who is a strong leader in their life. This gem of a poster came back from Robyn's village from a little boy. Clearly this kid missed the point of how awesome women are.

January 27th-March 10th

2011-03-16T10:25:00.000-07:00

Man, I was doing so well with that updating blog thing and then two months went by. Here is my story of what happened.
I went up to visit some volunteers and celebrate a birthday, best of all I got to play with 3 day old bunnies!

Plus we ate the most delicious khoravats and German Chocolate and Carrot Cake.

Amazing.
Then, I went to a conference to work on Project Design. It was very worthwhile and effective. I learned how to knit.

After the conference because we were near the only mountain where you go skiing in Armenia I, along with a few other volunteers, decided to go skiing. Great idea!

Until the weather turned, the slopes became awful and i took a horrific fall. Then it was a lot of pain killers during the taxi ride (read: booze), x-rays, MRI tests, ice packs and more pain killers and a whole week in Yerevan (alone, save some kittens) at the PC Medical Office.

With the doctors.

The prognosis was mostly that nothing too serious happened. My knees, both actually hurt really bad but the right one was much worse, have recouped some now from the gross yellow bruises and massive swelling.
I returned home with a man nurse in tow. The best surprise waiting for me was my Christmas package sent December 7th finally arrived.

Along with my V-Day package. Presents! Presents! Presents! Only two months later. Love that mail system. I got right to work with Pat Fecher (greatest woman in PC) on decorating the house with Christmas stuff and making holiday cookies.

I was able to venture to Italia and meet with the family for Mama Mo's 60th birthday. It was a fantastic time. I encouraged my knee to give me the least amount of pain possible. It cooperated most of the time.

Oh, I also cut bangs. Haven't had bangs like this since i was 6. (this is heading out on the water taxi to the cemetery in Venice)

Returned home with a great homecoming of friends.

Jay turned 30/OLD so I baked him a delicious Funfetti cake. LOVED IT! It was decorated with lots of the gingerbread house decorations that arrived two months after the appropriate time to make gingerbread houses. Sorry Mom.

So I am home now. Cooking delicious meals again that last for four days bc I still can't ration and cook for only one. In this photo is my favorite present from the Xmas package:the spatula. I have used it for every single meal since receiving it.
March 8th rolled around which is Women's Day. This is a very important day here. The men take off work, and so do the women so that they can cook a feast for everyone. Escaping the cold Lizzie and I stopped into our favorite little cafe to find it redecorated in burlap and burberry. We ordered hot cocoa and were brought some cake and disgustingly sugary fruity drinks too. And a cool napkin flower. Shnorhavor kinants or!

Call me Julia Child

2011-01-20T09:26:00.001-08:00

This has been a fabulous week! Tuesday I had coffee with Ruzanna, one of my students.

I decided to attend a conference which should be very helpful to myself and the armenian I am taking with me, then went to Meri, my tutee's, house for a delightful Armenian meal with her and her momma.

I had commented to Meri during a tutoring session how much I enjoyed haykakan dolma and belinchik. So, after a feast of those two items at her house, we set up to teach me how to make belinchik for Thursday night.
We met at the shooka to buy the goods, and headed up the hill to Cheramushka to start the preparation. I asked her how long it would take approximately. Her reply, "maybe 2 hours". Great we should be eating by 6:30. Wrong, the entire process took 4 hours. But well worth it!
First, we had tea.
Then we cleaned the meat, and started it a boilin.
Then, we mixed the eggs, milk, water, and flour to create the perfect consistency.

It wasnt quite perfect so we needed to add some more flour.

This was also Meri's first time making Belinchik, of course she had watched it be done numerous times, but we still had some difficulty making the crepe-like wrap.

Lizzie tried to find the perfect Armenian outfit in my coat closet to cook in.

They are starting to be the right consistency

questioning our ability to actually make this work

But we have success! little Armenian, well actually Russian, crepes!!

Lizzie and I attempt to make a crepe, Meri DOES NOT think we are doing an ok job.

Then we took the boiled meat and got it ready to grind.

Meat grinding time

Lizzie gives it a go and we have success.

Actually, we had the most success when Meri realized she hadnt told us to cut the big chunks of meat into smaller chunks of meat. She just took over and ground ground ground!

YUMMY

Next, grind the onions. Saute the onions. Add ground meat, dill, salt and pepper.

Then it is time to start wrappin and a rollin.

Time to start frying. Please add 7x too much haykakan oil to pan.

Fry lil belinchkis FRRRRYYYYYYY

Our first belinchiks are ready

Maladets us!

Feast time

Pure Enjoyment.

Lizzie and I concluded these were the best bilinchiks we have had in country. Light. Fluffy. Delicious.
Fear not everyone, I have this locked in my memory and will put it in the Volunteer Cookbook 2011.

I've Got Sunshine...

2011-01-17T09:26:00.000-08:00

After constant light snow flurries from Sunday, when the snow arrived, to Wednesday it was beautiful on Thursday to actually be able to see the blue sky and the majestic Khustoop mountain. Greg came to town on Wednesday so Thursday before setting out on a hike I had him tack up some extra plastic he bought to keep a bit more of the cold out! He is so handy to have around.

I was mostly hoping it would keep the smoke from my downstairs neighbors wood/plastic stove from seeping into my bedroom. No such luck. About three different times I have come home to toxic fumes in my house. Thanks to all Armenians for burning their garbage which mostly consists of plastic...and smells awful.

Instead of taking the stairs down to Kapan we took the long scenic loop and got some beautiful shots of Khustoop and the surrounding area.

Our little river mostly frozen over

This is usually where many of Kapan's taxi drivers come to wash there car despite having much business. This is the first time i have seen it empty, obviously bc the water isnt flowing so much right now.

Soviet Statues look even more depressing in the snow

Khustoop at dusk

Kapan at night from the stairs

Gas Man

2011-01-12T00:09:00.000-08:00

It isn’t even 10am yet and all ready today has been riddled with some good and some bad. I awoke to my doorbell being rung. I groggily put on my uggs and head to the door. A woman I have never seen before was walking down the stairs but I called her back. Surprise! She has a package for me. Door service from the Post in Cheramushka. Thanks Dar for the present. At least this means the post is working again and hopefully I will soon have all my xmas presents from America.

Downside of the morning is the long shrill BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP that is going off in my kitchen.
9:48-I go to investigate and find that it is my gas alarm. Great.
9:50-I knock at the neighbors. No answer.
9:51-I try the downstairs neighbors. No answer.
Where is everyone when a girl is about to have a gas explosion in her Armenian apartment and has no idea what to do about it??!!
10-I resort to calling our Safety and Security officer, the beloved Vahagan. BEEEEEEEEEEEEEP. I’m not really sure what he told me to do and he speaks English. Hmm.
10:10-I call my landlord. BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP. “Oh just open a window for 5 minutes. It will be fine” that was the gist of what I got from that conversation. She speaks Armenian. BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.
10:15- I open my door and let the freezing Armenian winter flood my living room.
10:15-10:35- Beeping continues and I hope that gas is not seeping into my lungs.
10:35- Vahagan calls me back to see my progress. Encourages me to call the gas company.
10:37-Knock on neighbors again. They answer! “Come. Come into my house. Loud beeping. I don’t know what to do. Can you call the gas company for me because maybe I don’t understand what they say?”
10:38-Arpine calls mek-zero-chors (1-0-4). From a cellphone though it goes directly to Yerevan.
10:40-Arpine goes to her house to use the house phone and call Kapan’s gas company.
10:51-Arpine can’t get ahold of the Kapan gas people. Of course, I can wait at my home all day long. She will continue to call them.
11-Call and update Vahagan. Run out of dram on my phone.
11:03- Vahagan calls me back. He wants to call Yerevan Gas Co to see if there is anything to do.
11:05- Vahagan calls and tells me to unplug the alarm, wait 15 minutes, plug it back in and see what happens. (meanwhile it is now freezing in my living room/kitchen)
11:07-Arpine has gotten the gas company and they are headed here. Fingers crossed.
11:45- gas man arrives, plug in my monitor. Wait. Apparently it has gone bad so I get a brand spanking new machine!
Apparently I knew Artik in my old village. I don’t think I have ever seen him before. While Artik was here he was explaining to me that the monitors are made in China. At first I didn’t understand him. So he, in all his Armenian genius and cultural sensitivity, put his fingers to his eyes to display what he meant. Oh, whoa, ok. I get it now. Please please stop doing that.

Looks like I am safe! Stay tuned…

Last night in my lovely new blender I made more hummus. Split the batch and made a garlic hummus and a spicy one. The spicy is deeeelicious. Garbanzo beans have become my staple this week. Nutritionally they are pretty good for ya.
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/legumes-and-legume-products/4326/2

Lizzie’s NGO got an article written up about them. This is the NGO I have been helping out at working on the Homeland Handicrafts with them. The article is pretty poorly written but gives a good idea of the situation here for people with disabilities.
http://armregions.am/en/2010/12/21/news-1292924489

Working World

2011-01-10T11:31:00.000-08:00

The holidays are over here in Armenia. Well, almost. I did get invited to another celebration tonight but politely declined/postponed it. Eating mayonnaise and cow tongue salad ten days after it was prepared didn’t seem that appetizing tonight. Anywho, the official ten day holiday is over, so back to the “working world” I went. I researched a bit in the morning working on my new project. I am part of a group of about eight volunteers and host country nationals (HCNs) working to change the Armenian legislation about LGBT here. I am reaching out to Diaspora groups in America and basically doing HR for the NGO New Generation that is spearheading this project.
if interested:
http://www.ngngo-armenia.blogspot.com/
http://www.guarantee-ngo.blogspot.com/

After a few hours of that I decided to head down to Kapan to discuss another project, the Science Fair. I am the lead on this committee and working to try and get an awesome fair going for this spring. Fingers crossed. We got a considerable amount of snow last night to add to the all ready blanketed hillsides so I decide boots were made for walkin in the snow. I chose my warmest of the SmartWool socks, long underwear, marshmallow jacket, pull on my boots and start sweating in my apartment. Normal. As I opened the door and met with the brisk air I felt a sweet relief that I would not overheat on the walk. Then, about a minute and a half into my twenty-five minute walk down the slushy hill I realized that 1. my boots were not water proof, 2. Water was leaking in damn quick, 3. My feet were going to be soaking and freezing wet for 23 minutes. But look at the beautiful views I was still able to capture of my city as I headed down the 700+ stairs.

After an eventful tutoring session I ran into my handy man on the street who pulls out a jar of jam for me. I had been ignoring his phone calls the past few days and finally answered last night. I cried sickness to him as the reason for not calling him back. He said he would bring me jam but I was quite surprised to see that he had been carrying it around for me in his pocket all day. Strange.

This picture I grabbed of the town square where the xmas tree stands. It was actually the first time I had passed it at night and thought it quite pretty. Has my taste gone to total crap?

After some heated up leftovers of vegetable red thai curry with coconut milk I baked three loaves of pumpkin bread.

These are the two that were only slightly burnt in my horrid Armenian oven.

Oh, and I have a blender now and made hummus all the way from scratch yesterday. Note to everyone, heat up hummus and eat it. It will be all the more delicious.

My brand new 1500 dram toilet seat broke last night. Back to using the hovercraft.

Shnorhavor Nor Tari 2011!

2011-01-08T22:15:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!
So starts my first full year in Armenia. I apologize for the hiatus in blog posts, but one of my many new years resolutions is to keep the blog more up to date.
It has finally turned cold here in Armenia. I went to a town called Yegeghnadzor in Vayatsdzor marz to ring in the new year and we were all pleasantly surprised by the covering of snow when we woke up to January! We made a snow-she/man, went sledding on garbage can lids and plastic bags, made snow angels and enjoyed some general debauchery. Before the snow Armenia had looked dead and dull with all the trees sans leaves and the countryside bare. But now…I am living in a white winter wonderland.
When I returned south to Kapan I found that only the high mountain Khustoop had more snow on it. Kapan remained the only place without snow. However, I awoke this morning to snow snow snow. I immediately woke up Robyn and Lizzie to have them share in my wonderment. Only then did I realize that my clothes I washed Friday morning and hung out to dry were still on the line since it had rained a bit and the clothes definitely were not dry enough yesterday to bring in. Well now they are more wet and lining the chairs inside my apartment. Vochinch.

I will have you know that I was not the only one with items on the line still this morning. But I was quicker to get them inside!

For those of you who haven’t been kept somewhat up to date via Facebook or tidbits heard elsewhere I will try to convey the past 5 months of my service into a few highlights. This could be a challenge.
Settling in September

School started on the 1st. There are 43 students in my village school but only 2 actually live in the village. This I found to be somewhat stressful because there were no teachers or students in the village to hang out with after school and work on my language, assimilation and integration. This lead to the big decision in November.
Finding out my counterpart isn't working at the school this year. I am at liberty to choose my own new counterpart. I take her, Anna the biology and chem teacher, to the conference in the resort town of Tsaghedzor.
Unlock weekend from our sites. 30 of us went to Lake Sevan to hang out. I got to swim in the lake but it was bitterly cold and rainy there.

Waking up to chicken feet in the kitchen sink. I never actually tried one but just ate the broth around them.
Enjoying the fruits of my family’s garden and the beautiful scenery around my village.

Bowling in Tsaghedzor.
***Lizzie moves to Kapan***
Outrageous October

Shnorhavor Usutsichneri Or: Teacher Appreciation Day. The students recite poems, sing and dance. Then the teachers drink cognac and wine at school. Apres!

Becoming best friends with brothers Kamo (14) and Garin(11). We went hiking, fishing, frog catching and at the end of every adventure I was invited into their home to socialize with the mother (Tamara) and grandmother (tatik) and of course eat more delicious cuisine. Plus they have the most precocious 3 year old little sister, Laina.
Visiting Vahanavank with the school and picnic-ing and then more delicious horavats.

Working with World Vision on International Hand Washing day. We went around to the kindergartens and gave presentations on proper hand washing and the benefits of healthy lifestyles.

Visiting the Farmers Market for the Kapan Small Farmers Association

People watching in the city square. (creepily with my camera)

Hanging out with friends on rooftops.

Soccer Matches. Kapans team translates as "Treasure Mountain" and their skills are equivalent to an American high school team...on a good day.

Finding the DAS which stocks curry, soy sauce, pickled ginger, cereal, Chateau Margaux wine, Tobasco, Venus razors, and blue cheese! Along with a myriad of other things.

My trip to Robyn’s village, Tsav. We taught a dance to the 1st graders for the upcoming talent show, hiked, I was courted by the young and more age appropriate and dined with some crazies.

We had lots of visitors to Kapan for Fall break. We break in the karaoke joint and have a fantastic time. Photos may not be blog appropriate.
Robyn and I hike to the Andokavan Fort ruins.

Armenian mullet haircuts
Matt moves into his new apartment and I am mostly free of the host family from hell.
New Home November
Snow in the village on November 1st.

Puppies!
Meeting the DAS Boss Artur. This man may be the best connection I make in country. Plus he loves to fill me and my friends up on fine cognac.

Uranium mine in Kapan. This rally successfully gathered the most Kapanites to band together against the installation of a new mine. However, plans are still in motion to begin construction.

Hanging out with the Yerevan soccer team fans at the local hotel.

Kapan Spelling Bee is a roaring success. Our students did awesome at the Regional Bee a few weeks later held in Goris.
Packages from America arrive chock-a-bock full of delicious American things!

Lizzie and I do several AIDS and HIV awareness presentations. The students also participate in a poster contest for World AIDS Day. Some of the submitted posters were amazing. One of our students actually won the contest.

Lizzie moves into her new place and we find dusty gems. Fur coats, record player with Russian records, and soviet post cards.

Jay and I hike with students associated with his NGO to Vahanavank and then the two of us head further up the hill to Halidzor Fort.

My favorites students, Kamo and Garin’s tatik offers me her apartment in Kapan to live in. It is amazing and I decide to rent it from her for the remainder of my service. Love this family. I move in. It needs some modifications and renovations but love my new place!

Thanksgiving in a small village with 15 other volunteers. Delicious food and fun company for my first major holiday away from home.

I spent a week in Yerevan. Hared my first international Hash at the botanical garden and then had All-Vol. Every volunteer in country reports for this conference for three days to discuss what has happened and future opportunities.
I worked at the Homeland Handicraft Fair with the NGO Lizzie and I have been working with to sell crafts made by Armenians in the regions.

Delightful December
Home sweet home. I get to make my new apartment my own with a new heater, couch, lots of cleaning and the first homemade meal complete with a Halloween funfetti cake. A bit late but still delicious.

York comes to visit for 10 days. We rent a car and have the time of our volunteer lives!
This might be a post for itself. coming soon.
I host dinner for over 30 volunteers. read: SHITSHOW.

2010 came to an end. In all this year has been amazing. The first 5 months at home in America with great friends and family and building new friends, who have become my family here in Armenia. I hope everyone had a great holiday season and the new year is off to a great start. Shnorhavor!

2 weeks in Dzaghedzor

2010-08-25T00:27:00.001-07:00

I have been living in my village Dzaghedzor for 2 weeks now. I have filled my days with reading, napping, sudoku, kitten loving, exercising and various other activities. The following are some things that happened out of the ordinary from the regular lazing around or that I never imagined in Armenia and was generally shocked by.
One day as I lay in my hammock reading my host sister brought out a white drink with a bendy straw (first shocker) for me to try. I was nervous that it was “tan” a drink they love here that is a combination of their yogurty-milk, water, salt and sometimes greens or rice. It depends on the variety but usually this is not my favorite drink. I took the drink and nervously asked what it was, all I understood in the reply was milk. Uh oh, is this tan? Well, I am trying everything so I put my lips to the straw and cautiously sipped it. Holy joyous moment! It was delicious! A tropical milkshake of bananas and peaches that was so creamy and delicious I sucked it down. Since this glorious day I have been brought milkshakes a few other times and have loved every single one of them. The other day I even got my favorite variety of chocolate banana. Mmm mmm good!
We celebrated my younger host sister’s 22nd birthday, which produced an array of delicious food, drinking and dancing. Particularly interesting this evening was the 11 year old boy that was here with one of the families and became in charge of pouring the wine for the females to toast with. At first he was apprehensive with the magnum bottle of pomegranate wine but soon embraced his occupation as well as starting to pour for himself. And pour, and refill and refill again for himself. I was quite entertained by his excessive drinking and kept taking photos of him , laughing and pointing out that he was going to get drunk if he kept it up. Dinner was breaking up and room was being cleared for the dance floor. I quickly went into my room and to my surprise find the boy, drunk, passed out face down on my bed! Haha. We danced and danced. The first dancing I have done in country and although Armenian dancing it was quite fun. This was despite the fact that one of the older gentlemen who was present for the party kept trying to kiss me while we danced and I ended up with a lot of sweaty slobber on my cheeks. The drunken child was taken from my room and carried home and I evaded any horrifying moments.

host mother, Gayineh, me and my tatik

Getting Crunk

My papik

Dance Party!

Uncle Maxim and his mama

Running here is an event even more so than in my PST village. I am quite the spectacle on the side of the road and cars will slow down to a crawl as they pass me to see what this crazy person on the side of the road is up to. Sometimes very creepy. But I keep it up hoping they will get used to me because it is really beautiful in the morning as the sun rises over the mountain ridges. And I thoroughly enjoy the boysenberries growing on the edge of the road as a mid-running snack.

Secret doors to secret gardens

The gardens i run past every morning

This monstrosity sorta looks pretty in the morning light

Sunrise over the mountains

Off Trail adventure

The missing clue...

Picking boysenberries

I was beckoned into a home for coffee and a snack. These scrumptious tomatoes were brought out from their garden.

Last Monday evening my family wanted to take me into Kapan. I thought we were going to have dinner at my tatik’s house but instead we bought an incredible variety of sweet cakes and pastries from the bakery and went over there to eat these and grapes.

We stayed for only about 15 minutes and then headed out to adventure around the town.

After a quick drop in at the church and lighting of candles we hit up the carnival that I have been so anxious to try. Sort of.

We rode the bumper cars and they all found it hilarious when I put on the seat belt because of course they don’t use them on real roads so why would they wear them for bumper cars? Next up was the roller coaster. I am a lover of rollercoaster’s in America, but this one while never exceeding 10ft off the ground was the scariest thing I have ever been on. Hard plastic seats that were slippery, not seat belts, open sides to go sliding out of and only a small bar on the front of the car to hold onto. Plus each car is on one wheel on the one track that goes around and around. Terrifying. Next up was a swing-type of ride.

It actually had a lap belt although I am sure it was not actually doing anything to help preserve my life but a fun ride.

We ended the evening at the hotel in town where Ira used to work sitting on the balcony with ice cream and cognac.

Last week my host mother beckoned me into the kitchen. We want you to learn where everything is in the kitchen so that you can prepare your own food when we go to Russia. Russia? When are you going to Russia? Next week. Oh. Interesting. And when are you coming back? We don’t really know, but sometime after September. Great, over a month of no host family where I will have to fend for myself in this foreign teensy town and hopefully continue to integrate into the community. I have since found out that my tatik will be shuttled in to stay with me here. That should be fun because I really like my tatik and can understand her much better than my host mother who speaks mostly Russian with some Armenian mixed in. Oh, and who I am coincidentally terrified of. So here’s to girl time with my tatik in September!

And I went swimming again! But this time in a pretty legitimate pool that was tiled, crystal clear and long enough for me to push off and take two full strokes before reaching the other wall. Flips! Handstands! Some pool “volleyball” with the famdam and I was feeling great. It was in the evening so it started to get a bit cold though and as I was getting out to get back into some warm clothes my sisters called for me to come where they were. It looked like a bathroom so I assured them I was fine dressing outside. No no, come in here! All righty then. And to my everlasting surprise and delight through a small door from that bathroom was a sauna. It was fantastic! I still find it hard to believe that there was an actual sauna in my village in Armenia but think that the house we were at may have some involvement with, err, less than reputable business. All speculation of course.
I have also acquired a kitten. She is adorable!

Her name is Sonya and provides a lots of entertainment and adds pleasure just when sitting on my lap or chest while I read, write or sleep. She is a family kitten but keeps rather close to me as I don’t grab her by the head, kick her 3 feet into the air and then catch her or any other atrocious things I watch my family members do daily. And respectively they are probably the most generous and loving family that an animal in Armenia could hope to be with. One thing she loves to do is sit on my chest and as I blink she becomes captivated with my eyelashes and will then paw my eyes. For the time being she is not a vicious cat so this is a very gentle tap but I am hoping it does not become an open claw to my eye as that could do some serious damage to my retinas. All in all it is great to have animals here at the house.
So those are the adventures and oddities I have come across recently and look forward to discovering and experiencing more!

School Starts! Sorta...

2010-08-25T00:18:00.000-07:00

After two weeks at my site I was very much looking forward to school starting. Although the constant relaxation was nice for a change of pace after PST I was starting to struggle to find new activities to do, movies dubbed in Russian I had yet to see, trails to hike and books to read. I also may have come close to exhausting the sudoku game book I have. So, Sunday evening I endured (so I thought) one last evening of rest which I spent reading and playing with my kitten, Sonya.
I awoke with some nerves but mostly excited about the new adventure that awaited me: 2 years working at the village school which houses approximately 50 students and has 18 full time teachers, a director and various other staff who clean and maintain the grounds. My counterpart had told me to be at the school at “ten, or eleven. Whenever”. Wanting to set an example of being punctual as well as wanting to see the bustle of school beginning for the teachers in Armenia I decided to arrive at 10am. It was much cooler that morning with clouds rolling over the tops of the mountain ridges down into my village, an eerie foreshadowing of the dreaded winters I would soon encounter. I did not let this deter me as I walked along the gravel road on my 3 minute walk to the school and became exceedingly anxious. I arrive, enter through the gate. I can hear voices inside. I walk up the stairs, push through the front door and walk down the hallway with the voices getting increasingly louder. Aha! In the teachers room, which is also combined with the kitchen I found one of the teachers I know, Merita, talking with another woman. I am introduced to her, and find out she is not a teacher but one of the cleaning and grounds keeper ladies. She invites me to her son’s wedding this coming Sunday, a generous invite I thought for just having met her and promise that I will try to make it. Why not?
Of course I am a bit put off by the fact that the room is not bustling with all the teachers from the school. I inquire about this and Merita assures me that the other teachers are coming in on the 10:30 bus so they will arrive right around 11. This clears up the option of arriving at 10 or 11. So we chatter back and forth as best we can with my limited language skills (that incidentally have slid down hill over the past few weeks without any classes…or much studying) awaiting the anticipated arrival of all the other teachers. We prevailed in communication, but 11 came around and a teacher showed up. And about ten minutes later 3 more teachers arrive, including the English teacher (read: savior) which makes my life drastically easier. Water is boiled for tea, coffee is made, cookies laid out and we all crowd around one table. There are plenty of other tables but they still have the chairs up on them. I ignore this and merrily go along with the women who are present but wonder where my counterpart is, the director and some of the other teachers that I had met previously during my site visit in July. The teachers have produced a piece of paper and write down the dates of this week with areas for each teacher, it appears, to sign in. Of course I am not positive what this was and or is for. Then out come the tomatoes, cucumbers, cheese, breads more chocolate and cookies. “Eat!” Despite the fact that I had just eaten my breakfast an hour earlier I obliged all in the interest of integrating into the community and being loved by all the teachers. A drastic portion of which we are still missing. Noon is approaching and all of a sudden two teachers jump up, apologize and run out the door. Late for the bus! Oh no, so is another one! But, you have only been here an hour? Why aren’t we having an open forum, talking about the summer, what conferences and workshops everyone attended, goals for the upcoming school year, how we will close the achievement gap etcetera etcetera? Oh right, not in America. So, while I am somewhat taken aback by the brevity and lack of attendance from participants who I have deemed key players to the school year and my success here as a volunteer, I follow in suit. Help clean up because I don’t have a bus to catch and make sure that the first day of “work” is in fact over. Of course! And tomorrow, when will we be meeting “At ten, or eleven. Whenever.” I make the decision to arrive a bit later tomorrow.
We had of course been warned of this, that the work days with teachers before school actually starts with the students would be somewhat of a social gathering with lots of coffee being drank, gossip and some work. I assumed this to be an exaggeration. Never had a imagined the possibility that the other volunteers who had previously gone through this last year were actually down playing the situation. We’ll see how day 2 goes.
Mostly the same. I arrived around 10:20 because I was nervous about missing something that could prove to be terribly important. Oh how naive I still am in this culture. Some weeding is taking place at first. Then we rearrange some flowers in Merita’s room and await the arrival of the other teachers. With baited breath I anticipate all the teachers showing up today. Naïve. Two of the same teachers from yesterday show up, and two of the younger teachers I had met before. The six of us crowd around the same table. Well today…today is apparently fortune telling day. First, we do a Chinese “hexogram” game to determine our futures, very similar to astrological tellings but quite the cross-cultural event to an American in Armenian hearing how the Chinese forecast my life. Next we played a card game that I would equate somewhat similar to tarot card reading and then of course the ever popular najel bajack, or reading of the coffee cup to see what lies ahead for us.
So two days down. I would definitely say that I am integrating into the community with the teachers and really do enjoy them. All very nice and encouraging ladies in my language and endeavors at the school. I did take some initiative to discuss what I would like to do in the school and how I can help some of the other teachers with their curriculum. I was encouraged by my fortune.

To Kapan I Go

2010-08-13T23:47:00.001-07:00

I ventured into Kapan to get some shopping taken care of and to see other American faces. As I have said before, Matt a TEFL and Jay a CBD live in Kapan so much of my interaction down here will probably be with the two of them and Robyn made it in also to hang out with us.
I started the adventure walking out of my village to the main road and saw an older man sitting next to the river bank, pushing his dentures out of his mouth and generally unaware that anyone was approaching him.

I announced myself and started chatting with him, he was quite adorable and was heading into Kapan also on the marshutni. I was comforted by this because there isn’t an actual stop for the marshutni, rather you just sorta wave it down, hope it sees you and as it approaches and slows down you make a running hop onto it. Well, it saw us and the two of us boarded and headed into town. This was actually the first time I had taken any public transportation, besides a taxi, that has not been provided by the PC so I gave myself a silent applaud. At the last stop in Kapan I debarked and found myself right in the center of town. Next to the main bus stop is a large statue of a horseman Davit Bek, leader of the south in the 18th century.

Kapan is an old, if not extinct industrial town whose workers lived in high-rise flats that now look as if they will crumble above the next earth tremor.

Kapan is bisected by the Voghi River, the same river that my village tributary runs into higher up the mountain.

It also has another main tributary running from the southern mountains into town and meeting the Voghi at the town center.

In town these two rivers look more like canals as they have been corralled and guided through the town in a concrete path, one that also has to try to dodge all the trash that is thrown there. A development of the Soviet Era. This also has required pedestrian bridges all throughout the city.

But they have a nice variation to the setting made either of stonework or brightly painted iron work. Across the river from the bus stop and the horseman statue is the touristy main part of town (where the two rivers meet). There is a large café

set in a nicely landscaped square that is rimmed by the hotel, restaurant and various other khanoots and surprisingly a billiards lounge. Following the tributary up the hill you will find the church that has been renovated so no longer looks like a cool old church but a brand new church of garish pink stone.

On the other side of the river is the Post office (hopefully I’ll receive plenty of care packages here !!)

the culture house

that houses the library,

(trying to break into the art university)

the Art University and heading south you will encounter the Kapan University and sport field and pool with platform diving boards.

Curving back down that road toward the city center I found a very nice park with what would be beautiful fountains if they were ever filled with water, and across the street in what looks like an abandoned building the Armenian Art Museum.

Too bad it was closed, and I cannot say with any assurance that it will ever be open again.

Random herd of horses just wandering the streets

And Robyn's Armenian dream home

The lovely mountain view in Kapan
Robyn and I grabbed some food at a little shack which ended up being delicious. I think they were called Shaghama; basically marinated chicken, onions and greens wrapped up in lavash.

We sat next to some old men playing their card games and nardi and talked with them a bit. We both tried to buy internet sticks but have found out that I get no signal in my village and her computer is rejecting the program. We figured this out though after almost 2 hours in the store.

We browsed the “supermarket” and can’t say we found anything too interesting except for a premade gin and tonic beverage AND wine from somewhere besides this country.

I will survive.

The fruit and vegetable stands right outside though are still marvelous and smell so good as you walk by.

One of the bus stops i thought looked really cool

khanoot owner

What the public transportation avtobus looks like. 1940 recall?

We walked around the other side of the town and then ventured into an Armenian salon for some Armenian spa treatment and paid a fraction of the price for waxing as compared with America.

Perhaps I will be better kept over here than I am in Cali. We walked to meet the other Americans for a beer at the new place but encountered an amusement park (of sorts). It looks completely abandoned but I am told that every night it is bustling with Kapanites riding and squealing with joy. I don’t think it would be proper to compare the safety of the annual town fair with carnies galore to this site. Mostly because I don’t know which one would win on safety issues.

Americans! We met at what we have deemed the “posh place” because it looks straight out of New Orleans with the intricate ironwork and come fall it will have an amazing view of the trees changing colors.

We had a couple beers, Erebuni (Yerevan’s in Russian) because we have learned that the beer made in the northern marzs are not pasteurized so they do not travel very well down to the south.

And on top of that everything is unplugged each night and then turned back on in the morning so the beers are going from chilled to room temp to chilled to room temp and for my faithful beer drinkers we realize how atrocious this can make a beer.

The trash. tis everywhere.
Afterward I walked up the hill to accompany Jay to dinner with his family. His house is very nice and perched up on the hill above the rest of Kapan. His host family’s actual daughters were in town with their children and I fell in love with one of the little girls. She definitely enjoyed being a model though.

jay not being amused by her her antics

loving her papik

I have become obsessed with the clotheslines strung from every apartment building to a nearby tree or a neighbor’s window with clothes, blankets and stuffed animals dangling precariously. I have photographed a lot of them so I apologize for the redundancy.
I took the avtobus on the way home to save 100 dram. It took a bit longer as we had to stop twice to throw cool water onto the engine. This appears to be a team effort by the men on the bus who boisterously pile off the bus to help and then jump back on, I am sure, having done nothing to actually help. The bus does even more of a moving stop to drop off and pick up people than the marshutni so I tried to mentally prepare myself for this. As we approached Dzaghedzor I asked the gentleman next to me, who had been staring at me the entire time in wonderment, to move so I could get out. He obliged, but my route off the bus was obstructed by three teenage boys in the aisle. The village was in sight and they apparently weren’t getting the hint that I was trying to move past them. “Neretsek” Excuse me. Oh, she wants to get off. I thanked my lucky stars as I see that there is actually someone at the bus stop for my village so the bus is going to have to stop. Have to? That is debatable. The bus slowed down, opened the doors and the man jumped on. The bus driver pressed down on the gass and started to accelerate. I frantically apologized and requested for him to stop, “but this isn’t Kajaran.” “I’m not going to Kajaran, I am going back there to Dzaghedzor it is the village I live in.” “No lady, you are crazy, you don’t want to get off there” “oh my god yes I do, stop the bus and let me off!” “OK then”. Oh, and where in the world do I pay you for the door to door service? Fine, I will just hand my 200 dram piece to one of the three gentlemen sitting in the stairway. At least I can’t be arrested for not paying for the ride. I finally get off. The bus has a hard time getting going again up the small incline and as I look down the road I realize that I have been dropped off about 500 meters from the bus stop. At least now that driver will go and tell every other bus driver about me, and every marshutni driver, and hopefully they will remember the white American girl who lives in that tiny village and never make me go through that ordeal to get home again. I high fived myself on a successful maneuvering of a round trip trek to the town as I walked across the bridge. Feels good to be home.

10 weeks down, 104 to go

2010-08-13T01:18:00.000-07:00

Passed the language test! Woohoo. Now if only I remember to study on my own daily so everything from the 130 hours of language class doesn’t go flying out into the Armenian abyss.
Wednesday, August 4th, we were given a free day to do as we please. It was advised to hang out with our families and get a start on packing. Being of the procrastinator sort of course I did not start this task and instead decided to go on a 7 hour hike. This was intense. I had heard from our village mayor that there was a church above Teghenik up in the mountains, and then at the top of the mountain there were ruins of a fortress/monastery. Some volunteers from the neighboring villages had attempted this hike a few weeks earlier and said it was awesome so we decided it needed to be done before departing from our PST villages. 8 of us met at the khanoot for 10am departure, however, we were held up and finally departed closer to 11. The weather had not been too bad earlier in the week, but by 11 we could tell it was going to be one of the hotter days we had had in awhile.

Thankfully there was only one psycho fitness person in the group so we were able to take breaks for rest and water on the way up. As we climbed up the mountain road we left the village below and at about 1200ft above it we encountered the church.

This is a very small church but apparently visited quite often by people and daily by the local sheep and goat herd. We found the shepherd asleep under a tree as we approached and tried not to wake him as we refreshed ourselves in the mountain stream there but he awoke and offered us vodka. Go figure. “Thank you sir, but we are hiking this mountain here and vodka shots might deter us.” Shockingly he was all right with this.

So we chatted with him for awhile and then went around the other side of the church to where a small trail was visible and started the ascent to the top of the mountain.

This became a climb. Literally at some points we were on rock faces pulling ourselves up over them and then scrambling to make sure we didn’t roll down the mountainside. We also had two guys that were afraid of heights and were not excited about this part of the hike. But the view became more spectacular as we climbed up.

The 8 of us that were hiking were representing 5 PST villages and from the mountain we could see all of the training villages. Since it was warmer that day there was a pretty thick haze and we could not make out Mt. Ararat, bajts vochinch. We reached the top by going around the rock wall and climbing up from the back of the fortress. It was awesome. From the fortress we could see the entire valley where we had all been living the last 10 weeks and on the other side, of course, more mountains. But to my amazement there was also a marsh/bog/wetlands looking thing. I found this very interesting since earlier in language classed I had asked the word for this ecosystem and none of the teachers knew what I was talking about at all. “Those don’t exist here.” Allll righty then.

We picnicked at the top gazing out into the mountainous openness and then adventured around. The ruins of the fortress made it look like the length was about 75 meters and about 15 meters wide with sections for rooms on the side looking out into the valley. What is left of it is a foundation of rocks that all had to be brought there and formed into a beautiful rock wall averaging about 3 meters tall now and what I imagine continued on up as a structure. The formation is still exquisite and many of the rocks now are covered with moss adding to the grandiose. It as we climbed up onto it, it reminded me of how I imagine Narnia to have been. Oh yes, Joy’s little dog started following us from the khanoot and made it all the way up the mountain with us. We were all truly impressed (and some were maybe a little bitter that we had to share our water with him).

From the top of the fortress we could see a road that led up to where we were so we decided to take this back down instead of fumbling down the rock cliff.

We encountered a huge locust about 5 inches long + his antennae.

We had a few people wanting to venture down the mountain since the road was taking us away from the village, and so with much discussion 4 went down the mountain, and the other four stayed atop to trek through on the road. I was a part of this group of 4 along with the two guys afraid of heights, Tylor and Joseph, and Scott. So we continued on the road, and then SURPRISE the road ended. It just ended into open rolling fields of wildflowers and what we would soon find out were stickers.

Stickers and burrs and thistles everywhere. WE were not able to escape these and I can definitely say I have never had so many stickers on me at once. We were needing to stop every 5 minutes because they were invading our socks and making it quite uncomfortable for the three of us that were in shorts.

Finally we saw a man made tower and decided, where there is a tower there must be a road. However, I got the idea that we should just head down the hill to the road we could see below (far far below) and intersect it there. Also, at this point we could see the other group down on the road. The only problem was there was a huge foresty patch of trees between us and the road (and about a 1000 ft elevation difference). The other group saw us and called me, willing to coax us down the hill and give us directions to make it through the least thick patch of forest. Well, he had good intentions but we mostly ignored his advice and went through the thicket. It was ridiculous.

Thick underbrush complemented with rocks, more thistles, huge spiders, and cliffs had us slithering through the forest and on more than one occasion I was crawling to get through the minimal space provided. Now remember that I was in shorts because it was hot and I had thought we would be on a road or at least a trail the entire time. No. I headed into the forest trailblazing for the rest of the group with them warning behind me to at least take a “spider stick”. I forged on sans spider stick and trying to ignore the abundance of stickers still lodged in my socks and the scratches I was gaining with every step. Clearly I am alive since I am writing this, but at times it felt very Blair Witchy and we really had no idea what we were doing or where we were going. No serious damage was done to any of us though, we found a clearing, and then a road, and then high fived for prevailing against the mountain.

Right as we hit the top of the village a woman doing her laundry called us into her compound to look at her flowers. I at first thought I would have appreciated water more but they turned out to be Dahlias: my favorites!

I snapped a few shots and then she gave me a large bouquet that was simply gorgeous. We rejuvenated with some ice cream at the first available khanoot since they were lacking any water “sans gas”. And no sensible amerikatsi enjoys carbonated water.
We finally made it home, about 7 hours after departure. I have not been that exhausted in a long time, however, I had the tiring task of doing my laundry so that I would have fresh and clean clothes for the trip to my site. I thought this to be a good idea since I still had no idea what kind of a situation I was getting into at my site. That was followed by a celebratory beer at the bridge to congratulate ourselves on completing PST and reminisce about the past 10 weeks together in this glorious country.
Thursday was our swearing in ceremony. Before the ceremony I spotted my Project Manager (the man I was supposed to be harassing about finding me a host family at site) and finally he had good news for me! Margaux was no longer to be an orphan. Whew.

(last marshutni ride into Charentsavan)

(with Tylor beforehand)

with the Karashamb youngins and Teghenik.prom style

My Armenian language teachers

with Darryn before the ceremony. Whenever we are alphabetized (14 hour plane rides and swearing in ceremonies) we get to sit next to each other. He is an excellent and entertaining partner to have for these events.

With the Country Director and Nick Bruno (who does something really important in country but not sure what is actual title is)
Many of our host families from training and anyone involved in our training with Peace Corps came to the ceremony and we were sworn in as Armenia’s 18th group of volunteers by Madame Ambassador.

She had very positive words of encouragement and advice to make our service as productive as possible as well as heavy congratulations for us. As we crossed the stage to receive our certificate and Peace Corps Armenia pins we took a photo with her individually and then collectively as a group. This is the photo that will go up in the embassy as well as in Washington next to all the country assignments and volunteers who have been sworn in over the years. Woot.

Me with my host mama
There was much congratulations from all the families, our teachers and even some of the school children we had taught showed up.

With my extended host family

Robyn and Me with our Tech Trainer Piruza

My favorite man in Armenia. Vahajan our Safety and Security Officer

Me with Austin. He was one of the volunteers who did a speech in Armenian during the ceremony. Smarty pants.

With our Language Coordinator Armine

Tylor, Peter, Robyn and Me. The greatest Hajeren Language class group ever.
Afterwards we were “initiated” by the A-17 volunteers and headed to our favorite café for one more afternoon together before departing to our sites where most likely there would be no American around for kilometers. We had a great time, except for when I was offered Veggiemite to try. This is how one of the former vegetarians has attempted to stay mostly vegetarian. No thank you. It was disgusting and so I will continue to eat the Armenian meat.
I enjoyed a delicious last supper with my Teghenik host family and then spent the majority of the night packing up.

It is shocking how many things I have accumulated in country. It is mostly books and other teaching supplies but because of it I did not give a real concerted effort to conserve space for the trip to site.
Friday morning, August 6th we all met at the school and piled into our designated vehicles for the trip. I was with one other girl heading south so we piled our luggage into one taxi and ourselves into another for the 7 hour drive. The 7 hours of course includes the 6 stops we made on the way: cigarette/scenery break, 2 breakdowns (1 for each car), 2 gas stops, and one very quick eatery stop. All in all we had a pretty great ride down. I did get a little nervous as we made it into Kapan, the large southern town approximately 20 km from my site, and realized the taxi driver had no idea where he was taking me in the village and neither did I! hastily I called my PM, no answer. I got ahold of another high-up guy who found my PM and we got it sorted out.
My host father/brother since I think he is about my age, met us at the gate and directed us to the house. Our compound is pleasantly situated off the main road and very close to the school. I piled out of the car with my bags and bags of stuff and was greeted by my host mother (actually the age of a mother) and my host “mother”/sister. Since this was the first time to their home I was very eager to meet them and of course to not offend them. So when I was immediately handed a cup of coffee to drink, errr, I drank it. This is the first coffee product I have had in years, and the first time I have EVER drank coffee all by itself. Ugh. And since my body doesn’t deal with caffeine I was pretty much cracked out for the rest of the evening. Hopefully I didn’t creep them out too much.
The family dynamic here is much different than it was in Teghenik. The couple just got married three months ago and I assume they are between 24-30ish. Armen is the man and works on construction projects in the village and surrounding areas.

Ira is the wife and she works in Kajaran, the smaller city on the other side of the village from Kapan She is such a sweetheart. Ira’s mother, Svetlana or Sveta, lives with us and I am pretty sure speaks Russian constantly because I can barely understand anything she is saying.

Usually she works in Kajaran also but hurt her leg somehow so for the time she is at home most of the time being the house wife. Ira’s younger sister, Gayineh who is 22, also lives with us but works in Kapan every day so I really only see her in the evening. She appears to be quite the jokester and tells the most animated stories.

Collectively the family is fantastic. They seem to be much happier and have lots of fun with each other. It might be that the majority of the household is women, later generation of marriage, the region or just that this family in this village is incredibly happy. Regardless of the reason it is fun to just sit with them and watch them interact because even though I am not understanding much of their dialect it has made me happy being around them and their happiness. Not to be too sappy but it is comforting since I am the only American for miles and the majority of the people down here have never encountered an American and very sporadically even any western foreigner.
The next day I unpacked and relaxed. I adventured around the rest of the compound but did not have the need to leave and trek through the village. I decided on this because the evening when I arrived I asked where the khanoot was and the reply: “khanoot chka”. There is no store. There is no store? WTF. This goes along with the fact that there are about 100 people in my village, I think making it one of, if not the smallest village that any volunteer is currently serving in. This has some ups and downs, but does mean that for anything I will need to go into Kapan. So no store means I stayed hung around the house and played with our dog. Another reason I like this family, the dog is legitimately our dog. He is actually named, Tiger (pronounced Teeger), has a dog house, a collar and is fed and given water on a regular basis.

As you walk down the stairs from the house you encounter the chicken coop which has 10 chickens and one large majestic rooster who cock-a-doodle-dos in the morning about 10 ft away from where my sleeping head rests. And he goes through waves during the day of crowing repeatedly for 5 minutes nd then taking a rest. This continues all day long.

Their coop connects with the outhouse. When I say outhouse I mean outhouse. The toilet is not a squat (thankfully) but it just runs into the ground (yummy). There is a tub with a shower head (thankfully) but the shower head is about 5 feet off the ground so I am doing squats the entire time(fun times).

The trees in front of the outhouse however, have a hammock.

Delight of my life. It is perfect for sitting and reading, studying, napping or just thinking as it looks up into the mountains adjacent to Dzaghedzor. I have al ready designated it my favorite spot. We have a very nice garden with all sorts of vegetables in it and a few fruit trees also. The living part of our house is only one level which I also like much better. We have a bigger kitchen and eating area connected with it which connects to a big living room.

This living room is doubling, or tripling, as the bedrooms for Sveta and Gayineh now. I fear that them taking me in has pushed them out of their bedroom and out there. Which is incredible if the two of them were sharing my room. It is a very nice room with a big window and stays very cool this time of year. It is about 1/3 of the size of my room in Teghenik though, but I have made do perfectly fine.

Next to my room is Ira and Armen’s room which is very spacious and they are currently doing some renovations on it, I think trying to put more shelving in. Maybe because now that one room is where all the rest of the families possessions and clothing are being stored?

T
The food here has been a little different, but still very good. Instead of the thin tortilla like lavash that accompanied every meal in Teghenik more as a vessel than actual food, here Ira makes fresh bread every day. It is delicious, especially when hot out of the oven. They also think of it not really as food and seem somewhat bothered that I don’t want to eat an entire loaf myself. Carb load when all I am doing right now is lazing around? No thanks. They also can not seem to understand that all I want to drink is water. Always. They push juice on me at every meal, and tea and hot cocoa at least three times a day. Which of course is supposed to be accompanied by a basket of cookies going directly into my belly. I just feel terrible though when they bring it to me, or just pour it for me without even asking, so often I drink a little bit of it. Then they get upset. “Why don’t you want to drink this?!” and I rebuttal a half lie that I like it but just some of the time. And in turn they continue to make me drinks and think I should drink them. Vicious cycle.
A positive change are the sunflower seeds. This is something I haven’t written about yet because I have not been a huge fan. But every Armenian is a HUGE fan of sunflower seeds. Everyone grows them and at any given time has stores of them in their house and usually handfuls in their pockets. They roast them and I think it is the only thing they don’t add salt to so they are quite different than David’s ranch creation. However, they are delicious and I have enjoyed eating them here right as they come out of the pan and are still warm and toasted perfectly. I do feel a bit inferior though since Armenians can eat 500 seeds in 5 minutes. This may seem like an exaggeration, but I tell you it is not. They rapidly break them open and in one swoop pull the seed out with their tongue and deposit the shell on a plate as they are reaching for another. My pile of shells looks much more messy and in 5 minutes amounts to nothing comparable with their horde.

the last 5 weeks

2010-08-03T01:10:00.000-07:00

The last few weeks have been crazy busy, hence the absence of any new news on the blog. I just haven’t had any time to sit down and write, so now I will attempt to get the last 5 weeks into a somewhat cohesive fashion and make it manageable to read (aka not too detailed).
After our trip to Yerevan, the next day me and my fellow villagers walked over to the neighboring village of Karashamb to help them with their community project. They are all TEFLs and were teaching American children’s games and the corresponding English with them. Im not sure the kids actually learned any English but we had a great time playing with them!
The next significant event was the following weekend when we had our 4th of July celebration. It was mandatory for each village to do some sort of celebration and we decided after the fun in Karashamb with the kids we would do American games with our village youngins as well as a BBQ feast. Robyn, Marisa and I went into town to buy any food that was somewhat American to prepare for our feast. We planned to make hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken and veggie sishkebabs, potato salad, salsa, apple pie and brownies. Buying ground meat was an interesting experience but we did become best friends with the meat man. We made this happen mostly because he was working in a black netted shirt that had flowers on it. So it was see through and he was letting all of Armenia drink him in. Free samples of him to anybody that was wanting it. ha. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera that day, but the following week when we returned with a camera the stars had aligned for us and he was once again wearing our favorite teenage girl night clubbing shirt. And we jumped on the opportunity to take a photo with him.!
Back to our celebration of America’s independence in a foreign land. I made the potato salad, salsa and brownies. The first two were fairly easy with the ingredients we found, however, brownie making in Armenia was a challenge for even my superior baking skills. Arent we all used to the delicious Ghiradelli boxed brownies these days? Yes, I know it, because even my mother who is a superior baker actually uses those boxed brownies. So brownies from scratch,. Hmmm. And in a country that doesn’t have baking chocolate, baking powder or vanilla extract in liquid form. Well, with substitutions of hot cocoa, powdered vanilla and foregoing the need for baking powder I would like to say that they turned out quite delicious. Minus the fact that there is only one size baking pan in Armenia and we tried to make a barrier to only have the mixture cover ѕ f the pan. Obviously that didn’t work while it was baking in my family’s oven which is comparable to a 8 year olds Easy Bake Oven so some parts became quite crispy. No biggie, Armenians have never had brownies and didn’t know the difference. And we Americans were so thrilled for anything besides the tasteless cake here that we scarfed it down. My host mother did praise my mixture and of course then wanted to name three suitable Armenian men she knew that would love for me to marry them. “Oh you would make such a great Armenian wife!” ha. Lovely offer, but I think I’ll pass.
Our games with the village children were a blast. We played four square, hopscotch, red light green light, did potato sack races, three legged races, relays with hula hoops and of course a water balloon toss. All were a blast! The kids had so much fun and have continued over the past weeks to ask us daily when we can play again.
We ran home to finish preparing the food. Then came the daunting task of actually BBQing. Our volunteers to do the grilling were confused by the fact that we didn’t have charcoal, lighter fluid or anything else that would have made this task the easy and fun event that it usually is in the states. So with bunches of kindling, Armenian assistance we got a raging fire going and cooked our food with some ease (read: this was an experience I think none of us want to go through again). The Armenians were mostly afraid of our food, especially the hamburgers but after eating we broke out the sparklers we had bought and what a mighty fine time we had with them. I don’t think that something as trivial as a sparkler has made me turn into a giddy 8 year old girl so easily in a very long time. Slip n slides will of course do it every time, but these sparklers were right there with it. And for all of us they had the same effect. We frolicked around and went through the 100 sparklers very quickly. A lovely ending to our Independence Day.
This was after our celebration, but this photo was taken to convey one of our favorite lines that has come out of our language classes. One of our teachers, the young, very fun and lively adorable one, Satenik, who we love very much, we often joke with when anything slightly off happens in class. At which point we then put our hands on our hips, cock our heads and say, “Saaaaaaatenik”. This photo embodies the ridiculousness.
Tuesday July 6 our Technical Training was awesome. We were taken north to Dilijan to hike in the national preserve and learn about the environmental issues surrounding that area. Generally, Armenians like their nature but they value it in a very different way then most Americans. Being in nature and appreciating it involves going into the forest (not very deep) and having a horovats. Sometimes they will pick up their trash, and then leave. So while it is absolutely beautiful, the idea of hiking and going far off a road seems completely ludacris. We did have a tour guide who was not of this thinking, and a professor of ecology and preservation and legitimately loves nature and being in it. So it was very fun to go with him and hear about the issues and get to see some beautiful scenery. We saw a cool statue, climbed a staircase, found wild strawberries, were generally impressed by our teacher and her friend who managed to wear business attire into the forest and not get dirty at all, went into a sweet cave, tried to take a normal photo and then a jumping photo and then took the classic Peace Corps photo. Twas lovely. We also got to stop at Lake Sevan when we were heading home which was fun for the very brief time that we got to be there. Just seeing a large body of water made me feel more comfortable in this land locked country. Of course there was more display of the serious safety issues that take place here.
The next day a few of us headed over to one of the villages hosting PCVs, Arzakan, and meet some others to hike to the monastery there. Straight uphill, but not very long of a walk from the middle of the village and awesome. It reminded me of the movie, “The Man from Snowy River” with the little cottage above the monastery and the cattle driver there on his horse. The monastery is sorta in ruins but very neat. We sat down and powwowed for a few hours inside. While we gossiped two Armenian boys were trying to climb the inside wall. When they finally accepted defeat realizing that they never would in fact be successful at scaling the wall since they were lacking Spiderman skills came to sit in on our conversation. Of course they do not understand any of it, but kept creeping closer to try to listen in. It was quite entertaining. Oh Armenia.
Next came site announcement and then site visit. This is when all of the volunteers are told where they will be spending the next two years, if they don’t bail. We have only lost 3 so far who are once again are enjoying American accommodations and hopefully Mexican food that I am craving like no other. So I am headed to Syunik Marz which is waaaay down south. Remember that Armenia is only the size of Maryland but from Yerevan it took in a packed van with no air conditioning 6 hours. There are lots of volunteers that will be in that marz but from the top of the marz to where I am takes at least 3 hours so we will be quite spread out. I am very excited though because my bestie here in the Peace Corps is very close to me so that will be awesome. There are also two guys that will be in the city that we are close to and there are previous volunteers there also. These are all things that are reassuring to me since I am in a tiny village and technically right now still don’t have a family. And since I am moving there in 5 days, well, it is just nice to know that there will be some other Americans somewhat nearby.
My village is nice though, and Syunki Marz has amazing landscape and absolutely terrifying switchback roads on the mountains that the drivers have no fear of. My first night there I spent in the village in a room with three other women over the age of 60. Interesting. The next day I went to see the school and it is a very nice school. The nicest one that I have seen yet actually and they are very proud of it and super excited to have me there working with them. I think on top of teaching environmental/nature science I will help with English teaching and also be the gym teacher because as they put it “I look in form”. Sure, I’ll teach these kids how to play volleyball and table tennis, incidentally the two sports that I’ve really never played. Maybe I’ll fundraise for the installation of a pool. After the school visit I did get to meet for about 3 minutes the people that apparently are going to be my host family except they don’t have any accommodations for me currently so they are remodeling, which to me looked like them just building a new house. However, construction was delayed (something about the roof) and I wont be able to move in until October. Hmm, where will I stay for the first two months? This is still up for debate. I am told there are options, but we shall see where I end up. Then I was shuttled off to the woods with a bunch of the teachers from the school, my counterpart and her entire family and my director at the school and his son and a friend. About 20 of us in the woods, horovatsing for approximately 9 hours. At the end of the night I did do my part to start their environmental education and went around picking up the trash that they nonchalantly had tossed into the woods and what had been previously accumulated. The small children became excited by what I was doing and jumped right in to help. So maybe I have all ready started to impact them? Meh. So I return to the village and one of the ladies I had stayed with the night before who also works at the school, Merita, asked if I wanted to go to Kapan. Um, sure. So the three tatiks and I piled into a car and were driven into Kapan where I stayed the next two nights on a rock hard pull out couch in a one bedroom apartment. It was also unbareably hot. And the next morning since I was in the city I wanted to go see the other volunteers in Kapan, but nooooooo. I was once again whisked away to the woods, this time there was at least a river nearby so I went adventuring but I think they thought I was going to fall off a rock and drown in the three feet of water. I sorta pretended that I didn’t know what they were saying to me and just went on my merry way. No biggie. They do have really cool spiky red algae here in the rivers and fresh water crabs. I did see one but my picture was way too blurry since it was under the water. Frogs are everywhere and quite a few butterflies and dragonflies and of course the gutted out frame of a car on the opposite river bank. I was somewhat baffled by how it had gotten there. I sorta swam with the kids and taught one of the older ones how to skip rocks and thankfully this activity didn’t end miserable for the little 2 year old girl who kept trying to catch the rocks.
This was a pretty fun time, but another nine hours later I finally was taken back to the apartment and given time to do the mountains of homework that I had. Oh and I think I called Mom and bitched about the situation for about an hour. So thanks for that support Mom. I returned to Yerevan without any serious physical or psychological damage (at least evident to me) and I am sure/crossing my fingers that everything will turn out marvelous.
July 16 started out with language class. Our homework the night before had been to create an invitation to a party since we had just learned Subjunctive. Robyn and I had quite a blast creating cards. Mine was an awesome pop-up wedding invitation for the first two volunteers who have become an “item” and of course we ruthlessly tease them so the invitation which none of you will be able to read was a bit snarky, but still hilarious. So this is the classroom that I spent the last 5 weeks learning Hajeren in. Fun times!
After class we had another PCV field trip to go see Garni Temple and Geghard Monastery which is up north about an hour and a half. Garni is (if I remember correctly) a 3rd Century temple that is pretty neat and based off Greek temples. There is also the ruins of a church there and stellar views of the surrounding countryside. It was a beautiful day to be there and we embraced the opportunity after moseying around to have a beer overlooking the deep gorge. We drove to Geghard Monastery and it was awesome. I first ventured with a few of the boys up off the path to some caves which turned out to be very cool with pictographs and some sort of old dwellings actually being built into the cave. Keep in mind that I was in sandals and a skirt doing this which proved to be a bit challenging on the way back down the mountainside. As I managed to make it down to the bottom and start heading up to the monastery there was a wedding party heading in which was quite the procession. This monastery is massive also, at least relative to the other churches I have been to so far. I will let the pictures do most of the talking for this monastery.
As we left the monastery on the backside was another mountain that of course many of us wanted to climb up. I decided against this adventure but did head up a little ways up to a cave and as we crossed over the river we had the delightful treat of seeing some ridiculous parasite crawling out of a cricket. It was one of the most disgusting and painful looking and at the same time awesome things I have ever seen.
The next morning the Environmental Ed volunteers were taken to Lake Sevan again to do some bird watching. This proved to be quite exciting and we saw some awesome birds, but mostly unphotographable.
That evening we had a kickball game against the volunteer group that has all ready been here for a year, A-17ers because they were all together in a city for their mid=service exams. They claim to still be undefeated but we would say that most of the game was unfairly called due to the umpire being one of their volunteers. No hard feelings.
However this place was amazing, the city is very modernized and we went to a huge sporting gym that had a pool, albeit it was empty, but had platform diving boards all the way up to a 10 meter! And there was gymnastic equipments, punching bags, basketball court and a legit locker room. Needless to say that we are excited to be there for our midservice next year.
Monday the 19th was Robyn’s birthday so we had a little party for her at her house equipped with copious amounts of delicious cake cooked by her lovely harses that had edible glitter on it. At least we think it was edible.
Monday also started our model school. As environmental education volunteers we had a pretty wide range of options on what we wanted to teach. We had to team teach 5 lessons and then two individual in English and then the last two days we taught in Armenian with no translators. I thought it was a blast, a bit difficult at times because we really have no idea what the students know at certain ages but on a whole we did a pretty awesome job of getting the kids engaged and excited about whatever we were talking about. And an excellent job of teaching in Armenian and pretending to know what was going on when the students asked us in depth questions or were having a discussion. Praise in a classroom has never been so easy to give as when you have no idea if they answered the question correctly or not. We became a little delirious by the end of the two weeks and most of the students think we are the craziest people ever. They might be on to something though.
We had a ceremony for them on Saturday to congratulate them on making it through the two weeks with us. I have never seen children so excited for a certificate for completing something but it was nice to see their excitement and dedication for coming to school in the summer completely of free will. Or to gawk at the Americans. Some of the students are absolutely adorable, and then some, just as in America, are a bit too self-important. While model school was fun we were definitely thrilled to have it come to an end and did a bit of celebrating by heading to our favorite site in town “the bridge”.
Oh, we also had a pool party last weekend at one of the EE's houses which was amazing. I felt complete again swimming!
PST is winding down. Our language exam is tomorrow and on Thursday we have our Swearing in Ceremony and Friday we are shuttled off to our sites to begin our two year service. Excitement and nervousness are mainly the feelings I have right now, but it will also be very sad to depart from this village and leave the Americans we have bonded with over the past few months. The next two years will be very different and undoubtedly challenging with language, culture differences and whatever else will be thrown at us but I am sure we will all manage supremely.
I hear that calling, and I am picking up the phone! (that was for you Dom)

2010-06-30T05:57:00.001-07:00

June 26, 2010
Saturday we ventured to Yerevan, the capital, as one big group of PSTers. It was basically a field trip but was awesome. For most of us this was the first time into Yerevan which is considered to be a different country than the rest of Armenia. It is still bustling with activity as it was not destroyed when the soviet era came to a close. It is highly developed and about 70% of the country inhabits the marz of Yerevan or the nearby areas. There are even legit subdivisions outside of the city. There is definitely a different culture in the capital and the modest society that we have become acquainted with is not apparent at all. Fashion in the capital is…interesting. They model western style but with stronger hints of the 80s thrown together with more gaudy attire and bling bling accessories. At least that is what teenage girls look like, and there is no discrimination on bare shoulders and ridiculously short shorts. Basically, anything goes in the capital. This was not entirely shocking to us as we have had hints of this fashion in the villages from our younger host sisters, or Armenians we have encountered who live or often travel to Yerevan but it was still bizarre to see flocks of these individuals walking the streets. Mostly I have encountered village working attire (obviously) and the very professional business attire our teachers and PC admins wear which seems very typical of the older population. Still, it was interesting.
Our “field trip” started out with a trip to the Peace Corps office in Yerevan which we had yet to see. It is a very nice, quaint office with an incredible library with loads of resources for our service and also novels that we are free to take whenever. Thank heavens! It was all ready proving to be a very hot day in Yerevan when we arrived at 10am and quickly after perusing the PC office and library we were shuttled into our un air conditioned marshutnis to be taken to our museum of choice. I had chosen to go to the Genocide memorial and museum which is on the outskirts of the city on a place which literally translates as the “mountain of swallows”. It was very fortunate for us to be going with some of our LCSTs so that as Americans we didn’t appear to be asses. They bought us white carnations and we walked the long route to show our understanding and recognition of the genocide. This also provided us with spectacular views of Mount Ararat and little Mount Ararat; however, the pictures do not do the magnificent mountain justice.

When arriving at the top of the memorial there was Armenian opera playing; a culturally satisfying addition to the solemn experience. The memorial is very simple and I think pays a respectful tribute to the lives lost during the atrocities in the early 1900s. The actual memorial is below ground (as is the museum) and has an eternal flame symbolizing Armenia’s strength and enduring fire to survive and is where we placed our carnations.

We then headed into the museum. The museum demonstrates the harshness of the massacres and gives a very good history of the situation leading up to the genocide. I was thoroughly impressed by the artifacts preserved and displayed but our time was cut short in the museum by the need to get back to the center of Yerevan to meet up with the rest of the PST group.
We were dropped off at Republic Square, a very soviet influenced square, that is beautiful. This is a main tourist attraction so there are many western style restaurants with prices jacked up to regular western prices. As I am still enjoying the food being prepared for me in Armenia very much I had brought my lunch and sat down on a park bench with some others to devour our lunches before heading out to explore, in close proximity, the city.

I was adventuring with two other trainees as we loosely looked for an electronics store where Chad bought a knock off ipod with the excellent addition of an FM radio. He now has told me that it doesn’t work at all to transfer his music files onto. I guess we live and learn. Ha. We continued moseying around, saw a Gaucho Restaurant

and across the street I noticed an old building with a beautifully sculpted exterior and then saw that inside it looked as if an open market was taking place. We decided to run across the street, not the smartest idea, and after dodging death we arrived at the front opening. And what a sight to behold! First was a dried fruit stand. It was simply incredible. With our limited hajaren we began talking to the vendor and asking about the products, commenting and they became intrigued by us. They started offering all sorts of samples to us, which of course I openly took to try. Dried apricot balls mixed with nuts, dried tomatoes that were sweet and then mixed with herbs and salty nuts, dried plums, dried peaches and fruit leather all with the option being mixed with nuts. They were scrumptious. And everything was beautifully presented.

Next up was a vegetable stand, while not as exciting as the dried fruit stand it was also beautifully presented with the ripest vegetables for sale and all with a garnish of sort for increased attractiveness. Next door to it was a fruit stand, same deal, beautiful, delicious and lots of samples coming our way. Most intriguing to me here were the green spiky balls which I inquired about and thankfully there was a man there who knew the English word for what was contained inside, “hazelnut”. Fresh and delicious.

Next up was my favorite stand. It should also be said that there were seriously only these four types of stands in this market. So lots of stands, but the variety was limited to these four. I did not have a problem with this though. So, next up, a spice vendor along with herbs and grains etc. This was simply amazing. I could have stood there and gawked at the variety and presentation for a long time. Each spice was in a large bowl about a foot in diameter and most had a small cup, like a shot glass, on top used for extracting the desired amount from the larger portion.

The spices and such were labeled and also had a number of other sauces and combos between the large bowls. I became enamored with this vendor and started chatting about the various spices. As I jabbered away in hajaren I heard from behind me Chad say, “Margaux, this man is holding my hand and taking me somewhere.” Sure enough, an old Armenian man had grasped Chad and was leading him to some unknown location. I laughed and replied, “oh, you will be fine” and turned back around to continue talking with my spice man. A few minutes passed and I realized I was the sole American around, I asked where my friends were and my new friend ushered me away from the main market and to a corner. Marisa popped out of the corner and laughingly welcomed me into the broom closet where she and Chad had been taken and were being offered shots. Mind you it was approximately 2pm now. Old Armenian man with his homemade alcohol in a tiny closet? Of course I jumped at this opportunity. Menu options? Apricot vodka and cognac. I would estimate from my soon to be buzz and what we had heard about homemade distilling that these were running at about 70-80% alcohol. Keep in mind that I have drank no hard alcohol since leaving America, and beer consumption has been tallied at a shocking 10 beers total in country. And that I thankfully attribute to world cup watching activities. Needless to say, there was no way I was walking out of there in the same mental capacity that I entered the broom closet. Yippee! Haha. Anywho, so I get in there, grab the vodka shot that was offered to me and after the customary long Armenian toast we consumed. Wow! It was soooo delicious.
After no thought whatsoever I asked how much a bottle was, and with a reasonable reply I decided that since I have barely spent any money in country so far I might as well purchase from this gem of a character to remember the experience. He became overly excited about my interest in his vodka and broke out a new bottle of cognac to celebrate with us. This was the goods, the 25 year aged cognac. And another toast for his American friends! Tasted like 151, from what I can remember at least, but was pretty tasty. He was attempting to have us drink more, which I abated by encouraging that I get my bottle of vodka so we could be on our way. He asked me if I wanted a large or small bottle. “um, a small one.” Of course I assumed that this would be a prepackaged bottle. My oh my were my assumptions wrong. He grabbed off his shelf an empty water bottle, placed a funnel in it and proceeded to pour from the large 5 gallon glass jug vodka to fill my bottle. We of course found this hilariously amazing and tried to capture the essence of the situation on film. Meh, we didn’t succeed entirely. However, he was excited by the camera and wanted to take more photos with me, which of course he thought was an excuse for a kiss and another toast, all in the spirit of Armenian hospitality. So I obliged him, minus this kiss part. He snuck one on the cheek. We high tailed it out of there with my water bottle of vodka (I felt 19 again) and decided that was the best experience in Armenia to date.

pouring shots, note the large glass bottles below his arm.

with the funnel pouring my bottle of vodka

oh, he insisted that we take the last drink in this linked-arm fashion. Thank you college for prepping me for this.
At 2:30 we were planning on meeting one of our teachers who was going to escort us to the outside arts and crafts market. With our adventure in the other market we missed departure time but luckily found another teacher to show us the way over there. At first it was not an arts and craft fair but rather a market of used goods. Any and all kinds of used goods. It was wild. These old men, and some women, sat in the drained fountains of a park with tables set up with their goods for sale. 100 varieties of tv remote controls on one card table; used saws and blades; an entire blanket littered with drill bits; another filled with washers, screws and drivers; motors of all shapes and sizes; kitchen goods; Turkish espresso pots, serving platters and a variety of serving utensils; and cameras and accessories from all eras.

And then all of a sudden it did turn into a legit craft fair with exquisite hand embroidered table cloths and hangings; wood carvings of everything; jewelry: Armenian and hokey and then some fantastic vintage; vegetable carvings; vintage maps; books and magazines an assortment of clothes and lastly a booth selling dominatrix-looking dog collars and leashes. At all of these booths pomegranates carved, or embroidered or welded are not lacking. Here they are obsessed with them. I cant remember exactly why but think that it is something having to do with breaking into four equal parts and resembling the cross (Christianity). Needless to say this market was not short of impressive craftsmanship, very sweet Armenians who wanted to offer you refreshments in the hothot heat as incentive to buy their goods and general awesomeness. I of course bought some jewelry to restart my collection of round the world jewelry. Maybe these will not be combustible?

The sweltering heat was exhausting but with 45 minutes left till our marshutnis departure back to our villages I grabbed two other trainees and we went looking for the church we had seen towering above the other surrounding buildings of the square. We found it through an amusement park/carnival and were shocked by how massive it was.

We entered through a side door after climbing up a dirt path (probably not the advisable entrance) and were pleasantly surprised by the cool temperature inside, the organ being played and the general grandioseness of the church. The chandelier was also very impressive.

We exited through the entrance and then were given the privilege of the spectacular view of the church, as I am sure it was intended to first be seen.

postcard material?

And then we saw Queen Burger.

Twas a great day in Yerevan!

Side note that I don’t think I have included yet. A few weeks ago when spelling out my name in hajaren Gor was shocked and screeched in his prepubescent voice. He pronounced my name and asked if it was actually my last name. Yes, of course Granat is my last name. Well, in Hajaren it apparently means grenade. Boom.

slow slow internet

2010-06-25T08:05:00.001-07:00

This internet even at an internet cafe is not working very successfully for uploading pictures so I am looking into another way to share those with everyone and will get more up when I have the time. sorry!

Tuesday June 22, 2010

2010-06-23T02:13:00.000-07:00

Any sickness that was trying to take over me has subsided thanks to my zinc tabs and I am back on track! I have been able to recruit some others to run with me from my village and nearby Karashamb. We meet at 7 and it has been gorgeous in the morning. It is much cooler in the morning making my sweating at a somewhat controllable level and of course the country side is absolutely gorgeous. This week it has been raining (and even hailing!) in the evening so everything looks lush and smells fresh in the morning. This also adds the fun of dodging puddles, trying to decipher between actual mud and cow piles (generally unsuccessfully), and hoping the vehicles that pass dangerously close slow down so they don’t spray water all over us. If any of you have Google earthed my location we usually run out of Teghenik and turn right running toward Karashamb, climb the gorge past Karashamb for a lovely view and then head back down running past the road to Teghenik and on to Arzakan and then back to Teghenik. This can alter drastically though depending on the runners/ walkers/ gossipers in tow.
This week was time for every family to cut their exceedingly tall grass and pile it high in haystacks. From the top of our village you can look out and see the fields of many of the homes and it looks surreal. The only thing I can relate it to in my life are images from puzzles of crops being harvested circa 1850. Just another delight of the simple subsistence farming lifestyle that most of my village and the surrounding areas embody that I get to soak in. My host family, being of higher class in the village did not cut their own grass but hired an adorable elderly woman to come scythe the land. Often when I am outside on the porch doing my language homework before lunch she is called in for the afternoon coffee (a staple in their diet) and I get to chat with her.
Thanks to the orchard being cleared though, we were able to get to the fruit trees much easier and Saturday evening we picked from the cherry tree. It was amazing climbing the tree into the branches and being surrounded by an abundance of cherries all ripe for the picking and delicious when popped directly into your mouth. It has been nice to relax by going into the orchard, picking a handful and staring out across the valley while eating these delectable cherries.

Our Community Project of weeding at the church went quite well. We had lots of local children show up to help us and after three hours of work, and very sore fingers we called it a day. There is still a lot of work to be done but we are continuing to work about three times a week to clear the entire courtyard masonry of any weeds. I have only cut three fingers with my knife so far. Go me!
Sunday I had quite the experience with my family. I gathered that my family was going to see Garnik, the brother who left for the army only three days prior, and welcomed me to come along. I thought this would be a nice treat to do something different and see some of the countryside so I went through proper PC protocol for a trip out of our village and we were on our way. Well, we were on our way only an hour after they had originally told me we would be leaving. Problem? Ch’ka. In Armenian. The first two hours we visited many stores, markets, and a gas station as we ran errands. We made it into Yeghvard and I was shown where my family lives during the school year, and where my host dad works. I had my trusty guide book with me (Thanks Kathy!!) and had read that the church here was a notable one, built in 1301 so I asked where it was. My family obliged to take me there which I was thrilled about and my host mom even bought me candles to light.

Armenians find it next to impossible to enter a church, no matter how short of a time they are there, and not light the 2 candles and place them in either sand, or sand covered with water. They create a beautiful flickering in the dark and dank churches built centuries ago.
We then drove in a few circles around the town, and found a house where a red-headed man got in the car. Excitement was building in me as I prepared to have another American with me who I would be able to carry a conversation with. However, this man proved to be of the .00001% of Armenians that are red-headed. Grrrr. Besides having phenomenal physical attributes as an Armenian, he also was apparently very important in the military world. Once we arrived at the military barracks a lean across the driver’s seat and a cheery Barev (Hello!) we were ushered past the civilian parking lot where all the other families were unloading. Once we parked and grabbed our picnic supplies we jumped the line of families waiting at the second gate and walked straight toward the barracks. He bounced inside while we waited outside (keep in mind I have no idea what is going on at all) and then he came back welcoming us into a private office. Literally no other families/civilians were inside this building but was littered with boys and men ranging from approximately 16-25 doing various activities. Garnik came and met us there and we proceeded to have a family reunion for two hours in these barracks. This involved Garnik getting to use a cell phone for the first time in three days and was on the phone a lot and getting numbers so he would be able to contact people once we left. Interesting indeed.

After that treat of probably being one of very few Americans who have been inside those barracks my family took me to the main attraction of Ejmiatsin, the spiritual center for Armenian’s since the 4th Century. The large church that stands now was rebuilt in the 480s.

The church is surrounded by beautiful gardens with many Khachkars (literally ‘stone cross’) from all over Armenia. The stone detail on the outside and the frescoes inside were quite breathtaking.

There was some sort of procession taking place, and of course we lit more candles. In typical Margaux-form as I was placing my second candle it tilted over and fell into the water extinguishing the flame. Thankfully my host mother was right there to grab it up and safely secure my candles so that I wouldn’t be such a shame. Ha. Another custom that needs to be observed in all churches here is exiting backwards through the door so as not to turn your back on god. Being respectful of the culture I almost tripped while exiting, again my host mother put her arm out to support and save me from being shameful. Or, some higher being is getting back at me for all those years of walking face forward through doorways!

Oh, the views of Mt. Ararat were quite spectacular from Ejmiatsin but it was still somewhat overcast so no photos as of yet are worthy of posting.
I did laundry for the first time today in country. It was an experience hand washing a considerable amount of laundry and had me exhausted when I was finished hanging all of it up. My mom and Gor were impressed with my skills and joked that I would be able to find an Armenian husband after all. My response: “Che Che Che!!!”
Language is progressing rapidly as we have now learned many of the tenses and practically all the small talk one could ever want to know in a foreign language. Next week is our mock language test; hopefully it will be a good indicator of how well we are doing so far. We head to Yerevan on Saturday as a large group of PSTs and will get to roam through the museums which I am looking forward to, especially the Art Gallery and the Genocide Museum. I also hope that we will be able to roam around on our own for awhile to explore the city, but we shall see. Hope all is well with everyone. Cheers!

Party Week in Armenia

2010-06-23T02:12:00.000-07:00

Friday June 18, 2010

I just returned home from watching the USA team tie with Slovenia in their second world cup match. Go USA! So despite not having internet and living in a remote village I am not all that cut off from society. I can’t believe I have been gone for 3 weeks all ready. It has gone by so quickly, but at the same time, meeting in DC seems like 3 years ago all ready with the language, culture and friendships that I have acquired.
The last week has been interesting and a bit more on the party side at my house. My oldest host brother, Garnek, left for the Armenia Army yesterday and we had quite a few farewell events for him. Last Saturday we had a huge 60 person sit down dinner at our house with an abundance of food and beverages (read: vodka). It was also not short of Armenian men who wanted to know if I was married or not. Thank heavens I could understand this and knew how to say no, and that I was not looking to get married either. No Armenian proposals yet. Whew! The night was very fun but since my Armenian is so limited still I of course played with the younger crowd outside as they raced around and then helped in the kitchen to clean up before begging my host mom at midnight if I could go to sleep since the party was showing no signs of dying down anytime soon. She has gotten used to the fact that I go to bed early and shooed me off to bed.

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Sunday I awoke and met up with some volunteers in Karashamb for a run. I had high hopes of laundry and planned to help clean up the house. Little did I know we were having another large party for lunch. This one was with only 25ish guests at the table. We BBQ’d, my host dad weighed me on the livestock scale and thankfully I have no idea what the kilogram conversion is, and the men drank more and I took another nap. Who would ever have thought I would be so exhausted from partying? Well, factor in speaking in a different language/ trying to comprehend the language during all of this and the exhaustion adds up quickly.

From this partying I think the most important cultural aspect I learned was that once the men get drunk they really cant aim while going to the restroom. This makes for a rather unpleasant time for the females. One of the volunteers in my village has deemed the action: the hovercraft. At least my quads are getting stronger.
Tuesday our EE cohort went to Yerevan to meet with 3 NGOs. Two of them were awesome and we all became very motivated and revved up for our sites and assignments but don’t find out those details for about 2 weeks. The first NGO is SunChild started by the president of the large cell company, VivaCell, here and basically is an environmental group for teenage kids to get them to pledge a life that is in harmony with nature and also extend their Armenian culture. They are really big in media presentation and have been hugely successful in various regions outside of Yerevan. There is even a branch in Southern CA where a large population of western Armenians live to encourage their connection with nature and their Armenian culture. The other awesome NGO is a German company ZTG that has been involved with many of the Armenian NGOs supplying funds but also having a huge impact on water resource and conservation education in the country. They had lots of information, and swagger for us which clearly got us excited. Also, as we drove into Yerevan we got to see Mount Ararat for the first time! It was a bit overcast though so hopefully a better view of it will come soon and then some decent photos.

Wednesday my middle host brother, Garen, came home to wish the oldest brother a farewell into the army. This didn’t make entire sense to me because he is currently in the army and it seems they will be serving quite close to each other if not at the same site. Hmmm. Anything I don’t understand I contribute to my lack of language, NOT to my ever improving charade-playing. It was also my tatik’s birthday, so of course I came home from class to 20 people in my living room eating delicious food. And then more delicious food at night but with a manageable crowd of about 12. It was nice to meet the last brother though and we got a family photo!

After dinner there was a family event of shaving Garnek’s head. Apparently this has to be done before they show up for duty and my host dad was getting quite angry at Garnek as he joked around during it. My pictures can’t even begin to convey the hilarity of the situation but I have made some available for your viewing pleasure.
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Thursday afternoon our EE cohort began our laborious community project. After meeting with the mayor last weekend and discussing options for this brief project we decided that a “Church Beautification” would be something nice for our group to leave the village with. The church in Teghenik is quite new and a pretty popular spot for people to either drop in, congregate around, or get water as it is right off the main road. Between the stonework though there are lots of weeds shooting up so we have decided to weed the entire grounds. It went fairly well except for the grounds keeper who insisted on helping us but instead of actually pulling up the roots he just scraped the tops off with his shovel. We tried to convey to him the correct way but he would have none of it. So our project will undoubtedly be less sustainable then we had originally hoped for. Oh well, it will look nice for awhile! Saturday is our big event where we have invited members of the community to come work with us as we weed away and beautify the church. We have solidified about 8 school children to join us in exchange for a soccer match but who knows how many others will show up.
This exchange of game for labor took place Wednesday afternoon and was quite interesting. The soccer field we had heard about was a trek up the mountain at the top of the village and then of course was more of a weed patch than what you would imagine a field to look like. However, we volunteers did not let that deter our futbol skills. We jumped over the 3 ft tall grass, and slid into the stinging nettle only to get back up again and dominate these small children. We may have taken the game a bit too seriously which I blame on our recent obsession with the world cup. Alas, it was a very fun time for all of us and the game only stopped when it started raining. Of course we had to hike back home from the field in the rain, probably a contributor to my sore throat this week.
My youngest host brother got in a mound of trouble today for, I think, driving the car last night up the village road and hitting something of some other villager’s. It was difficult to detect the details through the Armenian screaming. However, he was back to his smiling trickster self tonight at dinner as we battled to see who could come up with the grossest food combo with what was left on our plate. He succeeded as he rolled everything into the lavash and then poured the remainder of his beer into it. Yes, he is 14 and was sharing the beer with us. I laughed at him and calmly drank the remainder of my beer while he awkwardly ate his questionably edible monstrosity. He is quite entertaining with his antics and voice that cracks often as he goes through puberty. All is well on the Armenian front!

Arrival with my PST Host Family

2010-06-23T02:00:00.001-07:00

June 9, 2010

On Tuesday June 2 we had a big ceremony at the hotel to meet our host families for PST (Pre Service Training), which will be a period of 10 weeks. At the ceremony we watched some authentic Armenian dancing, drum playing and singing all performed by nearby school children and then met our families. I was presented with flowers from who I thought was my “sister” Emma, only to find out that my family, except for my youngest brother, apparently hadn’t made it. I found out Emma is my “cousin” who was hosting another volunteer and I was graciously given a ride home with my aunt, uncle, two cousins and a fellow EE volunteer. Yes, that adds up to 6 in a sedan. But we were riding in high style in our Mercedes, whereas other volunteers’ cars had to be push started and most of them looked like a 1970s model that had or should have been recalled. The Soviet/Russian mob boss jokes were rampant (and I cant say with 100% assurance that those comments have been disproved yet ;)).
Our group of 58 A-18ers (the 18th group of volunteers in Armenia) is divided up by sector among the small villages which have a wide range of amenities. I am living in Teghenik, in the Kotayk Marz region with an approximate population of about 500; however, I have only encountered maybe 100 so far. The other volunteers are in villages surrounding the town Charentsavan in Solak, Fantan, Arzakan, Qarshamb, Alapars and Karenis. I arrived at my house nervous for the second time that day to meet my family but was pleasantly surprised by their welcome! They are so nice and immediately the Armenian hospitality we had heard so much about was evident. My youngest brother, Gor, hoisted my luggage through the yard to the house and up the stairs to my room while I met my homestay parents: Nara and Rudzic. I have two other brothers, Garen and Garnek who are 19 and 20 and usually do not live at home. But Gor who is 14 is the most adorable, smiling boy and I absolutely love him. My dad’s brother, Rodzic (please not the similarity in all these names!), who drove me home lives across the street with his wife, son Haik 19, Emma 15 and Lilit 7 and my tatik (granny). Most of the time it doesn’t seem like there is a street between our houses as the mix of the families in the compounds (what I call the houses) is always changing and actual residents can only be determined by who sleeps where. And I love that about this place.

My typical day right now runs something like this: I am the first person awake because I am the first person to bed at night as the culture here is to have everyone (small children included) to stay up past midnight. I usually study a bit in the morning and then get ready for school. My mom has breakfast made for me when I come down stairs and never is there less than 4 full breakfast options being offered. I head to school which consists of me walking out of the compound and even though I can see the school once on the road it is an uphill walk but only about 5 minutes. Language class runs from 9-1:30 and it is shocking how quickly it goes by and also how much we have all ready learned in a week! Granted, to my family I probably sound like a toddler. Every now and again I like to read my Scientific American to remind myself that I am intelligent and can comprehend big ideas and thoughts, they just need to be in English.
I head home from school and my mom is waiting with lunch. It depends on the day and the activities going on but usually Gor eats with us bc I’ll catch him running around on my way home from school and he’ll follow me. After lunch I will head upstairs to study, but usually end up falling asleep for a quick nap. Twice a week I head back to school at 3 for our Technical Training for the Environmental Educationers, but on days with nothing in the afternoon I continue to study until my brain is about to burst with Armenian conjugations and go for a break. This consists of going to play with my puppy who lives across the street. Yes, I said “my”. Animals here are pretty much abused, and so when I was adoring the small puppy that my aunt and uncle had and loving it they asked me if I liked dogs. Yes , of course.
What would you like to name it.
Err, Milo?
Great, it is your dog.
And my aunt shoved it into my arms and pushed me out of their compound with the puppy. So I have a dog. And her name was soon changed to Lady GaGa. For those of you who know me, you will understand the high respect I have for this woman and clearly the love represented for this puppy by naming her so.
More studying and then a break for running with some volunteers in the neighboring village. They come with a host sister and village boy who half the time wears sandals. It is a nice break though and opportunity to get outside. Hopefully a shower follows soon after the run, but definitely is not always the case (not by choice obviously but determined by water resources). A delicious dinner where there are at least 10 plates with different foods being offered and more vodka. Some nights the volunteers in our village meet up or I will do more studying and pass out early hoping that the Armenian I just stuffed into my brain doesn’t disappear as I sleep.
On Wednesdays we have Central Days in Charantsavan where all the volunteers are together and we do Safety and Security, Medical info and other very riveting activities. All of course I am sure are very pertinent and worthwhile to our success in country, just sometimes it is a bit exhausting. However, today’s medical session on STDs and HIV/AIDS ended with quite the hands on activity: we all got to put a condom on a banana just to make sure we all knew how to practice safe sex. I think abstinence for two years is a great idea.
Highlights from the first week with my PST family:
• Being offered vodka at my first dinner which they drink plain out of shot glasses and has a much higher proof than what we are used to in the states. I drank minimini sips for each toast. 6 toasts later and without any chaser I decided I did not need to drink with my family. Although I say no every meal, I am still offered Vodka all the time.
• Finding the present from Megan in my suitcase as I was unpacking. To those of you who contributed, thank you so much, I loved them all and really appreciate it.
• Having school children walk past our language class all the time to watch us crazy Americans try to learn their language. Also, they just enjoy looking at us.
• Trying to communicate being a vegetarian. An unsuccessful attempt. But I figure if I’m going to eat meat this is probably a fair place to eat it considering everything is fresh from this village if not our orchard or our neighbors cow and chickens.
• Working on homework after lunch at the kitchen table when my mom plops half a rear end of a cow on the table and starts carving away. Imagine me writing flash cards and two feet away is meaty goo flying each way and my mom non-chalantly helping me with my pronunciation.
• Constantly playing Charades with my family. Trying to figure out if the word they had told me was for beef or cow was very interesting. I moo’d and then played a dead cow. Haha. For anything dead my mom knows the English “Game Over” to explain it. haha.
• Being stopped daily by the old man with a cane who walks up and down the hill in the evening and always wants to talk to me. I literally cannot understand ANYTHING he ever says to me.
• Puppy hunting with Gor
• When offered tomato juice at lunch I tried to explain that vodka with tomato juice is very popular in the states. My father though that was the craziest thing and was pretty much appalled.
• My father and his brother, Rudzic and Rodzic, attempting to install some new water heater or something. They looked exactly like Dad and Dan attempting to make or fix something without actually having a clue what they were doing. They sautered and shoved and I just laughed at them and they continue to think that I am crazy. Hahaha. I guess I should be thankful though since I do have hot showers most of the time. Yay!
• Playing “Guess the Letter” during language class. If you have taken a look at the Armenian alphabet you will notice that contorting your body into those letters is quite the challenge and provides serious entertainment during class. We also get yelled at by the local teachers for being too loud. Whoopsies.
• Having my mom offer me her blow dryer to use. Clearly she thinks I could be looking better. I have yet to take her up on the offer though.
• Waking up and knowing I was dreaming in Armenian but not knowing what in the world was going on in the dream.
• Getting a cell phone! So if you want to call me you can, and if you get a crazy random number you don’t recognize don’t screen it! it is probably me, or, I apologize for you having to talk to a telemarketer from India.
• Being force-fed dolmas. Although delicious, the family just wants to push more and more food on us. Finally I just put my plate under the table when they tried to fill it up again.
• Dancing with Lilit, the 7 year old in front of the family at a party. Then letting Lilit touch and poke my face apparently trying to figure out what I was. I think I have been accepted as a non-alien now.
• Hiking this past Sunday. We hiked up the hill on the backside of our village and found ourselves halfway up the mountain in fields and fields of wildflowers. Wild rose bushes, red poppies, lilacs, thistles, buttercups and others I couldn’t recognize. We then did some trailblazing to go to the village nearby and trekked through flowers that were growing over my head. The flowers, views and wildlife buzzing about were gorgeous and simply stunning.
• Teaching at our first Central Day “How to Acquire the perfect 80s attire (while living in Armenia)”. Our assignment was to teach anything we wanted for 8 minutes. After looking through some pictures I decided I have pretty much mastered dressing in 80s attire, and even brought some stuff with me. If you are among the many friends I have dressed up in 80s clothes with there is a really good chance that you made it into my presentation slideshow. So thanks for looking awesome!
Right now there are some stark differences, obviously, in the culture but nothing that I have not been able to easily adjust to. My room is about twice as big here as it was in San Fran. The toilet, although a flush toilet is, well…just different. And the shower. The showerhead has been mounted so I don’t have to hold it, which is nice, the water pressure is meek (I’m being generous) but the biggest difference is that there is no shower curtain. So the water and soap suds just fly everywhere. Of course this has been planned for and there is a drain in the middle of the shower room but still takes some getting used to in placement of your towel and clothes to put on post-shower. I have also decided that I don’t care whether or not my host family knows that I desire a loofah for showering. They haven’t asked me about it but I can only imagine what they think it is. Also, coming home from a run (gasp, I know, but it is so beautiful out I can’t resist running to see some more of the country side) sometimes the water is not available and I have to wait three hours to shower. The food is all cooked in tons of oil which I don’t really like, but on the whole the food is delicious with an abundance of vegetables and especially the tomatoes are so red and ripe: na e shat hamoveh (they are very tasty!)
My phone number, to reach me from the states is: 011374 98-89-1984. I can call for very cheap, and receive texts at no extra cost to you! So send me some love and I’ll call you back with the interesting story from that day. Keep in mind that I am 12 hours ahead of you, and then remember that I don’t care at all when you call me!
It is absolutely gorgeous here in Teghenik and I am very happy with my family and placement. Right now I feel I am just living the dream.

Arrival in Armenia!

2010-06-23T01:30:00.000-07:00

May 29, 2010

DC was a whirlwind of activity. Orientation was a long, but thorough, and comforting to find out that the nerves, anxieties and aspirations that I had were similar with everyone else’s. Photo at left is my table group with our drawings of our anxieties and aspirations. Jeffrey LeFrancois, a friend from Semester at Sea, came from NYC to visit me for my LNIA (Last Night In America) and we definitely had the best last night possible. After only a few hours of sleep I sent Jeffrey back to NYC and re-packed to better distribute my luggage weight. Our buses arrived at the hotel to take us to the airport and unfortunately I was on Bus #1 which apparently did not have any air conditioning. The 25 of us that were on that bus for an hour and a half were drenched in sweat when we reached Dulles. I can now say that that was the worst travel experience to date of my life. However, it only made the rest of the 30 hours of travel seem that much easier. After a 9 hour flight we arrived in Vienna and were given “day hotels” for our 14 hour layover. I took a quick nap and then my roommate and I headed out into the city to explore. Highlights of Vienna: everything is green, gelato, truffles pedestrian walk signs, traffic signs and graffiti.

We returned to Vienna International four hours before our flight to ensure we would not be sent back to America (the consequence if missing our connecting flight to Yerevan) only to find out that we couldn’t go through security until an hour before our flight. So we sat down for more beer and bonding time and tried schnitzels and Vienna sausages.

Arrival in Yerevan! Local time was 4:50am, 12 hours ahead of the west coast and we were all showing serious signs of sleep deprivation/exhaustion. But, as we began to walk out of the airport with our mounds of luggage we heard excited screams and a few even called me by name. What? How could these Armenian people know me all ready?!?! I later came to find that, thanks to Facebook, the current volunteers had successfully “stalked” some of us. The girl that knew my name had been particularly interested to notice that I was a Hasher and later told me that there is an Armenian Hash! Most of the participants work out of the US Embassy and she promised to forward me the schedule, unfortunately I can’t travel to Yerevan until November so hashing might be postponed until spring when it isn’t frigid outside…or all the more reason to run and drink some beer.

We were shuttled from the airport to the ruins at Zarnots, a 3^rd century temple, to watch the sunrise over Mt. Ararat (below). Unfortunately, unseasonal rain caused the mountain to be mostly covered by clouds and after a group shot we loaded back onto the buses and headed to our hotel in Charatsavan.

We drove through Yerevan, the capital, which is very advanced still from the Soviet era and I was shocked to see some things I recognized such as Porsche and Ford dealerships, Playboy, lots of casinos and even a legit water park. Thank goodness I packed a swimsuit! As we climbed out of Yerevan and toward our destination the green countryside became visible with wild flowers growing abundantly, a sharp contrast to the snow capped mountains that ringed the lush valley. Armenians have become experts at stonework and I was impressed to see detailed retaining walls all along the highway. There are many many unfinished and abandoned structures which is not a result of their independence from Russia but rather that for males it is an honor and rite of passage to manhood to build their own house. The family, however, doesn’t want to sell their old house because either their father or grandfather built it, hence, there are about twice as many structures in Armenia than there are families. This was very evident as we passed through smaller towns and villages on our way to the hotel.

Our hotel that we will be staying at for three days, although right off the main drive, is nestled into a crevasse of steep green mountains and seems deep in the wilderness. A river runs next to it with the occasional old car frame posing as part of the bank, or as support for a footbridge. I am in a room with three other girls and we decided to forego a nap and/or a shower to go exploring around the hotel. We didn’t find much except for more breathtaking views, playgrounds that were overgrown, volleyball court and soccer fields and, surprisingly, a large pool and hot tub. Both, not surprisingly, were empty.

We had a another orientation and formal introduction to more Peace Corps staff, and then shortly after met our Language, Culture and Society Teachers (LCST) and were told what village we would be staying at during our Pre Service Training (PST). My teachers are Meri and Satonik and will be staying in Teghenik. In my village are all Environment Education (EE) volunteers and we are told this is a great town with running water, hot water and every house has a toilet with the exception of one that has a squat toilet. Fingers crossed.

After being released for twenty minutes before dinner my roommates and I made the incredible decision to fall asleep, forego dinner and get a full 12 hours of much needed sleep. We awoke rejuvenated and for the first time in about 4 days I felt like a real human again. Apparently this was the decision of about 70% of the group.

Language training starts today along with more orientation, Safety and Security, and Medical Office info and on Tuesday we meet our PST host families and move in with them!

the mountain we hiked

Life is Calling

2010-05-12T14:49:00.000-07:00

Trying my hand at blogging. I figure this will be an easy way for anyone who wants to keep up on my experiences while in the Peace Corps. I'll do my best to post often (keep in mind what my living situation might be) and keep it friendly to all audiences. Thank you to everyone for the support as I debark on this adventure: Life is Calling.