Different language, same idea

So today (Sunday the 21st), I got the opportunity to go to church. Let me first start off by letting you know what yesterday I got to take a shower. I will start off this entry with an explanation of shower day. Notice how I said day and how I noted it by only including one day. Thats right. I take one bath a week. Im sure you (Amanda) are thinking “wow, I bet he could make my eyes water by the amount of stick he exudes”, but I will have you know that I have a routine. Every morning, before putting on my clothes I take the top off of my old spice stick of deodorant and in order to conserve my deodorant, I only use one swipe. However, if you have ever used Old Spice, you would know that one swipe is all you really need. Also, mid-week, I change the clothes that I wear. I bet you are asking “wow, no shower and no fresh clothes everyday? how in the world do you stay so fresh and so clean (clean)?” Well Ill tell you... the weather here is really dry and I don’t really do too much physically exerting movements during the heat of the day (which is about 75 degrees F). Anyway, I welcome the mid week because I get to put on some fresh threads. Anyway, about the shower... “shower”. Ha.
Saturday is everyone take a bath day. I get to go first (or last depending on if I am in the house or not). There is no running water in the house. In the washroom, there is a small stove (which looks like it is from the 19th century- it actually probably is). It heats up a large cauldron of water up. I take off my skivvies and make a nice mixture of hot and cold water. Then I douse myself with water, lather with soap, and then rinse again. The first time I took a bath, it was pretty gross because cakes of skin came off of my stomach. Since then, I have learned to take mini baths throughout the week to get the natural-everyday sweat off of me. Anyway, enough of that. My body is adjusting (well?) to the lack of bathing. My skin gets really dry and my hair is really dry right after my bath. During the week, my skin is rather hydrated and my hair is not very oily anymore. I guess with everything there is just some time needed to get acclimated.

This morning I woke up at 9:00 and decided that I should go ahead and do my laundry, so like the bath, I got the hot water. Well this time, instead of the cauldron, I went to the kitchen and filled up a pot with water and waited for it to boil. After boiling, I take the hot water to the same wash room and make my luke warm mixture. I mixed in the detergent and then added my clothes and let them soak for ten minutes. I then agitate the water/clothes mixture and then go through two cycles of cold water rinse. When I say two cycles of cold water rinse, I mean I physically take the clothes out, wring them and then run them through the second bucket of cold water. (This is why I don’t change clothes several times a week- you try hand washing clothes and see how tiring it is). After the last “cycle” I go to the clothes line and hang dry my clothes. The first time I did it, I was a little freaked out because the whole town (not really) gets to see what my underwear looks like... Its alright now. Anyway, I am starting to get pretty proficient at doing my laundry.

So, anyway, to the point of this blog and its title. I went to church with my host family this morning. What an experience. At 11:30, we walked to the meeting point of the Marshootni (bus) to take us to church. It was in essence a church bus. In a bus the size of mixture of a 15 passenger van and a regular soccer mom van, we crammed in about 20 people. That’s just what happens here. I got to cram in the front seat with two other full sized men. What an experience. We drove the 25 minutes to the church. Armenia still struggles with the gender roles. As soon as we got to the “church” the women got out and went inside. The men stayed outside and just talked for a while. (This is an aside). The church is usually outside with the mountains in the background, but it rained today so it was inside someone’s house. Literally, someone’s basement was turned into a small congregation hall. It had a little stage. Here is some history. The pastor actually speaks English really well (remember this for the later part of the story-the part about the pastor speaking English well). He tells me about problems with corruption of the country in the post-soviet era. He said that for churches to open in Armenia, a member of the KGB is required to attend the church and all its meetings so instead of doing that, they just meet in a house. (I hope that a member of the KGB doesn’t read my blog and shut down the church). Anyway back to the story... So when the men felt like attending church (keep in mind that the pastor is a man and was outside with us) we went inside. When inside, I heard the women were already singing. The first three rows were reserved for men. The women sit in the back, the men in the front. Different. I sat in the very front row. This is where things get a bit uncomfortable. In Korea since I didn’t know how to sing the songs, I would just hum them. I thought that that was what I was going to do here. Ha. Not so much. The man that spoke English (the pastor- I didn’t know this at the time) came up to the front and stood in front of the man on my left and was actively translating the song into English as the song was being sung. He was singing the song in English over the Armenian. It sounded like he was competing with the Armenian because he was yelling. The whole time I was thinking “what the hell is this guy thinking”. That and “Maybe there will be some weeks he is not here”. I tried to ignore him but their singing went for fifteen minutes straight and you would think about the first song or first 5 min you would stop this act, but no, he went for the whole time. So here is this guy yelling the English words of an Armenian song. If you can picture this in your head you would realize that English words do no sync up exactly with the Armenian. Its like watching an old Jackie Chan movie where he speaks in Chinese and the English lags a little. Anyway, in addition to this, the man was getting right in my face. Now, I want you readers to do a little experiment. Try holding your breathe while humming and do this for fifteen minutes. After about two minutes you will feel like you are about to pass out. Well I had to do this because Mr. Pastor man decided he wasn’t going to use Mr. toothbrush or eat a Mr. peppermint. So to sum everything up, I was about to pass out at the Mr. Pastor man who was way to close to me singing the English translation of an Armenian song. I was sweating because I was feeling rather embarrassed. Not for me, but for him. He wasn’t a very good singer. I know his intentions were good. Oh, it gets worse...
After the singing, the man speaking english got on stage. Up to this point, I hadn’t realized he was the pastor. At this point I realized he would, in fact, be at church every sunday. Anyway, I brought my Bible from the US and wanted to follow along. Well I asked Zora (my host dad) where we were. I thought he said Corinthians. Mr Pastor man saw that we were talking so he decided to stop mid sentence and come and help me out. The man stopped his serman to walk over to me (in the front row). He said it wasn’t Corinthians but Collossians. I apparently couldn’t find it fast enough so he took my Bible, went back on the stage and in complete silence found the book after two minutes of absolute silence and then walked back to me from the stage and explained to me where I had gone wrong in finding the right book. Then I looked at Zora again because I didn’t know what chapter I was supposed to be reading. Fatal mistake number 2. Mr. Pastor decided that he wanted to help again and came back to me (after pausing serman) and point to where we were. He went back to the stage. (Oh, Im not finished yet). He continues his serman for five minutes and then decides that he wants to make sure that I know whats going on. He looks at me, while on stage, and starts to give his serman in English. IM THE ONLY NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKER. I felt like a total putz because everyone else in the congregation didn’t know what the Pastor was talking about. Finally after five minutes he went back to speaking Armenian and stuck with that. I just kept my head down and just read and just kept reading. I was sweating pretty badly and it certainly didn’t have anything to do with the temperature. The man meant well but that is probably the most uncomfortable I have felt in a long time.

Church ended. I went home and had lunch then I hung out with Mike for the rest of the day. Him and Lisa. I came home around 9 and helped Zora put in the metal rods to get the bean vines to grow up. I called Dad to wish him Happy Father’s Day and now Im going to bed. Wednesday I find out my site. A bit nervous but excited. Wooo. What an experience. There is a church ruin on top of a mountain build in the 8th century that I am excited to hike up to one weekend.

Oh, that pastor that totally embarrassed me is on a team to find Noah’s Ark on Mt. Ararat which is located in Old Armenia or current Turkey/Armeanian border. Thought that was pretty interesting. That is all for now. Im tired and Im going to bed. Until next time.

Love
Me