one potato, two potato, three potato, and then a heck of lot more

The first full day I was here was really slow. I didn’t do anything. I just sat around the house and I really got discouraged about what I was doing. In the back of my head I knew that it really wasn’t like this but Sunday was a drag. I just read my book, stayed at home and really did a whole lot of nothing. I was getting frustrated with my new host Mom because she isn’t nearly as patient as the one I had in Solak. She talked really fast and got frustrated when I didn’t understand. Combine that with the fact that with everything else that is going on and that could lead to potential disaster. Anyway, no need to say more than that Sunday was a total drag.

However, I told myself before I went to bed on Sunday night that Monday wouldn’t be the same. I woke up with a list of things I wanted to do. I wanted to go to the Polyclinic and then to my counterparts house and then to the English teachers house which is right next to the one Im currently staying in. I woke up early, and started walking to the Polyclinic. I got there. It was closed. It was a holiday to remember the deceased. So I had one option of going towards my house. Lame. For some reason I started walking to Hector’s village. Its about a 4 mile walk. Its flat and not really difficult at all. I got to Hector’s house in the next village. He then informs me that he and the children in his family are going to walk up an old extinct volcano. I don’t know how far it is but maybe 5 miles. However once we got to the foot of the mountain, we just went straight up. No switchbacks or anything. Just straight up. Looking to either side, it looked like we were going at a good 45 degree angle. Oh what fun. If you recall by to my last hiking experience, I went with three guys that thought it was a good idea to drink beer instead of water. Well, the three girls and the one boy that was with us, thought it was a good idea to wear bedroom slippers and flipflops. I must remind the readers of this blog that this is not the first time they have gone up this mountain so they must have some realization of what they’re doing. Nonetheless, a really interesting experience.

We finally got to the top. It was definitely worth it. At the top of the mountain, there is a crater that is filled with water. There is a small church up there which was just rebuilt. That kind of sucked because the sign above the door said 2009. But, it was nice. We lit some candles and went down toward the small pond/lake thing in the crater and we had some bread, fruit, cheese, and veggies. I was starving. After we somewhat finished (and I was still really hungry), two people from the stone shelter walked over. One of the girls happened to be one of the girls I helped tutor when I came for my site visit. She brought her dad over and they invited Hector and myself to join their feast. Hector’s family wanted to walk around so they didn’t come over. However, it turned out that this girl’s Dad was the Village Mayor or the Village Head. Also part of the family was the Deputy Governor of my Marz (Region) and best of of, the Doctor of the polyclinic of my village. So, I asked him if I could come and volunteer there everyday for a couple hours and he had no problem with that. That was awesome. That totally made my day. They fed us really tasty hor-o-vats (Armenian bbq) and drank some wine with them and then headed down the mountain.

We got to Hector’s house and I told his Mom that I was going to leave. She had none of that. I should preface this by saying that when I got to Hector’s house I drank a liter of water because I was so thirsty. However, drinking that much, that quickly leads anyone to feel pretty full. Hector’s mom wouldn’t let me leave without eating her food. So I force fed myself some food and then started back. While I was walking back, a car stopped and it happened to be one of the teachers at Terrie’s school so he gave me a ride (this gentleman also happened to be the car that picked me up in the morning when I was halfway to Hector’s- so it was a bit humorous-and the timing was awesome because I was exhausted). He made me stop at his family’s house and have some coffee and some food. He had a really nice family and told me to come back another time. His family gave me a bag full of really nice apples. This I added to my bag of cherries that Hector’s mom gave me. So at this point I was really full. I had a liter of water, dinner at Hector’s, and then dinner at this guys house. So as I was walking home and decided to stop at my host Aunt’s store. This is the sister of my deceased host dad. She is awesome. Truely awesome. She is a little off her rocker but that is what makes her so awesome. She is really easy to talk to and even though she uses a lot of village slang, she is really patient to listen and will make fun of me in a good way. Not a condescending way like “you have been here for two and half months why aren’t you fluent yet” but more of a “ha ha, this is funny the way you use the words in the not-exactly-correct way.” Speaking with her, for some reason I feel like my Armenian is much better, I suppose because Im not afraid of making a mistake. We had about a thirty minute conversation and then I was on my way home. I got home, exhausted.

When I got home, I changed clothes and then my host brother and I made a fire in the backyard. We made it out of old rags, pieces of rubber (just to start the fire) and fried cow patties. Let me tell you, those cow patties can really hold a flame. Anyway I bring this up because when I was in school and I was taking one of my environmental classes, this was one of those things on the “not-so-good-for-the-environment” list. However, when you’re in a country without huge plumes of forest, wood is hard to come by, so here I was helping build this cow patty fire going against my strict beliefs of using rubber and poop as fuel. So after there were some coals, we roasted potatoes and I had about 5 small potatoes wrapped in lavash (kind of like a burrito). I had become hungry again by this point, at 10:30 at night. The whole family was out there along with the neighbor who is the English teacher. I asked her if she would tutor me and she said, be at my house everyday at 4. EVERYDAY. I was thinking more like 3 times a week. But I am going to look at this like a blessing. I really need to quickly elevate my language here. From my understanding, I hear that Armenian is good to know in Armenia...

Until next time...