The world has turned and left me here

I don’t know if the title is a bit of a pejorative, but if it is, I certainly don’t mean for it to be one. Its actually lyrics from a Weezer song. Um, actually its a title of a Weezer song. One of the many choice songs TJ, Will, and I played countless times in Will's basement in high school. Anyway...

Life in the village. This past Tuesday my Program Manager, Susanna, came to my village and saw my life here. I met her at the school and she spoke to my school director and to my counterpart and some of the other teachers. I then took her to the Polyclinic and had coffee with the nurses. Afterwards, we came back to my house and we did some more talking. She saw my room and the house and gave me my heaters. Peace Corps gave me two heaters. One is a radiator and the other is a heat fan thing. That heat fan is awesome. Especially since my room is so small. It heats the whole thing up in about 8 minutes. Yes, 8 minutes, I timed it. I wanted to see how long I had to suffer before my room was warm. Anyway, Susanna said it seemed like things were going well and I was adapting well. She had other nice things to say which boosted my confidence. We had some lunch and then she left. We did talk about the HIV/AIDS initiative. I have been talking to people from my village and elsewhere about this and I feel like this is something I can become really passionate about. I have some meetings with some organizations on Friday and Im excited to see how they turn out. More to come in the next posting...

While we are on the same subject, I told my host mom what I was doing and from time to time she asks me about my work and exactly what else I do other than my work at the school and the polyclinic. I told her about the initiative and she was very curious about it. She didn’t really know anything about it so I explained it to her and how the disease gets here and how it works. She asked a lot of questions and I felt like she was being really supportive in what I was doing.

Fortunately now, the weather has become much nicer. Its warm outside. The problem with that... In the villages we have what are called “gardens”. Yes, they are not the nice gardens people have in their backyards in the States but in fact, basically a farm. Well, in my particular area, potatoes the way to go, and really, the only way to live. Potatoes don’t pick themselves and there are no John Deere tractors to make life easier, everyday, we (my mom, brother, myself, and my grandmother-who is here visiting from Belarus) go out and we dig up potatoes. Apparently we did a good job on Saturday because she said we did 4 days work in one day. I felt pretty good about that. I was so sore but felt good being outside working, exercising and helping my host mom. Here’s the best part. Here is this seventy/eighty year old grandmother carrying out 50 pound sacs of potatoes. Now, I played lacrosse for several years and over that course of time, I accrued some muscle on my forearms, but honestly, if you look at her forearms, you would think that she was pop-eye (the sailor man- after he ate the spinach). She is strong... to say the least. Also probably the sweetest lady you will meet. If I have been gone for a while, she will come up to me, grab my face with her treetrunk forearms, and pull me down (because I have no choice) and kiss my cheeks. Ill tell you what, its one of the greatest feelings in the world (not being pulled down, but feeling like you apart of their family). Potatoes are awesome...

I have also become better friends with my other neighbor who is also a school teacher at my school. Basically his whole family is in the medical area. His daughter is a nurse, his brothers are all doctors and he is a teacher. His brother works at the local hospital as a surgeon and he told me that I could go and watch him do surgeries and whatever else I wanted. I was very excited about this. Anyway, the point I was trying to make was, he told me to come over whenever I want (cultural lesson #467- when an Armenian says to come over whenever you, he actually means it. Even if you come over everyday, thats ok- not like in America where you say that but know that person won’t actually come over all the time). This man came over a lot when i was at home by myself and he kept telling me that I would never be lonely because if I ever felt lonely, I should just come over to his house. Its a good feeling when you know you have been, or are starting to, become accepted.

I don’t really know what else to talk about. This week is just going to be more potato picking, regular work, and language lessons. My Aunt gets mad at me (in a kidding way) all the time because she doesn’t understand why I can’t understand her, even when I have told her everytime I see her that if she stopped using so much village slang then maybe I would have a chance. Even to that, she responds in even more slang and still wonders why I can’t understand her. My host mom here has gotten really good about being patient and listening to me and helping me with my language. She tells other people to stop interrupting me when I am speaking so that I can finish what Im saying. People will keep trying to guess what Im saying even when I am in mid-sentence. So, thats good.

Brandon, Matt, Will. I would just like to say that its good that I didn’t hold my breath for those emails you were going to send me because I would have been dead about 2 or 3 weeks ago. I really like it when you guys send me several emails explaining that you’re going to email me later. Well done fellas, well done.

Alright, I think that about wraps it up. My Mom is back from Korea so the family is back to being on just two continents instead of three. She had a good time.

To Terrie’s friends. Terrie is doing well and we are starting an English and Health Club in the Culture house sometime in the next two weeks. She said to say Hi. (Actually that is a complete lie, but I feel that she would want to say Hi, so that is why I said it- I will ask her tomorrow, and if she doesn’t want to continue to say hi, I will add a correction in the next blog.

Until next time...