This past week was pretty good. Got a good amount of work done, got to meet some new people and made it another week without becoming a popsicle.
We are getting prepared for Peace Corps week from which will be the first week of March. The volunteers in the area are going to go around to the different schools and talk about our mission statement, talk about health related topics and show them how to better play basketball. Speaking of, I think I am going to give up on the basketball thing. It is too time-consuming, the kids don’t listen, and I have better things to do that will actually amount to something. So that’s that.
Last week, I had to go into the town to get some money and to take care of some other errands. Anyway, while I was there, I had to return screwdrivers to Vincent and got to meet some couch-surfers who were coming through. They were two French girls hitching it through Armenia, about my age. They were really interesting to talk to and we made an afternoon out of it, talking about travels and what we were doing. It was a lot of fun. They were a lot nicer than the french people we met last September. Very pleasant talk.
This weekend, I had to go to Yerevan. Lots of meetings. We had a health volunteer meeting to discuss some things and then we had an HIV/AIDS meeting to talk about what we wanted to get accomplished this upcoming year. It was really good and I hope we can deliver on everything that we planned on doing. Afterwards, I met with American Councils and I gave a presentation on AIDS and the spread of it in Armenia. They actually paid attention. I got some feedback from them and I think we are going to work with them to spread awareness. I am really exited about that.
So here goes my thanks to the American taxpayers for paying for me to go to the Ukraine for a week. There is a program called FLEX (future leaders exchange) where English speaking students from the post-soviet countries can compete to go to America for one year and reside with a family and study in an American high school. I applied for this position in December and got accepted to go to Kiev to learn how to train the students. I leave at the end of March. Pretty excited to go although I will be going with two Armenian girls. Awkward. Should be a good time. I have a 12 hour layover in Moscow and I will not be able to leave the airport. How awesome is that? More to come about this later on but I am excited to go. As far as I know, Kiev has McDonald’s.
Nothing else really to report. The weather has been a lot better. The snow has melted leaving a mudpit as a village. It rained a lot last night so I will have to fight the suction of mud to get to school. It will be a busy next two weeks getting information about the bathrooms I need for the school. Looking forward to it. Three more months until we aren’t the new volunteers anymore. Awesome.
I hope you all liked the pictures. Sorry for the lack of captions. The one with the Taj Mahal in the background was not taken in Armenia...
done and done.
Until next time...
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Pictures
So, these are just random pictures since I haven't posted any since my training village... I finally got to update my computer because I made the bold decision to stay at the hostel. Now the computer works like it is supposed to... Who would have thought.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
a little of this... a little of that
Interesting week. This past week was pretty good. The weather got a lot better. A lot of the snow melted leaving our unpaved roads in ruins. Its like walking though a really muddy river going anywhere in the village but I don’t have to wear my super huge jacket that inevitably makes me knock over at least one thing during the day.
Last week we started the healthy living curriculum. It is a government mandated course that the 8th and 9th graders have to take. It covers things from nutrition to health education and everything in between. It has 14 lessons for each grade level. It is really interesting because we usually get in discussion about things. I usually ask them differences between American and Armenian thinking after I tell them how Americans do things. This weeks lesson: sex education. Yeah. Try talking about this to a bunch of kids in another language. I went to my tutor to get her help. She said that I had to be really open with the kids because sex education is non-existent here. This is a major problem in the village but people aren’t allowed to talk about it because it is really shameful so my tutor said that because I was a foreigner, that I needed to be really open about things and explain what the kids need to know. Ill give you an update on how awkwardly...well it goes...
In other news, I decided that I wanted to try and be the new Chair for the HIV/AIDS initiative. So you are reading the blog of the new Chair. Hopefully this will be a good year and we can get a good amount of stuff done. In a related topic, I have to give a presentation this saturday. The other week when I was supposed to do it, it got cancelled, which was fine because I got to meet with the travel agency in Yerevan which promotes tourism in the region. My village wants to try and draw more people to the area.
I am starting work on my grant to get bathrooms to my school. We’ll see how that goes. Currently the school has an outhouse which looks like it is going to fall over and it is at full capacity. Since there is no water at the school, we have to build another outhouse, but this one will be better because there is a company in Armenia that makes nice, compost outhouses. I am going to try and get one of those. Maybe if I get this done, I can be remembered here... as the bathroom guy. uh huh...
I told my family that I wanted to move out. At first it was really good. They were like do what you need to do. I think they were really lax about things because they didn’t think I would find a house. All this past week, I have been asking my teachers and the nurses if they knew of any homes. Yesterday, my host mom sat me down and told me that the whole village knew that I was looking for a house. Ha. Then the questions started coming in. Man that was awkward. Holy crap. Anyway, it got all worked out now but it is evident that they really don’t want me to leave. I bring in a good amount of cashflow... I am looking though for a house somewhere. Its interesting because you really start to miss the freedom. Its just little things but I think this will be the best decision for me. That will be one year with a family and one year by myself. I told me family that I would move out at the end of April/ beginning of May. Ill keep you posted.
This weekend, I went to Gavar to get a change of scenery. It was fun. I hung out with Bryan, Cassie and Nico. I needed to up to ask Bryan about some grant stuff but then we just hung out for a while. I did get irritated getting up there.
I told my neighbor that I wanted to go up to Gavar and he told me that I should just take the Yerevan bus and then it would stop on the way and it would be 500 dram which was fine. When I got there, the man that usually takes the money said that it was the full 1200 dram because I was taking up a seat even though that isn’t true. Anyway, I figured he was taking advantage of me since I was an American. It was stupid. Then the bus dropped me off on the highway and I walked the 2 miles to Gavar. A really nice walk. This is the part that totally sucked. I was walking on the road. Both lanes were open and there was snow on either side of the road. I was walking on the snow so I wouldn’t get hit by a car. So while Im walking, there is a car that didn’t get into the other lane, drive right through some mushy snow, which inevitably got thrown up onto me. Awesome. As I looked up, a bunch of teen-agers in the car were laughing out the rearview window. Sweet. I just cleaned myself off a bit and walked the rest of the way in. That was just a minor setback. The rest of the weekend was great.
I think I’m going to try and travel more, especially in the country.
We are starting to find out who the new volunteers are. Not too much longer until we aren’t the newbies... Wow.
Anyway, all is going well. I did my laundry yesterday and I didn’t freeze doing it. My clothes didn’t stick together. Good sign.
This is a Hello to Kelly’s class. Thanks for your questions, ill send you a response shortly.
Happy Valentines Day
Until next time...
Last week we started the healthy living curriculum. It is a government mandated course that the 8th and 9th graders have to take. It covers things from nutrition to health education and everything in between. It has 14 lessons for each grade level. It is really interesting because we usually get in discussion about things. I usually ask them differences between American and Armenian thinking after I tell them how Americans do things. This weeks lesson: sex education. Yeah. Try talking about this to a bunch of kids in another language. I went to my tutor to get her help. She said that I had to be really open with the kids because sex education is non-existent here. This is a major problem in the village but people aren’t allowed to talk about it because it is really shameful so my tutor said that because I was a foreigner, that I needed to be really open about things and explain what the kids need to know. Ill give you an update on how awkwardly...well it goes...
In other news, I decided that I wanted to try and be the new Chair for the HIV/AIDS initiative. So you are reading the blog of the new Chair. Hopefully this will be a good year and we can get a good amount of stuff done. In a related topic, I have to give a presentation this saturday. The other week when I was supposed to do it, it got cancelled, which was fine because I got to meet with the travel agency in Yerevan which promotes tourism in the region. My village wants to try and draw more people to the area.
I am starting work on my grant to get bathrooms to my school. We’ll see how that goes. Currently the school has an outhouse which looks like it is going to fall over and it is at full capacity. Since there is no water at the school, we have to build another outhouse, but this one will be better because there is a company in Armenia that makes nice, compost outhouses. I am going to try and get one of those. Maybe if I get this done, I can be remembered here... as the bathroom guy. uh huh...
I told my family that I wanted to move out. At first it was really good. They were like do what you need to do. I think they were really lax about things because they didn’t think I would find a house. All this past week, I have been asking my teachers and the nurses if they knew of any homes. Yesterday, my host mom sat me down and told me that the whole village knew that I was looking for a house. Ha. Then the questions started coming in. Man that was awkward. Holy crap. Anyway, it got all worked out now but it is evident that they really don’t want me to leave. I bring in a good amount of cashflow... I am looking though for a house somewhere. Its interesting because you really start to miss the freedom. Its just little things but I think this will be the best decision for me. That will be one year with a family and one year by myself. I told me family that I would move out at the end of April/ beginning of May. Ill keep you posted.
This weekend, I went to Gavar to get a change of scenery. It was fun. I hung out with Bryan, Cassie and Nico. I needed to up to ask Bryan about some grant stuff but then we just hung out for a while. I did get irritated getting up there.
I told my neighbor that I wanted to go up to Gavar and he told me that I should just take the Yerevan bus and then it would stop on the way and it would be 500 dram which was fine. When I got there, the man that usually takes the money said that it was the full 1200 dram because I was taking up a seat even though that isn’t true. Anyway, I figured he was taking advantage of me since I was an American. It was stupid. Then the bus dropped me off on the highway and I walked the 2 miles to Gavar. A really nice walk. This is the part that totally sucked. I was walking on the road. Both lanes were open and there was snow on either side of the road. I was walking on the snow so I wouldn’t get hit by a car. So while Im walking, there is a car that didn’t get into the other lane, drive right through some mushy snow, which inevitably got thrown up onto me. Awesome. As I looked up, a bunch of teen-agers in the car were laughing out the rearview window. Sweet. I just cleaned myself off a bit and walked the rest of the way in. That was just a minor setback. The rest of the weekend was great.
I think I’m going to try and travel more, especially in the country.
We are starting to find out who the new volunteers are. Not too much longer until we aren’t the newbies... Wow.
Anyway, all is going well. I did my laundry yesterday and I didn’t freeze doing it. My clothes didn’t stick together. Good sign.
This is a Hello to Kelly’s class. Thanks for your questions, ill send you a response shortly.
Happy Valentines Day
Until next time...
Sunday, February 7, 2010
PDM... head first
We lost another volunteer. Peace Corps just wasn’t her thing I suppose. We have lost 5 now, two in one week. One of the girls was in my training village so that was a little rough. The mentality is weird. Of course you understand that this will be the best for them because it isn’t a decision made lightly, but at the same time, its like a little piece of the whole is dissolving. We came here with 47, I think, and now we are down to 42. We haven’t even gotten through the first winter and its really strange when you hear who its going to be going home, and you totally don’t expect it.
As for me, things are looking up. It is already February and the speed of things doesn’t look it will slow down anytime soon. This past weekend, we went to PDM which is a conference you go to with your counterpart and learn about grant writing. Apparently its pretty hard and judging by how things went during the conference, its going to be a challenge, but one that Im really excited about. We went under the impression of doing a grant about tourism. That is such a broad topic, I am going to have to do my research before that has a possibility of matriculating to anything.
There were several long days but our trainers were really good. It was funny trying to talk to my counterpart because she speaks no English so everything we talked about had to all be in Armenian. I got frustrated sometimes and started laughing as this is how some of our conversations went... in Armenian
Me: So, I think we need to have a rented minibus taking tourists from the city into our village
Counterpart: (long pause for thinking)- you know what we should have... we should have a minibus to take tourists from the city into our village
Me: (blank stare)
Counterpart: What do you think
Me: ...I think that’s a great idea
This happened at least 3 times. And no, I know the language well enough to know if there was some kind of translational error.
Overall, it was a really good experience and I think this is something that will keep me really busy for a while. I am going to apply for a grant to build a bathroom in our school since we have an outhouse, and that outhouse may or may not fall over at anytime now. Don’t worry, I don’t use that bathroom because I know while Im using it, it will fall over. It is waiting for me... I know. We’ll see how it all goes, I need to talk to my school director about all that.
After PDM, or the sessions, we would get some free time. We decided that we would go sledding. How fun was that. its been a long time since I went sledding. They had all sorts of sleds at the hotel that we could just use for a while, so that’s what we did.
The sledding the first night was really fun, the second night, not as good. It was great though. It was a hill behind the hotel, not too steep at all but it was dark. From the top, you couldn’t see the bottom. So the original group took the first couple of rides slowly to get a feel of the slope. We had one volunteer take a running start for his first time, going head first flying down the slope. The first time down, he got hurt... He sliced open his forehead. Ha. So, using what I learned from Boy Scout camp, I helped him out and then went with him to Yerevan to get him stitched up. So, I thought we were going to go to the hospital. No, we didn’t. We went to the office where there was a plastic surgeon waiting for us. Yes, you read that correctly, for the first time in the history of medicine, a Doctor was waiting on a patient.
I asked if I could watch the suture. Well, the doctor said that was fine. Everything was fine and it remains fine when I expect things. I watched several sutures when I worked in the ER and got used to the procedure. This time, I saw the Doctor give injections into the cut, which I was expecting, then I saw him clean out the cut by scrubbing the inside, which was fine. This is when I started looking at some of the medical supplies because the Doctor was taking forever to clean out the forehead. When I looked back, he had a pair of scissors inside the volunteers head cutting away dead skin. I wasn’t expecting it and had never seen that before. I looked at it, felt the blood leave my head and told the PC Doctor that I had to step outside. It was pretty funny. I felt really bad about it because geez, I want to be a doctor... but then I realized that I can learn about all that in Medical school. Not worried about it.
Peace Corps was really cool about things. They got us some food from the supermarket and put us up at the hostel for the night. It was really cool. We got to the PC office at 10:30ish and we were at the hostel all healed up by 12:30. Can you believe that?
So, in all honesty, I have been in a little slump about coming home. But I am always in this slump when I am away from my site. The second I came back, everything was alright. My family has this uncanny way of making me feel welcome. Sure some of the things that my sister and brother do are a bit annoying, but if you weren’t annoying when you were 13, there is something very wrong with you.
Anyway, I gave it a lot of thought and finally decided that I wanted to move out. This isn’t a decision I made lightly. I didn’t realize how important freedom was. Another perspective I got. I live in a pretty Posh house as far as Armenian village standards are concerned. I am probably going to have no running water, no hot water, and an outhouse, but I am ok with that. Currently, I have a great host family, but since its a single Mom, I can’t have people spend the night at my house which makes it difficult for anyone outside of my region to come and visit. I have to home before dark, and dark starts at 6:30. There are other rules too that I am not too fond of. There are some other things that bother me too but there is no sense in saying them.
I was really nervous about talking about this with my family. I didn’t know how it would turn out. So I finally got up the nerve to talk to them. The conversation went as follows:
Me: I wanted to let you know that I am going to start looking for other places to live tomorrow. I made up the decision that I wanted to live with a family for one year and then one year by myself.
Family: Are you moving in with another family or by yourself?
Me: I want to live by myself. I lived on my own for 5 years in college and for six months in Korea.
Family: Will you ever come and visit
Me: Of course. I love living here but I just want some more freedom and I know that (my brother) will come back from the Army and need a place to stay. I’ll come back and help out with potato harvesting and whatever else you need.
Family: Well ok then.
It was a lot easier than I thought. I am starting to look for houses now but told my family that I probably wouldn’t move out till May 1st. So here goes house hunting. They didn’t seem taken back by it at all and it went really well which I am really thankful for.
Everything else is going well. Its still really cold here and it has been snowing everyday at least for a little bit. Maybe not everyday but close to it. Im excited about the spring...
Hope things are going well at home for everyone. Jon, how about you send me an email. Matt, where have you been?
Until next time...
As for me, things are looking up. It is already February and the speed of things doesn’t look it will slow down anytime soon. This past weekend, we went to PDM which is a conference you go to with your counterpart and learn about grant writing. Apparently its pretty hard and judging by how things went during the conference, its going to be a challenge, but one that Im really excited about. We went under the impression of doing a grant about tourism. That is such a broad topic, I am going to have to do my research before that has a possibility of matriculating to anything.
There were several long days but our trainers were really good. It was funny trying to talk to my counterpart because she speaks no English so everything we talked about had to all be in Armenian. I got frustrated sometimes and started laughing as this is how some of our conversations went... in Armenian
Me: So, I think we need to have a rented minibus taking tourists from the city into our village
Counterpart: (long pause for thinking)- you know what we should have... we should have a minibus to take tourists from the city into our village
Me: (blank stare)
Counterpart: What do you think
Me: ...I think that’s a great idea
This happened at least 3 times. And no, I know the language well enough to know if there was some kind of translational error.
Overall, it was a really good experience and I think this is something that will keep me really busy for a while. I am going to apply for a grant to build a bathroom in our school since we have an outhouse, and that outhouse may or may not fall over at anytime now. Don’t worry, I don’t use that bathroom because I know while Im using it, it will fall over. It is waiting for me... I know. We’ll see how it all goes, I need to talk to my school director about all that.
After PDM, or the sessions, we would get some free time. We decided that we would go sledding. How fun was that. its been a long time since I went sledding. They had all sorts of sleds at the hotel that we could just use for a while, so that’s what we did.
The sledding the first night was really fun, the second night, not as good. It was great though. It was a hill behind the hotel, not too steep at all but it was dark. From the top, you couldn’t see the bottom. So the original group took the first couple of rides slowly to get a feel of the slope. We had one volunteer take a running start for his first time, going head first flying down the slope. The first time down, he got hurt... He sliced open his forehead. Ha. So, using what I learned from Boy Scout camp, I helped him out and then went with him to Yerevan to get him stitched up. So, I thought we were going to go to the hospital. No, we didn’t. We went to the office where there was a plastic surgeon waiting for us. Yes, you read that correctly, for the first time in the history of medicine, a Doctor was waiting on a patient.
I asked if I could watch the suture. Well, the doctor said that was fine. Everything was fine and it remains fine when I expect things. I watched several sutures when I worked in the ER and got used to the procedure. This time, I saw the Doctor give injections into the cut, which I was expecting, then I saw him clean out the cut by scrubbing the inside, which was fine. This is when I started looking at some of the medical supplies because the Doctor was taking forever to clean out the forehead. When I looked back, he had a pair of scissors inside the volunteers head cutting away dead skin. I wasn’t expecting it and had never seen that before. I looked at it, felt the blood leave my head and told the PC Doctor that I had to step outside. It was pretty funny. I felt really bad about it because geez, I want to be a doctor... but then I realized that I can learn about all that in Medical school. Not worried about it.
Peace Corps was really cool about things. They got us some food from the supermarket and put us up at the hostel for the night. It was really cool. We got to the PC office at 10:30ish and we were at the hostel all healed up by 12:30. Can you believe that?
So, in all honesty, I have been in a little slump about coming home. But I am always in this slump when I am away from my site. The second I came back, everything was alright. My family has this uncanny way of making me feel welcome. Sure some of the things that my sister and brother do are a bit annoying, but if you weren’t annoying when you were 13, there is something very wrong with you.
Anyway, I gave it a lot of thought and finally decided that I wanted to move out. This isn’t a decision I made lightly. I didn’t realize how important freedom was. Another perspective I got. I live in a pretty Posh house as far as Armenian village standards are concerned. I am probably going to have no running water, no hot water, and an outhouse, but I am ok with that. Currently, I have a great host family, but since its a single Mom, I can’t have people spend the night at my house which makes it difficult for anyone outside of my region to come and visit. I have to home before dark, and dark starts at 6:30. There are other rules too that I am not too fond of. There are some other things that bother me too but there is no sense in saying them.
I was really nervous about talking about this with my family. I didn’t know how it would turn out. So I finally got up the nerve to talk to them. The conversation went as follows:
Me: I wanted to let you know that I am going to start looking for other places to live tomorrow. I made up the decision that I wanted to live with a family for one year and then one year by myself.
Family: Are you moving in with another family or by yourself?
Me: I want to live by myself. I lived on my own for 5 years in college and for six months in Korea.
Family: Will you ever come and visit
Me: Of course. I love living here but I just want some more freedom and I know that (my brother) will come back from the Army and need a place to stay. I’ll come back and help out with potato harvesting and whatever else you need.
Family: Well ok then.
It was a lot easier than I thought. I am starting to look for houses now but told my family that I probably wouldn’t move out till May 1st. So here goes house hunting. They didn’t seem taken back by it at all and it went really well which I am really thankful for.
Everything else is going well. Its still really cold here and it has been snowing everyday at least for a little bit. Maybe not everyday but close to it. Im excited about the spring...
Hope things are going well at home for everyone. Jon, how about you send me an email. Matt, where have you been?
Until next time...
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