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...