This past week was a bit long. Don’t really know why. I was just excited about the weekend. My host brother went up to Ijevan to hang out with his sister. What a welcome. I think I figured out all my friends with siblings had a hard time getting along when the sibling was in their early teens. Holy crap. Enough about that. I don’t even know what happened last week... It just went by...
Not really anything to talk about. We are in the midst of Peace Corps week where we talk about Peace Corps and American Culture. Today we went to Pat’s school. That was pretty fun. We showed them how to sing “head, shoulders, knees, and toes” and then we talked for a bit and then played basketball. It is really funny because we played as a demonstration and we asked the kids if they understood, shooting, passing, creating space, that kind of thing. The second we let the kids play, all of that went out the window. I have a new appreciation for coaches. Then again, back in the States we constantly have the ability to watch sports and also play sports. Even though I totally suck at basketball, I understand the fundamentals because Dad always watched basketball, and because I got the opportunity to shoot around with my Dad and I played one year of basketball in seventh grade before I realized basketball wasn’t for me.
This week is going to be fun. Today we came to my school. It went pretty well. There was a bit of a miscommunication. I told the other volunteers to come to my school by 2. 2 passed and there was no one. All the kids were waiting in the gym and no one was there. I called almost everyone of them and no one answered their phone so I thought they were playing a practical joke on me. Anyway, I waited and finally everyone showed up. It was interesting because they thought it started at 3. We had a question and answer session. I got my English class, during English to write questions to ask the volunteers. That turned out to be a disaster because they asked in English but never translated, so the other kids never knew what was going on. Afterwards, the students looked at pictures of the US and ate some of our butter cookies. We then played some basketball. The guys wanted it to be volunteers vs. students. Needless to say we won. I won’t tell you the score, but it was fun and hopefully they understand how to play better.
Speaking of Butter cookies, at each school we make a batch of these butter cookies. On Sunday we all got together at Vincent’s house and “followed” the recipe. Uh, apparently we didnt’ do something right because we looked in the oven and the flour was floating on a vast ocean of butter... Next time, we added more flour. The next cycled just had more flour floating on the butter. Apparently we didn’t follow the directions and mix everything correctly. When we followed the directions and mixed everything correctly, things actually came out right. Who would have thought. Lesson: follow directions.
So funny story. Actually the main reason that I wrote this blog. Today I went to school and before the class started, my school director asked me if I would go over to the other school, Terri’s school and help teach a health class, which is fine because that’s what I do at my school. So after two classes at my school, I walk over to the other school. I meet the teacher and we briefly talk and we walk to the classroom. We get started and I am not lying when I say this... He says, “This is Danny, you all probably recognize him, he will be helping with the health class today”. Then he says “ok whenever you’re ready”...
I really wish someone had a camera pointed at my face at that exact moment. Let me explain why. First off, this “teacher” calls my director to see if could come over. So I go over. The “teacher” doesn’t tell me what lesson we are on, doesn’t let me prepare, and expects me to give a 45 minute health lesson by myself with no preparation in another language. So, I stared at him and said “you want me to give a health lesson without any preparation by myself in Armenian?”
I think after that, some things started to click together. I started laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation. He didn’t laugh. I think he didn’t have anything planned and thought he would by sly by getting me to come and teach the lesson, because after I told him I couldn’t teach the lesson, he had no idea what to do.
After the class, I made it very clear to him that I needed time to prepare and that I wouldn’t be doing the class by myself... ever. One of the goals of Peace Corps is skills transfer and I can’t transfer any skills if I do everything myself.
The house hunt is going pretty well. I have three prospects, but I need to still go see them. Brandon asked me a pretty good question. “How does one go about finding a house in a village?” Its all word of mouth. The whole village knows that I am looking for a house. My faculty has been really good about helping me out and I am meeting with the major on Monday. Good thing I teach one of his students...
I had a dream about riding my bike and playing lacrosse last night. I think that is the hardest part. Having dreams and realizing they aren’t going to come true for a long time...
Until next time...
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