This week was pretty ordinary. Nothing really spectacular happened. I hung out at Michael’s house in Artik until Wednesday. One bad thing... Vart-a-var.
Its a holy holiday where you are allowed to throw bucketfuls of water on anyone you want. There are kids and adults prepared to get the unsuspecting victim wet. Being a foreigner, it was as through my forehead had a tatoo that said “please try to throw as much water on me as you possibly can.” It was a really hot day so most of the time I welcomed it. The first time it happened, Mike and I were walking down the street and kids came from behind and this kid had a water gun. So after he got my back all wet, I took the gun from his hands, held the kid, and shot water all over him. That was the part that was the most infuriating about it. They would wait until you passed and then they would get you wet. I got really mad at one guy who was older than I was, who waited for me to pass before throwing water on me and then laughed. Cute. So, from the last paragraph, you can gather that my first vart-a-var was not that pleasant. Only one more...
Mike and I took a walk up to Harich where a new volunteer would be placed. I was up there at Mike’s site during site visit where the new trainees go and visit their site for three days. We went there originally to go see a church that was there. So, we started walking up this hill in the middle of the day. It was wicked hot. Mike is a really funny guy. As we were walking, he said “let’s take this road, its a shortcut”. So we just followed. The road curved around, constantly to the left. I realized we made a semi-circle and looked back down the road when we came to the intersection. I asked mike if that was the road we had originally walked on before we came to his “shortcut”. Apparently, we walked about 300 meters when we should have walked just 50m. We got a good laugh out of it. So we continued on up the road and got to Harich and walked to the church. It was a really nice church with some good views all over. Bigger than most and it is a working seminary. We met up with Erin and then went to her house for some coffee. It was nice getting to meet her family. She will have no problem in that village.
Afterwards, we started walking back but instead flagged down a bus and got a ride back in Artik. When we got back, we made some dinner and just hung out for a bit. Nothing else new really happened.
On Wednesday, I went to Yerevan to meet some of my friends. I saw Khashi and Mohson, my Iranian friends as well as some of my Peace Corps friends. Afterwards, I went to Charentsavan and woke the next morning to do my last Peace Corps session of the summer. I just presented the HIV/AIDS initiative. Afterwards, I had lunch with Kyle, Jack and some others before going back to the school.
I went back to the school because I needed to see the doctors. Apparently when I was at Mike’s site I got some stone-dust in my eye which I rubbed really hard. My eye was dry and it felt like something was inside it and my vision was a little blurry. When I went back to the school, the doctors took a look at it and then made the decision to take me to an Ophthalmologist's office. Peace Corps took good care of me as again, I didn’t have to wait and just went to the head of the line to get checked out. The Doctor there said that I had a scratched cornea. Great. Five days before my trip I get something like this happen. However, the Doctor said it wasn’t that bad and only needed to wear an eyepatch for 3 days (Im already completely better now so Mom and Dad, you can stop worrying about it). So here I was wearing an eyepatch.
Kyle and I left to go back home. He helped me not get killed crossing roads and stuff. The ride home was easy enough. It was nice to finally be home after 2 weeks being gone. I came in the door and Grandma was pissed. I think in Russian (not Armenian) she said something along the lines of “what did you do this time...” Anyway, I asked her how she was doing and she said “Im good, but you’re bad, you got that thing over your eye.”
Yeah, so afterwards we ate dinner and then Grandma asked if I wanted coffee, which I said yes to, which she said “good, go make it”. So I made it. But it is really hard to pour something into small cups when you only have one eye. I ended pouring coffee all over the table because I either missed the cup entirely or I didn’t think that the coffee was near the top of the cup until it was too late. Everyone got a good laugh out of that.
Also, another bad thing about this patch is recognition. The baby is in the house and knows who I am. When I am around it puts its arms out for me to help it walk around or hold or whatever. I walked it the first time, saw me and put its arms out, and then when I got closer, it saw the patch, withdrew its arms and started crying. Awesome.
Later on, things were fine. Now that the patch is gone, there is harmony back in the world and the baby comes to me down. Swell.
Tonight we are having another khorovats (Armenian bbq) with rabbits because my cousin from the army is going back to Belarus tomorrow. I didn’t really get to know him that much so its not a big deal for me, but he was a nice enough guy. Anyway, Grandma is probably not going to handle it too well. We are all going to Yerevan tomorrow because I have to go in for my Mid-Service conference. Yeah, Im halfway finished. Weird.
I saw Terri yesterday. I will see her one more time before she goes back to the states. When I went over to her house, everything was barren. Terri did a really good job decorating the place and put magazine clippings on her walls and doors and had cool stuff all over. Now its all gone. Ah. I don’t know what its going to be like when she leaves. I will come back from my trip and will be the only American in the village.
Anyway, after mid-service, I am taking a bus up to Georgia where I am going to spend a night in Lauren’s village. Lauren is a girl who is a volunteer in Georgia who I met in Ukraine for FLEX. Then she is going to take me to Tbilisi for the second night and help me to the airport. Looking forward for this thing to start. After three years, I am going to see my friend Marco who I met in Sweden. He and I, as well as another Italian and two Spaniards were my roommates. Really looking forward to seeing him.
So, I don’t know when I will get to write again, if I have time on the trip, I will certainly update the blog but no promises. My Dad is also going to National Jamboree where it is really hot so keep him in your prayers so that he doesn’t have any problems. First year he is going alone.
I hope everyone at home is having a good summer. Im just glad my obligations are finished with now.
The first picture is of my students at FLEX. IT was awesome. The second picture is Jon and myself with our Solak family. Jon was the volunteer before me. Jon has now left the country and is on his way to Iran for a little bit. Cool guy.
Until next time... (whenever that may be)
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