This past weekend was interesting. Nothing really happened on Wednesday or Thursday. I did find out that none of my students made it to the third round of FLEX testing which left me in a disappointed stupor but I guess that’s life. I am thinking about having another club with some of the eighth grade kids to teach them English so they have a fighting chance next year. We will see how things go. Its been busy.
Anyway, last Friday, I went into Martuni to get some errands done and get a haircut. After a year of going to the same haircut man, he finally understands how I want my haircut. Everytime I tell him I want a centimeter taken off, make it clean around the ears and the neck. He takes it upon himself to lop off much more than that but its fine. I still need to work on getting more cut off my neck, also in the front. Maybe one day.
After getting a haircut, Nick and I went to go to the place he gets his clothes altered. I needed to go for two reasons. Some of my pants have gotten long and I want them to look nice and not so baggy. This may be a problem when I use a real dryer because line drying clothes tends to stretch them out. I fear that when I do wash my clothes with a washer and drier that my clothes will tighten up and will not fit me as well. No matter, by the time I use a real washer and dryer I will be back in the States and none of my clothes will make it back. They have been warn out and have rips, tears, stains, fringes, etc. They are not making it back home. Second reason is my shirts are a little big and I need to get them taken in. I always tuck in my shirt here so if the shirt doesn’t look fitted it looks like I am wearing a parachute in the back.
Ok, so we went to the tailors house. He is a deaf man and it was really fun talking to him. He was really nice and it was a really nice cultural exchange. His wife is deaf too. I was changing and I kept hearing Nick talking to the guy. He can read lips but it was funny because Nick kept forgetting that he was speaking English so I kept yelling from the changing area that he was speaking English and the Tailor wouldn’t be able to understand what he was saying. Ha. It was a nice exchange. He wouldn’t let us leave without taking some apples so that’s what we did. Really nice guy. I got a cotton sweater shortened, a shirt taken in, and pants hemmed for about $2.50. Yeah.
We went to Yerevan and met some of the other volunteers. I did some work at the office and met with Susanna as it was her last day at the office. She truly is awesome and it will be sad to see her go. That night I went with her to a concert at the Opera. Its called the “Opera,” we didn’t go see an opera. It was Susanna, her friend and myself. It was really nice. There is this guy (his name escapes me now) Vladamir ________ who Russian and played a lot of concerts for Armenians to raise money when the Spitak Earthquake of 1988 came through. Everytime he comes to Armenia, every seat is taken. I got a seat on the top tier front row with Susanna and her friend. It was amazing. Vladamir had an orchestra which had about 20 violinists, eight cellists, this that and whatever else. It was huge and the sound was awesome. Truly awesome. The performers were young performers from all over the CIS countries. There were also some performers from China. There was a solo opera singer from Belarus and a solo violinist from China. The violinist was phenomenal. Absolutely phenomenal. His fingers were all over the fretboard. A true pleasure to watch.
Also, we were seated about 20 meters from the president of Armenia. He looked exactly the same as he does on TV. Nothing amazing. Eh. Pretty cool nonetheless.
The concert ended around 9 and I had to run back to the office. I had a conference call with Washington DC to talk about WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene). The idea was pretty cool. There is a service called WebEX which connects volunteers from all over the world to have a conference with someone in Washington.
However, things didn’t happen quite like this. I got online and downloaded everything that I needed to and then called Washington. This was in the Peace Corps Conference room. So I was ready to go and just waiting for the other people. The phone was connected but there was no one on the other line. I heard a beep and then I said hello. I heard my voice through the earpiece but it sounded lady like. I waited another five seconds and said Hello again, hearing the same voice. I was really confused because my voice sounded really girly. So, I just waited and started saying some things to myself and humming and singing a little bit and then typed something in the computer to see if anyone was there. Then someone on the phone said “Daniel, yes, someone is here.” Apparently what happened was, the lady in Washington was saying “hello” the same time I was and that is what I heard. She heard my talking to myself and singing and humming which was a little embarrassing. We both got a really big laugh out of that.
It turned out that I was the only person who was participating in this call. She said she did a poor job publicizing the event. If the conference had gone as planned and there were a lot of people, I wouldn’t have gotten anything out of it really because it is aimed at countries that have water sanitation problems. Armenia, as a whole is not one of those countries. She however did give me lots of suggestions and resources on other things. We talked for about 30 minutes and it proved to not be a waste of time.
Already its time for potatoes. I wasn’t really looking forward to it but it turned out to be pretty fun. Well, my back doesn’t think so, but yeah. Its a good bonding experience for me and Grandma. We have a good time out there. I usually dig the potatoes out and she picks them up and sorts them in bags. Then I carry the potato bags to the cellar, she hands me the bags while I am in the hole and then I dump them into predetermined piles varying in size and quality. We joke that this will be the last year that we will have to do this because she is going to Belarus, or Germany now and this time next year, I will be somewhere not here. The first day, Grandma broke down the garden and said we could finish everything in 6 days. I knew I was going to Yerevan and I said, “I think if we work really hard we can finish it in 3. Well, if i didn’t have to go to Martuni today, we would be finished in 3 days but since I have to go, we will finish the last three rows tomorrow. It will take maybe an hour. So basically we did 6 days work in about 3 days, but I am feeling it. Eh, at least we are finished.
One of the most interesting things that I have experienced here is a thing called “Poor” but it has a rolling “r” at the end. Its when you take a break from potato digging and you build a fire out of dried cow crap, wait for it to turn into coal and then put the potatoes under it and let it cook. You then peel off the burnt parts and eat it with butter, or salt, or whatever. Its got a really good flavor to it. Maybe that’s the cow crap... Anyway, its just a nice social setting. We just talk about whatever and complain about how much more there is to do.
I really like working out in the garden for the most part. I get some sun, exercise, and get a chance to think about things. Sometimes I get carried away and forget about the potatoes and end up cutting them in half. Last year, my Mom would yell at me because you can’t sell potatoes that are half cut. Ha. This year, there is no real reason to care because the potatoes are just for us to eat really and maybe to sell a couple but we won’t need them really this year. So, the stress is a bit off. I remember last year, if I did cut a potato I would hurry up and bury it before my host mom could see it. After 5 times being yelled at, I got the hint that I was messing up, I didn’t need to be reminded several times more. It wasn’t really a yelling, it was just more of a reprimand? I don’t know. I didn’t really care. My relationship with my host mom was usually always tense so it didn’t really phase me. Grandma is awesome though. I think we are in the same boat as far as the potatoes are concerned.
Nothing really new going on here. Waiting to get my money for my grant and helping out with the potatoes and trying to convince my back not to go on a hiatus. This weekend we have Initiative weekend where we try to rope in the new volunteers to join our initiatives. It will be a good chance to hang out.
That’s about all I have. Application work is starting for med school. Its a total pain in the ass. I found out yesterday that I may have to come home right after Im finished with Peace Corps... major bummer. We will see...
Until next time...
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
A cow is barking outside...
So for the last hour, I have been at my computer, writing emails, checking facebook, catching up on some work, and there has been a cow somewhere which has incessantly been mooing up a storm, and it sounds like the cow is outside my window with the head through the window and right next to my ear, which is strange because there is no cow in site. Yeah. So that was what inspired me to write this blog.
Hi Daniel,
Your project is approved! Your SPA project number is xxx-10-xxx, please use it in all the further reporting. Total amount of the project is 1,231,390 AMD. You will receive it by or around Oct. 11.
This was the email I got from Peace Corps saying that I am good to go. The bathroom will so become a reality. I feel pretty good about it. Half because the hard part is finished (premature words) and half because this is something that the village truly needs. I talked to some of the people on the committee and they said the pictures really did it. I mean, when you see the dilapidated outhouse that the 400+ people in the school uses, it really makes you root for a new restroom facility. I will let you know the process as it happens. The mayor assures me that the bathroom will be built in two weeks. I will assure you that I wasn’t born yesterday...
In other news, I went to Tsaghedzor this past weekend for counterpart conference. We stayed at the sports complex which was pretty cool and I got a good chance to hang out with the new volunteers. So far they seem to be doing pretty well. So this conference is used to explain the most efficient ways of working with someone from another culture. The first session was “cross cultural exchange” so Nick, my sitemate, and I did skits to demonstrate working with a different culture. To identify how your culture works will give you a clue as to how to work with another culture. First we would do the skit the Armenian culture in mind and then the American way. For example, the first skit was to demonstate “direct communication vs. indirect communication”. Nick was the school director and I was the volunteer.
So keep in mind this is the Armenian cultural way. I came in as the American volunteer wanting to get business done. I did some small talk and tried to ask Nick, the school director for a class to teach. He asked me how my family was, how the children were, how the village life was, if I was married, if I wanted to get married, why I wasn’t married already, when I thought I would get married, and again why I wasn’t married yet. You know, normal Armenian questions. We also had coffee. This whole scene was condensed from what would have 30 minutes down to 1 minute. The second scenario, as is with American culture, I went into the director’s room, shook his hand, asked one personal question and then got straight to business. This took a good 30 seconds. After this and every other skit, we would ask if they understand the skit and what cultural differences there were. The responses were funny.
Moreover, after this skit, I mentioned something I learned during my time as a FLEX trainer that cultures were not good, not bad, but were just different. So right after I said this, one of the Armenian counterparts said “I think that the Armenian way is better because its not all about business, we get to know the people.” I gave him a blank stare thinking “thank you sir for listening to the statement I just said.” This man will come up in my blog later on.
The other sessions went very well and I think we did enough interactive activities to get people to learn something, or more importantly, not fall asleep. So all this led up to developing a lesson with their counterparts. Realize now that these volunteers have been in country for a total of four months. To plan a lesson in another country is very demanding and knowing the counterpart for only 6 weeks is a lot of ask for. So between the language barrier and the cultural differences, they have to come up with a ten minute outline on a topic we assign them.
Most of the groups did really well. They planned things out well and came up and divided the presenting evenly. Remember the guy I talked about before, he had been a problem the whole weekend because he didn’t know when to keep his mouth shut. He would say something, and when someone else was speaking, he would just interrupt and just keep talking. I got tired of this. So it was his turn to go with his volunteer. He didn’t let his volunteer do any of the talking, she just stood behind him and did nothing. It was supposed to be a ten minute presentation... He decided he would still talk at minute 15. So, I intervened and told him thank you and that that was enough. After he agreed, he kept talking, which I told him that we got the gist.
So after that, we asked to the group about their presentation. The volunteer said that she didn’t get a chance to do anything. After that the counterpart kept saying that he included her in most everything. So, then I said a couple things which he interrupted. He did this twice, so everytime he tried to speak, I told him to wait. There were some raised voices. At this point he stood up and started walking over to me. I was bracing myself to get punched in the face. He came over and stood at the front of the class and tried to explain himself. (This was a great relief, because who wants to be punched in the face?) It was useless. I told him again to sit down and after the class we would talk.
After the class, I met with him and apologized for trying to get him to stop talking and if I offended him in any way. We talked (in great detail) and finally came to an agreement. He is a good guy just doesn’t know how to get his volunteer involved. Pretty much everything we taught that particular weekend, he didn’t pick up, which was stressful and frustrating. Anyway, with the conference over with, I left Yerevan and went over to Kyle’s house to help him move in. After looking for a house for 9 months, he found out and has moved in. It is a new house too. It was nice to hang out with my six sitemates. This morning, I came back home and just fell asleep. Kyle’s bed was so uncomfortable it felt like I was sleeping on a hammock. Funny thing was, since there were six guys and limited places to sleep, we put two beds together and I thought we were going to put three guys in two twin beds. One person would just sleep in the middle. Well I woke up in the middle of the night to Kyle right next to me and thought, crap, there actually are three people on this thing. This morning, I woke up wondering where the third person was. Yeah, Kyle does a lot of moving when he sleeps and decided he wanted to overstep the personal boundary. We got a pretty good laugh out of it this morning. Also, because it was a new house, the door handle got jammed and we were stuck in his room and had to call Hector to come to the other side of the door to get us out. Great.
We walked to Martuni, I got on the bus and came home. At home, I just passed out. I went over to a couple neighbors’ homes to hang out and then came back to get some more work finished.
So, tomorrow there is school and then Friday I go back to Yerevan to put AIDS packets together and prepare for Initiative weekend the following weekend. This Friday will also be the last day that Susanna will be my Program Manager, so I want to see her before she goes. She is a great Program Manager and I will definitely miss working with her.
This weekend, one of my friends from the south is coming up to see how the volunteers in this area live and work. Looking forward to it because I never get a chance to see him.
As I type this, Mike is on his way back from the States. His sister got married on Saturday. So congratulations to her. I think I may have already said that, but whatever.
I guess that’s it.
Until next time...
Hi Daniel,
Your project is approved! Your SPA project number is xxx-10-xxx, please use it in all the further reporting. Total amount of the project is 1,231,390 AMD. You will receive it by or around Oct. 11.
This was the email I got from Peace Corps saying that I am good to go. The bathroom will so become a reality. I feel pretty good about it. Half because the hard part is finished (premature words) and half because this is something that the village truly needs. I talked to some of the people on the committee and they said the pictures really did it. I mean, when you see the dilapidated outhouse that the 400+ people in the school uses, it really makes you root for a new restroom facility. I will let you know the process as it happens. The mayor assures me that the bathroom will be built in two weeks. I will assure you that I wasn’t born yesterday...
In other news, I went to Tsaghedzor this past weekend for counterpart conference. We stayed at the sports complex which was pretty cool and I got a good chance to hang out with the new volunteers. So far they seem to be doing pretty well. So this conference is used to explain the most efficient ways of working with someone from another culture. The first session was “cross cultural exchange” so Nick, my sitemate, and I did skits to demonstrate working with a different culture. To identify how your culture works will give you a clue as to how to work with another culture. First we would do the skit the Armenian culture in mind and then the American way. For example, the first skit was to demonstate “direct communication vs. indirect communication”. Nick was the school director and I was the volunteer.
So keep in mind this is the Armenian cultural way. I came in as the American volunteer wanting to get business done. I did some small talk and tried to ask Nick, the school director for a class to teach. He asked me how my family was, how the children were, how the village life was, if I was married, if I wanted to get married, why I wasn’t married already, when I thought I would get married, and again why I wasn’t married yet. You know, normal Armenian questions. We also had coffee. This whole scene was condensed from what would have 30 minutes down to 1 minute. The second scenario, as is with American culture, I went into the director’s room, shook his hand, asked one personal question and then got straight to business. This took a good 30 seconds. After this and every other skit, we would ask if they understand the skit and what cultural differences there were. The responses were funny.
Moreover, after this skit, I mentioned something I learned during my time as a FLEX trainer that cultures were not good, not bad, but were just different. So right after I said this, one of the Armenian counterparts said “I think that the Armenian way is better because its not all about business, we get to know the people.” I gave him a blank stare thinking “thank you sir for listening to the statement I just said.” This man will come up in my blog later on.
The other sessions went very well and I think we did enough interactive activities to get people to learn something, or more importantly, not fall asleep. So all this led up to developing a lesson with their counterparts. Realize now that these volunteers have been in country for a total of four months. To plan a lesson in another country is very demanding and knowing the counterpart for only 6 weeks is a lot of ask for. So between the language barrier and the cultural differences, they have to come up with a ten minute outline on a topic we assign them.
Most of the groups did really well. They planned things out well and came up and divided the presenting evenly. Remember the guy I talked about before, he had been a problem the whole weekend because he didn’t know when to keep his mouth shut. He would say something, and when someone else was speaking, he would just interrupt and just keep talking. I got tired of this. So it was his turn to go with his volunteer. He didn’t let his volunteer do any of the talking, she just stood behind him and did nothing. It was supposed to be a ten minute presentation... He decided he would still talk at minute 15. So, I intervened and told him thank you and that that was enough. After he agreed, he kept talking, which I told him that we got the gist.
So after that, we asked to the group about their presentation. The volunteer said that she didn’t get a chance to do anything. After that the counterpart kept saying that he included her in most everything. So, then I said a couple things which he interrupted. He did this twice, so everytime he tried to speak, I told him to wait. There were some raised voices. At this point he stood up and started walking over to me. I was bracing myself to get punched in the face. He came over and stood at the front of the class and tried to explain himself. (This was a great relief, because who wants to be punched in the face?) It was useless. I told him again to sit down and after the class we would talk.
After the class, I met with him and apologized for trying to get him to stop talking and if I offended him in any way. We talked (in great detail) and finally came to an agreement. He is a good guy just doesn’t know how to get his volunteer involved. Pretty much everything we taught that particular weekend, he didn’t pick up, which was stressful and frustrating. Anyway, with the conference over with, I left Yerevan and went over to Kyle’s house to help him move in. After looking for a house for 9 months, he found out and has moved in. It is a new house too. It was nice to hang out with my six sitemates. This morning, I came back home and just fell asleep. Kyle’s bed was so uncomfortable it felt like I was sleeping on a hammock. Funny thing was, since there were six guys and limited places to sleep, we put two beds together and I thought we were going to put three guys in two twin beds. One person would just sleep in the middle. Well I woke up in the middle of the night to Kyle right next to me and thought, crap, there actually are three people on this thing. This morning, I woke up wondering where the third person was. Yeah, Kyle does a lot of moving when he sleeps and decided he wanted to overstep the personal boundary. We got a pretty good laugh out of it this morning. Also, because it was a new house, the door handle got jammed and we were stuck in his room and had to call Hector to come to the other side of the door to get us out. Great.
We walked to Martuni, I got on the bus and came home. At home, I just passed out. I went over to a couple neighbors’ homes to hang out and then came back to get some more work finished.
So, tomorrow there is school and then Friday I go back to Yerevan to put AIDS packets together and prepare for Initiative weekend the following weekend. This Friday will also be the last day that Susanna will be my Program Manager, so I want to see her before she goes. She is a great Program Manager and I will definitely miss working with her.
This weekend, one of my friends from the south is coming up to see how the volunteers in this area live and work. Looking forward to it because I never get a chance to see him.
As I type this, Mike is on his way back from the States. His sister got married on Saturday. So congratulations to her. I think I may have already said that, but whatever.
I guess that’s it.
Until next time...
Friday, September 17, 2010
Explanation for you Dad...
Dad, again, this is for you...
Picture number:
1) This is the village. My house is somewhere in that mess. When we were at the top of the mountain, I called Grandma and asked her if she could see me. I think that confused her. She didn’t get the joke. She kept saying “how can I see you, you’re on the mountain”. That lady cracks me up.
2) Me and the boys, Kyle, Nick, Hector, and myself.
3) This is the church that is at the top of the volcano. It was built in 2009 replacing the older one that was falling apart. There are still some remnants in and around the church. In front of the church there is a small lake that is pretty much a perfect circle. That’s probably where the lava flows out from...
4) Kyle being crafty
5) Me and the boys again. Kyle, Hector, Nick, and myself. It was cloudy at the beginning of our hike and then it turned into a great day.
Picture number:
1) This is the village. My house is somewhere in that mess. When we were at the top of the mountain, I called Grandma and asked her if she could see me. I think that confused her. She didn’t get the joke. She kept saying “how can I see you, you’re on the mountain”. That lady cracks me up.
2) Me and the boys, Kyle, Nick, Hector, and myself.
3) This is the church that is at the top of the volcano. It was built in 2009 replacing the older one that was falling apart. There are still some remnants in and around the church. In front of the church there is a small lake that is pretty much a perfect circle. That’s probably where the lava flows out from...
4) Kyle being crafty
5) Me and the boys again. Kyle, Hector, Nick, and myself. It was cloudy at the beginning of our hike and then it turned into a great day.
Thank you for sneezing on me...
Like I mentioned before, everyone says that your second year will fly by. Well I just looked at the last time I wrote and it was September 7th. I thought I just wrote like three days ago. I guess its time to do some catching up. Honestly, a lot has happened in that time.
Right now because Im doing my crash course for some of the girls in my school, I haven’t really been able to do much else. Everyday for 2 hours, we meet and I teach them how to write an essay and we practice speaking. Its fun, for the most part. There were about 9 or 10 people from the whole marz, or state, that made it to the second round. 4 of those students were from my school. I can’t take any credit for getting them to that stage because none of them were my students. However, we have been working really hard to get them ready for the third round.
One of the most interesting things about being here is teaching the kids. One of the main reasons is because their teaching methodology is completely different. In the schools, the teachers just lecture and the kids are expected to memorize pages of information. They are very good at that. However, if you ask a question like “Is technology good”, they will respond with “yes” even without thinking about if it is or not. The students, think, “wow, that was an easy question,” however when I ask them “why”, there are just blank stares. In my opinion one of the pitfalls of this education system is the lack of critical thinking exercises. In America, we are taught to always ask why. Not only is the answer important but sometimes more importantly, why is it the answer. This doesn’t really strike you in the States. It never did me until I got here and did a comparison.
So from this FLEX crash course, I am getting excited because I feel like I am actually teaching the kids something or use. Being able to think outside of the box, and asking questions based on their answers, or the Socratic method. At first it was really rough. The girls would just stare at me. In Armenia, if a teacher asks a question and the kid doesn’t know the answer, the teacher is immediate to answer the question for them. There is about 3 seconds of time given for the student to answer. I remember sometimes in class where the teacher would wait a minute or two before calling on someone else. I am proud to say that the kids are starting to “get it”. You can actually see the gears churning in their heads now. Their eyes aren’t just glazed over anymore and they are actually trying to think of something. The answer are still very ordinary. But they are getting better. I basically jump out of my seat if they say anything profound.
This has been going on everyday now for over a week and in that week, I have already seen great improvement. On a different note, I asked the girls if they wanted to go to America. They all immediately said yes. I waited for a while and then told them that if teachers and directors and parents weren’t involved, would you still want to leave, and two of them said no. The pressure is real here to be able to study abroad. One out of the two girls said that she really wanted to go but her father wouldn’t let her go. If this girl gets accepted, this is basically ruining a chance of a lifetime. This girl is from the village and will live in the village and do everything in the village. Its amazing what one year in America will do. Not only is this an experience for the girls, but for the future, they will have cultural experience and be able to learn English which will open up an infinite amount of doors for them. I didn’t really realize this until this year.
I don’t know if anything I said in the last page made any sense. Maybe it did, maybe it didn’t. Im really drugged up right now because I have a cold. More explanation to come in a bit.
Saturday it was the perfect day to do a whole lot of nothing. It was muggy, cold, and rainy. I actually don’t think I did anything. So, I won’t talk about it anymore.
The following day, at 8:30am, I got ready and walked to the bus station. There I waited for two minutes before getting on the bus to Madina, Hector’s village. I met Kyle and Nick on the bus and we got to Hector’s house around 9:20am. Hector made us coffee, I chugged a liter and a half of water and then we started our trek up the volcano. It was really cloudy and half of the mountain was covered. It didn’t take us long to get to the top. As soon as we got to the top, all the clouds cleared. It turned out to be a really nice day and better yet, we had the whole mountain to ourselves. We hung out up there for a while. I love it up there. It is a mountain much like Mt. Kilimanjaro. It just sits by itself, so there are no other ranges to mess up the view. Its really nice up there because you can see a nice 360 degree view of the area. We took pictures which I will post tomorrow when I go to Yerevan. We took in the sights and then walked down the mountain.
We got back to Hector’s house and his sister made us chicken bbq. It was perfect timing because I was starving. Pat and Vincent came and joined us for the food and then after that we walked back. I walked back to my village. It was a good day for a walk.
I got back and Grandma just laughed because I walked all the way home. She does that a lot... laugh.
This week I have been working on my grant revisions. I finally got them done. I’m glad that its almost all done, at least my part. Im looking forward to finishing it. Its funny how everyone one in the village knows about it.
So, after coming off of the mountain, I got a cold. I am sick now. My sister and nephew came to visit. I think I am comfortable around kids. At least this one. He recognizes me and knows who I am. I was holding him the other day and he decided to look at me. Then after staring at me for a good 10 seconds just sneezed right into my eyeball. That was great. He is a funny kid. He plays this game with me. Actually two. He just stares at me. Just stares at me like I have something funny growing my nose. No joke. He will just sit there and stare at me like I am the strangest thing. Another thing he will do is, now that he can walk, he will walk over to me and pretend to be giving me something. Then when my hand is out, he will pretend he is putting the object in my hand and then he will pull his hand away really fast and start baby laughing. Its actually pretty funny. I combat this by just picking him up and swinging him around, which he really likes. Another funny thing he did was, he was standing by the door. I came over to him and he slammed the door right in my face. I cracked up at this. I opened the door and picked him up and again swung him around, which again, he enjoyed... But will probably reinforce that slamming doors in people’s faces is ok.
What a funny little man. Smart little thing too. When my sister says, “take the thing to Danny” he looks right at me and then tumbles over to me. He is a sweet kid. They call me his Uncle which is pretty cool because I don’t have any sisters or brothers so I get to be this kids Uncle.
In other news, our Country Director left for a job in Afghanistan and my Program Manager was let go. The Health sector and Environmental Sector were consolidated into “youth development” so they are hiring a new PM, which is really sad because I really depended on my PM for a lot of things. Now she is gone. Im a little concerned to see how things go when Grandma leaves. Those are two of my biggest supports here in this country. This could be disastrous. Nah, I do have some pretty solid neighbors.
Tomorrow I leave for Counterpart Conference. Looking forward to it. It will be weird because this is the last official thing that I will be doing with Susanna. I guess that is that. Anyway, Ill let you know how the conference went.
Until next time...
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Another impression from Grandma
Yesterday I went to school. I basically just sat around and didn’t do anything. I made my schedule for the year, went to a couple of classes and then came back home to look over my grant and do some other things. Pretty uneventful day.
Today was a bit more exciting. Actually not so much. I woke up early to get ready for FLEX testing. This was interesting because I went to the Director’s house for breakfast on Saturday morning. I was just a FLEX trainer, but all the other volunteers thought that I knew more than I did for FLEX. They would call me with such questions as “if my student missed the test in the area, can they go to another testing place?” My answer after a long pause “Um, sorry (insert name here) I was just a trainer before they left for the states, I have no idea about the testing,” which was, in fact, the truth. But it was funny that I got bombarded with all these questions, when I was just the messenger from the American Councils Director to the volunteers. The email she got me to send out, had her contact information. Even her personal cell phone. Yeah, that was great.
Ok, so anyway, I figured that I would educate myself on the whole FLEX program so I went with my students today to the testing site. That was at 9am in the local town of Martuni. We got there and went into the testing center. Apparently, my school director didn’t catch that 11th graders were not eligible for the test and after the introduction, I walked with them out of the school. My other 6 students took the first round. During that time, I walked around with my students and then I faxed the rest of my grant papers to the office. I am finished now with my part unless the committee sees some kind of discrepancy in my work. Then I have to fix it. Sweet. But my grant overseer or “champion” as they call it said that it looked “awesome” and that he was “proud of me for all the work I did under the short time frame.” This guy is also a close friend of mine so he could have just been being nice... Eh.
Afterwards, I went back to the school and found out that 5 of my students made it to the next round, so the one girl went back to the village. So while I was waiting for them to do the next round which was 2 hours long, I went over to VIncent’s house and we made Swiss melts, or basically a grilled cheese with sautéed mushrooms in it. Um, I know most of you at home would be like “so”... but remember my living conditions. This is a gourmet meal here. After lunch, we watched a show and then I went back to the school to see how everything went. The kids said they thought they did pretty well. Well, from all the participants only 9 made it to the second round and of those 9, 5 were from our school, so that was pretty cool. Now, I have something new to worry about... Getting my kids to complete the next round and then become a finalist before going to America. (More hair is going to come out...) Really excited for the kids though.
As most of you regular readers... Mom and Dad... know, I usually post a blog every week or so. Well, I had a very interesting talk with my Grandma. It was actually kind of sad. We do a lot of talking during our coffee breaks. We were talking about one thing or another and she said what a bad life she has lived. She wasn’t saying it in a way to make someone (me) feel sorry for her but she just said it very matter-of-factly. It was a little hard to swallow. I think she thinks of me as a release of some kind, because Im not from here, she trusts me not to tell other people (and honestly who would I tell), we are going our separate ways soon, and I guess we have gotten pretty close. She talks very freely now. I told her that she has experienced a lot in her life. She said “what have I experienced? I came to Armenia to live, living as a housewife.” I then asked her why she came to Armenia then. She said that she came here because an Armenian guy who was tall, good looking, who seemed like a good guy came and asked her to marry her. He told her that Armenia was a great place and told her that he lived in Yerevan, a decent sized city. She said she got here, and they went to one of the smallest villages in Armenia. So she went to a huge city, like Kiev, to one of the smallest villages in Armenia. She said that her life would have been completely different if she had married a Ukrainian or Russian. She said that her husband would just leave in Russia for months at a time and leave her with the kids in Armenia. (Remember that when Grandma came to Armenia, she didn’t know the language... at all). I just can’t imagine that. She said “I thought about leaving, but how could I leave my children behind? I didn’t know what my husband was doing in Russia, if he had another life with another family, and here I was in Armenia worrying about my kids.” She just kept saying “what do I know, I have had an uninteresting life.” That was really sad. I just can’t imagine being 18 and moving from your own country where you lived in a city and then moving to another country to a village with hardly any amenities, learning the language on your own from whoever you could.
On another note, she is really funny with the whole dating thing because she is still very old-fashioned. A long time ago I wrote about how she asked me if I wanted to get married and how she was going to start bringing eligible women over to introduce them to me, which I shot down rather quickly. She said I had about 2 years before I was in trouble about getting married. To that I just laughed. She is really funny about that stuff.
Its going to be strange when she leaves...
I guess that’s all I wanted to write about. The words that Grandma ingrained in my mind that I will remember for a long time. Just the way she said “I have lived an uninteresting life.” Again, another moment where I really appreciate where I come from and what I have been able to do... what I am free to do.
Mike is headed home for his sister’s wedding on Friday. I hope you people keep him in your thoughts as he makes the 20+ hours back home.
Until next time...
Today was a bit more exciting. Actually not so much. I woke up early to get ready for FLEX testing. This was interesting because I went to the Director’s house for breakfast on Saturday morning. I was just a FLEX trainer, but all the other volunteers thought that I knew more than I did for FLEX. They would call me with such questions as “if my student missed the test in the area, can they go to another testing place?” My answer after a long pause “Um, sorry (insert name here) I was just a trainer before they left for the states, I have no idea about the testing,” which was, in fact, the truth. But it was funny that I got bombarded with all these questions, when I was just the messenger from the American Councils Director to the volunteers. The email she got me to send out, had her contact information. Even her personal cell phone. Yeah, that was great.
Ok, so anyway, I figured that I would educate myself on the whole FLEX program so I went with my students today to the testing site. That was at 9am in the local town of Martuni. We got there and went into the testing center. Apparently, my school director didn’t catch that 11th graders were not eligible for the test and after the introduction, I walked with them out of the school. My other 6 students took the first round. During that time, I walked around with my students and then I faxed the rest of my grant papers to the office. I am finished now with my part unless the committee sees some kind of discrepancy in my work. Then I have to fix it. Sweet. But my grant overseer or “champion” as they call it said that it looked “awesome” and that he was “proud of me for all the work I did under the short time frame.” This guy is also a close friend of mine so he could have just been being nice... Eh.
Afterwards, I went back to the school and found out that 5 of my students made it to the next round, so the one girl went back to the village. So while I was waiting for them to do the next round which was 2 hours long, I went over to VIncent’s house and we made Swiss melts, or basically a grilled cheese with sautéed mushrooms in it. Um, I know most of you at home would be like “so”... but remember my living conditions. This is a gourmet meal here. After lunch, we watched a show and then I went back to the school to see how everything went. The kids said they thought they did pretty well. Well, from all the participants only 9 made it to the second round and of those 9, 5 were from our school, so that was pretty cool. Now, I have something new to worry about... Getting my kids to complete the next round and then become a finalist before going to America. (More hair is going to come out...) Really excited for the kids though.
As most of you regular readers... Mom and Dad... know, I usually post a blog every week or so. Well, I had a very interesting talk with my Grandma. It was actually kind of sad. We do a lot of talking during our coffee breaks. We were talking about one thing or another and she said what a bad life she has lived. She wasn’t saying it in a way to make someone (me) feel sorry for her but she just said it very matter-of-factly. It was a little hard to swallow. I think she thinks of me as a release of some kind, because Im not from here, she trusts me not to tell other people (and honestly who would I tell), we are going our separate ways soon, and I guess we have gotten pretty close. She talks very freely now. I told her that she has experienced a lot in her life. She said “what have I experienced? I came to Armenia to live, living as a housewife.” I then asked her why she came to Armenia then. She said that she came here because an Armenian guy who was tall, good looking, who seemed like a good guy came and asked her to marry her. He told her that Armenia was a great place and told her that he lived in Yerevan, a decent sized city. She said she got here, and they went to one of the smallest villages in Armenia. So she went to a huge city, like Kiev, to one of the smallest villages in Armenia. She said that her life would have been completely different if she had married a Ukrainian or Russian. She said that her husband would just leave in Russia for months at a time and leave her with the kids in Armenia. (Remember that when Grandma came to Armenia, she didn’t know the language... at all). I just can’t imagine that. She said “I thought about leaving, but how could I leave my children behind? I didn’t know what my husband was doing in Russia, if he had another life with another family, and here I was in Armenia worrying about my kids.” She just kept saying “what do I know, I have had an uninteresting life.” That was really sad. I just can’t imagine being 18 and moving from your own country where you lived in a city and then moving to another country to a village with hardly any amenities, learning the language on your own from whoever you could.
On another note, she is really funny with the whole dating thing because she is still very old-fashioned. A long time ago I wrote about how she asked me if I wanted to get married and how she was going to start bringing eligible women over to introduce them to me, which I shot down rather quickly. She said I had about 2 years before I was in trouble about getting married. To that I just laughed. She is really funny about that stuff.
Its going to be strange when she leaves...
I guess that’s all I wanted to write about. The words that Grandma ingrained in my mind that I will remember for a long time. Just the way she said “I have lived an uninteresting life.” Again, another moment where I really appreciate where I come from and what I have been able to do... what I am free to do.
Mike is headed home for his sister’s wedding on Friday. I hope you people keep him in your thoughts as he makes the 20+ hours back home.
Until next time...
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Oh my Grant...
Already September. People asked me how this past week went. They asked me how my first day of school was. I didn’t have an answer for them because I wasn’t able to go to school. That’s not entirely true. On the first day, September 1st, I did go to school. I got there at 9 and left at 11 after the “opening ceremony”.
Monday started pretty poorly. That was the day I found out that my grant wasn’t going to work out. In my last post, I think I mentioned that I got back from Yerevan to find a large 5x5x3 meter hole by the old school bathroom. That just wasn’t going to work. This bathroom was time sensitive because if I waited until the November 24th deadline, then I wouldn’t be able to get the holes dug because of the frozen ground. So, it had to be done now or else I would have to wait until the following spring.
Tuesday came around. A long time ago I talked about what Peace Corps would do if there was an emergency and the volunteers had to be evacuated. Twice a year we have meetings for people in certain areas to come together to talk about our plan should an emergency happen. On Tuesday, it was our day to meet. It was good to see some of my friends that I hadn’t seen in a while since we have all been busy and it was good to see the new volunteers at their new sites. We had PC Washington’s doctor come out to do a check to see what we thought of the Doctors and how they were doing. After our meeting, which lasted about 5 hours, the doctor wanted to go see the living conditions of four of the volunteers; one of the four being me. So, our PTO, Nick and the Doctor and four volunteers crammed into a Toyota Land Cruiser. Kyle was moving so PC brought a huge gas tank with them. Everyone in the Martuni area, except for Hector, is 6 feet tall or taller. Pat is a pretty big guy. So, the doctor, Nick and the driver sat in the front, Nick (PTO- a pretty big guy) Pat and Vincent sat in the middle row, and Kyle and I sat on the fold down chairs in the very back along with a huge gas tank. Needless to say it was not very comfortable. The best part was that Kyle and I had to share one seatbelt.
We got to Kyle’s house. It was a newly built house that Kyle found and asked if he could rent it for the remaining time he had in the country. Agreements are always funny in this country because the agreement changes all the time. I was talking to the landlord making small talk and he asked why we were here. I said that we wanted to see Kyle’s house and that we were going to be this upcoming weekend to help him move in. The landlord looked at me and asked “why is he moving his stuff here?” Naturally I answered “because he is moving in on the first”. Well this was news to this guy because he said that the place wouldn’t be finished for another 2 months. It was also news to Kyle when I told him that it would be a smart idea to talk to his landlord. They did talk and agreed (“agreed”) that the house would be finished on September 15th. I don’t know how 2 months of work turned into 2 weeks but we will see. So maybe the weekend of the 17th, we will help Kyle move. Probably not.
So after Kyle’s house, we went to Nick’s where we sat and drank some coffee, then continued onto Pat’s house and then mine. Before we went to my house, I asked if Nick (PTO) wanted to see the hole and the “landmine field” that was the school yard now that I dug all those test holes for the water. So we went by the school. Nick got in an argument with one of the cleaning ladies at the school because she was trying to convince Nick that water does go into the ground. She just couldn’t prove it.
As village news spreads like wildfire, not more than ten minutes later, my school director calls and says “so I hear your friends are in the village”. I said yes but that my “friends” (Nick and the Doctor) would be leaving soon since it was already 7ish and they still had to make the 2 hour drive back to Yerevan. Well, Nick ended up talking to the school director for about 15 minutes. After that Nick said that we could try a new approach. But, the grant was due the next day. All of it. Nick said to do what I could.
The next day came, which was the first day of school. Nick called at 11:30am and told me I had until midnight to get my grant done. Now, I had written most of the grant but now due to the changes we were making, I had to do my budget again and go to stores all over Martuni to get price quotes. I went to the village mayor who is totally awesome. He called my school director and told him to drive me wherever I needed to go. My school director is a really good guy too and he will do what he can to always help me out. So, ten minutes later, I got into my director’s car and off we went.
We got to spend about 5 hours of quality time together. What an interesting guy. I’m pretty sure he has short term memory loss, here’s why. As we were driving to Martuni, he asked me why I waited until the day it was due to do everything. I explained to him that Nick, the man he had spoken with the previous day, said that the project would work if some changes were made. Because of this, we had to run around and do everything quickly. He nodded his head and agreed and thanked me for doing this project. We went to the first store and got a price quote. We got back in the car, and he asked me the same question he asked me before about why I waited till the last day. I thought for a second. Maybe I misunderstood him or there was something I missed in the translation. No, there was no misunderstanding... he just asked the exact same question he asked about an hour previous. So, I again answered him politely with exactly how I answered before. He nodded the same way he did before. We then went to another store and then a cement store and he asked me the exact same question about why I had waited till the last minute. I started laughing. He asked me why I was asking. I told him I had answered that question before. His answer to that was a laugh and then him asking me again. At this point I said “Bareyan, I told you before and its because blah blah blah (I didn’t actually say blah blah blah but I gave him the same explanation that I had before). I mean if he thought that was rude, then he would have forgotten anyway so what difference does it make. That was the last time he asked that question. I did find it pretty comical. I gave him a lot of blank stares each time thinking “is this guy serious?”
Ok, so I ended up running all over the place, going to Martuni, running around my village, getting things translated, etc, but I got everything submitted by 11:30pm. I was exhausted. The following day, I woke up and went to the mayor’s office to get him to agree to the 25% he had to supply. Things do not move quickly here. In the States, if you want something signed, you walk in have 5 minutes of small talk, get your things signed and you’re out of there. No, not here. I went in, we went over every single thing, he called someone else in to make sure it was right, then we drank some coffee, talked for a while and then he finally signed my sheet. He thought the project was going to be about 10,000 dollars. It came out to be about 4600 dollars. He was really happy about that. Oh geez, so finally I got the sheet signed and then I left.
I then went to the school to talk with my school director before going into Martuni to get copies, and photos made of the project. I met up with some of my friends and then walked home. It felt good to be pretty much finished...
Friday morning, I went into Yerevan to get two more bids for rebar (which is incredibly expensive) and to talk to my Program Manager, Susanna. I walked into one store and asked him if he would give me a bid for rebar. He thought that I wanted him to sign a receipt, like I already paid for something because he kept saying “when you bring me the money, I will write you a receipt. This went back and forth for a long while, about 20 minutes. In this country for you to be taken seriously, you have to raise your voice. That is exactly what I did. I started yelling at the guy that this was not a receipt but it was just for bidding purposes. He called another guy into the room. He said that he wasn’t interested in helping me and told me to talk to this other guy. The other guy listened to what I had to say, and not more than 15 seconds later, asked “where’s the sheet”. I gave him the sheet, he asked me where to write everything, he signed it and stamped it and I was out of there in less than 4 minutes. I sure that I got about 15 grey hairs from that experience.
So onward I went to Yerevan, to the office. I gave everything to Marlena, the grant lady, and then I went to speak with Susanna. I was on cloud 9. I was so happy that I was finished with all the grant writing. I went and told Susanna about the grant and whatever else, when Marlena came and asked me where my translations were. Apparently I missed the fine print that said I needed to have translations for everything. Yeah, so I am still not completely finished with my grant. But its no big deal because they are over at my neighbors house and she will get them translated before tomorrow and Ill just fax them.
I needed a break from my “normal” life so I met up with some friends that night and we went to the Ireland vs. Armenia soccer game in Yerevan. It was actually a pretty boring game but Ireland won by a point. We then went a hung out for a bit and then went to bed. The following morning, we all went over to Jason’s house. Jason is the husband of my FLEX job boss. We went over there and he made us breakfast. Then we came back to Martuni. This was the first time in about 8 months all six of us had been together. So we had a barbeque at Nick’s house. It was really fun, later on in the night I came home.
Today, I am just doing laundry and getting some other small things done. I have to get ready for school tomorrow and the upcoming week. Its going to be a busy month but I guess that’s good.
So nothing new really to say. Grant writing is boring and monotonous and involves a lot of details that will just sneak up on you. But its for a good cause, and its not like I have to do it everyday. I really hope it goes through. So, cross your fingers.
Also, one of my friends told me about this website. This guy from 1910 took pictures of the Caucus area in red, blue, and green and super imposed them to come up with color pictures. Really interesting to see them. I had been to Tbilisi and there is a picture of Tbilisi in 1910 so that was really cool to see. Definitely worth having a look.
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/08/russia_in_color_a_century_ago.html
Until next time...
Monday started pretty poorly. That was the day I found out that my grant wasn’t going to work out. In my last post, I think I mentioned that I got back from Yerevan to find a large 5x5x3 meter hole by the old school bathroom. That just wasn’t going to work. This bathroom was time sensitive because if I waited until the November 24th deadline, then I wouldn’t be able to get the holes dug because of the frozen ground. So, it had to be done now or else I would have to wait until the following spring.
Tuesday came around. A long time ago I talked about what Peace Corps would do if there was an emergency and the volunteers had to be evacuated. Twice a year we have meetings for people in certain areas to come together to talk about our plan should an emergency happen. On Tuesday, it was our day to meet. It was good to see some of my friends that I hadn’t seen in a while since we have all been busy and it was good to see the new volunteers at their new sites. We had PC Washington’s doctor come out to do a check to see what we thought of the Doctors and how they were doing. After our meeting, which lasted about 5 hours, the doctor wanted to go see the living conditions of four of the volunteers; one of the four being me. So, our PTO, Nick and the Doctor and four volunteers crammed into a Toyota Land Cruiser. Kyle was moving so PC brought a huge gas tank with them. Everyone in the Martuni area, except for Hector, is 6 feet tall or taller. Pat is a pretty big guy. So, the doctor, Nick and the driver sat in the front, Nick (PTO- a pretty big guy) Pat and Vincent sat in the middle row, and Kyle and I sat on the fold down chairs in the very back along with a huge gas tank. Needless to say it was not very comfortable. The best part was that Kyle and I had to share one seatbelt.
We got to Kyle’s house. It was a newly built house that Kyle found and asked if he could rent it for the remaining time he had in the country. Agreements are always funny in this country because the agreement changes all the time. I was talking to the landlord making small talk and he asked why we were here. I said that we wanted to see Kyle’s house and that we were going to be this upcoming weekend to help him move in. The landlord looked at me and asked “why is he moving his stuff here?” Naturally I answered “because he is moving in on the first”. Well this was news to this guy because he said that the place wouldn’t be finished for another 2 months. It was also news to Kyle when I told him that it would be a smart idea to talk to his landlord. They did talk and agreed (“agreed”) that the house would be finished on September 15th. I don’t know how 2 months of work turned into 2 weeks but we will see. So maybe the weekend of the 17th, we will help Kyle move. Probably not.
So after Kyle’s house, we went to Nick’s where we sat and drank some coffee, then continued onto Pat’s house and then mine. Before we went to my house, I asked if Nick (PTO) wanted to see the hole and the “landmine field” that was the school yard now that I dug all those test holes for the water. So we went by the school. Nick got in an argument with one of the cleaning ladies at the school because she was trying to convince Nick that water does go into the ground. She just couldn’t prove it.
As village news spreads like wildfire, not more than ten minutes later, my school director calls and says “so I hear your friends are in the village”. I said yes but that my “friends” (Nick and the Doctor) would be leaving soon since it was already 7ish and they still had to make the 2 hour drive back to Yerevan. Well, Nick ended up talking to the school director for about 15 minutes. After that Nick said that we could try a new approach. But, the grant was due the next day. All of it. Nick said to do what I could.
The next day came, which was the first day of school. Nick called at 11:30am and told me I had until midnight to get my grant done. Now, I had written most of the grant but now due to the changes we were making, I had to do my budget again and go to stores all over Martuni to get price quotes. I went to the village mayor who is totally awesome. He called my school director and told him to drive me wherever I needed to go. My school director is a really good guy too and he will do what he can to always help me out. So, ten minutes later, I got into my director’s car and off we went.
We got to spend about 5 hours of quality time together. What an interesting guy. I’m pretty sure he has short term memory loss, here’s why. As we were driving to Martuni, he asked me why I waited until the day it was due to do everything. I explained to him that Nick, the man he had spoken with the previous day, said that the project would work if some changes were made. Because of this, we had to run around and do everything quickly. He nodded his head and agreed and thanked me for doing this project. We went to the first store and got a price quote. We got back in the car, and he asked me the same question he asked me before about why I waited till the last day. I thought for a second. Maybe I misunderstood him or there was something I missed in the translation. No, there was no misunderstanding... he just asked the exact same question he asked about an hour previous. So, I again answered him politely with exactly how I answered before. He nodded the same way he did before. We then went to another store and then a cement store and he asked me the exact same question about why I had waited till the last minute. I started laughing. He asked me why I was asking. I told him I had answered that question before. His answer to that was a laugh and then him asking me again. At this point I said “Bareyan, I told you before and its because blah blah blah (I didn’t actually say blah blah blah but I gave him the same explanation that I had before). I mean if he thought that was rude, then he would have forgotten anyway so what difference does it make. That was the last time he asked that question. I did find it pretty comical. I gave him a lot of blank stares each time thinking “is this guy serious?”
Ok, so I ended up running all over the place, going to Martuni, running around my village, getting things translated, etc, but I got everything submitted by 11:30pm. I was exhausted. The following day, I woke up and went to the mayor’s office to get him to agree to the 25% he had to supply. Things do not move quickly here. In the States, if you want something signed, you walk in have 5 minutes of small talk, get your things signed and you’re out of there. No, not here. I went in, we went over every single thing, he called someone else in to make sure it was right, then we drank some coffee, talked for a while and then he finally signed my sheet. He thought the project was going to be about 10,000 dollars. It came out to be about 4600 dollars. He was really happy about that. Oh geez, so finally I got the sheet signed and then I left.
I then went to the school to talk with my school director before going into Martuni to get copies, and photos made of the project. I met up with some of my friends and then walked home. It felt good to be pretty much finished...
Friday morning, I went into Yerevan to get two more bids for rebar (which is incredibly expensive) and to talk to my Program Manager, Susanna. I walked into one store and asked him if he would give me a bid for rebar. He thought that I wanted him to sign a receipt, like I already paid for something because he kept saying “when you bring me the money, I will write you a receipt. This went back and forth for a long while, about 20 minutes. In this country for you to be taken seriously, you have to raise your voice. That is exactly what I did. I started yelling at the guy that this was not a receipt but it was just for bidding purposes. He called another guy into the room. He said that he wasn’t interested in helping me and told me to talk to this other guy. The other guy listened to what I had to say, and not more than 15 seconds later, asked “where’s the sheet”. I gave him the sheet, he asked me where to write everything, he signed it and stamped it and I was out of there in less than 4 minutes. I sure that I got about 15 grey hairs from that experience.
So onward I went to Yerevan, to the office. I gave everything to Marlena, the grant lady, and then I went to speak with Susanna. I was on cloud 9. I was so happy that I was finished with all the grant writing. I went and told Susanna about the grant and whatever else, when Marlena came and asked me where my translations were. Apparently I missed the fine print that said I needed to have translations for everything. Yeah, so I am still not completely finished with my grant. But its no big deal because they are over at my neighbors house and she will get them translated before tomorrow and Ill just fax them.
I needed a break from my “normal” life so I met up with some friends that night and we went to the Ireland vs. Armenia soccer game in Yerevan. It was actually a pretty boring game but Ireland won by a point. We then went a hung out for a bit and then went to bed. The following morning, we all went over to Jason’s house. Jason is the husband of my FLEX job boss. We went over there and he made us breakfast. Then we came back to Martuni. This was the first time in about 8 months all six of us had been together. So we had a barbeque at Nick’s house. It was really fun, later on in the night I came home.
Today, I am just doing laundry and getting some other small things done. I have to get ready for school tomorrow and the upcoming week. Its going to be a busy month but I guess that’s good.
So nothing new really to say. Grant writing is boring and monotonous and involves a lot of details that will just sneak up on you. But its for a good cause, and its not like I have to do it everyday. I really hope it goes through. So, cross your fingers.
Also, one of my friends told me about this website. This guy from 1910 took pictures of the Caucus area in red, blue, and green and super imposed them to come up with color pictures. Really interesting to see them. I had been to Tbilisi and there is a picture of Tbilisi in 1910 so that was really cool to see. Definitely worth having a look.
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/08/russia_in_color_a_century_ago.html
Until next time...
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