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...
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