Mona Lisa’s smile... overrated

Again, I appear to be way overdue with this blog thing. What is happening with the time. Is it really halfway through November already. Im not ready for that. I will recap the events of the last two weekends and explain things to come.

So, two weekends ago, I met up with my friend Ashot, who works at the Post Office in Martuni. It had been a long time since we hung out and he mentioned that. I asked him what he was doing that upcoming weekend. He said nothing, so we decided that we would do a khorovats or an Armenian BBQ outside. Some of my sitemates, Kyle and Nick, had school on Saturday, so I took my time getting into town. I bought the meat and Vincent marinaded them on Friday so they were good to go on Saturday. I got into town around 4 and called everyone. We met and Ashot came over with one of his friends. We bought some extra stuff and then we got in taxi’s and rode out to this area near the lake. It was really pretty out there.

We collected wood. That is one thing that I just don’t like to do. Collect wood. Usually because the places you want to build a fire is where everyone else has built a fire so there is no wood laying around, so you have to walk a half mile to find any decent wood. Anyway, we all found wood and built a fire. The fire was horrible. Combustion requires three things: fuel, oxygen, and an ignition source (heat). Well, we had all these things, but Ashot and his friend kept putting leaves on the fire, which is great if you want to make smoke signals but doesn't’ bode too well if you are trying to make coals because the charred leaves suffocate the potential coals from becoming coals. Finally, Nick told them not to put leaves on the fire, they said no, it is making the fire bigger... Yes, but for about 5 seconds and it totally defeats the purpose of what we are trying to do. That was awesome. So, we got Ashot’s attention turned to putting the meat on the skewers. We finally got coals. We also got darkness. Yeah, since we got out there so late, it was 6 by the time the meat made it onto the fire. We were standing in the dark. I think Ashot and his friend lost interest, because around 8, they walked back to the town. We stayed out there. The six of us, and it was fun. We really did have a great time. We hung out there until about ten and then walked home. The sky was great because it was clear with no moon so the starts were extra bright.

We got back to Vincent’s house and hung out there for a while and then Kyle and I walked to his house in Vaghashen. About a thirty minute walk. It was great until we walked through a construction site and got concrete all over our shoes. (Don’t worry, the next morning, after lots of scrubbing and picking, it all came off). We got to Kyle’s and talked for a while, played guitar, started watching “Back to the Future” and then fell asleep.

The next morning, we went to the market to meet up with Hector and Pat. We walked around for a bit and then headed home. Sunday’s its a bit weird because all the buses run through the Market, so you have to go to the market and then get on the bus to your village. Nevertheless it was fine. The next day I just did laundry and just hung out the house.
Following week, not too much to report on. The bathroom is coming along beautifully. They made some changes in the plans, plans that I was not too thrilled about. They changed things without thinking how it would effect things. For example, my design had four separate rooms with four doors for each bathroom. Two on one side of the school and two on the other. Yeah, well, they decided that they were going to put in just two doors and put a wall in the middle. This is a common practice in Armenia. However, the problem comes when the second person is finished using the bathroom and wants to leave and opens the door to everyone in the outside world. Basically, if you are popping a squat, and you aren’t finished yet, in the first toilet position, everyone is going to be able to see you doing your business. I brought this problem up. They said it was fine. I disagreed, so we are making a new wall that will obstruct the view. Cinderblocks being only 33 cents each, that problem won’t be that hard to fix. That is about the only problem that there is. Anyway, the bathroom will probably be finished next week. Today I walked about the place and they are putting paint on the walls and tomorrow or the next day they are going to lay the tiles. Good.

This past Friday I went to Yerevan to have a meeting with my sub-committee members about the Flashmob. Its going to be awesome. We planned everything out. Afterwards, I went to the T-shirt place and ordered 87 T-shirts for the volunteers. Pretty exciting. This event will take place December 1st.

Next week is going to be hectic. I guess everyone at home will be in a rush as well since Thanksgiving is right around the corner. This upcoming Saturday, the guys in the area are going to throw a Thanksgiving dinner. I am going to make Apple Pie. Let me rephrase. I am going to attempt to make Apple Pie. Im looking forward to it. Then, I head off to Lisa’s site with Mike to teach a lesson at her school and then head to Mike’s town to help him cook Thanksgiving dinner for his school. Mike works at a school for the mentally disabled so he got money from his church and some other volunteers and ourselves, are going to make Thanksgiving for them. Should be a story... Then we have our All-Volunteer’s Conference the following week. There we have another Thanksgiving dinner. Geez. Im going to be all turkey-ed out. Wait, no I won’t because Grandma has really been sticking with Potato dishes lately. I won’t be back to site until December 3rd. Weird. After All-Vol, I am going to stay with my Solak (training village) host family. Zhora my host Dad there, keeps calling me asking why I haven’t been coming by. I haven’t seen them since the summer. Its been a really long time.

Tomorrow my host brother comes back from the Army. After the two years of mandatory service, he will be here. There is usually a pretty big party for neighbors and friends to come over and congratulate the guy coming home. Grandma is preparing right now making all sorts of food. More than likely, tomorrow night I am going to slip into a food coma. Looking forward to it. Soon thereafter, he is going to move to Germany to be with his Mom and his younger brother. After that, Grandma is going back to Belarus. She says probably before the New Year. I don’t know what I am going to do, but thought about just moving into the town and commuting to school every morning which won’t be that hard. Who knows? However, I am starting to look for places to live.

I will be uprooted at that point. Of course my real family is in the States but my family, in Armenia will all be gone. I won’t have something to come back to in the future. Sure, I have made friends but my family here is the one that took care of me. That empty feeling is starting to creep on me now. I guess I’ll just have to take things one day at a time.

Grandma. She has been with me the longest during my Peace Corps Service. Like I have mentioned several times before, we understand each other. We kind of have our own language too. Its going to be rough seeing her go. Yesterday, I was watching her cut up meat and she just has a way of doing things that is really funny. She looked over because I was smiling and she just looked at me and just smiled. Not just a smile but a real genuine smile that you don’t find everyday. A rare glimpse of a 70 year old Great-Grandmother smiling. Another one of those memories that is burned into my memory; a smile that surpasses any other that I’ve seen. A camera just won’t do it...

Picture explanation:
1) Kyle being Kyle... Awesome
2) You can notice on the right side a mound of leaves... you understand now. This was Vincent blowing on the fire. He did this for about 15 minutes. Afterwards, he passed out. It was pretty funny.
3) Building the Fire

Until next time...

A punctuation mark... but not really

This post may be a little weird but I just had to write it because I thought it was funny, but probably not very culturally sensitive.

So, last weekend, I had two volunteers come and stay with me. One of them being a girl and the other a guy (Mike). Anyway, we walked to Hector’s village and when we walked back, I ran into my Aunt who asked me to come and have coffee with her. The girl had to go to the bathroom so my Aunt told her which way to go. The girl came out and said that she had ten minutes to get home. I asked her why. She said she was having her period. Well, as you can imagine, when someone asks you to have coffee and then you just use their bathroom and you have to leave, its a little rude. So, I told my Aunt that we had to go home. She asked why. I said that the girl needed to get home because she was having girl issues. (That is in fact exactly what I said “girl issues”).

I told my Aunt that Mike and I could stay and the girl could go back because I didn’t want to be rude. Then my Aunt flat out said “I don’t want you guys to stay, I already know you guys, I want to talk with the girl.” Then I said that we could come back which my Aunt responded, its going to be too dark.

Ok, so we got home and the girl took care of whatever.

A couple days ago my Aunt came over to my house and my Grandma asked about Mike, the girl, and I coming by her house. My Aunt said that we had to leave early. Grandma asked why. My Aunt said that the girl was sick. Then Grandma got very concerned and asked “sick? She didn’t look sick.” Then my Aunt said “she was sick” trying to hint at it. Grandma still didn’t get it. I got frustrated because its a bit awkward still for Armenians to talk about that stuff and they refer to the monthly menstrual cycle as “being sick.” Well I took the liberty to chime in because it was getting frustrating for this back and forth-ness.

I told Grandma that the girl had “girl issues.” Grandma still didn’t get it. So I said it again slowly trying to imply something. Grandma still didn’t get it. So then I said, “it’s when red water comes from a woman once a month.” Grandma started laughing and her face got really red. I had embarrassed her but then she asked how I knew about it. I figured that was a good time to end that conversation. We spoke no more of that and the conversation came to an abrupt end.

I think that was the highlight of my week. Nothing else really happened. The bathroom project is coming along very nicely (better than I expected) and the flashmob planning is going well. The weather has started to get warmer. I don’t get it, but being in a house with two foot concrete walls really doesn’t do much to keep you warm, in fact, its kind of like living in a refrigerator. Beautiful day today though.

Matt. Are you still alive? Thank you Brandon for reading months of blogs to catch up. I hope you’re not lying to me because there will be a quiz when I get back to the States...
Until next time...

Pictures for Halloween weekend

1) Me and Noravank
2) Me and the Distiller
3) Emily, Mike (my group) Becky and Meag (new group)
4) The walk down from Noravank. Really nice through the canyon
5) My village Verin Getashen

Rosemary's Baby is horrible...

Work during fall break... But my understanding was fall break meant vacation. I was wrong. Monday, I went into Martuni because a lot of the volunteers were going there for a sports conference. Because there were so many volunteers there, I decided that this would be a good time to invite the other health volunteers to come to get some stuff done. In one of the previous writings, I explained how the Health and Environmental Programs have been cancelled in Armenia. However, Health is still a major concern in Armenia and as PC Volunteers we wanted to keep this idea still alive. So, the formerly known Health Volunteers got together and we wrote up one-sheet, really easy health lessons that anyone could do. For example. One thing we decided to do is to get water-based paint and poster paper and have kids dip their hands in the pant and stick their hands on the posterboard. Then, we would wash our hands and while we were washing, we would show the correct hand washing methods. We did that and we came up with an AIDS T-shirt design for the flashmob. Surprisingly, we got a lot of stuff done.

Mike came on Monday to hang out this week because he didn’t have school and because there was no more room at Kyle’s house, Ashley came and stayed too. The next morning, I was woken by my school director who called at 8:00am and said that they needed to talk about the grant. So I was at the school by 9:00am and we talked about grant stuff. Currently they are almost finished with the septic tank and drainage system and they have taken off the old plaster material which lays on the walls now. We bought the toilets and sinks and some other things so that should start this upcoming week. So, when I walked to school, I found out that we had school. There were kids going to school. Things are like the States here. The previous Friday, it was announced that there would be no school and then without telling me, Saturday there was an announcement that there would be school the following week. Well, I had this conference, so I ended up not going to school. On Wednesday, after we did our work, Ashley, Mike and I walked out to Hector’s village. It was a nice day to take a walk. We went out there, ate, and then came back.

Thursday, Ashley left and Mike and I walked to Kyle’s house to make sure that everything was clean and that nothing was broken because when you have that many people in one house, something is bound to break. Nope, not this time. Nothing broke and everything was clean. However, as Alex (a new volunteer) was packing, he threw his sleeping bag to his backpack and the drawcord caught on a picture frame and the frame fell to the floor and broke (just a corner). We were so close so we left some money for that. Not a big deal. But we were just so close. Afterwards, we walked back to Martuni and put some people on buses. Mike and I went back to the village.

The following day, I decided that I would go down to Yeghegnadzor where Emily lives. I had promised her for about ten months that I would visit her. So I took the bus to Martuni. There is a pass that connects Martuni to Yeghegnadzor and that is how people from Yeghegnadzor trade their fruit with the people of Martuni who sell potatoes. If you go through Yerevan, it would take about 5 hours. However, this pass allows you to go from one place to the other in less than an hour. There is no public transportation between the two places so you have to know someone to drive you. Its called the “Selim Pass” and it used to be part of the real Silk Road. There is even an old Persian Hotel there and it looks over the whole valley and its gorgeous.

One of my relatives said that they knew someone that worked for the Army and could drive us down the pass. We met him on the road. He said he was going to Yeghegnadzor. So, I noticed this when I opened the door, but next to the center console was an automatic machine gun pointed up at the ceiling. This guy had army fatigues on. As I was getting in, he said, “don’t step on that.” I thought that was a given...

Anyway, the Selim Pass was just as advertised. It was absolutely gorgeous and it was a really quick ride. We talked about different things on the way down the road. He asked if we wanted to stop at the old Persian Hotel. So we stopped and took some pictures and we were back on our way. While we were riding, Hovik (the driver) got an apple out of his center console and handed it to Mike in the backseat and then got a knife out and handed him a knife. But, it was no ordinary knife. It was a military issue bowie knife that had a footlong blade on it. I really wish someone was there to take a picture of our facial expressions as he whipped that thing out. I mean really, who pulls out a blade that size to cut an apple?

By talking to him, I found out that this guy was right below a General. I don’t know what that is here but he said he controlled the different regimes here. A pretty high up guy. We got to Yeghegnadzor and he took us to a cafe and we sat down and drank coffee and talked some more. After some time, I found out that he owned the cafe. It was a really nice cafe, like to American standards nice. Emily, Meag, and Beckie met us and we talked with the guy for a while and then left after several thank you’s. Hovik said that if I needed a ride back, he would give me a ride and gave me his phone number. He said he really appreciated what we were doing for his country.

We went to Emily’s house, which is really cool, and we made pizza. Kind of. Whatever it was, it was good but it wasn’t really pizza. We then walked Meag home and went by this tank. Like a real blow-things-up tank and we played around in it. Mike went inside and moved the barrel around. We got back and went straight to bed.

Mike and I got to share the futon which was great since it was so big... (just in case you missed the sarcasm, it was really small).

The next day some other volunteers came by and we hung out. Nothing really that interesting, they left in the morning, and I helped Emily’s host family make vodka. It was awesome. I know how to distill vodka. Really easy actually. If you are a US Government official, don’t worry, I know the laws about distilling alcohol. But while Im in another country, Im taking advantage of it. Emily had work to do, her host mom had work to do and so did her dad, so I got to keep an eye on the vodka. I sat by the distiller and played guitar while I waited for one jar to fill up before I put another jar under the tap. It was 160 proof but it didn’t burn your nostrils and smelled really good. However, taking it, the vodka burned and probably took all the color off of my insides. The whole distilling process was cool.

That day, Emily and I went to Noravank, which is an old chuch somewhere in the mountains. She studied photography in school and took a lot of pictures of me which I have posted. She also taught me ways to better take photos. Really interesting. We got a ride to the top and then walked the 8km back down the mountain. We got back to Emily’s house and had barbeque at the family’s house. It was really good.

The next day, it was back to the distiller in the morning and then the next day we went to a 4th century bridge. It is part of the Silk Road and still has Arabic written on the side. We then walked the long way through a village and came back to make chili, cornbread, and apple pie for Halloween. Some other volunteers came over for dinner and watching some movies. We watched “the uninvited” and “Rosemary’s Baby”. “Rosemary’s Baby” is probably the worst movie ever made. “The Uninvited” was alright, but if any of you know me, you know that I don’t do well with scary movies. I think it all started when I watched the Stephen King “It” when I was in second grade with my Dad. Thanks Dad for scaring the crap out of me when I was so young.

It was a nice weekend. I came home and my Grandma said that we didn’t have gas and we hadn’t had water for the last 9 days. So we didn’t have gas to heat up our igloo house, or water... I know most of you are like "oh, you're in Peace Corps, thats suppused to happen" but see the problem with this is, I live in a really nice house and for the last 15 months, I have had 24/7 electricity, water, and gas. When the water goes out for 5 hours, it is a bit of a panic. There are a lot of places in Armenia where this is not possible, such as my training village but I learned to make due without running water. Now being here, I have learned to have all these "necessities" so not having water and gas is a big deal for me.

Fortunately, the water came on yesterday but we are still without gas and it leaves me to wear my marshmallow jacket around the house. The long underwear has come out and I guess this means it will stay out until next May. Sweet. The winter is here. The mountains all around us are covered completely with snow. It snowed here while I was in Yeghegnadzor on Saturday. It has begun.

On a separate front. The bathroom is coming along really nicely. Hopefully to be completed in two weeks. One thing off my mind.

Now the flashmob is my biggest stressor. Sweet.

Alright, that’s about all I have. I hope people are doing well and had a good Halloween.

Done and done.

Until next time...