When coming back from Spain, I was wondering what Armenia would feel like. Everytime the plane makes its final decent, that recurring question sticks in my mind. This time, there was no problem.
In the Peace Corps office I slept from about 5:30am to 10:30am and then went to the doctors because my ear still felt like there was a lot of pressure. Apparently, I had some kind of infection in my ear (thanks Will) and the pressure didn’t help it at all. I got back to the village and things have been going pretty well.
At school, we finished all the health lessons so I have been teaching English. It has been fun doing that. Why is it that when you get the hang of things, that’s when you have to leave? The bathroom and the cafeteria are both finished now, but I am not finished with my project. I need receipts for everything. The way this project works is that 25% of the money has to be supplied from the community or the organization. All the receipts from my end of the project have been collected, but there is still about 40,000 dram or 110 dollars that I need to collect from the school in form or an “in-kind” contribution. The school director signed an agreement that by March 17th, everything would be finished. Its still not finished. I threatened him by saying that the next time a grant is written for the school it will be nearly impossible to get one approved, which may in fact be the case.
In other news, I wrote a PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief) grant. Last year, we went to three Universities in Yerevan and gave presentations on AIDS and its transmission and prevention. We also went to an LGBTQ organization and gave a presentation there. They were a wild success as the rooms were packed with students, some even willing to stand. Peace Corps is all about sustainability, so I had an idea to do a Training of Trainers, or a ToT, to train Armenians on how to give presentations on the subject of AIDS. This is tricky for Armenians because AIDS is still a taboo subject. One that is not talked about. The grant was written with the help of my PTO, Nick, to get 30 participants, 20 Armenians and 10 PCVs, to come to Yerevan for a 2 day training course on AIDS, presenting, maybe behavior changes, and some other things. Last week I learned we got the money. 9000 dollars will be used for the materials and trainings and hopefully this information will directly meet at least 1600 Armenians in the Regions. From there, hopefully information will spread more by mouth. I am very excited about this project for many reasons. First, its probably going to be my last project because we are going to have this ToT by late April, early May. Secondly, because this project will give me something to do as I only have applications, french, and English classes to teach in the village. Lastly, because I can see something that I started become more sustainable and hopefully this will continue into the future.
We are working with the Armenian Red Cross and American Councils in this and we already had our first meeting. It went really well and we have a second one planned this upcoming tuesday to get into the meat of things.
In other news, nothing much is happening. The weather is finally starting to change which is great in one regard but awful in another. It is good because the warm weather is coming and I don’t have to freeze anymore. The bad news is that I sent my boots home already and now that everything is melting, my village is basically a really huge mud pit. Sweet. I don’t know how many times Grandma has told me that she is so happy because she is not going to be planting potatoes this year. Im pretty happy about that too. She said that she will be leaving sometime in early April. We will see how things go, but at the rate things are going, I think she may actually leave.
To pay off the outstanding debt of about 4000 dollars to send my host brother to Belgium, parts of the house are being sold. People came over to buy our kitchen table and stools, and then all the cabinets off the walls. So, there is nothing in the kitchen. Also, we no longer have our space-aged shower. That was sold. Everything in the living room is going to stay because the host father bought it and they want to keep it for sentimental reasons, even though the family will probably never come back to Armenia. I don’t understand, but ok. They said that I could continue to live there for the remaining 4 months that I have.
Other than that, that is all the news I have. My mom is in Korea visiting family and Dad is at home watching all the NCAA games. However, one of my good friends from Moldova is coming to visit me in 10 days. Im really excited. We met in Kiev last March and she is a PCV there in Moldova. More to come.
Until next time...
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