The remaining potatoes

Khashi talking to his space commander...



Gayane and myself trying to look alive



Davit, who lived in Vermont, back in Armenia



Helen getting smothered by her mother after ten months being away.



Hovhannes, Gayane, me, and Christina at 6am. I look busted...

Since last Sunday, I guess nothing really extravagant has happened. A great way to start a blog...

School was pretty normal. Actually no it wasn’t and here’s why. Monday was a holiday, so no school. That was great. All I did was just sit around the house, read, and play some guitar. Tuesday I went to school and talked to my school director. It seems as though Peace Corps will be putting another volunteer here after I leave. They will be working at both my school and the other one. The school director also gave me my yearbook. It is awesome. For mine, there is a huge picture of myself on the front cover. Not only is a huge picture, but at the age of almost 26, I discovered that acne is still a ferocious adversary. In my picture, there is a nice red bull’s eye right under my right jaw line. Its a good one. Oh well. Pretty gross huh? Its really not that noticeable. Fortunately the small picture of me which is printed in all the yearbooks is too small leaving the small red headed friend undetectable. That was cool though and I am going to try to get everyone to sign it. (I mean the teachers).

We knew that we would have a consolidation drill sometime this week. Basically, twice a year we have to practice consolidating in a location with the other surrounding volunteers just in case the Azeri’s bomb Armenia, there is an earthquake, or whatever. Friday, we were going to meet anyway in Gavar so I was hoping that the test was going to be on Friday, or even Thursday. Nope, it wasn’t, it was on Wednesday. I got the text at 7am and after some profane words, called Hector to make sure he got the good news. It took forever for the taxi to come so I started cleaning my room. I swept, and mopped with a handtowel and organized some of the things in my room. He came, got me at my house, and then we went to Gavar after picking up Pat. Gavar is 45 minutes away, but it is a huge pain to get everyone together and then move there. As soon as we walked into Bryan’s house in Gavar, the drill was called off and we were free to return to our sites. Great. So we hung out for a little while and then went back home.

Thursday, I went to school and just graded a bunch of papers. Wasn’t that fun but it was something to do at school.

Friday, we got ready again and headed up to Gavar for Peace Corps week. We got up there, ate lunch, and then headed to one of the schools to present to Armenians what Peace Corps does in Armenia. That was fun. When it was my turn to stand up and talk about the health program, I went into great detail about what it was, and then told everyone that the program was shut down the previous year. That was funny. Afterwards, I was interviewed by a local TV station. I hate doing that because it has to be in Armenian and usually they ask the weirdest questions such as “what does it mean to be a volunteer.” Geez. The interview went well. A lot better than when I was interviewed during my training after swearing-in.

We headed over to the orphanage to play with the kids over there. That was awesome. The kids there were so cool. They just wanted to play soccer. So in my loafers, Kyle, Genya and myself played soccer with the kids. I think I broke my big toe. We played for 5 minutes before we had to leave. I was getting a ride with PC to Yerevan. It was fun playing with the kids though.

I got to Yerevan, went to the office and got rid of some of my things that I wanted to donate, took a shower in the office and then went out to meet Mane and Gayane. We walked around for a little while and then went to a Taco place. They had never been. They said they ate lots of Mexican food when they were studying in the US. They said it didn’t taste the same. Ha.

I left them and walked to Khashi’s house. There I just read because Khashi was working on his Master’s Thesis, Mohson was redoing his Master’s Thesis after it was accidentally deleted and his younger brother, Ardalan, was doing his undergrad thing. Mohson had been working on his project for ten days before it was lost. So, they stayed up until about 4am. I went and slept on Khashi’s bed until 5:15am.

I got in a pre-ordered cab and went to pick up Gayane and Mane. We went to the airport to welcome back the FLEX students who we taught last year before they went to the States. It has already been ten months since we taught them last year. It was really exciting to see them. I almost started crying but kept it together. The kids running out the door to be greeted by parents and friends there to see them for the first time in 10 months. Really a site to see. I congratulated each them. Most of the time with such responses as: “you’re still here” or “how was Khazakstan?” I’ve never been to Khazakstan nor did I tell anyone I was going there... After about 30 minutes of that, we all went back to the city. That was really great.

I came back to the village. Grandma is definitely leaving May 28th. Either way, I am moving out. I signed my papers to leave the village and move into the city June 1st. I will be traveling around and don’t want to be responsible for the house. The time for me to eat mounds of potatoes is diminishing. It was really sad watching Grandma sign my “release” paperwork. Ah...

I am still wearing my sub-zero down jacket in my house... Its nice outside but living in a concrete house only proves to be useful in the middle of the summer...

Until next time...