Grandma is leaving May 29th. Although she has not bought her tickets, she has her papers to leave, she has squared away everything she needs to, and her granddaughter and her two children will have their papers together by next Wednesday. At the same time, I decided that I too will be moving out of the village. There is no work for me here and I would rather not be responsible for the house if Grandma is not here.
Monday, I was walking in from outside into the living room. Grandma was standing looking out the window and asked me to come over. She asked if she could give me something. I saw that she had some kind of necklace in her hand. It was an Eastern Orthodox silver cross. She said that she didn’t have much but she wanted me to have something that I could wear to always remember her by. This necklace, I think, is older than I am because she said it was from Ukraine and she hasn’t been there in over twenty years. She had been wearing the cross for years. She said that earlier the previous week she was thinking about it, and decided to take off and clean the blackened necklace and give it to me. Yes, I will always remember this lady whom I lived with for almost two years.
Afterwards, the mood was heavy. We started eating lunch and she started talking about ways we could keep in touch. I told her that I didn’t want to talk about it because it was sad and that we had a good two weeks together still. I had written a letter and had it translated into Russian. I wrote the translation on paper and attached some pictures of our time together. (Thank you Gayane for translating the letter). It was very difficult to write. How do you simultaneous give so much thanks while saying goodbye to someone who does not know how to use email, internet, or barely the phone? She does not read Armenian, I do not know Russian. I know her memory will be with me for the rest of my life but I dread seeing her off at the airport.
Tuesday, I headed into Martuni to say goodbye to Nick. He is the first out of our group to go home. He is heading off to grad school which starts in June. Slowly, one by one we will be leaving. Kyle is leaving mid-June, Hector mid-July. The remaining three of us will be here until August 13th when we officially close our service.
Likewise at school it has been rough going through the day. Kids constantly asking when I will be leaving, in addition to the teachers and nurses I used to work with. On a funnier note, it cracks me up when they say they will find me a nice Armenian girl so that I will stay here.
My mindset has changed from Armenia to the US. I have started planning my way home. Mike and I will do some traveling actually meeting up with friends we met on some of our other travels. The stress has turned from getting work in Armenia done to filling out Med school applications, cleaning up my resume, writing my “Description of Service,” and cleaning my room and packing my things up to move out.
I recently just finished reading “The Caucasus” by Thomas De Waal. It is an interesting book which I wish I had read earlier in my service which puts into perspective the struggles this area has endured. To learn more about this area which has been tossed around between Soviet, Persian, and Byzantine rule, pick up this book.
The area is green. Lots of rain. During the day, the weather is fine, but usually I still have to put on my down jacket inside the house because of the concrete block I live in. Im ready for the warm weather to come and stay...
Until next time...
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