A Martuni Resident

Kyle, Hector, Me, Pat with the Volcano behind us.



Goodbye Kyle. He is number 2 of six to leave the Martuni 6 group



Playing Ball at the top of the Volcano



Church, lake, snow...



Yes, there is a road that goes to the top. Instead, all the times we have made it to the top, we have gone up this incline. Not easy...

As an official resident of the local town to my village, I feel like nothing has really changed. As far as my work is concerned, it is easier to get “home” now. I don’t have to walk through the dingo infested field before getting to my village, I don’t have to haggle with the taxi drivers about taking me home, and I don’t have do all this while carrying usually a cumbersome load on my back. Now, I let everyone get off of the marshutni and then the driver drives up basically to where I live now. Very easy.

This does have its down sides. Grandma is gone now. For sure. She is gone. She called and she is in Belarus. I know that she was supposed to leave last December, but it is a fact now, she is in Belarus. I have been busy so I haven’t really noticed it too much except for the few things here and there. I don’t have someone yelling at me to have coffee so now I don’t drink coffee in the morning. No one to drink it with. When I get back home now, my clothes are not clean on my bed. This year, when I would get back from wherever I was, all my clothes would be clean. Ignoring my requests, Grandma would go into my room, take all my dirty clothes, wash them, dry them, and have them in my room. Also, I have to go to the grocery store or market and buy my own food, and then make it. I know these things may seem trivial but she really did take care of me. I have to incorporate time out of my day now to do those necessary things that I never had to think about in the past. Mainly, I miss the coffee and the conversation associated with that ritual. I live a different life now. I feel like I am a freshman in college after being taken of by my parents in high school. Ok, maybe not so much.

My roommate Pat, has actually been a great roommate. He is not here because of Green Camps, but when he was here last week, it was good.

Last Tuesday, we hiked up the volcano again, for one last time… at least for Kyle. It was nice getting up there. We woke up early, took the bus to Hector’s village, walked up the mountain, thought I was going to die, and then walked down. Really fun. Ill attach some pictures. I wore the shirt I got at Kamran’s gay bar in Barcelona when we inadvertently scheduled the wrong night to go to the normally straight club. (Yes Kamran, this will haunt you for the rest of your life…)

Last Thursday, Hovik, our new Regional Manager came to my village. He picked me up and we went in to meet my school director and the director at the other school. My village is the only village in this area that even applied for a volunteer. Last year there were 8 volunteers just in the Martuni area, next year…one, two at most. Both in my village. Our marz, or state, went from being the largest consolidation point to one of the smallest.

It was fun though, going through the village and locating host families. More than likely Vardan will be hosting the new volunteer. I had to laugh. I am planning on going back to the village when the new volunteer is there to show them around.

Speaking of, since my last writing, the new group of volunteers, A-19s, have arrived in Armenia. I think yesterday they went to their training village host families. It is a bit nostalgic thinking back now because I can picture being dropped off at my training village host family two years ago. Surreal.

Anyway, after that, I went into Yerevan and met with Chris and our new Pre-Departure-Orientation group. Like last year, I will be teaching Armenians about American life and culture. During a very intensive 3 days, the Armenian students will learn about integrating, customs, culture, etc. I loved it last year and I expect to share the same thoughts this year.

I was introduced to my new Teaching Assistant, Diana. She finished her last University exams ever yesterday. Congratulations. So, we planned on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Sporadically in the mix, I managed to finish my school applications. I have yet to start on my Description of Service. Whatever. It is weird working with Diana as her style is very different from Gayane’s. I also think Diana doesn’t understand my sense of humor and views me more as an authoritative figure than as a colleague. I’ve always wondered when that magic age is. I found it… 26. Regardless, we are having a good time planning and I’m certain that the PDO will go very well next weekend.

After we planned on Saturday, Diana went with me to the post office as it was right next to her house. I had two boxes I wanted to send home. One was 3.1kg and the other about 4.3kg. To send a 3.1kg box home would be about 27,000 dram or about 80 dollars. As with most Armenian places, Armenians get very excited if they notice a foreigner speaking their language. I spoke to the post lady for a while and she asked me if the things in my boxes could be broken up. I said yes, and she got out several boxes. Apparently, if you can send a box weighing 2kg or less, its 7,000 dram or about 20 dollars. So we sat there, working together to package and weigh the boxes, going back and forth from the scale to the box, taking things out, adding other things in. So, right now, there are 4 boxes on their way to America and it cost me just 90 dollars or so.

I got home from Yerevan and I hung out with Hector and Kyle. Kyle is leaving on Saturday to go home to start studying at Syracuse. It is a shame he is leaving. So we made burritos. Very good.

Tuesday I went to Gavar to help judge the spelling bee. Some of those kids were amazing. Even though they probably just know how to spell the word and don’t know how it is used in a sentence, it was really impressive to hear these students spell these really difficult words. The funny part was, Katrina and I were assigned for the 11th and 12th graders. Some of those words, I had never heard before, so we were looking up the pronunciation of them. Katrina had the hardest words and during the word read out, she would lean over and discuss how to pronounce the word. We had a good time though. Really impressed with the kids.

On my way back, since there is no direct route from Gavar back home, I had to take a bus to the road, and then flag down another bus going toward Martuni. As I was walking around trying to figure out which bus to take, I asked people on a bus if this bus went by the intersection I needed to get to. Some of the kids heckled me and kept saying “oui, oui”. Naturally, in Armenian, I said “oui” was French and that I was an American, then while walking away, adding “moron” for good measure.

I saw another bus coming, the one I needed to be on. It pulled up next to the bus of kids who heckled me. I sat down on my bus and started reading. Those kids came over and apologized for giving me a hard time. They said the bus driver heard them and that they got yelled at. We spoke for a while and off they went. That made me feel a lot better about things.

It is weird being back in Martuni. Last night was the first night I had slept alone. I can count on one hand how many nights I had slept in a house by myself. Weird feeling. This month is busy, but July is soon to come and things will surely slow down.

The weather here is nice, but if you can believe it, in the middle of June, there is still snow on the surrounding mountains. Last year at this time, there was no snow anyway around mid-May.

Until next time…