1. No explanation needed...

2. During Thanksgiving I decided to take some headshots of the guys in my area. I was inspired by reading a “New Yorker” which had headshots of many of the world’s presidents. A photographer stood outside the UN building and stopped as many of the presidents as he could and took pictures of them. The layout was nice too with a black and white of Obama on the opposing page of a color photo of Ahmadinejad.

3. Coming down from Artik, the driver took a weird way so we went by these stone carvings of the Armenian Alphabet.

Dad... again some explanations

1. One of the defaced cemetery stones. You may be able to see the crescent and star at the top of the stone.

2. A church up near Novemberyan, Lisa’s site, with the original structure dating back to the 4th century with a rebuild in the 12th century.

3. Arpine came to our Thanksgiving. She had some work in Tbilisi and asked if I she could bring something back for me. I said a coke. The bottling plants here and there are the same so it was meant as a joke. She brought me that can though...

4. Basketball Photo of both the A-17s (champions) and A-18s (non-champions). Bill, the guy holding up his finger wearing the blue shirt didn’t even play. I don’t know why he is in the picture...

5. Proof the flashmob did happen. It was epic

A Bittersweet Symphony

Whoa nelly it has been a long time since I have written but there is a lot to write. Lots of traveling, and lots of stories and opinions.

Since I last wrote, I have been going around the country for various reasons. This was well before Thanksgiving and as I write I realize how long it has been since I have been back to my site. I left on Friday, November 19th from my village and went to Kyle’s house in Vaghashen. Kyle is one of my site mates. I packed my huge bag full of clothes, a sleeping bag, etc. for two weeks and off I went. The six of us got together and started getting stuff for Thanksgiving. We were preparing for Thanksgiving Martuni style 2010 in Vaghashen. Since I was leaving for the upcoming week and some of the others wanted to go to other parts of Armenia for actual Thanksgiving, we had it on Saturday, November 20th. At Vincent’s house, Hector, Vincent, Pat, and Nick prepared sides and the turkeys, and at Kyle’s house, I made a bunch of apple pie (from scratch-yes, PC has taught me how to cook things and not reheat them...). Kyle made mashed potatoes and Rosa made biscuits.

We invited our whole Marz (state) and the Marz over. In total there were 13 people there but we had enough food to easily feed over 40. We got tables and chairs from neighbors and sat down and ate Thanksgiving together. Mom, I even gave a prayer of thanks and it wasn’t dumb. We ate, and ate, and ate and ate... and ate. There were a lot of people who overate. Hector looked like he had a really bad hangover, but in fact, just ate way too much. I was in the same boat. The bathroom was the most popular room. The food was good and cooked and everything, it was just the fact that people needed to create some space... After that, in true Thanksgiving form, Hector downloaded an American football game which was played on Halloween night and we sat down and watched football. This was Hector’s third time watching the game... This, in true Peace Corps Style. I loved it. After this, the guys and I made a “Martuni Christmas Card.” It is attached. For those of you who do not read my blog, I will be mailing some out. But since you don’t read my blog, you don’t know that so I don’t know why I just wrote it.

Thanksgiving was great. On Sunday, November 21st, I went to Yerevan and met Mike. I got some work done in Yerevan concerning the flashmob and that was that. Mike and I then went over to Kilikia bus stop and waited to head up to Novemberyan. A town in the Northeastern part of Armenia. I had never been up there before. It was a weird ride because pretty much everyone talked to us. I mean its cool and fun at first but after the first 20 minutes, it gets old. There is an unstated rule that when the vehicle is moving, there is no more talking. This was not the case. It was a 3 and a half hour ride. Not too bad for Armenian standards. The weird thing was, while we were riding, there is a tunnel. Before the tunnel, everything is flat, there are no trees, or really anything. We went through this tunnel and emerged on the other side to see a completely different scene of trees everywhere, hills, and rivers. Really nice. I felt like I was back in the mountains of NC. We got to Novemberyan and met up with Lisa. Lisa is a 40-something who looks like a 30 something. She is pretty cool and very interesting. We bought some supplies and then took a cab up to her village. She lives in a cottage looking house by herself. It was pretty nice. We were there for 3 nights. When we got there on Sunday, we just had dinner, talked and went to bed. Monday morning, we went into another town and went to a really nice art center. There were two girls there who run the art center. They were really nice and had some nice things to offer. Lisa usually takes stuff from the art center and brings them to some of the PC functions to sell them. Usually they sell pretty well. We got back to Lisa’s house and cooked dinner and then helped Lisa with her grant writing and some school preparations. Then we went for a walk around her village. She took us to an old Azerbaijani cemetery. Azeris inhabited this area until 1988 when they were driven out. Their graves were defaced. It was a sad sight. All of the stones except two were defaced. Most were pushed over and the whole area was not very well kept. Walking through was interesting though. The Azeri stones had the star and crescent and had their occupation on the side of the stone in the form of a picture. For example, if the person was a doctor, there was a picture of a syringe; if there was a sewing machine, a tailor. Like that.

The next day, we went finished up some more grant things and worked on the Health packets I have been working on for such a long time. Around 1, we called a taxi to take us to two old style churches. They were really pretty and far away. By this point, we were about 15 minutes, driving from the Georgian border. The churches were nice but I don’t remember the names and like I said before the churches are basically all the same, just the location is different. It was nice regardless.

We got back to the house and relaxed a bit. That night we made pizza. Actually that whole week was nice. We made egg rolls (from scratch), pizza, tuna melt (the tuna was in cans sent from the States. A commodity here... We also made brownies from the States. At this point, I had gained about 4.7 pounds between eating this food and eating at Kyle’s. Danelle came over just for dinner. She is a new volunteer. That night, we set mouse traps because Lisa was not having any luck catching mice. Mike and I set about 5 traps. It was funny because Lisa set the kind where you put glue on a piece of glass or something, and she got the glue all over the place. Great fun. The next morning, we had snapped the neck of two mice (you’re welcome Mom). We set more and off we were to Artik where Mike lives. We didn’t go through yerevan but found another way. We went to Vanadzor by marshutni or small bus and switched to a shared taxi. It was a really pretty ride and I wish I took pictures along the way. Anyway, we got to Gyumri and helped Lisa again with her grant. We went to a playground store and ordered some things for Lisa. Then we went to get lunch and Mike and I were on our way. We took the train from Gyumri to Artik and got to Artik around 7. I had to carry my bag from the train station to Mike’s house. Mike had moved... further away... from where he lived before. My bag was not light.

We got to Mike’s house. His house is really nice actually. His renter lives above him but he lives in a pretty cozy place. He is getting along really nicely there and is much happier now. Im happy for him. Nicole was there. She is the only married one in our group. She was there seeing her mentee who is Mike’s sitemate. It was fun. We got there on Wednesday night and hung out and then on Thursday, we got ready for Thanksgiving at Mike’s school. Mike’s church back home in Texas got money together and sent about 200 dollars over to provide for Thanksgiving dinner at Mike’s school. Some of the older volunteers from Gyumri came and helped cook everything. Mike works at a “special school for the mentally disabled”. I don’t understand that because when I am there, I seem to have trouble differentiating between the students there and any other kid. Maybe ADD is a mental disability here.

So you know back in the States, families spend hours making the Turkeys. Well, Michael went to the school and checked up on everything around 10am. The Thanksgiving meal was supposed to be around 2:30. Well, the Turkeys were just in a large pot still in water, uncooked. Mike was not pleased but came back laughing saying that we were going to be having chicken soup... We all went to the school and were pleasantly surprised. The turkeys were actually really nice and turned out well. Apparently they boiled the turkeys and the broiled them. 200 dollars was enough to cover the cost of 4 turkeys and pies and stuffing, drinks and some other things for 80-90 people. The dollar has the potential to go a long way here. It was a lot of fun and the kids seemed to be liking the food. Barbara was a bit concerned because apparently she has tried to do something like this before. She had brought the pumpkin pie and was certain that none of the kids would eat it. So, I went around to every kid and asked if they had tried the Pumpkin pie. They said no, so I asked them to try it. If they said no, I just stared at them until they tried a little piece. They would like it and eventually eat the whole thing. Some of the kids got more. I was pleased about that. The whole event went really well. I was really happy and proud of Mike. Afterwards we went to Mike’s and had a Thanksgiving of our own. One of my friends, Arpine who is from Armenia, came down from Gyumri and had Thanksgiving with us. She was a FLEX student and does a lot of international work and knows English really well. I get surprised when she speaks Armenian because I forget that she is Armenian. She is really cool though. It was a good group who was up there. Nicole, Ashley, Mike... I guess that was it. It was a good group. We just hung around Artik until Sunday when I came to Yerevan. This week was All-Vol of the All Volunteer’s conference that is held in Yerevan every year. I went on Sunday to help cook the Peace Corps Thanksgiving dinner. I helped make 25 pies of various tastes and cut up a garbage bag of stale bread for stuffing. That is hard.

The conference started on Tuesday. Monday was our travel day but Monday night we had our Thanksgiving dinner. This year was weird. It wasn’t as good as the previous year, maybe because the novelty of it had worn. Don’t know. But after dinner, we had our talent show. I played the song that Mike and I wrote on our trip to Greece called “the Peace Corps Type” modeled after the Lemonheads song called “the Outdoor Type”. It was supposed to be funny talking about failed projects and suffering from Giardia, but I realized as I was singing it that the song was a bit sad. I felt that I was going to start tearing up actually when I was singing it, especially our line that said “I can’t believe its been a year, with just a few months left...” I was looking around the room at all the other volunteers realizing that this was the last conference I was going to have like this.

The following night after the Tuesday Sessions, we had the A-17 vs. A-18 basketball game. It was really a lot of fun and it seemed like I was back in High School. It was a really good game and my group, the 17s came out on top. I don’t remember what the score was but regardless a lot of fun to play. But that night as well was a little hard because we played really well and the reason that happened was because we had played together before, but that we knew each other well. This would be the last time we will have the opportunity to play at an organized PC function. We took a nice picture though...

The final day of All-Vol was nice. We had minor sessions in the morning and then a development fair. A sort of Meet and Greet thing. Afterwards, the long awaited Flashmob. Everyone had their shirts and we walked as a group to the Opera to meet with other organizations. We were there at 5:30 and waited till 5:45. I gave the instructions and off we were to the top of Northern Avenue. We got camera crews to come out and as soon as the whistle was blown, everyone took off their jackets to strike a pose and show off their AIDS T-shirts we made for this event. The event lasted for one minute but got the point across. It was well received and a lot of people said how cool it was. And that it was. Afterwards, everyone went to “That Place” a bar who said they would sponsor the after party. I had ordered pizza the day before and went to a dessertary to buy some cakes. The pizza place forgot to put in my order so it was about an hour late coming to the bar. Nonetheless, it was awesome. I got up to say some Thank yous and it was something else to be standing on the stage looking at the 90+ volunteers and other participants in their grey and red shirts having a good time. I was touched that so many people participated. The event, I don’t think could have gone any better. The girl who I worked with when I was working with American Councils came over and interviewed me for their Youtube site. When I know where and when it will be posted, Ill let you know.

For these reasons, All-Vol was something else. There were three very direct and sentimental moments that I will probably remember for a really long time.

I got home. It was nice to be back. Grandma came over and gave me a huge hug and kiss on the cheek. I asked her when she was leaving. Her answer... not anytime soon. We will see how true that is.

Finishing up my third semester as a teacher and a volunteer is hard. Knowing that time is flying by and is always against you is a hard thing to swallow. Sure I have 8 months before I go back to the States, but 8 months ago was April which seems like yesterday. I finished up one major project and I just have to do some paperwork for my bathroom grant and I will be finished for this year. Its strange. In the Spring, of course I will have projects to work on, but nothing major. Now, I keep hearing of my colleagues planning for the next step, the same thing I am doing. Already.

I will attach some pictures either today or tomorrow. Ill give people a chance to read this first I suppose.

Until next time...

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...