Saying Goodbye

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...

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...

Not a lonely planet

View from Lizzie's Porch

The rest of my time in Kapan was really great. I don’t remember what I said in my last blog, but Lizzie can attest to the fact that I just slept. The first two days, I slept. Anyway, hanging out was exactly what I needed. Lizzie and I decided to move her couch to the balcony she had; one of those big ones. Best idea we had the whole time we were there. It was great to just sit outside in the sun, on a couch, and just hang out with her and our other friends.

Tuesday night, Lizzie had couch surfers. A guy from California and his girlfriend of four years from St. Petersburg, Russia. It was really interesting to have them there. I told about my misfortunes with a girl from Russia/Ukraine. Great story. Anyway, I made spaghetti and we stayed up and spoke about I don’t know what. The next morning, they made little pancake banana crepe things. It was really good. Then they left. They said they might come back.

Lizzie and I went out to do some errands. Some other volunteers came over for a little bit and left to go to a mental ward in Kapan to take pictures or something. Soon thereafter, a writer from Lonely Planet, the guide book, called Lizzie. We met him at the square. It was a lot of fun. We got in the taxi with him and went on a ride into the country side. His name is Mike Kohn. He is from San Francisco, lives in Ulaan Batuur, Mongolia, and writes the Lonely Planet guidebooks for Armenia and Israel. Maybe some other countries, but those I know for sure. A guy in his mid-thirties, he travels around for 5 weeks at a time and writes about the countries. It seemed like a cool job. He knew a limited amount of Russian, but had been in touch with Peace Corps Volunteers the whole way, just getting numbers from one, connecting with another. Good way to travel.

Lizzie was funny, because Mike also wrote the last edition of Lonely Planet Armenia and compared Kapan to Pittsburgh and made it seem like Sisian was a better city than Kapan, which it’s not. So, while we were waiting for the taxi to get gas, Lizzie went on and on about how much better Kapan was than Sisian, and why Mike would chose to compare Kapan to Pittsburgh. Kapan is a mining town. So is Pittsburgh. The comparisons end there apparently. Mike told us about his life as a traveling writer and what its like. Really interesting.

We got to a Nature Preserve and Lizzie and I translated for Mike. So, on Lonely Planet’s dime, I got to see some really beautiful parts of Armenia. Armenia really has some breathtakingly beautiful places. Really. Some of the most beautiful places I have ever seen, but you really have to know where to go to see this stuff. As a tourist, it would be hard to see the same things, unless you had some local or PCV going with you. Amazing.

Afterwards, we returned to the city. We invited Mike to come over for dinner. I reheated some of the eggrolls we had made earlier, and I helped Lizzie make Burritos since her mom sent over 7 packages of taco seasoning mix. There were roughly seven people there. Mike Anderson came down that day from Artik to hang out too.

Mike is a funny guy. I left Sunday from the conference and rode down with Lizzie and Sue to Kapan. A six hour drive which isn’t too terribly bad. Mike decided that was going to go back to Artik because he had to go to school, or felt guilty he wasn’t going to be at school. I spoke to Mike on Monday, he didn’t go to school. I talked to Mike on Tuesday. He went to school for two hours. He really wanted to come down to Kapan so I pointed out that he wasn’t doing anything at school anyway, so on Wednesday, he made his way down to Kapan. Eight hours, by himself. He could have saved a lot of trouble.

The couch surfers came back to Lizzie’s that night, but there were six people sleeping there that night. They didn’t seem as thrilled about that, but a free place to sleep is a free place to sleep. And it wasn’t that bad. They left at 9am while most of us were still asleep.

We made breakfast and packed our things and headed to Goris to go to Patrick’s birthday. Lots of random volunteers hanging out. We had some really great food. Like last year, Chris and I stayed behind with the help of Mike and Ashley and we washed the dishes. Last year, the women there were doing the Armenian thing of saying “no” when they really meant “yes” when we asked them about dishwashing. This year, I really don’t think they wanted us to help. We are much slower than they are. They were appreciative that we helped. We headed to where the other volunteers were. We hung out and then came back around 11pm in the rain.

That was it. Mike, Patrick, his wife, and I got a cab back to Yerevan. Mike and I hung out with Gayane and Mane and then we went to bed early. The following day, I came back home. It is nice to be home, but it is still cold. Come on. When I spoke to my parents yesterday, I was wearing a sweater, a fleece, and scarf, along with my fleece pants. Its turning greener, but the temperature hasn’t gone up. Soon, I hope.

Two more weeks of school starting Tuesday. Apparently tomorrow is some kind of holiday. Another one. Happy Mother’s Day Mom. Hope you and Dad do something fun. Dad, don’t take her to McDonald’s.

Grandma is not leaving when I thought she would be leaving. We don’t know when she is going to leave. Yeah.

Planning for our COS trip is going well. We have bought our tickets for all the places. We are meeting Cormac in Riga and traveling around the Baltics with him. Looking forward to seeing some of my friends I hadn’t seen in three years.

Until next time...

The life of a Peace Corps Volunteer

The A-17 group which came with around 49 is left with 37. Only 3 more months of service and then its back to US Soil.



We walked to a WWII memorial looking over the city of Kapan. I don't know who the man was...



The volunteers who came to the AIDS Conference.



Proof that I worked on the AIDS conference.

A smile from ear to ear for many reasons...

The finished product of the left over money of my bathroom project, which paid to renovate the cafeteria in my school. Before there were holes in the floor and holes in the walls. Holes where you could see outside. Not conducive when you are in the 1st-4th grade and you're trying to each lunch during the winter months...



The finished bathroom outside of the toilet area.



A toilet. One of four.



Where the bathrooms currently are... 7 months ago.



The outhouse... almost falling over with crap reaching the top of the hole.

Three weeks ago Vardan really wanted me to get my picture taken in the yearbook. So much so, that he called the photo man to come back on a Tuesday as pictures were taken on Thursday and Friday and my schedule didn’t sync up with those dates. I got my suit on and went to school and got my picture taken. (I think I already talked about this in a previous blog). The week of April 18th, we got our photos. It was in a yearbook. Yearbooks are not the same as they are in the States, but only have the pictures of those in your class, or those who share the same year as you. I was in the 9th grade yearbook. Don’t know why it was the 9th grade. It probably had to do with the fact that Vardan is the 9th grade “teacher.” So there I am on the teachers page with my photo and my name under it. Everyone else shows no smile and has their full name written under their photos... My photo has a picture of me smiling from ear to ear with just “Deni” written under it in Armenian. I don’t think they know my last name... Oh well, its cool to be in a yearbook.

The weather is warming up, or at least it was until I called Grandma during my conference. She said that it had snowed the night before but it had already melted. Geez. However, Yerevan has been really nice and I enjoyed walking around in sandals there. The summer has finally come. Or... the winter has finally left.

I left my site over ten days ago.

On April 22nd I left the village to go to Yerevan to get the things for the AIDS conference taken care of. Before I left, I wrote a letter and got it translated for Grandma. She can’t read Armenian but knows Russian so the letter is in Russian. I just have to find the time to hand write it out. A one page letter written in a language you are not familiar with takes longer than you may think. It was a strange feeling leaving her, almost like a trial run. We hugged longer than usual probably realizing this was going to be one of our last.

Everything for the conference was ready to go, except one thing, one of the workers at the Red Cross didn’t have all her things ready to go even though I had given her over two weeks to prepare her things. She had not finished, nor was the presentation translated into English. She said that since the presentation was for Armenians, that it didn’t need to be translated. But what about the Peace Corps Volunteers?

Friday night I stayed at Khashi’s house. He and Mohson made Persian food for me. It consisted of rice and chicken where the chicken was cooked in a pressure cooker. It was really good. You had a choice of putting pomegranate sauce, yogurt sauce, or some kind of pickled sauce on it. I think I ate way more than I should have, but Khashi assures me that it is insulting if you don’t eat a lot. In that case, I must have complimented him well... That night we just stayed up and talked a bit. Then Khashi called his girlfriend in Iran, Sepideh.

Its similar to some kind of forbidden love story. They were speaking on skype. Khashi and I were speaking to her and she was typing back. We could see each other but she couldn’t make a sound. Really interesting. It is obvious how much they miss each other. Probably because Khashi is talking to her on gchat while he is supposed to be working on his thesis for four hours every night. Khashi, if you’re reading this, don’t pretend like it isn’t true.

Saturday was a slow day but I did get to see some of my friends in Yerevan. Kyle and Mike Kim were around and I never hang out with them because they are always with their girlfriends. Always. It was nice to be able to hang out with them and Jason at the same time. Sunday, Easter, I walked around with Khashi and then hung out with Jason and Elvira at the house.

Monday, I got some last minute things finished for the conference and moved from Jason and Elvira’s to the hotel where we had our Close of Service Conference. Can you believe that, its already here.

Mike was my roommate, as usual, and we had a good assortment of people come over and hang out with us in our room. It was fun. One of our A-17 girls recently got engaged to an A-18, so the girls decided to throw her a bachelorette party. Mike, Paul, and I were the strippers. It was awesome because Megan, being from rural Montana, didn’t know how to handle three guys dancing half naked around her. Either way, she had a good time. Mike should truly look into going into that profession.

The Conference was fine. It was fun. Many of the sessions explained how to check out of the country. It was funny because, for example, the medical session was scheduled to be ninety minutes long, but the Doctors only spoke for twenty minutes. That is basically how all the sessions were. We were there to hang out. Many of us probably won’t see each other again between now and when we actually leave.

The second night we all got a coach tour bus and rode it for 15 minutes to the Ambassador’s house. Nice house, but I thought she would say something. Basically, we got to her house, she had lots of hors devours, but that was it. I figured she would make a speech or something, but it didn’t happen. However, (and mom and dad, you will be proud of what I am about to say), there were napkins there with the US Seal on it. Fancy. So, as we were saying goodbye, I asked if she would sign my napkin. She looked at me and asked “are you serious?”. Absolutely. She said that I was flattering her. She didn’t know where to write it so I turned around and told her to just write it on my back. She found a table instead and signed the napkin there. I know what many of you are thinking, but she was smiling and laughing the whole time, so we had a good time with this. And, I have a napkin with the US seal and the US Ambassador to Armenia’s signature on it. Yeah, true story. I have the napkin to prove it.

So, the COS Conference finished. Mike and I had to switch rooms because of the AIDS conference. Different budget, smaller rooms. There were five guys sleeping in one hotel room, but it was a big room and all of us had beds. It was decently comfortable. The conference went really well, but I slept about three hours each night. Half from stress, but also because of other things I had to do. On Friday night, I went out with Jason and Michael to Caree’s going away dinner. It was strange because I realized that I had met her the last weekend of January and here we are already at the beginning of May. She is gone now, traveling the area before heading back to the US for grad school to start. That was the start of many goodbyes to come. It was like a PC friend leaving. We ate dinner and went to a Karaoke Bar and sang for a while. We sang Aerosmith’s “Don’t want to miss a thing” and then she left. But honestly, the conference went really well and the evaluations were really good. I am excited about what will come of all this. Most of the work is on the Armenian’s with the PCV just giving support. In this way, in a couple years, it will be more sustainable. It was really nice to have that behind me and finished. Still work to do, but not nearly as much. Saturday night, Mike and I headed over to Jason’s to say goodbye to Elvira and Jason as they are going back to the States for a couple weeks. They are staying in Turkey for 4 days and heading to their hometown for the rest of the time. They return on my birthday.

Right now, I am down in Kapan with my friend Lizzie. She is from California. She will be the next AIDS chair so I wanted to come down and talk about the upcoming year with her. It has been a lot of fun hanging out with her. Maybe one day, she will make it up to Martuni. She is full of lies and doubt it will happen even though she assures me that it will.

I am here until Thursday and then I go to Goris for my friend Patrick’s Birthday. Then back to the village to teach for two weeks and then its all over. All my responsibilities are finished with Peace Corps. At that point, I will have to start planning for the American Councils stuff.

Mike and I are now planning for our trip after we finish here. Yes, early, but when I tried to buy our plane ticket from Istanbul to Riga, the prices jumped 50 dollars.

Ok, so that’s about it. Things are winding down, but the weather is becoming more and more awesome.

Until next time...

Its the beginning of act 2. There have not been any Elton-esque songs...

the OPERA... not the MUSICAL...



Khashi. Sly sly Khashi



Do not get between Gevorg and his Soaps..

Thursday I went to school and I went with my school director to Martuni. We picked up the hand driers and got the receipts needed to close out my bathroom grant. It all went well. I came home, typed everything into the computer and then went back to school to take pictures of the project which I will post.

Friday, I went into Yerevan to take care of things here and there. I turned in all my papers for the project and so far, it looks good. I haven’t received official notice that everything is ok, but hopefully by tomorrow, my hands will be cleared from all this.

I went to the park and hung out with Jason for a while and then went to meet Ani, the piano player who lives in Germany. It was great talking to her since it had been about 8 months since I had last seen her. She told me about her experiences which was nice. She lives with an 89 year old German woman who apparently speaks 7? languages. I don’t remember exactly how many Ani said. Anyway, she told me what it was like to work in Germany. She said when she first got there, she found a job on the internet waiting tables and cleaning dishes, then someone asked her why she is doing those kinds of jobs when she could get paid playing at events. So she went down that venue and said she played at an event where they paid her 300 euro for a half hour. Although that sounds like a lot, those events aren’t every weekend, and she has to pay back all her loans. On the bright side, there is an organization that flies her all over the place to play. She went to LA for two weeks and has been around Europe.

It is one of those fairytale stories. Between her hard work and the people that she knew, she was able to study in Germany. It was obvious that a lot of her perspectives were different now having been in western Europe for 8 months already.

Following that meeting, I went over to Khashi’s to drop off my things. There I met one of his brother’s friends who had a huge bandage on his head. Apparently when he was walking down the street, a concrete block from a balcony came down and hit him on the head. It was insane. They put 4 stitches in, but I don’t think that was enough. There was still a good amount of blood on his head. He is lucky to be alive. The next morning I was talking to Khashi’s brother, Adalan, and he said the police came over after we left the previous night. They were there for 3 hours and didn’t believe what had happened and kept asking the guy if he had enemies. The police said it would be impossible for concrete to fall (from old soviet style balconies) and it must have been someone out to hurt him. A bit ridiculous.

Khashi and I went to Gevorg’s house and hung out there. Actually that is all we did. Just sat there and caught up since it had been a long time since we had seen each other. It was funny because one of the Armenian soaps was on its season finale and Gevorg was really into it. Khashi and I went back to his house and hung out.

The next morning, I went out to meet with Mike and get some work done at the office. Basically took the day pretty slowly. I went over to Jason’s house to change into my nice clothes because Khashi, Mike and I had bought tickets to go see AIDA.

Looking back it seems like I always get into situations which result in good stories when dealing with an instance associated with Mike’s planning. Two weeks ago, Mike said the Aida was coming to Armenia and that we should get tickets. The way he described it to me was that it was a broadway musical. I thought this was a great idea. I like musicals. I went on Wikipedia and saw “Aida (musical)” and read about it. Elton John wrote the music. I love Elton John so naturally I didn’t read anything else. I saw Elton John and that was good enough for me.

We got to the Opera and went inside. It was really nice. I had never been to the opera side of the Opera, just the Orchestra side. There we sat down and the curtains opened. An Egyptian theme. Interested. Lots of singing. Too much singing. The singing didn’t stop. This was not a musical. The language was not in Armenian, nor English. Italian. Great, so here is this non-stop Italian singing, Egyptian based show where I had no idea what was going on. The first act was over in 30 minutes. I looked at my watch and thought to myself, “at least it will be over soon”. Nope. 4 acts. It started at 7:15 and went on till 11 o’clock. It wasn’t until the second act started when I gave up hope thinking that I would hear someone Elton John-esque music. Sweet. I had to cancel all my plans to meet people that night because I thought the show would be over at 9:30. Like I said, it went on till 11. The best thing is, is that they have cell-signal-scramblers so that you can’t make a call or send a text. This made things very awkward.

Overall, the show was great. I really enjoyed it even though I had no idea what was going on. Apparently it was a 100% Armenian cast. The singers and instrument players were great. The ballet dancers were absolutely horrible. Fortunately, they were only on stage for a very small segment of the show. Really good time though.

I read about the play when I got up the next morning. The show makes sense now. From now on, I will read about the play before I go. I think I will enjoy it more.

The next morning, I got up and went to meet Caree. Mike, Caree, and I talked for about 3 hours about random things and then I came home. Coming home was great. There were signs of green along the roads and people preparing for the spring. They started to plow their fields. The weather is still a bit chilly but really windy. Hopefully the warm air will come soon.

Grandma just told me that she isn’t going to accept payment from me anymore and that April 30th she will probably leave. That bodes well for me since I have to be out of site for the first ten days of May.

Dad, I am probably going to mail some stuff back to the house. Ill let you know when I send it.

Until next time...

Ramblin Rose and Georgia

Me and Lisa hanging out in the IRC...



Katherine under my village sign on our way to Madina, Hector's village.



Katherine, me, and Khashayar on our way to eat lunch in Yerevan.



Khashayar waiting to have his first bite of Mexican food. We joke because he looks Mexican.



Niko, from Turkey; Katherine, PCV in Moldova; Lauren, PCV in Georgia; Me, PCV in Armenia; Eka and Avto, from Georgia, eating at an Italian restaurant. Excellent way to spend my 12 hours in Georgia...

I don’t know what happened really in the last week. It went by all too fast. Mike came to my village because he was on spring break. Actually there was a bit of miscommunication and he left his village when he was not, in fact, on spring break. The previous week he went to Georgia when he thought school was regularly in session and then thought he would come to my village during his real spring break. Turns out that is not the case and he came to my village when he was not on spring break thinking that he was. His school director called him and asked where he was... Mike was confused by that question.

Mike stayed in my house for probably a solid 48 hours. When I went to school he stayed at the house. Easy for me to entertain. I think he just wanted some away time to relax. Sometimes Yerevan doesn’t offer that and its better just to hide away in another volunteer’s place. Much more relaxing.

We did end up going to Martuni one night and we made “burritos” which was good. The following day, Mike and I woke up early and we headed to Yerevan. There we met with Khashi and had lunch with him. He is such an interesting guy. Like I have said before, we usually talk about politics and about media, people. This time he talked about Gaddafi and although he didn’t agree with all the things he has done, he still gave a differing opinion about the matters over there. Everything that is posted in the US media is not exactly right. He reads various news sources and compares them with those written in Iran but still does what he can to be critical about what is written. He believes and still gets frustrated in knowing that there is no truly neutral news source and that everyone has their own agenda. He goes back to the point about people being people.

He brought up a man in Iran who has been protesting things about the Iranian government. I feel in my lifetime, I have not really seen people riot or become truly upset about what their government has done or is not doing. I only hear second hand about those who opposed the Vietnam War, and gas prices, etc, but that was almost 50 years ago. I am reading “People’s history of the United States” right now and there was an interested exert in there from Thomas Jefferson. He said that riots and uprisings are necessary to keep a sound government, and these uprisings need not to happen every 20 years, but more frequently. Without frequency, people become stagnant and complacent. Anyway, my point in saying this is that I don’t know what its like to truly be that dissatisfied with something to start a riot about it.

I asked Khashi why this guy still does what he does even though he has spent so much time in prison. In the true Khashi way he said this: This man loves his people and this man wants to see a change. Imagine you were dating a girl and you loved her and you made love with her but her parents hated you. Would you stop loving her because it was not convenient for you? So, what Khashi was trying to say is that people are people and if people could concentrate on their similarities, the world would probably be a better place.

After that, we went to hang out with Jason at the park for a little while. We watched him eat lunch. Then Mike and I went to the bus stop where I waited for Katherine who was coming from Tbilisi. Katherine is the same girl who I traveled to the Balkans last summer. She had ten vacation days so she got a flight to Georgia and spent 4 days there and then wanted to come to Armenia for the remaining time she had. “Ramblin Rose” is a term coined by Michael. Not exactly sure why...

I picked her up and we went into town and got something to eat then came to my village. We got back around 8ish and we just hung out with Grandma. Katherine hadn’t taken a shower so she wanted to take one. I have not taken a shower at the house since we sold our shower so I didn’t know how to go about it. So, I said that I wanted to learn too. Grandma was in the bathroom with Katherine and told me to get out. It was similar to my PST story when my host Dad was teaching me how to bucket bath and I thought I was supposed to get undressed in front of me. As soon as I started taking off my shirt, he ran out. Same thing happened with Katherine and Grandma.

The next day we went to school and I showed her what was going on there and then we walked around the village. We just took it easy that day. The following day we went to Madina and hung out there. It was raining so we took the bus. That was fun because we got to hang out with Hector’s family. We walked around the whole town trying to find an open store before we finally found one. We wanted to bring something for his family.

The next day, we went to Jason’s to hang out. They made proper burritos which were really good. We hung out and went to a place to hang out. Then we came home and went to bed, getting ready for the long ride up to Tbilisi. Khashi came out to hang out with us, so that was really fun too. This time we talked about people interacting with other people. One of the things that he pointed out was “to be a stranger, you are only isolating yourself.” I wish I could remember what the context was. I think we were talking about not getting to know someone just because they are from another country, or religion, or idea.

The next day, we got some food at the store and made our way to the bus stop. We didn’t wait long there before we left. The bus wasn’t packed which was nice and we made our way to Georgia. We got to the border and just like every time, I held up the line. Three year visas are a rarity, so anytime they see that I have a three year visa, they think its a fake and they have to leave the booth and ask one of their supervisors about it and then I get drilled a million questions. Once I start speaking Armenian and explain to them that I live in their country, usually things are fine. Aggravating nonetheless because the American is holding up the only line they have for passport control. Sweet.

It was a short hour from the border to Tbilisi. We got to the hostel and then went to McDonald’s to eat lunch. We were joking that I should send a letter to McDonald’s saying that I traveled 7 hours just to go to a McDonald’s. The best part was when Katherine tried to order her food. She said that the last time she went to a fast food restaurant was several years ago and hadn’t been to a McDonald’s since she was 6 or 7. She had no idea what to order. Best thing about that place is that you say “Big Mac Menu” wherever you are in the world and they know what you’re talking about. You see the amount you need to pay on the screen and give them the correct amount. Done. Not with Katherine. She said “Big Mac Menu” and then wanted to substitute the drink for a chocolate milkshake. She had to make things complicating, which totally confused the guy. That was funny to watch. I got tired of watching and left to sit down. Katherine eventually showed up.

We went back to the hostel and rested a bit and waited for Lauren to show up. We composed ourselves and then left to eat dinner. We called Avto, one of my Georgian friends, and he met us at this Italian restaurant. A Turkish guy named Niko came with us. Interesting guy. Since I ate a McDonald’s burger I got a salad and wine. Georgian wine is pretty good. We ate that and then the people at the restaurant kept bringing us homemade vodka. Ah geez. I was feeling that by the time we left. So we went to a coffee house to talk. It was really interesting talking to Avto and his girlfriend Eka about politics. Avto knows what is going on in this region pretty well as he is a journalist writing for a major magazine in Georgia which covers foreign affairs. He is 20. Yes, amazing. He signed a magazine and gave it to me.

We started talking about the differences between Armenia and Georgia. I asked how things could be so different between Armenia and Georgia, and it clearly is. It boiled down to one man. Mikheil Saakashvili. The president of Georgia. This man got rid of corruption from the police by firing every policeman and rehiring those who were fair. He got rid of the oligarchs. He is making a change for the school system. He separated Georgia from Russia making English the primary, second language to learn. He led a movement to make it cool to study and be educated rather than being rebellious. I know he did not do all these things on his own, but he sure had a huge hand in it. He let his people know that times would be rough for a short while when he started this movement, but that it would become better. And it has. It was great seeing Lauren, Katherine, Avto, Eka, and our new Turkish friend, Niko. After we finished at the coffee house, we said our goodbyes to Avto and Eka and headed back to the hostel. There we talked for a little bit and then fell asleep.

Katherine’s flight was at 7:50am so she got up at 5am, got ready and left. Lauren and I got up a little later and went to a place to have breakfast and then went to the bus station. We went to get coffee while waiting an hour for the bus leave. The ride back was pretty fast. The bus was full but was only carrying 8 people so we got back to the Yerevan in about 5 and a half hours which was great. Again at the border, the border guards assumed I was a tourist and said that I needed to go and stand in the visa line when I finally got them to look inside my visa and see that I already had one. Then again with the questioning of why I had a three year visa. When I told them I was a volunteer teaching in the village, they basically rolled out a red carpet for me to step into the Republic of Armenia. The border guards were super nice.

It was weird driving back because after I said goodbye to Lauren and Katherine, I realized the next time I would see them would be in the States. I have managed to see them about every six months since I met them last March in Ukraine. It isn’t just that, but it is the ending of my service. The snow is melting and people are starting to leave. I learned yesterday that my roommate from Staging in Philadelphia is leaving next week. One of my site mates is leaving in a month. People are starting to get ready to go home. Its hard to say that I am ready to leave, because Im not. I finally figured things out here and I am forward enough to say that I really am living the dream. It is wonderful. This medical school thing better be worth it, because I am giving up this to do that... At the same time, all good things come to an end. I will go ahead and warm readers that probably from this post onward, there will be some kind of nostalgic phrasing I will use.

Getting back to work has been tough. Tomorrow, my school director said that we are going to Martuni together to bring back everything. The hand driers and the receipt for the windows which I need to close my grant. Really excited about that. On Friday, I am going into Yerevan to see Aida with Mike and Khashi. Should be interesting.

Overall, its been a really nice week. One of those worth writing about. The spring is coming. I didn’t say it was here, but its coming.

Until next time...