August 24 - Nothing new. I have a sinus infection and am feeling pretty bad. This morning I made home made pancakes and they were a hit with the family. I am becoming vegetarian by default - the meat does not sit well here. I will eat very little meat to at least be polite.
My host sister, Liana, is taking computer classes, and my family is getting a computer in September. Liana wants to learn how to make potatoes my style so I am giving her a cooking lesson tomorrow. I told her if she ever wants to speak English she can feel free to (she is very shy, and I know she knows how to speak well) and I also have offered to help her with the computer in September. Several have asked about what's going on with Russia - Georgia. I'm working on a good response to that now and hopefully will be finished by the middle of the week. However, I haven't had any news sources at all since I've arrived in Gavar - and the internet has been super inconsistent - so hopefully my answer will not be out of date.
August 21 - Ohh... Today was interesting... I am sick... but traveled to Vanadzor on work with my counterpart. Checked out the Humanitarian Rights Library of Armenia. Had a good meeting with the director of this NGO about helping them work out a fund raiser to finish their Human Rights school. It is beautiful in Vanadzor! And they have a movie theater and a swimming pool set up for lap swimming. That place is a different world from my home. Took a marshutni with three Polish backpackers from my town who are traveling around Armenia. I really want to go mountain climbing soon. These mountains are very nice and I'm sure the views from atop are wonderful. But somehow we missed our last marshutni from Vanadzor and my young counterpart worked out a taxi ride for us back home.
Borrowed this photo from Brian's blog. Thanks Brian! -- Editor
From the A-16 Swearing In Ceremony...
August 20 - Today I began my third day of work, and we are all ready traveling around our marz. This is very nice because the marz itself is quite beautiful with some forest, some cliffs, nice mountains and the gorgeous lake. We have spent the past two days in one particular town teaching 12 people with "business ideas" how to conduct marketing research and create a business plan, make surveys. The business ideas created by these attendees are as follows: an internet café, a second hand thrift store, a cake shop, another clothing store, a café stop along the highway, and sales of toys hand made by school-aged children. So one of the workers at my organization translated what was going on, I gave a little input, but mostly observed the class. I am going to be spending the next few months mostly observing the process and formulating ideas about potential projects, as has been advised by all of the PCVs. The great thing is, none of the class was new to me at all - everything they covered, I have studied very thoroughly in college already. The class only had two men, and the ladies were very bright.
August 11 - Yesterday, Hripsime, Gorr, Tyrone, Mariam and I went to the zoo and the Mother Armenia statue that overlooks Yerevan. The zoo was an experience that I probably should not write about here - glad to have it, but not quite the same I've had in ATL. The statue is giant and has great views of the city.
Went on a long hike along the river with Elliott on Saturday. We found caves and a tunnel. We sat down to take a rest next to the river (I did not swim, not after that first experience) and a papik hung out with us. He was herding his cows. I took a fall while hiking down from a cave on loose gravel and tore up both of my palms. I asked him if there were any plants around that might remedy this, and he pointed to the top of the valley across from the river. Then he went to the cows and came back with a few plants he'd pulled up with cow milk droplets on the roots. He told me to put them on my palms, which I did, and it got very sticky and basically acted like a band-aid. This worked very well because the area was cleaner than the rest of my hands when I peeled the milk off at home and my palms are now healing nicely.
Today I made salsa and quesadillas for the family. I put one hot pepper in this salsa, and it was on fire. Very tasty. They liked.
Tomorrow are the LPI exams. I had a practice conversation with Meri and she said I'd score an intermediate.
Hripsime is teaching me how to make homemade pickles tonight.
I taught them the poem "starlight, starbright..." in Armenian.
August 9 - A grounding day. Received news that Georgia is battling with Russia over the northeastern Otessia territory. So this rules out traveling by land to any of Armenia's surrounding countries. You can find articles about this conflict on nytimes.com. We are allowed to visit Turkey and Azerbaijan, by airplane and previously driving through Georgia. Hopefully this situation will be reversed quickly. When you're in a country the size of Maryland and can't cross into any of the surrounding countries, it really puts into perspective what's going on in this region and reminds you that you are indeed in a different world (don't want to say third world because Armenia is not destitute). The United States is far removed from the realities of this part of the world.
On a lighter note, I taught Hripsime about saying "Yes M'am" this morning.
