June 2008 Archives
June 29 - The weekend has been full. Yesterday after language class, we took a special trip to Echmiazeene. This is a very beautiful city that is also the root of the Armenian Orthodox religion. It is the place where this religion started. Father Aaron hails from Chicago and has been called by His Holiness to Armenia for a whole year and actually resides in Gavar. He will be here through November. He is friends with Peace Corps, and I have all ready had the pleasure of getting to know him a little bit. Anyhow, he gave us a very nice tour and explained a bit about the history of the religion in Armenia. Interesting facts: in 301 AD, Armenia was the first country to declare itself a Christian nation. A quarter of Jerusalem is Armenian. Several different ways of practicing the religion have evolved into daily customs during the 1900s due to communism (folks were not allowed to practice religion openly during these times). Such as in Gavar, people drive around the church and honk their horn three times to get married. And Christmas, a three day long celebration in January, takes place in the cemetery because in the 1900s they knew they wouldn't be reprimanded for celebrating there (whereas a church was a total giveaway).
We passed about 4 wedding processions while we were on the road yesterday. That was fun.
First wave of photos are in! See them on the Mac5 Gallery under Photo Nico.
-- The Editor
June 27 - I thought the egg problem was solved, but of course the day after I mention it I get a McDonald's home made breakfast sandwich...
June 26 - And speaking of food, I cooked for the family the other day.
Here is the story:
So I was following my Mom's spaghetti sauce recipe, and was in the middle of cutting up tomatoes and herbs when I got a phone call from our warden. She said to get a pen and paper and copy down what she was saying, which consisted of having an Emergency Test and we had to gather our bags and walk to their house for the Emergency Action Plan. The one day I finally got to cook and I had to leave! So I told my sister how to finish the sauce, and it turned out very good, but it was probably enough to serve about three people. I felt bad, this was our dinner and my family has about ten people! So we had the least amount of sauce for all of these noodles and they were thanking me and saying how great it tasted but the noodles sure were hardly sauced at all. It was actually pretty funny how cute everybody was, loving this spaghetti... and it really was good but not nearly enough for all of us... I promised them Mexican for the next time (which will be perfect - melt some of that cheese on a lavash and add some beans, greens, mat-soon - yogurt - rice). Oh and there was no garlic bread but that would have been delicious.
Last night enjoyed the company of my group and the A-15s and A-14s. Definitely looking forward to getting to know more new Americans! There are some hilarious folks in that group! I was crying and my stomach hurt from laughing so hard at some of the stories I heard! Tonight had a really good tutor session with my LCF who is totally awesome. I was pretty tired but I can tell, especially from the last time, that there is a lot of improvement. I am enjoying speaking the language for sure. I love my new friends, Armenian and American. There is always hilarity. In language class, we make up such Armenian jokes as dancing with the dog in the river at 2 AM while making a phone call.
Speaking of the people, did I mention the last village soccer game we had?! It was ridiculous. So the week before we played with so many folks of all ages, and we wanted to play again...so I invited an A-15 to join us and I told my Armenian friends about it. They took it very seriously and apparently have seen this said A-15 (much bigger than them) walking around in Charentsavan. They got their game faces on, bought matching bright yellow jerseys, and met us on the field to play Armenia versus America, did not want the kids to play. Yeah...that about sums up the game. It was great fun to run around of course, but it was no dice. I scored a goal probably by fluke and quick thinking, and the Armenians panicked (I believe about a girl scoring on them) and instantly said "Haykakan hing rop-e" (Armenia five minutes). They continuously had many people joining their team throughout the game. All of this took place while watching the mountains get dark. The mountains always make everything very awesome around here.
I am so tired, today we woke up, went to language, went to Charentsavan for CBD Tech session (met with two NGOs), definitely got ripped off at the post office, came home for a meeting on our (Debbie, Elliott, Mickey and I) business project - which is devising an easy transport system from our town to Charentsavan for local farmers - then to an extra language class. Time to study now and it's late. Luckily Daft Punk will pull me through. Party time/study time with myself. Tomorrow going to town again to help Mari with our village 4th of July party, purchasing phone cards, and posting this blog. Soon enough I will post some interesting stats about this place. I have more letters and many e-mails to write and send! Soon! I am sorry to be so late in reply but it is so wonderful to hear from everybody! Good night!
June 26 - Today I came home and the entire family is out in the back yard, up in the trees, picking gallons and gallons worth of cherries. A big party. So far, each morning afterwards, I wake up and notice all of the buckets are gone. They take them to the surrounding towns to sell.
I realize it is almost exactly a month since this adventure began. How fast it has gone by, yet I feel like I've been here for so long! And so much has happened in just four weeks! Yesterday we received our site announcements. I am going to ------, and it sounds very good. It's about X KM ---- of Lake Sevan and a good location because it's in the middle of the country so I can travel north, south, to Yerevan in an ------, etc. About 2000 M above sea level. Cold long winters, sunny summers, cool springs and falls. Clean water! Fresh air! Mineral springs!
I am working for the Chamber of Commerce for my marz (region)...which is --------- Marz. I understand I will have a great resource in the university that is right near the office. The city is about 15,000 people although the census says --------. I have two ladies in the A-15s that will live close by in their own apartments, and this family is going to be far different from my current living situation. Here, I come home to the entire family filling huge buckets, lots of them, with cherries from all over the yard to sell at cities nearby. The next place is in a "sunny" apartment with one mother and a 13 year old daughter and an 11 year old son. I will have 8 hours a day of running water, gas and electricity and an inside bathroom! Pretty good internet access! Yeah!! I have been informed that no mail has been lost to this location.
Back to the business, the mission of Chamber of Commerce is to establish a business community, so this may include convincing several of the businesses that are not currently registered with the government (due to trust issues) to register with the CC. I will also be helping larger companies, and smaller businesses, find target markets for their products. I hope to be good at both of these jobs, but I understand that I will spend the first several months listening and networking and picking up the language before I can really do anything. Apparently business PCVs drink the most coffee (lots of "meetings"). I am contemplating how I will approach this. I may say "allergia" to instant coffee and all business cakes and candies, and the hot dog sausages too. These foods have become too abundant and I'm tired of them so I've been sticking to fruits and the Turkish coffee which is soooo delightful. I still want to be involved in environmental for my secondary project, though I know that is much further down the line.
By the way, my host family is wonderful, but it has taken a while to convince them not to cook my breakfast eggs in four centimeters of oil (makes my papers very transparent if they are on the table), and the last time I pointed this out, my Tat-Eek said "they have no cholesterol!" and finally I told them they cook boiled eggs better than Americans and that I only want one boiled egg every morning (they leave the perfect amount of yellow ooze in the middle), so no problems since (problem chick-ah). Since then I have had a boiled egg every morning with a cucumber slice and a tomato on a piece of lavash. I am giving up the cheese for a while though...have had a lot of this cheese...
June 22 - I am still behind on journal entries! That just tells you how busy we have been here. It's been getting better and better every day and the time is going pretty quickly. We have 7 more weeks left of PST. I've come to feeling much more comfortable here and happy to be able to communicate better and better each day. Plus, I've been watching the fruit ripen in my yard. The cherries are getting darker and darker, though bright red, they are still pretty sour.
Yesterday I went to another BBQ. It was my little cousin's first birthday. What a celebration! About 35 people partied by the river on my family's picnic property. We had the standard vegetables (eggplant, cucumber, tomatoes, potatoes) with grilled pig, and the most delicious fruits (cherries, apricots, apples, peaches!). Mane was dressed like a little princess in a pink dress and hat, and her sparkly birthday cakes (two!) had crazy fireworks-type of candles on them! One of them opened up once lit, so that the candles spread out in a circle sideways around this centerpiece that played the happy birthday song, and the other was basically a sedentary roman candle. There were several toasts. At one point, there is a tradition where the family sits the baby down on a central location and sets out different objects in front of her, and whichever one she chooses represents what she'll be good at in the future - a 1,000 dram note for a businesswoman, a spoon for a good chef, a hairbrush for a hairdresser, etc... - and they pour oats over her head to represent nature's bounty. She picked up the dram. This was a huge festivity, and I met a lot of nice Armenians.
Today I helped the family gather "tut..toot?" (white/purple mulberries) out of the tut tree. What a process!...Eight of us were involved. 7 of us had a 15 by 15 foot tarp spread out underneath the tree while Karren climbed to the top and shook it real hard in different spots...so they fell right onto the tarp...this was a great scene... We had about two gallons worth. Then all of the Americans had dinner at the mayor's house and played Go Fish and Spoons with his whole family. Mickey broke it down with the mayor too, that was great. Our current PCV buddy joined us and he was able to translate a few things... such as that the town might like for us to do a real project for them in the future if we have such a chance to do so before we leave. However, I don't know how possible this could be - I think they are saying something about a road repair which would cost about $500,000 USD. But who knows, maybe by that time I will be an expert at this. After that we were supposed to play a football game with the Armenians in my village, but it started pouring rain and got cold and muddy, so after dinner we appreciated an awesome view of Ararat from Elliott's balcony. Ararat is always breathtakingly beautiful.
When I got home I taught my family how to give high fives and pound fists. Hilarious.
The toasts are fun, and the romantic sides of the Armenians come out every time. They say the most beautiful pieces when they toast and they love having Americans at the dinner table. Next time I'll bring a pen and paper so I can write down what they are saying and share.
I'm making some really awesome friends. The greatest part is how different all of us are, what very different backgrounds we have, what different locations we come from, but we can always find something to share and laugh about with each other.
Tomorrow night I'm trying Mom's spaghetti recipe for the family.
June 17 - Tonight was great. Mari, Devor, and I played soccer with about 25 boys in the village on a huge field behind the school. We had so much fun running around with everybody. They were good soccer players ranging from 10 years old to 35 years old. I accidentally knocked down two men, and one of them had to sit out for the rest of the game because his shoulder got hurt. I apologized, but he kept saying "normal, normal." Got a great photo of all of the players at the end, but it is on my new card of memory that I just started so I don't think anybody can see it for a while. Oh yeah, we also taught some of the kids on my street how to play kickball! Tomorrow morning I am mailing my photo card back to Dad so that we can publish them on the net. I have several e-mails and letters to write and send off! I will get to them as soon as possible!
Also visited American Elliott's family's house today. The garden there is immaculate! His mother has a huge rose garden, and this one rose bush probably has about 200 pink roses all over it. It's growing like a vine over the picnic awning. I took a couple of pictures of this garden, so you will see it soon.
June 13 - Today I bought a "fan" in Charentsavan. Otherwise known to Americans as a hair dryer. It was 5,500 dram, but the lady liked me, so without even bargaining she said she would sell it for 5,000 dram (about $17 USD). 
I brought the hairdryer home, and Narine, the 23 year old sister-in-law, wanted to see it. She was very, very impressed. She took it out of the box, and I asked, do you have a hairdryer? Yes, apparently she has two. Jaguar France is imprinted very largely on the side of this hairdryer. So I tested it out tonight, and no joke, it is by far the best hairdryer I have ever used. It is super power speed, and my hair looks pretty sweet!
As I began this blog, Anastas, the father, came in with a watermelon at midnight. He had been celebrating the homecoming of his friend's son, who was a soldier for Armenia for two years. The whole family gathered around the table to take part in the watermelon, even the baby. The father asked about Uncle Ted as a volunteer in Thailand. I said he is an engineer, and everybody nodded their heads and repeated the word engineer. They brought out the vodka and the cognac, and we drank to everybody's mother and father.
Today we were reprimanded for our Happy Hour Monday. So HHM cannot happen in public ever again. Somehow, somebody in the town reported that they saw the girls walking around with beers in their hands and that there were several empty bottles of beer, as well as a bottle of vodka. This is very untrue, as there were six of us - 3 women, 3 men - enjoying each other's company sitting under an enclosed awning, and there was most certainly not a bottle of vodka on the table. We were told today also that women are not to drink out of bottles in public. This small town is talking big time about all of the Americans.
June 13 - Quick update, posting the previous days at the cafe. I received two letters in the mail today. yay! I will get back to you guys very soon. I have a lot to do right now, always busy with something or another. I haven't had a chance to finish one book yet. But, I understand that as soon as PST is over, life is completely different.
I met with the program director, Stepan, today. Stepan is great. I told him my favorite sport is swimming but that I don't think that will be useful here since there aren't many pools. He said that several years back, a volunteer helped build a pool in one of the communities and he said that that might be a very good initiative for me to look at, so he wrote it down on my file.
June 12 - Today began early with lessons. There was a huge thunderstorm last night that knocked the power out at 10:30 PM while Mariam and I were practicing yoga together. The electricity did not come on until about 1 PM today, so I took a shower by flashlight this morning. I have a lot of words to memorize, but the grammar is coming along well.
The weather has been changing quickly around here. One moment it will be windy and thundering, and twenty minutes later the sun is shining and the temperature is about 5 or 10 degrees warmer.
I discovered today that the family owns two cows, one girl and one boy. They mooed while we were playing makeshift basketball. So Hripsime went to milk her cow, and I watched. This is an interesting and rhythmical process. She tied the tail to its leg and filled up a bucket, and then poured the milk through a strainer. I believe they will boil it next. She makes cheese out of this milk, and the cheese is salty and pretty tasty. This is the particular cheese they serve with every meal. We had dolma last night which is some sort of meat wrapped in cabbage leaves. We have a lot of different meats, and sometimes I’m not so sure what animal they’re from, but I always give it a try. It’s also very good for the most part.
Armenians serve coffee in tiny espresso sized cups, and it is very black. There is probably a quarter inch of black coffee grounds in the bottom of the cups every time. But it is translated to coffee, not espresso. They have coffee breaks probably four or five times a day.
June 11 - I talked to Mom, Dad, Kelly, and Claire today. I was going to wait until 7:30 a.m. to call but have been thinking about it so much that I called them ten minutes early. Luckily everybody was home. When I talk to Mom and Dad, everybody in the family – the great aunt, the grandfather, the grandmother, the sister – asks, “Mama, Papa? Telephone?” They wonder how my family is doing. Today I told my grandmother that my mother may send a recipe for spaghetti that I will make for the family. She loved it, and smiled very big. She said this is good because she will get to sleep while I cook.
I am finally starting to break the boundaries more and spend time in the two kitchens with my family.
Today is the first morning I have been able to wake up before 7:15. I have had a very nice morning with the family so far before going to classes for four hours. If I can do this on a regular basis, then I think it will be a lot easier to sit through the lessons. Today we are studying 9-12, then 2-5. I am thinking there might even be time for a little nap in between lessons.
Last night was also the first night I slept the whole night without vivid dreams or waking up early. This was very nice and I know today will be pleasant. And I am feeling settled because I can type on the laptop, have been listening to a lot of tunes at night, and got paid for the next two weeks, so I can now pick up more phone cards and a hairdryer.
June 10 - Busy all of the time. Today we spent our day with the entire group in Ch---------. PC gave us more handouts to fill out. I like seeing everybody, but definitely prefer the days in my tiny village. At the end of the day, we all went to a little bar on the edge of town where we watched 80s American Music videos and I had a Ukrainian beer which was good. Walked half way home from Ch--------, and then a bus pulled up beside me and honked. It was my host grandfather, who was on the K----- – Ch------- route today. He drove us home the rest of the way. That was funny timing! My village is by far the closest to town, only one mile away. All of the others are about 3 to 5 miles away.
We are having another business session tomorrow, and then Friday we are interviewing individually with the business instructors. This should ultimately determine our placements. Tried dolma for dinner today, which was very tasty. As soon as I get some time, I am going to hang out in the kitchen with my grandmother and mother so I can learn how to bake this delicious lavash and dolma. Went on a nice little walk in the village this evening.
Nobody in the town or the villages has water today. This is what they meant by an irregular water supply, although it is not too big of a deal. I think they are working on the pipelines. So today, I am happy to have brought those baby wipes because now I can at least be a little clean before bed. Tomorrow we should have water again.
June 9, 2008 - Today we went back to lessons. Last night I woke up to a great thunderstorm, in which the thunder echoed for so long in between the mountains. It was very nice, but I was definitely tired today after listening to the thunder for so long. After my lessons, I came home and was able to say my first full Armenian sentence to the family, and I think they were very excited, especially the grandmother Hripsime.
I enjoy the smiles of the Armenians. Most everybody has some gold teeth in their mouths. Hripsime especially has a great gold tooth that I think she has a special smile for, just to show it off well.
Sunday, yesterday, was our first day off since May 28. Much needed, since we have class and language lessons four hours a day. It was pleasant. I slept until 11:45, and spent the afternoon cooking horovats (BBQ - pig and lamb, stuffed eggplant, grilled tomatoes on a flaming hot grill) in our back yard, studying in the hammock with Mariam, playing soccer with the kids, and holding the little girl who is about to turn 1. The horovats was so delicious. My family had their friends over from C________ and there were several toasts again. Tried Armenian wine, it is thick and sweet. They also drink Budweiser brewed in Czechoslovakia. I tried to explain that Budweiser originated in Michigan...right?
June 5, 2008 - My host family is very sweet. As time goes by, it is much easier to communicate. Their yard is like a paradise. Cherry and apricot trees, dill and cilantro, apple trees, strawberries are grown throughout the back yard. Not only that, it backs up to a very deep valley (maybe 300 feet??) through which flows a beautiful river. My host family owns chickens, roosters, and a cute little dog named Sharik who is a white version of Stout. My room is separated from the rest of the house, but both my room and the house open to a veranda where my host family spends most of their time.
They have a Soviet version of a front porch where everybody relaxes and visits with the neighbors in the evenings. The villagers walk around on the streets, and every 20 minutes or so a herd of cows and calves walk by. About 1,000 people live in the village and it is only about 2 KM from C_________. The bathroom is good, the only thing that is really extra work is that we have to light the pilot every time we want to take a hot shower. They get water from a spring that is nearby. Every 50 feet or so on the streets is a water fountain with Russian and Armenian engravings. The citizens have a very rich culture and speak many languages - Russian and Armenian primarily. Many of the children also speak English. Everybody has expressive, dark, beautiful eyes, and even the older people have happy lines around their eyes because they laugh so much.
Transcript below. Location info has been cut out.
Received at 1:26 PM
Hey Dad! This is Nicole calling from _____ Armenia. I just got to my host family today, and they are very, very wonderful. I have a new friend, Mariah, she is 13 years old, and she speaks English very, very well. So she is my translator for the family. There are 10 people in the family, and we live in a very, very beautiful, beautiful house on the river. (What's the name of the river?) River _____. Tomorrow I will be starting my language classes. They are feeding me very well. It's really been an amazing experience so far.
There are eight people from the Peace Corps in my village, and they all live very close. All the kids in the village put on an amazing concert today. They played violin, cello, tuba, piano. They are so talented. We saw a gorgeous dance. It's been just so awesome so far.
I tried calling Mom, too, but couldn't get in touch with her. I'm going to call the house. I have these phone cards I got that cost 10 cents a minute. I just wanted to call you guys and say "Hello, I love you." Everyone is taking care of each other. I'm in a very safe place. It's really wonderful. I'm going to be involved in some really awesome business... I'll tell you more about it. I haven't been around the internet, but I've been writing a blog on my computer, so I will definitely mail that to you as soon as I can. Alright? Take care. Bye Dad!
[Note: The dog barking is Stout.]
June 4. - Tonight is my first night with my host family. They are incredibly nice and hospitable. Their house has a wonderful yard - it is like a fort, and in the backyard are roosters, hens, a dog, and it goes back through a very nice garden filled with raspberries, strawberries, all kinds of trees, dill, cilantro...and leads to a valley that dips down about 100 feet probably to a river. Of course, mountains are everywhere. Today my eyes filled with tears of joy several times. 
There was a special welcome ceremony to meet our families, and there were so many people gathered at the main Peace Corps office for this event. We walked through the room where four Armenian girls were dressed in a special Armenian dress holding out bread and salt. The ritual is to tear a piece of bread off and dip it in the salt, then eat it, before going to meet our families. My lovely family consists of a 13 year old girl named Mariah, a 12 year old boy, their mother and father, their grandmother and grandfather, their uncle, their aunt, and their aunt's two young children - a boy of about 3 and a girl who is about to turn one. Mariah actually speaks English very well! She has served as a translator all day long, and she is very sweet. She reminds me so much of Kelly and Claire, only Armenian. I let her listen to Shakira and Beyonce on my i-pod because she loves both of those artists. She has never seen an i-pod before.
We have hot running water and toilets, and the electricity may be irregular, but I am not so sure about that yet.
Today is June 2. It feels like three days since we went into town, but that was really only yesterday. Today was a nice day. We had our first language session. Bari! means hello, informally. We also had our first business session which was very informative. I am really excited about it. The motto for us is "Better skills, better lives." There are three sectors in the business program, IT - NGOs - Entrepreneurships. I still don't know which one I will be working in, but we will find out our site assignment and the specifics on June 25. Throughout PST we will have regular CBD sessions. Our instructors are going to be good.
I forgot to mention above how great the sculptures on all of the buildings in Philly are. It seems like everywhere you look there is some subtle piece of art to appreciate on the buildings.
Today was our first full day in Armenia. We have been taken to a resort for lower-income families up in the mountains outside of Charentsevan. It is called Mount Alpine Violet. It's very beautiful, set higher in a valley. We went into the town today and they gave us 12,100 drams (a little less than 4 USD). I only spent 300 drams for about 30 minutes of internet usage. We met in the main Peace Corps headquarters which is the nicest building in the town. The town itself is incredibly interesting and very pretty, although totally run down. There seemed to be several people out and about too. All of the ladies, and even the little girls, were very dressed up, wearing high heels on very old roads with shiny tops and lots of jewelry. It feels like a paradox.
Hello Family!
Nicole here checking in from Armenia, at an internet cafe. Got in at midnight June 1. I wish I could check my e-mails right now but nobody can get into G-mail. Dad, can you please send the U/N and pass for my log in to Mac5?
Everything is fabulous so far. The country is gorgeous. There is a joke that this is "posh core." This may be accurate. The fashionable women are wearing a lot of bling, and high heels on the uneven sidewalks.
Until June 4 we are all staying together at a "resort" up in the mountains in this town we are in. It's a sight to see. Woke up this morning to the sounds of beautiful bird voices echoing all around the mountains. There is a pool. It was cold last night when we got in, but warmed up to probably about 70 today. Oh yeah, and we have toilets and warm running water but it doesn't work all the way (and who knows whether or not we will have these amenities with our host families). food is good, we had beet soup for lunch and cream of wheat for breakfast. there are a lot of pomegranates here.
When we got in, the van carrying our baggage broke down (the shift stopped working), and we waited until about 3 AM to get our bags. No big deal though.
Yerevan was interesting too, there are a lot of English signs all over the city. It's huge.
Not very many trees where we are staying, but a lot of pretty little flowers. The architecture is cool.
So far this is interesting, I think it is going to be very easy to communicate. Everybody apparently has cell phones in PC. We are able to text message to the states for the same cost as within Armenia, which may not be much at all. And may also be able to make calls for 10 cents a minute.
This is far different from what I expected, but I'm sure it is going to be great. probably way easier now than for a PC member serving here say, five years ago even.
I love you guys, hope you are all well, and I will be in touch.
xoxo
