Cherry Party, Site Assignment

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...