Sedentary Roman Candle

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.