The past couple weeks and a few funny stories

Sunday July 27, 2008

Today we worked on and nearly completed our community project for our village. This was a mandatory project in which volunteers from every village had to work together with villagers in assessing the needs of our communities and then completing a project based on those needs. After surveying about fifty people in our community we discovered that most villagers wanted a public place where the children of our village could congregate and hang-out. After scouting out the village for potential spots to build this youth center we went to the mayor to ask for his advice and hopefully get permission to use one of the sites.
All three of the sites seemed abandoned and all were in severe disrepair. The first site was the abandoned town center which previously functioned as the bus station for the village and small store. However, since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, our village has not had public transportation. So, now this building no longer has a roof, most of its windows are completely smashed out or only have dangerous shards remaining in the window pane, and its main use is as a trash can for beer and vodka bottles. This site was quickly rejected by the mayor, who said soon renovation would start on this building.
The next potential site was next to the USAID building in our community that is now used as a kindergarten. I’m sure the building cost taxpayers at least $100,000. The building is 3 stories, of which only one story can be used since the rest of the building has been vandalized and is also in horrible disrepair. This site was also rejected; apparently the mayor said there will be a parking lot built there soon even though hardly any cars or people frequent the location.
The last site was near the school and it was a small abandoned building that also lacked a roof. The ground of the building was uneven, covered with weeds and broken glass. The mayor begrudgingly agreed with this spot, since he enthusiastically wanted the site to be closer to the main road heading into town. This would’ve been a place where people passing by our village could see the accomplishment, but the location would have been out of the way and definitely not convenient for most villagers.
A couple of days before we were suppose to begin work on the project; we met with the mayor again. This time we found out we really didn’t have permission to use the building, and it turned out to be owned by and on some guy‘s property. At first the guy was okay with us using his building; he said he probably would convert it into a place for people to get their haircut when his daughter finished cosmetology school. Yet the next day, when we advertised our community work day, he decided to no longer let us use his store.
So now just a few days before we were supposed to do our project, the entire script had been flipped on us; all of the hours of surveying the community, meeting with the mayor, and coordinating the activities for the day were thrown out the window. So instead we decided to paint an environmentally themed mural at the school, clean up the school yard which was severely overgrown with weeds, have a fun lesson on the environment, and play outdoor games with the children of the community.
Overall the day was great. Around 20 kids showed up to help paint the mural and pull weeds in the school yard. Now the yard is clear enough to play games in and there is a beautiful mural of the wildlife found in our village. For the most part the children were extremely well behaved and most of them thought it was kind of fun to pull weeds and paint. One problem we had was that all of the kids wore their best clothes the stuff they would normally wear to school. Most of the girls were pretty good about staying clean, but of course some of the boys were nasty by the time the days was over. I’m sure their parents were happy with us volunteers when their kids came home for the day.
Yesterday on Saturday July 26th many of us took an optional trip to Yerevan. Out of the 45 volunteers still in our group I think about 35 to 40 of us went. Right now all of us live in small villages about 50 kilometer from Yerevan and our villages are at a much higher elevation than Yerevan. This means the temperature in our village can be 5-15 degrees cooler than in Yerevan and we usually have a nice breeze that blows through the open windows of our houses. Having said this you might have figured out that it was hot in Yerevan, nearly 40 degrees Celsius or over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Although I am fairly used to similar temperatures in Atlanta, there are very few place in Armenia that have air conditioning and our 15 passenger van was definitely not one of them.
Besides the heat I was actually very glad I went on the optional trip to Yerevan. First we walked around the central district of Yerevan, visiting the opera house and looking at various statues in the surrounding areas. We also visited a beautiful art market called the ver-nee-sag, where many artists from throughout Armenia come to display and sell their artwork. The quality and professionalism of the art was astounding.
After meandering for awhile through the artistic district of Yerevan we all hopped back into our vans and headed to the National History Museum. This was of course a highlight for me, but we only had about 2 hours to wander the halls of the museum with our tour guide. My favorite era in the museum was from the Bronze Age, where you could see the creativity and uniqueness of the Armenian culture truly come to life. Although the weaponry from this era was a highlight, the statuettes, jewelry, and pre-Christian religious artifacts were some of the most detailed and intricate pieces of work I had ever seen.
At that point we broke into two groups. One group went to the National Art Gallery and my group went to what the Armenians call the Genocide Memorial Museum. I say this because as a representative of the U.S. government I am not allowed to use the word genocide when referring to the events that took place between 1915 and 1923. Currently the US government does not recognize that an actual genocide occurred and there are many geopolitical reasons for that, but all I can say is that the museum was very touching indeed and the City of Atlanta, as well as the State of Georgia, both recognizes what happened to the Armenian people as genocide.
Although I have only lived in Armenia for a couple months the topic of the events that took place under Ottoman Rule in 1915 still harbor deep resentment among all Armenians. During this time Armenia lost about half of its cultural homeland to the Ottomans, including historic capitals, hundreds of monasteries, and a large percentage of its population. However, today there is hope for change, as both countries try to mend relations for primarily economic reasons. Early in September the Turkish national soccer team is suppose to come and play a friendly-match in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. Supposedly, the Turkish foreign minister might come to the game which could turn out to be a step in the right direction or disastrous. I definitely would like to talk more about this topic, but the constraints of my work do not allow me to.
Some fun notes that have taken place over the last couple months:
My host father’s car is an old Soviet-era car called the Muskovaitch, because the automotive plant that produced these cars was in Moscow. It would be like calling a Ford a “Detroitavitch”, the Soviet’s were extremely creative in their product branding process. Anyways the car has had many problems. The first of which the car is incapable of a cold start, or starting from rest. So we coined the term “Hayastani sport-e”, this is the process of pushing the old lug of a car back and forth in the unpaved driveway until it starts (note Hayastan is the Armenian name for Armenia. Also, the Armenian language is called Hayeren, whereas English is called Angleren).
Second, the car’s fuel injector frequently doesn’t work either. Once when it was imperative for my host family to drive some guest back home after a night of partying the car would’t start. So my host father intuitively siphoned the gas( well they use benzene for most cars in Armenia and many other cars run on natural gas) from the gas tank, located in the trunk, into two 2-liter plastic bottles. Spitting out the benzene he had in his mouth. Then he poured some of the benzene directly into the engine under the hood. Next he handed his son, Arsan who was sitting in the front seat, the full bottle of benzene. My host father connected the benzene in the bottles with the engine by means of a small hose. Effectively creating a new gas tank, with no cap in the front seat of the car. Next, 6 people piled into the Muskovaitch and drove off with the equivalent of the benzene Molitov-cocktail in the front passenger’s seat.

I have had little time to write with the continuation of Pre Service Training, it is considered the boot camp of Peace Corps and we have had very little free time. Soon, I hope to be posting a more professional-looking blog, but I hope I have been able to provide the general gist of what has been going on.
Mark G. Jensen

Remember this blog is a reflection of my own personal thoughts and reflections and in no way represents the views of the Peace Corps or the United States' government.