Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Well it has been another fun and exciting week here in Armenia and I am definitely looking forward to this weekend. Coming up on Saturday my school director is taking me to Yerevan for a little bit of work and then we are going to watch the Armenia vs. Turkey soccer match. This is the first time the Turkish national soccer team will come to Armenia for a match; also some 15,000 Turkish fans as well as the Turkish foreign minister might attend the game. Considering the historical relations between these two peoples this game could turn out to be very eventful, but I am just hoping to see a good match played in Armenia.
This past week has also been filled with some fun experiences that I hope I never forget. Last Friday I went on an excursion or field trip with some of the kids from my school. All of the teachers at the school seem to be including me in as many activities as possible and I am definitely thankful for that. Every year, before the school year starts, the grade that is the equivalent to high school Juniors in the U.S. go on a fun excursion of Armenia. Many of these kids have never left our town or the only place they’ve been to in Armenia is Yerevan.
I was definitely excited about the trip, but for the first 4-5 hours of the day was horrific. First, off we had to be at the school by 4:45 in the morning so we would be able to see all of the sites that were on our itinerary. Walking to the school in the pitch black was quite the experience in itself. I was carrying my notebook and an entirely too large sack lunch, my host mom prepared for me. My cell phone provided the guiding light I needed to traverse and uncertain path. The route I take to the school is iffy during the day, I go through the back of a couple of lots in town, but it cuts about ten minutes off of my walk. On the way through the dark, uneven path I realized one of the gates was locked. Not having enough time to back track, so I had to jump the gate which was surprisingly easy for a person as uncoordinated as I.
The kids were, as expected, lively about their big trip which they only have once throughout their time in school. On the other hand I was quite tired from the night before and my stomach was a mess. My host mother had made some chicken soup 3 days before and hadn’t kept it in the refrigerator. About 30 km into the trip my stomach started doing somersaults that would challenge the Gym Dawgs in difficulty. Three times during the trip I had to run out of the bus and at first I had no toilet paper. This was definitely not a good way to get acquainted with the children I am teaching now. Of course there were no bathrooms at any of the sites either. To say the least it was a learning experience.
Other than the start, the day was a good way to get to know some of the kids and see some of the most beautiful and historic areas of Armenia. The first stop of the tirp was outside of Aparan, a fairly developed city in Western Armenia. At this location there is a huge memorial dedicated to the cataclysmic events that shaped Armenia’s 20th century. One area was dedicated to the atrocities committed against the Armenians by the Ottoman Empire in 1915, the second was memorializing the end of the Great War in 1918, and the last was a tribute to the Armenians who fought for the Red Army during World War II. There was another memorial nearby commemorating the general who stopped the Ottoman Army outside of Aparan. His name was Dro, and is considered to be one of the great leaders of modern Armenian history. He gathered men from all of the villages around Aparan and led the Armenian’s into the Battle of Bashaparan in 1918. In Turkish, Bashaparan means the “the Head of Aparan”, or the main part of Aparan. I’ve been told that if the Ottoman Army had succeeded in conquering the Armenians at Aparan the entire heartland of Armenia, including Yerevan, would have been easily accessible to Ottoman artillery fire.
After the Ottoman army failed to gain ground in Aparan they swept south trying to flank Yerevan from another direction. It was at Sardarapat, south of Yerevan, that the Armenians finally stopped Turkish advances from May 22-26, 1918. Two days later on May 28, 1918 Armenia declared its independence, for the first time in modern history. Armenian’s also celebrates Independence Day on September 21, when Armenia gained its independence for the second time in the 20th century, this time from the Soviet Union.
September 8th, 2008
Sorry for not publishing and finishing the last post earlier, but it has been very busy here at my permanent site. First, I’ll get back to my first excursion story and then I’ll recount the rest of the events of the past week.
After, Aparan we headed further south in the direction of Echmiadzin. First, we had a quick stop at a field on the side of the highway that was filled with giant stone sculptures in the shapes of the letters in the Armenian alphabet. Each letter was about 6 feet tall and I believe all 39 letters of the current Armenian alphabet were in the field. There were also two statues of Saint Mesrop Mashtots, the inventor of the Armenian alphabet. He originally invented the unique alphabet in 405 A.D. (C.E.) with only 36 letters, but over the centuries 3 additional letters have been added to accommodate for sounds not native to the Armenian language or to simplify common diphthong letter combinations.
After leaving the field we turned north toward Mount Aragats, the highest peak within the territory of the Republic of Armenia. We past a modern weather station near the town of Amberd, and then we started heading straight up the slopes of Aragats. The scenery quickly becomes very desolate and the landscape is covered by large stones. As our bus drove closer to the top of the mountain the conditions of the road promptly deteriorated and to our left a 500 meter steep valley/canyon dominated the view. Our driver was extremely careful with a bus load of precious cargo.
On the drive up to the top of the mountain I also encountered a very strange community and one that was different from any I had seen in Armenia. These people I later found out were Yezdis, a nomadic group who live off the land and make a living off of cattle breeding. Their community was setup with a couple of huge white tents. Around those tents they had built large temporary pens for their livestock and the women, children, and older people were working around the tents. The men were riding horses and tending to their herds. I couldn’t believe that people could actually live that high up on the mountain, but every day the men take their herds down the steep switch-backs that dangerously descend down the valley. The must do this to get to the little grass that exists in the area.
The Yezdi’s only live this high up on Aragats during the warmer months of the year, since this part of Aragats becomes inhabitable during the winter. Later on they return to their more permanent villages close to the base of Aragats. Even in August, when I was there the weather was extremely cold, compared to the rest of the country. I was definitely not prepared for the weather that was comparable to Atlanta in the depths of winter.
When we finally reached our destination near the top of Ararat I was feeling better and ready to have more fun with the kids. We stopped at Kari Leech, or Stone Lake, the highest lake in all of Armenia. At the lake there was a scientific research center from the Soviet era that is no longer in use and a small restaurant for the tourists who come to the site. There were quite a few tourists there from all over Eastern Europe and Armenia. Mostly Russians, but also Czechs, Poles, and Georgians, well those were the ones I met. Throughout the whole day we saw them since we visited most of the same sites as them.
After Lake Kari we headed back down the mountain and to a historic fort and monastery. The fort’s name has slipped my mind, but it was beautiful and built at the beginning of the 13th century. The fort is situated near the edge of two huge cliffs formed by the intersection of two ancient rivers. The forts walls were a good 3 meters thick and the main wall was about 25 meters high (80 feet). Next to the ancient fort was a relatively new church that still functions every Sunday.
At this site we unpacked all of the food we had brought for the day and ate lunch. The site had a restaurant with large picnic tables reserved for tourist, but I’ve learned any amenity at a tourist attraction is open game for native Armenians to use for free. We took over the small restaurant area and ate boiled eggs, pre-cooked kebabs, corn, cheese, bread, tomatoes, cucumbers, and watermelon. It was quite I feast, but I only partially took part since I was still unsure of how exactly my stomach would react.
After eating lunch we headed for Byuriakan, where Armenia’s astraghaditaran, or observatory, is located. I was told during Soviet times every republic that was part of the USSR received an observatory from Moscow. Armenia’s observatory is one of the few that is still working and the facilities are fairly nice with a hotel, a banquet hall, and orchards of various fruits surround the entire compound. The man that gave us our tour and runs the day to day operations of the center was a very interesting gentleman. He was probably 60 years old, spoke flawless English, and had travelled all over the world visiting observatories. He invited me back and I’ll surely take him up on the offer.
After Byuriakan the day was starting to drag on. It was around 4:30 in the afternoon and we had met at the school around 4:45 in the morning. We drove through the town of Vostekaz, if I remember correctly, where storks had built nest on a couple of the utility poles. When I studied in Croatia in 2006 I had seen storks for the first time and I was lucky enough to see them again, they are such beautiful creatures.
Next, we went to visit the grave of Mesrop Mashtots and the surrounding compound. The church where he is buried was built in the 19th century, whereas Mesrop Mashtot’s died in the 5th century, nevertheless the church still claims it is the official resting spot of St. Mashtots. The church was beautiful, but outside in the courtyard was the real gem in my opinion. There were khachkars, or cross-stones, of every letter in the alphabet. Although Armenia you see khachkars all over the place these were quite unique. Along with the letter, carved into the stone so eloquently, there was also a picture carved into the stone. The first letter in the name of the picture was the letter of that particular khachkar. It is like those signs we have in classrooms in the U.S. that say a= apple, b=bear, and so on, but these things were made of huge stones.
That turned out to be our last stop on the trip, but it was around 7 p.m. and we still had a 4 hour drive home. We arrived back at the school a little after 11 o’clock and once I got home I promptly collapsed on my bed. The day was overall a great success and I was definitely grateful not only for the opportunity to travel all over the western part of modern Armenia, but also to meet a bunch of the students in a casual setting.
The excursion took place on Friday August 29th, the next day Saturday I was extremely tired and a little bit sick. I have had a cold for about 3-weeks, but I haven’t really rested. I finally went to the drug store and got some antibiotics, I’m feeling a lot better now. Later, on Saturday, the closest volunteer to me decided to come and visit and just check up on how well this new volunteer is doing. All of the A-15s, or the Peace Corps Armenian volunteers that have been here for a year have been extremely helpful in encouraging us. They call, visit, and encourage us whenever we see them; although they do warn us about the severity of the winters. I guess I would rather be given a realistic outlook on the next two years of my life, instead of having an overly optimistic picture painted for the purpose of encouragement.
On Sunday I hung out with my family almost the entire day. It was a lot of fun combined with a lot of hard work. For about three hours we picked potatoes, a task I have learned to love. This time some of the younger boys came out to help us pick and at first they were just goofing around and weren’t at all enthusiastic about their chore at hand. Quickly I made the potato picking into a competition and the young boys soon became some of the best potato pickers in the world and in three hours we cleared a potato patch that normally takes 2 days to pick.
Monday, September the 1st was the first day of school for the entire country of Armenia. I made sure to show up a bit early and wear some of my nicer clothes, because we had been warned that the first day of school is quite the event. The day did not disappoint. The children, especially little ones come fully dressed up in suits, or at wearing least ties, and dresses for the girls. All of the little kids bring bouquets of flowers for their teachers and often these bouquets are as big as the children themselves. The event is also a community event with parents and other adults.
First we had an opening ceremony, where I accidently found myself standing with all the dignitaries for the event, even though I was the only one that didn’t have a speech. The dignitaries included my school’s principal, a police officer, two male teachers, two members of the city council, and me. Over the PA system, which was really a CD player/ karaoke machine, the Assistant Principal welcomed all of the students. Then a couple of first grade students, 5 year old kids, had to come up to the front of the stage (the front steps of the school) and recite 2-3 sentences of a famous Armenian poem by Charents, a famous Armenian poet. I definitely would have had a nervous breakdown if I had to recite a poem in front of the entire community when I was five years old. After the recitation, the whole 1st grade class which is literally the first year kids attend school (there is no kindergarten at the main schools), went into the school and rang the opening bell for the 2008-2009 school year.
The first day was complete chaos at the school. There are teacher, parents, and other people from the community just walking around the school. Around 11 a.m. my colleague and I had our first class. My colleague is the geography teacher at the school at is one of the nicest people I have ever met in my life. She tries just as hard to learn English, as I try to learn Armenian. We both started to make our own dictionaries with words, we commonly use in the classroom. Also, having a colleague that is a geography teacher is very nice since most countries, oceans, and general geographic features have similar pronunciation in Armenia, as in English. So I am actually already teaching in class, whereas most of the other volunteers are sitting on the sidelines until their Armenian gets up to par. I definitely do more listening and watching than teaching, but I have been interacting with the kids quite a bit in the classroom. It’s also very nice that my colleague is 39 years old, this helps a lot with class preparation. Although I do help quite a bit and she always asks for my input, my colleague can pull lessons out of her sleeve with no problem.
After, the kids left around 2 o’clock we teacher had our fun time. It was a celebration for having finished the 1st day and out came the cognac, wine, and vodka. The teacher’s lounge quickly turned into more of a lounge, but I keep the drinking to a minimum, especially at school. There were also cakes, chocolates, and fresh fruit; it was quite the scene for me to encounter on my first day.
After the festivities were over I went down to the NGO I have been helping at. The people there are very friendly and I needed them to scratch my back, hoping they would return the favor after typing up a 20-page grant proposal for them the week before. I wanted to take some of the kids at my permanent site for FLEX testing. FLEX stands for Future Leaders Exchange Program and is run out of the U.S. State Department. It is a program in almost all of the former Soviet satellite republics, in which students in their last year of schooling have the opportunity to go to America and study. The students live with an American host family and go to an American public high school. If you want to host a child look up the program on the internet.
I wanted to bring 10 kids from my permanent site to be tested so they could have the opportunity to study in America. In the past very few students outside of Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, are chosen, but we’re trying to raise the ratio. The only problem was that none of the moms in my town wanted their kids going America, it is just too far away and they also think it is dangerous. After hours of negotiating with students, teachers, and parents I was finally able to convince 7 of the students to go for the first round of testing. On Tuesday, September 2nd, I took all of their pictures and went to the local Kodak store to get their pictures developed. Beside their birth certificates that was the one thing all of the students had to bring.
By that point I was ecstatic to have 7 kids to take for testing and on Wednesday we were to go about 49 kilometers for the first test. The night before I called up the minibus driver I previously arranged to take us, just to confirm he was still going to be at the school at 7:30 the next morning to take us to the test. He said he was in Yerevan and couldn’t do the job. GREAT. So, I have 7 kids, 14 parents, and 3 directors expecting me to take these students for testing the next day and I had no transportation. My original driver did offer me the number of another driver, but he wanted to charge me about $10 USD more than I had agreed to pay. I told him thanks but no thanks, but I think I forgot the first thanks; I was extremely perturbed by this point and ready for this FLEX experience to be over.
I went to the NGO and they helped me again. We went to the taxi stop in our town and found 2 drivers that would shuttle the 7 kids and I to and from the test for about $10 USDs cheaper than the original driver’s quote. So I saved $20 dollars deciding to refuse the other driver. At that point I was a bit happier and more optimistic about the next day.
On Wednesday we left around 8:15 even though I told all of the students to be at the school at 7:30. We were still the first group at the testing center and I soon learned that the test proctors from Yerevan were going to be extremely late, because their car broke down. So we waited for about an hour and a half for them to arrive, the whole time I was trying my best to entertain a classroom of 15 kids. When the proctors arrived they were extremely cool nice and one was a former Peace Corps Volunteer in Kazakhstan.
The first round test was only 15-minutes in length. The first section was 10 basic fill-in-the-blank questions testing fairly simple vocabulary word. The next section was a reading comprehension test, in which the students read a short paragraph and had to answer questions regarding information in the paragraph. Most of my students said the test was very easy, but the time limit was too short.
Later I found out that 3 of my 7 students passed the first round, which made me happy, but it also kind of stunk. Why? Well the next day was the second-round of the FLEX test. This time we even had to travel farther and I had little money left in my budget to pay for transportation. I wanted to take the marshutka, or mini-bus, but the parents didn’t want their kids riding the often overly crowded buses. So I made sure the parents agreed to pay for their child’s share of the taxi this time, which was 2,500 dram or about $8.30 USD.
We left for the second round of FLEX testing early the next morning, since we had to travel nearly 100 kilometers, and I00 kilometers in many mountainous parts of Armenia is quite a haul. I had the kids bring sack lunches, and in general I felt 100 times more prepared the second day. Everything was running according to schedule on Thursday, which was good because I was planning on meeting some of my Peace Corps Volunteer friends in the city. However, once again I had to entertain the kids as there was a bit of confusion between the FLEX proctors, but it was only because they were trying to go beyond what was required of them. One of the girls that passed the 1st round wasn’t notified she passed, so the two FLEX proctors worked for 30 minutes or so to make sure the girl was notified and she finally showed up for the test.
After helping with set-up and making sure everything was going well I left to meet two of my fellow A-16s (A-16- is a Peace Corps term referring to my group as the 16th group of volunteers in Armenia, thus A- 16) for coffee and lunch. We had a good time catching up and just being able to speak English. Their permanent site was extremely nice and I was a bit jealous. On the other hand I had done a lot of work, whereas their colleagues weren’t so active. After hanging out for 2 hours and getting the grand tour of the city I returned to the test center and helped finish administering the test. The second round test lasts about 2 ½ hours and includes, listening, reading, and writing two essays. The students said this phase was much more difficult, but I still hope they did well. Now the tests are sent to Moscow, where FLEX headquarters are located and in 3 weeks we will hear the results.
When I got home from the testing center I went straight to the NGO, since we had a meeting concerning an environmental program we’re trying to finalize for our community. In our town USAID piloted a trash collection projection, where they bought my town a garbage truck to be used instead of everyone burning their trash outside their house. Whether it is right out on the street or in their backyard there are always fires burning consisting of the trash created by business, the government, and citizens in general. So right now my town is not using the garbage trucks effectively and we are just trying to amend the problem.
September 10th, 2008
This post is taking far too long to put up on the internet, I currently have little free time and right now I’m sacrificing some of my class time to write. I didn’t plan the lesson for this grade level today; so I could provide only minimal assistance, except providing the English names for geographic features on the Eurasian continent.
Now on to last weekend in Yerevan which was an experience in itself. From the time I initially visited my permanent site in the middle of July I talked to my school director about going to the Turkey-Armenia Fútbol (soccer) game which was on September 6th in Yerevan. At first my school director said he would take me to the game from my site, buy our tickets, and provide any food and beverages we might need.
Well two weeks before the game I talked to my school director about the game and he told me he had no tickets for the game. I was quite dismayed. I had been talking with many of the other PCVs (Peace Corps Volunteers) in Armenia and planning on meeting up and it turned out I had no tickets for the game. So I called a volunteer who lives close to Yerevan and he was able to pick up a couple of tickets for my school director and myself. One problem averted.
Then on Friday at school, the day before the game, I kept asking my school director when we would be leaving my town for Yerevan. In Yerevan I had to meet up with an NGO that I will be helping out this weekend, so I wanted to have a ballpark estimate of when I could meet with this NGO. My school director kept telling me he did not know when we would get to Yerevan, finally I figured out that the reason for this ambiguity was that we had no ride to Yerevan. Not good. So, until about 8 o’clock Friday night we worked on trying to get a ride to Yerevan, without success. My school director did not seem worried, but I on the other hand started looking at the public transportation schedule, just in case I had to ride into Yerevan by myself.
The next morning I came into school and immediately found my school director. Still, he had not found a ride for us, but this time he assured me we would have a ride. His assurance fell on deft ears. Not only did I want to be in Yerevan for the soccer match of the century, well at least for the Armenian nation, but also I had to meet with the Sunchild NGO to plan the events for the next weekend. I had to be in Yerevan. I decided if after my third period class he had still not found a ride I would take the 12 o’clock marshutka, or minibus, into Yerevan for the meeting and the game.
I helped teach the first two lessons and still nothing about the ride. Then during my third period class, one of the director’s secretaries came to my classroom, and told me Rubeek wanted to speak with me, that his name by the way. When I got to his office he asked if I was ready to go, even though I wasn’t, I said yes since I didn’t want to jeopardize a potential ride to Yerevan. He said lets go. I told him I need to run back to my classroom to get my camera and then we could go. I wanted to go home and grab my jacket and sunglasses for the long trip, but those things weren’t absolutely essential, even though it gets pretty cold in Yerevan at night during the fall.
We ran down from the school to the place our taxi was to meet us and waited. Finally after about 20 minutes our taxi arrived and 4 Armenian men and I piled into the car. My school director had bought 10 beers for the road, but I wasn’t feeling too well since it had been an extremely crazy day to that point. I had one drink while the other men, except the driver, downed their beers and prepared for the game. That is one thing we must always be careful of here in Armenia, drunk driving. While most men in my area don’t drink and drive, it is fairly common though out Armenia. I say men, because women rarely drive in Armenia, especially in the marzes (Armenia provinces) outside of Yerevan. Although I don’t know if alcohol was involved, when we were on the road the other day, we saw a big truck that careened off a cliff only a couple of minute before we pulled up on the scene. Most of the Armenians treated it like a fairly common experience, and only among some of the older women did expressions of horror surface on their face.
September 11th, 2008 (7th Anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon)
The drive to Yerevan was a relatively fast one from my site. Usually the trip take 3 ½ hours by taxi or 4 ½ hours by marshutka(minibus), but it only took us 3 hours with only one stop right outside of Yerevan. We arrived in Yerevan around 2:00 in the afternoon and there was a noticeable temperature difference between my site and the always hot and humid Yerevan. Once we were in Yerevan my school director knew I had a meeting with Sunchild NGO so we split ways. First I made it to the Peace Corps headquarters in Yerevan, that part wasn’t too difficult since I took a taxi. There I met up with some friends, used the internet very briefly, and turned in some paper work so I could be reimbursed for some expenses.
Then after spending an hour and a half at the Peace Corps headquarters it was off to my meeting at Sunchild, which was suppose to start around 4. This was a bit more challenging feat since I was suppose to find two random guys on a street corner and then they would walk me to the place where the meeting was to be held. After wandering around for about 10 minutes I finally found the Grand Candy store I was to meet them at. Grand Candy is the biggest candy producer in Armenia. Their candy is not always the best, but it’s usually the cheapest and it is 100% Armenian. Waiting at the Grand Candy story were two guys who looked quite amiable and people who I could trust. One was a 30 something year old German guy named Phillip from Cologne. He was a big guy, who had just arrived in Armenia to help Sunchild with program development. He spoke no Armenian, but was rather proficient in English and of course German. The other guy was pure Armenian. His name was Hayk, which is an extremely common Armenian name for men. Hayk is the person Armenia is named after in the Armenian language, Armenians call Armenia, Hayastan, or the land of Hayk. The original Hayk was the son of Togarmah, who was the son of Gomer, who was the son of Yapheth,, who was the son of Noah and his Ark. Sorry for going Old Testament on y’all, but I think it is interesting to learn where a name originates.
After brief introductions Phillip and I started walking to one of Sunchild’s buildings. It was a bit weird going through the back alleys of Yerevan with a German guy I had only met a couple of minutes ago, but he was a nice guy and I trusted him. We arrived at the place where we were to have our meeting, which was a large house compound with a big courtyard where the meeting took place, but there were only a very few people there. Soon all the other people started rolling in. There were Iranians, French, Germans, and a couple Dutch people and tons of Armenians. Most of the Armenians were girls from the Yerevan State University and were in the film program there. The three Iranians were also students in Yerevan and two of them were from Tehran. They were both extremely chill and laid back; and the girl had on the shortest shorts I had seen in Armenia, Dolce and Gabana sunglasses, and had braces. The Iranian guy looked more European than most people in Armenia and even Yerevan. He had caprice on and was rocking the faux hawk mullet. They probably wanted to escape the conservative atmosphere of their own country so they high tailed it to Yerevan, although in general Armenia too is very conservative. The Armenian girls were all pretty cute and shy like they always are, but I am still waiting on someone back home.
The meeting was about an environmentally themed Painting Party that will take place this Sunday, September 14th in Yerevan. I am in charge of recruiting as many volunteers from Lori and Tavush marzes (a marze is an Armenian province or state) and so far we have quite a few people coming. On Saturday night we have to help set-up tables and everything else needed for the next day. I’m really excited about the project and making another group of friends in Yerevan.
After the meeting I went with the German guy Phillip, an Iranian named Ibrahim, and an Armenian-American living in Yerevan to a restaurant area near the beautiful Opera house. In front of the Opera house there were protestors from the Dashnak party, a hardcore nationalistic party here in Armenia, protesting Turkish people on their soil. One little 4 or 5 year old boy was telling every Armenian going to the game that they were ‘a disgrace to their race’. First we had to swing by Kami’s apartment, Kami is the name of the Armenian America, his apartment was pretty large and he had a hookah lounge built into one room. Finally I arrived and the outdoor bar/restaurant where the rest of the Peace Corps volunteers were hanging out. It was so nice to see everyone, even though I only had an hour and a half to see them before I had to go find my school director. I was able to catch up with everyone and have a beer.
Finding my school director was probably the greatest challenge of the whole day. I had lost the map that I had marked the location where I was supposed to meet my director, but I remembered what street our meeting place was on. Still I could not find the store where we were supposed to meet. I thought I would be able to spot him somewhere on the street, but I had no luck. So I found an old taxi driver and handed him my phone with my school director on the other line, and asked him to help me find my friend. Within minutes I had found my school director even though he wasn’t where we originally agreed to meet.
By this point it was nearing kick-off and we had 25 minutes to run 2 kilometers through a mass of people, get through security, and find our seats. The mass of people was seemed never ending, at every turn we made there were more and more people. One cool thing that was present from the center of Yerevan all the way out to the stadium was the overwhelming amount of street vendors, so there are the signs of entrepreneurship that Armenia needs so badly. Once we got within a kilometer of the stadium the police presence became overwhelming as well. At first the cops were just making sure the mass of humanity stayed close to the side walk and did not wander on to the street. Yet, soon they began making sure no one was becoming too rowdy. I have to admit both the fans and the police were well-behaved throughout the evening. Most of the police looked like they could either be my grandfather or a couple years younger than my little brother. They definitely were not intimidating and they seemed passive to most minor disturbances. On the other hand the internal security service guys looked extremely hardcore and they seemed to be running the show, at least outside the stadium.

Soon Rubeek, my school director, and I made it to the gates of the stadium and everyone’s bags were being checked. Lucky for us we had nothing on us and we scooted right by. Rubeek asked a couple of police officers inside the stadium where are seats were and before I knew we plopped down in our seats about 5 minutes till 9, when the game was to start.
Once in my seat I could properly take in the vastness of the stadium. The seats in the stadium were normal seats you would have at a baseball game, but they were painted the colors of the Armenian flag; orange, blue and red. The fans were already going crazy, but the stadium was not full yet. Our seats were located behind the goal on the south end of the stadium, I was a little disappointed and Rubeek said he liked the seats, but he wished we were a little closer to midfield. The teams were still warming up and we were nearest the Turkish teams half of the field. The good thing was that we were seated next to a lot of other Peace Corps Volunteers so I could continue catching up with my fellow volunteers whom I only get to see every once in awhile. In total there were about 50 PCVs from Armenia went to the game it was definitely a lot of fun. The best thing about our seat is that we were very close to the Turkish contingent that came to the game. Overall the Armenia fans near them respected them and the Turkish fans even brought an Armenian flag to show their unity with the Armenian people.

The stadium was packed with police, military police, and internal security services. On the first row every third seat was occupied by a policeman. Then, in the every section there were large pocket of police stationed in the upper rows, usually 30 or more cops. I have been trying to figure out how many police and security forces were at the game, but it is truly impossible to tell. I called up a friend I know who is in the military police and he had no clue, either that or he didn’t want to tell me. All of us at the game, including my school director, guessed there were between 5,000 and 10,000 security related people at the game. Armenia didn’t want an embarrassment in their home stadium and they definitely overcompensated on the security front.

Finally, the teams left the field and then they came back and lined up for the lineup announcements. As the announcer called out the Armenian players’ last names he strongly accented every syllable so the crowd could yell along with the PA system. Since 95% of Armenian last names end with –yan, the crowd was always the loudest when pronouncing the last syllable. I have never been to another country where the homogeneity of a people and their surname are so pervasive. I guess Wilson’s principle of self-determination truly played itself out in the Caucuses, as well as the Balkans.

The game started and you could tell the Armenian players were overly excited. They played an extremely sloppy game and the only reason the Turks didn’t score in the first half was due to the level of energy exerted by the Armenians. I believe the Armenians only had one shot on goal in the first half and I wouldn’t even consider it a shot. At points two or three Armenian player's collided with each other as they fought for the ball. No doubt, their effort and energy was unprecedented, but the Turks just sat back and played calm, disciplined soccer not wanting to expose themselves’ to a counter attack and give the Armenian national team a glimpse of hope. I think the Armenians tried to turn it into a sloppy, scrappy game since in set play, against a strong Turkish team, the Armenians had little chance of winning.
The second half started much like the first half and I was amazed that the Armenians could keep up their level of play for much longer. The Armenians made it to around the 65th minute without giving up a goal, but the Turkish pressure was unrelenting. The Turkish national team scored one goal and then put another one in the back of the net about ten minutes later. I was very impressed by the Armenian keeper/goalie. The score could have been much worse, but he had 2 or 3 nearly impossible saves. The game ended in a 2-0 loss for Armenian, but I can’t say they didn’t leave it all on the field.

Although it was sad to see my adopted country’s soccer team loss on their home soil, it was still a great experience. My school director and I both lost our voices due to the intensity of our cheering and many of the police near us were quite angry with us for banging on the seats in the rows in front of us. One disappointing thing was that the Armenian fans had no coordinated cheers and they quickly become quiet after kickoff. After the game we headed home dreaming of the day when Armenian puts a whoppin’ on Turkey, on Turkey’s home pitch. Upon returning home I turned on Bloomberg Europa, which we pick up on my family’s satellite connection, and along the bottom of the screen a blurb read, “Turkey reconsiders trade relations with Armenia.” Maybe a peaceful soccer game does have positive consequences for international relations, but who knows.

One of the saddest things I have ever seen happened this Monday. A little girl, who I often play sports with her and her friends came up to me crying. She kept saying ari, are or come, come. She usually says this because she wants to play, but I could tell this time there was something seriously wrong. Her already crippled dog had been shot in the head. The dog is the nicest dog I've met in Armenia and it limps around on three legs since one of its legs doesn't work. The dog would always run around with the kids as they called out his name, Bobbi. The scene was extremely gruesome. There was blood everywhere, its left ear was blown off, and you could see its skull. It's body was spasming in shock, but suprisingly 5 days later the dog is still alive. It is not the same, but it still limps around on three legs and now it is missing its left ear.

So far the second week of teaching has been much different from the first. The first week my co-worker and I had to do mainly administrative tasks, but now we have a fairly regular schedule and routine. One weird thing about this week is that teachers who have a break must go and observe other teachers who are teaching. I don’t know if schools in America do this, but it seems that all of the teachers are stressing out about it. Today, many of the teachers and students came up to me and said sorry for the September 11th. We also had a moment of silence in all of our classes for the victims of September 11th. It was very touching and I and I made sure to thank everyone who expressed their condolences to me.

On another note it was Armen’s birthday today, he is one of the best teachers at our school. Armen is also one of my closer friends at the school and is the military strategy teacher. Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you every boy in Armenia must go through military strategy class where they learn to disassemble and clean weapons, learn basic strategy tactic, and learn how to prepare impromptu explosives. Anyways we had a celebration for Armen in school. The whole day the teacher’s lounge was more like a party room as cognac and wine flowed freely and the teacher’s enjoyed themselves almost as much as the kids do during recess. After school the 4 male teachers and the principal invited me out to go celebrate. We went to a horovats/barbecue restaurant where we ate kebabs, lamb meat, and steaks. The food was delicious and they even toasted to their new colleague, or co-worker, and they said they enjoyed working with me.

Also this week there has been a three day film festival in my town. The festival relates to trying to make peace in the Caucus region and it was organize by an NGO from Tblisi, Georgia. The first day of films had to do with Chechnya and both films had a very anti-Russian overtone. On Tuesday the films dealt with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and some of the ideas both Palestinians and Israelis have and use to help solve the conflict. I had already seen one of the films called, “A Bridge Over Wadi”. Yesterday’s film was about a very pro-active teacher in rural France who was extremely attentive and taught his pupils about tolerance and peace. It was probably my least favorite movie, for readily apparent reasons.

On a sadder note, the other volunteer who has been living in my town for the last year is not coming back to Armenia. My site mate or the other volunteer has been in Washington D.C. trying to recover from 8-months of diarrhea. I guess his stomach has shown no signs of improvement so now Peace Corps is not allowing him to return to Armenia. Overall I am definitely sad that he is not coming back, but there are a couple good things about him leaving; yet I would definitely rather have him here to help me get through my first winter as well as have someone to hang out with when things get tough. Get well Kevin!

So far after being at my site for almost a month I feel like I have done pretty well integrating into my community. However, I am very lucky since my community is also a very active one, which has had several volunteers who have lived here in the past. So not only are the NGO’s constantly asking me to do work for them, but also strangers in town are not afraid to approach me, since the volunteers before me have been great ambassadors of friendship. This obviously has its positive and negative aspects, but overall I am happy with my situation.

Well that’s enough for now. But I hope to post another blog soon. This weekend should be exciting with our trip to Yerevan. I hope everyone is doing well back home and I can’t wait to see my little niece Charlotte pictures of her were great to see. Miss y’all.

peace.shalom.salaam.
MGJ


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.