10.03.2008

From Armenia with Love

Friday, September 26, 2008

Hey Everyone,
Sorry for not writing in awhile, I have been swamped with projects and some other busy work. Over the past week or so I have been periodically cleaning out another volunteers’ house. He was medically evacuated over a month ago for stomach problems, but he didn’t recover completely during his stay in the States. So Peace Corps did not allow him to return. I’ve heard from many people that if you get sent to the hospital Peace Corps’ uses near D.C. for stomach problems you are most likely not returning to your host country. This is due to the fact that Peace Corps usually gives volunteers 30 to 45 days in America to recover, yet to get rid of many stomach ailments it usually takes 6-months to be sure your stomach is healthy.
In Armenia, and probably most of the countries that Peace Corps is located in, volunteers are constantly battling stomach problems. In Armenia the biggest problem for us is giardia, a nasty parasite that reproduces in our small intestine. I have had a couple horrific days of stomach problem, but I haven’t been lucky enough to get giardia so far. One of my friends, a fellow A-16 (since we are the 16thgroup of volunteers to come to Armenia (‘A’), starting in 1992 till now, 16 years of volunteers helping Armenia), had giardia and he look deathly ill after having it for 2 days. His face was stark white and he looked like he was now only made up of 60% water, before he was a fairly big guy from Wisconsin. I think he is better now, but I’ve been told everyone gets giardia during their tour in Armenia.
Anyways, upon hearing the news that the fellow volunteer was not returning I knew the task of cleaning up his apartment would fall on my shoulders. His house was full with an overwhelming amount of stuff. There have been several volunteers who have lived at my permanent site over the years, so their things have accumulated here. There were spices, jars of peanut butter, candy, notebooks, winter clothing, dozens of books, electronics equipment, board games, water guns, a Christmas tree and stockings, dradles for Chanukah, groggers for Purim and hundreds of DVDs; pretty much a Peace Corps volunteers dream come true.
Although I removed over 30 boxes of trash, personal belongings, and just random stuff, I am very happy to have such a stockpile of things. Not only have I filled up every nook and cranny of my apartment with the former Peace Corps volunteers’ things, but I have 15 more boxes stored in the building where my family’s old cheese factory is located.
However the best part of having helped clean his old apartment was seeing the confrontation when the Peace Corps staff came up to my site to settle the paperwork with the landlady who owns the place. It was quite a show and I saw just how good Armenians are at the bargaining table. Although I had spent around 20 hours cleaning, removing, and organizing the stuff in the apartment; the apartment was still not in tip-top shape by any means. There were a couple of broken chairs, which were reportedly broken before the Peace Corps volunteer moved in, and there were some other problems with the place. The landlady was not pleased to say the least.
At my site I have been told by many Armenians this particular landlady is not the most, how should I say this, well I guess tactful person in the world. Many of the people in my town aren’t exactly good friends with her. I don’t know whether this is due to the universal ‘tenet-owner’ relationship or because this lady truly is not the friendliest person in the world. Anyways the whole time she was negotiating with the Peace Corps staff she would bring up rather trivial things like the stove not being in perfect condition or the floor not being swept in the corners. I couldn’t help but smile a couple of times. The Peace Corps offered her an additional $30 USD (10,000AMD), just to hire a maid to clean up the place, but originally she said it was not enough. In reality, $30 US dollars still goes a long, long way in Armenia, especially outside of Yerevan the capital. I’m not trying to say that Peace Corps can just swoop in, throw money around and clean up messes created by former volunteers, because they truly don’t do that. Peace Corps made her a more than reasonable offer and she refused. The same thing would happen in the US or Europe when somebody moves out of an apartment. Finally, she agreed to the clean-up price and I thought that was that.
The next day the landlady’s mother and the cleaning lady came to my house and demanded more money. The amount Peace Corps paid to clean the house was more than enough, but she wanted more. She brought a huge bag of cleaning supplies over to my house and told me I had to pay for them and only then she would clean the apartment. I told her that she had agreed with Peace Corps the day before on the price to clean the former PCV’s apartment. I knew she was just going to pocket the money, return the cleaning supplies, and smile.
At first the landlady’s mom was very amicable, trying calmly to posit her argument and get what she wanted. Once she realized I was holding my ground her calm demeanor quickly changes. The landlady’s mom began to lay into me saying that I should pay her more and that she was going to go to the police if I didn’t. Then, out came the infantry. My host mom and two other ladies from my apartment building came out and laid into the landlady’s mom. I was very grateful for their help and I am glad that I have tried hard to make good relationships with many of the people in my apartment building. Then, the land lady threw the key into my host mom’s pocket and said “we don’t want the apartment.” It was quite the scene and a good learning experience for me.
Many times similar types of situations have happened to me. Never has anyone become enraged with me, yet several times people have tried to get more money out of me. Whether I’m trying to catch a cab or take kids to the marze peteran (regional capital) for FLEX testing, many times people have tried to rip me off. Sometimes it really does ware me. Inside I feel like I am trying to help, trying to make life just a little bit better for the people of Armenia, but then someone raises the price of an already agreed upon sum. I really try to help everyone, but sometimes it’s not appreciated or it’s taken for granted.
That is one of the biggest problems I see with Armenia. I feel like the Armenian government and many of the people I have met in Yerevan are really trying to make Armenia more self-sufficient, but Armenia had it so good under Soviet times. And now half of Armenia’s population doesn’t need to work a day in their life, because the amount of remittances coming into Armenia from abroad. Many economists’ believe more money comes into Armenia from abroad then actually is produced in Armenia every year. Although there are pockets of extremely motivated people in the marzes, or more rural areas, the vast majority of these motivated people are goaded into the cities or abroad by the complacency of the rural areas. Although this is probably true in any nation, the sluggish way of life seems somewhat worse here. With the amount of money coming in from abroad and the nostalgia for Soviet times many of the people are content with the current standard of living and are unwilling to change.
I guess that is where my job comes in. The Armenian people are extremely intelligent and have an amazing history of great achievements, but they spend too much time resting on their laurels. Although the geopolitical situation Armenia finds itself in is not a particularly advantageous one, to be a bit sarcastic, the country has the potential to become extremely successful and I feel somewhat wealthy in the next 20 to 30 years. I feel Armenia’s main assets are its people and its geographic size. Overall the Armenian people are incredibly smart and can be extremely driven. Although complacency is now ingrained into the being of many Armenians the potential for a better and more comfortable life is extremely persuasive.
Soon, by next spring, Armenia is supposed to have nationwide, high-speed, wireless internet, one obvious benefit of having a geographically small nation. Armenia can adapt quickly to most modern advances in technology if it so chooses. Although its infrastructure, roads, water supply, and utilities, continue to decay since the fall of the Soviet Union, Armenia’s ability to surpass other nation in terms of technological availability should be a strong point. Now the availability of computers, laptops, and other essentials needed to tap into wireless internet is very limited in the marzes. Yet, as the nationwide, wireless internet comes online people’s want for easy internet access will be followed by a huge boom in computer sales. Now computers are extremely expensive, as are most high-end items imported from abroad, but soon the oligarch who controls computer imports will have to give in to rising demand and lower the prices on these commodities.
Other news last week was another exciting weekend or day in Yerevan. Another Peace Corps volunteer, named Sarah, and I rode together on a marshutka/mini-bus to a city near Lake Sevan. Before getting on the bus to leave a man in my town came up to talk to us. His first question was the usual asking if we were married or not. I said no and said that she was my co-worker, or gortz-anker. Then this random guy said that he wanted to talk to me alone. It took me a second, but I finally figured out why, he wanted to see how much Sarah, my volunteer friend, cost. By the time I realized what he was talking about, Sarah was already giving him her two cents, in Armenian, telling him how shameful he was and if he would ask the same question to a random Armenian girl. Since we were at the bus stop near the center of town the scene was quite dramatic and the guy scurried off hoping to avoid any further confrontation. That was definitely the first time in my life I was mistaken for pimp and hopefully the last.
After that little incident we got on our bus and waited for an hour and a half. Finally the two people we were waiting on finally showed up and we were off. On Friday night it was me and 6 female Peace Corps volunteers. We had a great time, but I felt overwhelmed with all these ladies. Throughout my life I have had few female friends, I usually preferred hanging out with guys, I guess because I had more in common with them. I also have always been a bit shy around the ladies. Yet for some reason over the past, say… 4 or 5 years I have made a lot of really good friends who are female and I guess it is carrying over in the Peace Corps.
Early Saturday morning we went into Yerevan for initiative meetings. Initiatives are projects, other than our primary project that Peace Corps assigns to us, where we work with other Peace Corps volunteers. They are generally a fun time for us, since we get to hang out with all of our other Peace Corps friends in Yerevan, but also these initiatives can accomplish a lot of positive things. There are 4 initiatives that Peace Corps Armenia currently has and they are GAD (Gender Awareness Development), IT, PR (Public Relations), and Environmental Education. So each initiative comes up with new projects to help the people of Armenia or to provide peer-support amongst volunteers. Things that have been done in the past include: setting up a computer repair center in order to keep the few computers in the marzes (rural areas) up and running, creating a PR campaign of T.V. ads to help educated Armenians about environmental problems in their country, and running BRO and GLOW camps, which educate adolescent boys and girls about everything from career options and goal setting to gender relations and safe dating habits.
Overall the trip was both fun and rewarding. Although I came back with a fuller plate than before, I am happy to have the work. Right now I am juggling 6 projects and sometimes they seem to be too much. I have been neglecting my language learning, but yesterday I had a lesson with one of my tutors. During training Peace Corps’ continuously says focus on language and integrating into your community the first years and then the second year you can work on the development of your projects. The problem is that some of the projects I hope to do are fairly complex and they will take a year or two to just see though to fruition.
Although I wish to continue typing all night it is currently 1:50 in the morning and I have to wake up early tomorrow. About two hours ago I had a delicious cup of Gevalia coffee, thanks to Holly, but now I am having a bit of trouble going to sleep. I miss everyone so much back home and every time I think of my friends back home I think of how much more time I should have spent with them before leaving for Armenia. I value my friends so much, but sometimes I feel that I don’t express to them their true worth. I love you all; all of my friends and family and thank you so much for the continued support. Although most of the time I am consumed by a flurry of tasks and work, when I sit down to write this blog my homesickness and need for wonderful people in my life becomes apparent. I do feel like I am doing great things here in Armenia, but if I wasn’t I might have second thoughts about staying here for 2 years of my life.
Tuesday, September 30th, 2008
The weather here is starting to change and everyone seems to be scurrying around to prepare for the winter. I see stacks and stacks of firewood outside of everyone’s house. Most people in my town use firewood for heating purposes since the forest is nearby; even though deforestation is a major problem in Armenia. Some people burn the hay they collected during the summer months in the field, while others burn animal dung. All throughout the summer the villagers in my PST (Pre-Service training) village prepared the dung. They did so in a similar way to how we lay concrete in the USA. First, the villager would cordon of a relatively big and flat piece of land. Next, they poured and dumped tons and tons of cow poop in this flat area. Then, they graded the cow poop so that it would be flat and level. After that it was nature’s turn to help out in the act as the sun baked the cow poop into hard sheet. Finally, the villagers cut the huge slab of cow poop into small bricks, which they stacked underneath their house. Obviously, I haven’t been in a house that burns cow poop during the winter, but I’ve heard they are not the best smelling places in the world and the amount of carcinogens in the air can’t be healthy.
Today one of my PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer) friends, Jay, texted my cell phone telling me that his town, near Lake Sevan, received their first snow of the year. It is not even October and it is snowing. I am very fortunate since my village is at a lower elevation and the climate is more temperate in general, but still I haven’t lived through a cold winter since I was two years old when I lived in Iowa. I am as prepared as a Georgian can be prepared for winter in the Caucuses; I just hope its good enough.
On Sunday night the 28th of September we had a great time and a bit of a party at my host family’s house. About three months ago my host family went to a big wedding in Yerevan and now the bride and groom had to come and visit our house. Also, the newly married couple is about to leave for America to work for a couple years. Both of them were very intelligent people and both were at least trilingual.
At almost every party in Armenia we watch a wedding video and this party was no different. Although at this party it made more sense to watch a wedding video, the fact that Armenians are always watching weddings shows the importance they place on the institution of marriage whether the couple is religious or not. Their wedding was definitely the biggest wedding I have seen so far, since most weddings I have been to are village weddings.
Initially all Armenian weddings start off the same, but dependent on where the weddings takes place the order and location of the wedding ceremonies can vary drastically. First, in all Armenian weddings that I have witnessed so far, the grooms immediate family goes over to the bride’s family’s house, so that all of the family members get acquainted with each other. This initial step of the wedding process usually last anywhere from 1 to 3 hours. After this the two families together with all of the bride’s belongings go to the location of the actual wedding. In villages this generally occurs at the groom’s house or a small conference like hall, but this couple’s wedding was in Yerevan. So, the caravan of people headed for one of the four major churches in Yerevan. At, the church they had a short ceremony. At the end of the liturgy of this ceremony the priest put a king’s crown on the groom and a queen’s crown on the bride. Next, they walked outside, similar to what we do in the U.S., but the bride and the groom each released a dove, which I thought was not only beautiful, but also a good idea.
After the religious part of the ceremony it was off to a wedding hall type place. At this location the whole entourage ate, danced, and socialized. There was a lot of dancing and another thing that I thought was interesting, the tamadaran (or toast-master/ mike man), forced the people at the wedding to have a dancing competition. Each table had to produce one couple to enter the dancing competition. I thought this was a cool way to get everybody involved, plus every table was cheering for their respective couple. The atmosphere was great.
What differs in a village wedding is that usually wedding halls, or venues to have the weddings at, do not exist. So the wedding takes place at the groom’s house. Also, the two village weddings I have been to have no religious component whatsoever. The families just intermingle, talk and everyone has a good time. In addition, at the wedding in Yerevan the bride wore a beautiful white gown similar to the ones you see in America; whereas in the villages the bride’s wear nicer clothes than normal, but I have never seen them wear an actual wedding gown.
Another unique thing that occurs at ultra-traditional/village weddings is the gift that all attendees bring- apples. This is where the story gets a little PG-13/R so yerekaner(children) please stop reading. Each attendee brings an apple dependent on what color they think the newly married couple’s bed sheets will be the next morning and sometimes the groom’s mom hangs up the sheets outside for the whole village to see. If the people think the bride is a virgin they bring red apples, not a virgin green apples. Since Armenians are spread out all over the world there is even a system of sending this traditional wedding gift via internet. Similar to sending electronic Christmas, Chanukah, Ramadan, or birthday cards; Armenians send green and or red apples cards via the internet, a modern way to keep this ancient tradition alive.
My family always seems to like having parties on the nights when I have to go to work the next day. We were up till about 2 o’clock in the morning having a good time, watching the wedding video, and as always doing some Armenian dancing (khomp/ amjuit). They all love to watch the American dance and I don’t disappoint. This party was a little bit better since there were other people dancing with me. Oftentimes, they convince me to dance with someone and then everyone sits down and I am left dancing by my lonely self. Hey, if I can provide a little entertainment at the party then I am down with that job.
On Mondays I have started going to a neighboring village which is a little bit bigger than mine. My village/town has about 5,500 people, whereas this other village has about 7,000 people. Anyways at this neighboring village there is an art school for college age girls and guys, but mostly girls. They sew, weave, use Adobe Photoshop, paint, sketch, and do other artsy things. The studio is beautiful and full of artwork and it reminds me of going to Lamar Dodd at UGA, which I guess is no longer an art school. When I go to the neighboring village I have language lessons for the students there, many of them are almost conversational in English and have a fairly large vocabulary, which makes communicating with them a lot easier than communicating with the average Armenian.
Yesterday, the 29th of September, was one of the guy’s birthdays at the art school, so of course we had to have a little celebration. They had brought a jug of homemade wine and it was delicious to say least, but I had to go to my counterpart’s house after the art school. My counterpart is the lady at the school who I work with, she has 3 kids and her husband runs the largest bakery in my town. So every Monday after school I have a busy schedule. First, I run home and having a language lesson with my tutor, and then I collect my English lesson materials for the art school, spend 3 hours at the art school, and then go to my counterpart’s house to do lesson planning and help her kids with English. Usually I get home around 11 o’clock extremely tired, but content with the busyness of my day. It is also a great way to start the week off, not become lazy after a relaxing weekend.
Today, it was colder than it’s been since I have arrived in Armenia and here in my town we are currently living in the clouds. The visibility this morning might have been 5 meters; I couldn’t even see the apartment building right outside the window in our family room. The humidity has to be 100% and a heavy mist to a light rain is continuous. Off the main roads the ground is extremely muddy and on the steep hills roads are impassable to a normal car, but most of the 4 wheel drive vehicles here can handle them without a problem.
Near my village they are beginning to lay new internet lines, so early in the morning and late at night we usually can get internet, but once they start working we have no internet. It is quite a pain in the rear, since I am trying to finish a passport project for the 8th graders and I still need to pull off about 20 more image until the project is finished. I have the entire thing translated in Armenian, a girl her in my town did most of the translating. She finished college, but couldn’t find a job in Yerevan so now she’s back here. She doesn’t have a job, but she is always willing to help me out. I think she wants more out of our relationship, but I don’t. She even said I look like Brad Pitt as well as most nights she text-messages me wishing me sweet dreams. It is definitely flattering, even though I don’t look anything like Brad Pitt. Another problem is that she always wants to be seen with me around town. This is not good for me, since many of the Armenian men, especially outside of Yerevan are extremely protective of their women. So I try to avoid being seen with her public since I don’t want to give anyone the wrong impression. Although this entire anecdote might seem silly to western readers, the risks I take being seen walking around with unmarried Armenian women are real. Although I doubt any physical harm would become me, since I have a good reputation amongst most the people in my town, yet the possibility of being ostracized and thus my ability to make substantive changes in my community will be jeopardized.
That’s about it from Armenian. I am doing well here; all of the bad news seems to be coming from the States. Not only are our financial markets facing the biggest crisis since 1987 or maybe the Great Depression, but also an even more distressing thing is that my Bulldawgs lost big last weekend to Alabama.
I just hope the private programs set up to help the lower class in America don’t take too big of a hit. I feel our government entitlement plans will be fine, but I worry about the level of donations that will come into private assistance programs, most specifically I am thinking about Family Promise. Family Promise is a great program that my church near Atlanta is part of and it help homeless families get back on their feet, while providing them with job training, resource centers, free housing, and personal finance skills. I just hope Mr. Cioffi and the rest of the Family Promise board have raised enough money and know of enough donors to keep Family Promise fully operational.

peace.shalom.salaam
Mark

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.