More Evidence

I'm still looking for the farm animals I know live in Sisian. Apart from the donkey-cart I saw in our first week here, I haven't seen a single one- but I know they're here. Today, I found even more evidence to this fact: a giant pile of horse poop hiding amongst the fallen leaves. I have no idea how it go there, since this particular pile is located on a somewhat isolated patio, used as an outdoor sitting space for a seasonal cafe in the center of town... but it's there, and that's a fact. I'll find whoever left it eventually, I just need to keep my eyes open...

Thanksgiving, Pt 2

After cooking and cleaning up after breakfast, the rest of the day was spent preparing for the Main Event that evening. I made 17 apple turnovers, and Sam made a roasted root vegetable  dish seasoned with maple syrup and rosemary. People came and left Ina's apartment where we were cooking, fetching other dishes that had already been prepared and stored in her fridge, and carrying them the 20 minute walk from her apartment to the hotel where we had rented an event hall for the dinner. We scrambled to get our dishes finished in time, and finally- carrying dishes and plates precariously stacked with food- caught a taxi to join the others at the hotel.

We  were the last ones to arrive at the dinner. The table was laid and everyone was going around, sharing the things they were thankful for. We were immediately ushered to our seats, poured wine (in true Armenian style) and asked to share what we were thankful for. My choice this year was Sasha and Andrea, our site-mate and next nearest site-made. The memory of their warm welcome to us was fresh in my mind, and without Sasha to so the legwork of getting a taxi, I'm not certain that we would have attended the Goris Thanksgiving party at all.

Once the Thanksgiving toasts were finished, we all dug in. The real highlight of the evening for me was that someone's parents had sent them a can of cranberry sauce, and they were kind enough to share it with everyone at the dinner. Another volunteer had somehow gotten her hands on some sweet potatoes (I'm not sure how, but I think some international customs regulations may have been- bent?- in their procurement...) And another volunteer made some of the best pumpkin pie I've ever had.

After dinner, the group trouped back to Ina's house, where the party continued. At this point, it transformed from a dinner party to something more at home in an undergrad frat house, and I went to bed. That kind of party has never been my scene, and it turns out that I find them even less enjoyable now than I did in college.

The next morning, Sunday, we woke up to find that the previous night's revelries had blown the apartment's only fuse, and furthermore (because he locks the fuse box) the landlord would have t obe called in order to get the electricity turned back on. The issue with this was that the apartment was a little bit trashed in the aftermath of the party, and Ina didn't want to call her landlord until it was cleaned up.

Without heat or hot water, the apartment was a chilly place to spend the morning. Most of the volunteers went to a local restaurant for brunch (there were rumors that this place serves actual bacon!). Sam and I spend the morning cleaning the apartment, doing the dishes, and in general tidying up the place so that once every one had left, Ina would be able to get her pwer turned back on. We finished just in time to join folks at the restaurant and grab a bite to eat before catching the once  daily bus back to Sisian.

Thanksgiving, Pt 1

For our first Thanksgiving away from the States, Sam and I traveled from our town of Sisian to the closest real city: Goris. Goris is a 45 minute taxi ride from Sisian, through beautiful hilly country. We didn't pass through a single town or village for the entire trip. We left Sisian on Friday afternoon and stayed in Ina, an A22 volunteer living in Goris, on Friday night. The Grand Thanksgiving Dinner was planned for Saturday evening.

Because we were only minorly contributing to the dinner itself, we decided to prepare breakfast for the group of early birds congregating in Ina's apartment on Saturday morning.

 We had all the ingredients to make buttermilk pancakes- even some real maple syrup!

So, away we went! Well, truthfully, away Sam went. 

I just helped by making an apple compote to help stretch the precious maple syrup.

In the end, breakfast was delicious, and earned up the title of Pancake Masters. 

To be continued...

On my walk to work

We get a solid layer of frost everyday now, although things usually thaw in the afternoon. It makes for some very pretty pictures on the walk to work in the morning.

The spines of ice and the spines of the thistle leaves blended together, and the bright colors of the turning leaf caught my eye as I passed this little plant today. 

And just a block up the street, the little stream that  flows by the side of the road had splashed up and coated the grass that grows bu the side, encasing it in a crystal case of ice while the stream babbled by. 

I take a few pictures every day, when I see  something that catches my eye as I walk around town. It reminds me of the pictures I used to take around Providence when I would walk Scuppers every afternoon. There, spring and summer were my favorite seasons for taking photographs: the small front gardens people kept in Providence made for some wonderful flower pictures there. But here I wonder if autumn and winter might not be best for interesting photographs? I guess we'll find out in the spring. 

Birthdays

Today was Thanksgiving in the US, but here it was our little host sister's birthday. Birthdays in Armenia are great parties: friends and family come together to eat an enormous meal, there is cake, laughing, & music- preferably preformed by party guest. Families break out their homemade cognac, and many- many- toasts are made to the person whose birthday it is, to their parents, grandparents, to parents and grandparents in general, to children in general, to the children that Sam and I haven't had yet, and to generally whatever pops into any of the men's heads. The main course of horovats meat and dolma is followed by fruit and coffee, after which the cake is cut and served. The celebrations generally last well into the night. All in all, it wasn't a bad way to spend our first Thanksgiving in Armenia. 

Morning mist off the Vorotan

Mornings have been cold here in Sisian, but apart from the snow storm that happened shortly after our arrival, the days have been clear. Walking to work every morning has been chilly,but rewarding: as I look back over the town, the views of the morning mist rising up from the Vorotan River that flows through Sisian have been spectacular.

They're here somewhere...

It was a grey, overcast morning today, and a heavy layer of frost crunched underfoot as I walked to work. Every day, I try to take a slightly different set of back roads to get to school, and today I was no different. I kept my eyes open as I walked, I was looking for farm animals. I have seen signs of them in Sisian since we moved here, but so far the animals themselves have eluded me. I was to be disappointed again this morning, but taking this new route to work did not go completely unrewarded- as I rounded a corner, preserved in the frozen ground, I saw this:

They're here somewhere, I just know it. 

Can I pull off short hair?

Like most folks with long hair, there is a point each morning, after I've put on my shirt but before I've pulled my hair out of the back of the neck hole, that I get to assess how I'd look if I cut it short. I have to admit that these days the convenience of short hair sounds really appealing to me. But the cultural capital I gain by having long hair would be hard to give up. Because I am married, because I don't wear makeup, because of the way I dress here, and because I have long hair, certain assumptions are made about me that work in my favor. Even though many Armenian women have short hair, put on makeup, and even wear tight or revealing clothing without serious consequences, those same actions performed by me, a foreigner, would result in a whole hose of negative assumptions about my be local people. So I think that I'll keep my long hair for now- it's finally starting to pull its weight in our relationship. 

Cool old bus

This bus lives down the street from our host family. It makes daily runs to the village of Lor over some of the worst roads in the area. I think it's awesome. 

How to Dry Laundry In Winter

As the snow continues to fall, today we learned how our family dries laundry during inclement weather. They have large sheets of plastic they clip over the laundry on the line.

What am I teaching these kids...

The textbooks here are truly horrendous. In the few days that I've been working at School #4 in Sisian, I've seen text book exercises ranging from the harmlessly amusing:

to the factually inaccurate:

To the downright insidious. Today I was asked to read a poem from the 7th graders textbook, so that they could hear what a native speaker sounded like. I opened book borrowed from one of the students to the page specified by my counterpart and read:

What did you learn in school today,
Dear little boy of mine?
I learned that Washington never told a lie.
I learned that soldiers seldom die.
I learned that everybody's free.
And that's what teacher said to me.

I learned that policemen are my friends.
I learned that justice never ends.
I learned that murderers die for their crimes.
Even if we make a mistake sometimes.

I learned our government must be strong.
It's always right and never wrong,
Our leaders are the finest men.
And we elect them again and again.
That's what I learned in school today.
That's what I learned in school.  

This being Armenia (where plagerism isn't really a thing), the 'poem' was not cited, of course. Had it been so, the book would have informed students that it wasn't in fact a poem at all, but the truncated lyrics of a song written by a young Tom Paxton, recorded in 1964. If the book had cited the work, it probably also would have mentioned that the song was written as a criticism of the national education system,  and was quickly taken up as a rallying call by critics of the US government protesting the Vietnam War. Essentially, the song existed to indicate that the things which it presents as factual pieces of information are falsehoods we tell to children in school. Ironically, that's exactly what I was doing.

As is was, none of this contextual information was included in the textbook. I read the passage aloud as I had been asked to do, and sat there as the students translated the 'poem' line by line into Armenian. 

I struggled with the issue of whether or not I should say anything. 

On the one hand, my counterpart seemed not to know about the passage's history- and why should she? These days it's a fairly obscure piece of music, relatively speaking. There's no reason for someone living halfway around the world to have ever heard of Tom Paxton or his songs. But Armenian culture is very authoritarian- for many English teachers, to have their knowledge of all things English-language related questioned in the slightest would be completely unacceptable. My relationship with my counterpart is probably the most important factor in the relative success or failure of my work in School #4. I really didn't want to jeopardize it by pointing out something she didn't know (in front of students, no less) so early in our work together.

On the other hand, the idea of teaching young students that "our government must be strong, it's always right and never wrong...."- especially given the authoritarian and militaristic tendencies within Armenian culture- really didn't sit well with me.

Surprisingly, it was the students themselves who helped me out of this predicament. I should have given them more credit. As I struggled with my thoughts, they continued to translate away until they reached the line which read "Our leaders are the finest men...". The students faltered in their translation. A few giggled. One girl said something to my counterpart in Armenian that I didn't understand. I assumed it was something to do with the rampant corruption that plagues the Armenian government. I took my opening:

"I should also say" I started, directing my gaze at my counterpart as if I were talking to her rather than the students, but trying to pick my words so that the students could also understand them. I spoke slowly and carefully, trying to be as clear as possible- I had to communicate a concept that would not be easy for the students to understand, as there isn't much space for political satire in Armenia's public discourse. "that this was written ironically- the man who wrote it did not believe any of the things he said. Instead, he believed these things were lies. He wrote this to criticize the government." 

My counterpart looked surprized and amused- thankfully neither angry nor upset- "Oh- I didn't know that," She said. "I don't know how we should teach this poem now." It was as positive a response as I could hoped to have received, although she did not translate my comments for her students as she normally would have. I'm not sure how much of my little speech they understood. Of course, it sounded like the students already knew that at least parts of the 'poem' didn't coincide with their reality, so maybe they didn't need my explanation as much as I thought they did.

I'm sure this won't be the last time I'm confronted with inaccuracies in the text. Some are easy to let go: what difference does it make in these children's lives if they are taught that there are "more than 50 states" in the US? Or that "Eskimos live in Arizona and Indians live in Alaska" (issues of politically correct language and respect of indigenous peoples aside)? These small factual errors have little bearing on their lives and can be easily corrected later on if necessary. 

Passages like "What Did You Learn in School Today?" raise much more significant problems. I don't know how to deal with situations like this one. Today I was lucky- the students caught the problem with their text and all I had to do was confirm their suspicions. What if I'm not given that opening next time?

I think that the solution lies in my relationship with my counterpart. If we can be comfortable enough with each other, it won't be a big deal when I point out problems I have with the textbooks. And if we can develop a pattern of lesson planning together, I will have a chance to talk wit her about my concerns before we present the information to the students. They tell you during training that relationships are everything here. I'm beginning to understand what they meant.

An unexpected gift from home

At the Swearing In ceremony we were all issued official Peace Corps Armenia pins. In the hussle and bussle of the ceremony, I didn't look very carefully at the card stock it came on. I just put the pin on my lapel and then packed it up again at the end of the ceremony. But today, as we unpacked the last few things we still had in our luggage, Sam took a closer look at the pins, and noticed an unlikely coincidence:

The pins are from Providence. I checked the  company's website, and it looks like they're located just down the road from Rhode Island Hospital where I used to work. It's nice to thing that the pins and I have made the same unlikely journey. It's like being given a little piece of home to carry around with me.

Snowy Morning in Sisian

This morning we woke to find a fine layer of snow covering the ground and more fat flakes falling gently over the garden.

Our host family told us it wouldn't last and all the snow should be melted by noon, but for now it's made the town beautiful in a whole new way to me. 

Our Family's Garden

Our room has a door to a balcony that overlooks the family's garden. Even all put to bed as it is, I think it's beautiful. I know that the most likely scenario when we move out is that we'll live in an apartment, but I really, really, really really want a garden here. 

A Different Kind of City

I have written before about my reservations regarding living in a city while serving in the Peace Corps, but I actually think that I'll be happy here in Sisian. Sisian is a different kind of city than I am used to, For one thing, it's at least half garden.

It's a little hard to appreciate these days since, in the winter, everything (trees,  buildings, streets, and gardens) is brown. But when you pay attention you start to notice that there is at least as much square footage here under cultivation as there is with buildings on it. With the exception of a few apartment complexes in the center of town, almost every one has a garden with a footprint that's at least as large as their house. And it's not all vegetable gardens, either:

Farm animals, ranging in size from chickens to to cows, live in these gardens, too. Our host family owns a hotel right in the middle of town where they keep a few horses! "Gardens" is a misleading term really- in reality, they're more like mini-farms that each family keeps in their back yard. Most families grow almost all their own produce during the summer on these mini-farms, and many are able to put up significant amounts of food for the winter as well. Our host family's basement is filled with jars of pickles, jams, juices and compotes, along with sacks of potatoes, apples, and dried fruits. All of which came from their sizable back garden and was prepared by our host grandmother. All of this gives the city a decidedly agricultural feel.

But the reason I feel at home here runs deeper than the fact that many people in Sisian have gardens. When you ask native Sisians to tell you about their city, they answer "Oh, no- Sisian is a small down. People here are very friendly". And despite the fact that they seem to have all the trappings of a city- apartment buildings, stores, banks, supermarkets, hotels, schools, cultural centers- people here really believe they live in a small town, and they act like it too.

People here greet each other on the street. They stop their cars to catch up with friends they see walking on the side of the roads. They stand around the town square in the morning and the afternoons, chatting with each other.

During our site visit back in October, I went into a bookshop just to see what it was like on the inside. The man behind the counter wanted to know my name, where I was from, and what I was doing in Sisian. When I explained that I was a Peace Corps Volunteer, and that my husband and I would be living in Sisian for the next two years helping to teach English, he wanted to meet my husband. I promised that I would bring Sam back to the bookshop that afternoon. When school let out for the day, Sam and I headed back to the bookshop to say hello to the man as promised. When we got there, the man and his wife were waiting- she made coffee and produced cakes seemingly from no where. We chatted and drank coffee, bought a book, and went about our business when a few other customers came into the store. I felt like a welcomed guest, and looked forward to getting to know the man and his wife better.

Things like this happen all over the place here. Yesterday, we stopped by a bakery that makes traditional Armenian flatbread, called lavash. Lavash is made in a unique type of oven called a torin. I had heard of the process, but had never seen it done before, so we asked if we could watch. We were immediately ushered into the back of the bakery where a team of women formed something of a lavash assembly line. Despite the fact that they looked like they worked long, hard ours in front of a firely oven- they were thrilled to show their bakery to us, and weren't satisfied until we had eaten at least two whole lavashes each (for which they would accept no payment). I'm looking forward to getting to know these women as well, and not only because their lavash is delicious.

Basically, Sisian has given us a place to live with access to the best of both worlds: here we have the conveniences found in a city, but with a social attitude that's more at home in the country. I think we'll be very happy here indeed.

Zorats Qarer

The town of Sisian is located in a river valley in the midst of the Zangezur Mountains. About an hour's hike to the northeast of the town, in the middle of empty alpine fields, there stands the oldest set of standing stones in the world. Today, the two volunteers already living in the area welcomed us to Sisian by taking us to see them. 

We took a taxi up the bumpy dirt road out of town. He let us out on the side of the road, and after about a 15 minute walk along a cowpath through the fields, we arrived at Zorats Qarer- also called Qarehunj- Armenian Stone Henge. 

There is some mystery surrounding these standing stones- no one really knows what they were fore. Some of the stones have holes drilled through them, a few inches in diameter. Because of these holes, it's been speculated that perhaps Zorats Qarer is an ancient observatory. If this is correct, that makes it the oldest observatory in the world. 

Whatever it is, it's really awesome. During the summer months there is a small information center-come-gift-shop a little ways away from the standing stones, but now it's all closed up for the winter. It was just us and the stones, we could wander among them, looking through the little holes that has been drilled in them so long ago, and admire the magnificent views  of the surrounding mountains.

I have read that you can camp in the wild fields surrounding the standing stones. It's already far too cold at night to consider sleeping outside this year, but I'm looking forwards to many camping trips next summer.

Monopolia

There are many nice things about our new home and host family here in Sisian, but by far my favorite part is the time we get to spend with our host siblings. They are awesome. Natella, the eldest at 14 years old, speaks far better English than we do Armenian, and she has taken it upon herself to babysit us through conversations at the dinner table, making sure we understand what's going on, and helping us make ourselves understood when we try to contribute with our broken Armenian. Sonya, the middle child, is only slightly less proficient in English than her older sister. She likes to hang out with us around the house- if we have tea, she comes into the kitchen and helps us make it. If we are washing the dishes together, she comes and puts them away after I dry them. Basen, the youngest, is an artist, and is always doing something creative. His newest trick is to draw part of a picture on one side of the page and a second part on the backside. That way, what looks like a drawing of a normal cat when sitting on the table turns into the drawing of a lion when you hold the paper up to the light and let the image on the backside shine through. 

This evening, the kids had us playing "Monopolia"- an Armenian language version of Monopoly. Let me tell you- such copyright infringement I have never seen before. I bought a Jeep dealership, the Coka-Cola company, and Disneyland. Sam had ownership of Snickers, Ford and Fanta. But these issues aside, it was a pretty fun time. Sonya and Basen delighted in taking our money and moving our pieces around the board for reasons we couldn't understand every time we drew a "chance" or "treasure chest" card (which were, of course, written in Armenian and thus beyond our understanding). 

Also, in a sadly ironic twist, I'm pretty sure that the makers of Armenian Monopoly haven't done their math right- it seems like the inevitable result of game-play is that everyone always looses all their money. Whoever does this slowest is the winner. I think they way to win might be to just not buy anything and wait the other players out. I haven't tested this theory yet, though. 

In any case, it was a really fun evening.  

Kids' faces blurred because I don't want to be a creeper who puts the faces of other people's children on the internet

The journey to Sisian

Today we bid farewell to Shahumyan. Although there are many things about Sisian to which Sam and I are looking forward, we will miss the people who have been so kind to us here. I think that the family felt like this too- it's been difficult for them to have two extra people in there home for the past three months ( we kicked the children out of their bedroom, Alla cooks us breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and we make 8 people using 1 bathroom, for examples), so it will be nice for them to get back to normal- but I think that they will miss us a little when we're gone.

Ararat put on an amazing display for us as we left, coming out from behind its (these days) ever present veil of clouds to see us off. I took one last photo from the garden, right efore we left the house for the last time.

The family drove us and our luggage from the house to the mayor's office, and from there we loaded all of our luggage into a Peace Corps van. Our luggage seems to have expanded exponentially since we arrived in country, despite the fact that we really haven't acquired any more things, other than Peace Corps issued papers and books. The Peace Corps vans drove us from Shahumyan to the regional training center in Artashat. There, we unloaded all of our luggage and loaded it up again into a different Peace Corps van. It all seemed rather inefficient to me, but this is the federal government we're working for, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised. 

Once all of us and our luggage were finally loaded into the correct vans, we set out from Artashat to Sisian. The trip started through the familiar flat fields of Ararat Marz, where we have been living for the past quarter of a year. Soon, though, we left the flat Ararat valley behind us, and began to climb up into the mountains that make up most of Armenia's geography.

We continued to climb, higher and higher, until we broke the snowline and the roadsides became white with snow and crusted with ice. Still upwards we drove until finally we reached Syunik Gate- the massive structure on either side of the road marking out the highest point in Armenia you can drive to, and also the beginning of it's southern most region: Syunik. 

The views from this high up were fantastic. 

And then we were on our way back down through the mountains, passing small villages, filled with people who make their living herding sheep and cows on the high alpine fields in this region. At one point this was made abundantly clear when traffic stopped to share the road with a few of the area's primary residents.



We arrived in Sisian in early evening, and spent the rest of the day unpacking out things. It was nice to be settling into a home rather than preparing to move out of one, but at the same time, it felt daunting to have a whole new host family with whom to build relationships, far away from the familiar routines of Shahumyan.

Swearing in Ceremony

Today we swore in officially as Peace Corps Volunteers. There was a whole ceremony for it- in fact, we spent all day yesterday practicing for the ceremony. Which I thought was rather silly, but I've never been a fan of this type of event. I wanted Bryn Mawr to just mail me my diploma.

You can decide for yourself if the day of practice was worth it: the entire ceremony was video taped, and posted on YouTube for you to watch. The one things that might make me rethink my position on the ceremonial aspect of the day- that is, stretching into several hours what could have been accomplished in 15 minutes- was how much significance the event was given by Armenia. There were lots and lots of press photographers there, and every Armenian news station fan footage of the event on the evening broadcast. Given this kind of attention, putting a commensurate level of effort into the ceremony is a sort of mark of respect for Armenia and its people. Like wearing a suit to an interview. I might think that the kind of significance people place on clothes is ridiculous, but dressing professionally is another way of showing the parties with whom you interact that you respect them. Just so with the swearing in ceremony.

As far as the swearing-in itself: although it was a little weird to promise to defend the constitution against enemies foreign and domestic as a Peace Corps Volunteer, I admit that taking the oath did feel solemn and significant. The pledge we took in Armenian on the other hand, felt a little silly. For one thing, I have idea what was said. I could have promised Armenia my first born child and not known it. We were given transliterated copies of the pledge that morning, which helped a little as we all muddled along trying to pronounce the super long polysyllabic words after our pledge leader. But apart from a word here and there, and the last sentence, we were mostly just repeating jibberish. 

In any case, it's official- I'm a real PCV now.

Fancy supermarkets in Yerevan

So, this week provided us with our first chance to really explore the luxuries available in the capital city of Yerevan. And oh,what luxuries we found. We can't afford to buy any of them, but just knowing that they're there is a comfort...