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