Snowy Day

The mountains in snow are really incredible. The landscape here is so different from New England, it sometimes feels really alien to me- but with the snow capped mountains gleaming in the morning sun, it's easier to put those feelings of unease aside.

Another Sunrise

I post a lot of sunrise pictures here- but I just can't help it, they're so beautiful.

A Merry Little Christmas

Merry Christmas! I'm not sure why decorating for Christmas is so important to me,  but it definitely is. This year, we splurged and bought ourselves a 3' plastic tree... It may have been a silly purchase since we won't be here next year and so we'll only get a few weeks of use out of it, but even so, I feel so happy with the decorations up that I think it's well worth the dram. 

Solstice Cinnamon Buns

One of our fellow PCVs has a family tradition of eating cinnamon buns on the winter solstice. She organized a group expedition to the Cinnabon store in Yerevan for today. Unfortunately, Sam and I aren't in Yerevan, so we couldn't take part in that particular group activity, but we thought that solstice cinnamon buns sounded like a great idea, so we decided to make our own. Between the kitchen being freezing cold and the high altitude, it was a little tricky to get the dough to rise properly, but we managed it in the end... Unfortunately, I don't have any finished photos for you, because once they were baked, we were too ravenous to stop and take pictures- instead we just wolfed them down and subsequently fell into a food coma. 

Morning Walk

Despite the cold, I got myself out of bed and took a short walk this morning. It's odd to be the only person in the streets- these days, with the temperatures in the single digits, the town really doesn't get up until after 10am...

Frosty Garden

Winter Has Come

It's official. Everything is frozen, including me. Winter is here.

DIY Snuggie

I'll admit- sometimes I don't spend my time in the most efficient ways possible. Today, a fellow PCV asked posted on Facebook that she was looking for a way to turn a 5'x5' blanket into a bathrobe-type garment to help her stay warm while moving around her house, cooking etc, but that would also work for sitting on the couch and working on her laptop.

I spent the rest of the day creating a paper doll and playing around with a paper 'blanket' to find her the most functional but also easiest to create solution. Here's what I came up with- and I have to say, I'm pretty proud of it.

The only sewing involved would be about 3 inches on either shoulder and at the cut points, and can be a simple as just whip-stitching the edges of the blanket together. Here's the diagram, just in case you want to try your hand at making your own. 

Sunrise

Our Kitchen Window

Winter is coming alright... ice is supposed to stay outside the house, right?

Meat Shop

While we do have a brick-and-mortar butcher shop in Sisian, it's much more common for people to purchase their meat from what, for lack of a better term, I'll call a street-vendor:

The basic formula is to get a recently slaughtered animal, a sheet, a tree stump, and a hatchet. Find a likely spot on the side of the road, and set up shop. Meat is sold on a by-size basis rather than any particular cut of meat, and the business is open for as long as the meat lasts, or until the guy selling it decides to close up shop. Then, whatever's left over, gets bundled up and tossed into the trunk of the guy's car, and he drives away. It's an interesting process to watch.

Envoy Staff Are The Best

There was a glitch with the internet in Yerevan today, which meant that the staff at the Envoy couldn't access their records for who was staying the night and who was checking out that day. This meant that they mistakenly stripped my bed and tossed out a half-empty water bottle that I had left on the bedside table.

All of this was no big deal- when I got back to the Envoy in the afternoon and saw that my bed had been stripped, I just went to the front desk, let them know that I would be staying for another night, and they got right on putting fresh sheets on the bed. I didn't even think about the water bottle- it wasn't a Nalgene or anything, just a disposable plastic water bottle that I had bought for a few hundred dram (less than a dollar) at the convenience store around the corner so that I'd have something to drink if  I got thirsty in the middle of the night.

But when I went to bed this evening, I found this on the shelf by my bed. Not only is it a replacement, but it's the same exact brand and bottle type that I had bought the day before.

And that's why the Envoy staff are the best. I could stay in any number of places when I go to Yerevan, but the staff at the Envoy know my name. They know who I'm married to. They take care of us, and for that we'll always book our stay with them.

Dinner With Friends

I was fortunate enough to be in Yerevan for a Peace Corps meeting this weekend- fortunate because a friend of our was having a birthday party! We got a great big group of volunteers together and went out to one of our favorite restaurants in Yerevan: Karma. I'm pretty sure this is the only Indian food restaurant in Armenia. But even better than the amazing food was the amazing company. It was so great to hang out with all these fantastic people:

Garden Tomatoes For Breakfast

So, here's something I never expected to see: fresh garden tomatoes for breakfast in December. That's right- the tomatoes in the pictures below were grown in our garden over the summer, and have not been dried, frozen, canned, or preserved in any other way, except to have been kept in a cool, dry location.

The variety is called "Grappoli D'Inverno", or 'Grapes of Winter', and was developed for it's keeping properties. I know- it's suuuper wrong to transport live seeds across international borders, but I'm so glad I did. This is one of the best investments of time, money and energy I've made in my personal life here.

I had gotten them planted later than I would have liked, and then neglected the plants for the rest of the summer. But when it came time to clean the garden up in September (back before we had nights dropping below zero...) we found all these tomato plants with just ripening (pale yellow to orange in color) fruits. We cut the entire plants at the base and brought the entire lot into the house. 

I had intended to jar or pickle them- but never got around to it. Instead, we just left the tomatoes- plants and all- in our unheated front hallway. Over the past several months, a few times a week, we pick a few of the slowly ripening cherry tomatoes from the long dried out vines and toss them in our morning omelettes. It's amazing to me that we can eat tomatoes from the garden- without any preservation efforts- almost 4 entire months after they were picked. 

Mulled Wine

We've decided on a good project to open up the first of our homemade Armenian compotes. We're going to make some mulled wine. We've picked the pear-and-plum juice blend for this particular experiment, and we'll be mulling it with cinnamon sticks, cloves and a little bit of nutmeg this evening. I'm excited- I think it'll be a nice addition to the cold winter nights here.

World Food/World Peace Thanksgiving Edition 2016 (Part 2)

Thanksgiving morning saw us up bright and early, and the electricity had even come back some time over night. Our water situation, however, remained unresolved. We decided that the est thing we could do now was to call for professional help- the only problem being that we didn't know any plumbers here, and it's not as if there's some sort of Sisian-Yellow-Pages you can use to look one up, either. In Armenia the only way for you to get a plumber out to your house is to know someone who plumbs, and, of course, as outsiders here, we don't know anyone.

We waited until around 10 o'clock in the morning for it to be a socially acceptable time to call a family's telephone. Then we called our Armenian tutor, Karine. The thing you should know about Karine is that she's awesome. She helps us out with so much, we ere confident that she would know what to do about our situation- and she did not disappoint. Immediately, she offered to have her son run over to our house with jugs of water. Once we assured her that we had plenty of bottled water and that nothing that drastic was necessary, she told us she would make some calls and find us a plumber.

While we waited for Karine to call us back with word on the plumber, the Great Waterless Food Prep project continued. We care carefully used as few dishes and cooking implements as possible, rinsing utensils off only when strictly necessary, using as little of our store-bought water supply as possible. It was much easier for me than it was for Sam. All my dishes were vegetable based, and had complementary flavors. Who cares is there's a small piece of apple baked into the pumpkin bread or if some extra pumpkin pie spice finds its way into the apple crisp?

Sam, on the other hand, had ot make both chicken stock and sweet Italian sausage from scratch for the stuffing (talk about food poisoning risk...) and then hat to shop up both onion and garlic for the glazed carrots. And you really don't want those strong allium flavors- to say nothing of the potential bacterial contaminants- to get on your other food or dishes. At one point, Sam was mixing sausage meat with one hand, adding spices to the meat with the other, and then using his 'clean' hand to scrape the sticking meat off the 'dirty' hand, with a spoon before rinsing the 'dirty' hand briefly in clean water and doing a final sterilization with some alcogel (hand sanitizer gel) that we thankfully had left over from our sketchy school bathroom days back in Shahumyan.

Karine called us back about two hours later with an update. The plumber she knew and would normally have called was in Yerevan, and thus unavailable. She had spent some time on the phone with various friends, family members, and neighbors trying to find a second plumber who might be in town. Eventually, she got a name, but the referring party didn't know the potential plumber's phone number. They did, however, know the neighborhood where this potential plumber lived- and this is where the story gets super hayavari (translation: traditionally or stereotypically Armenian)

Karine collected this information and called her brother, Karen. (This naming pattern is analogous to the English Robert and Roberta.) She had Karen drive over to the plumber's neighborhood, and just ask random people on the street if they knew this guy's phone number, until he got an affirmative answer and the number. Having accomplished this, Karen called the plumber and explained our situation to him. The plumber said that he'd be happy to help, but that he was working on a job in the next town over, and since he didn't have a car, he had no way of getting to our house that day. Apparently, the solution to this problem was that Karen would drive to the next town over, pick up the plumber (who was still in the middle of the job that he was working on when Karen had called), and drive him over to our house. At least, that's what happened.

After a few minutes of poking around, the plumber informed us that a few 3/4" thick pipes which were completely exposed, uninsulated, and fixed to the exterior wall of our house (and which I had- up until now- assumed were gas pipes because if they were water pipes they'd clearly freeze...) were, in fact, our water pipes, and were indeed frozen solid. He suggested that the best thing to do would be to tear them all out and replace them with new pipes rather than trying to thaw them. He estimated this would cost about 3,000 dram in materials, plus labor. (The total cost at the end of the day was about 7,000 dram, or about $15 US, making this the cheapest plumber visit Sam and I will ever have in our entire lives).

"Does that plan sound good?" he asked us.

"Yeah-" we replied, "what else would we do?"

"Well," the plumber gestured to our uninsulated frozen water pipes, "You can call your landlord and tell him that he's to blame for this, that this is terrible, and that he needs to pay to have it fixed..."

Feeling vindicated, we smiled. "You're right, we agree, by we're not telling our landlord anything." we said.

So Karen drove the plumber back to his job in the neighboring town, he finished up there, and then used that money to buy the pipes for our house. Karen stayed with him all afternoon, and drove him and the new pipes back to our place at around half-past three. By 4 o'clock, we had running water again.

It just so happened that the first batch of apple crisp was just finishing up in the oven at the same time the plumber finished up his work on our house. I boxed up a few servings for both Karen and the plumber and just before they left explained to that that this day was an important holiday in America, one in which we celebrate all the things we're thankful for- and eat lots of food. I thanked both men,  telling them how grateful we were for their help, and I explained that the food I was giving them was traditional American food for this holiday. They seemed to follow along with my broken and stumbling Armenian, and I felt like I had done well with my impromptu Thanksgiving explanation. The men left together in Karen's car with smiles and waves.

Unfortunately, the work was far from over for us. The next several hours passed in a blur as we frantically worked to finish all that there was left to do. Having running water was a godsend, since at that point in the day we had used and made dirty just about every dish and implement in the house. Somehow, we got it all done, and by 7 o'clock all of the food was ready to eat, packed safe and warm in a hamper. Our friend Davit came and helped Sam carry the hamper down the hill to the Basen. There, we met Kate and her host family, Arus, Tyler, Meline, and their parents, Karine (who was definitely our hero for the day) and her sons, as well as our Sisian host family members Hasmik, Sona, and Basentsi.

Other friends from around Sisian drifted in and outover the course of the evening and the American food was a near universal success (Kate's hostmom refused to try most of it because when it comes to trying new food, some Armenians have the tolerance of a 7-year-old picky eater). Karine even asked me for the recipe to the pumpkin bread- which is a real compliment around these parts.

The dinner itself was filled with toasts. It seems like everyone made at least one speech. For myself, I toasted our friends in Sisian, without whom we could not be happy, healthy and whole members of the community. And for a moment I was able to forget the challenges I've been struggling with here, as my heart filled with gratitude for these people who have made room in their lives for the weird and socially awkward Americans. It was the perfect way to truly celebrate Thanksgiving.

At the end of the evening, we were driven home by Vagho- the young man who works as the Basen- with full stomachs and sleepy (read: 'slightly tipsy') heads. We spent the next day recovering and washing almost all the dishes in our house, before we got to repeat the experience again with the PCVs in the area.

It has been a mentally and physically exhausting week, but I think this will always remain one of the best Thanksgivings I've ever had...

World Food/World Peace: Thanksgiving Edition 2016 (Part 1)

Over the past 48 hours Sam and I have 1) frozen our pipes, and subsequently 2) melted our pipes, 3) cooked a significant portion of a Thanksgiving meal for 25 people without any running water, and 4) had one of the most amazingly awesome Thanksgiving's ever. Here's the story- it's a long ride, so buckle up.

The story starts yesterday morning. It was the day before Thanksgiving, and we were planning to throw another World Food/World Peace event the next evening, for which we had to cook a sizeable amount of food, and our water wasn't working. It's not that uncommon for out water to get turned off- in the summer we don't have water for at least part of the day 4 or 5 days a week. So, when we woke up that morning and non of our taps were working, I wasn't particularly surprised or concerned- the water usually comes back on in a few hours. I was frustrated, though, when by 2 o'clock that afternoon the water still hadn't turned back on. We had to start prepping food for dinner the next night, and that would be really hard to do without running water to wash dirty dishes or hands. So, as we were still waterless, we postponed the kitchen-based prepwork and decided to head out on a grocery shopping trip that we had planned to make the next morning...

We had been signed up for a grand total of 4 dishes between the two of us. Kate, our site-mate and the main instigator of the mean that was to come the following evening, was going to cook two more. Originally, Kate had wanted the three of us to prepare the entire meal, but thankfully we had talked her into splitting the cost of booking an event space in the Basen Hotel, and having them serve the bulk of the food in the form of traditional Armenian Khorovats (usually translated: barbeque)- which is the meal that Armenians eat at every holiday and special occasion. This left us three responsible for preparing a few key American side dishes and desserts.

Kate was making corn pudding and a cake shaped like a turkey (we decided that providing an actual turkey- or 5 because the turkeys here are sized more like large chickens than US turkeys- would be a little bit pricey). Sam was making two varieties of stuffing (one with vegetables, one with sweet Italian sausage) and honey glazed carrots. For my part, I was supplying pumpkin bread and apple crisp. All together, this had the makings of a good Thanksgiving meal, but it was going to be a lot of work, and that would be compounded if they didn't turn out water back on soon...

We finished our errands around 4 o'clock, and we were hiking back up the high hill to our house- lugging with us four 6L jugs of water. We had a 5 gallon bucket filled for emergency toilet flushing water back home, but we didn't want to cook with water that had been sitting in an open bucket in the bathroom for a week. As we approached our house, I saw one of our neighbors walking along the street.

"Excuse me-" I said, "Is you water working?"

Our neighbor gave me a quizzical look. "Yes," she replied, "is your water not working?"

"No, we haven't had water all day." I said.

"Ahh," our neighbor nodded knowingly, "Your pipes are frozen. You have to leave your water running overnight so they don't freeze."

"Well, fuck" I said. Not really.  But I thought it real hard. Instead we thanked our neighbor and dragged our now precious bottled water inside the house to think up a game plan.

The problem was this: we didn't actually know where our water pipes entered our house. We knew where the shut-off valve and usage meter were located (out by the street, about 60 feet from the house ,in a 2 foot deep pit covered by a metal lid), and we knew where our taps in the house were- but the path between points A and B was a complete mystery to us. So, even if we had a plan to heat up the points that were frozen, we had no idea where to find them. In the rapidly gathering dusk, we set this issue aside for a moment and decided to focus on the problem of heat transfer. 

The method we settled on- which I think was rather clever of us- was to take our 5 gallons of emergency toilet flush water, boil it in our tea kettle, and fill all the empty soda bottles that I had saved out of a compulsive hoarding habit I seem to have developed in this resource poor environment. Once this was accomplished, we took these make-shift hot water bottles and packed them around the water pipe at the shut-off valve by the street, since that was the only place where we knew to find out pipes. Then we went back inside the house to wait. 

It was at this time, around 5 in the evening, that I finally got started prepping the 30-odd cups of shopped apples that I'd need for 25 servings of apple crisp. I'll admit that I took great pleasure from the fact that all the apples I used for this meal came from the apple trees in our garden, and that Sam and I had picked them ourselves about a month prior. I was also pleased that- except for a small dish in which to rinse my sticky fingers, the peeling and chopping of apples required no water. 

After about 30 minutes of waiting, we still had no running water, and it was getting close to full dark. Convinced that this shut-off valve hadn't been the problem, Sam strapped on a headlamp and headed out into the night to search for the point at which our water pipes might enter our house. After poking around for 15 or 20 minutes, he still hadn't found the entry point, but he did find a segment of pipe that was close to the house and had only been covered by a few inches of sandy soil. Figuring that this seemed like a point at which the pipe could have froze, Sam decided to build a fire on top of the pipe segment to thaw the ice inside it.

We let the fire burn for about 45 minutes, watching our open faucets with bated breath. It was straight up night now, and getting colder every minute. After almost an hour of fire time, we still didn't have any running water, and we still had a crap-ton of Thanksgiving prep work to do. Disheartened, Sam decided to let the fire die down. Once it was down to embers, the began to kick sand over them and spread them apart to put the fire out for good. It was at this point, as he was kicking the sand surrounding the pipe, that a geyser of water shot up from beneath his foot, soaking everything in the immediate vicinity, including Sam. 

Apparently, the pipe was made from PVC (or similar), and while the heat from the fire hadn't succeeded in melting whatever ice was blocking our water supply, it had succeeded in melting a small hole through the pipe wall. As I ran back to the street to turn the water supply to our house off at the valve there, and Sam went inside to change into some dry clothes, we reflected on this new development.  On the plus side, the melted segment of the pipe was very close to our house, and given the pressure with which the geyser shot forth from the hole, the frozen segment of pipe was almost certainly 'down-stream' of the melted point. This narrowed our search for the frozen pipe segment considerably. On the other hand, our pipes were still frozen, and now we had a hole in one of them as well. 

Given, this- and the fact that it was cold, dark, and now wet outside, we decided to give up on the "thaw our pipes" project for the evening and focus on Thanksgiving food prep sans water. However, as luck would have it, about 30 minutes into that project the electricity cut out, leaving us in the dark, with no running water, and a boat load of cooking yet to be done. Finally defeated, we took the hint the universe was sending to us, and climbed into bed that night with full confidence that things would be better in the morning, if only because it wouldn't be pitch black in our living room by then.

Autumn Walk

Sisian in autumn isn't as spectacular as Sisian in spring, but our dog walks outside of town are still pretty scenic. 

Jaring and Apple Muffins

A few weeks ago, we used some of our garden apple trees to make apple pie filling. The hardest part of the process was figuring out how to use the soviet-style canning equipment that they have here.

Turns out that the way you sterilize jars is to place them upside down over a pan of boiling water and letting the steam vent into the jar. We couldn't replicate the process exactly the same way that our friends from town showed us at their house, but we did figure it out eventually:

And today we busted open a jar and made some cinnamon apple muffins. It was an awesome breakfast to celebrate being back home at last.

Yerevan Skyline

Heading back to Sisian soon- but first, here's a picture from the top terraced patio garden of the AirBnB we've been staying in for the past week. 

Sam's New Best Friend

The pet store we go to in Yerevan is called Kakadu, and appropriately, they have a cockatoo mascot. He loves Sam- as soon as we walked into the store, he wanted to climb on Sam's shoulder, and was very upset when Sam had to make him go back to his perch when it was time to leave.

Lauren's Birthday

We had an amazing party in the basement of the Envoy to celebrate Lauren's birthday today. She took a trip to Japan over the summer, and brought back the makings for pho noodles, which was AMAZING. Unfortunately, due to an oversite on my part, she's not in the picture because she was still in the kitchen dishing out the delicious food. But still, it was a fun evening.

Dogs in Yerevan

This week, we have fall vacation at school, which- for Sam and me- means bringing the dogs to Yerevan to get spayed and neutered.

Getting the dogs to Yerevan was a little tricky, but managable. We had earlier found a taxi driver who's mini-SUV- type vehicle had back seats which folded down into the floor. Combining that maneuver with pushing the middle seats as far forward as they could go, made room in the back for Muppet's massive crate. Hazel's crate sat next to me in the middle seats, while Sam and our driver, Vahagn, sat up front. It meant that we had to rent out the entire taxi, but we were able to get both  dogs up to the city in just one trip. The dogs took the travel relatively well. They were most definitely car sick the entire time (and puked pretty regularly for the entire 5 hour journey), but otherwise were pretty chill, without any whining or barking. 

Once in Yerevan, we realized that the AirBnB we rented for the week was absolutely perfect for our purposes. It was secluded from the street with a small covered porch and sunken garden, perfect for keeping the dogs and their crates, it convenient to public transportation, and it was literally a 5 minute walk from the vet's office and a  2 minute walk from a small park. We couldn't have found a better place to stay with the  dogs for their surgeries if we had designed it from scratch. 

So, while we're here, we've been working on training the 'place' command. Today, I got both dogs to stay on their dog beds (which I made 2 days ago by cutting up the cheapest puffy blanket we could find in Sisian and sewing the cut ends up) while I sat and read my book. I think it's a good start to their training. 

My Winter Commute Is Going To Be Awesome This Year

When we moved into our house, the street I had to walk down to get to my school was a washed out dirt road. Now look at it! No more puddle hopping and hoping not to fall into hidden pot holes during my walk to work this winter!

Sam Walks Both Dogs At Once

Here's a little trick that's Sam's been working on: walking both dogs at once. They seem to be catching on pretty quick:

We Have Wool

For a long time now, I've been wanting to get my hands on some of the wool from all the sheep that live around us. Well, today it's finally happened.

A volunteer who's site is a village not too far from us lives with a host family who keeps sheep, and sells wool. Today, we walked to their house and bought some wool. Because this is Armenia, that means we walked over to their house, were treated to a lavish spread of coffee, candies and cakes, had a nice long couple of hours worth of chatting, then bought some wool, and then before we left were loaded up with more food than we can possibly eat on our own.

But, at the end of the day, I have my wool!

Now I just have to figure out how to skirt and wash the stuff....

Sisian Is Beautiful

We're going on more frequent walks outside of town with the dogs. It's really stunning out here. 

The Biggest Dog I've Ever Seen

The neighborhood dogs frequently eat out of the dumpster that's across the intersection from our house. We have a good view of this "doggy theater" from our living room window, and it provides me with no small source of entertainment throughout the day. So, this evening, when I glanced through our window to check out the dog scene, all I could think of was "that's the biggest dog I've ever seen!". Here it is:

We Have A New Faucet (Adventures in Armenian Plumbing Pt 2)

Well, after a few weeks of having a super leaky faucet, we finally replaced the thing. The new faucet isn't ideal, but it's what we had available to us in town. We didn't even need a plumber. Go us.

Breaking Gender Norms

The women in town don't think I'm a very good wife. For one thing, I don't have children. For another, my husband is sometimes seen in getups like this one:

But seriously, demonstrating different gender norms and relationship dynamics is an important part of our service here as a couple. Sam's really proud of his cooking, and we try to share it with as many of our friends and neighbors as possible. When I'm hanging up our laundry, he's always ready to help. On the flip side, I go to the hardware store with the plans for any building projects that we want to accomplish and try to get our tools and materials whenever possible (although, the men at the hardware store will frequently refuse to let me buy things from the 'manly' section of the store if Sam isn't there with me, and I still haven't figured out a way to get around this), and try to take an active role in any 'man' activities to which we participate (like helping to push a car that's stalled etc)- something that usually pisses off the Armenian men involved, but that's just too bad for them. 

Organizing For School

So, after traveling pretty extensively throughout September, it's time to get back into the groove of life at site. I spent yesterday in the teacher's lounge at my school, trying to decipher the confusing schedule system they've got in place (which was finalized last week, so now I can get an accurate idea of when and where the English lessons will take place). I also updated my map of the school building, because I'm sick and tired of wandering around trying to find out which classroom my counterpart is in.

My New Favorite Graffiti

I found this during my last trip to Yerevan. Roughly translated, it says "Some people are gay. Get over it".

Marshutney Has Seatbelts

This is amazing: we have a new marshutney to Sisian, and- wait for it- there are 2 seats with seat belts in it! I'm sure it's only a matter of time until they break or are removed, but for now, the Sisian PCVs can ride is style and safety. 

Dried Fruit

We have a pear tree in our yard that has been dropping copious amounts of pear all over the place. Hazel seems to enjoy chewing on them, but in an attempt to find a more productive way to use this fruit, we're attempting to make some Armenian Chir. I built the drying racks myself out of empty pringles cans and some stuff we found at the hardware store (total cost: 200 dram, plus pringles). I think it's going to work pretty well- but I guess we won't know until we come back from MST. 

Our Faucet is Broke (Adventures in Armenian Plumbing Pt 1)

Our faucet is broke. And it's not a leaky junction or anything like that- it seems a crack has developed in the actual metal of the faucet itself. Yesterday, it sprayed water across the kitchen for about half the day before we saw what was happening. We used a strip of cloth as a bandage and stopped it from spraying all over the place, but then the water which went down the back of the sink had started to flood the floor.

Today, we seem to have found a temporary solution which prevents the water from spraying everywhere and directs all leakage safely down the drain. 

Which is good, because we have PC training coming up, and we're going to have to figure out how to really fix this when we come back from that. 

Overland Ev@c Drill Pt 2

Well, I made it to Tblisi! It's been a whirlwind trip, and we only got one evening out on the town, but it's a pretty enough capital- I understand why so many PC Armenia volunteers vacation here. 

Overland Ev@c Drill Pt1

Well, I was home for a little while... but now I'm on the road again.

This is the first time that PC Armenia has tested its procedures for moving PCVs via roads out of country, and it's been an interesting experience. Each of the PC regional wardens was woken up yesterday morning and told to travel to their consolidation points and await further instructions. Slowly, it emerged that they were bringing us all together, and this morning we were told to come to a central meeting point. From that meeting point, we all piled into a bus and traveled to Georgia. It was a fun surprise, but it meant about 20 hours of near-continuous travel for me. Note to self: add more snacks to Go-Bag...  and possibly some adult diapers.

Still, it was a really pretty drive. Here are some pictures of Georgia.

A Vard by Any Other Name

There are a few words in Armenian which bug me, but 'vard' has to be one of the most frustrating. Maybe it's the phonetic similarity to the English 'fart'... I don't know. Still, the  roses, or 'vard's, here are beautiful.