Gardens Coming to Life...

I don't think it's any big secrete that I've been covetously eyeing the gardens of Sisian with great interest for some time now. That's why I was so surprised when I noticed that over half the gardens on my school's street have sprung to life seemingly overnight. 

Seriously, I swear to God, none of that growth was there yesterday. It was all leaves and dirt and a a few stubborn patches of ice. Now it's a nicely tended garden bed with baby garlic plants poking their heads up in tidy little rows. 

Gardens across Sisian are transforming from abandoned patches of mud into well tended, food producing machines. The garden bus is leaving the station and I'm not on it! We need to find a house to rent and fast.

Old Phone

For the past few days I've been working primarily in the teacher's lounge- coordinating and researching for various projects that the school staff has asked me for help with. One of the things I have noticed in this room is the old phone at the desk of the woman I suppose is best described as the school's administrative assistant. I've never seen it in use,  I don't know if it works, but for some reason the aesthetics of it really catch my eye. 

Cows on the Mountaintop

Khach Mountain (at least, that's what our host siblings call it) lies directly behind our house, and has about a 45-degree pitch on every face leading up to a ridge-line peak. Given this  steep terrain, I was surprised to see a group of cows traversing the peak today.

How they got up there, how they'll get down, or why they climbed up there in the first place, I guess I'll never know...

Disappointment

Dealing with disappointment in the Peace Corps is sometimes difficult. We've been pretty aggressively searching for a house with a garden to rent since the beginning of the month. Although many people have made encouraging remarks, we only found two definite leads, one of which didn't want to rent his house out at all when we got in touch. The other did, and we had scheduled to see the house this morning (confirming plans as recently as last night!). But when we arrived at the house this morning and called to see where the man was, we were informed that he changed his mind, and didn't want to rent the house to us after all. This leaves us with no leads at all. Needless to say, I'm disappointed.

The morning wasn't all bad, though- and I suppose the good parts will temper my feelings of frustration and regret with time. My counterpart, who had arranged this potential rental, was very upset with the man for backing out as he did, and invited us over to her house for coffee, which in Armenia is practically a full meal in itself. We sat and ate with her husband and his parents, all of whom were most distressed by our housing predicament, and spent the time brainstorming about other potential homes in town we could rent. Their concern and hospitality went a long, long way towards making up for the initial events of the morning.

I am at work now- taking advantage of a free period to write down my thoughts. My counterpart has already told two of her coworkers that we're looking for a house wit ha garden for Sam and I, and the man we were 'supposed to rent from' had let us down. I'm still struggling with the thought of delaying independent living for another month, but the fact that my counterpart, her family, and her coworkers are all on our house-hunting team now makes me feel a little better about the situation.

Soviet Army Day

Today is a holiday here in Armenia, something like Veteran's Day back home- but instead of celebrating soldiers who have served in the Armenian military, this holiday honors those men (and apparently women as well, although I haven't met any female veterans so far) who served as soldiers in the Soviet Army, back when Armenia was a Soviet Republic. All day I've seen people congratulating and thanking the older men of Sisian for their service. It's a strong reminder of what a different role Russia plays in Armenian culture.

In America, Russians are the villains in movies. Russia is depicted as a resource-poor country with long winters and hardened people. In Armenia, people over the age of 30 remember the Soviet Era as a time of relative prosperity: every one had a job at the local factory (which exported goods to the rest of the Soviet Union), every one had access to free healthcare, and housing was provided by the government, along with cars. That's not to say there weren't problems, but those were nothing compared to the economic collapse and political turmoil that followed the fall of the Soviet Union, and were compounded by the Nagorno Karabakh war with neighboring Azerbaijan which started shortly thereafter.

And that cultural heritage doesn't even start to address the role that Russia plays in current day Armenia. The Russian military patrols the boarder between Armenia and Turkey. Russia backs Armenian interests in the border war with Azerbaijan. Russia is Armenia's literal protector. It also serves as a major economic provider for this tiny country with closed borders. Many imported goods come to Armenia via Russia. Most food found at the markets carry Russian labels. Russian manufactured items are regarded as high-quality and reliable.

Furthermore, Russia provides many, many Armenian men with jobs. It is extremely common for Armenian men, who due to high unemployment aren't able to find jobs in Armenia, to move to Russia for work. There, Armenians are thought of with the same kind of stereotype regarding construction as many men from Central America are thought of with regard to gardening and agricultural work. Armenian men working in Russia are able to send money home to their families: making the Russian job market directly responsible for many Armenian's primary source of income.

And so while I feel vaguely uncomfortable today- wondering if perhaps Americans are still the villains in Russian films, and how all these former cold-war era Soviet soldiers perceive me and my country- it's fascinating to consider Russia in a different light than one is exposed to at home.

Pop Up Butcher Shop

I don't know if I've addressed, on this blog, the Armenian phenomenon that is the Pop Up Butcher Shop. 

In the US, as Pop Up Shop is a commercial endeavor which occupies a retail space for a short period of time. It's a business strategy that's commonly utilized by home crafters who want to make some extra money selling their finished objects, but for various reasons can't maintain a full time retail location. 

Similarly, the Armenian Pop Up Butcher Shop occurs when some one slaughters an animal and wants to make some extra money by selling the meat. The Pop Up Butcher Shop typically consists of a man, some cloths/blankets to cover the sidewalk, a large dead animal, a tree stump, and a hatchet. Sometimes, instead of having the large dead animal on the cloths/blankets on the sidewalk, it's on the cloths/blankets in the open trunk of the man's car. 

Orders are given not  for specific cuts of meat, but rather for rough approximate size. One the size of meat chunk desired is established, the man goes to town on the dead animal with the hatchet, and a monetary exchange takes place. For some reason, I always find these Pop Up Butcher Shops a little intimidating, so I've only taken this one picture from pretty far away.

Winter Gardening in Sisian

It's interesting, I haven't seen any over-wintering crops in Sisian- no kale, no cold-tolerant greens for salads, no parsnips or carrots under mulch for winter harvest, certainly no hot beds or cold frames were used to extend the autumn harvest into winter. But in the past week, I've seen a few ambitious Sisiani gardeners who are trying to get a jump-start on spring.

Like this gardener who's used plastic bottles as mini-cloches for their heavily pruned rose bushes. 

Or this gardener who's got something that looks like salad greens growing under  a sheet of plastic:

This this gardener who created a full blown low tunnel (although there doesn't appear to be anything growing in it yet):

This is actually the third low tunnel I've seen in Sisian gardens this week. I think that they aren't kept over winter, and they aren't used in the fall, but a few people do seem to set them up in the spring. That's interesting to me- I wonder why there's no use of season extenders in autumn? 

Regardless, seeing them is very encouraging for me because it means the materials to construct a low tunnel are available locally and probably aren't prohibitively expensive. Hurray!

Sam's Birthday

Today was Sam's birthday, marking the start of his 29th year of life, and the end of the 1 month every year he gets to call me 'old'. Our host family was super sweet and threw him a party. We had a really good time, and really appreciate all that they do to make us feel welcomed into their home. 

School Gym

I was told by my school principal today that she wanted me to get the school a new gymnasium. It wasn't the first time she has said this to me, and I answered her the same way I always do: "We can try!". The "we" in that answer is especially important. I think my school principal feels that Peace Corps grants are something I can go out and get rather than something we can apply for together as a small part of implementing projects that we plan as a team.

Today, in addition to telling me she wanted a new gym, she had the PE teacher take me down and show me the old gym for the first time. (Prior to this, I was under the impression that our school didn't even have a gym, since the room is locked up and never used). I can see why she wants me to work on getting the space renovated.

At the moment, the gym isn't used at all. Any PE classes that the kids have take place outside on the football field, such as it is:

When it is too cold, too muddy, to rainy or too snowy, PE class is cancelled, and the kids have to stay seated in their classrooms all day. That's a tough thing for a grade-school kid to do. Unlike schools in the US, there is no 'lunch & recess' break for them to relax and burn off excess energy. It's a bad day when PE classes are cancelled due to weather.

The biggest problem (I think) is the floor. Currently it's an uneven concrete that just screams trip-and-fall waiting to happen. Plus, with the level of dental care readily available to many of our families, I think that if a kid falls down and knocks out a tooth here, that tooth stays knocked out. 

The second problem is that the lights don't work. Whether this is because there is a problem with the electricity or because the light bulbs themselves are high up and no one has a ladder long enough to change them when the burn out, I don't know. I suppose the firs time to solving this particular problem is going to be finding out exactly why the electricity doesn't work in the first place. Honestly, the lights aren't a huge deal, though: there is plenty of light coming in from the windows in most weather. The only place where this isn't true is in the boy's locker room, which is as dark as an unlit cave at midnight. That's a problem we'll have to fix.

The light in the girl's locker room- I should say 'changing rooms' as there are no lockers- works though, so I was able to see what kind of condition it's in:

I think the first step to rehabbing this space is to give it a good cleaning. What I don't understand is why that hasn't been done already. This space isn't being used at all right now. It's kept locked up. The students don't have access to it- so why are there empty plastic bottles and wrappers on the ground? Why not go through, sweep it out, pick up all the trash, and *then* lock the door behind you? This is one of those cultural differences that I just don't get yet. 

We do have some resources to work with- I'm told that the heaters work just fine, which opens up the possibility of afternoon sports in the winter.

I am, however, skeptical of how effectively 6 radiators, nestled into an un-insulated concrete exterior wall, can heat a space of this size with high, high ceilings. 

And the school does have some equipment, although one of the priorities the principal and PE teacher both expressed was the need for more.

They'd like to acquire more volleyballs, footballs (soccer balls to us Americans), and basketballs, more hula hoops, and more jump ropes. They'd also like to get a set of lifting weights and a wrestling mat. They also want something called a "goat-chair", which I think is a type of hurdle (certainly, if their pantomimes are anything to go by, you're supposed to jump over it...) but I've never seen one before. 

I'm not really focused on the equipment right now- that's such a small part of the problem and so, so easily fixed that I can think about it later.

Right now, I have to worry about getting a new gym floor...

Back in Sisian

I'm back in Sisian, and to celebrate that, I'll share a picture from a sort of statue garden that we have here. I say a statue garden, but that's not really right... It almost looks like a cemetery, except all the headstones are carved into stylized representations of farm animals. I'll be interested in learn more about this place- but I think I'll wait 'till it gets warmer. The cold temperatures of high-altitude Sisian are a little bit of a shock to the system after spending 10 days in the relative warmth of low-land Yerevan.

Yellow Tomatoes!!!

PDM training ended on Sunday. Because I have a committee meeting here in Yerevan tomorrow (Thursday) morning, I decided to just stay in the city this week. I could have gone back to site with Sam on Sunday, but it would have meant a 5 hour taxi ride back, followed by no work on Monday (I don't teach any classes on Mondays) and 1.5 hours of work on Tuesday (I only have two 45 minute lessons on Tuesday with my counterpart), then a 5 hour marshutney ride on Wednesday to be back here in Yerevan on Thursday morning. Much easier to just stay here- more productive too: this way, instead of travel and interruptions, I can continue to work on the ideas that my counterparts and I started to develop during PDM training. 

Now, unfortunately, I can't afford to eat out at restaurants in Yerevan every night for a full week. So instead I've been going to the market to buy food that I can cook in the Envoy's kitchen. This means I've been eating pasta and broccoli with lemon juice cooked in actual olive oil all week- it's been amazing. I've missed broccoli so so SO much- for some reason, it's completely unavailable outside of Yerevan.

I was going to the market to stock up on broccoli again today (I'm here until Friday, and I can't get enough broccoli. It's the new love of my life) and I saw something that I've never seen in Armenia before: Yellow Tomatoes. 

I didn't buy them (red tomatoes are available in Sisian, and I'm completely hung up on broccoli right now- besides, it's winter: none of the tomatoes are very good this time of year), but I was really surprised to see them there. 

Hanging out at the PC HQ

There is a cat at the Peace Corps office in Yerevan who, despite being universally regarded as a complete nuisance- absolutely loves to hang out with the volunteers. I think it mostly has to do with the Volunteer Resource Room being warm, and occasionally having food in it. He's a super playful cat, though, and I spend the better part of an afternoon today making him chase the end of a piece of string. Good times. 

PDM Training, the best parts

This weekend we had what's called PDM (or Project Design and Management) training. Basically, it's training for PCVs and their counterparts to teach us how to effectively achieve goals we share together. It's also the final training required before we are allowed to apply for grants from the Peace Corps. 

My counterparts and I have been developing an idea for what I'm calling a "Mobile Auditory Language Lab"- essentially a netbook and a set of speakers- so that my counterparts can incorporate listening exercises into their lessons. It's been frustrating at times- my counterparts and I have very different backgrounds, so we approach working together and problem solving in very different ways, and sometimes it's difficult to understand where the other person is coming from. But it's also been really exciting as we develop this idea into a project that could help structure the rest of my service.

But by far the best part of PDM training- for me at least- was one specific area of the hotel (photo credit to PCV Crystal: thank you for documenting this awesome space).

I have been going through such garden withdrawal that when I first found the space, I nearly cried. there was a pile of soil on the ground and I shoved my hands into it. I went around identifying all the seedlings I could and guessing that the rest. More than any other single event in Armenia so far, this has highlighted for me how important gardening and growing my own food is to my happiness and well-being.

When we get back to Sisian, we're going to start house-hunting in earnest, and "has a garden" is now at the top of my requirements list. I'd take a house with no toilet before taking a house with no garden. (Sam may feel differently on this point). Our host family has been incredibly welcoming, but Sam and I need space of our own, and I need a garden.

The Two Types of "Th"

Today I was asked by my counterpart to teach 3rd graders the "2 different pronunciations" of the the-sound. If she had brought this idea to me before class, I would have said that just mastering one th-sound is difficult enough for 3rd graders and that furthermore, the subtle differences between the various "pronunciations" of the th-sound are so inconsequential to our understanding of spoken English, and vary so much between regional accents anyway that they aren't worth teaching to students.

But, I didn't have the chance to make these points. The request for this mini-lesson happened right in the middle of a class about 'open' and 'closed' vowels (what I learned as 'long' and 'short' vowel sounds). I briefly glazed over the idea that the th-sound can be voiced differently when the "th" occurs at the beginning, middle, and end of the word in question and plowed on to what I thought were the more important points: in order to correctly make the th-sound, the tip of your tongue must protrude a little bit beyond your front teeth (something that women in particular seem to be hesitant to do here- fortunately, the 3rd grade girls were young enough not to be bound by this social nicety), and that the th-sound is not the same as the f-sound or the v-sound, both of which are common mistakes made by Armenian speakers who are learning English.

The lesson quickly moved back to examining the differences between an "aspirated th" and a "nonaspirated th" once I sat down. It was a little bit discouraging, but really motivates me to push for real, substantial lesson planning together if my counterpart would like to co-teach. This way, the next time a situation like this happens, we can agree before hand what we'll teach in the classroom.

First Day Back as Scool

Today is the first day of school since December 25, 2015. School has been cancelled and vacation extended since January 11th due to a swine flu epidemic that's swept through the caucuses and surrounding regions. Approximately 20 people in Armenia died due to swine flu complications in the first three weeks of the new year.

To put this into perspective, Armenia is a country about the size of the state of Maryland with about half the population. If 40 people in Maryland died of swine flu, in 3 weeks (with additional deaths in surrounding states), people back home would be in a state of near panic. But life here proceeds with minimal interruption form normal routine except for 3 additional weeks of vacation for grade schools.

Of course, that's not an entirely fair comparison- at home, we mount massive vaccination campaigns and have lots of PSAs about hand washing, coughing into elbows, and seeking medical care if you're elderly or have a compromised immune system.  Here, there is none of that, and people rarely use the limited healthcare resources that are available to them. Our host grandmother insists that there is no swine flu in Armenia, that it's just a trick by either the government (who doesn't want to pay to heat the school buildings) or the doctors (who want to sell you unnecessary pills).

To be fair to our host grandmother, the level of government corruption makes her first theory fairly plausible. I was more dubious about the second claim claim until she told us about a "Russian Ebola pill" that was being sold at the height of the Ebola epidemic in Western Africa a few years ago. In fact, our host grandmother's distrust of doctors runs so deep, she insists there are only two instances when you should seek their help: when you've been in a car crash, or if you're having a baby.Other than that, doctors are just a waste of money.

Given this attitude, a lack of flu vaccines, and the lack of general knowledge regarding modern germ theory and communicable disease prevention techniques (hand washing etc), it's hardly surprising that flu season here takes a much higher told than back home. But getting back to today...

So I'm finally back at work. Here, if no where else, there are a few concessions being made to the fact that we've been out of school for 3 unexpected weeks due to the flu outbreak. First there was the expected announcement (well, not an announcement, really, because that kind of clear, point-source communication style doesn't really exist in my school- instead, it's just an informal world-of-mouth system through which important institution wide messages are passed) that Spring Break will be cancelled this year to make up a third of the missed days of school in January.  There are also rumors of Saturday classes, but no one seems to be able to confirm or deny this, I guess we'll see how things turn out at the end of the week.

The next sign of the flu epidemic is the nurse, dressed in a white coat and a face mask, who is currently roaming the halls of our school, pulling children, seemingly at random (perhaps seh has some criteria for 'sick-looking-kid' of which I'm not aware...) and taking their temperatures. I don't know what happens if one of them has a fever, presumably they're sent home to rest.

Finally, about 15 different electric space heaters with associated thermometers have showed up in the school building. A few rooms in schools have radiators, but many have no functioning heat source, and even the ones that do get very chilly. Normally, students and teachers alike have been keeping their coats on all day at school. Now there are heaters and thermometers in the coldest rooms. Presumably so that the school can take steps to keep students from getting cold, which is the most popular belief of what causes just about every illness according to Armenians (if I say "I have a headache" the typical Armenian response is "Oh- did you head become cold?"). The thing is, I don't know how cold the room has to get before they'll turn the heaters on: because we're all currently sitting in a classroom in which I can literally see my breath, but the heater isn't plugged in.

It's interesting to see how differently things are done here, and difficult not to judge those differences (particularly when it comes to healthcare and public health initiatives) harshly. But I'll keep trying.