Spring has finally reached Sisian

Well, we're back in Armenia. I'm staying in Yerevan to give a training session to the new volunteers, but Sam's made it all the way home to Sisian, and he's sent along these photos:

It looks like Spring came for real this time- all those false starts and fake outs are finally over (I hope!). I can't wait to get back home to see it for myself. 

Macro Lens in North Stonington

I'm obsessed by the small secrete worlds, the riots of color and contrast, the beautiful and bizarre creatures you can find if you look closely enough at nature. Which is to say that I took the macro lens for a spin in North Stonington a few days ago, and here are the results:

North Stonington

The mothers joined us for a trip to visit North Stonington today. Remembering the hard work that's yet to be done tearing up sod in the Sisian garden, we put black plastic down on an area of the field where we'll start the North Stonington garden when we get back.

We also took some time to walk in the woods, and it was good be be surrounded by trees again. I don't think we realized just how comfortable New England landscapes are for us until we were suddenly surrounded by them again.

It was a really nice day, and I'm really happy that we'll have this adventure ready and waiting for us when we finish our Peace Corps service.

New Macro Lens!!!

I have a great family. The reason I bring it up now is because in addition to visiting them, I got a gift from my aunt of a new lens for my camera- erm- I mean iPhone. The lens gets really close up, and I'm super excited about it. Here are a few of the secret tiny worlds that I found in the front yard this morning:

Back Home (for a week)

We're back in the States for a week. We cane back to be part of a wedding- and that was really marvelous. We love the friends who got hitched, their wedding was touching and beautiful, and it was fantastic to see so many friends from college who were there.

Now we're back at our parents houses, just like before we left for the Peace Corps. We're running around doing errands and visiting family non-stop, but by far the best part of the trip now is going to be visiting with out dog, Scuppers.

They have Donuts in Yerevan

Sam has discovered a donut shop in Yerevan. The donuts aren't fresh or even particularly good- basic Dunkin Donut quality, really. But they are very American, and sometimes a taste of home is really all that's necessary to make your day.

Spring is Coming

In a few days we'll be leaving Sisian for a quick trip back home. I admit that the weather has been a bit frustrating over the past few weeks. I had hoped to get most of the garden-prep work finished in March, but heavy snows as soon as we moved into our new house and again last week blew that plan to pieces. Now I'll be away again until the beginning of May. But it appears that the weather may finally be turning: the pear tree outside our house seems to think so, at least.

I guess I'll have to give up on the idea of having anything established in the garden before Sam and I leave to hike with Border to Border in June and just set my sighs on a late summer and an autumn/winter garden instead. That's okay- now that produce is more readily available in the markets the garden's most important function will be to act as cold storage for winter vegetables. 

Our Garden

We finally broke ground in the garden! Well, at least a little. We're putting down sheets of black plastic to make it easier to dig through the sod that's currently in place.. Well, I say sod, upon closer inspection, it looks like it's mostly rock, and the black plastic isn't going to do anything about that, but it will make getting rid of the grass that's growing around the rocks easier.

And don't think that just because I took this picture, I'm making Sam do all the work, I laid out all the plastic, and dug in the first three pieces. Sam's working on the last two. We'll leave these down until we get back from our Stateside Vacation in late April/early May, and then we'll move the plastic to make 5 more beds- those will stay under plastic until late May/early June, when we'll move them again.... etc etc until we either have enough garden space or we run out of growing season. 

Well, it's spring in Goris

The Peace Corps held a test of the emergency consolidation plan today, which brought me to Goris. It's springtime there. Ceasefire agreement still holding. 

Two Days Later, in Yerevan

So, it's been a really intense past few days. Concerns about our own security, the safety of our friends and neighbors, and about Armenia in general loom large in my mind.  A ceasefire agreement has been reached, but we don't know how long it will hold. On my way to Yerevan today, I saw several tanks and at least 5 military vehicles with heavy artillery in tow driving towards NK. 

But to step back from that, I'd like to remind you of a photo I took and posted 2 days ago after a surprise snowstorm covered Sisian in a thick icy blanket:

Now, two days later (has it really only been 2 days,  although it seems like a lot longer than that), here's a quick photo I snapped while walking to the PC office in Yerevan. (Please forgive my finger in the corner of the picture).

I have a hard time wrapping my head around the degree to which the elevation change really affects the climate. I'm so used to having climate be a function of latitude that it blows my mind that two places, only 120 miles apart, can have such extreme climate differences. If I were driving south from Providence, 120 miles wouldn't even get me out of Connecticut- and there's no where in Connecticut that would look like Yerevan does while Rhode Island looks like Sisian did 2 days ago. And yet, because one of those 120 miles is vertical, Sisian is an ice fortress while Yerevan is covered in tulips. (Really, it's not even a vertical mile- Yerevan itself is about 1,000 meters above sea level, so the elevation change between Yerevan and Sisian is only about 600 meters above Yerevan- about 1/3 of a mile). I guess that's just another way in which the fundamental nature of life is dramatically different here than back home...

A Country At War

The United States has been either at war, or involved in an armed conflict, since 2001. Technically, I've been living in a country engaged in an active military conflict for more than half of my life. But it wasn't until I cam here that I really felt like it.

Armenia still reels from the genocide in Turkey in 1918- the Armenian & Turkish border is closed and guarded by the Russian military. More recently, Armenia and their eastern neighbor, Azerbaijan, declared war over a border dispute in the 1980s. This dispute was never resolved, and the war has been in a state of suspended animation since an uneasy ceasefire agreement was reached in 1994. 

The marks of war are still ever-present here. The highways have deep ditches and high embankments to hide troop movements from anyone who might be watching from across the border. Every student has "military class" which teaches both history and combat skills, starting in elementary schools. Military service is mandatory for every boy when he turns 18. My 8-year-old neighbor tells me she is afraid that Turks and Azeris will kill her in her sleep. 

And all of these background reminders of war were brought into stark focus this weekend when large scale fighting broke out along the border of Azerbaijan and the disputed region of Nagorno Karabakh. It's the most fighting this area has seen since 1994, and no one here has remained unaffected by the violence. 

On the night of April 1st, Azerbaijan launched a large-scale assault on the NK border, utilizing heavy artillery for the firs ttime since the '94 ceasefire. News of the assault came on April 2nd, with both sides reporting casualties, including civilian deaths. There are no international reporters on the front lines- and thus, unbiased news sources are hard to find. New reports are often conflicting. There is very little clarity, and lots of fear. 

In Sisian, old men gathered in the snowy town square and were issued camouflage uniforms and rifles. It took me a while to learn that these men were "volunteers'- they were signing up to go to fight at the NK-Azerbaijani border. Several of my students fathers were among them. The entire town was filled with old men in uniform as families said goodbye to their patriarchs. That evening, Sisian has a tense, melancholy feel to it. 

Things became much works yesterday. One of the vans carrying the "volunteers" from Sisian and the surrounding villages to the line of conflict was struck by a drone, killing seven people. We don't know who was killed yet. The town is in mourning. People are shocked and scared. It's difficult to describe. Everyone is afraid. Because we lack reliable news sources, we don't know what is happening in NK. No one knows what will happen next. 

This includes Sam and I. The Peace Corps has so far been silent on the issue. I know they're very protective of their volunteers- if we were in any danger here, they'd pull us out, but I still wish they'd issue some kind of statement. 

The intense patriotism and militarization that's been brought forth from the community here in Sisian over the past few days reminds me of the weeks immediately following September 11th back home. I find it unsettling. 

Our Neighbors

Every morning, I wake up to the sound of "baaa"ing outside our window as our neighbors head out for the day.

It's a huge improvement over being on the cow commute back in Shahumyan- sheep poo is so much smaller than cow poo.

Surprise Snowstorm

I knew it. I just knew it. It's not Spring in Sisian just yet. What started out as a lovely, sunny morning quickly became an overcast, drizzly morning as the leading edge of the storm system crept through Sisian (I'd say "over" Sisian, but we're so high up here that the clouds actually do go through town rather than over it). By noon, this is what we were walking through on our way home:

By 2 o'clock, there was a solid 4" of snow on the ground. Guess I needn't worry about digging garden beds before I head to Yerevan on Tuesday. Uncool Sisian, uncool. 

Building a Bathroom

Vahagn is a man who lives in Sisian and runs a pottery studio there. He makes amazing ceramic jewelry and dishes from clay he harvests himself from the surrounding countryside. He made our favorite mug (which was a New Year's gift from Sam's students). Vahagn wants to grow his ceramics business into a school and a tourist destination. But at the moment, his facilities don't really allow for that- namely: they lack a private bathroom space. Unfortunately, he doesn't have the funds to do a traditional renovation of his space.

But Vahagn's got an innovative plan to get around that: he's going to build an outhouse out of naturally available and recycled materials: rammed earth and plastic bottles.

Today we were able to work for a few hours with Vahagn, a few students from Sisian, and a fellow PCV from a nearby village to fill bottles for the projects.

It was a pretty awesome time, and ended with a party in which we were served coffee and sandwiches.

We've got a long way to go, but it was a solid start to the day.

Before we left, I snapped a few pictures of the amazing ceramic pieces Vahagn makes: