Morning commuters

It's been cold and gray out for the past few weeks, conditions which haven't really inspired me to take a ton of photos. But, today, I was walking into work and saw our neighbor Harutyun taking his sheep out to the open land beyond down. As I was walking up on this shepherd and his flock, it struck me that I might have become a little bit blind to the things here which are worthy of photographing. Walking to work along a dirt road past sheep is pretty much exactly what I was hoping to experience when I applied to the Peace Corps, and here I was right in the middle of that experience, thinking that I didn't really have anything to photograph here these days. Anyway. Here are the morning commuters with whom I share the road. 

Zorats Qarer Again

I know, I know, sometimes it seems like all I ever post is pictures of Zorats Qarer- but what can I say? I just love visiting the old standing stones. They're the perfect distance from our house for a convenient afternoon hike, and getting out of town and walking through empty fields gives me a sense of inner serenity that I just can't find when I'm surrounded by people and cars. So, here we have again: Zorats Qarer.

Funeral Flowers

One of our neighbors died this week. They held the wake at the family's house today. Afterwards, the street was strewn with white carnations. They stood out in stark contrast to the dark browns and grays of the rocky street, mirroring the white-gray sky.

Honey comb

Okay, I know that I've discussed the amazing substance that is Armenian honey on this blog before now, but I need to introduce you to something even more amazing: Armenian honeycomb honey.

Seriously, this stuff has changed my life. I played around with the idea of keeping bees in the past, but I think there's no way that I won't have at least one or two hives in my future now. 

GenEq Sesh in English Club

For the last few weeks, our Advanced English Club has been watching I Am Malala. I really love watching these young women discuss the ways in which Malala has taken control of her life through education, and the similarities and differences they see between Malala's life and their own. 

Spring Is Coming

Dogs in Down

It's hard to work with the dogs when the weather's so cold out. We only allow them into the front hallway of the house, and space is a little tight in there. But we spent some time working on training them in basic obedience commands today. Here there demonstrating that, contrary to what you might guess upon meeting them, they *are* capable of laying down and not bothering any body at least 1 minute at a time. 

Because Sometimes You Gotta Splurge

We found actual lettuce for sale at the greengrocer shop today. Actual Lettuce!! It was ridiculously expensive, but what can I say? Sometimes you just need to treat yourself. So today we indulged in a fresh salad for lunch with bell peppers, carrots and toasted cashews dressed in Sam's homemade thai peanut dressing. It was amazing.

The Cross On The Hill

We had a PCV friend down from Gyumri today- it's a bit of a trek, but he wanted to see the sites of #ScenicSyunik. Kate and I walked him out to Zorats Qarer, but since I've already included a million pictures of the standing stones in this blog, I thought I'd share one of the cross on the hill overlooking Sisian. There are crosses like this one dotting the Armenian landscape across the country. There are at least 2 within sight of Sisian, and most of the surrounding villages have their own. There's also one all the way up on the top of Ishkhanasar, which is pretty incredible when you think about the work it took to haul the great big metal beams all the way up that mountain.

Birthday Dinner

My mom, who's convinced that cake only comes from a box and can't possibly be made from staple ingredients like flour and sugar, sent Sam and I two boxed cake mixes for our birthdays this year (I'm just teasing you, mom- the cake mixes were awesome, as you're about to see). 

As it turns out, this was especially serendipitous, since our site mate Kate's birthday is smack dab in between mine and Sam's. So, with the help of our friend Karine (who you heard so much about during our plumbing crisis last Thanksgiving), we threw Kate a birthday party. Since Kate's a proud Texan, Sam made pulled pork and two varieties of homemade barbecue sauce for the meal, Karine and her family hosted the event, and I made up the red velvet cake mix that my mom had sent. 

All in all, it was a super fun night, and I think that Kate enjoyed herself. :)

Runs Are Pretty

Now that we have our water back, I can finally start to enjoy the runs I've been taking three times a week. It's nice to know I can come home to a hot shower rather than a few wet wipes after running around town. This is the view from the edge of the Sisian cemetery, looking at the World War II memorial (the tall column at the top of the hill) on the edge of town. 

European Goldfinch

Well, now that we've fixed all of our frozen pipes, it's finally starting to feel a little bit like spring here in Sisian, and that means that the songbirds are coming back. Today we saw this brightly colored little fellow, and this is the best picture of him that I could get. Looking at our bird identification book I think that the red cap, bright white cheek band, and distinct yellow patch on the wings identifies this guys as a male European Goldfinch. I wonder if we'll be seeing more of them around town in the weeks to come...

Ice Crystals

With all the water that's been spraying around from our pipes-in-progress over the past few days, some really stellar ice crystals have formed in our yard. The ones from yesterday were cool enough to prompt me to get my macro lens out, take off my gloves (a rare thing these days), and snap a few images. The last one shows my thumb for scale. 

Further Adventures in Armenian Plimbing Pt Finally

Well, it's been exactly 30 days since we've had running water, and I'm pleased to report that the water is back on in our house. The plumber came and agreed with Vagho's assessment: the portion of the pipe which entered up into the concrete floor of our bathroom was frozen, and the thermal heat sink of all that concrete was making it pretty damn hard to thaw the pipe. His solution? Just chip away at the concrete around the pipe.

Seriously- the man got out a hammer and chisel, and just went to town on the concrete slap, resulting in a 6" deep, 8" wide ditch in the concrete around the pipe. 

Then we were able to hold the little electric heater up to the gap and start thawing the pipe. The plumber would have preferred to use a hair dryer, and was borderline horrified when he learned that I didn't know such a device, but the heater seemed to do the job well enough.

In the end, between the plumber and the heater on the outside, and Sam blowing into the tub nozzel to provide pressure from the inside, we got the ice plug out of the pipe. Sam even got to show is manliness by helping the plumber with the pipe-melty-tool: something I was forbidden from even touching just in case my girly cooties got all over it. (I'm making the part about girl cooties up, but I am getting sick and tired of not being allowed to participate in all the interesting ways that folks build/repair/replace things around here). 

I suppose I shouldn't complain: at the end of the day we have running water, and that's what matters. Unfortunately, all I want to do is collapse into bed, but now the real work starts: We have to wash every dish in the house and I have to run every piece of laundry we own in this country through the machine and hang it up to dry. We've also been rather lax on housekeeping, so that means that I'll have to sweep, mop, and tidy all rooms of the house- and don't even get me started on the hell that is our bathroom these days... I guess we know how I'll be spending the next few days...

Further Adventures in Armenian Plumbing Pt Who-Even-Knows-Any-More

So, the Jrmugh finally got their act together and replaced the section of pipe that got clogged when they were replacing the broken cuff. When the got the excavator to dig up the street again, they removed about a foot of pipe which was just full of rocks and mud and other debris. Once that was accomplished, we had full flow coming out of the cut section of pipe in our yard. As exciting as this was, it wasn't the end of the story. 

Vagho came over and helped us reconnect the cut end of pipe in the yard to the pipes in the house. It turns out that over here, you do this with a special tool designed to melt the insides of the pipes and the connectors which you then smush together and let cool. I think it looks a little bit like those giant machines that Darth Vader used to attack the rebels on Hoth in Star Wars. 

Turns out that Vagho is a pretty handy guy, and he quickly connected the pipes up again for us.

Then we got around to the task of filling in the trench we had dug out around the old frozen pipe. 

We were ready to celebrate when- to my horror- we found that we STILL DIDN'T HAVE RUNNING WATER! Vagho says that the pipes leading into the house are frozen. Tomorrow we're going to see if Karine can help us arrange for a plumber to come and take a look. I'm ready to pull my hair out. This is getting ridiculous.