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.