Dog In Snow

It's cold out, guys. Like, really, really cold out. We're never gonna get our pipes to unfreeze. I walked to the bank today to send our rent money to our landlady, and it occurred to me that we must be renting the most expensive non-plumbed property in all of Armenia. I really, really hope we don't have to wait until the weather warms up in Spring to get our water back. If we do, I want to renegotiate our rent, but that's definitely not something that you do here. I worry that if we try to bring it up, we'll just get evicted, and then we'll be out in the cold, with the dogs, with no where to go. It makes me realize just how lucky Sam and I were to have the family support structures in place back home that we did. It makes me feel a new sense of empathy for folks back home who live without that safety net.

Anyway, enough doom and gloom. Here's a dog (not ours), hanging out in the snow:

Further Adventures In Armenian Plumbing Pt Forever

Ok- I don't even know how to begin picking up this tale... where did we leave off? If you'll recall, we woke up the morning of January 5th to find that we had no running water in our house. Further investigation (over the course of several days) lead us to discover that there was a problem with the cuff which connected our house's water supply to the water main. Fortunately, since the problem was "upstream" of the water meter, this meant that it was the Jrmugh's (the Water Department's) responsibility to fix it. Over the past 3 weeks, in comedy-of-errors style series of events, that hasn't happened. First, there was no suitable replacement cuff in Sisian, so I guy had to go get it in Yerevan. About a week later, they finally got the piece from Yerevan, but it was the wrong size. Then there were no pieces the correct size in Armenia, and so the correct size had to be ordered from Russia. Then, they finally had the right piece and it was the right size, but nobody had thought to bring back from Yerevan the literal nuts and bolts to install it. For a while, we wondered if we were supposed to bribe someone- and if we had known how much and to whom, we may have done it-but it looks like no bribe was necessary, since yesterday they finally fixed the problem and replaced the broken cuff.

We were super excited about this, however, that excitement quickly faded when we learned that we still didn't have any running water. we checked all the places we learned about over Thanksgiving, but heating them up didn't seem to have any effect. With Karine's help, we got a plumber out to our house towards the end of the day yesterday, and his only advice was to dig out the pipe, poking holes in it every few meters, until we found a spot which had water pressure. This was most definitely not the answer we wanted, but at least it gave us a game plan.

And so here we are today:

We've spent the entire morning digging the pipe out of frozen ground- which is no easy feat when all you've got to work with is a shovel and a large piece of iron bar. What we really need is a pick ax, but I don't see us acquiring one any time in the near future. 

We've got a system of several extension cords and electric heaters set up so that when we go in for lunch we can try to warm up the area around the pipe where we're digging. I know, I know, it's a wild fire waiting to happen and Smokey the Bear would be horribly upset with us, but Smokey hasn't had to deal with a month without running water in the middle of an Armenian winter, so he can take his disapproval and stick it where the sun don't shine.

Well, This Isn't Gonna Be Fun

The forecast says we'll get anywhere from 6 to 14 inches of snow over the course of the week... looks like any travel plans that Syunik volunteers had for the weekend are soon-to-be cancelled. :(

#IMarchFor

Technically, it's still January 20th back home, just a few hours after President-Elect Donald Trump was sworn into office, but in anticipation of the hundreds of women who will take to the streets today in protest of the new President's message of misogyny, bigotry, and xenophobia, I hosted my own little Women's March in Sisian. It was really just me, walking with my sign through the center of town, but still, I was proud to take part in this moment in history. 

We Have A Plant Growing In Our Window Sill

I spotted a small sprout growing up from in between our window sill and the counter top in our kitchen today. In response, I felt a strange combination of frustration and happiness. I was frustrated because houses shouldn't grow plants from their walls. That's just not how things are supposed to work, and the kitchen these days is cold and always damp, and this little sprout coming up from the woodwork just seemed to be a manifestation of all those ways that the kitchen didn't match the idealized room that I have in my head. On the other hand, this little itty bitty sprout was there, despite the fact that this was clearly the wrong place for it, and it was this cute little stubborn plant working its way into the world- and I can't help but smile thinking about that. Anyway. I guess I'm just feeling very conflicted these days. Here's a picture of the little plant upon which I'm placing all this emotional turmoil. 

World War II Monument

We took the dogs on a walk today, just as the sun was starting to set behind the mountains west of monument to the Sisiansi soldiers who fought in the second world war. It's a tall, proud monument- very much in the Soviet style- and it stands on the edge of the  plateau above the Sisian river valley, overlooking the entire town. I thought it looked almost regal in the sunset this evening.

Composting Toilet

So, yesterday was my 30th birthday, and as we still have no water, it proved to be a true 'dirty-thirty'. While we had a great time celebrating the day with some PCVs and friends from around Sisian, we also got some bad news: they replacement part that they brought back from Yerevan was the wrong size, and they have to special order the correct size part from Russia. Our friends from town tell us that this means it could take months to get that pipe repaired. And so I yesterday I took myself on a little Birthday Shopping Trip, and bought myself a present- some assembly required: 

Now Sam and I are the proud owners of our very own composting toilet. It took a little finagling to get the height/seat positioning just right, but now that we've got that figured out, it works like a charm. Not quiet as convenient as a normal flushing toilet, but waaaay better than the make shift urinal-bucket-squat situation we had going on before.