PST 3

Well, the challenges and the absurdities continue (I guess that goes without saying). I also continue to learn and grow each and every day. The excuse of “I’m full” has stopped working as well as it used to, but I had pretty good luck with “I’m not hungry” (sovats chem.) at dinner tonight. My family, mostly my mother, is actually becoming more pushy with food as times goes on. So, my new strategy? If I say no, no, no, and they still put food on my plate, then I’m not eating it. Seems simple, but me not eating a full feast at least three times a day means nothing less that that I don’t like the food. I am asked on a daily basis if I like the food, and if I like meat, to which the answer is always yes. I have even tried to get our LCF (Language and Cultural Facilitator) to help me make the point, but it falls on deaf ears. As my language abilities increase this becomes easier…in three months I will have this down!

I, by the way, have many abilities: I can wash my clothes (in barf, of course), wring out my clothes, hang my clothes on a line, type very fast (this continues to be a novelty), cut a tomato, drive a car (but only in the US…), and speak Armenian well (this of course, is a relative term). This, all according to mother, who likes to report to the rest of the village. I am becoming used to being the center of attention. We (amerikatsi) are better than television. Children in the village have learned that every day at school we get a break at 11:00, and they actually gather in the school yard to watch us eat our snacks. Here comes the 11:00 soap… One of my fellow trainees asked my the other day if I knew any good Armenian jokes, my response we “yeah, us.” And it is so true….

I have had the privilege of attending two parties in the last two days. Both for young men who are leaving to go into the army. The first was amazingly large. My first thought when I walked into the house was “is the whole village here?” The tables were literally piled with food and alcohol, there was loud music and lots of dancing. And I was ushered from table to table, where people largely talked about me, rather than to me, and in true Armenian form, piled my plate with food. At one point everyone within arms reach had given me a piece of bread (the stack was about a foot high—I do not exaggerate), and then a piece of cake was set on top. I ate the cake…I have had quite enough bread! The experience can pretty much be equivocated to my mother steering me around the room and saying “this is my American….this is my American….this is my American.” Strangely enough, it is starting to seem normal. At the second party I just sat back and listened to them talk about me. I don’t really understand anything except for my name….blah blah blah jill blah blah blah jill blah blah. Actually, it is more like Jeel, which I have gotten so used to hearing, I actually introduced myself as jeel the other day. “Yes Jeel nem.” (I am Jeel.) Oh yeah, I had discussions about tan with a few of you before leaving….tan is an Armenian drink that consists of yogurt, or matsun in Armenian, mixed with water and little salt. Well, I tried it last night. Only a little, which was good thing. I don’t think I will be having much more. The yogurt is not sweet and thicker than American yogurt. It is good with many things, but my favorite is the syrup from candied pears. Maybe if that was in the tan I would like it. I also learned that I am not a particularly big fan of sheep meat. Note to self…

I finally got a chance to do some hiking last week. We didn’t get far, and didn’t really get off the road, but we made it a ways up above the village and were rewarded with some great views. I have pictures but I don’t think I will be able to post them from Armenia—the internet connection is too slow. I plan to email a disk of pictures home after a while, and then maybe they can be disseminated from there. The plan is to actually get to the top of the ridge that runs behind the village, but we will need an entire day to do so. We are thinking possibly next Sunday, if the weather holds out. It is currently the rainy season, and storms nearly every day. Hard rain, hail, thunder and lightning are the norm. It is also the norm for the power to go out when it rains. At which point, everyone simply goes to bed. There is no questioning as to when it might be back, nobody calls the power company to report an outage, they just go to sleep. This is with the exception of my host mother, who I found cutting potatoes in the dark one evening during an outage. When there is work to be done….

I also thought I might comment on village wildlife in this entry. Well, domesticated wildlife anyway…Cows, pigs, horses, chickens, stray dogs…everywhere. There is no concept of private grazing land here. The livestock simply wanders around the villages and roads as they please, eating what they like. We have finally gotten to the point where we don’t giggle every time we hear a rooster crow during class, but I still find it amusing (and sometimes frightening) to see large livestock just hanging out by the side of the road, or in the road if that seems preeferable. We saw a cow walking down the sidewalk in Vanadzor on Saturday, which was pretty amusing, and then we learned how to drive a taxi through a heard of cattle who were chilling on the “highway”:
First, slow down as little as possible
Second get right on the cows hoofs (really, really close)
Third, honk and swerve until the cows either move out of the way, or you get around all of them.
Some things I am not sure I will ever get used to….