Friday, July 29, 2005

PST 10 (I am running out of semi-creative titles)



Times continue to fly and I now find myself beginning week 8 of PST. As I am more than ready for PST to be over, this is a good thing. I am however faced with the fact that our village has yet to complete our community project (or really even make any progress) and, as you may have guessed, it needs to completed before we leave Margohovit. Novel thought, I know. Regardless, as a traditional overachiever, I am stressed about it, and yet there are so many other, seemingly more important things going on, that I still do nothing.

The last two days have enabled me to see more of Armenia via a bird watching trip with the Birds of Armenia NGO and large group field trip to Haghpat Monastery. Armenia is home to more than 2/3 of all of the bird species in the entire former soviet union—something like 300. We were able to quite a few different birds of prey including buzzards, falcons and hawks. Our guide was nothing short of amazing—every time the marshutni broke down (we hardly even notice anymore…) he jumped out of the vehicle and found nests or flying birds of prey. Haghpat was also very cool—it was built in 900 something, and has so much history and culture. Very impressive.

Both trips were very enjoyable and educational, but I am still trying to recover form the marshurtni rides—especially today’s. We traveled by marshrutni convoy today instead of by charter bus, which is our normal mode of transport during large group activities. It is my sense that the act of traveling in a convoy exacerbated the normal driving, shall we say, issues. Allow me to elaborate….

We arrived at the school in Vanadzor this afternoon and piled into 5 or 6 marshurtnies—about 15 people per vehicle. As we pulled out of the school parking lot, the jockeying for position began. Watching the line of white marshrutnies bob and weave through traffic, I was reminded of errant ducklings trying to follow their mother. Sometimes we were two abreast (in one lane), sometimes we were swerving around potholes, sometimes we were facing oncoming traffic, often we were passing on blind curves….but not to worry, the driver honked his horn…its all under control. It was as if we were in a race to get there, both against everyone else and each other. Everyday I amazed that there aren’t more accidents in this country. Especially since seat belts are nearly unheard of and jaywalking is safer than crosswalks. I was in a Peace Corps vehicle the other day (where seatbelts are not only provided, but also mandatory) and we stopped to pick up my Armenian counterpart. She is also required to wear a seatbelt in a PC vehicle, but first we had to teach her how to use it…she kept trying to put her head through it and couldn’t figure out the buckle. Unfortunately, the transportation is a fact of life here, as scary as it may be. Therefore, I have found it best to try and not watch—it is totally out of my control, so its better to just look at the scenery and try not to fall out of my seat when the driver slams on the brakes to avoid hitting the vehicle he is trying to pass on a blind curve with an oncoming truck. They are not all this bad…but this is not an exaggeration of today.

I find myself somewhere in between being totally fed up with my current situation and being excited and thankful to be here. The constant ups and downs don’t help. I find sanctuary with my friends and then I come back home… It is easy to forget why I am here and what my goals of this experience are while I am swamped in work and fighting to keep my status as an adult in the Armenian world. I have hope for my next site, but it too will bring its challenges. I told my host mother yesterday that after 6 months I will be living by myself instead of with a host family, and her response was (while reading the follow statement, please imagine a very high-pitched, incredulous, perhaps even panicked voice) “but Jeel, how will you live? You can’t cook, you can’t make coffee, you can’t bake bread, you can’t make a cake, how will you do it?!?” After restraining myself, I said very calmly (and for the record, for the sixth time or so): “In America, I lived by myself for 5 years. I will be okay.” To which, she responded, “but how did you get your food, can you shopping?” The last part was in English, and word for word…can you shopping? It doesn’t matter how many times I tell them….they still think I am absolutely helpless. And it doesn’t help that they talk to me like I am two years old. I don’t know what to do other than to grin and bear it. Hasmik wants to help, but I don’t even know what she or I can say to them. “You treat me like I am stupid, and really, I’m not, so please stop?” It is cultural, and although I think my particular family is some strange extreme, I don’t think it will go away. I do think that I am going to start telling them that it is rude to read over my shoulder while I am working. Especially when I am typing an email or a blog entry and they are trying to sound out the words, or when they take my notebook away, while I am writing in it, to show the neighbors that I can write in Armenian. And then there was the other day when I made the mistake of wearing my glasses outside of my bedroom. My host brother took them right off my face and put them on, made a bunch of funny noises and then started passing them around the room so other people could look through them. I finally managed to get them back (for those of you who don’t know, I am perfectly blind without them). Then my mother tells me “Jeel, I have. I have (and makes gestures to indicate glasses). I have and Ashot, father have.” What I am supposed to say to that? “Good for you.” “Great, glad to hear it.” “shnorhavor! (Armenian for congratulations)”

As I become more frustrated and more stressed with other obligations and language difficulties, I become more cynical and less able to laugh off some of these things. I laugh about them later with the other volunteers, but when they are happening I simply find myself at a loss for words. Especially of the Armenian kind. I recognize the potential in these situations for learning and teaching, but right now I don’t have the vocabulary or the patience. It is also hard to forgive things that are simply cultural norms here but would be considered quite rude in the US. People are very direct here—to the point of telling you that you are fat, or your language sucks, or you have a pimple on your face. And they like to compare everything to everything and then tell you the results. So and so is a better speaker than you are. Your Armenian is really bad today. She is prettier than that other girl, and so on. After looking through some pictures the other day my host mother told me “American students are all fat but Armenian students are skinny.” I just looked at her blankly (which, she of course interpreted as me not understanding and proceeded to act out being fat), I simply didn’t know how to respond to that and still don’t know if it was a compliment or and insult. The people in the pictures weren’t even fat. Armenian kids are skinny, but the adult population in not especially so. Of course, my host mother has told me, with pride, that “you can only eat a little, but I can eat a lot!” Again, “ummm, good for you?” Maybe?
The other day a few of the volunteers came over to my house to watch the last day of the Tour de France (I am one of the lucky ones in a home with satellite, which means such treats as “Married with Children” dubbed in Russian. It was bad enough in English.) We were only able to find the tour in Italian, which we decided was okay as the alphabet is the same and se we could read the names, etc. My host family, however had other ideas. After commandeering the remote, a friend of the family was able to find a different European sports channel in English. They didn’t seem to understand that it was not the tour, so therefore we didn’t want to watch it. “but its in English—why don’t you wan this one?” After some shouting and much irritation, we convince them to change the channel back to the Italian Tour de France.

Honestly, why? At the same time, I am reminded of how much these people like us and appreciate our being in their country. This, even if they don’t quite understand why we have chosen to come are what we will be doing. My host mother commented the other day after looking pictures of my house that I have sacrificed a lot and she is touched. Thanks to Hasmik for translating that one. I am also reminded that I am lucky to have the facilities that I do in a country with so much variance, and that the cultural exchange I am currently experiencing is part of the PC package. When I read between the lines I know that my host mother telling me that I can’t do anything useful and thus will never survive on my own, is her way of worrying about me and wanting to take care of me. Even so, it is a hell of a way to say such a thing.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

JILL!!!!!!
You sound sooo frustrated and after reading just that particular entrry I can see why! Just hang in there, hopefully your next village will be better. I hope all is well with you. Check your yahoo email.....
Love Kristen :-)