Saturday, July 02, 2005

PST 5

Finally managed to get these posts up...I have been having trouble accessing my blog lately. So, two in one day--enjoy!

The clouds and rain continue to hover over margohovit, leaving us to wonder if the sun will ever come out…and will it ever get warm again or have we witnessed the only existing two days of summer and now it is back to winter? I sit in my bed under my covers with my winter hat on and gaze out my window at what used to be beautiful mountains. Now it is simply a cloud. Being in a valley whose elevation is around 7,000 feet, we often find ourselves in a cloud, and I am not talking about the mental state. This presents many problems beyond the obvious gloomy day syndrome. Perhaps the most pressing is that I am running out of clothes and can’t do my laundry (unless I like my clothes to smell like mildew….I like barf better). I have been waiting for three days now for the clouds to clear and the rain to go away so I can dry my clothes… still no luck.

We had hoped for a hike yesterday but the lack of any sort of view and village streets, which had turned into mushy manure filled rivers, deterred us. I did make it into to Vanadzor, and after another pot-hole dodging, cheek clinching, cow-herd swerving (we drove through three herds this time), down-pouring journey…I bought a hairdryer! Very exciting. Now I won’t catch a cold! It cost me 5000 drams (about 10 US dollars) which is pretty good for what I bought…but still five days salary at this point, or about two phone calls home. Regardless, it was a good purchase, and even more, it is symbolic that life here is becoming easier and more manageable. Just think of all that I had to do to find this hairdryer: get to Vanadzor (a dissertation in itself), find a store that sells hairdryers (not as easy as one might think), communicate to the clerk that I would like a hairdryer as everything is behind a counter and you have to ask for what you want, ask the clerk how much the hairdryer costs, and then actually pay for the thing. Practically an entire days work…but now I know where more stores are, and have a better idea of what I can buy and how to buy it.

I have had a few questions as to what a typical day is like, so I thought I would write a bit about my day. Today I woke up at 7:30 (all by myself today), got dressed—not a difficult task (would I like to where the black fleece or the green sweater? My only two options right now for days like this—thank god my wonderful mother is sending me more clothes!)., and headed upstairs for breakfast. A typical breakfast for me at this point is a hard-boiled egg, herbal tea with sugar and jam, bread and jam, and sometimes some cheese or potatoes or meat product. Yup, you guessed it….hot dogs! Today the pickings were a bit slim because my host parents had been at a wedding all weekend, so: processed ham slices, bread and prune jam (the jam here is whole fruit in a sugary sauce…so plums—pits and all—and sugar, basically), and of course tea and coffee. I left the house at 8:30 and walked to Eric’s house, where I had more coffee, fried potatoes and some sort of fish patty, although usually I only have coffee. Then Eric and I walked to school, which begins at 9:00. Today’s lesson was months, weather terms, seasons, ordinal numbers, favorites, and review of yesterday’s lesson. We had a break at 11:00—my mother always sends me with a small lunch for break, today was processed ham slices in a large piece of bread and three hard candies. After break we split into our tech sectors—our village has 6 EE volunteers and two TEFL (Teaching English as a foreign language)—and we learned vocabulary specific to our sectors. So, environmental terms and the phrase “I am an environmental education volunteer, I work in the system of nature protection.” This may not seem too difficult until you see the word for environmental…banapahpahnutsyan. Yeah….
So, the whole phrase?

Yes banapahpahnutsyan kamavor em. Ashgatelu-em hamagarkuh banapahpahnutsyan.

Yup that’s right, now try writing it in Armenian…

At 1:30 class ends, and I walked back home. In the rain. It takes about 20 minutes if I don’t stop and Eric’s house for coffee. Second lunch is at 2:00. Today was fish, tomatoes, cucumbers, cheese, bread and apricot jam (same deal, whole apricots and lots of sugar….so much sugar it is crunchy, but very good ). This leads me to another accomplishment…eating fish without making a gigantic mess. Fish here is served with skin, tail, bones, fins, eyeballs…you should have seen me the first time I tried to eat it, I ended up with skin, fish, bones and other random pieces everywhere while my host family had a neat little pile of fish skeletons next to their plate, I think all of my fish bones ended up in my mouth. Not to worry, I have figured out how to get the fish off the bone and then to peel the skeleton (whole) off the rest of the fish. I am a pro.

After second lunch is nap time, it is too rainy to do anything else. Then a little reading. Required reading: Mango Elephants in the Sun, by Susana Herrera. A wonderful account of a peace corps volunteer’s service in Africa. Very different than my experience but still with similar undercurrents. I have also started to do some exercise in my bedroom, which makes me feel much better. Yoga today. Then I head upstairs to do my homework and to have afternoon coffee with my family. And four apricots (maybe not such a good idea, but I couldn’t help myself…they are so good). Did you know that you can break open the pit with a nut cracker and there is a seed inside that you can eat? Tastes kind of like a pumpkin seed with almond flavoring. Try it, you’ll like it.

Dinner follows afternoon coffee—I think you get the point with the food. There is lots of it, it all appears on the table at mealtimes, we eat said items until they are gone or the meal is over, and then we put them back in the cupboards for the next meal. Things we would refrigerate in the US live in cupboards here…or in a pot on the stove top, sometimes for days at a time. Fortunately that is usually lentils or potatoes…things have less of a chance of going bad. Eggs, fruit and veggies and yogurt go in the refrigerator. Cheese, bread, jam and certain vegetable items go in the cupboard. The translation for cupboard, by the way, literally means a place to put things, and also refers to bookcases, wardrobes, dressers and cabinets…very specific. After Dinner I am offered more coffee—at this point I start saying no in hoped of sleeping at a decent hour. The family usually moves to the living room where the television is on (really loud), they talk to each other (really loud…try shouting at the person sitting next to you on the couch, you’ll feel Armenian), and sometimes they study in the midst of this. My host mother is studying computers at the local university and my sister has summer reading to do.

Sometimes I sit upstairs with them and study—although it can be hard to concentrate at times (hard to imagine, I know)—sometimes I bring my computer up and type, but I have gotten so fed up with them reading over my shoulder and trying to sound out words As I type them that I have pretty much stopped taking the computer out of my room. Sometimes I hang out in my bedroom and work, but it is colder in my room and I feel guilty for not being with the family as much. My solution? My iPod, which the teens think is very cool, and helps me to block out the distractions…we’ll see how long it lasts.

Hope everyone is well in the US. Should be a busy few weeks here with lots to look forward to, including new site assignments and a trip to Yerevan! Lots of Love,
Jill

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sorry to hear the weathers bad, if it makes you feel any better it rained a lot while I was in Hilton Head with Catherine, so much so that it flooded the roads. I'm glad to hear you bought a hair dryer maybe you could use that to dry your clothes. Things are pretty much boring as ever here, the big news of the day was that Bush fell off his bike and scraped his hands and arms, Why don't you tell your armenian family that our president can't even ride a two wheeler, maybe that will help them understand why our country's the way it is. Oh one last thing, I found out a band I like is made up of armenians- system of a down. Maybe they know of them there, but who knows because they sing in english. take care and have fun!
-Z

Anonymous said...

Hi Jill!
I have just read all of your posts since you have started posting and you certainly have your sense of humor! Happy to hear things are going better for you! Hope you are still healthy even though you take showers in the morning. Take care and keep writing.
Kristen

Anonymous said...

hi jill,
reading your blog is turning in to our own little reality show here. it's so great to hear you are getting your independence back. we miss you!
xoxo
anneka