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.

new address--check your email!

I will apologize in advance for the lack of the creative, insightful, and side-splittingly funny entry that you are no doubt searching for right now. Instead, I have another entry full of business. Well, maybe I can slip in a little extra here and there…we will just have to see.

The first order of business is that I have a new address and you can now send me packages if you like. Yay for packages! Unfortunately, I cannot post my new address here—the information is too specific, and thus Peace Corps’ guidelines are prohibitive. Not to worry though, I just sent an email to everyone in my address book with the new info. Please let me know if you have not received the email and would like it—I would be happy to send it your way. We have 4 weeks left of PST, so continue to use my current address for another week and then switch to the new one (July 25 or so, I guess). It is currently taking things 2-3 weeks to get here.

I will however post some guidelines for packages (I know you want to send me something….). This has also been included in my email to all of you.

Send them USPS air mail--the customs fee has been waived for Peace Corps volunteers, all other services have a 20% customs fee
Include a list of package contents
Tape up the box really good (duct tape isn’t a bad idea)--they get pretty banged up on their way here
Don't send any white powder, or like, stuff that will explode...or something

Here are some things that would make me really happy if they just happened to arrive in Armenia in a box with my name on it.....
Peanut Butter!!! Really hard to find and really expensive here.
Pictures of family and friends
Granola bars/clif bars
Kool-aid packets and other drink mixes
crackers/peanuts/dried fruit/other snack items that are semi-healthy
sauce mixes (the powdered kind), taco seasoning, etc.
tuna packets
mints, candy
gummi things (bears, swedish fish, worms...)
markers, colored pencils
nice smelling candles, lotions, etc.
if your feeling really adventurous....DVD's, music,and whatnot. I do have a computer with me to look at files, listen to music and watch movies.
Later on…coffee, I am hoping to get my hands on a French press at some point
Anything else that you think someone living in Armenia might miss about America....

And of course, please don't feel obligated to send a thing. I just thought I would make the process easier for those who are thinking about it. If none of this sounds appealing to you, just send me a letter or an email, I would love to hear from you!

PST 9...maybe, I am losing track

PST is drawing to a rapid close—we are already on week 7. Time is such an amorphous thing here—one day it feels like I just arrived in Armenia yesterday, and the next it feels like I have been here forever. Regardless, I find myself asking where all of the time has gone. I can only hope that things will move along as quickly during the rest of my service. I have learned that too much time to sit and contemplate that realities of life here is a bad thing. There is a delicate balance to strike between productivity and reflection. Right now we are erring on the side of productivity, or at least busyness. Perhaps too much so. Maybe I have said before, that PST has been compared to hazing, and that things will slow down when we arrive at our sites.

For now, my one and only priority is to learn the language, well. I want to be fluent now, but more realistically, I am hoping to be functionally fluent by the end of my first year. It is a realistic goal, but certainly not one that everyone obtains, or even many people obtain. There is very evidently a large range of language abilities amongst volunteers, due to many different factors. I have a good start but need to keep at it. I have had some questions about the intricacies of the language, and so I thought I would enumerate a bit here. If this is something you aren’t interested in please skip ahead!

As you probably are already aware, Armenian has its own alphabet (a very old one), and so we have had to start over in terms of learning how to read and write. I am now sounding out words at about a first grade level I would guess. Well, actually, I am getting better, its just slow. The blessing lies in the fact that the grammar and the structure is fairly easy and in many ways is similar to Spanish. It is a language that uses auxiliary endings instead of prepositions and pronouns. These items exist, but everything is added to the end of a conjugated verb. So, actually in Armenian we have postpositions instead of prepositions. This means that we have to learn how to conjugate the verbs and which ones are irregular, but actually making sentences is easier than I originally thought. It also helps that there is usually not only one way to structure a sentence. So, in English we might say "I am going to the store now" But in Armenian, you could say:now, store I go....................heema khanuta gnumemI go to the store now...........gnumem khanuta heemaI go now to the store...........gnumen heema khanutaAnd it is all correct, and it uses the same three words...those pesky little articles don't really exist...as much. They do, but they are one letter, which is tacked on to the end of a word. In this case, it is the "a" at the end of khanut. What I have written above is a transliteration, or the English letter equivalent of how the Armenian letters sound. For this reason, you can find Armenian words spelled in all sorts of different ways depending on who transliterated it. For instance, the town I will be living in can be Vayk, Vike, or even Vayq.

Another tribulation of Armenian is that there are certain letters that you have to hock lugies to pronounce...kh is one of them (it is one letter, and sounds sort of like making a kh sound in the back of your throat). There is also a gh and a few others. And there are 2 other k's, 2 p's and 2 t's. In each case, one is aspirated and one is not, and in all cases, I can't tell a lick of difference, I just have to memorize how words are spelled. The flip side of this is that in Armenian there are 39 letters in the alphabet, and each makes one (and only one) distinct sound. There are no silent letters, no hard and soft c's, no combinations of letters to sound like something else...it is very straight forward. This is another reason why Armenian words can be spelled so many different ways when we transliterate them…

For the most part the grammar is similar but there are very obvious differences. For instance, Armenian uses a definite article with proper nouns. So we might say “Jill”in a sentence, whereas in Armenian, we would say “the Jill.” Interesting huh? I am such a nerd…thanks for sharing in my geek moment.
Overall, it is an enjoyable language to learn and I am really impressed everyday with how well we are all doing in five weeks of studying. We have covered far more than a year's curriculum in a college level course already. Regardless it is still frustrating, especially when we are expected to be doing productive work in villages where there is little to no English, and part of success includes convincing Armenians to think outside of the Soviet box. The brainwashing is going to be a tough thing to overcome. That, and the traditional lore:

No, drafts won’t make you infertile
I didn’t get sick because I wasn’t wearing socks
Cat hair doesn’t have anything to do with whether or not you will get married
Neither does sitting at the corner of the table
Throwing your trash in the street really is bad for the environment
The river isn’t any better
Even if it goes to Azerbaijan

Well, you get the picture. This a different peace corps experience than, say, Africa, the pacific islands, or some Amazon village. In all cases, it is more developed for the most part and one point was a fairly advanced country. In some cases it has regressed since the Soviet Regime fell, in others it has simply stagnated. In either case, progress was not helped by a massive earthquake that damaged infrastructure during a time of high poverty. More than 15 years later, there are still areas that are uninhabited due to earthquake damage. Armenia’s history is very long and quite fascinating. I will not, however, go into detail here as I am no expert. But, if you are interested, there are resources on the web.

The relatively high level of development is part of what makes it so difficult to be here at times. There is a couple in our group who were in PC in Papua New Guinea a few years ago and they have commented that in some ways it is more difficult to live here than in a country where you have a pit toilet and carry your water from the well. It is because things are close enough to what we are used to remind us of home yet far enough away to remind us that we are definitely not there. It is like everything is just not quite what it should be. I have learned a lot from living in these conditions. Perhaps this poem says it best:

I am learning…
What freedom really is.
How to be myself in a culture that is not my own.
How to suffer silently and with dignity amongst those who do it everyday.
To not take the little things for granted,
And not to neglect the big things that are important.
To live and love with all my strength, no matter what.
To adapt my mindset towards adjustment
And to embrace that which is given to me
Rather than to take and to expect that which is not my own.
Or that which simply cannot be.
And to make the best of whatever becomes
Even when (especially when) this entails discomfort and reevaluation.
I have learned…
That the things I really need, I already have.
And no matter the difficulties and challenges
I have the support of people who believe in me,
Who will enable me to find the tools necessary to succeed
From within myself and those around me,
Rather than to expect these items to be given to me.
Success is my choice.
And my obligation.

As a person who is normally fairly articulate, it is especially trying to not be able to really express myself to those around me. I find writing to be one of the best outlets for this frustration. So, thanks for being my audience, maybe you will see more poetry in the future.

Vayk, my real site assignment

As promised, I am going to attempt to explain the situation I have found myself in this week. It is strange to be posting entries that happened so far in the past (a week is a really long time) it is like looking at my life from outside of myself. I just returned from a visit to Vayk, my actual permanent site. And I am comfortable in saying that I think I have landed in a good situation. The question is how exactly I got there.

As you are already aware, I was originally assigned to a small called yernjatap, which although wrought with problems and challenges, I had talked myself into going. we arrived in yerevan on Tuesday afternoon to attend a counterpart conference (the people we will be working with directly for the next two years), and then to travel to our sites to visit our new host families, places of employment, etc. I had been told when we were given our site assignments that I didn’t have a host family yet, but wasn’t too concerned because there were several other people in the same boat. We were all told that our program mangers were working hard to fix the situation and we should have host families by the time we arrived in Yerevan on Tuesday. Well, when I arrived in Yerevan on Tuesday my program manager didn’t tell me I had a host family, he told me “we need to talk.” This by the way was happening at 7:00pm, which was the exact same moment that everyone was meeting their counterparts. Only I didn’t have a counterpart....or a host family.

As it turns out, my PM (program manger) had been in yernjatap that afternoon to figure out what was going on and found that they weren’t ready for a volunteer and didn’t have a homestay for me—something that the counterpart were supposed to help ascertain. because of this, he made a last minute decision to move to a new site: Vayk. This, I have learned, has its advantages, although at the time I was feeling pretty discombobulated. I had talked myself into a different site and had started to figure out what the advantages were, etc. Not only that but everyone was having a counterpart conference but me. My counterpart didn’t know I was coming either, and she happened to be in Yerevan that day but had headed back to Vayk before anyone could get a hold of her.

I spent the evening trying to warp my head around my new situation ( as well as catching up on CNN in English and rediscovering that showering can not only be easy but also enjoyable) Gotta love the nice hotel we were staying in. Now I have completely bought into my new arrangement. So, here comes the second description of where I will be for the next two years:

Vayk, unlike Yernjatap, is in the desert portion of the country. It is located in the second to last marz, called Vayadzor, and looks quite a bit like Utah. It is very hot there right now with no humidity, but mornings and nights are breezy and pleasant. I am now going to have invest in a floor fan instead of more wool socks. The winters are still cold, but they only last for 3 months as opposed to six in some other parts of the country, which shall remain nameless. I am told that spring and fall are very pleasant and there are lots of opportunities for hiking and exploring nearby.

I have some very wonderful sitemates, a definite advantage of this new site. They have really taken me under their wing and helped to learn about my town and adjust to the peculiarities of it. At this point they both have their own apartments and it is nice to see that PCV’s can live almost normally in this country. The facilities are a little less than desirably by US standards but I have hopes of eventually enjoying the kind of life (read freedom) that I have been accustomed to. As for my host family, I have had the good fortune of inheriting one of my sitemate’s (James) host family, who seem really really cool. They are very kind, very laid back and didn’t try to force food down my throat once! they have one son who is 15 and also very enjoyable. The father has a great sense of humor and the family doesn’t seem so entrenched in typical Armenian gender roles, which is very refreshing. The son even cooks sometimes! It also helps that James has already broken them—they know what to expect from living with an American, and James knows them very well, so I can ask him questions as needed. I also have some place to go when I have just have enough of Armenian hospitality and lifestyle.

I got to enjoy this a little on my visit this week as well—Renee, James and I made tacos and brownies for dinner one night and hung out listening to music. It felt so normal....finally. So, there is hope, and when I move out on my own there will be even more hope. I am looking forward to that day, but think that I can wait it out with this family. The trade-off in this situation is that I will be enjoying less luxuries, but luxury is less important than a comfortable family to live with. I will remember that as I am flushing the toilet with a bucket....taking a shower with a bucket...and well, thats all with a bucket probably. This family does not have what my current family has in terms of wealth, but they make up for it in other ways.

My counterpart also seems like a great woman to work with. She is a doctor and is also very involved with her town. This includes starting her own NGO, which is now my organization as well. My last assignments also included a school, this will be just an NGO, but I think it will be okay. The NGO is actually more of a youth development type of organization but she wants to start some environmental work and lessons. The biggest challenges I foresee at this point area alack of time on behalf of my doctor counterpart, and what one of the PC staffers calls “mission creep.” I other words, this organization is really spread out and not focused on any one specific thing. regardless, my counterpart (Nune) has lost of ideas and I think is feasible to grab on to one or two of them to begin with and start strengthening the organization and the community,. With time, of course. And better Armenian.

Which, brings me to challenge number 2. James didn’t actually start with this host family, he moved there after two moths at site in a really bad situation with a different family. Therefore, his family (now my family) didn’t meet him until her had studied and spoken the language for almost 5 months. They met me after I have studied and spoken the language for 5 weeks. And they are wondering why I don’t speak as well as James does, who is very good with the language at this point, probably one of the better ones in his group. They don’t understand the differences between the times they met him and me. Time to hit the books even more... chem haskanunem...I don’t understand.

So, there you have it. A purely informational email. I will try to put up a more exciting one soon. Lots of love to all.

PST 7 parties and more parties

The experiences just pile right up, one on top of each other. This entry will be in reverse chronological order, by the way. I am too jazzed up to do it any other way.

I just came home from Armen’s graduation party, or “bye school picnic” if you ask my family. They still insist on speaking to me in broken English instead of Armenian. “jeel, you drink coffee?” To which I say no Armenian….”Jeel, you don’t drink coffee?” The other night, my host mother served me “mis a cheek….” Mis is the Armenian word for meat, and cheek was her attempt on “chicken.” Hav is the Armenian word for chicken, which, by the way, I have known since the second week in country. Sigh. Even now that I know the imperative form, and can properly say “speak Armenian, I understand” they still revert to English if I don’t immediately catch what they are saying…and they speak very fast.

My host mother withstanding, I just had a fantastic evening! When students graduate from school in Armenian they have a big party with their class, teachers, parents and school principal. Since Armen is a graduate, my host mother is a teacher, and my host father is the principal, I attended the party as well. Somehow I ended up sitting with the men (teachers) I think because I came late. The Armenians outdid themselves tonight, I have never had so many men so attentive to me during a meal. My glass was never empty, my plate was always full. I had men cutting bananas and giving me pieces, breaking apricots open and giving me half, filling my plate with food, and all clamoring to toast with me. Fortunately, women tend to toast with wine instead of vodka. There was toast after toast, with students, teachers and principals making speeches, of which I would venture to say, I understood half of the words! Now if only I could understand the connector words to make sentences. I do know that I made it into many of the toasts as a subject, and was told that whenever I am the village they will make sure I am having a good time and am happy.

As with all Armenian parties, there was lots of dancing. I am beginning to develop some rhythm! I danced and danced, and the Armenians just loved it. I was invited to dance to a slow song by one of the graduates, and all eyes in the entire room (along with a video camera and several regular cameras) were on me and this boy, whoever he was. I do my best to entertain, what can I say? I also think that I had my picture taken with every single graduate by the end of the night. People were literally lining up to get their picture taken with me. It is strange to be a celebrity…yesterday Eric, Jenny and I were out and three random people walked up to us and asked if they could take their picture with us. We said yes, and then later…”does anyone know those people?” None of us did… I am getting used to being the center of attention. When I come back to the US I had better be waited on, focused on, and doted on constantly….just get ready!

A few nights ago was Sarah’s birthday and her host family took all of the Americans up into the mountains…in the back of a truck. Like, a flat bed truck, with gates around the outside of the bed, where we stood (and held on tight) as we bounced up the old dirt roads. It is moments like these that I really feel like I am in the Peace Corps. No doubt about it. We arrived at a picnic area and in true Armenian form, had horavats, tomatoes and cucumbers, chocolate, drinks and a beautiful birthday cake. Although we had a great time, the party’s momentum was lost when we all piled back into the truck at 10:30 (in the dark) and it wouldn’t start. Now, this was quite a large truck, and we were pretty far above the village. Not only that, but none of us had really known that we going into the mountains (we thought we were going to the village lake, which is just on the outskirts), and thus were entirely unprepared. Usually I have a headlamp, knife, water, etc, with me. That night I only had my camera and jacket. Lesson learned….worry not.

After many attempts in starting the engine, we thought if we could get the truck rolling then the engine could crank or the driver could pop the clutch. So, we all climbed back out of the truck….and pushed. All 10 of us or so. And pushed, and pushed, and pushed….finally we got the truck over a small incline and on the downhill where we climbed back in and slowly rolled downhill until we came across a car traveling up—straight at us. Did I mention that this was a big truck? With no lights on because the battery was dead at this point? Fortunately the car saw us, and the truck stopped. Somehow I was nominated to go with Jenny, and Armen (Sarah’s host brother, and the truck driver…Armen is a very common name here, and also happens to be my host brother) with the driver of the car down to the village.

The next thing I know I am sitting in the back of this car on a piece of plywood—no back seat, looking at jenny asking “what, exactly, are we doing here?” I was not worried about our safety, Armen is very trustworthy, and happens to be the village taxi driver and so has driven us to Vanadzor many times, we just didn’t know what was going on. I love experiencing incidents such as this in a foreign language…it is just like a bad dream, everything is surreal and nobody can understand each other. We arrived at Armen’s house around midnight, at which point I called Hasmik (my LCF) to A.) figure out what the heck was going on, and B.) have her call our poor host families, who were told that we would be home by 10 or 11, to let them know we were running a little late. Remember…everyone else is still in the mountains at this point. Armen spent a few moments putting his taxi back into working order (people in this country are constantly fixing their cars, they all have to be mechanics) and then took Jenny and me to our homes before going back to the mountains. We assumed that this was to bring back the rest of the volunteers. In the mean time, Jeff and another trainee had walked to Melissa’s house (the closest to the mountains, and quite a walk from where the truck was parked, and gotten Melissa’s host father to drive up to help as well.) He arrives with a car FULL of people, which if you ask me, isn’t too helpful for bringing people home… Armen also drove to the mountain with two more people. So the total number of people stuck on the mountain has just increased by six. Then, as the story goes, all of the Americans piled into Melissa’s host father’s car, only to have him drive 10 feet…and into a ditch. Brad said he was laughing so hard at the situation that he couldn’t speak for a good ten minutes. There were now three vehicles in the mountains: a truck that wouldn’t start, a car in the ditch, and a taxi, which eventually was the means of transport home. The taxi made it to Melissa’s house…and then died. Believe it or not. Anything goes in this country…it is taking a lot to surprise any of us at this point. From here, the volunteers decide to walk, and I think they made it home by 2 am or so.

I tried my best to explain the situation when I arrived home to my host mother and assumed that with Hasmik calling the families that things would be okay. I have now come to learn that Hasmik didn’t tell the families that we stuck in the mountains because she didn’t want them to worry…and despite three separate attempts to explain what happened (even with the aid of my trusty dictionary), I am pretty sure that my family thinks the reason I was late coming home is because I drank too much wine.

This is extremely frustrating for many reasons, and I am to the point where I have to hold myself back to keep from yelling in English…maybe that would help. The families in the village gossip about their volunteers all the time and it won’t be long until the entire village thinks we are all a bunch of drunks. Melissa told me that her mother was asking if I was sick the other day and if my knees hurt. My knees? Yes, I have had a few knee surgeries, but what does Melissa’s mother know about it? Honestly… I have appealed to Hasmik for help on this one, but since the graduation party is a three day event (seriously) my host mother hasn’t been home in the evenings lately.

So now I am faced with a new issue….my family thinks I am a drunk. Great. This is not helped by the fact that alcohol is viewed differently in this country: vodka is normal, a family can go through an entire bottle in one meal. But beer is serious stuff, if you drink beer you are a lush. So, us Americans, who happen to prefer beer to vodka, and are also used to drinking a whole beer, out of the bottle (gasp), are alcoholics. Tonight at the party I got to face the aftermath of all of this. Here I am, toasting happily with all these Armenians who think I am just great, and my host mother decides to pull me aside to tell me that Armenian women don’t drink very much wine (this by the way, is not true). This was after she took away the vodka that was sitting in front of me (it wasn’t mine…it was moved to my seat while I was dancing) and told me that women don’t drink vodka, they drink wine (also, not true). I distinctly remember the fourth of July picnic, where she was filling my cup with vodka repeatedly. Also keep in mind that I am drinking wine out of small shot glass and in the course of the evening—three hours or so—had less than the equivalent of one glass between eating and dancing. I was not drunk, I wasn’t even feeling the effects. I can’t win.
I am really starting to feel comfortable in Armenian and I am enjoying spending time with the people. I am learning a lot and having fun, but I am ready to get out of the host family situation and on my own. My host mother is that person who is loud and pushy and well-meaning but way too in-your-face, even for Armenian standards. It is not only me that gets treated like this, it is everyone. I still have hope for next family, I will update you after next week!

A 7 hour Armenian dance marathon (or PST 6 for those who are less creatively and more chronologically inclined).

Disclaimer.....since writing this my new site has been changed, but I do not have the time to elaborate now. I can tell you that I am now going to the town of Vayk, which is the south of the country near the city of yegheghnadzor. You can probably find that on a map. Check in next week for an accurate update,

So much has happened since my last post that I barely know where to begin, and yet I can hardly keep my eyes open long enough to type these few words. It is my goal to get this entry at least started so I can post it sometime in the next week or so. As you will soon find out, things are extraordinary busy and schedules and are a little out of the ordinary as well. But my brain gets ahead of my fingers…we will begin with those events which have already occurred (they are easier to write about, anyhow).

I think the rainy season is finally passing us by—it is still raining, but less frequently, and although it took almost 5 days, my clothes finally dried. Well, maybe dry isn’t quite the proper term, but they were enough less wet to iron, fold and put away. Almost everything in my room is damp enough that it feels wet when I put it on. But, my room is now up to a balmy 64 degrees, meaning I can sleep without wool socks and a sweatshirt. This is July after all. Can also now add to my list of accomplishments figuring out how to open the windows in my room, which has helped some with the humidity and cold.

Sunny weather also means hikes, and I finally got to go on a nice long sweaty one with four fellow trainees—we were gone about 5 hours and were able to follow a road up above the village into the mountains for some awesome views. It was so nice to finally get some real exercise again and to get my heart rate up! Our hike was in the shorter range, which we were nearly at the top of. Probably 8,000 feet or so. The taller range still has snow on it in patches and I still hope to get there before the end of PST. Which, by the way, is rapidly passing us by at this point. In fact, today (July 6) marks the middle—it is down hill from here! I am super psyched to finally have gotten some good exercise (and a sunburn, and blisters…) and the scenery was enough to make want me do the same hike every week. Rolling green mountains, grazing cattle, vibrant wildflowers, streams and waterfalls, and even forests. We will certainly all miss Margahovit when we move on. More on that subject in a bit…gonna try to keep this in chronological order here…

The day after our hike was July 4th, which we celebrated in style with a giant picnic for all the trainees and their host families in a nearby town called Steppanavan. Not only did we get to celebrate our American Holiday, but we got to share it with the Armenians, who in turned shared some of their customs and celebrations with us. It was quite a day! We took a bus to Steppanevan, which took almost two hours, mostly because busses in this country do not go fast and uphill at the same time. Also because busses run on Natural Gas instead of gasoline, and stopping at the “gas station” is a 30 minute process: everyone has to get off the bus, the old tanks (which are large red things on the roof) are taken off and new tanks are put on. Kind of cool, but not something to do when you are in a hurry. Not that hurry is really something that Armenians know about. Our journey also took a while due to the cows laying in the road. That’s right, just having a little np in the middle of the highway—a nap that not even busses can disturb.

Upon arriving at a clearing in the forest outside of Steppanavan, we played games and socialized while the fire pits for the horavats (barbecued meat) were prepared. Meat (mostly pork, but also some chicken) is cooked in big chunks on long metal skewers—about 3 feet long or so, over large pits of coal. This is a mans job. The women in turn prepare the rest of the meal—cut tomatoes and cucumbers, arrange fruit and cookie plates, etc., and set the “table,” a long piece of plastic for each village, lined with place settings and filled with food. It was quite a sight. While this was going on the kids and the volunteers played. One learning for the day was that Armenians do not have Frisbees. We taught the kids how to catch and throw them (after a lot of coaxing) and they enjoyed it, but I spent a lot of time chasing Frisbees down hills rather than catching them….what a cross-cultural exchange! And then, of course there was dancing, most of which occurred after lunch. Lunch? Dinner? Both? And the next meal too…..

The second learning for the day? Give me vodka at lunch, and I will dance. Not only that, but I will dance well, much to the Armenians delight. It is a good thing Armenian dancing isn’t too difficult, I have a feeling I will be doing a lot of it in the next two years. This was actually the first time I have had vodka with the Armenians, which I am a little surprised about, since it is basically the national drink. Almost more common than water, and cheaper than beer. I have been offered a few times previously, but this was the first time at a big party with toasts to the Americans, so I had to at least take some in my glass. I decided that I had set enough of a precedent in the earlier weeks here that a shot or two mixed with juice would be okay. It was, and they respected me when I said no more. My host family was just delighted that I was drinking and dancing…I am such a good Armenian!

Seven hours later we started back home, and when we were almost there when the Armenians had a proposal: “lets stop somewhere and eat the leftover food and dance!” To which the Americans responded: “Are you kidding? You want to eat and dance again? It is 9pm and we have donw nothing but eat all day.” Apparently these are silly considerations. Our LCF’s to the rescue…we did not stop, but had a second feast the following night at one of the trainees houses to eat the leftover meat. Which I am sure wasn’t refrigerated. I am so surprised that I am not sick yet…really. At least they heated it up again.

The fun and excitement of this week continued today with permanent site announcements! Perhaps you are as anxious to find out as I was until this morning…. Well, I’m not going to tell.

Okay, fine, you got me….I can’t not tell. (Drum roll please)

My new site will be a village called Yernjatap (yair-en-JA-top). Don’t worry, you won’t find it on any map, so don’t bother trying. Look instead for Aragatsotn Marz, (a marz is basically a state) North of Yerevan. Yernjatap is located near Aparan, which might be on the map if you can find a good one. If not, then the best I can tell you is that it is in the NorthEast section of the Marz. It is a small village, pop. 650 (compared to probably over 5,000 in Margahovit). It is also a brand new Peace Corps site, meaning that I will be the first PC Volunteer the villagers have ever seen, or probably heard of, and most likely the first American as well. This brings its blessings and challenges. I won’t have to deal with precedents set by earlier volunteers, which usually go one of two ways—either the saint whose reputation you can never live up to, or a volunteer who gave Americans a bad reputation that you can never live down. It also means that I will most likely spend a great deal of time in the coming months trying to explain who I am, what the PC is, and what I am doing in a small Armenian village for the next two years. Add to this the fact that I am an EE volunteer, and there is currently no EE program of any sort there in the schools, and the concept of ecology and environmental education is new to the country as a whole. Additionally, there is currently no foreign language being taught in the schools, which means two things: one, no English is spoken in the village (this includes my counterpart), and two, they will want me to teach English. Hello, secondary project.

My sense of the situation is that I will have a lot to do…eventually. First, I will have to endure a lot of coffee and chocolate, a lot of talking and not much doing, and a lot of trying to figure out how to say that I am from the Peace Corps and I will be teaching about the environment. Actually, I already know how to say that, it is more like trying to figure out how to say WHY I am doing that and why it is important. My actual job assignment entails working at the village school, which also serves a neighboring village, with the biology teacher (my counterpart). They are interested in starting an ecology club and I will probably eventually help with the science classes as well. Once I figure out the language, that is. I am also assigned to work with what seems to be a fairly successful NGO (non-governmental organization) called Armenian Forests, which is based in Yerevan. I do think that there are people with the NGO that speak English…this is good. My language skills are coming along, but I am by no means fluent and am pretty sure I won’t be in 5 more weeks. PC does allow us a tutoring allowance to continue our lessons while at site. I fully intend to take advantage of this, and it is a possibility at this point that my current teacher, Hasmik, may be able to be my tutor as well. I am very excited about that possibility as we are developing a nice friendship and her English is very very good. She is also an excellent teacher, and teaches English at one of the Universities in Yerevan during the year.

Fortunately, my site is close to Yerevan, and there is a daily shuttle from Yernjatap to Yerevan. This means I will have good access to goods (maybe even peanut butter!), I will be close to the PC office, and many volunteers come to Yerevan on the weekends, so I can see them as well. There is also an A12 who lives in Aparan, which is very close and also has a daily shuttle—I am sure we will become good friends! My village only has one phone—its in the post office—so internet in the village is out of the question, and phone won’t be much better. But again, Yerevan is probably the best place in the country for communication, so don’t you worry. And write lots of letters…there IS a post office.

On Tuesday we leave for Yerevan as a group to meet our counterparts at a conference in Yerevan and then travel to our sites for a three-day visit. This will give me a chance to meet (and evaluate) my 6-monh home-stay family and see what exactly I will be getting myself into. I should mention that Yernjatap is located in on the flanks of Mt. Aragats, the tallest peak currently residing in Armenian, and is a part of the marz that is highest in elevation. This means beautiful scenery, nice forests nearby (fast becoming a scarcity in Armenia right now) and cold winters with lots of snow. I am currently trying to figure out the best method of getting my hands on some snowshoes, I hear that I will need them! I am also curious of the heating methods used in the village. Central heating doesn’t really exist in this country, and the methods used range from wood stoves to gas to electricity to cattle dung. My impression is that each household usually uses a combination, because although most households are equipped with modern (well, relatively so) heating such as electricity or gas, the cost is prohibitive to using it regularly, or to heating the entire household. Time will tell….

Although I am a bit nervous about living with an Armenian family for six more months, I am also relieved to have the opportunity to learn things like how to survive the winter and what to cook when fresh fruits and vegetables are no longer an option. I understand this to include a lot of cabbage and potatoes! So, those of you who at home who are perpetuating the potato joke will have your redemption. I am learning to like cabbage. And mushrooms, they were he main course last night. I am also learning to eat things that I might never eat and the states and consider it a meal. What, you may ask? Well, hard boiled egg and butter sandwiches for one, perhaps I will enumerate further in a subsequent entry. Stay tuned.

I get off track….it remains difficult to live with a family and to adapt to cultural norms of being pampered and meddled with. Regardless, I have no choice, and I am learning more and more about the culture and ways to interact each day. Theoretically, it should be easier the next time around. It is still difficult to think that I have to go through the process again however—the awkward social moments, the feeling each other out for boundaries and limitations, the mutual learning about culture and expectations, the constant best behavior…it is all tiring. It is sort of like breaking up with somebody and then facing the prospect of starting a whole new relationship again: exciting, yet daunting. I also must consider the fact that I will be in this village for the next two years and the way I present myself and interact with my host family will affect my work potential infinitely. I have had some discussions with PC staff members about how to present myself as a young single woman in a new village. Their advice: make friends with the tateeks (grandmothers), all of them. Older women are very respected in this society, and if they all adopt me as their own, the village will do the same, even the young men. Once this has occurred I will be ready for business, but I need to be patient for this to happen.
Patience, a two year practice in patience. Armenian is a slow country, everything takes longer, and you have coffee before you do it anyhow. I am excited about the prospects of my site—it has many opportunities to pave my own road and truly make a difference, but I have to ride out the waves in the beginning in order to make space for this to happen.

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

PST 4

6/25/05
Bari Yereko (Good Evening!)

Another cloudy day in the Margohovit valley—the mountains are almost completely obscured. It also happens to be my half birthday...a fact I have not shared with my host family. Although I now know the word for half (kyes) and for birthday (tnundi), I still lack enough language to sufficiently explain a half birthday…and why I would celebrate it. Better for them to just know that my birthday is December 25, which isn’t even Christmas in this country, and leave it at that. Christmas is still celebrated on January 6 in Armenia, which I am told was the original Christmas day and when the rest of the world changed to the 25th, Armenia remained the same. I am going to Vanadzor tomorrow evening with some other volunteers and we will celebrate by eating pizza…yum. And probably some ice cream (bachbarach) as well. It is the little things that make us happy.

I also plan to do some more hiking tomorrow as well, and am looking forward to it. I just wish these clouds would hurry up and spill their moisture so we have some chance of it being sunny tomorrow. It is almost July and I am still wearing my wool sweater (I stupidly only brought one, thinking I wouldn’t need many this summer) and my fleece jacket. It is warmer in Vanadzor, which is at a lower elevation, but still long-sleeve weather for the most part. I can only imagine what winter has in store for me. I won’t really have any idea until we get our permanent site assignments, which is actually coming up—two weeks from now, I think. Apparently, in this tiny country, I could find myself in Siberia or in the hot desert. As long as there are mountains near by….

My big accomplishment for the day was learning how to do some Armenian dancing. Fortunately for me it is not too difficult—you just kind of shuffle your feet and wave your hands around above your head. Okay, there is a little more to it than that, but if I can do it….
Seriously though, it was fun. My host parents and brother are at some big wedding that they decided not to take me to because it is far away and there will be a lot of people sleeping on the floor. No kidding, that’s what they said. I am actually a bit relieved—there are supposed to be 2-300 people there, which is a lot of people to stare at and feed the American. Instead, I am here with my sister, learning how to dance with her and her friends. Good company to be in the first time I make a fool out of myself. It also means that my weekend will be a bit quieter and more relaxed.

I spent some extra time with my LCF yesterday and had a nice conversation about America and Armenia, language classes and life with my host family. It was nice to have a real conversation with an Armenian, even if it was in English. I also learned the difficulty of describing the state of our country to a person who has lived in relative poverty their entire life, and yet has had enough access to the media to form stereotypes about Americans. I think I did a good job of describing some of the realties (we are not all rich, if we are poor it isn’t because we do drugs, there is a large gap between the rich and the poor, etc.) but I have to think if it was this difficult to describe to someone who is well-educated and speaks English very well, what is going to happen when I get to my site? I guess that is what continued language classes are for.
Recently (like yesterday) I arrived at the point where I can hold a short conversation (more than hello, how are you? I am good, thank you.). I can actually tell my family where I am going, when I will be back, etc. without having to act things out, draw pictures, get out the dictionary, call my LCF, and speak in crude one-word sentences. Now I can speak in crude short phrases, sometimes even complete sentences! Everything is still in present tense, but I know time descriptors enough to say things like “tomorrow I go to vanadzor” “in the morning I eat at 8” “tomorrow I walk in mountains with Americans at 10.” I also know the entire alphabet at this point and can read and write at probably a first grade level! See sam. See sam run. I don’t like hot dogs….. Its not pretty, but it is effective. And this is all about survival.

I also had my LCF come over yesterday and talked to my host mother about allowing me some more independence. Starting today, I will wake myself up, start my own shower, find the breakfast table (all by myself), pour my own tea, and serve my own breakfast. It will be a nice change from the pounding on my door minutes before my alarm goes off, and then, if I don’t open the door immediately continued pounding, or more recently, just simply walking in to my bedroom. The cultural norm here is to knock and walk in as opposed to knock and wait until someone opens the door as we might do in America. I think this will be nice change of pace for me—as most of you who know me are already aware, I am not a morning person. Imagine me trying to speak Armenian immediately after waking up to someone who is speaking rapidly and loudly and pushing me around the house showing me things like the breakfast table, the tea pot, and my lunch. I am a quick learner…I know where these things are.

I also know that she is merely being an Armenian Mother, which is why I rely on my LCF to explain things to her…and to do it nicely. She is a very busy woman, as she is also a student and so it was easy enough to say “you are very busy, I can do some of these things myself, I have been for years…” In Armenia I am still a child, especially because I am a woman. Women of my age are often still living with their families…or getting married and living with their families. It is uncommon for families to live as my host family does—with only the nuclear family in the household. The gender roles are very defined here, a fact that has taken some getting used to. The women do all of the cooking, cleaning, gardening, food preparation, and take care of the family. It is nearly unheard of for a man to cook, do laundry, or do much of anything around the home. My host sister waits on her father—brings him a glass of water and then brings it back to the kitchen, he picks his feet up in a chair and she brings him a footrest, she cleans and puts away his electric razor, etc. The men do work hard, simply elsewhere, and they perform very manly tasks. Car maintenance, farming, and earning money for the family. I think they also do all of the driving, I have yet to see a woman drive in this country. The boys are the only group that don’t seem to have many responsibilities. They play. That is about all I can figure.

These roles extend into volunteer life, although not entirely--it is accepted to some extent that we do things a bit differently as Americans. I think the married couples have the worst time with this one. For instance, it is expected that as female PCV’s that we do our own laundry, the men on the other hand are prohibited from doing their own laundry by their host mothers. This means that a fairly progressive married couple who has spent their time in the US sharing household tasks are now faced with a system where the woman does the laundry for both of them and the man sits back and watches. Of the married couple in our village, the husband actually snuck around trying to help his wife hang laundry on the line…and was caught, and reprimanded. Don’t you know? Men don’t do laundry.

What this means for me is that I am expected to help out around the house—clear the table, help prepare food, do my laundry etc. I am glad about this, I don’t want to be waited on, that would impede on my independence even more. I am, however, a bit bothered by the fact that the only reason I have these expectations is because I am a woman. It is a double edged sword. But I am getting used to it. Armenians don’t seem to see any problems with the gender roles, but I think that between pop culture (my family has satellite television and gets more channels than I ever did in the states) and watching these Americans work in their country, they will begin to see that there are other ways. There are already large culture gaps between generations, which is similarly true of the US. For instance, there is no Armenian word for boyfriend, because it is not acceptable to have boyfriends in Armenia, yet teenagers date and the younger generation has words for boyfriend/girlfriend and know all about dating, etc.

Hadjok-Madjok (bye-bye) Bari Gishes (good night)!