So much has happened in the past month or so since I have managed to produce an entry that I hardly know where to begin. Time is flying by now, and is marked by milestones such as the first camp of the summer, the arrival of the A14s (the new group of volunteers in Armenia) and the beginning of the departure of the A12s. It is hard for me to believe that I have already been here a full year. It seems like so long ago that we stepped off that plane and met a mass of cheering volunteers and staff members, and yet it seems like just yesterday, I remember it so clearly. Now suddenly I am a part of that mass, and have knowledge and wisdom to offer the next generation. In some ways it is difficult to let go of our status as "the new volunteers" and in other ways it is a refreshing reminder of just how far we have come in such a relatively short period of time.
I have spent much of the last week working with habitat for humanity and helping to translate for a global village group that came to work in Armenia from one of my sitemates’ family’s church. It was rewarding work, albeit tiring, and at the end of the week, not only did we have a finished house to corroborate our efforts, but also a number of new friendships and exchanges between Armenians and Americans. Suddenly I feel more Armenian than American in ways as I am looked to by the Armenians for help and assistance in communication.
The homeowner began talking my ear off as soon as he figured out that I spoke Armenian, and in many ways reminded me of my host father—a joy to be around. I arrived at the work site towards the end as I had been occupied with the first Green camp, and found myself painting trim for the better part of the day. The homeowner asked me if I had ever done that sort of work before and gave me a quick lesson. Then he told me that if I did a good job he would take me to Russia with him to work there. He ended up giving me a "5" (the equivalent of an "A") but I don’t think I have to go to Russia…. Later when the cement was poured for the sidewalk, he drew small figures of us working and we signed our names in the wet cement. He explained to me numerous times that in ancient cultures they drew pictures of animals and of their lives in the rocks….we are doing the same in front of his house. I am about to go down in Armenian pictograph history as Jill, the stick figure with the paintbrush.
The group’s stay ended with a joyfully tearful house blessing ceremony, in which an Armenian priest blessed the home, the family and the workers. Emotion was high as the family, who had lived in a metal temporary housing unit not much bigger than a bus for
the past ten years, finally had a home for themselves and their two children. Toast after toast was given to the foreigners who had left their own homes to come across the ocean to build someone else’s home, to people who are not workers, but are here working for people they don’t know, are not related to, were not previously friends with. I have never seen as much physical gratitude, as when the woman homeowner accepted a gift of a photo album commemorating the week of work on her new home.
This, in combination with the completion of the first week of Green Camps, has effectively made up for any lack of productivity I have felt during my time here. I had spent so much time and energy preparing for the camps that I had forgotten what I was preparing for. Going back through the photos and looking at the smiles on the kids’ faces is enough of a reminder, but actually being there to listen to the singing, to join in on the soccer games and to watch the activities taking place gave me the high I need to make it through 14 more months here. The week was hard, really hard, and by the end of it I was so deliriously tired that I hardly knew what end was up, but the sense of accomplishment was enough to override anything.
The first camp was held in a small village of Ijevan, comprised of ten or so apartment buildings. There was not a single separate house in the village—an oddity in a country where villages are usually defined as being exactly the opposite. This particular village was a factory village at one point—constructed exclusively for the purpose of housing the factory workers. The factory has long-since closed and the village has become one of poor pig-farmers.
The camp drew crowds every morning of villagers curious about all the singing, chanting and shouting. The school director and some of the teachers stood on the front step of the school in the heat of the afternoon, watching us for hours on end. The kids arrived for camp two hours early every day to play with each other and with their counselors. The shopkeepers and adults in the village thanked us for coming and for giving this opportunity to their children. The mayor brought ice cream for all of the campers one afternoon and expressed his gratitude to the counselors and staff.
Each camp day begins with the children lining up in their groups and chanting their group names. We do some announcements and then sing "boom chick a boom," an old-fashioned American camp song that is now sung in villages all around Armenia. To someone who is familiar with American summer camps, this all seems very routine, but in Armenia just getting the kids in a line goes against everything they have ever learned. By the end of the week however, they do it without being asked. Seeing big American men singing boom chick a boom at the top of their lungs while acting like a flaky girl might have something to do with it….
The children of the village have rarely had an opportunity to go anywhere else, and although the village boasts a nice school, educational opportunities have been limited. The scheduled field trip for the camp was to Lake Sevan and to several well-known monasteries in the northern region. Sevan is considered a national treasure and is much talked about, but these children had never actually seen it in person. Excitement was high as we boarded a large tour bus for the long day ahead. Long bus trips, being another first, mixed with children, tend to result in motion sickness. We stopped almost ten times in what should have been a 2 hour trip at the most for someone to get off the bus and throw up. Along the way, our route took us through a long tunnel that has recently (in the past few years) been constructed. Some of the kids had heard from their parents that there was a tunnel, and one child even brought a flashlight. Their eyes were open in awe through the darkness, and the whole bus erupted in applause when we entered into the daylight once more.
The rest of field trip was full of more firsts. Many of the kids had never been to monasteries or churches…only heard about them. We saw jet skies, and a ship on the lake, BMWs and jeeps and tour busses full of foreigners. But, perhaps the most excitement of the day was a soccer game with a 5-liter plastic bottle…sometimes it doesn’t take much. We returned the kids to their village after 12 hours of pure exhaustion and they practically sleep-walked off the bus (the counselors weren’t faring much better).
The camp ended in celebration and a ceremony for parents, figure heads from the village, and other people associated with the camp. The kids had prepared skits and then brought flowers for all of their counselors and the camp staff. On my way out I was asked if Peace Corps would be back next year to do this camp again. I deferred to the local organization we were working with, who happens to be doing their first camp on their own later this summer (this was the second camp they had done with Peace Corps). Our goal is training every organization we work with to be as self-sufficient as this one and to be able to do camps without our assistance in the future. The woman who was asking sort of shrugged and said "we want the Americans to come back." It is nice to be wanted.
Monday, June 12, 2006
moldy moldy moldy
My lovely new apartment, which has been a haven for me despite its obvious character flaws, has lately become haven for other things, namely mold. Just as I thought I was running out of things to go wrong with this particular apartment, I returned from Yerevan a few weeks ago to find a coffee table covered in murky water and a roof that was leaking in no less than 8 different places. Acting as any competent peace corps volunteer would, I quickly straightened things up so as not to bear witness to the wrath of my landlord and crossed the hall to see if my neighbors were having the same troubles as I was. They weren’t. They did however gasp in horror and parade one after the other into my apartment to gape at the damage as well as at my computer, guitar, exercise ball, dvd collection…well, enough said.
After I herded them all back out, the father of the family called my landlord for me. My phone wasn’t working (surprise, surprise), and even if it was, my landlord doesn’t have a phone, but he knew what to do. Pretty soon, my neighbors had called my landlord’s neighbor, who sent their son to tell my landlord that my roof was leaking and within a half hour she showed up at the door. Gotta love the village grapevine—at least it comes in handy sometimes. She arrived with a homemade ladder and work clothes under her going-out clothes, lest anyone know that she was about to do some work. After stripping off the first layer, and taking her own shoes off in exchange for my Birkenstocks without my noticing (still a little bitter) she climbed up on the roof. Just like that, I didn’t even know where she had gone as my neighbors were insisting that I eat, eat, eat.
After my meal I followed her up the ladder and found her scurrying around on the actual rooftop. There is an open space between my roof and the roofing of the building where one can walk around, and little exits to the actual roof, which is where I found her, rearranging the shingles. Apparently somebody moved them to install a satellite dish. Go figure. The first thought that entered my mind when I climbed into the open area above my apartment was "there’s an awful lot of daylight up here." I helped my landlord to fix some of that, but I can only wonder how long it will take to become a problem again.
We returned to my apartment where I got a brief lecture about how I should have called sooner (apparently 10 minutes off the marshrutnie wasn’t soon enough). Not that she listens to a word I have ever said. Then she left me her daughters cell phone number and took off, leaving me with a very damp apartment. I opened windows and ran fans and prepared to leave for Yerevan again in two days, very concerned about what I would find upon my next return.
My worries were justified.
What I found was an apartment just as damp as I left it, and a brand new colony of mold about 2 feet by one foot. It had grown into a white fluffy carpet on the ceiling and had begun to fall on the floor and furniture, creating a thick layer of dust around the room. So, being a self-sufficient volunteer, I decided to clean it. I tied a handkerchief around my face and put on my sunglasses and brushed it all down, scrubbed the ceiling with bleach, swept up the dust and mopped and bleached the entire room. I was feeling pretty good about my efforts and then two days later it grew back. Feeling slightly less self-sufficient, I went to my neighbors house and asked them to call my landlord (phone still not working). They, of course, wanted to know why, and I was able to fairly successfully explain it to them so that they understand. A few minutes later, after the grapevine had taken effect, my landlord called back, demanding to know what the problem was. I did my best to explain it again and eventually ended up handing the phone over to my neighbors who told my landlord what I had told them.
Upon arrival, she took one look at the mold, began laughing and told me that it was not mold. Then she became very condescending and told me "not to be afraid, mold is only green." I had no idea what to say to this logic, and while I stammered, she began knocking it down from the ceiling, creating a huge dust cloud and white layer all over the room once again. Not what I had in mind. While she swept she told me her husband was coming back from Russia soon (she didn’t know when soon was) and that he was going to remodel the apartment when he returned.
Having exhausted my options in Vayk, I went to Yerevan, researched mold on the internet, and talked to our doctors. I showed them some digital pictures I had taken, and they agreed with me that it was mold. We arranged for one of the PC staff members and a driver to come to my house this week and talk to my landlord. This was one of my more brilliant moves. I called my landlord to tell her they were coming. "You told them?!?!" She says in shock. "Ok, fine, I’ll be there."
I rode in the PC land cruiser to my landlord’s house to pick her up. After the obligatory offers of coffee and fruit, we managed to get her into the vehicle and buckled in. It can be struggle to get people who are not used to seatbelts and never use them in day to day to life to understand that they are required in PC vehicles. We arrived at my apartment where the spiel began
"whenever Jill calls I come and fix the problem, there aren’t any problems here, just this one little one, that’s it."
"This isn’t mold, you are Armenian, you will understand, she doesn’t. Mold is only Green."
"maybe she just doesn’t want to live here. She wants to move."
Fortunately, there was someone with a bit more fluency in the language than myself to combat all of this. She was eventually convinced (or simply gave in) that it was mold and that she needed to fix it or I was leaving. She was given two days to find a worker and until the end of the month to have it fixed. She is here right now methodically knocking chunks down off the ceiling, so I think we are off to a good start.
Before she left, she decided she had one more issue to attend to and dragged me into the back bedroom. I knew what was coming and asked the program manager to accompany me. Sure enough, she had decided once again to make a big deal out of the fact that the blankets were wrinkled on the beds. At this point I started yelling at her, which was probably quite amusing as it does nothing good for my language skills. Then I turned to our staff member and switched to English. I explained that she always asks this question whenever she comes and that I don’t understand what the problem is. She says to him "you are Armenian, you will understand (the theme for the day, I suppose) we are Armenian, we like things to be pretty." Apparently large colonies of mold growing in your living room is okay, but wrinkled blankets are just out of the question. My staff member savior told her that I live here now (novel concept) and that when she lives here again she can make the blankets pretty. Then he told her to leave.
After I herded them all back out, the father of the family called my landlord for me. My phone wasn’t working (surprise, surprise), and even if it was, my landlord doesn’t have a phone, but he knew what to do. Pretty soon, my neighbors had called my landlord’s neighbor, who sent their son to tell my landlord that my roof was leaking and within a half hour she showed up at the door. Gotta love the village grapevine—at least it comes in handy sometimes. She arrived with a homemade ladder and work clothes under her going-out clothes, lest anyone know that she was about to do some work. After stripping off the first layer, and taking her own shoes off in exchange for my Birkenstocks without my noticing (still a little bitter) she climbed up on the roof. Just like that, I didn’t even know where she had gone as my neighbors were insisting that I eat, eat, eat.
After my meal I followed her up the ladder and found her scurrying around on the actual rooftop. There is an open space between my roof and the roofing of the building where one can walk around, and little exits to the actual roof, which is where I found her, rearranging the shingles. Apparently somebody moved them to install a satellite dish. Go figure. The first thought that entered my mind when I climbed into the open area above my apartment was "there’s an awful lot of daylight up here." I helped my landlord to fix some of that, but I can only wonder how long it will take to become a problem again.
We returned to my apartment where I got a brief lecture about how I should have called sooner (apparently 10 minutes off the marshrutnie wasn’t soon enough). Not that she listens to a word I have ever said. Then she left me her daughters cell phone number and took off, leaving me with a very damp apartment. I opened windows and ran fans and prepared to leave for Yerevan again in two days, very concerned about what I would find upon my next return.
My worries were justified.
What I found was an apartment just as damp as I left it, and a brand new colony of mold about 2 feet by one foot. It had grown into a white fluffy carpet on the ceiling and had begun to fall on the floor and furniture, creating a thick layer of dust around the room. So, being a self-sufficient volunteer, I decided to clean it. I tied a handkerchief around my face and put on my sunglasses and brushed it all down, scrubbed the ceiling with bleach, swept up the dust and mopped and bleached the entire room. I was feeling pretty good about my efforts and then two days later it grew back. Feeling slightly less self-sufficient, I went to my neighbors house and asked them to call my landlord (phone still not working). They, of course, wanted to know why, and I was able to fairly successfully explain it to them so that they understand. A few minutes later, after the grapevine had taken effect, my landlord called back, demanding to know what the problem was. I did my best to explain it again and eventually ended up handing the phone over to my neighbors who told my landlord what I had told them.
Upon arrival, she took one look at the mold, began laughing and told me that it was not mold. Then she became very condescending and told me "not to be afraid, mold is only green." I had no idea what to say to this logic, and while I stammered, she began knocking it down from the ceiling, creating a huge dust cloud and white layer all over the room once again. Not what I had in mind. While she swept she told me her husband was coming back from Russia soon (she didn’t know when soon was) and that he was going to remodel the apartment when he returned.
Having exhausted my options in Vayk, I went to Yerevan, researched mold on the internet, and talked to our doctors. I showed them some digital pictures I had taken, and they agreed with me that it was mold. We arranged for one of the PC staff members and a driver to come to my house this week and talk to my landlord. This was one of my more brilliant moves. I called my landlord to tell her they were coming. "You told them?!?!" She says in shock. "Ok, fine, I’ll be there."
I rode in the PC land cruiser to my landlord’s house to pick her up. After the obligatory offers of coffee and fruit, we managed to get her into the vehicle and buckled in. It can be struggle to get people who are not used to seatbelts and never use them in day to day to life to understand that they are required in PC vehicles. We arrived at my apartment where the spiel began
"whenever Jill calls I come and fix the problem, there aren’t any problems here, just this one little one, that’s it."
"This isn’t mold, you are Armenian, you will understand, she doesn’t. Mold is only Green."
"maybe she just doesn’t want to live here. She wants to move."
Fortunately, there was someone with a bit more fluency in the language than myself to combat all of this. She was eventually convinced (or simply gave in) that it was mold and that she needed to fix it or I was leaving. She was given two days to find a worker and until the end of the month to have it fixed. She is here right now methodically knocking chunks down off the ceiling, so I think we are off to a good start.
Before she left, she decided she had one more issue to attend to and dragged me into the back bedroom. I knew what was coming and asked the program manager to accompany me. Sure enough, she had decided once again to make a big deal out of the fact that the blankets were wrinkled on the beds. At this point I started yelling at her, which was probably quite amusing as it does nothing good for my language skills. Then I turned to our staff member and switched to English. I explained that she always asks this question whenever she comes and that I don’t understand what the problem is. She says to him "you are Armenian, you will understand (the theme for the day, I suppose) we are Armenian, we like things to be pretty." Apparently large colonies of mold growing in your living room is okay, but wrinkled blankets are just out of the question. My staff member savior told her that I live here now (novel concept) and that when she lives here again she can make the blankets pretty. Then he told her to leave.
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