I just returned home from watching the USA team tie with Slovenia in their second world cup match. Go USA! So despite not having internet and living in a remote village I am not all that cut off from society. I can’t believe I have been gone for 3 weeks all ready. It has gone by so quickly, but at the same time, meeting in DC seems like 3 years ago all ready with the language, culture and friendships that I have acquired.
The last week has been interesting and a bit more on the party side at my house. My oldest host brother, Garnek, left for the Armenia Army yesterday and we had quite a few farewell events for him. Last Saturday we had a huge 60 person sit down dinner at our house with an abundance of food and beverages (read: vodka). It was also not short of Armenian men who wanted to know if I was married or not. Thank heavens I could understand this and knew how to say no, and that I was not looking to get married either. No Armenian proposals yet. Whew! The night was very fun but since my Armenian is so limited still I of course played with the younger crowd outside as they raced around and then helped in the kitchen to clean up before begging my host mom at midnight if I could go to sleep since the party was showing no signs of dying down anytime soon. She has gotten used to the fact that I go to bed early and shooed me off to bed.
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Sunday I awoke and met up with some volunteers in Karashamb for a run. I had high hopes of laundry and planned to help clean up the house. Little did I know we were having another large party for lunch. This one was with only 25ish guests at the table. We BBQ’d, my host dad weighed me on the livestock scale and thankfully I have no idea what the kilogram conversion is, and the men drank more and I took another nap. Who would ever have thought I would be so exhausted from partying? Well, factor in speaking in a different language/ trying to comprehend the language during all of this and the exhaustion adds up quickly.
From this partying I think the most important cultural aspect I learned was that once the men get drunk they really cant aim while going to the restroom. This makes for a rather unpleasant time for the females. One of the volunteers in my village has deemed the action: the hovercraft. At least my quads are getting stronger.
Tuesday our EE cohort went to Yerevan to meet with 3 NGOs. Two of them were awesome and we all became very motivated and revved up for our sites and assignments but don’t find out those details for about 2 weeks. The first NGO is SunChild started by the president of the large cell company, VivaCell, here and basically is an environmental group for teenage kids to get them to pledge a life that is in harmony with nature and also extend their Armenian culture. They are really big in media presentation and have been hugely successful in various regions outside of Yerevan. There is even a branch in Southern CA where a large population of western Armenians live to encourage their connection with nature and their Armenian culture. The other awesome NGO is a German company ZTG that has been involved with many of the Armenian NGOs supplying funds but also having a huge impact on water resource and conservation education in the country. They had lots of information, and swagger for us which clearly got us excited. Also, as we drove into Yerevan we got to see Mount Ararat for the first time! It was a bit overcast though so hopefully a better view of it will come soon and then some decent photos.
Wednesday my middle host brother, Garen, came home to wish the oldest brother a farewell into the army. This didn’t make entire sense to me because he is currently in the army and it seems they will be serving quite close to each other if not at the same site. Hmmm. Anything I don’t understand I contribute to my lack of language, NOT to my ever improving charade-playing. It was also my tatik’s birthday, so of course I came home from class to 20 people in my living room eating delicious food. And then more delicious food at night but with a manageable crowd of about 12. It was nice to meet the last brother though and we got a family photo!
After dinner there was a family event of shaving Garnek’s head. Apparently this has to be done before they show up for duty and my host dad was getting quite angry at Garnek as he joked around during it. My pictures can’t even begin to convey the hilarity of the situation but I have made some available for your viewing pleasure.
Thursday afternoon our EE cohort began our laborious community project. After meeting with the mayor last weekend and discussing options for this brief project we decided that a “Church Beautification” would be something nice for our group to leave the village with. The church in Teghenik is quite new and a pretty popular spot for people to either drop in, congregate around, or get water as it is right off the main road. Between the stonework though there are lots of weeds shooting up so we have decided to weed the entire grounds. It went fairly well except for the grounds keeper who insisted on helping us but instead of actually pulling up the roots he just scraped the tops off with his shovel. We tried to convey to him the correct way but he would have none of it. So our project will undoubtedly be less sustainable then we had originally hoped for. Oh well, it will look nice for awhile! Saturday is our big event where we have invited members of the community to come work with us as we weed away and beautify the church. We have solidified about 8 school children to join us in exchange for a soccer match but who knows how many others will show up.
This exchange of game for labor took place Wednesday afternoon and was quite interesting. The soccer field we had heard about was a trek up the mountain at the top of the village and then of course was more of a weed patch than what you would imagine a field to look like. However, we volunteers did not let that deter our futbol skills. We jumped over the 3 ft tall grass, and slid into the stinging nettle only to get back up again and dominate these small children. We may have taken the game a bit too seriously which I blame on our recent obsession with the world cup. Alas, it was a very fun time for all of us and the game only stopped when it started raining. Of course we had to hike back home from the field in the rain, probably a contributor to my sore throat this week.
My youngest host brother got in a mound of trouble today for, I think, driving the car last night up the village road and hitting something of some other villager’s. It was difficult to detect the details through the Armenian screaming. However, he was back to his smiling trickster self tonight at dinner as we battled to see who could come up with the grossest food combo with what was left on our plate. He succeeded as he rolled everything into the lavash and then poured the remainder of his beer into it. Yes, he is 14 and was sharing the beer with us. I laughed at him and calmly drank the remainder of my beer while he awkwardly ate his questionably edible monstrosity. He is quite entertaining with his antics and voice that cracks often as he goes through puberty. All is well on the Armenian front!
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