Coke, candy ice cream

One strange phenomenon among us volunteers is that many people who didn't eat or drink much sweet stuff back in the US are now regular consumers of things like candy, ice cream and Coke. Although it's not particularly good (it's all made by one local company), candy is everywhere, and ice cream is ridiculously cheap - about 25 US cents - so that explains a lot. But one woman has developed a curious habit of eating a Bounty bar every day even though she never - never - ate them at home. Don't know why she didn't pick Mars bars, the other US candy bar available here. Other volunteers are like me and drink Coke regularly even though we never used to touch it. Most eat much more ice cream than before. Oh well. The big question is, is there protein in ice cream, or is it mostly just fat?

Armenia Life, School, Phone, Host Family

I have seen farmers bailing hay in the states, but the way it is often done here is nothing short of amazing. Not to mention incredibly hard work. It starts with "mowing" the field, which in our village is all done by hand with scythes. Backbreaking work to put it mildly. Once that is done, the hay is moved into piles by hand using pitchforks. Also backbreaking work. The final step in the process is to lift the piles (again by hand with pitchforks) into a bailer that is pulled by a tractor. The neatly bailed hay then falls onto the field, and is picked up by hand and put onto a truck. The big truck, usually waaaaaay overloaded, then takes the hay to whatever barn or house where it is being stored. It's amazing to watch it happen.

The people--all of them--work incredibly hard here. There is no such thing as a day off for anyone. Only the male children seem to be exempt from much of the daily routine. The gender roles here are quite different from what we are used to. Like America, men do the barbeques (horovats) and take care of much of the yard stuff (watering and pruning, but generally not gardening). But the women do just about everything else. All the cooking, cleaning, washing, dishes, etc. In the house, it's interesting to watch our host brother recoil when asked to pick up a dish, much less wash one. But somehow it all works, and we have gotten quite used to life here.

We are winding down our training and have just over a week to go. We have one more week of language classes and this week have been teaching school in something called "model school". It is designed to give us a little preview into what it's like to teach in Armenian schools. The only difference is that these kids are pretty much hand-picked and really WANT to be in school, which is a far cry from what we will actually deal with when we get to our sites. So far, we have taught a small class of adorable 9-10 year olds and a very large class of 13-14 year olds. What a difference a few years makes!

We are doing something called "team teaching" where one person takes one part of the lesson, and another takes a second part. In reality, we have a very strict curriculum that we must follow, and few of the teachers have used interactive or communicative activities in their classes. So we will have lots of challenges coming up.

Among the volunteers, there is something called the Volunteer Advisory Committee (VAC) which includes representatives from each of the sectors (TEFL, Community Business Development, Community Health Education and Environmental Education). There is one rep for each sector, and each volunteer class. Our class is called A-18 because we are the 18th group to be in Armenia. The long story is that I will be serving as the VAC rep for the A-18 TEFL group. I am excited as it is an opportunity to work with other sectors and with Peace Corps staff. I will find out more at our first meeting on August 4.

Hard to believe we will be living in a new part of the country in less than two weeks. I am sad to leave our little village and the peaceful country life we have here. Even more sad to leave our host family, who has been nothing short of wonderful to us these past two months. We truly feel like part of the family, part of the neighborhood, and part of the village.

Fred writes . . .

We're now on our second week of teaching kids. The hardest part is the lesson planning: we teach in teams of two, so every night I've been getting together with another volunteer to plan our lesson for the next day. It takes us about three hours - way too much - mostly because we both think too much.

Otherwise things are going fairly well. I now have my new cell phone (+374 9889 1961). If you call (please do!) keep in mind that we're GMT +4; that's three hours ahead of Western Europe, nine hours ahead of the US East Coast, and on the opposite side of the planet from the West Coast. Evenings between 8pm and 22pm work best.

Host Family News

We just found out that our new host mom fell and broke both her legs. While the family was willing to host us, we felt it best not to add to what they will have to do over the next few weeks and months. Our new host mom is going to be bedridden for weeks, if not months. Peace Corps is going to start looking tomorrow to try and find us a new host family to live with starting on August 6. We will keep you posted.

Our new host family at their private picnic area

A New Day, A New Town

We are visiting our new host village and family this weekend. Lots of adjustments. Not sure what I was expecting, but this place is pretty nice (though in a charming, soviet-era kind of way). We will be living in a 2-br apartment with a mother, father (both our age) and their 31-year old son. All are cheesemakers and also make yogurt (matsune) for the local town here. As I sit here by the window looking out, the hills (mountains, really) are covered with trees and the slopes are dotted with cinderblock houses with their tin roofs. There are chickens but I have yet to see a cow. The diet is completely different here from what we're used to, and so far its a really nice change. Our host mom is diabetic, so we actually have fruit to eat (we had almost zero fruit in our last village). And the home made matsune is really good for your digestion and keeps nasty bugs away. We also are really lucky in that we have water 24-7. The rest of our town of 5000+ does not. There is a 2,000 gallon tank over their cheese factory and a hose that runs from it to our apartment (about 50 yards away). So we have water. Another nice change.

We are here for four days to get a feel for the place and to meet the teachers at the schools with whom we will be working. Our meeting is tomorrow, and we head back to our first village on Tuesday. The road to get here is beautiful, but all switchbacks once you get off the main highway from Yerevan. It took us about 3 hours to get here, which I understand really isn't too bad.

So our town here is about 8 times the size of the last one. There are many stores to choose from, and even two banks with ATM machines. Quite luxurious. We have good bakeries and even some ok clothing stores. There is another volunteer living here who took us on a tour, and there will be four of us in total in this village.

It's really hot here (95-100) with not much relief in sight. Fortunately that is very unusual. I expect milder winters here, but we will get some snow. There is a military base nearby (we can see Azerbaijan from our bedroom window), so housing is very tight. Not sure how long we will live with this host family, but until mid-December at least.

We went up into the mountains today to get away from the heat. The family has built this amazing covered picnic area on a creek. It has a barbeque (horovats) oven and running spring water. It felt like air conditioning when we got out of the hot car. The spring water was ice cold, although we didn't drink it. Perhaps when we have our Peace Corps water filters with us, but not until. We spent the day in the shade, ate amazing grilled vegetables (eggplant, tomatoes, peppers), grilled beef, port and chicken, bread, cheese, and drinks. Then we all played cards, went for a short hike, and just generally enjoyed ourselves.

Now it's back to the heat of the town. Just wanted to give you the flavor of the place. We are really enjoying getting to know this new family. They laugh and have fun and are very social, which suits us just fine.

The sun has now set and hopefully there will be a little breeze to cool things off. One absolutely amazing thing though is the swallows. They nest under the eaves at the school and there literally are hundreds of them in the air at any one time. They streak by the building in groups with their high pitched chirps. It's like miniature jet fighters the way they bank and turn. Quite a sight. We are waiting for the world cup to start, and another volunteer is heading over to watch the game. We have most of our extended family here too.

Fourth of July - Armenia Style

The trainees in our village (now down to 7) cooked up a barbeque for our host families to celebrate the 4th of July. We had hamburgers, hot dogs, potato salad, cole slaw, roasted potatoes, etc. We also had a water baloon fight (need to bring more next year), pin the tail on the donkey, soccer, and sparklers. Our host families all brought yummy desserts, and we were treated with the sight of a really big snake as we ate our dinner. Then there was dancing! The last guests left just before midnight!

Today we are back to school and getting ready to visit our new host families and villages/towns this coming weekend. We will be living in a town of about 6,500 people--Noyemberyan--near the Georgia/Azerbaijan border. We understand that we can get to Tblisi in about an hour by taxi, or a few hours by bus (or marshrutka, which is like a mini van). We are looking forward to finding out more about our new site, meeting the English teachers we will work with, and meeting our new host family. The town is supposed to have warmer winters, but we shall see. That also means hot summers--like over 100 degrees. The heat will be a bit of a challenge, and we are wondering what we will do with our zero degree sleeping bags.

Today (Monday) it is back to school--language classes in the morning and technical sessions in the afternoon. Fred and I will be teaching a class to teachers this Thursday on "interactive grammar techniques" (grammar games, except that we have to disguise it). We are busy trying to learn something about the topic so we can teach two 45-minute classes.

Peace Corps training continues to be challenging. Different personalities, different needs, different language, different everything! This week was the first time I felt like it just wasn't manageable. Luckily neither of us feels that way at the same time. Having another person to share this all with is really, really good. So I am very grateful for that.

Will update the blog after (or maybe during) our site visit. We are supposed to have 3G coverage, and we hear rumors that wireless may even be an option. As we now struggle with very low upload/download speeds, THAT would be a real miracle.

We miss our home, our families, our friends, and much of what we so took for granted about life in America. But we are adjusting . . . one day at a time. We are loving Armenia, the people we meet, and especially the children, all of whom are magical. So far, we seem to be handling all the various challenges we are given. Hard to believe we have just over 4 weeks left of training. Our scheduled swearing-in day is August 5! Just 30 days away . . .