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.