Yeghishe got married

Last Saturday we went to an Armenian wedding, and it wasn't just any wedding - our good friend and neighbor Yeghishe married Gayane, a beautiful, intelligent young woman from Yerevan. Yeghishe is the son of Arshaluys and Anahit, who are dear dear friends of ours in addition to living on the same floor of our building as we live on. They have included us in all kinds of festivities, brought us many gifts and helped us in countless other ways. So his marriage was a big deal to us.

Susan traveled to the ceremony and related events in Yerevan - American weddings are simple affairs compared with Armenian ones - while I just greeted the wedding party with a contingent of neighbors outside our building when the bride and groom drove into town in the early evening.

We then the crossed the street to Noyemberyan's party hall, where we spent six hours eating and watching about 200 people dance, and then eating more. Well, Susan danced up a storm too, Armenian-style. People here definitely know how to party.

I did shoot a video; it's only a few minutes long:

Towards the end of the video, Susan can be seen in several dance floor views.

Needless to say we had a great time.

Marshutni vignette

Marshutnis (marshrutnis, marshrutkas) are how we get around in Armenia: minibuses of various ages and in various conditions, often packed beyond the imaginable. Sometimes they remind me of those old films of 20 or so college kids getting out of one VW Beetle: I once counted 16 people in the two first rows - that's in six seats and what little floor space there is in a minibus. What can I say? We waste a lot of space and resources in the US.

Anyway, the other day I found myself in the back of a marshutni going to Yerevan; Tamara, another Peace Corps volunteer, was going to Ijevan, about a third of the way, and managed to get on the same marshutni at the last minute. It was far too crowded for her to make it back to sit with me or vice versa, but it wasn't insanely packed: at least I didn't see anyone sitting in anyone else's lap.

The picture below is of one of our regular marshutnis to Yerevan at the half-way rest stop, on a day almost exactly like the one when this story took place.

So we get to Ijevan and Tamara hands a bill to the driver to pay for her ride, and the driver doesn't have change. Suddenly all 25 or so people on the marshutni were very concerned, and several heads turned to look at me, wondering if I'd pay for Tamara. I saw her predicament, of course, so I started to dig into my pocket for change to pass up to her. But while I was digging I didn't see what happened up front - someone else was getting off, gave her fare to Tamara and gave Tamara's bill to the driver. Everybody was happy, except I was left to wonder if the driver had just decided that he wanted to take off for Yerevan rather than wait for the $1.30 fare.

Something about that situation was very typical of Armenia; it captured a piece of the country's essence: maybe it was just that the driver didn't have change, or that there was seeming chaos until everything somehow worked out anyway, or that almost the whole marshutni seemed to be involved, in a good way. Or perhaps it was just that I was so cramped I couldn't reach my pocket and therefore didn't come through in time to do my part and pay for my fellow foreigner's ride. Regardless, it was good.

Over the past year and a half of living here, I've made my peace with most of the petty annoyances and inconveniences that come with life on about $300 a month - which is not bad for here. Today I'm just grateful that I'm not subject to the more serious consequences that sometimes result from such limited incomes.

Fall in the Noy

The last grapes of the season are the sweetest. This vine I found climbing up a tree outside Lisa's house in a nearby village when all seven of us Peace Corps volunteers in the region got together last weekend.

Click on the pictures to see larger versions.

After almost two months of school, we're now enjoying a week off. I thought it would be good to fill in some gaps in what we've shown of our life here and update with more pictures than before. So let's jump back two months in time to "first bell," the opening ceremony of the school year.

The mayor (suit), the school director (white shirt), teachers (in the distance), parents (in the foreground), all hail the first-graders! The kids won't look this good again for a year.

Kids with mothers.

Kids, no mothers. Fifth grade. Still in their "first bell" clothes.

Boys of the fourth grade, five days into the school year.

In late September, Susan I went to the village of Dsegh to meet with a few other volunteers.

Susan in the ruins of Surb Grigor, an old church that collapsed in the Spitak earthquake.

Greg, Amy, Susan, Mary and Martha at Surb Grigor.

Amy, me, Greg and Martha doing what comes naturally when Peace Corps volunteers gather.

Scenic Alaverdi, the heart of the Debed Canyon. Copper mining and processing.

Every fall, my whole school goes on a hike up in the hills above town, into these fields. There's a lonely farmhouse up there, but other than that it's just the cows and us - and the shepherd in this picture, driving his sheep and goats further up.

Hanging with Mher, Artyom and the rest of the ninth grade during our school's excursion day. They can be difficult, but they're also wonderful and I love them.

Artyom borrowed my camera and this is the result.

Some of my school's teachers on Teachers' Day.

Some of Noyemberyan: our building is the third from the left, but we live on the other side. Beyond the hills lies Azerbaijan and somewhere in the distance, visible only on clearer days than this, are some Georgian and Russian peaks of the Caucasus Range.

Two women praying at Haghartzin, which Lonely Planet calls "one of Armenia's masterpieces of medieval architecture."

Thord at Haghartzin. A good friend since 1966.

Makaravank: the oldest building is from the tenth century, but the main church was built in 1205.

Makaravank: Armenian Rococo?

The village of Gosh in early October. We - Susan, Thord, Marci and I - visited Goshavank, the monastery where Armenian law was first codified.

Mother Armenia outside Ijevan.

Somewhere near the village of Dsegh.

Susan and I with Marci and Thord at Haghpat, much of which was built in the 11th century.

So I went on a little hike up the local hill a couple of weeks ago, and as I was leaving the last houses behind, these kids, including a couple of my third-graders, spotted me and decided to find out where I was going. I couldn't have asked for better company.

Danelle in Lisa's so-called kitchen one Sunday ago, when Lisa had invited us all to a wonderful little party.

Mexican food: Lisa in the distance, a blurry Barb, Trent on a mission, Susan reaching for some tomato.

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My life with Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

Two caveats. First, this blog post has next to nothing to do with Armenia, unless you count Avie Tevanian's peripheral involvement. Avie - the guy who created OS X - is of Armenian descent. Second, this blog post is not about Steve Jobs. It's about me, Fred, and the role Jobs played in my life. I believe that the greatest tribute I can give to Steve Jobs is showing how my life, like the lives of countless others, has been permeated by what he created.

I do want to mention one thing about Steve's overall influence. People today think of Jobs largely in terms of the iPad, the iPhone and maybe the iPod, but these weren't really his historically most significant technological achievements. In 1976 and 1977, Jobs and Wozniak (who probably deserves most of the credit) created the first marketable table-top computers in his parents' garage, the Apple I and the Apple II. The machines were the first to provide a video interface, a keyboard for input, onboard read-only memory (ROM, which enabled it to load programs from an external source) and other user-friendly improvements. In effect, Steve and Steve created the first truly personal computers, years before the IBM PC. The iProducts are more than extensions of those early machines and Steve has had a part in creating countless other products, from the first laser printer to Toy Story, but no forward leap has been as great as that of the Apple I and Apple II.

But when I saw my first Apple II in 1978, it didn't hold any great attraction for me.

Steve Jobs was born only a few months before me, and as Apple Computer turned into a giant success, I couldn't help compare my non-life with his. I was a recent college dropout and my life was going nowhere, while my brother hippies in Cupertino were conquering the realms of business and technology and were well on their way to multi-billionairehood and immortality. Fellow dropout Bill Gates, meanwhile… well, who cares?

Did you see that first Mac commercial in 1984, with the 1984 theme where the woman smashes the image of Big Brother? Ever since then, I've liked watching Superbowl commercials. Yep, Steve Jobs changed my life.

And I started using Macs.

Then came the dark years when Jobs was ousted, started NeXT and bought Pixar, Windows 95 was ascendant and Apple was considered doomed. Irrelevant. As good as gone. Corporate America wanted Compaq, Dell and white boxes, and consumers followed. I remained a Mac fan and Mac buyer, eagerly awaiting every glimmer of hope from MacRumors.com and Guy Kawasaki that the collapse of the Wintel monopoly was imminent. Remaining one of the faithful at a time when Apple-bashing was as common in the media as Apple veneration is today was made easier because I lived in San Francisco (the city has many creative professionals and already lived in the shadow of Silicon Valley), but it still wasn't easy. Apple got no respect. Nor was Next a realistic option for me. As for Pixar, I did buy some software it created for manipulating type, and eventually I went to see some of their movies. That made me happy for Steve: he deserved some success after being so rudely rejected by his first child.

It was clear that Apple Computer was not whole without Steve Jobs, and when he was brought back and eventually became CEO in 1997, it seemed like things at Apple were falling into place. I happened to be selling a business I'd had for ten years and spent $1,000 of the windfall on some Apple stock, which then cost a little over $5 (adjusted for subsequent splits). I wanted to put my money where my mouth had been for a whole lot of years. Just a few minutes later the stock tanked again. So much for me being a smart investor with astute market timing.

I could not, by the way, have sold that business if it hadn't been for my Mac. It helped me create original new products (postcards), keep books that conformed with professional accounting standards, and draw up the financial statements that I needed to show prospective buyers.

Owning Apple stock did, however, allow me to go to a shareholder meeting at the headquarters on Infinity Loop in Cupertino. I remember Jobs as being focused on business - not the rebel of yore whose idealism and temper got him to pursue pie-in-the-sky projects and waste everyone's energy on useless drama. I could have walked up to him - this was before he became a big star again - but I truly had nothing to tell him. I saw the showman in him come out in full force only at a keynote speech at a MacWorld expo at the Moscone Center in San Francisco ca 1999, and back then Steve's 'reality distortion field' was strong: maybe not as subtle and effective as it became later on, just full of raw power. Even the journalists cheered announcements of new features. I don't know exactly how he generated that distortion, but I know it had something to do with not shying away from using strong words: "the best ever," "fantastic," "insanely great," "a computer for the rest of us." From anyone else, it would all have sounded as hyperbole.

Those Think Different years really were great. Susan and I had been married not long before and had bought a house (at an affordable price, I may add). I got a godson, Charlie. Having returned to college, I found I was capable of doing school after all, and eventually I graduated - but only after a lot of late-night essay writing on my Mac, of course. Those were also dot-com boom days, so Apple's stock had its ups and downs, but on the whole it did OK. I got my first 'real' job and found my career - at the tender age of 45. Somewhere along the road I stopped comparing myself with Steve Jobs.

Then came the iPod, which woke up the world to what Steve Jobs was doing; the rest of this history is fresh enough. In 2005, he gave a speech at Stanford University that with some superficial changes I would have been happy to have given when I was the student speaker at my commencement: "Stay hungry, stay foolish," he concluded, quoting the Whole Earth Catalog. Apple's stock climbed and climbed again: no one foresaw that in 1997. I bought Susan and me iPhones the day after they hit the market in June 2007. Today we're Peace Corps volunteers with MacBooks.

Few people who never knew me have had as much direct influence in my life as Steve Jobs: Bill Wilson, Bob Smith, George Orwell, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera are the only ones who come to mind.

So here’s to the crazy one. The misfit. The rebel. The troublemaker. The round peg in the square hole.

The one who saw things differently. He was not fond of rules. And he had no respect for the status quo. You could quote him, disagree with him, glorify or vilify him.

About the only thing you couldn’t do was ignore him. Because he changed things. He invented. He imagined. He healed. He explored. He created. He inspired. He pushed the human race forward.

Maybe he had to be crazy.

How else could he have created works of art from chips and code?

I am grateful that you were around during my life, Steve.

Rest in peace, crazy one.

Turkey

So we went to Turkey. It's one border away from Armenia, but that border is closed, so you have to go through another country. We flew from Tbilisi, Georgia, to Istanbul, a thousand miles or so. Turkey is big. Istanbul is big. I mean New York-like big, with skyscrapers in every direction on the horizon. But the historic center, where we stepped out of the streetcar, is an island of touristic calm. Except that it was filled with people: tourists, of course, as well as a lot of people celebrating Ramadan, but very few cars.

We were in awe. The air felt fresh, the light was soft, the crowds were relaxed. You could hear seagulls. The first thing that grabbed our attention was Hagia Sophia, a church built by Emperor Justinian of the Holy Roman Empire - the eastern part after the break - more than 1,400 years ago. Across a big park from it stands the Blue Mosque, equally imposing. We stayed in a hostel a couple of corners beyond the park.

Over the next couple of days we saw a lot, some of it with Julianne, another Peace Corps volunteer we know from Armenia: Starbucks (we did), McDonald's (we didn't), a funicular (did), a lot of ferries across the Bosphorus (look up a map). We even found an Armenian church, although the Armenians we met there spoke a Western Armenian dialect we had trouble understanding.

I had written a bunch of captions for the pictures below but lost them. I may add something more later. I've posted a lot more pictures on a different page, and they do have more informative captions.


Click on the pictures for better views.

The Hagia Sophia, completed in 537 AD. The dome was rebuilt by an Armenian architect sometime in the 900s after a couple of previous cupolas collapsed in earthquakes. The church was turned into a mosque a few centuries later and in the early 1900 was made a museum. Worth a long trip.

A gate to the Grand Bazaar, the world's largest indoor mall - for several centuries now.

A shwirling terwish. They were everywhere: in the streets, on the trams, on the domestic flights - we just couldn't get away from these guys. We liked the hats, though.

Hagia Sophia, built 537. I'm repeating myself, but that year is worth repeating.

Hermit home in Cappadocia. They were all over the place.

Cappadocia landscape. Click on the picture and spot all the cave homes. The Flintstones had nothing on this place. I want to live like that.

Cappadocia condos: indoor plumbing needs updating; 360 views. Again, click on image.

Passing the city of Antalya on our way to the Med.

The Med. There were a few people at the other end of the beach, maybe 3km away.

Greek/Roman city of Olympos. Ruins are more interesting when they're overgrown.

Methane: been burning for thousands of years. The flames have actually burned away the rock over time.

Kiyi Pansiyon: recommended. Here we see the dining room.

Back in Istanbul, at the Sultan's harem in the Sultan's palace, looking for harem girls.

The Bosphorous [bOss-po-russ]. Ferries. Two bridges. Slow boats to China.

Dinner with Erica and Judy in Anadolu Kavagi; the white boat on the left brought us back through the Bosphorus to Istanbul.

Rooftop of the hotel where we stayed the last two nights: the dome beyond Susan's head is an old Ottoman-era hamam (baths). The yellow building glimpsed on the left is a former prison - the one featured in Midnight Express - and now a Four Seasons hotel. Above it all: Hagia Sophia.

More pictures at http://gallery.me.com/fredsterx#100052

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Second Summer in Armenia and Goodbyes

Many of our posts start with "it's hard to believe that we've been here for . . . ". We are officially into our second summer in Armenia. Fred has been busy with his camps and visiting his mom, and we've literally only seen each other for a day or two since the beginning of June. Not the way we would prefer it, but just the way it is right now. I went to Lake Sevan with about 40 other volunteers to celebrate July 4. Eating, swimming, fireworks, and s'mores. Couldn't have been much better. I also got to meet some of the new PC trainees at a museum day in Yerevan. They are a great group, although much smaller than ours (42 compared to 58).

July 6 was a big day for all the volunteers here in Armenia--Site Announcement Day--the day when the trainees find out which site they will live in for the next two years, what they will be doing, whether they will have sitemates, etc. We are very lucky to have three new volunteers in our region, including one in our town. That will give us seven in our immediate area, which will be really nice. Two are TEFL volunteers, and one is a business volunteer. We are very much looking forward to having them close by. Our marz will have 9 new volunteers as of August 17!

So when the new volunteers arrive, the ones who have been here for two years start leaving. This past weekend 10 of the A-17s left (A refers to Armenia, and 17 is the 17th group to be here). I went to Yerevan to say goodbye to some, but will miss the next round on August 13. These people have been such a huge support for the past year, and it's hard to realize that they won't be here with us. But it's the Peace Corps cycle, and next year it will be our turn to say goodbye.

This week my counterpart and I will start doing some preliminary planning for the upcoming school year. We will teach up to 12th grade this year, whereas last year was only to 11th. So, more classes, and more students to teach English to. Should be a fun and challenging year. I am going to try to do things a bit differently so I actually get more time to teach the students, and hope to actually bring English into the classroom (instead of teaching in Armenian). We'll see.

We still are working on getting the greenhouse built, and there's a curriculum to write as well. Lots to do before September 1 for sure. Our school is being remodeled, or at least one wing of it is, and we will have new windows (ones that both open and shut properly), a new roof, new paint, etc. Can't wait to see what it's going to look like!

Our mid-service conference is set for next week. That means we are half way done with our 24 month Peace Corps service. I am trying to get ready for the language proficiency test. While I don't know as much as some, I still know enough to communicate in most situations. Details to follow.

The weather is good and hasn't been nearly as warm here as in Yerevan (dry and mid-70s here v. 90s in Yerevan), for which we are thankful. In fact, the wind was strong enough today that it blew out one of our windows (glass shattered 3 stories below, and fortunately no kids were down there at the time). So we have plenty of air tonight until the window is fixed tomorrow.

Not much else to report on this Sunday evening. Waiting for the USA-Japan World Cup soccer match final later tonight. Keeping up with golf scores, and of course the Red Sox.

Love to all. Please let us here from you.

P.S. These two precious little girls are relatives of my tutor. The purple "eyelashes" are made from flowers. The hair wreaths were made by my tutor's mom. More of the gifts of being in Armenia.

Summertime in Armenia

School has been out for over three weeks, and we have been BUSY!!! For volunteers who teach in the public schools, we have to find "secondary" projects to keep us busy over the summer. Fred has signed up to be a counselor at several summer camps (three for boys and one for international students) and is in the midst of going to the counselor trainings. He also went to the U.S. Embassy to represent the Peace Corps at an event for visitors from the U.S.

I have just finished the Border2Border Walk Across Armenia (see www.walkacrossarmenia.wordpress.com for more details). Our north team started walking in the town of Gogavan, north of Stepanavan on the Georgia border. Our overnight stops along the way included Zoramut, Stepanavan, Vanadzor, Dilijan, Sevan, Gavar, Gherakunik, Martuni, a caravanserai on top of a mountain, and finally Yeghegnadzor. We walked between 30 and 42 km on our walking days, and had teaching days in Zoramut, Vanadzor, Sevan, Gavar, Martuni and Yeghegnadzor. We slept in beds sometimes, on floors more often, and once outside on the top of a mountain. I have never been good at hills, and this walk was no different. The first big uphill challenge was a 15 km uphill with an 8% grade when we walked from Dilijan to Sevan. The second was a 27 km uphill from Martuni at 1500 meters to the Salima Pass at 2410 meters. It was a gorgeous walk, but a very, VERY long uphill for sure. At the top, we camped out at a caravanserai, an old stone shelter used as a stopover by silk road traders. Over the course of the 15 days we had rain, thunder and lightening, hail and lots of sun. Our only really hot day was the last one, which included a 34 km downhill into Yeghegnadzor.

Once in Yeghegnadzor, we taught our last group of 70+ children and had a celebration of our accomplishments. Members of the Armenian Red Cross, Youth Bank, Peace Corps Staff and the PC volunteers who have supported us all came, and it was a wonderful end to the B2B effort.

Here are some of the statistics for our north and south teams: (1) walked a total of 578 kilometers (360 miles) in 172 hours over the course of 15 days; (2) traversed 5 regions (marzes) in Armenia; (3) took a total of 4,310,820 steps as a group; (4) passed through 64 towns and villages; (5) taught more than 500 children about healthy lifestyles and the benefits of exercise and not drinking and smoking; and (6) trained 26 teachers in Armenia on the Border2Border curriculum. This was undoubtedly the most challenging thing I have ever done. Now, some much needed rest before I tackle something else.

The rest of the summer is going to be incredibly busy. We have 41 new trainees in Armenia and we both will be doing some things to help with their training. We will continue our English clubs, do some hiking, help with various camps, and attend our mid-service conference. Somewhere over the summer we hope to take a short vacation, but the calendar is getting pretty full at this point, so we shall see.

Special thanks to my brother for sending our backpacks! Now we can travel in style around the country! Also very special thanks to Connie for the great care package. It took nearly 3 months to get here, but the chocolate is still very, very good!! Thank you!!!

Here are a few photos from the walk. Enjoy.


Caravanserai

Old Sign from Soviet Times

Views Along the Route

Lake Sevan During a Thunderstorm

Village Kids

View from 2410 m

Walking

Poster by Nellie