My First Armenian Wedding

This weekend I went to my first Armenian wedding.  It was quite different than any wedding I had gone to in the states.  A young girl I work with was marrying a man from a nearby village.  Our village only has one wedding hall, so the couple had one reception in our village and another reception in the other village.  Hundreds of people were at our reception if that gives you any idea of how big a combined party would have been! First, the couple married at a church, but as so many people were invited to the wedding most of us just waited at the reception hall.  I sat with a few other girls who work at school and we spent the afternoon eating, drinking and dancing.  I was yet again forced to dance, but this time I managed to get off easy with only one song.  People were constantly toasting and dancing.  There is even a special song/dance when the servers bring out the khorovats (Armenian barbeque)!  

One of my 12^th grade students was at the wedding and managed to morph our class discussion into the differences between Armenian and American weddings.  They think Armenian weddings are better because there is more tradition involved.  I think American weddings have a lot of traditions too, just more superficial than Armenian ones.  For example, after the wedding the mother-in-law gives the couple honey and fruit to help their marriage become ‘sweet.’  I tried to explain different American wedding traditions, but the classroom favorite was the honeymoon. Honeymoons are not common in Armenia because the bride usually moves in with the husband’s family the night of the wedding. Sounds awful right? Chances are a couple will never get to live alone, especially in a village.

P.S. I went into the kitchen last night to get a glass of water and heard scratching.  I turned on the light and saw a poor little mouse stuck in a trap.  I called my host father to the kitchen because I didn’t know what to do.  He picked up the mouse with tongs and for a horrible moment I thought he was going to throw the mouse into the wood burning stove.  Thankfully he took it outside, but who knows what happened outside.  I think this the first of many mice to come into the house this winter and I will be living in my oblivious world where the mice go free in our garden J

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Spelling Bees and Pumpkin Pies

Phew, what a crazy 2 weeks.  Between Spelling Bees and conferences I have been busier than I have been in country so far. We had a spelling bee at our school to determine which students would continue on to the regional Noyemberyan Spelling Bee.  I had about 15 students participate from grades 7, 8 and 9.  The students had never heard of a spelling bee before so it was actually a pretty good turnout.  I gave the winners (1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd place) prizes of English books and magazines so thank you to everyone who sent some things over!  The winners were thrilled, but I felt so bad for the students who did not place.  They studied so hard and were heartbroken. 

Today was the regional competition in Noyemberyan.  I learned that one of my 8^th grade students got the chicken pox and would not be allowed outside her house for 2 weeks (I think the chicken pox is a little stigmatized here, but I’ll get back to you on that).   There were tons of children from all the village schools at the Spelling Bee.  One of my 9^th grade students came in 1^st so that was a huge accomplishment for our school.  Take a look below for some pictures from my village Spelling Bee and the regional Spelling Bee in Noyemberyan. Now that the Spelling Bee is over I will hopefully be able to use my clubs to practice the student’s conversational English skills.

I spent the past week at a conference in Dilijan with all of the volunteers.  I got a hot water shower every day and a flushing toilet, I was totally living the high life for those few days.  It snowed in Dilijan and back in Noyemberyan while I was gone.  I already hate the cold and it’s not even that cold yet, though -10 degrees Celsius sounds pretty darn awful when you have to walk to school.  The conference included more language and TEFL training.  The best part was being able to see other volunteers again, some of whom I hadn’t seen since swearing in. 

With Thanksgiving approaching a lot of us volunteers have been on the lookout for pumpkins.  They don’t sell them in stores, but some villagers have pumpkin patches in their garden.  I spread the word around my school that I was looking for a pumpkin and my counterpart gave me a small pumpkin from her garden.  I made a pumpkin pie from scratch that was delicious!! There is some debate as to whether or not it was a winter squash or an actual pumpkin, but regardless it was good.  If anyone has an easy pie crust recipe to share I would love to have it!

7th Form

8th Form

9th Form

The Winners! With our awesome judges Danelle and Manik :)

Our fantastic students at the Noyemberyan Competition

PC Volunteers

Nervous Students

Last Minute Studying

No competition in Armenia is complete without a certificate :)

 

Halloween

Halloween invaded Armenia this weekend and it was great!  I was lucky enough to go to 2 parties and teach several of my classes about Halloween.

On Friday I traveled to another town to celebrate Halloween with a bunch of other volunteers.  The weather was awful, but we had still had a lot of fun.  I explored the town and stayed with another volunteer at her host family’s house. On Friday we watched Rocky Horror and Hocus Pocus on a projector and make-shift movie screen.  On Saturday we all dressed up in ridiculous costumes and had a good time.  The time changed in Armenia on Sunday morning so we gained a much needed hour of sleep.  Monday night I spent several hours at the Halloween party at my village’s art school.  The children were all wearing scary make-up and the adults even dressed up.  We did everything from carving pumpkins, toilet paper mummies to painting pumpkins only using your nose.  Of course it wouldn’t have been a real party without the musical chairs, limbo or Armenian dancing.  Take a look at the pictures below, they can explain my weekend much better than I can J

This week I have already taught 3 classes about Halloween and hopefully will teach 2 more tomorrow.  Thanks to everyone who sent Halloween items, everything from the candy corn to the stickers have been a great hit! The students really liked the idea of Halloween because nothing like that exists in Armenia.