Thanksgiving: To Give Thanks

I had a great Thanksgiving with other volunteers.  Ten of us met at a volunteer's house nearby and cooked a HUGE meal. Seriously, don't feel bad that I was spending Thanksgiving in another country, we certainly celebrated well here.  I loved all of the people I was with and consider them my family away from home. Below are some pictures of our day:

Today I was at Trent's house to visit for the weekend.  He lives about 30 minutes away so I called our normal taxi driver to come and get me.  A few minutes later his landlord came over and said we had to go to a birthday party for his wife. My taxi driver showed up with his wife during the middle of dinner.  I tried to leave, but the landlords invited (forced) my taxi driver and his wife inside to eat!

Trent and I sat through a very strange dinner before my taxi driver and I were allowed to leave.

My clubs have been amazing lately. We have done everything from watching the Lion King, translating Beatles songs and learning American slang.  I only have three more weeks of school before winter break :)



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.   

Settling

Sorry I haven’t posted in a while.  I have a pretty good routine at school now and my days are starting to run together.  I wake up, go to school, teach, have lunch with a few teachers, teach more and sometimes go to the art school for tutoring or just to hang out.  This week is Fall Break in Armenia.  Students are free and teachers are supposed to go to school.  My school uses this week to put wood heaters in every classroom. Since there is no school I will just help out at the art school and then travel to another volunteer’s house for Halloween.

Here are some highlights from the past 2 weeks:

I got together with some other volunteers in my area to have a potluck and it was great.  It’s always excited to visit a new village and see the differences and similarities. We go together again for Chinese food, we even made egg rolls from scratch!

I watched Super 8 and it was surprisingly great.

My TEFL boss came to my village to check in with me.  She spoke with my principal and counterpart and they both said great things about me.  Then we went to the other school in my village to give them an application for if they want a volunteer next year.  I hope we get more volunteers next year, there isn’t much to do in our area so we don’t have many visitors. 

I made tacos. My host mother loved them, but my host father wouldn’t even try them.

Listened to my host parents get into a fight with the census lady who came to our house at 10 pm.

Planning a Halloween party with the art school.

Finally showered after 7 days…..

Used a PowerPoint presentation in my 10^th grade class.  Most teachers don’t know how to use a computer so I think my students really enjoyed it.  They think I am the resident expert on London and all things UK since our textbooks are British.  This presentation was about London, but in November I want to have a presentation on the US in all of my classes.

What a boring blog post.  I promise I will have more to talk about next week!

I love Armenia when....

What a crazy awesome week. 

October 5^th was Teacher’s Day in Armenia. We had school for half a day and then went to a ceremony at the cultural center.  Everyone in the community was invited to celebrate Teacher’s Day which involved numerous speeches, dances and songs.  After the ceremony we went to the only restaurant in our area which is in the next town.  I was forced to dance by all of the teachers, but I actually had a lot of fun.  At the restaurant it was decided that school would be canceled the next day because the weather was ‘perfect’.  I was of course confused until I learned they canceled school so the teachers could take the students on a hike to Mshakavank.  Mshakavank is an ancient church hidden in the mountains around my village.  We all met at school and spent two hours hiking up to Mshakavank.  The weather was perfect and we spent the entire afternoon eating and playing games.  At first I was shocked that school could be canceled with no notice at all, but after that great hike I think the teachers definitely have the right idea. 

On Friday I travelled to Yerevan to watch the Armenia vs. Macedonia soccer game.  A bunch of volunteers went to the game and we cheered for Armenia along with about 15,000 other people (They won 4-1).  We spent the night in Yerevan and then traveled to Areni, about 1 ½ hours south of Yerevan.  We went to a wine festival and spent time catching up.  I’m finally back in my village after spending hours on marshutnis yesterday. My host mother told me I’m not allowed to travel anymore because when I come back I forget all of my Armenian...  

It was so nice being busy for a change.  Hopefully the next few weeks will be busy as well. Here are some pictures of the hike to Mshakavank and the soccer game:

English Clubs

I had SUCH a productive week at school. I think clubs will be my way of introducing conversational English to the students, but for now we are just focusing on the Spelling Bee.  I have one club for 9-12 grade and only four 9^th grade girls showed up.  However, my other club for 7^th and 8^th graders had fourteen students show up J I was told that a lot of students didn’t know about the clubs last week and that more will come this week.  It’s so much easier to teach to a small group so I’m hoping the class size stays manageable.  I teach the clubs by myself and somehow the kids understand or at least pretend to understand what I say in English.  They seem very excited about the Spelling Bee!

I’ve started getting more involved in some of my classes.  I created a board with paperclips to use visual aids in the classroom and it actually worked.  I had students fix scrambled sentences and change tenses.  I created a few games for the older children and even managed to work hangman into a lesson plan.  I’m still not teaching as much as I would like to… small steps right?

It is freezing here and I have gotten my first cold in country.  My host family was convinced that I got my cold because my room was chilly.  The next day my host father brought the wood heater down from the attic and spent all day installing it in our house.  My host parents are pretty awesome. So while you enjoy the perfect weather in Florida, I’ll be buried under a sheep wool comforter and three layers of clothing =)

This unnamed fruit is from Tbilisi: any ideas?