Hearts & Fires

Armenia celebrates a mixture of holidays in February: Valentine’s Day, St. Sargis Day and Valentine’s Day.  To give you an idea of how different these holidays are: I jumped over a fire today! Sure, by the time I went outside it was down to a few logs and 1 burning flame, but it was still exciting.  Below you can look at the links for the different holidays:

St. Sargis Day
http://www.oratert.com/english/society/16783.html

Trndez

http://armenianow.com/arts_and_culture/35560/trndez_armenian_church_holiday

Children were allowed out of class early to jump over the fire; you had to jump in pairs over the fire and into the ice. Some didn't quite make it... 

The highlight of my day was helping my 7^th grade club make Valentine’s cards for their families. Soo cute!

I HAVE A HOUSE!

It needs a lot of work, but I should be able to move in on March 1^st.  It has 3 bedrooms, a kitchen area, a porch and a garden in the back.  I will have no running water, no warm place to take bucket baths and of course I will have an outhouse.  I shouldn't complain because I expected to face all of these hardships going into Peace Corps. What makes Armenia so difficult is that the living situation for every volunteer is different.  Most volunteers have running water for at least part of the day and an indoor toilet that they can flush with a bucket.  It sucks knowing that if I would have been placed in a different region then I could have moved into a furnished apartment.  Instead I’m moving into a house with a bed frame, table, chairs and dresser. That’s all, unless you count the dog who has made his home on my porch for the winter. My new neighbors and people from the art school have said that they will help me move and find everything I need to buy: Wood stove, wood, refrigerator, oven, mattress, etc. It will be a very interesting March!

House Hunters International

This week has been a great improvement over the past few!  I’ve been really busy at school with my classes and clubs.  Each volunteer is encouraged to join a program that links you to a teacher back in the US.  I chose Mrs. Linda, the art teacher at my old elementary school.  My students wrote pen pal letters to Mrs. Simmons’ class at Julington Creek Elementary and had a blast writing them.  They had a hard time understanding cursive because they are not taught it here and I am sure the American children will have a hard time reading their letters in broken English.  I sent the letters on Friday and they should be there in 2 or 3 weeks.  Next year I want to start pen pal letters from the first week of school so the students can correspond the entire year.

My house hunt has taken on a whole new level.  Here is a list of everyone who has been looking for a house for me: Teachers from both schools, the art school, the Noyemberyan police station, my host family and various neighbors.  Last Thursday during the art school club I finally told them that if I could not find a house in my village then I would have to move to Noyemberyan.  They actually jumped into a car and started driving around my village to find a house.  As luck would have it, they found a house the next day.  I hear it has no water and no shower, but who needs to be clean anyways?  On Tuesday two staff members are coming from Yerevan to look at it so keep your fingers crossed!!

Highs and Lows

Sorry that my last blog was a bit of a bummer.  I was really homesick and wanted nothing more than to be back in Florida.  Emotionally, the highs here are VERY high and lows are VERY low.  I can be in the best most mood ever because I had a full conversation in Armenian with someone on a marshutni. Then I can start crying because I drank apple tea and it reminded me of my boyfriend and I in Istanbul together. It’s pathetic really. I’ve lost my emotional filter and stability.  Here is a summary of what I did today if you want to get an idea of why every day can be so tiring:

I woke up in the dark and got changed in my freezing cold room because the fire died at around 2 am.  Then I went to the outhouse, made breakfast, checked my email and went to school.  It started to snow on my way to school as I got stared at by every unemployed man in the village. I got to school, found out my counterpart already taught our class because ‘she was free,’ and so I sat and waited.  I ate lunch with the same really nice ladies I do every day and practiced my Armenian.  My counterpart decided she wanted me for the next lesson so we went to a class together, which was just reading from the textbook.  Then I learned that my club was cancelled because the students think of the first week back to school as a free week and went home.  So I started the snowy walk home with a group of my 4^th form students.  They had written letters to Santa Claus and given them to me (because of course Santa lives in America) and yesterday I had brought them letters back from Santa.  They were so excited about the letters that they kept asking me if I had met him and if he would bring real presents next year (Santa was only able to bring them candy this year, oops). I was having a great time laughing and making jokes with the students.  Then I laughed so hard that the gum I was chewing fell out of my mouth and into my hair. More laughter ensued and I held onto a clump of hair the rest of the way home.  One girl wanted me to come to her house so her mother could cut my hair to get the gum out. Another gave me a Strawberry Shortcake sticker to make me feel better and it honestly made my day.  I finally got home, cut the gum out of my hair, and wrote a few emails.  My host mom came home and told me there was a package waiting for me so I walked to the post office to find the long lost package my grandma sent 3 months ago.  And it was great. I just finished eating one of those Reese’s Christmas trees and I’m wearing a new sweater she sent me.   It’s 5:30 pm here and pitch black outside.

As a reminder to myself and to all of you supportive readers of my blog, the goals of Peace Corps are:

1.      Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.

2.      Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.

3.      Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.

Summary: Goal 1 is in limbo right now, I’m doing a great job with goal 2 and I’m working on goal 3.

I know that every day here is going to have highs and lows, but the lack of control over our lives here makes emotions stronger. Living with a host family, even when they are the nicest people ever, is hard after a frustrating day at work.  I’m trying to move out of my host family’s house despite the lack of safe housing in my village. My ideal situation would have been to live with another volunteer nearby, but that idea was rejected L I’ll keep you posted on my housing woes and hopefully I’ll write a happier blog next time.

Goodbye Vacation High

The past month has gone by so fast that I can’t believe its January already.  I spent a fun 24 hours in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, and almost a week in Istanbul (my new favorite city).  The weather in Istanbul was perfect and the food was amazing.  Even the street food was some of the best food I have had in months: chicken kebabs, fresh squeezed pomegranate juice and roasted chestnuts.  I was in a nice hotel with people who spoke English.  Then, I came back to Armenia.  Within one day I was freezing, asked 3 times if I was married and I was forced to talk with my host family’s house guest even though I was exhausted.  Honestly, it was so hard to return to Armenia.  To the land of the sunless days and foggy nights, filled with mud, ice, and snow.  I’m still having a hard time readjusting, and I can only imagine it will be worse when I come home this summer.  Yep, I decided to come home around June/July because I would go crazy waiting until Christmas.  Some volunteers go home three times throughout their service while others never go home during their two years.  Knowing that I’m going home in 6 months will definitely help me get through my first white winter. 

Since this week of school was canceled there was no reason for me to stay at my site.  I traveled to Noyemberyan to help Danelle teach her kindergarten class about hygiene. We mixed glitter with lotion and shook hands with each child so they could see how germs spread. Then I traveled to Dilijan with a few volunteers to help introduce boxing at the school.  Basically, we watched children box each other and played random games with them at the end of the day. The next day all of us volunteers went on a hike, my first hike through snow. Now I’m back in my village about to begin the second semester of school with no break until school finishes in June. A few months ago I would have said ‘bring it on,’ but at this moment I’m thinking ‘just survive until summer.’ Sigh.

Reality

Sorry, I'm too tired to write a real blog post right now. I just got back from Istanbul and learned that school has been cancelled for the next week, no one seems to know why... Here are some pictures for now and I will save my blog post for later in the week when I am bored out of my mind :)

All of the volunteers from my old village gathered for new years and travelled together to each of our families houses

After New Years, Andy and I went to my current host family's house to celebrate with my neighbors

We hiked to this new church in Noyemberyan, the town closest to my village

We traveled to another town called Dilijan to spend a few days in the mountains

The Blue Mosque in Istanbul

Spice Market

Old Tbilisi

Pedestrian Bridge

Christmas Time is Here!

I only have one more week of school and plan on turning it into a huge Christmas music dance party.  I’ve officially turned into the American Holiday girl.  During Thanksgiving I went to most classes and talked about the history of Thanksgiving and showed pictures of our Thanksgiving dinner in Armenia.  Now I’ve been recruited to teach about Christmas.  I know I’m going to have a blast teaching the children Christmas songs and ‘trying’ to translate the songs together into Armenian.  I hope that after New Year’s I can start teaching more actual English lessons because learning about American holidays won’t really help the children in the long run.  The Spelling Bee was a great success so I want my students to join in two other competitions in the coming months focused on writing and poetry. 

In other news, I finally have a visa and my passport back! I’ve been stressing out the past weeks because our visas had expired and we had to send out passports to Yerevan to get the situation fixed.  Many of us are going out of the country in the next few weeks so we were anxiously awaiting our visas.  Another volunteer is bringing back my passport today because I have no time to go there before I begin my Christmas adventures. Over the next few weeks I will be traveling to Tbilisi, Istanbul and all over Armenia with my boyfriend.  I’m looking forward to Christmas parties, New Year’s celebrations, an engagement party and a visit back to my old host family.  I probably won’t write again until January J

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!