MY ADVENTURES IN ARMENIA

21

AN ARMENIAN BAPTISM

      The day before Easter, I had the privilege of standing up as Godfather at the baptism of my Gugark family, that is the family where I lived in training. The mother told me that she wished to have her two boys, now 12 and 13, baptized and they wished it as well. They also wanted to wear crosses, so when I was in Jerusalem, I bought sterling silver crosses for them. I didn’t know what sort of crosses they would prefer, and there were no Armenian crosses where I did my selecting, and my personal taste runs to the severely plain. So I bought two plain crosses. On impulse I bought a Jerusalem cross set with turqpoise for the mother. Imagine my surprise when I got to gugark and discovered that the mother and father were to be baptized as well. The mother told me that when she went to the priest, he asked, “Are you and your husband baptized?” And he said he thought if the boys were going accept baptism, the boys ought to as well.
      There are two Armenian churches that I know of in Vanadzor, as well as a Russian Orthodox church. There is a new large church built since the earthquake, and an older, smaller church whose age I don’t know, maybe two hundred years. That is where the baptism was to take place. There is no church in Gugark. All four grandparents came along, and the mother’s brother. I hadn’t bought a cross for the father, but his brother-in-law is a jeweler, and supplied the cross for father.
      I of course brought along my camera, but for the service I found I had duties. An Armenian baptism is not a simple splashing or pouring of water as in the West, but a ritual bathing. Two priests were in attendance, and one sang or chanted some of the ritual. The baptismal basin is set in the wall near the chancel, as it is in Spitak. It has a dairn, and the priest put in the plug and poured in the water from an ornamental ewer. I noticed steam coming off the water, so it was warm water. The priest blessed the water by swishing his cross around in it, and then added some oil. I was instructed to stand next to the basin. The family had brought along four small towels, and my part was to towel the participants dry after the priest had applied the water. Instead of just a pat with a wet hand as in most protestant churches, he applied water to forehead, the back of the neck, the upper chest and the knees. I had witnessed a baptism in Spitak where the young women was wearing such tight slacks that she had trouble exposing her knees. Here the priest let the shin do for the knee, and after the ritual application, I applied a towel to the area. Each finished off the drying, and handed the towel to a grandmother who was standing behind. After the symbolic washing was finished, the priest applied a dab of oil to the places that had been washed. He told me I could take pictures while he applied the oil. After taking a picture, I gave the camera to the uncle to complete the picture taking.
      Third part of the ceremony was the bestowing of the crosses. Besides the chains, each cross had been threaded with a thin read and white ribbon, and I was supposed to tie the ribbon around each person’s neck. But between the clumsiness of my arthritic fingers and not being able to see because I didn’t have my reading glasses, it was more than I could manage, so a grandmother stepped up and did the actual tying and fastening.
      It was a very impressive ceremony, and I told the priest afterwards that I felt honored to be taking a part and that we in the West (that is, aside from the Baptists) could take a lesson in restoring some of the sense of actual washing away of sin from our ceremony. Afterwards, because it was the mother’s 35th birthday, there was a big party at the house with 21 adults and children.
      That might have been the end of my adventure in Armenian Baptisms, but it isn’t. The other day man who lives in one of the Italacan houses nearest me waylaid me on the street and asked me something. Alas, I don’t know enough Armenian to understand him, so I asked him to write me a message, and I would have someone at school read it to me. A few days later, he met me with a message. It aske dme to be Godfather to his children at their baptism. At first, I thought it might be a scheme to get money out of me, because Armenians think all visiting Americans are rich. But then I got to thinking it might be someone who had seen me at church or going to church on the bus that the Sisters at the Mother Theresa house supply to the neighborhood children. So I visited the family and that turned out to be the case. The mother attends the Tuesday session when the Armenian priest comes, and I have attended occasionally. The sisters provide religious instruction neighborhood children, and are arranging a baptism either at the church or at the hospice. The parents dot have anyone they could immediately ask to stand sponsor for their child, so they thought of me. I guess I’m flattered, but I have to speak with the Sisters about the propriety of it.They speak English.

20

HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION

      As the school year ended, I had to think about what project I would take on, because we Volunteers are expected to be doing useful work even when school is out. Many volunteers were going to be involved in “green camps,” But I was in Armenia to teach English, and felt I hadn’t gotten much accomplished during the year. So I decided to set up an intensive English course. I wanted a course of three hours a day, five days a week, for six weeks, a total of 90 hours. And I was hoping to attract beginners, Spitakians who found that English would be useful for them but who had not not learned any or very little in school.
      I contacted the local YMCA in downtown Spitak, which has an English program, and described my summer course, and the director agreed that it it was a good idea and the Y would sponsor it, but it would have to be in the afternoon. I only wanted 16 in a class, and we would sit in a circle, something very alien to Armenians in a learning situation. So I made up a poster, had it translated, and announced two classes, one in the morning at the school where I taught in the Italican district and the other in the afternoon at the YMCA. At the school, when I had an organizational meeting, Thirty kids showed up, some from our own “special” school and some from the local regular school. The only teacher at the school besides Nuneh, the English teacher, whot speaks English was Emilia, the computer teacher, who was also my Armenian tutor. I had hired her to be my assistant, since I knew I still didn’t have enough English to manage the kids alone. (Nuneh, the English teacher, lives in Spitak proper and would have to take a bus to school every day.) I couldn’t possibly have the sort of class I wanted with that many students, and I had no way of cutting out half, so we decided to have two classes two days a week each.
      At the YMCA, all of the kids who showed up were school kids who already knew some English, no adults and no beginners. Again there were thirty applicants. I explained the class was for beginners, so I went around the group and chose those who seemed to have the least English and told the others that if they came back a week later, I would see if I could work something out for them. I should say that many of them went to private lessons during the school year, and I could actually have a conversation with them, and most in town were more fluent than the Italicon students.
      Complications began at once. I was informed that the school would close down completely in July, so I would only have four weeks for my class, and there was no other place in Italican that anybody knew of where we could meet. So my assistant and I decided to try to reassemble the kids in August for the final two weeks. Then at the YMCA, I was informed that a group was coming from Norway to conduct a song and dance workshop, and would need the room three days a week, and they took priority. So I was down to three days, which turned out to be Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
      I had wanted to charge for the course, since I firmly believed that students (and their parents) would take it more seriously if they were investing money in it. I couldn’t accept money, but the money could go to pay my assistant and pay for supplies. But the Peace Corps nixed that. Their argument was that I am a volunteer, and even the appearance that I might be receiving money was bad for public relations. As it turned out, I was right, and because they were not investing in the course, half dropped out very quickly.
      I also discovered that keeping their attention was no easy task, My assistant at Italacon was absolutely essential for keeping order, even though the class was entirely voluntary. And though I wanted to have a three hour class with a snack break, but snacks turned out to be impractical, And the best I could do was keep their attention for an hour and a half. The kids from the public school were, as I would have guessed, more attentive and better behaved than the students I had had during the year. My own had good intentions, but the use of balls and toys tended to over-stimulate them.
      At the YMCA, the students were more attentive in general, but though they professed to want three hours, it soon became evident that two was their practical limit. The result was that instead of the intensive course I had planned, I was giving the classes three hours a week in the morning, and six in the afternoon.
      My intention was to teach for six weeks, and then go to Scotland for a month, but I discovered that I had only three weeks’ accumulated leave time, and that was not enough for what I wanted to do in Scotland. Besides, I also discovered that onr Mid-Service conference was gong to be held July 31st and August 1st, which meant I could not to go on vacation until after Conference. One of my dreams was to go to Istanbul and see the great Church of Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sofia) which the Turks had turned into a mosque in 1563 when the conquered the city, but had been turned into a museum by Ataturk in the 1930’s. Though there is no direct road link between Turkey and Armenia because of Turkey’s solidarity with Azerbaijan over the Karabagh issue, there is a weekly bus that runs from Yerevan north through Vanadzor and Alaverdi to Tiflis in Georgia and thence through Georgia and across northern Turkey to Istanbul. It is a 36-hour trip from Vanazor. I understood that meals are served on the bus. I went to a tourist agency in Vanadzor and signed up for the third of August, the day after I got back from mid-Service Conference.
      When I got to Vanadzor in the early afternoon of the third and checked in at the Tourist Agency, they called the bus company, and informed me that the bus had broken down somewhere on the way and they would have to report its status later. So I waited around, and the report was that the bus could not be repaired in time, and no other bus was available in Yerevan, so the trip had to be cancelled. So having no other option, I rescheduled for the 9th. Then on the afternoon of the 7th, the Program Director of the Peace Corps called me and asked if I had heard the news about Georgia. I had, and I knew what was coming. He said that the Volunteers in Georgia were in lockdown and might be assembled for evacuation. And since Volunteers are subject to the Peace Corps rules of whatever country they are visiting, I could not travel through Georgia by bus. I immediately called the bus company to cancel (that is, had my hostess call). They said the situation wasn’t affecting the bus trip, but I had to explain that it was the Peace Corps’s call, not mine. I then went into town, and because it was getting late, hired a taxi to go into Vanadzor. At the travel agency, I cancelled my bus trip once again and got a plane reservation for Istambul on August 12th. The taxi driver was good enough to wait and take me back to Spitak. But when I went to the Internet place in Spitak, I could not get my e-mail to open, so I had to come back on Saturday to inform the Peace Corps, the hotel and my family of the change in plans.
      I’m writing this on the 10th, Sunday, and must go into Spitak when the Internet place opens and check my messages and also see if the Volunteers in Georgia were evacuated. Keep watching this space for further developments on “How I spent My Summer Vacation.”

19

PEACE CORPS ARMENIA MID-SERVICE CONFERENCE

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On July 31 and August 1, we A-15’s, that is, those who are the 15th group to come to Armenia, in June of 2007, met for our Mid-Service Conference. Here we were, half-way through our service in Armenia, (except for those who will extend, and a fair number do each year). Of the 45 who arrived in Armenia, 13 have returned home, or not quite a third. I think that’s better than some, but pretty close to normal. One didn’t return home, but married an Armenian boy she met in training and stayed on in his village. What I heard at Conference is that she is happy and expecting a baby in September. The others left for various reasons. Some because of illness in the family back home. Some for violating the rules about being out of the country and not coming back when they said they would. The Peace Corps is very hard-nosed about knowing where we are all the times. When I was in the Peace Corps in Poland, 1990-1992, they were much more casual about knowing where we were, but that was before cell-phones, and more importantly before 9/11. One man, older than most, but a lot younger than me, had a drinking problem, and I heard that Washington decided that rehabilitation would take longer than the 45 day maximum allowed for medical evacuation. I hope he gets his problem solved, because he was a nice guy, and as far as I knew was competent at what the Peace Corps selected him for. Three older volunteers found that living in Armenia just caused too many dietary and other health problems, but five other 50+ women, one older than I, are getting along fine. So the new policy of selecting older volunteers is vindicated.>
      As an aside regarding age, I should mention a man I met in Washington as a medical evacuee. He was sent home for a heart problem, but apparently the doctors were finding that it was clearing up. He told me that in his first year, they told him he was the oldest Volunteer. But he was in his fourth year. Ordinarily, Volunteers only extend for one year, and he was prepared to leave after his regular two, but he was helping the university in the country where he was serving revise its program to conform more to world standards, and was teaching a required course. At the last minute of his second year, he was informed that the person recruited to take his place had not come or gone home, and could he extend, because the course was needed. So he did, and the same thing happened the third year. There he was in Washington, and ordinarily someone that close to leaving would not be sent back, but he was worried that he was the only person capable of finishing the course and giving the exams. I left before he did, so I don’t know how things turned out for him. He turned out to be one week older than I, but we have a volunteer two years older than I am.>
      Back at the conference, the parents of one of our younger volunteers had come to spend a holiday with their son and accompany him to the hotel where we were staying, but they arrived to find that he had made a technical violation of Peace Corps rules and was being separated. I later learned from volunteers that knew him better, that he had become very frustrated with life in Armenia and the restricted life in his village and he was happy to be leaving. He claimed he had not in fact done what he was accused of, (riding a motorcycle, contrary to Corps rules about driving motor vehicles), but his friends said he was so frustrated he had taken to talking too rashly and treading the fine line between permissible and impermissible behavior. A couple of months earlier another Volunteer for separated for a more serious offense, of which I know nothing, except that his friends staged a going-away party for him, during which he called me up at midnight, imitated the voice of our safety director and advised me that we were being evacuated to Yerevan as a precaution because of the situation between Russia and Georgia, just to the north. Not having any reason not to believe that the voice was indeed our Safety Director, I made the necessary preparations, and did not find out it was a hoax till the next morning when I called to get further instructions. The Safety Director investigated and informed me later that he had solved the problem and it would not happen again. Because of strict confidentiality rules, I didn’t find out until later who was responsible and that he had been terminated. Then it was not until much later that I discovered he was sent out of the country for something more serious than making hoax telephone calls. And still later that the call was made during a party. I considered the call an act of hostility, especially problematical since I hardly knew him except at all-group meetings at which our encounters had never been anything but cordial. It seems to be a general attitude among this excessively non-judgmental generation that the only sin is to give a bad party. >
      It seems to be a continuing problem with the Peace Corps, and I suppose other organizations, that the present younger generation grows up in a culture of excessive partying, and no matter how competent people may be in their professional lives, they bring this partying culture with them. We were continually being warned during training, when we were housed in villages not far from each other, that word was getting back that some of the partying was getting out of hand. And we were reprimanded at the first all-service conference at Thanksgiving time that some of the young women were observed in the halls of the hotel scantily clad and showing the effects of more alcohol than was good for them. I also heard from an older member of the A-16’s in training that admonitions had been made to that group about excessive partying. I don’t know what went on the last night of the Conference I started out to tell about, but my young roommate did not come in at all the last night. He told me when I saw him again that he had attended a “slumber party.” >
      When a volunteer is separated, he or she is given the option of resigning, so that the infraction does not appear on any record. I think few infractions are of a serious nature, but the Peace Corps feels it has to be very careful about what nationals in the host country think of the Americans among them. Also they insist that we cooperate in having them know where we are at all times, just in case something serious might happen. In our case in Armenia, ever since the election in February, the opposition has cried foul and has staged protests regularly, which we are under strict orders to avoid. The problem is that because of strict confidentiality rules, what should be object lessons to the rest of us are known more through rumor than through fact. The result is often exactly what the Peace Corps would like to avoid. One thing we discussed in a general meeting was that some Volunteers felt that people were being brought into the office on hearsay charges and not allowed to be represented. Or they were called in and asked about what they knew about the behavior of other volunteers. Under the circumstances, it is difficult situation for the administration, because in the host country, the appearance of transgression may be as serious as the fact of it, and they have to act for what they see as the good of the whole program. So be advised, potential volunteers: You can have a rewarding experience without much trouble, but you do have to be more discrete, more circumspect, more self-policing in your behavior than is expected of you back home. >
      The business part of the conference went satisfactorily. We met together to discuss our year and get information about some changes in policy. We also had a medical interview and a language interview to see how we had progressed in our competency. Some of the younger volunteers are quite fluent, but I don’t pretend to be even close. I don’t think I’m the worst, but I’m down there. >
      We were at Tsaghkadzor, Armenia’s ski resort, which is also popular in summer because it is high up and cool. We were at a hotel called The University Guest House, but there is no university up there, so it must be a hotel owned by the university for vacations by faculty and students, and for conferences. There were a few other families there, but the place was by no means full. We are always housed alphabetically, and since the man formerly just above me alphabetically was gone, I was roomed with the next fellow higher up the alphabet. I have to confess I was charged with damage in the room. After showering I sat down on the toilet seat lid to wipe off my lower legs and feet, and the lid shattered under my weight. I thought that’s what toilet seat lids were for, sitting on to dry one‘s feet, and I just escaped being severely cut in a delicate place by the shards of heavy plastic; but they charged me $20 for the broken seat, half to be paid by the Peace Corps, and half to come out of my living allowance.>
      It being a conference hotel, we all received the same meal, typically Armenian, and mostly exactly what my hostess feeds me in my home at Spitak. But the last night, the meat was liver. I have a hard time imagining a meal where the sole choice of meat is liver, though to give them their due, there were also slices of a cold cut similar to Braunschweiger. >
      Several of our young men had started a chicken beard contest in November to see who would be the last to shave. Two rather ratty-looking beards remained. The last evening we were to have a baseball game with the A-16’s who were being bussed from their training site at Charentsavan, about a half hour away. The bearded ones decided to donate their beards to a peculiar cause. All the players and a few of us supporters received long hanks of beard, which we fastened to our own chins with BandAids. The young man had donated the hair from the middle and braided the two sides and looked rather like pictures of Ghengis Khan. After the game, both young men shaved off the rest. The ball field was in rather bad shape, since it was rough pasture, but we managed to win 10-0 (not counting the last inning when things began to fall apart.) Most of the non-plyers at least batted. I was offered the chance to pitch but declined on the basis that I hadn’t touched a baseball in at least 55 years, and an offer to bat, which I also declined on the grounds that I might actually hit the ball and would have to run, which I was sure I couldn’t because of my bad ankle. The other team had provided themselves with water balloons which suddenly appeared after their sixth out in the last inning. We had generously offered them ten.

18

Hot days in Spitak

      I'm writing this at the end of July, and the hot days are upon us. At least, since we are 5000 feet up, the shade is reasonably cool, and it cools off some at night. I'd hate to live in Yerevan, which is much lower, and the hot days can be and impossible as Columbus. On July 13 and August 1, we Peace Corps Volunteers who came last year will have our Mid-service Conference at a town up near Lake Sevan, which I hope is as high up as Spitak. Lake Sevan is one of the highest large lakes in the world. Not as high as Lake Titicaca in Peru/Bolivia, of course, but high. Every Armenian who can goes there sometime during the summer. The water is so cold, you can't swim until mid-July.
      I come back to Spitak on August 2nd and have just enough time to pack and go to Vanadzor where I will take a bus that goes to Istambul, Turkey. The bus begins in Yerevan, picks up passengers in Vanadzor at 4pm then procedes northyeast to the Georgian border and Tiflis before heading for the Georgian-Turkish border. It's a 36-hour bus trip, but I thought a bus trip would be the best way to see the countryside between here and Istambul, and I hope and pray it is at least marginally more comfortable for sleeping than a plane, where "recline" is still bolt upright. We get to Istambul at 2 in the morning. I have a hotel reservation, but my sister introduced me by e-mail to a missionary couple from her church who live in a suburb of Istambul. I have to get the return bus reservation when I get there, but I think I will be back on August 16.
      Write me at abner35@hotmail.com. There is an e-amil site with this web-site, but I've forgotten the password and can't get to it.

17

GETTING HALF-WAY THROUGH 2008

      When I applied for the Peace Corps I knew I had a cataract, but it had not been developing very fast, and I thought I could wait until after my service to have it fixed. I didn’t know much about cataract surgery, and was of the opinion that all surgery has its risks and it was better not to have surgery until one needed it. At first the peace Corps rejected me on account of the cataract, and if the medical office and been more forthright and I had known in advance how long the process of joining the peace Corps was going to take I would have had the operation while I was waiting.
      Be that as it may, I came to Armenia with a cataract in my left eye that was beginning to affect my vision a little, and one in my right eye that was not affecting it yet. But in February I suddenly developed a dark spot in my right eye, and between it and the cataract in the left, I couldn’t read. Fearing it might be a detached retina or something else serious, I immediately contacted the Peace Corps medical office, and they took me to see some specialists in Yerevan. They could not find any damage to the eye itself or the nerve but were unsure of the cause of the dark spot. So after consultation with the Washington medical office, they decided to Medivac me to Washington for further examination. Here I should say incidentally that I was impressed by the skill of the doctors and the up-to-date state of the equipment available in Yerevan.
      So I found myself almost before I knew it in Washington. The policy in the Peace Corps is that for reasons of insurance and liability, surgery and other procedures are performed in Washington. Volunteers can me medically evacuated for up to 45 days, and if the problem cannot be solved within that time, Volunteers ore medically separated and sent home.
      The Peace Corps permanently leases several suites in an apartment-hotel across the Potomac in the Rosslyn section of Arlington county known as the Arlington Suites Hotel. It is reasonably convenient to the Metro subway system, and every morning at 9:30 a van took us to the Peace Corps building and brought us home every afternoon at 4. We received a very generous daily stipend for meals and incidental expenses, and could prepare our own meals if we wished in the kitchenettes of our suites. I was sent to an internist for a general checkup, who pronounced me fit for eye surgery, and to an eye specialist who determined that the dark spot was not the result of eye or nerve damage and would probably go away, but in the meantime I should have cataract surgery.
      I was just too late for his next Monday surgery schedule, so the first operation was scheduled for a week later. Meanwhile I was advised that I could go anywhere I pleased as long as I kept the Medical Office informed of my whereabouts, so I few out to California to visit my sister. Of course I had to pay for that trip, but my daily sipend continued wherever I was.
      The scheduling for both eyes kept me in America for almost the full 45 days, and I was able to see much more of Washington than I had sever seen, and I went to New york for a day.
      While I was in America, Armenia held its national election at the beginning of March. This turned out to be a time of considerable tension for both Armenia and for the Peace Corps there. Volunteers are to be scrupulously non-partisan, so we were already warned not to attend political rallies, even as observers. The current President was standing down, and the number two man was standing for President. The opposition candidate was Armenia’s first President. When the official results were announced, the government party candidate was declared the winner with 53% of the vote. The opposition immediately cried foul. (They had been crying foul all during the campaign.) they began calling protest rallies that drew large crowds. A flurry of cell phone and e-mail warnings went out from headquarters to the volunteers warning them not to come to Yerevan and sometimes not to leave their home villages and towns. I was getting the e-mail messages in Washington. We were also warned to be vary careful about what we put on our blogs because since the media were bing controlled and censored by the government Armenians were not getting accurate information about what was going on in their own country and were poring over our blogs and whatever else they could find on the Internet to find out what was going on. A series of protest meetings were beoing held in Yerevan, and people were camped out in the park surrounding the Opera House. Then one morning the government decided to break up the camp and set upon them early in the morning before most were up. The protesters reassembled on another avenue, shots were fired and eight persons were killed, including a man who was just watching from his balcony.
      Whether the election was rigged is a question I can’t pretend to answer. Whether the government needed to rig the election is another unanswerable question. It didn’t seem that the former President was unpopular. My host told me before I left for Washington that he thought the current President was a good man, and he supported his successor.
      Back in the 1960’5 there was a television show called Mission Impossible in which the Mission Impossible team would go into a country, take out the corrupt dictator, and allow the natural democratic tendencies take over. The philosophy of the writers was that democracy is the natural aspiration of the people and tyranny or corruption is the product of evil individuals. But real life is nowhere so simple. Democracy is something that has to be learned and gradually acclimatized. Consider how few countries, even in Europe, were effectively democratic before World War II. It seems to be a general rule that countries cannot sustain a democracy before the reach a certain stage of economic development. The reason isn’t so hard to find. In poor and undeveloped countries, virtually the only source of wealth is government activity, so those in power cling to it. As a result, when we had a hand in changing governments, virtually and government we installed was bound to become strong-man rule. After World War II, the United States was constantly criticized for installing and supporting dictators. The most notable examples were Taiwan and south Korea. And for a long time, those countries were ruled by regimes that could not be honestly called democratic. But as they developed economically, a change too place in their governments as well, and today both countries are, if not perfect democracies, at least functioning democracies.
      The reason is in some part the same reason why America is a functioning democracy. In the first place, economic activity is so far beyond the immediate control of the government that there are better ways of making a lot of money and wielding power than politics. And second, public policy is shaped by so many extra-governmental institutions that (in spite of the idealistic pronouncements of candidates) not much will be altered by a simple change in administration. Universal health care is an example. There is a lot of rhetoric about the state of our health care and the number of people without adequate insurance, but the reason we do not have universal health care is that the majority of Americans do have adequate health care through the present work-related health insurance system, and they are afraid that a universal health care system will deliver less to them than they are now getting. Policies do change, but they take a great deal of national debate which does not necessarily go on within the government. In poorer countries, leaders are reluctant to cede power because they fear that a change of administration will mean a radical change in government policies. And that seems to have some bearing on what happened in Armenia.
      And of course in countries with uncertain democratic institutions, the opposition begins to cry foul before the election, and before they know there is anything to cry foul about, which plays a part in making the public skeptical about the process.

16

CHRISTMAS IN ARMENIA

      I decided to spend Christmas with my Gugark family, and I planned to get there on the afternoon of New Years Eve. The younger generatin had just moved into a new house--new to them. It's an elegant place the my hostess though was built no long before the earthquake in 1988, but has been vacant for a decade, because the owners moved to russia. It's on three levels. Like most village homes, the ground floor is given over to a garage and work areas. There is also a bathroom in a separate building. I mean with running water. The third floor is entered by a separate spiral staircase. It is all one huge room, that seems like a ballroom or a lorge classroom. The middle floor is the living quarters, and luckily being vacant hadn't damaged the fancy wallpaper or seiling carved or molded decorations. There are three bedrooms, a kitchen,large bathroom off the kitchen, and what amounts to three living rooms. There is a long entrance room that leads to the kitchen, a central room without windos with deoors to the entry room, a bedroom on each side, and the main living room. The main living room is large and contains the dining set, which seats eight when fully extended--more if the chairs weren't so huge. Also the Television, and a suite that includes a three-seat sofa, a two-seater, and a single. All look like they were designed for 300-pounders. That's true of the other suite that is divided between the front and middle rooms. The master bedroom is off the living room. This means any meal has to be carried a long way from the kitchen, and the master bedroom is farthes from the bathroom. Armenians don't think like Americans.
      That evening, being New Year's Eve, we drove3 into Vanadzor to shoot off fireworks in the public square and see Santa Claus and various cartoon or storybook figures cavorting around the huge tree. Not a huge crowd, bu8t a firly ample crowd of people coming and going.
      Then we came back to the parents' house, which was where I lived for the summer. The Brother is working in Russia, but his wife and son and daughter were there. Also a couple ofother relatives. We waited supper while the men started the outdoor fire for the barbeque. Men don't do much housework, but they are in charge of the barbeque, so they have to stand out in the severe cold to get the fire going and cook the meat. this happened several times over the next week. The kids set off the fireworks at midnight and then we ate. i should say that fireworks are not banned in Armenian, and the kids shot off orman candles, which are long tubes that send out several rounds of Roman Candles, and those firecrackers you throw at other people's feet. Not with a wick, but a lighting end. I don't know what the casualty rate f rom those tings, if any, is.
      The next three days are given over entirely to visiting back and forth. I went on one trip to Vanadzor where we visited a friend of my hosts, another family, and my hostess's suster and her husband, who live in an apartment which the new house certainlhy makes look shabby.
      I should say that in Armenia it is humiliating to a mother if her son and family move out of the family home. but Mother-in-law and daughter-in-law just had too strong personalities to live comfortabvle together. The justification now is tht it was such a good investment for the children. and if the old folks ev er get too old to handle the garden and dairy, there is more room for everybody in the new house. Which my hostess is thankful is on too small a plot to contain anything more than a couple of fruit trees. she works full time.
      Everybody in town, of course, wanted to see the new house, so my hostess had three big "dinners" the next week--one for the relatives, one for the hostess's female coworkers in City Hall, and one for the neighbor women. I put "dinners' in quotes because except for the barbeque, the food was mostly prepared the days before, and preparation consisted mostly of contantly restoring the used plates and service. In fact hostess had set the table grandly before we left for Vanadzor, and noting was touched that night. Everywhere, tables looked the same, bowls of mixed nuts, fruit, cold meats, a huge fish, candy, and drinks of all kinds. Tolma, was constantly restored, Tolma is a meat and rice concoction rolled in either grape leaves or cabage leaves. After each of the big events, i saw that my hostess had an awful lot of cleaing up to do, so while she was restoring the table, I began to wash the plates, stemware, flatware, and cups. Other hostesses won't hear of it, but the hostess. who speaks pretty good English, and i got into that arrangement dring the summer, because I saw she was working along workweek and coming ;home to hadn-washing the clothes and clenaing the house. she appreciated the help! but she said, "Don't start until all the women have left." It showed New years Eve and New years Day, so it was quite picturesque. On some days, my hosts went calling, and I stayed home with one or both of the boys. People would scome calling, help themselves at the table, and leave.
      On Fruiday I had some shopping to to and I wanted to go to the Internet Place, so i went in to Vanadzor. Most of the shops were closed, but ere were a few vendors in the Shuka (Souk) My regular Internet place was closed, but I found one open while wandering around. I had bought videos for the boys, but there was no gift exchange Christmas morning. We did have a traditional food dish associated with christmas, but I forget what it was. Christmas afternoon was when the special feast for the neighbors was held. Gugark doesn't have a church, so there was no question of going to church on Christmas or the sunday before. Some homes had christmas trees, but my host family only put two balsam boughs on the wall, in a tree shape and decorated it. There was lots of special christmas programming on Armenain television. I keep saying that both Armenian and Russian television are much more interesting than ours with live open-house type entertainment shows. Of course Armenai is a small country and the professional entertainers seem more like family. I'm reminded of the early days of television when there was more live local television in America And there are not many of us left who remember Broadway Open House, which is a lot more like Armenian T.V.
      I came back th Spitak the day after Christmas. the Schools in Gugark resumed that day. But sometime during that week, the mistry of Education proclaimed another week for us, and two for them. The temperature hovered around 0F the whole period.
      By the way, mice are considered a lucky New years Symbol, so I was surprized to see Minnie Mouse dolls everywhere. and Jingle Bells seems to be the national music symbol of Christmas. I'm told there are Armenian Christmas songs. but I didn't learn any.
15

CHRISTMAS IS COMING!

      In Armenia, Christmas is celebrated according to the old church calendar, which puts it on January 6. the school term ended December 22, and resumes Jan. 14, so we have a long holiday. In some high and remote areas, because of the cold, school stays out another month. Teachers and students put up decoratins in the rooms and in the halls, including a couple of Christmas trees.
      From the long Soviet experience, New years is a bigger holiday than Christmas, which I will find out. Fish is an important part of holiday eating, and the marktes hav huge fish for sale, and there are tanks where you can buy large live fish. I came home one afternoon and found a huge ugly thing with a long snout lying in the bathtub.
      The last day of school, Saturday, there will be a shool party, but I already planned to be in Yerevan. I plan to go to my summer host family in Gugark from December 31 to June 7, so I will find out then what a traditional Armenian Cristmas is like
15

MY ARMENIAN THANKSGIVING

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      There was a Peace Corps All-Volunteer Conference the weekend before Thanksgiving, and we took over the hotel kitchen Sunday and had our Thanksgiving dinner Sunday night. But I wanted to do something on the actual day. My school serves lunch every day at 2, so I decided to donate enough turkeys to feed them. They couldn't find turkeys (though I don't think they looked very hard!) so they bought chickens, and boiled them in a big pot. and cut them up. Everybody had a piece of chicken and some rice, which was good made with chicken stock. Usually they serve lentils, but they didn't that day, just Chicken, rice, and bread. I brought Coke for myself. And I bought 4 kilos of cookies, which gave everybody two. The teachers ate in the Teachers' room, but I ate with the kids as I usually do. (Teachers don't usually eat at school, even those who monitor the kids eating.) The last class, before lunch, I went in, and the whole class stood up in unison and said, "Thank you, Mr. Davis." I don't know who put them up to that. So I felt I had a good Thanksgiving away from home. In some of my classes I showed the Thanksgiving scene from the first season of the Cosby Show.
      After school, I was invited to the home of two of my students, a girl in llth grade who is fairly fluent in English and works hard at it, and her brother in 10th. She hadn't felt well and didn't go to school. They invited me for supper, but it would be at 8:30 when their father got home. So I went home to rest for a little and came back down with my new copy of Wizard of Oz, which their younger brother (5 years old) and I watched, and the two older ones watched between helping their mother. Father brought three men with him, and I don't know who they were, relatives or work colleagues. They live in one of the very small prefab houses built after the earthquake, and the older boy sleeps in the kitchen. They set up the table in front of the sofa. The main dish was mutton. The part we were eating, the meat was bound up in ligaments. The men ate the ligaments and all, but I was trying to chew the meat out of the ligaments, and it wasn't easy. Needless to say, we ate with our fingers and used lavash, which is a thin bread like what they wrap burritos in, only larger. There were pickled vegetables, and potatoes. There were soft drinks of I'm not sure what flavor, and the men brought vodka in liter Coca Cola Bottles. I don't know its provenance, but I thought it was stronger than the commercial stuff. My limit is usually 2 1/2 jiggers, and nobody seems to mind when I declare I've had enough. I was really feeling those 2 1/2! I excused myself at 10. One reason to go home had been to come back with my flashlight. The older brother, my student, insisted on accompanying me home, though I told him that with my light, I could manage. It wasn't far, the equivalent of two city blocks.
      It was starting to snow when I left, and snowed all night. We have about 2 inches on the ground, though the temperature seems to be just above freezing, and the streeets in town are clear. Peace Corps had handed us out crampons of wire coils on rubber thongs that stretch over the shoe. I really need them on the slope between home and school, so I wore them, but found I don't need them in town. I need to buy myself some serious boots for winter. (Note: Which i did later, and now need the crampons less.)
      Anyway, it's sort of snowing this afternoon (Friday after Thanksgiving) and the clouds are too low to see the tops of the mountains. I should mention that when I started for Yerevan last Friday, I needed my winter coat here, but in Yerevan, I could walk around town in just a sweater. The altitude in Yerevan is much lower. We didn't have snow, but the villages in the high country still had snow from the previous snowfall, which was rain for us in Spitak.
      Out hotel was a 15 story tower on high ground in town, and we had a magnificent view of Ararat--except that the haze or smog was so bad we only saw it faintly at dawn and then not at all the rest of the day.
      It had started to snow when i left, and when I got up this morning there was about 2 inches of snow on the ground. So that was my Thanksgiving. A special dinner for the kids, and invitation out, and the first real snow of the season. Love, Richard Davis
14

ARMENIAN MEDICINE

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      Armenians' approach to medicine is quite different from the way we Americans take our medicine. Go into any general store in America, and you will find several patent medicines right at the check-out line: cough drops, pain relievers, cold medicines, etc. Not in Armenia. Not a sign of anyting faintly related to medicine in a general store. I have seen Hall's occasionally, but never when I went looking for any. I think they were there because the proprietor didn't know they weren't some sort of candy like Mentos.
      Anything remotely considered medicine is the exclusive province of the Aptekas, which sell nothing but medicine, and it all comes from Russia, and the labels and instructions are either bilingual or exclusively Russian. As far as I have found, there is no such thing as a cough drop. When I tried to pantomime what I wanted, all they ever gave me were throat lozenges. And there are no words on the English side of my dictionary for "cold" (noun), "allergy", or "flu." I did mamage to get a much stronger pain reliever when I was having ankle trouble than is available back home without a prescription.
      When my hostess had a backache, I offered her a coupleof Ibupropen, but she wouldn't accept them, and when I offered her a couple of Benadryl when she had a bad nose cold, she wouldn't take them either. But a lemon is sliced and squeezed into tea. I thought it was significant that the apothicary couldn't even begin to think in terms of what Americans take for granted for a cold, so i don't really know what is available. Earlier in the warm weather I went in to try to get some cough drops, but all I got was advice that if I had a cough, I shouldn't be eating an ice cream cone. The Peace Corps supplies us with Benadryl, Ibuprobpen, and Robitussen Cough Drops, but onlyin cherry flavor, when what I really want is eucalyptos-menthol.

14

AN ARMENIAN WEDDING

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      Last week I had the good fortune to attend an Armenian wedding. My hostess's (landlady's) sister got married. I hadn't met her yet, but had met the parents and a few other family members. As the sister, Nune was busy for days in advance. On the Saturday of the wedding, she left early but told me son Artrun would bring me over to her parents' huse at 10:30 in a taxi. I brought my camera. Quite a few of the bride's extended family were there already, and more arrived. Like most Armenian houses, the family home looks rather shabby and unpretentious on the outside, but is attractive and comfortable inside.
      It is the tradition for the groom to come to the bride's house bearing the wedding dress, but I think it was sent over early so that the bride would have more time to get ready. The groom soon arrived in a gussied up car, along with many of his family. He was carryng the bridal bouquet. Gifts were brought out to him, and there was dancing around the car. He had a red and a green sash across the front of his shirt. A fancy table was laid out on the driveway in front of the front door, and the bride and groom came out and were toasted, but otherwise the fancy table, its place settings and the food went entirely unused. Pretty soon we all piled into cars and went off to the banqueting place. It was about 1, then. In fact it took two trips to get everyone.       My understanding is that this banquet traditionally take place at the groom's house, but there were about 200 wedding guests, so the banquet was held at a party house near downtown. The barbeque was already roasting the shish kebabs when we got there. The set me at a long table with all of the brides fellow-teachers (all women!) because the two down at the near end were English teachers, and I would have somebody to talk to and have things explained to. Armenians don't use dinner-size plates. The plates are all desert-size plates. Good thing, because there was harly room. There was a salad with peas and one with mushrooms, variuous other relishes, and the first course was chicken. After the chicken, the barbecued beef was brought on. And after that, there was whole salmon, chopped into generous serving-sized pieces. To drink there were various soft drinks, and wine. And vodka for the toasts. There was an open space in front of the bridal table, and a lot of dancing went on, and yours truly was prevailed upon to partake of some of the dancing. Armenian dancing isn't all that complicated. Artrun, who is 16, danced as enthusiastically as anyone. He was one of the wedding party and sat at one end of the bridal table. Later the bride and groom danced. Every time I turned around, someone was shouting take my (our) picture, virtually all men. I ended up taking 100 pictures of the wedding. There was a professional photographer hired to video the wedding. Toward the end, they brought out the wedding cake and cut it into huge slabs. I cut the slab they gave me in half, and that was plenty. I wondered what was done with all the extra food left over. There was also red and black caviar, but I seemed to be the only one who partook of any.
      If this were an American wedding, everybody would be ready to go home and sleep it off, but if you have been paying attention you will realize that we haven't been to church yet. It was getting on toward six, when the banquet broke up, and we headed for church. By the time I got there, the ceremony had alrady started. There wasn't much ceremony about getting people seated, etc. In fact many people milled about, so I didn't feel too conspicuous goinmg this place and that, getting the best angle for the ceremony. Actually the professional videotaper was always in front and up close, so that the only good view of the ceremony will be the tape, because that is the one place one won't keep seeing him in the way.       I had a revelation about my students. It's no wonder they have trouble keeping still and paying attention in class, if their parents can't keep still and attendtive during a half-hour wedding service. At one point the priest had to stop and shush them. I'm not kidding! The service is a little longer than ours usually lasts, and at one point the couple are both crowned. At another point they are standing forehead pressed against forehead.
      It is traditional that the bride's mother does not attend her daughter's wedding, because that is supposed to bring bad luck. That is a superstion that is fading, I'm told, but I don't remember seeing the bride's mother there. Many people, including all the teachers, did come to the actual religious ceremony. Many relative stayed to clean up after the banquet.
      At the end of the ceremony two glasses of wine were given to the couple, and then passed from hand to hand through the congregation for each to take a sip. I should mention that when the priest was leafing he passed me, recognized me from my going to church, and shook my hand. I have a picture of the couple that looks like they are entering the church, but actually they are backing out. It is traditional that one doesn't turn one's back on the altar when leaving the church. That is a tradition not always respected, but it is traditional with the married couple. They were showered with flower petals, and at the steps, the bride turned her back and threw the bouquet over her shoulder. That is, she balked twice and then threw it. Other people were going on the the groom's house after the ceremony, but I went home by minibus. I just got home when all hell broke loose with the weather. I hope everyobdy got where they were going. It was briefly violent, but didn't last long. I gave Nune a Cd of the 100 pictures so that she could share them with her family as desired. I don't think I mentioned that the couple are both thirty. The bride gets a week off from school, but there was no wedding trip for a honeymoon.
      All in all I had a great time, and thogh I hardly had met anyone before that day, I came away with 199 best friends.

12

      Here's an update on my school adventure, third day. Once the schedule was worked out, I had a five-day week with Friday off. But my counterpart complained that she wanted and deserved a four day week. So there was a lot of helling and screaming, and in the end, everyone was happy and forgiving, and now my schedule consistes of four killer days in a row and Friday and Saturday off. Great, but I want you to know it was my Counterpart's doing, not mine.
      My Counterpart lives an awkward distance from school and does not want first period classes. There are six periods in the day, so On Monday and Thursday, I go four straight classes, and Tuesday and Wednesday I go five straight. But I get a long weekend to recover
       This is a Special School, and the Department of Education provides free notebooks for the students, one for each course, and a pen. And I mentioned that the first graders were presented with backpacks. I suppose the other classes got them. They get bread and tea after second period, and lunch at 2. Lunch is a very basic affair, with what looked like bread and a bowl of pease porridge. No meat. I should eat with them occasionally, just on general principles. I asked the directress, and she said be our guest. Then they return to their home-room, where they do their homework, play games, etc. until 5. Ten student will be boarding with the school, but not until the weather turns colder. They will be living in one or two of the pre-fabricated little houses built by the italians after the earthquake. Since none of the home-room teachers speaks English, I will go by occasionally and help with their English homework. And I am supposed to organize English clubs. I hope to incorporate television, and I have made some cloth balls that we can throw around and say appropriate things.
      I have to tell you that the students receive 8x 8 in. notebooks, and one shipment that arrived includes a picture of Brad Pitt with his shirt open and his manly chest showing. I can imagine a girl buying one, but it looks odd to see a whole class with a notebook with that cover. (I don't think I mentioned here that in the house where I live is a Men's spray deodorant with the same picture on it, but the label is "Brett Pidd".)
      The school seems to be losing population, and there only about an even 200 now. The lower classes are only 9-13, and I have three classes of 20, 21, and 25. Thank God they aren't all 25! The 11th or top class is 25 and notoriously hard to control. I discovered that the first day. But today, the second day, I decided to take matters in hand. As soon as we arrived, I sent my counterpart out of the room, saying I wanted to talk to them without an interpreter, depending on the blackboard and the more fluent students to get things across. So she left and I wrote on the blackboard that nobody is paying me a salary. The Peace Corps pays my host family for my room and board, and I get a measly 1200 Drams a day walking-around money (about $3.75) I went on that nobody says I have to do anything, and if I decide they are too excitable and won't pay attention to me, I have every right to say I won't try to teach them. So they should show me that courtesy if they want me for a teacher. When my Counterpart came back they said they wanted me for a teacher, so she sat in the back, gave me the class, and they were as good as gold, even though I wasn't prepared with anything special, just going through the book. I hope it lasts!
      The two next lower classes are eligible for a program called Flex, in which 40 Armenian students are selected to spend a year living with an American famiy and attending an American high school. So I asked my counterpart to have them write an essay about themselves so I could judge who might be invited to take part in the competiion. I think they might have some advantage, being disadvantaged, But the best they could do was pretty primitive. I started several sentences as examples, but nobody could go beyond finishing those sentences, usually very primitively. But if we decide to recommend anyone, we have a month to prepare them. The students have to be good in English, but other things play a part in the selection.

11

      I thought I would tell you about the first day of actual school, Monday, September 3. I guess that's Labor Day back home, so there's no use tuning in tonight for the Stock Market report. We have been assigned a 9:00 class on Monday, but my counterpart, Nune, wants to avoid 9:00 classes and may try to get it changed. She lives an awkward distance from this school. I don't mind, since I live only a five minute walk away. I told her I can handle the class if she is delayed. It is the fifth grade class, though they are using the fourth grade book.
      I don't understand the numbering of the years. They have had a ten-year system, but are converting to a twelve-year system, and for some reason, all the classes about 3 have been advanced one; but in English, they will now have a book one number behind their class's. As a result we have no Third Grade in the school. Third Grade is the year English starts, so the Fourth Grade class now uses Book 3. (There are no books one and two, since the book was named after the grade, not the level of English.
      I have spent some of my vacation sewing up balls made of 12 cloth pentagons each, and stuffed with flimsy plastic bags. They are great for throwing in a classroom because they won't throw far, won't bounce, and won't roll much. My lesson with them consistes of throwing the ball and saying "Catch," And then "throw me the ball," etc. gradually adding vocabulary and things to do. This was good for the first day of class 5, because they have had only on year of wice a week, and hardly know anything practical. And there are only 13 in the class, so we could sit around in a circle. Then we had Fourth grade, which are just starting English, so it was a good game to play for the first day. That class is only nine. My next class was 6, using book 5, (which we don't have yet) and since they know a little English, we threw the balls, but they had to say something about themselves when they caught a ball. Here are 13 in that class, and two sets of brothers. They are really sweet kids, and I hope I can still say that after a couple of months.
     &nbs The last class of the day is the 11th grade, using book 10. There are 20 in that class, and it will be a difficult one, because they want to control the class, and are not willing to refrain from talking. It will take ingenuity to control them.
     &nbs; One thing I hope to do if I can have use of the television is to make use of the Cosby Show, which I brought with me. I watched an episode Sunday, and recorded the audio and started a transcript. What I will do if I can keep ahead (and once I have a computer) is type a transcript and then add exercises on the vocabulary and structures. The episodes are 21 minutes, and divide fairly well into two ten-minute segments. That ought to keep their attention if I can incorporate it into their lesson. The school has a television and I have a player that attaches to a television and plays DVD's. But that will have to be worked out. Once I get a computer, I can use that, but viewing space will be more restricted. The Cosby show is 20 years old now, but things haven't changed that much, even in dress.
      I was right in my guess about the state of school organization. We now have a schedule for Tuesday, but that is as far as has been spelled out. I'm supposed to get a four-day week.
      The students got a snack break after second period, and are fed at the end of classes at 2. Later we will organize "clubs" between 2 and 5, but nobody has mentioned that yet. Some of the students live at the school. Not in the school, but in some of the little prefabricated houses across the road. Apparently the school must be losing clientel, because the lower grades have smaller classes. There was a directive that every class has to be 25, but apparently that has gone by the board. (Breathe huge sigh of relief!)

10

      Today, Sept. 1, was the first day of school. School ordinarily begins at 9, but today it began at 10 because the first day is not an actual school day. Everybody assembled in a big square in front of the building, by classes, everybody came in their best attire and some brought flowers. The new first graders were asked to line up in front, opposite the Seniors, holding a single rose, tied up as a gift flower, and the seniors recited one after another a litany of welcome. One gave the first grade class a miniature flag of Armenia, and another gave something else, and I forget what that was. The Seniors memorized their lines, and I must confess they sounded as if they had memorized something syllable by syllable in an unknown tongue. Then a couple of men from the Mayor's office and the Board of Education each said something. Then the Seniors handed each first grader a picture book of some sort and a brand new back-pack. One little boy was so scared he wouldn't line up with the other first graders, and when it came time to receive his gifts, his mother had to drag him there and hold him bodily. (Something that will be probably held over his head the rest of his life.)
      After that the students were dispersed to their individual classrooms, where they met their home-room teachers and were issued their books. Since my Conterpart is not a Home-room Teacher, that was all for the rest of us.
       Lest you think other countries are marvels of organization at times like this, let me assure you that this one, at least is not. We still don't have our daily schedules except for Monday, when there are two English classes. We get the rest of the schedule Monday, (or for Tuesday, at least.) I think I will have a four-day week, with Saturday off, and one day in the middle. Saturday is a regular school day in Armenia. Classes are in 45-minute periods from 9 to 2. There is no third grade in our school. I don't know why. There was a Directive that every class has to have 25 students, but there are only half that in the first grade. We only have ten classrooms, and only seven are big enough to hold 25 students.
      We Volunteers were told very carefully that men should wear coats and ties in the classroom, But I was the only male at school wearing a coat and tie today. Not even the director was wearing either. He did not take part in the ceremonies. Except for the phys ed teacher, I seem to be the only male teacher, though my Counterpart thinks there is another who did not show up. Teaching used to be an honorable male profession in Soviet Armenia, but with the collapse of the economy, men could not afford to teach on the salaries, so it became a job for women supplementing the fmaily income.
       Anyway I asked my Counterpart to ask the Vice-Principal what was appropriate for me to wear, and she said anything I feel comfortable in. I could wear jeans if I want to, she said. But my only pair of jeans has a hole in the knee.
      I keep mentioning my Counterpart, so I should explain for those who don't know. Since their Armenian is quite primitive even after a summer of intensive training, Peace Corps Volunteers are assigned to schools who have an English-speaking teacher who will be in charge of the class. We will team teach, and we are not required to ever be in a classroom without our Counterpart. Some Volunteers have an agreement that they will not take part in any grading, or discipline. Discipline in Armenian schools can be pretty primitive, because the teacher is respponsible to the Director, who usually want's peace and quiet above all else, so any discipline that achieves that is premitted. A teacher can't send a kid to the Principal. It is (usually her) responsibility. My counterpart is a woman of 30, who is the shortest on the staff. I think she has been at the school 3 years. I may have to deal with students in the ninth or tenth grades who haven't really learned any English until now, who don't know why they should and don't intend to. One can only wait to see how things go.

9

      Here's a tale to make you weep, or fall out of your chair laughing, one of the two. Yesterday (8/26) being Sunday, I decided to go to church. My host family consistes right now of Nuney, the wife and mother who is about 36, and her 16-year-old-son Artrun. Father David is working in Russia and will come home in September. Since Nuney was going to visit David's brother in the hospital, she gave me a key and showed me how to work the lock. The door has a lever handle positioned at 3 o'clock. To lock or unlock the door, you move the handle up to the 2 o'clock position and turn the key. I tried it to show I understood how. When I got home from church, everybody was gone. I put the handle in the 2 o'clock position and turned the key a full turn, feeling the lock move. I thought it was unlocked, so I turned the handle and pushed. Nothing happened. I assumed it was a double lock and I needed to turn the key again. But now the handle would not go up to the 2 o'clock position. I jiggled the key in every position but it would not turn, and the handle would not raise. The lock was jammed. I tried tried several times, but no luck.
      What to do? I had no idea when anyone was coming home, and I didn't have enough money to go into town, even if there was enything to do in town. But the hospital is on the bus route into town, so I decided to go there. Either Nuney would be there or she wouldn't.
      So I went to the hospital. I thought it would be bustling with people visiting relatives, but the huge lobby was like a tomb--empty except for a slatted waiting bench. I went to the reception window, and there were three women in the room behind. I explained in primitive Armenian that I was looking for the Karapetian family, but I didn't know the first name of the patient. I said I lived with the family of David and Nuney Karapetian and was looking for Nuney because I was locked out. They began to make calls, but I had no idea whether they were calls inside the hospital or outside. After a while my pants began to ring. I had my new cell phone in the pocket which I had just bought the day before (the cell phone, not the pocket). I took it out, and it was Artrun. I didn't know he had my number yet. I gave the phone to the lady and she talked to him for a while. Then she hung up, gave me my cell phone, and said in her primitieve English: "You wait. Somebody is coming." She said her name was Karapetian. After a while Nuney, not Artrun came, the lady came out and spoke to her, and Nuney and I left to catch the bus home.
      Our one piece of luck was that as we were walking up the drive to the road and the bus stop, the bus went by. But the driver had seen us, and had stopped and was backing up, so we didn't have to wait for the next bus. When we were walking up to the house, Nuney told me Artrun was at the neighbor's, and he saw us and came out to meet us. When we got to the door, Nuney had me try the lock again, and this time the handle moved up to the 2 o'clock position, the key turned and the door unlock. I don't know whether Artrun had come home and unjammed it, or it just changed its mind on its own. Of course if I had been able to communicate with Artrun when he called, I could have gone home on my own, but his English is too primitive for that, and I had assumed he was at his uncle's when he called. Anyway, I felt a bit like a fool. The hazards of not really knowing the language! But I could know a lot more and still not have had the vocabulary to handle that! But I must say that all the Armenians I have met have been unfalingly gracious and helpful. Nuney told me that she had indeed been to the hospital and had gone from there to her brother-in-law's house. I don't know if he was discharged and she didn't know it or what.
       By the way, an interesting sidelight on third-world life. Artrun is working now and has to get up at eight to be at work at 9. So to get him up, his mother calls him on his cell phone. (There is no point in getting up before 8, because that is when the water comes back on.)

8

      I'm now ensconced in my new home in Spitak, where I am committed to live for four months, and after that, it depends upon how well I get along with the family. Four months is to the middle of Decemper and it would be uneconomical in the extreem to move out at the beginning of the cold season, with heating so expensive here. The host family gets an extra allowance for heating during the winter months. Spitak was destroyed by the earthquake of 1988, and rebuilt by several nations. They built up along the edge of the hills where the ground was considered more stable, but to this day, those districts are isolated, not even being on the main road.
      Many Spitakians have preferred to rebuild or repair their homes in Spitak proper. The Swiss District, where my house is, is of substantial two-story houses. Just below it is the Italian District of tiny pre-fabricated houses that look about the size of double trailers. Many are still lived in, but some looke abandoned. By just below it, I mean across the road on the lower slope. Below the Italian village, about two city blocks, is the school I will be working at. Next to it is an orphanage for handicapped children run by the Sisters of Mother Teresa. My school supplies teachers, but not English teachers.
      My address is Richard Davis, Swiss District, 1805, Spitak, Armenia. I forget the house number, but it isn't important, since they know me now, having been introduced by my hostess, and there is no house-to-house delivery. The zip code, 1805, refers to the little post office in the district, and not Spitak as a whole.
      And for those of you who don't know, my e-mail address is ABNER35@HOTMAIL.COM

>7

      You can congratulate me! I am now officially a Peace Corps Volunteer. We had our graduation ceremony August 15th at the Music Hall in Vanadzor. Our host families were all there. So was the U. S. Ambassador. Two of us (comparative youngsters with their short-term memory still intact) gave speeches in Armenian. A young man sang a popular song in Armenian, and a young woman sang a classic song about a red rose. (both trainees, I mean.) And a group of nine of us (including me) sang an Armenian patriotic song. That was popular, and people sang along and clapped the rhythm through part of it. The Ambassador adminstered the oath, which is the same one the President takes, but he did it in such long phrases we mumbled the second half of each. ( Does he read this?!!) Luckily we signed a printed version. Then we all got diplomas.
      Afterward there was a reception for everybody, and then a second reception between the new installees and the group from last year. They presented us each with a bucket full of necessities like coat hangers, laundry soap, clothespins, etc. Then they stood us to the first drink and the Music Hall's cafe and bar. Unfortunately they served only beer and soft drinks--the hard stuff was for sale only by the bottle. But I did manage to get a Coke with ICE (!).
      The next day we dispersed to our new sites. We were to be picked up and brought to Vanadzor to buses and vans that would distribute us all over Armenia, but since I was going only to Spitak, I elected to go by taxi. If everybody had collected as much as I had, I don't know how they managed.

     

6

      This is both personal and cultural, since it is about relgious practices as well as my visit to the local chapel which is situated high on a hill overlooking the Town. I had put off going because of leg trouble but finally felt fit enough to go, so Sunday before last, the family and I set out, including Haikush and Aram, their two sons Artsen and Stepan, 10 and 11, and their two cousins Artash, 8, and Narek, 9, who live next door. If I had gone alone, I would have walked up to to bus stop and taken the bus to the turnaround at the cemetery, but we were going to walk, which meant going down the gully into the creek and back up, which considerably heightened the climb.
      It had rained the night before, so the path was not only steep but slippery with mud. I was already winded by the time we got to the cemetery. The cemetery itself is interesting. It is on the side of the hill, and continues to climb as new plots are added. But the family plots are built up level with dressed stones, so from below the cemetery looks like a series of dressed foundations. The stones themselves are black granite, tall and thin, and almost all in the new technique of recreating photos of the deceased on polished stone. To have all those black portraits, often full length, staring down at you is spooky.
      We continued up the path, or lack of path above the semetery. I didn't have the best climbing shoes, and it was so steep and slick that Aram practically hauled me up with my arm around his neck. But there were little old ladies scrambling up like mountain goats, and people out on the hillside collecting herbs. We finally got to the chapel and the sacrifice house behind it. Everybody's best guess is that the buildings are 200 years old.
      Haikush had brought four candles for each of us, and the tradition is to circle the chapel three times before you enter it. The chapel has a wooden door, but no windows in the opening, and the upenings are few, so the chapel is dark, except for the candles, and there were several buring when we got there. The candles are tall and thin, and there is a trick to getting them to stand up lit, a trick I didnt' manage to master, while trying to melt them at the bottom so they would stick, I managed to melt them all up the length with my had so they flopped. There is a kind of altar stone of no particular shape, but the place for most of the candles was the ledges on either side of the central window opening. After lighting their candles, Haikush and the boys sat for quite a while and meditated. Theirs is a peculiare religion, because regular churchgoing is not part of their tradition but rituals like the candle burning is. I asked Haikush about continuing religious instuction, and she said they had gotten it in schools. So a good portion of their piety and observance borders on what we would call superstition. The other day Tamara and I happened to be watching the popular Brazilian soap opera that everybody here watches in the early evening. and there was a funeral, and when everybody crossed themselves, so did Tamara.
      Behind the chapel is the sacrifice house, where chickens, pigs, and other animals are scrificed. This is apparently a practice that the Armenians picked up from the Muslims. They sacrifice the animals and give some of the meat to the poor, but apparenly the scrificed meat doesn't go to waste. It is more a ritual killing to show piety and assure good fortune. The building is empty of anything except discarded soda bottles, and the window opening isn't even dressedm just a ragged hole in the stones. Patty, a Peace Corps Volunteer who was stationed in Vanadzor and lived in Gugark next to me, said she went up there once and found two boys who had brought a cat in a bag and a knife and were going to sacrifice it, but they rescued it. I should say that both buildings have been recently adorned with aluminum crosses, which don't show up from down below except when the sun is low in the evening and they reflect just right. Then they glow like beacons.

5

      I've visited where I will be living and working for the next two years. It's much too luxurious for any PCV, but I will sacrifice myself, since I am elderly, and save a young PCV from moral corruption. My host's house is a two-story house with living room, kitchen, bathroom and my bedroom on the lower floor and three bedrooms above. I haven't seen them and don't know if there is a bathroom above, but I don't think so. The kitchen has a modern stovetop, separate gase oven, and a two-door refrigerator (Ice Cubes !!!???). The bathroom has a beautiful tile floor and modern toilet and sink. The fancy shower in the corner has a round front and curved sliding glass doors. There is a deep tub, but it seemes to be used now only for washing clothes. There is a little closet nearby with a washer in it, but I don't know if it includes a drier. Curiously, the walls of the bathroom are still unfinished concrete. I haven't asked, but here again the hot water seems to be turned on only when one needs it. The unit isn't in the bathroom. In the living room is a TV which gets more of the 7 Armenian channels than is possible in Gugark, and cable with channels from many countries, including the BBC news, but they are worse than CNN for repeating the same few stories endlessly.
      The house has a deep front yard, and quite a bit in the back which is mostly fruit trees, cherry and plum, I think. In the front right in front of the raised patio is a flower bed with red and white rambling roses and other flowers. and a rather anemic grapevine shading the patio. The rest of the front yeard is neglected except for cherry trees ripe right now and several beehives. The family has an extensive garden on the other side of the front road, which is only a dirt track. They have pototoes and some other vegetables and chickens. They have a barn for a cow, but no cow at the moment. The houses here are detached and semi-detached. The family garage is attached to the house and the house next door, which oddly is unfinished and has no windows installed. I think the house is attached on the other side, because there are no windows on that side, but I forgot to notice.
      The family consists of a father, who is in Russia until September, the mother who is a slender attractive woman in her mid forties, a son 16 named Arterun. He will be a student of mine in the tenth or last grade. He can speak a little English and either he is no credit to the English curriculum, or it is not credit to him. They learn to read & translate, but not to hear or talk. I'll do what I can to change that here. Mother doesn't work outside the home, except in the extensive garden. There is an older brother who lives with his uncle. The uncle comes and takes care of the bees. There are religious items on the wall, and candles in sconces under an icon of the Virgin.
      Which reminds me, when we were returning from Yerevan the other week, in the empty countryside we passed many stands of two or three dozen behives or more just off the road and a camper or gypsy wagon for the person caring for them. I suppose they are taken home or somewhere else when the wildflower season is over.
      My school is just a couple of blocks down the gentle slope. It is for about 225 students who are from poor or broken homes, and they eat breakfast and dinner there and are kept till five, though school is out at 2. Dinner is at 2 when school lets out. I saw the inside yesterday when Arterun and I went down and discovered a janitor or attendant was there. The rooms are clean, the desks unscarred, and the chairs unbroken. On the front door, taped to the inside looking out, was a paper that announced UMCOR: United Methodist Committee on Relief. I'll be interested in finding out what they have done for the school and hope to be an ambassador.
      The countryside has opened up into a wide fairly flat valley at Spitak, with high mountains to the south and lower hills blocking the view of higher mountains to the south. The mountains are grass-covered all the way up, and the slopes are fairly gentle. They look like excellent ski slopes, but my hostess says there is no skiing, though there is plenty of snow in winter. Maybe that is something that needs to be developed. I was out for a walk this morning, and they seem surprisingly empty, no cattle on them. Mostly they are treeless. Armenians only seem to live in towns and villages. I suppose they are harvested for hay.
      Spitak was totally destroyed by the earthquakes, with a good portion of the 25,000 deaths in the country. The area I live in is separated from the old (now rebuilt) city by quite a bit of open space. But the road is good, and the bus time only 15 minutes, though it seems farther than Gugark is from downtown Vanadzor. It is a town of about 18000, and has a rather monumental new town center, but I get the impression there is nothing much to do, and the last bus from Vanadzor is only 5:30.

4

      I know know where I'm to spend my next two years. I have been assigned to the town of Spitak, which is just west of Vanadzor. It's 15 minutes by bus to Vanadzor, and on a main road to Yrevan. I haven't seen the town yet, but it was the town most destroyed by the 1988 earthquake. Several Europen countries helped rebuild the town. I'll be teaching in the italian Sector, and will live in the Swiss sector. It's a town of 17,000 at last count. The new town was built outside the old town, but some people whose houses were salvageable didn't want to move, so there is a new town and old town.

      I'll be teaching in a special school built by the Italians. It's a partial boarding school for orphans and children of poor families. The prospectus says they want someone with innovative ideas to improve the English ability of the students. Schooling is 10 years here, and they don't have a separate high school. Starting next year the beginning students will have a 12-year program. Students get three hours of Russian from the second grade, and two hours of English from the thrid grade. So that's only 90 minutes a week. There is or will be an English Club after school for extra practice. Ordinarily a school will have one English teacher, so she has to teach 16 hours a week. I'll be team teaching with the regular English teacher who is an unmarried woman of 30. Ordinarily a PCV is never in the classroom without the counterpart.
>      I'll be living in the Swiss sector with a farm family. They have one son who is 22 and one who is 16 and attends an agricultural school. The school did not have a PCV last year, but had one the year before.
>      Audry, the oldest PCV, a few years older than I, will be living next door to where I live in Gugark. Patty lives there now, but she won't be doing the same work. Patty is an older woman who has been working at the Pedagogical School in Vanadzor. She will be going to live with her husband in Italy. I guess they are a family that has been used to living apart like that. He has visited her three times. I think Audrey is a widow.
      I'm going to start teaching the neighborhood kids starting Monday--My Total Physical Response Method, with a ball which I throw and say catch, and keep adding words as I demonstrate them. We will meet in the courtyard (?) of my host's house. I discovered they have cross sections of logs which we can use for seats. Tamara said we can use the porch iif it rains. I have no idea how many kids will come, but young Styopa is passing the word aorund. Artsin is up in the mountains at the moment with his father. It's land Haikush's family owns--pasture land I guess. There is a cabin up there, but i don't know how primitive. This morning when i left for school Styopa, 11, was cleaning the oven. The other day, he wanted a shirt (101Dalmations) which wasn't ironed, so he ironed it. On his knees; he used the ironing board but didn't extend the legs.

3

We were driven from the welcome to Vanadzor in the mountainous north. There we were put up for three days at a church camp that was a former Communist training center or something. There we got more orientation before our host families came and got us and we were distributed to our villages. There were were introduced to squat toilets, which are ubiquitous here in public places like schools. They are a ceramic hole in the floor with treadsfor the feet. I told one of the PC staff that with my swollen ankle I didn't think I could get in or out of a squat without help. A little later he came and slipped me the key to the toilet in the medical room )(completely empty for us)which had a stool toilet. 46 people couldn't possibly share it, but I quietly let it be known to the older people that I had the key, and several made use of it, but not all, and not Audry, the oldest of all a couple of years older than me.

      I was still feeling pretty miserable and couldn't sleep while we were there except the last night. Though my roommates claimed I got more sleep than I thought I did. We were housed in double chamnbers, that is with two open rooms sharing an alcove and closets. Designed for eight during the children's camp.

      the camp was restored with American-armenian funds, and includes a beautiful outdoor chapel with a covered chancel. At the end we were introduced to our host families with a ceremony that included kids in costume doing traditional dances. Tamara and her two grandsons, Stopya 11, and Artsin, 10, were there to get me. I'm their fourth VCV trainee guest. Artsin seems to have been assigned to me, but that may just be his personality.

2

nbsp;     If you read my first install ment, you found a lot of errors. So did I when I went to the page to see how it looked. But when I went back, the page where I write was blank. Apparently it takes time for the changes to be recorded in my site, though they register immediatly on the web site. I may or may not get the corrections made.

      There are 46 of us in all in this class of Peace Corps Volunteers to Armenia. About 60/40 in favor of women. About 6 women and two men are over 65. I may be forgetting one of the women. Two young couples are married. We live in six villages north and east of Vanadzor. We study Armenian there and come in to Vanadzor once a week for other training. We live with host families, who are of course glad of the income, but have to be relatively prosperous to have the facilities. There are Volunteers in Business, environment, and Health, and 13 of us in TESOL (TEFL, Teaching English as a Foreign Language), eight men and five women, including both couples. I have to go for now. More later.

1

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      When we approached the landing at the airport at Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, the first light of dawn was barely showing in the east, so we couldn't see anything on the ground. By the time we had landed, gone through passport control, and retrieved our baggage, it was first light, but we were on the wrong side of the airport, but when we came around the airport on the bus, Mount Ararat loomed before us. No picture can really portray how huge and imposing it is from Yerevan, and one can see why it is a symbol of Armenia, even if it is in Turkey several miles from Armenia.

      It us rather like seeing Pike's Peak from the high plains, but Ararat is higher in absolute terms, and the plain is much lower. And Ararat is not part of a chain, but an isolate peak--or rather two peaks, the higher one to the north, and a lower volcanic cone attached with a high saddle. In perfect profile to Yerevan. (Yrevan is equally correct.) We were driven first to a church ruin outside of town where all the present Peace Corps contingent in Armenia who could make it had assembled to meet us. With Krispy Kreme donuts, no less. There must be a franchise in Yrevan.
      The church was originally round and sits on a platform. Only a circular arcade aorund the altar remains, and Ararat is an imposing backdrop.
      We were each introduced by one of the veterans, and we were to introduce our untroducer. But I had completely lost my voice and could only whisper. My introducer was Sarah, whom I had been in contact with before I came. We share the privilege or responsibilityt of both being graduates of Worthington High School, 49 years apart.
      I had lost my voice because I had a cold and was feeling miserable (and looking miserable). I knew when I saw our scheude for staging and the flight that I was going to catch a cold from all that loss of sleep over two nights of flying, but I caught it a day early, because our staging orientation was so intense. We were 14 hours in Vienna, and most went into the city, but I crashed in the airport hotel where we had been provided rooms for the day. Vienna has to await a better day!