Berev Dzez! Yesterday we found out where our sites will be for the next two years. I will be in a village called Noyemberyen, which is about 8,000 people. It is located in the far northeast of Armenia, very close to the Georgian and Azeri borders. Sounds like quite a fun area actually! It’s about an hour and a half from the Georgian capital, three and a half hours from the Armenian capital, and about 15 KM from the nearest landmine! All in all not so bad 🙂 Actually it sounds like a great area with really nice weather (very mild in the summer and short winters), and it is said to have especially great hiking. I will be there with two other volunteers: Eileen, another business volunteer, and Alex, an environmental educator. We visit the sites in a couple of weeks, so I will post more about Noyemberyen soon.
In other news, this past week we had two great parties. The first was a talent show/competition/dance-off on Saturday night, which was a lot of fun. My personal favorite was the Armenian equivalent of bobbing for apples – but, instead of apples, we used flour. Naturally. I did manage to beat David thanks to my parents and their large-nose genes, so that was certainly a high point. We followed it up with an after-party featuring my favorite: watermelon and ooree (Armenian for vodka).
We also had a 4th of July “picnic” on Tuesday, which was supposed to be for all of the volunteers and their families, but was cancelled do to rain. Instead our village got together and made some wonderful horovats (BBQ) and had a great time dancing, playing party games (we taught them limbo) and singing national songs. The volunteers led a rousing (and probably eardrum-busting) rendition of America the Beautiful. I also won the musical chairs competition, which gave me the honor of dancing an entire song to myself. I was able to compensate a little bit as one of the local 10-year-olds joined me for some twiriling and a tango (sorry Sara).
I hope all is well with everyone back home! Take care and I hope everyone had a wonderful Independence Day. I’ll certainly look forward to watching some fireworks in 2009 ;)]
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One Response:
July 10th, 2006 at 3:30 am
It’s ok as long as it to “Time of My Life.” I am sure she is a better dancer than me anyway.