Kyle’s Journey in Armenia

Just Another Peace Corps Blog

  • Kyle? In Armenia?

    My name is Kyle, and I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Noyemberyan, Armenia. I lived here from 2006-2008, and worked as an Information Technology volunteer for the US Peace Corps. In addition to my primary assignment developing my region's WiFi internet, I also taught computer and English classes to area youth. Thank you for visiting!

    This blog remains available for historical purposes, but is no longer actively maintained.

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7
Apr 2007
Poetry, SPAs, and Istanbul
Posted in Peace Corps by Kyle at 12:13 pm | 1 Comment »

First of all, happy Easter! And a happy Mother’s Day to all those in Armenia! 🙂

A lot has been happening since I last wrote. The first is my participation is Koghb Art School’s Armenian Poetry Day. As the name suggests, they hosted several famous Armenian poets to come and share their work, read poems by famous Armenians and play traditional Armenian instruments (for Armenian poetry click here). They also had the fortunate occassion of hearing me recite my first poem fully written and spoken in Armenian. I read “Ko Pachaghov” by Paruyr Sevak. The occassion made it on local Kamut TV and received a round-of-applause, even for pity, that was very welcome. I have a copy on tape and will work on getting it posted online for all to hear. I posted some pictures in the Noyemberyan photo album, but here are some to tease your eyes with:

Very fung-shui My poetry reading 'Ko Atchkerin'

Duduk (Armenian instrument) performance Famous Armenian poets

The second big news is that there are two SPAs coming to Noyembeyan. Unfortunately, this does not mean that I will be lounging around receiving Swedish massages all day. SPA is an acronym for Peace Corps’ “Small Project Assistance” program, which awards grants up to $5,000 to PCVs for community-based projects. My NGO and I’s project, “Technology Accessibility for Noyemberyan Region,” was accepted and will bring affordable and accessible Internet to Noyemberyan and the 18 surrounding villages. We will also be upgrading our training center with new equipment and hosting a business/technology training. I’m very excited! More project details are available in the updated projects section. My site mate, Eileen, also had a projected for women’s health education which was accepted. Together, our projects make up 25% of those funded by SPA. Schnorhavor us and Noyemberyan!

Finally, I’M GOING TO DUBAI AND ISTANBUL! My girlfriend Sara will be coming from St. Louis to visit for two weeks in May, and along with viewing my day-to-day life, we will be flying to Istanbul via Dubai for a nice relaxing vacation! I just purchased the tickets today, and we will be spending two nights in Dubai and five in Istanbul.

Overall, it should be a very exciting next few months. Now, to survive until May…


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One Response:

Kathy said:

Kyle,
Happy Easter to you! Hope you enjoyed the holiday. I’ll be looking forward to pictures of Istanbul. I’ve heard it’s beautiful. Congrats on the project grants too. I know it’s not easy to get those.
Mrs. Z


The views expressed herein are the views of the author and do not express those of Peace Corps Armenia or the United States government.