Kyle’s Journey in Armenia

Readers of other Peace Corps-Armenia blogs will likely know that last weekend was Verdji Zang, or Last Bell – aka graduation for the 11th form students. The students have actually only attended 10 years of school, but due to some restructuring of the education system, they are technically 11th graders – but still only 16 years old. Anyway, I digress. This year most of the students from our English Clubs were graduating, and technically it is my “last bell” as well this year (more on that later). Fortunately the graduations were scheduled in a way I could visit most of our students, starting on Saturday with the Noyemberyan School 2 ceremony.

Noyemberyan’s ceremony was run about as professionally as a small Armenian town’s graduation could be – it had PowerPoint presentations, hip-hop dancing, skits, fireworks, and my favorite, live animals. At one point, as a symbol of being “released into the future”, two graduating boys presented two doves – really pigeons from their house – that they planned to release from the auditorium window. The first dove made it out fine, but the second dove hit a roadblock (literally), smacking into the window frame and then flying around for the next 10 minutes stunned. Don’t worry, reader, there is hope for the Noyemberyan Class of 2008. They eventually caught the dove and released it, thus ensuring their success for the future. In a high point for my Peace Corps service: after everyone left the school, I talked the director into letting me ring the school bell. C’mon, don’t tell me you’ve never wanted to try it…

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the Berdavan ceremony was far more… spontaneous. They preferred a more open-ended, outdoor ceremony, where no one was quite sure when one thing was supposed to stop and another to begin. There was a lot of singing, dancing, gift-giving, photo-taking and toast-making throughout the ceremony, and not all the graduates. At one point (not joking) the school director invited almost 20 kindergarten-aged children to the microphone to give speeches. The Peace Corps volunteers received an impromptu invitation to participate in the ceremony when half-way through the speeches, the school director saw us in the crowd, ordered 4 chairs brought to the front, and marched us in to sit with the other distinguished guests. So much for maintaining a low profile…

You can view the rest of the photos here. Anyway, as I said, this is also my last bell, which was somewhat bittersweet for me. On one hand, I was very proud to see all that’s changed in the past two years, to see the students grow up, their English develop, and the friendships that we’ve forged. At the same time, it’s just another of the ever-growing reminders that I’m leaving Armenia in a month and a half. It’s very strange how the questions have suddenly changed. It’s no longer “where are you from?”, “why are you here?”, and “will you marry an Armenian girl?”; now it’s “when do you leave?”, “do you plan on coming back here?”, and “will you please marry an Armenian girl?”. It’s going to be hard to leave here, as I’ve forged a lot of interesting, strong friendships that will be hard to say goodbye to. And while I enjoy the big things like these graduation ceremonies very much, I know I’m going to miss the little things so much more – the conversations with my crazy leprechaun neighbor who insists I don’t know English, walking into a store and almost tripping over a newly butchered cow’s head, and watching the “road crew” repair pot holes with piles of dirt.

My little trip down memory lane brings me to the theme of this post… eloquently ripped off from the “Semisonic” song Closing Time. Peace Corps is ready to send us off to the world right at the time when we’ve finally learned enough Armenian to be productive and have taught our livers how to handle enough homemade vodka to not be productive. With us leaving, it’s time for the replacements – the A16 group of volunteers arrives this weekend! Right now it’s a super-secret when and how they will be greeted by us, but I promise, come Monday, I’ll have some pictures of their terrified faces after meeting our rag-tag group of volunteers. Stay tuned!

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