Sorry I’ve been neglecting this lately… just nothing to report. Winter in Armenia is slow, and December really means one thing: preparation for ??? ????, or New Years. So, life has slowed down. My grant is approved, and we’re now waiting for the check from The American People so we can begin bathroom construction in February. I got accepted to be a trainer for the Peace Corps’ Project Design and Management course in February, conveniently located at Armenia’s only ski resort (purely coincidence, mind you). And I just finished watching the first season of Heroes.
All of this is enthralling, I know, so I thought I’d save the best news for last. I’ve ranted about business in Armenia before: all the stores all sell the exact same thing, and if they build a new one, it will be identical to the neighboring store. Well, times they are a-changin’. Finally, Armenia has taken the steps necessary to be a true contender with the Western world, and have constructed a business that will forever change the course of business:
Well, it’s no Wal-mart, but we’re still developing.
If you haven’t noticed, I don’t have much to say, so I have two letters to post that may be of interest to some or all of you. The first is from our Country Director and is filled with holiday spirit:
Dear friends and loved ones of Armenia Peace Corps Volunteers,
As we enter the holiday season I wanted to thank you for your support to our Armenia Volunteers. It is never easy to be without those we most care about but it is especially difficult during the holidays hence my note to you.
I arrived last June with forty-six new trainees to find almost forty Volunteers waiting to greet us with a very warm welcome. It has been an honor and a pleasure to witness their service to the people and communities of Armenia. I am sure that they have communicated the challenges they face as they go about their work. Indeed, Armenians especially those living in towns and villages outside of Yerevan have faced many years of hardship since the collapse of their economy when the former Soviet Union departed.
I have observed these incredible Volunteers team teaching and bringing new methods and materials to the classroom; conducting camps to help children learn about health, technology, and the environment. Schools and non-government organizations have been strengthened by the efforts of these Volunteers who train their counterparts to identify resources, write proposals, and manage projects.
I know that you are as proud of them as we on the Armenia staff are and hope this makes their absence from the Thanksgiving table a little easier to bear. The Director of the Peace Corps Ron Tschetter was just here and he met with many of our Volunteers. He was very impressed with their work and reminded us that the goals of Peace Corps have not changed in more than forty-six years. It is encouraging to know that in these turbulent times there are so many good people dedicated to creating peace in this world.
May you have a joyous holiday season this year.
Respectfully, Lee Lacy and the staff of Peace Corps Armenia
The second is from some volunteer friends of mine, who are doing some great work in my training village of Bazum:
My Peace Corps group trained last summer in a very poor village called Bazum for three months. We got to know the people there very well.
That area of the country was mostly devastated by the earthquake in 1988, and the 90s were a rough decade for Armenia in general. The businesses and factories have fallen apart or closed. Today there are zero work opportunities in Bazum – people barely scrape by: working in Vanadzor (the closest city); growing their own food and keeping animals; receiving money from siblings and relatives working abroad (mostly Russia); or sharing resources and helping each other.
This isn’t a sob story – it’s about hope and possibility. Bazum just needs a start. That’s where you can make a difference.
For example, three volunteers appealed to their American families and friends to keep the new kindergarten open through the winter by paying for heaters. Now we have other ideas to advance the lives of the families living in Bazum, such as:
- building a bathroom inside the school and a new playground
- paying for a doctor to visit the village once a month to examine the children and elderly
- starting a seed fund for new businesses
- creating college scholarships for students with exceptional potential
Please consider donating a small gift – it would mean so much to the families in Bazum. If you are interested in donating, please contact Kathy Murdock for further instructions. Thank you for your consideration.
If you’re interested in supporting other volunteer-initiated projects, visit the Peace Corps website.
I haven’t mentioned much about the school and our handicap accessibility projects lately, as our work from the ramps is pretty much done. The biggest step, which the school director and I started discussing over a year ago, is renovating their bathroom and sewer system to make them accessible (and usable, really). Right now, students and teachers have to go to the bathroom outside, which is horrible in the winter and completely unsanitary, as there’s no place to wash up afterwards. And considering the whole facility is on a muddy slope, it redefines the word “inaccessible”. Here are some pictures of the current situation (sorry these aren’t as pretty as Greece):
Pretty gruesome, eh? Well, the week after I returned from Greece, we worked non-stop to finish our Peace Corps SPA grant to renovate four of the bathrooms, redo the sewer system, and make it all handicap accessible (for the students of the special education program). The total cost for this (modest) renovation is about $7500. Hopeful, I promised the director, way back in October 2006, that we would get this done, some day, some how. The good news came today: our grant was approved!
What does this mean? A lot: by April, we hope to have four bathrooms completed, all conforming to ADA standards as best we can (they don’t really have standards here, or an idea of what barrier-free access even means). But, I have a guide book from the Internet, and some construction specs, so we’ll see how it goes! Regardless, this is a great great thing for the school and its students, and it is our hope that accessible facilities will motivate more students with disabilities to attend public school and will change the community’s attitude about them. Plus, it will just make the whole place more hygienic and clean. So, wish us luck and stay tuned as we break (or rather, repair the broken) ground February 1, 2008!
I hope all my American readers had a wonderful Thanksgiving this past Thursday and were able to be with friends or family. While I couldn’t be home, of course, I have had a wonderful past few weeks that have given me a lot to be thankful for. After returning from Greece, work picked up quickly, and I spent most of the time working on a Peace Corps SPA grant to make the school’s bathrooms handicap accessible. Tomorrow the committee meets and will decide, so stay tuned for updates. This past week was our All-Volunteer Conference, which was a great time. We had the annual Peace Corps vs. Embassy football game (which we won!), the A14 vs. A15 basketball game (which we lost – blame the marathon!), and most importantly, the annual Thanksgiving Dinner (thank you American taxpayers!), complete with all the trimmings. Combined with my first hot shower in a week and a half (and the 5 that followed), it was a good conference. The rest of the week was spent livin’ the dream:
- Our Country Director, Lee, hosted us for a generous meal of Mexican and chili, and told us stories about her days in Peace Corps-Samoa. Thanks again!
- IOC meetings at the US and British Embassies. The US has American outlets – talk about culture shock!
- Thanksgiving day dinner/party in Yeghegnadzor – a lot of fun: egg rolls, Indian food and enchaladas!
- The Koghb Art School hosted an exhibition in Yerevan, which was great and had a wonderful turn-out. They are doing some great things and I am really proud of all they’ve accomplished.
Now on to today’s topic: I finally experienced the real Peace Corps™.
I’m not one to complain about how difficult my site is; I have wireless Internet, a sit-down toilet, and plenty of food. I have to admit, though, one of my expectations going into Peace Corps was that I wouldn’t have it this easy. When I thought of Armenia, I thought of small villages in the mountains, where I’d be living by candlelight, killing pigs, and burning wood for heat. Basically, Little House on the Prairie. I finally got that this weekend, when I visited my friend Jessica in a tiny village called Depravak for Thanksgiving dinner #3.
Depravak is a refuge village that is just plain poor. With a small population and the nearest city a world away, it is a village in the truest sense of the word. So when I strolled in with my laptop and pleated khakis, I immediately felt out of place as I walked to her house, dodging sheep, slipping on the ice, and entering a two-room house. The power was out and she was cooking by candlelight on, you guessed it, her woodburning stove. Buckets of recently picked fruits and veggies and seeds lined the walls, several saggy beds provided the sleeping arrangements, and the snow piled on the muddy roads leading up to the mountain fields and down to the river with the drinking water. It was heaven; I’d found the real Peace Corps.
The best thing about the weekend was how organic the experience was. Everything we cooked was so fresh, and we each contributed a bit to make the meal a success. Don’t be fooled, future Mrs. Gifford, my friends Rud and Jessica did most of the work, and the meal ended up quite tasty. We had mushroom gravy, garlic mashed potatoes, roasted veggies, pumpkin ravioli (I didn’t know you could make that!), and the table centerpiece: Fire Roasted Turkey!
Quick aside about our “Turkeys” – we purchased them from a friend of a friend, who assured us “100%” they were turkeys, despite their size. Well, after cooking in only 30 minutes, we cut them up to reveal the fatty and delicious dark meat of two local ducks. Still not traditional fare, but better than the enchaladas of Thursday! The meal was spectacular, as I think these photos, viewed side by side, adequately demonstrate:
If there’s only thing Thanksgiving is synonomis with, it’s pie. I think it was the three delicious pies (walnut, apple, and caramel apple) we baked that knocked all of us into our food comas.
When we finally recovered, we enjoyed a second midnight hike through the snowy mountains, which was such a peaceful, relaxing experience, you’d have to be in Birkenstocks and a hiking back to really understand. I wasn’t, but to me it was everything I’d hoped Peace Corps would be like. Jessica is really roughing it out there, and I have a far greater appreciation for those who live such difficult lives in the villages, day-in and day-out. It has a quality to it that is unmatched, and I’m thankful I was able to spend a few days in it. I’ve always felt that to be a well-rounded person, you had to be willing to see all sides of life, and winter in an Armenian village puts the benefits, and often the frivolty, of the city into perspective.
This brings everything full circle about being thankful for what I have. I have water, power, gas, WiFi, and can call friends and family in America when I want1. A lot of people can’t. I am also thankful that Peace Corps did not let me choose my site and my experience, because I get a more real experience. I learned this weekend that there is no actual real Peace Corps™ experience - it’s all about the people you help and the difference you make, in the environment you’re in. At this point it dawned on me that Peace Corps isn’t always that different from real life, and why it is important to try and see what makes us different and how others live before we judge them and their lifestyles and make them our friends or enemies.
On that note, I’m thankful for my Peace Corps experience so far. And for Mizzou beating Kansas this weekend – go Tigers, you’re #1 (really)! And thanks for waiting till I’m out of the country (this goes for you, too, Cardinals) to start winning. Timing was always my thing…
Better late then never, I wanted to share my experiences in the happy, wonderful country known as Greece. As you may have already guessed, I had a great time there and hope to make it back soon1. For those who don’t follow my musings regularly, 5 PCVs and I went to Greece to run the Athens Classic Marathon. As you can read about in my previous post, the marathon was great, interesting and challenging; I finished it, but it will probably be my last for a long while. I barely have the patience to sit and write a blog post, so you can imagine how 5 hours of running nearly drove me insane 🙂
Being said, our trip was split into three segments: pre-marathon rest in Athens, post-marathon groaning in Athens, and a true vacation on the island of Santorini. The first part was largely uneventful, although we did get to take the tram throughout Athens to the registration center. While the tram itself was forgettable, the surrounding businesses were not: we made it loudly clear that we were spoiled Americans deprived of luxury in the third world as we passed non-other than…
Yes, a western grocery store. Complete with cereal, kettle chips, salsa, you name it. And we bought it. And it tasted soooo good. So in between bowls of cheerios in our apartment, we visited the Parthenon, which looked like it was wearing braces from all the scaffolding. I have a disdain for reconstructed sites (such as Ephesus), and this, pun intended, ruined the experience for me. But here it is, in its steel-enclosed glory:
The rest of Athens was pretty nice, with some nice neighborhood restaurants, amazing road-side gyros, attacking pigeons, and a visit to the National Archeology Museum (whom we convinced we were still students by brandishing a Peace Corps ID – suckers!). The thing I enjoyed most was the friendliness of the people, and the genuine service you received there. Cars don’t honk or drive in the wrong lane/on sidewalks. Store owners help you and say thank you and don’t ask why you’re not married. And people don’t look at you funny as you walk down the street. The only thing I was disappointed about was the sheer amount of graffiti on everything, although this is probably a byproduct of the Olympics being there in 2004. There was even graffiti in Armenian!! Speaking of the Olympics, we also dropped by the Olympic complex in the late evening. The whole place is huge, with so many stadiums, but you could still feel the energy of the Olympians in the air. It was breathtaking (unfortunately so much that I forgot to take pictures, so these will have to do).
Tuesday we decided to skip town and take the ferry boat to the island of Santorini. Santorini was blown apart by a volcano in the 16th century BC, and what remains is a beautiful caldera, picturesque white-washed houses with blue domed roofs, and one of the best sunsets I’ve ever seen. The ferry ride itself was quite comfortable – much like a modern cruise ship, without the bowling alleys. We found one hostel that was still open on the beach side of the island. Most of the island’s economy is tourism, and tourist season ends mid-October. While this did mean the tourist bars were shut, it did mean we had the place largely to ourselves, which was nice on our BRAND NEW FOUR-WHEELERS:
Ok so not quite new, but rented. We had two full days on the island, and we explored the whole thing! One of the coolest sites was the red sand beach, which was actually covered in sea-weed. We picnicked there one day, and the brave decided to swim in the not-so-warm Mediterranean.
The island is home to some really cool architecture and has some nice wineries, but mostly we explored the roads, ate delicious seafood, and waited for the sunset each night. We watched from two sides of the island – the first on the southern edge, near the lighthouse, and the second from famous Oia (which as you can see from this picture is usually packed). We had the place to ourselves, and the views were really all they were cracked up to be:
Overall, it was an amazingly relaxed vacation, and a great break after the hustle and bustle of Our City. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and that end was boarding the 40 year-old Russian plane at 1:30 in the morning back to Armenia, not sleeping, losing my voice, and waiting in a cold bus station for 2 hours for my 4 hour bus ride home. Of course I’m happy to be back, but I think the pilot on the way home summed up how bittersweet it is by saying, “We’ve now arrived in Yerevan. The temperature is 1 degree. Welcome home.” Touche.