All-Vol Conference & Thanksgiving

An Armenian Thanksgiving with PCVs

On November 20th I headed to Yerevan for our All-Volunteer Conference. The first day of the conference was for my group of volunteers (the A-17s) to discuss any issues we had encountered in our first three months of service. We discussed things we encounter in Armenia that cause us stress and ways to help relieve any stress were are felling at work and in our host families. That night I went to a Mexican feast my Country Director’s with a group of volunteers. The food was amazing! She had a full spread of enchiladas, tacos, beans, chips, salsa, and queso all topped off with brownies and ice cream. Believe me this type of food is not easy to come by in my everyday villiage life here. The second day of the conference was a language camp with sessions on useful topics, such as dealing with landlords, shopping and bargaining, and sector-related language. The third day of the conference was the first time all the Peace Corps Armenia volunteers had been together and it will be the last time. The last day of the conference there was a development fair with many difference organizations working in the development field in Armenia handing out information and anwsering questions. There was also a development panel and career panel with people from USAID, Millennium Challenge Corporation, and European Council. All through out the conference at night after our meetings were done I had a bunch of great meals and went dancing with friends. The last night of the conference we all celebrated Thanksgiving together. A group of volunteers prepared a Thanksgiving feast at the hotel where the conference was held and it was AMAZING!!! We had all the fixings from turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce, and pie. There were also great decorations including a papier-mâché turkey whose feathers were hand turkeys every volunteer made with what we are thankful written on them. We had coloring book placemats,funny turkey hats, and Thanksgiving tradition. It is funny how being away from home for the holidays brings out the kid in everyone and the desire to celebrate the way you did back grade school. Everyone put on their silly hats and we ran around taking pictures like a bunch of little kids. After dinner we had a variety show with amazing performers like Danny and Ben playing guitar and singing “Hit Me Baby One More Time” and Janet telling pirate jokes. Even though I missed seeing my family back in the States for Thanksgiving I had a fantastic time with all my new friends!

Work
Work has been a little slow lately because I missed a week for my conference and with winter setting in life in the village is quite. School has been closed all throughout Armenia for that last two weeks because of the flu and this has led to lower attendance at my English club in my village. At the moment I’m just teaching my two clubs, but I’m doing a lot of research for future projects and I’m hoping once spring is here I will be able to being planning some larger projects. In the beginning of February my counterpart and I are attending a Peace Corps conference on project planning and management so that should help us come up with a more concrete plan for what my role is here.

Last Saturday, I went to a wedding so you will soon hear all about the traditions of an Armenian wedding. Until then...

Love, Sarah

Halloween...Armenian-Style

Last weekend I traveled up north to Tavush Marz to celebrate the Halloween weekend Armenia-style. After meeting some friends in Yerevan we met our taxi driver to begin our supposedly four hour journey. We left Yerevan around 5pm in the cold and rain - until that week the weather in Yerevan had been amazing (the perfect blend of Indian summer and early fall) but of course that has now come to an end. It was especially nice because Yerevan is a walking city full of outdoor cafes and fall is the perfect time to enjoy it.

About halfway through the trip once we started climbing in elevation the drive started getting a little spooky. The mountains were full of low hanging fog and between that and the dark and the Armenian mountain passes it was poetic that we were heading to a Halloween party. We were already running late because we stopped for gas for like half-an-hour and we couldn’t go too quickly because of the weather. We arrived in Berd, the city nearest to the village where we were headed, and our taxi driver stopped driving. We were all confused about what was going on because we were only 30-40 minutes from the village. It was about 9:30 at this point and he just kept telling us that the road was bad and he called the taxi company where someone spoke English to explain that he was going to find us a local taxi to take us the rest of the way. We were all rightfully annoyed because we had hired him to drive us the whole way but know he was saying he didn’t know the way and he couldn’t take us. Finding a local taxi driver of course took time so it was 10 before we hit the road again.

The last stretch of our journey involved dirt roads, mountain passes, fog, and darkness. We just all closed our eyes and talked about how we were so set up to be in a bad horror movie...four Americans in a foreign land driving to a remote mountain village...then it got even better because we got a flat tire! So we got out of the taxi and tried to help our driver change the tire. It was cold and dark and our driver was huffing and puffing while smoking a cigarette trying to change the tire. Then we see headlights coming around the bend, but it seems like forever before we can actually see the car. Two friendly Armenian gentlemen, who our taxi driver knew, pulled over to help and then we were on our way again. We finally arrived at our destination – the village of Artsvaberd – at 10:30pm! Luckily we got to relax with good friends, cook chicken fajitas, and tell the harrowing tale of our journey.

Saturday we hung around playing with Heather’s (the volunteer whose house we were staying at) new kittens, making more fajitas, and trying to stay warm. We carved pumpkins, made kleenex ghosts, ate Halloween candy, and Heater made a cherry pie...all in all it was the perfect fall day. Later that day some more volunteers made it into Artsvaberd in time for a Halloween party!

Sunday it was time for everyone to head home so we all loaded into a marshootni to Yerevan. Before we could even leave the parking lot the marshootni broke down. Once we finally got on the road we were cruising along, but every time we had to go up a hill, which was often because we driving in the mountains, things got shaky. Then on our way up one hill we stopped to pick someone up (smart I know!) and couldn’t get going again. All the guys got out and tried to push but then we started to roll backwards. After 5 or 10 minutes of this another marshootni came up the road and pulled over to help pull us up the hill. That meant we all had to get out of the marshootni and walk up the hill and stand in the cold on the side of the road. The best part was that there were 12 Americans on the marshootni so we just stood on the side of the road huddled up while the Armenians stared at us. Luckily where we broke down was very pretty, which made it better. It took a good 45 minutes before we were up and running again. There were a couple more close calls along the way but we eventually made it to Yerevan. Like all my trips around Armenia so far it was eventful, exciting, fun, and tiring.


The Beautiful View of Tavush Marz


Our Marshootni Being Pulled Up Hill

Development Dinner

Two Saturdays ago I had the opportunity to go to Yerevan and have dinner at the Peace Corp Armenia Country Director Lee’s house. This all came about during pre-service training (PST) – through the course of PST all the trainees earned “Lee Bucks” for completing different tasks during training sessions, our language classes, by answering questions, etc. At the end of PST there was an auction where we could use the “money” to bid on everything from spices, movies, hiking trips with various staff members, and a dinner at Lee’s house along with members of the development community in Armenia. My friends Brent and Shannon and I pooled our Lee Bucks together and won the development dinner.

So I polished myself up and made my way to Yerevan. Lee’s house in Yerevan is very nice and the weather that weekend in Yerevan and the surrounding areas (i.e., my village) was amazing – in the 70s during the day and just cool enough in the evening for it to be fall. Lee is also an amazing cook and she made a feast of enchiladas and tacos. I’ve missed Mexican food so much and it was so good. We ate our dinner on the patio and drank wine and talked to some really amazing people. The guests from the development community included people from USAID, OSCE, USDA, and independent development contractors. They all had so many fascinating stories about the places they had been and amazing things they had seen all over the world. We talked about what we had done before Peace Corps, our work here, what we hoped to do after Peace Corps. I got some really great career and life advice from this amazing woman Gina, who has worked in development all over the former Soviet Union. Her husband is Swedish and works for OSCE on issues of gender and women’s rights in Armenia. It was a nice, relaxed atmosphere and it will definitely be a night I remember for a long time.

After the dinner some of us met up with other volunteers who were in Yerevan to go dancing. We went to this little bar called Cocoon which sometimes becomes a dance club even though it’s the size of a closet. We met a diplomat from Argentina and two Armenian girls from California and a bunch of cool Armenians. Usually they just play typical Yerevan club music but they started out with that and switched it over to some latin music and then some old school American classics like the YMCA and the twist, which got all the Americans up and on the floor.

So after a pretty standard week at site teaching my two clubs and working on some lesson plans I made the journey up north to Artsvaberd for Halloween weekend. More to come on that later.

Aygepat Harvest Festival & Halloween Celebration

So after many date changes and frustrations the Aygepat Harvest Festival & Halloween Celebration finally happened on Wednesday and it was a huge success! All the frustrations were worth it and it was probably a good thing that they happened because they gave me a taste of what it can be like to work in Armenia and I proved to myself that I can in fact do it. I need to work on developing more patience – I always thought I was a patient person but there is definitely a difference between being patient in the States vs. being patient in Armenia. The whole experience helped me learn more about the Armenian work culture and how I can best work with my co-workers and bosses to get projects done. I learned that I need to calm down and learn to take a breath when I get frustrated because trying to explain in the moment what is frustrating me only makes it worse. I also need to have a little more faith that things will work out even without my direct supervision.

The many date changes were due to the fact that my village mayor had invited the marz petaron (the regional mayor) to come to the festival and we were operating around his schedule. Apparently it was quite a big deal that he came to the festival – there was news crew there from the regional TV station covering the festival and last night my whole family went over to our neighbor’s house to watch it. When the marz petaron arrived everyone lined up to great him and the mayor greeted him along with a girl in traditional dress. There is a ceremony here where there is a loaf of traditional braided bread that a girl in traditional dress holds and a small pile of salt is placed on the bread and you rip off a piece of the bread and dip it in the salt and eat it. All the new volunteers participated in this ceremony when we met our training host families. The bread represents the wheat that Armenians believe is the life source of their people and the salt represents…well I don’t remember exactly what that represents maybe the salt of the earth or something. Anyway the marz petaron participated in that ceremony with the mayor and then my village mayor released doves. All of that was a surprise to me because the majority of the traditional Armenian parts of the festival were planned by the mayor, his assistants, and my counterpart. Next there was a series of traditional Armenian dances performed by a group of the local children and songs performed by a local singer. Then my counterpart, Vika and some of her students performed a small play about fall. The marz petaron and the village mayor made speeches. Then the school director made a small presentation of certificates and gifts to the local students who had been accepted to university, which included a couple of my English students.

Later Vika read a small thing we translated about Halloween and introduced me to everyone. Hopefully now that I have been formally introduced to more people in the village they will no longer think that I’m some random Russian girl who has moved into the village. After the bit on what Halloween is Vika invited people over to my table to sample some Halloween treats (candy apples, caramel corn, candy corn, mellow crème pumpkins, and cookies) and then I was mobbed by all the village children, but with the help of my host mom and neighbor we regulated the kids and they all loved the treats. The deputy regional mayor really liked the candy corn.

The whole village was really involved. In a traditional Armenian harvest celebration different groups or villages create decorative tables displaying fancy craved fruits and vegetables and bountiful baskets of the harvest along with homemade wine, bread, and pastries. The post office, the policlinic, the 10th form class from the school, my counterpart’s family’s store, and the mayor’s office all had tables. At the end of the festival everyone goes around sampling the harvest and treats. There were probably 75 to 100 people there and everyone seemed to have a really great time. Everyone at the mayor’s office worked so hard to make it happen and it was a great display of the amazing community spirit of my village. After all the uncertainty we achieved what I hoped to all along – a successful first big project to help me learn how to plan and execute projects successfully in Armenia.

Weekends in Yerevan

Initiatives
A couple of weekends ago I went to Yerevan for the Peace Corps Initiatives Meeting. Peace Corps has five different initiatives: IT, PR, HIV/AIDS, Environmental Action, and Gender & Development. The purpose of these initiatives is to allow volunteers the opportunity for cross-sector work. Saturday was a meeting for all the new volunteers to find out more about these initiatives so we can decide which ones we would like to participate in. It was also the first time most of the volunteers had a chance to hang out since we finished training and moved to our sites. Despite my broken foot I hobbled my way around Yerevan with my friends and had an amazing time. On Friday we went out for Indian food then to the Irish Pub for drinks and dancing at Aftershock. We all stayed at the hostel, which is really nice and in a great location. Saturday we went to breakfast at Artbridge Bookstore Cafe where they have french toast, bacon, and lattes!!! It was amazing! Then it was off to the Peace Corps office for the meeting. After the meeting we had shwarma and hung at a cafe (a favorite past time of everyone in Yerevan) then another great night of dancing. Sunday we went back to Artbridge for more bacon and good coffee before heading back to site(where sadly there is no bacon or lattes...)

Armenia vs. Spain Game
Last weekend I went to Yerevan to see the Armenia vs. Spain soccer game with a bunch of other volunteers. Armenia was expected to lose like 4-0, so in the end the fact that they only lost 2-1 was kind of a miracle. After the game we all went out to the Irish Pub in Yerevan. Of course by Irish Pub I mean a normal bar decorated like a Bennigian’s Restaurant and playing U2 music videos. But I did get more bacon, french toast, and lattes. Yerevan is nice but it's way too easy to spend money there so I need to stay away for awhile.Yerevan can feel like a completely different country than the rest of Armenia. Armenia receives a ton of international aid money especially from the United States, but the majority of it stays in Yerevan. The disparity in development is really striking, but I guess that happens in a lot of countries. But the amount of U.S. money flowing into Armenia is crazy, but that’s what happens when your country has a powerful diaspora working for you.

Work
Work is a little frustrating at the moment. Originally my festival was supposed to be on the 20th, but all the people helping me kept saying it was too late and that the harvest would be over so we moved the date to the 16th. Over the next two weeks I kept asking my counterpart and boss what we needed to do, how we should invite people, and when we were going to buy supplies. We would make lists and I would keep asking the same questions without ever getting a clear answer. Then yesterday I show up to work (I’ve been making masks and decorations with the kids) and my co-worker comes in freaking out saying that we don’t have enough time and that the 16th is too early and we need more time. After a minor freak out on my part because I was trying to explain why I was frustrated that we weren’t ready, but no one understood me we changed the date. In the end I decided that I would just agree to change the date back to the 20th if it meant that the festival would be better. Intellectually I know that frustrations like this are part of the game and part of why you do this because eventually you hope you’ll learn to adapt and work in a new environment, but that doesn't always help in the moment. I mean these are the skills that are supposed to come with this whole crazy mess and make it all worth it.

In other news…my life includes lots of time spent watching old episodes of ‘The Office on my computer, reading, and listening to music. Although my new obsession is ‘The Wire’! And my little brother now likes to run around the house trying to rap like Jay-Z!

Some of my favorite pics

Site Move Day
Teghenik Host Family
Teghenik Kids
Teghenik Youth Club
My Counterpart Vika
Old Chapel in Teghenik
My First Picture in Armenia
My Host Mom
Me, Zoe, Amanda
Official A17 Swearing-In Photo

Lake Sevan & The Broken Foot

A couple of weekends ago I went to Lake Sevan with a bunch of other A17s to celebrate begin at site for a month. Lake Sevan is one of the largest alpine lakes in the world and a popular vacation spot in Armenia. A bunch of us met up in Yerevan to catch the marshootni to Sevan which is always entertaining to have a group of Americans on a marshootni especially when you have luggage. We were all so excited to see each other that we piled in the back of the marshootni with all our bags on our laps and laughed the whole way while the Armenians facing us stared.

Once we arrived in Sevan we met up with Hayley – the volunteer who is assigned to Sevan to get supplies for the weekend. As with anywhere we going walking into a store with more than one American is always a show. Hayley’s host dad was with us and once we finally got all our stuff and were almost done checking out the store manager came over to the register and made the cashier unpack everything and recalculate it. By this time all the customers were standing around the register watching us. After all was said in done they said we short 4 dram (which doesn’t actually exist because 10 dram is the smallest unit here)!

When we finally made it to the peninsula we got settled in our dolmiks (metal storage containers that have been turned into cabins). We all got so excited hanging out and talking that by the time we decided to start making dinner it was dark and we had to go collect firewood. It had been raining a lot in Sevan so all the wood was wet. Earlier when we were at the store we kept asking Hayley’s dad that we needed to get firewood and he kept saying spasi or heto which means wait or later, which seems to happen a lot when we ask for things here. After we couldn’t get the fire started because the wood was wet we called Hayley’s dad and he brought us some dry wood. By this time it was 9:30 and we started making our dinner. It was so good we made quesadilla-tacos! We melted cheddar cheese we bought in Yerevan between lavash (Armenian flat bread) and used it as the shell for taco meat and fixings! They were amazing mostly because I’ve had nothing but salty Armenian cheese that doesn’t melt so having cheddar like heaven. Is it sad that having cheddar for the first time in four months is one of the best things that has happened in a while!
Saturday the rest of our group came into Sevan and the party could truly begin! We walked up to this old church on a hill overlooking the lake and took some amazing band photos. Rani loves taking band photos which are fun pictures that you would but in the cover of an album – the pictures are on Facebook and they are amazing! That night Hayley’s dad came and helped us prepare a horavats (Armenian barbecue) and then had an awesome dance party! Sunday we were all moving a little slow so we just hung out and played cards.

Later that day I was walking out of one of the cabin and as I turned out of the door to shut it I stepped off the stairs leading into the cabin and landed on the side of left foot. At first I thought it was nothing because I walked back to the other cabin where everyone was, but later when I tried to get up I couldn’t put any weight on my foot. I had a large bump on the side of my foot and it was starting to swell. A couple of the boys carried me out of the cabin and we wrapped it and did the whole RICE thing. The rest of the time I couldn’t put any weight on it so I hopped around on one foot or sat watch in my chair while we made spaghetti for dinner. The next day with the help of my lovely friends I made it back to Yerevan where I went to see the Peace Corps doctor. I wasn’t alone because Amanda had to see the doctor to so we braved a night at the PCMO because Monday was Armenian Independence Day and apparently you can’t get an x-ray on a holiday in Armenia! Tuesday we went to the hospital to get an x-ray and it turned out that I had an evulsion i.e. I chipped on the outside of left foot. So they had to give me a cast that I have to wear for a month. The hardest part about the hospital was that everyone was talking and I couldn’t understand what was going on and the Peace Corps doctor wasn’t translating anything. I knew that it wasn’t a big deal but I wouldn’t want to go there if something really scary was happening just because when you are at the hospital and you have no idea what is going on it’s just awkward and confusing. According to the Peace Corps doctor I got the most expensive fancy cast, it’s made out of fiberglass and it is removable. I can walk on my cast but not too much because otherwise the corners rub on my ankle and I’m starting to get sores. I have to wear my cast for a month, which isn’t too bad but is still no fun!

Working It

I thought it would be nice to devote an entry to what exactly it is that I'm doing here in Armenia and what my life as a Peace Corps volunteer is like. So this entry is all about my work and my co-workers. I hope it helps explain what in the world I'm doing over here...

Every Peace Corps volunteer is assigned a counterpart with their organization or school. Our counterparts are supposed help us not only navigate our job assignments, but also integrate into our new communities. At my job I have a counterpart Vika - she is 22 years old and recently graduated from college. She wants to be a teacher, but it is really hard to find jobs here so she works in her families store and tutors children on the side. I work for the mayor’s office in my village so I can do lots of different things…pretty much anything that involves community development. Specifically I am working on an initiative in the village called YCAP. My other co-worker is Ovsanna - she works for YCAP and the community center. YCAP operates all over the country and it has been in my village for about a year-and-a-half. My YCAP boss is Laura – she is in charge of all the YCAP groups in Ararat Marz where I live. All the regions in Armenia are called Marzs – there are 10 marzs in Armenia plus the Yerevan district.

Right now I’m conducting an English club in my village for some of the students because there isn’t an English teacher at the school. I’m not really supposed to be teaching English, but I feel like it is a good way to meet the kids and hopefully once my Armenian has improved I can move on to not just having an English club but also a youth club that is focused on community development and youth issues, which is more in the realm of my sector.

All volunteers are assigned to a site (a village, town or city) and the volunteers in villages have an extended community which includes the nearest town for shopping and banking. Artashat is the capital of my marz and my extended community. Laura’s office is in Artashat so I go there quite often for meetings. Artashat had a Peace Corps volunteer five years ago and there is a lot of work there for secondary projects. Laura set up an English conversation club for me at the Artashat Cultural House. We have only met once two weeks ago because we couldn’t meet last week because I was on bed rest for my broken foot. Our first meeting went well I had about 25-30 young adults come although only 15 stayed for the whole meeting. I assume that once Laura explained that the club wouldn’t be an English class but rather a conversation club where people can come to practice their language skills while we discuss a range of topics that involve youth issues in Armenia. All of the participants are in their early to mid 20s and either attending university or graduates of university.

At our first meeting we had a short discussion of some of the differences between Armenian and American youth. The main difference I came up with was the amount of freedom given to American youth compared to Armenia. Most Armenian teenagers especially in the villages spend most of their time at home with their families. They don’t work especially Armenian girls because a lot of times it is considered shameful for an Armenian girl to work because it means that their families can’t support them. One of the girls made a really good point that in Armenia youth are expected to attend school and work hard to get into university and then while in university they are supposed to study but not work so that when they graduate from university they have not practical experience. She works for SMENDC (Small and Medium Enterprise National Development Center) which is an NGO that acts a consultant for local businesses. I am hoping to work with them in the future when I being to look for secondary projects.

My big project right now is planning a Harvest Festival/Halloween Party for my village. The students in my English club told me how much they love Halloween and wished that more people here celebrated it and asked if we could celebrate it. I was originally planning on just having a Halloween themed club meeting but when my Project Manager Stepan came to visit my site we had a meeting with Vika, Ovsanna, and Laura and they all loved the Stepan’s suggestion that we make the event cross-cultural to attract more people in the village because a lot of Armenians think Halloween is all about devil worship, etc. My small Halloween party soon transformed into a village wide festival so now I must begin planning because the festival is going to be on October 20th because Halloween is too late for the harvest. It is going to be cross cultural because there is a tradition of having a fall harvest festival where all the families in the village make a table displaying their harvest - they carve the fruits and vegetables in decorative ways. I’m going to have an American corner where I will have American Halloween decorations, treats, and some of the posters explaining some American Halloween traditions written in Armenian. My students and I are going to work together to make decorations and masks for the festival.

It definitely takes time to learn about a new work culture and the best way to get things done here so I have a long way to go. I really just hope that my first big project is a success because I think I need that confirmation that I do indeed know what I'm doing or that I'm at least not completely hopeless. I also think it would help the village gain confidence in my ability to get things done. I'll keep you updated as the festival approaches and after I have a few more club meetings under my belt.

It's Official

So most of this info is from a month ago but the internet in Armenia, like life is unpredictable!

I’m no longer a lowly Peace Corps trainee but an actual sworn-in volunteer! They last couple of weeks of training were hard because we were all exhausted and excited about swearing-in. Our swearing-in ceremony was great! All our training host families came to watch us and the US Ambassador to Armenia was there to administer our oath. Best of all is we got our Peace Corps Armenia pin, which is the Peace Corps logo and the American and Armenian flags. After the ceremony we had a great party with the A-16 volunteers who came for the ceremony.

I was ready to move to site but I was definitely nervous because I am the first volunteer in my site and I’m not really close to any other volunteers. I got comfortable at my training site so it was kind of like starting all over again. There have definitely been some challenging moments, but all and all things are going good. I’m still in the transition period and work is slow so I have a lot of free time which can be overwhelming because you feel like you should be doing something! I’m working on my Armenian still but I should step it up if I want to start getting any real work done because there are no English speakers in my village so I’m going to have to communicate fully in Armenian. Currently I work a couple hours a day and I’m trying to brainstorm project ideas with my counterpart. Really I spend a lot of time wondering what is going on and what I’m doing. I’m trying to just stop worrying about and roll with it but that is hard because I’m not used to not knowing what is happening in my own life. I’m definitely learning to have more patience.

I moved to my site on August 14th and although I had come to visit before in July the first couple of days were a little awkward. Just imagine that you move in with a family you barely know and can’t really communicate with. It took the first week or so to stop feeling like a house guest and like I actually live there. My host family is really great though they have been nothing but welcoming and gracious which makes being here a lot easier. My host sister Ani has made the transition really smooth. When I first got to site she would go everywhere with me and introduce me to people which is really helpful since my assignment is to work with the community youth club so she brings all her friends to my meetings. She helped me figure out how to get to town and where the bank, stores, and cafes are. Even though we don’t always understand each other we can joke around and laugh together. My oldest host brother Garenik is the most reserved of the three kids and we haven't talked too much. My youngest brother Davit is cute and hilarious but he is also a handful with nonstop energy—he is the classic baby of the family, dramatic and a show off.

Work has been the most challenging part so far. Learning a new work style and culture takes time and I’m so used to the go-go attitude in the States which is definitely not how things operate here especially in the village. I’m in a new Peace Corps village so they have never had a volunteer before and in a lot of cases I am the first American a lot of people in my village have ever met. All the volunteers who have been here for a year told me that it is best that I am the first because they won’t constantly be comparing me to their previous volunteers, which I guess is true but there is also a lot of uncertainty on my co-workers part of what I should be doing. My counterpart just graduated from college so she is really anxious about this being here first job and doing a good job. For the first two weeks of work I just went to the office and either studied Armenian or taught my coworkers English. I just finished my third week in site and it was much more productive at work. Now I have a weekly English Conversation Club/Business Class/Youth Club in town scheduled at the Culture House and a weekly youth club in my village. My first meeting in town is on the 16th and I’m really nervous about what I am going to talk about – I’m stepping into unknown territory.

Definitely the hardest part is that everything is unknown territory…everything is new and different. Parts of it are super exciting like traveling but it can be overwhelming when everything is unknown and changing. Every single thing in my life is different than it was three months ago and its new and exciting but from time to time it is just too much.

The first day of school in Armenia is September 1st and it is a really big deal. My family all went to town to get new outfits for school and then they came home and modeled them or me. On the first day of the school all the students and parents stood outside the school and the kids lined up by class. There were lots of little speeches and awards (which I didn’t really understand). Then all the new first graders were given new bags for the beginning of school. The boys got little black briefcases and the girls got bright pink and purple backpacks. All the students brought flowers for their teachers. Since it was my youngest brothers first day of school my host mom and I went to his class and all the parents stood in the classroom taking pictures and they were all presented with their books.

Funny Moments
•One of the women at the mayor’s office told me I am pretty but very plain (i.e. I don’t look like I’m ready to go clubbing at 11am at work like most Armenian women)
•I walk way too fast for Armenia...I don’t have my casual Armenian stroll down quite yet.
•Chocolate Butter...not as good as it sounds
•My little brother Davit asks every afternoon if I want ice cream because he knows if I say yes he will get ice cream too.
•Everyone I meet thinks I’m Russian or German never American and they can’t believe that I’m going to live in a village in Armenia for two years.
•Potatoes, Potatoes, Potatoes! If you don’t like to eat potatoes I wouldn’t recommend living in Armenia

more posts soon...

it has been awhile but I promise there will be many new posts soon because I know have access to the interent at school in my village. rather than trying to write the off the cuff now (which makes for rather scattered and not all that exciting posts) I am going to write them at home and then post! Miss you all!

Just another monday in hayastan...

Well, I'm currently trying yet again to post photos on Facebook but it is not going very well. I've been waiting 15 minutes for six photos to load! I'm in Charentsavan today working on my practica. Rian and I set up a meeting on Thursday with CARD (The Center for Agribusiness and Rural Development) to try and connect the organization with the mayor of the village we are working with. I'm excited about meeting with them and having another chance to go to Yerevan. We all went to Yerevan on Sunday and went to the National Armenian History Museum. We didn't really have enough time to see everything, but afterward a group of us found a Thai food restaurant and I had some good pad thai which help soothe some of my food cravings.

Three Weeks of PST Left!

Hi All! So we officially have three weeks of PST (pre-service training) left before we are sworn in as official Peace Corps Volunteers! My days recently have been full of meetings because I am working on my business practica. I am working with another trainee, Rian, and we are helping facilitate a meeting between a village mayor and a NGO in Yerevan because the mayor wants to start a farmer's cooperative for the dairy farmers. Tomorrow I'm going to Yerevan to the National History Museum and the Armenian Genocide Museum. Then Sunday I am going to Lake Sevan to look at birds. The address that I have posted on my blog is no longer good to send mail to so once I find out my address at my site I will post it. I swear in on August 13th and I move to site on the 14th. I will be sad not to see all my fellow Americans as often but I am super excited to be officially a volunteer and be done with days full of meetings. My American food cravings are getting pretty strong but I got a package yesterday that will help me stave them off a bit longer. I hope everything in the States is going great. Don't forget to keep in touch - I check Facebook everyday on my phone!

Love, Sarah

Finally Internet...crappy internet, but internet

A lot has happened in the last month, fortunately I have not had the opportunity to get on a computer with internet to update my blog or add more photos to Facebook until today.

My average day in Armenia consists of language class from 9am-Noon then I go home for lunch and then in the afternoon we generally have a meeting or business technical training. My Armenian is coming very slowly, which is a bit frustrating. The everyday words I need I have a handle on but understanding to an actual Armenian when they speak to me is very difficult because of the speed in which they speak. We had a practice oral language exam a few weeks ago and they told me I need to work on speaking in more complex and complete sentences which is can be difficult. I have to study a lot in the next month though because I must take another oral exam in August before I am sworn in as a volunteer and my work counterpart doesn’t speak much English (about as much as I speak Armenian).

I found out about two weeks ago where my permanent site would be (i.e. where I will live and work for two years beginning on August 15th). I just spent five days at my site and with my new host family, kind of like a sneak peak at the next two years. I will be living in a village called Aygepat, which has about 1,500 people who live there. It is not on many maps I’ve seen, but it is 6km from Artashat, which is the capital of my marz (region) Ararat. Artashat has a population of about 35,000 people so that is where I will do a lot of my shopping and can use the internet. My village is in the Ararat Valley of Armenia, which is known for its fruits and vegetables. We have apricot, peach, apple, pear, plum and walnut trees, as well as grapes, corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, watermelon, and many types of herbs.

My new host family is made up of my host mother, Anahit, who is a 40 year old housewife and is recently widowed, her three children, and her 87 year old mother-in-law Lusik. The children are a girl, Ani, who is 15 years old and two boys – Garnik, 10, and Davit, 5. They don’t speak any English because the school in m village teaches German as its foreign language.

My work assignment is to work with the Aygepat municipality and YCAP. YCAP stands for Youth Community Action Plan and is a nation-wide initiative that is sponsored by AED (Academy for Educational Development) and USAID to increase volunteerism and community development efforts by the youth of the villages and towns in Armenia. My village’s mayor signed up to be a participant a year ago and my role is to help organize events, contribute new ideas and skills, and help with the management of the organization. All Peace Corps volunteers are assigned to a counterpart at their partner organizations to work with and my counterparts name is Vika. She is 22 years old and recently graduated from college in Yerevan. She is a member of the youth group. If anyone is interested you can check out http://aed.am

The marz-wide director told me they are working on getting internet on the computer in the office so hopefully soon I will have much better access to the internet, but until then I will be able to take the bus to Artashat to use the internet. My office is in the village center, down the hall from the mayor’s office and next door to the post office. As soon as I know my new address I will post it. The address currently posted is good for mail sent before the end of July because of the lag time in it arriving in Armenia.

I really love my host family and everyone from work I met. It was extremely hot while I was visiting but I was told it should be better when I return. Luckily because of the hot summers the winters are not as harsh as other parts of the country. In some sites winter begins at the end of October and can last until April or May, but in Aygepat winter starts in December and is over by March.
While I was visiting my site my host family took me to a historic site called Khor Virap which is an ancient church where St. Gregory was held captive for 14 years by the King because of his faith. It was really beautiful and behind the church you could see Mt. Ararat. I will have to go back because I did not have my camera to take any photos. My family and I had a miscommunication – they told me on Saturday that tomorrow we would all go to church together so the next morning when we were getting ready to leave they asked if I wanted to bring my camera, but since I thought we were going to an actual service I said no, but come to find out we were going to a tourist attraction! It is not far from my village so I plan on visit again when other volunteers come to visit me.

I could tell plenty more stories but I will save those for another time because I can’t write anymore at the moment (I just got done with a day of school, which leaves me brain dead!). Keep your fingers crossed that I have internet in my office and I can post every day.

I tried to post photos on Facebook but the internet wasn't cooperating!

Սեր Հետ (With Love),
Սառա (Sarah)

Greetings from Armenia!

So I've officially been in Armenia for 19 days and this is my first time with the ability to use the internet other than on my phone. As of know I can check my email and facebook from my cell phone, but because it is a pain to type on the phone the blog posts will not be coming as often. I'm hoping to set up a system where I write my entries prior to coming to town so they are not so freeform but that didn't happen last night because I went to bed at 7:30pm intending to take a nap and staying asleep all night! I'm recovering from a virus that is being passed around among all the peace corps trainees. More detailed stories about adventures involving crazy chickens, the strange moments involved with living with a host family that you can't talk to beyond the capacity of a 3 year old. I live in a small village of about 300 people called Teghenik with seven other Peace Corps trainees. The nearest city on a map is Charentsevan. My host family is great and we are slowly breaking down the language barrier and the strangeness of living in another family's house. I have a host dad named Arto and mom named Marené and a 20 year old host sister name Rosan. We have two cows, chickens, and my mom makes yougert and cheese. Don't forget to write letters because they announce at our Central Days who got mail and it is like being in camp and everyone gets super excited! I promise to post tales from Armenia next time I come to town and get a chance to use the internet...they are keeping us pretty busy with training. I love it here but I do miss everyone back home and I hope that all is well back in the U.S.

P.S. Check out photos on Facebook of Philly, Vienna, and Armenia!

So I only have one day left at home before I leave for Philly and the beginning of my Peace Corps adventure! For all who are curious my mailing address from June 1 to August 1, 2009 will be:

Sarah Kuehler
3 Rustov Street
8 district, School #6
2501, Charentsavan, Armenia

Not 100% sure on the formatting of that but that's the correct order.

At least in the beginning I will be in a town that has access to the internet so I should be able to update and chat via facebook, email, etc. My email address is sarah.kuehler@yahoo.com.

Tonight was my going away party but some how it still has not completely sunk in and I don't think it will until I am on the plane to Philly.

Two Weeks Out

So I'm two weeks from leaving for Philadelphia for my Peace Corps staging and I really should be packing, but I wanted to make sure and get this blog set up so I can stay in touch with everyone while I'm gone. I can't believe I'm leaving so soon!