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.