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.