Haykakan Harsanek aka An Armenian Wedding

At the beginning of December I attended my first Armenian wedding or as the Armenians say a Haykakan Harsanek. It was the wedding of my host cousin Miriam and it was definitely an interesting experience. I left my house at noon and returned home at 1 a.m. Armenian wedding and American wedding traditions are very different.



First my host sister, host mom, and I went to the neighboring village Aygezard to the family of the bride's house to sit and chat with all her female relatives before the ceremony. My sister and I sat with the bride and her friends while we waited for the groom’s family to come over. After about an hour we could hear music coming from outside and we all went down stairs where the groom’s family was coming marching down the street with a four-piece traditional Armenian band and gifts for the bride.



The women from the bride’s family came out of the house and took the gifts from the groom’s family and everyone danced in the street. Then all the women from both families went inside to give the gifts to the bride. The gifts were baskets of fruit and candies. One basket had the bride’s veil, wrap, bouquet and one of her shoes in it. Now you may be wondering why in the world the groom’s family had one of the bride’s shoes…well many of the Armenian wedding traditions involve the giving of money for various things, including one of the bride’s shoes which the groom’s family stole earlier. The women then began to sing and prepare the bride – putting on her shoes, her veil, and her wrap. Then they threw some of the candy from the basket at all of the women and girls watching. My host mom handed me a piece and told me to put it under my pillow that night while I slept and I would have a dream about my future husband. After the bride was ready the groom came up stairs and presented her was a basket of flowers. The bride and groom went downstairs and outside and we all followed. Once we were all outside there was more dancing, this time around the happy couple.



The next stop was the church – they ceremony was at Khor Virap, a beautiful church about twenty minutes from my village. Khor Virap is a 7th century monastery and it is where Saint Gregory the Illuminator (the patron-saint of Armenia) was imprisoned in a dungeon for 13 years. According to legend the King became very ill and began to go mad and his daughter convinced him to release Gregory who then healed the King and converted him to Christianity.



The ceremony was quite short compared to the rest of the festivities and after the priest finished the ceremony the groom’s parents stood at the front of the church with the couple and the wedding party for the receiving line. All the guests went through the line giving their congratulations to the couple. Everyone lined up for pictures outside the church after the ceremony and then doves were released.



After the ceremony everyone headed to the groom’s house for celebratory toasts and dancing. In Armenia it is tradition that when a couple is married the bride moves into the groom’s house with his parents. So when everyone was at the groom’s house the bride and groom arrived with a suitcase symbolizing the exchange of the bride to her new family. After some more dancing the party head to the reception, which was at a restaurant on the highway between Artashat and Yerevan, for more dancing, toasts, food, and drinks. At the restaurant there were large family-style tables full of olives, cheese, bread, fruits, and bottles of wine, vodka, and cognac. There was a three-course dinner 1) pork khoravats (Armenian barbecue); 2) kufta (this weird meat trine); 3) fish. The reception had a MC, tons of dancing, and many long toasts. The bride and groom went around the room and toasted every person at the reception. The bride and groom were presented with gifts from their families, mostly gold jewelry. They cut the cake around 11pm and then did the garter and bouquet toss. The bride and groom went around the room and handed out little plaster statues of hearts and flowers to all the single people in the crowd. Later the bride danced for all the guests and people came up and gave her money. The reception wound-down around midnight, but by the time we got home it was past 1am.

It was interesting to experience a wedding a culture that is very different for the United States. All in all I can say that an Armenian wedding is an exciting fun time, but it is not for the faint of heart because it is a marathon of toasts, eating, drinking, and dancing.

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