My forehead is sunburned now,and the patterns of my chaco sandal straps are permanently tanned on my feet. Lala was right about this...the sun is different here; brighter ,hotter.They say this is where noah's arc landed. Maybe that's why the sun shines so... maybe it's a special place , so the earth shows favor and shines brightest here...hmmm
Anywhooo...
I drink tea all the time now, my new family doesn't own a cow, so we don't make our own cheese or butter (no more arm muscles for me). It also seems that they don't drink milk. It's ok though because in Cali I picked up the habit of drinking tea all the time, and I do mean all the time.so it's not so difficult now when I go for days and what may be weeks without milk...what I would give for a tall glass of it though...(My firstborn maybe...hehe j/k...kind off)
Right now as I write this I smiling because I am watching and listening to my host mom shout to her mother who lives across the river.Of course it would be a simple matter to just call on the phone but how weird is that? Phones are rude here in small villages of little over 500. It's like calling ur girlfriend who is sitting in the same class with you to ask her if she did last night's home work because you need to copy it :) haha don't lie! Some of you have done that! Don't make me have to call names! You also don't walk through the village with your ipod on, you don't talk on your cell and ignore people on the streets and u certainly say 'barev dez' or 'bari or' to all the females you pass by...at least in my case. I don't speak to the men,mostly out of concern for my 2 year reputation in the village than anything else. I have nothing to fear here.
As you have probably figured out by now, I am all sworn in and am a bona fide PCV :D . There was a ceremony at the Charentsavan (or what we call C-town as pct's) Music School. In attendance was our Madam Ambassador (whose name I will not butcher by attempting to spell it without research) and our host families (God bless them because months of listening 2 grown adults attempt conversation with the language capability of a rock must be like fingernails on a chalkboard). Also there was our country director,all the training staff,Armenian media and the A16's were out in full force to conduct their own private initiation of us A17's after the formal ceremony (said initiation will not be discussed ...here). Highlights from the ceremony included Kyle's speech which had a short prose on Dave Boggs eating butter that he thought was ice-cream and the entertainment this provided for weeks for the locals hahaha (see when you can't read Hay you depend on pictures. Have you ever noticed how a picture of creamy butter looks like ice-cream??) Seriously though, Boggs lives two villages away from me and families in my village knew this story before I did. There was also a skit put on by another village that I guess was meant to portray the Armenian resilience to any strife and their ability to find happiness in anything. But, most importantly there was a song sung by yours truly along with about 12 other volunteers speaking of brotherhood and survival and pride in ones nation. Actually I'm not really sure about all of that because I didn't translate the whole thing but I believe that's a pretty good gist.
After our ceremony we took pictures, then headed to our famous cafe spot. Here we let loose and relaxed for a few hours. We were volunteers and no longer needed to call our LCF's when we left and returned to our villages boooyah!! I said my goodbyes to the volunteers
I was closest too since I would not be seeing some, maybe for months to come. In all our cases we are not allowed to venture out our village and community for a month. Thus, those who are not in the same village but same community get to see each other,but for me...it's gonna be me,myself,I and the villagers kicking it.
I enjoy this most times when I'm all gung-ho about assimilating but I cannot tell a lie, it does make me feel isolated at times. Moreso, sometimes isolation from the familiar makes you feel homeless and lost,but it's ok because even though i'm a long way from nc and cali and an even longer way from Trinidad, they say home is where you lay your head. I'm at home in armenia now soon it'll be familiar. On a brighter note, there is a lot that can be said for language improvement when only myself and one other person speaks english in the village !
I start working 1st with the 1 school in my village on September 1st. It's the first day of school where the kids attend even though I have been there 4 days last week and every day this week already. The school is newly built and the classrooms are small. I was told today my 9th form has 9 kids and they are all lazy! We'll see about that,I will be REGULATING. For the rest of this week I am just going to try to organise some grant requests that I would like to write and submit,plan for projects with other villages,do some brainstorming on my secondary project and some research on the FLEX programs that allow Armenian students to spend a semester at a US school. Speaking of secondary projects, I am playing around with starting a spanish speaking club. There are at least 3 of us here who speak it well and it will be a good excuse for us to travel around helping each other plus it will be good to brush up and review.
As for my updates, as you can guess, a little more of a process for me to get internet now.
