It’s Saturday morning in Vanadzor and a beautiful day.  I’ve been sitting at my computer working on reports for the State Department and writing lesson plans next.  It’s quite quiet and peaceful.  My neighbors, as usual, are very quiet, and the only sound I hear is children playing on the playgrounds outside and distant construction.  Children play outside all of the time here, and it is so nice to hear their cheerful voices and seeing them with their friends!  They don’t have access to computer and video games like in the U.S. so they spend time outdoors and visiting friends.  It reminds me of growing up in Mobile, Alabama. 

Last week I went with Aleks of the U.S. Alumni Ass. to visit schools in Stepanavan and Alaverdi, two villages not far from her.  We were accompanied by a former Muskee Fellow who has returned to Armenia but now married to an Armenian American and will return to the U.S. as soon as possible.  We talked about attending the university in the U.S.  The high school students were very interested but of course have no funds to help them.  They could go to the U.S. as foreign exchange students.  On Saturday, we visited high school #5 here in Vanadzor.  It was quite interesting.  We are attended by Edmun who is a current and new Parliament member in Armenia from Vanadzor.  He was there speaking to the students, because he attended law school in the U.S. as a Humphrey Scholar in Human Rights.  He told me that he quit his job as a lawyer and is making 1/3 of what he was making before to represent the people of Vanadzor and guide Armenia to becoming a better democracy.  He was elected as an independent candidate, which is unheard of here!  The people of Vanadzor love him and trust him.  He is everywhere I go, and they believe will be the president of Armenia one day. 

On Saturday night, I went to the town square and met my friend Kristina who is the head of the language department.  We went to a restaurant and had dessert and then walked back to the square for fireworks.  The following morning we left at 10:30 to go to Stephanavan for a fall festival.  It was really interesting.  It was at the end of a dirt and paved road, and there were many people there.  There was a stage there for introducing important people, and of course Edmun was there, many singers, many traditional dancers, and some hip hop also.  The villagers all had tables set up with their homemade food products: some with homemade sausages and soups also.  All of the food was free except for a few items to be sold like honey and jam.  The tables were decorated with carved fruit.  There were many varieties of dairy products: cheeses, butter and mansoun like yoghurt. Many types of bread were available and different varieties of fish. One lady demonstrated how to make string cheese.  Of course when they realized I was an American everyone offered me their food, and I was quite stuffed by time we made the table rounds.  The food was all very good, but I’ve had difficulty getting used to their cheese.  It is much stronger than the cheese we eat at home. 

After leaving the festival we drive to a nearby area called Dendropark which they call a botanical garden or arborarium.  It is an old Russian park and was probably quite nice at one time, but Armenians don’t have the kind of money to maintain things like this.  There were several cottages that must have belonged to caretakers.  There were many roses there and some other flowers, but the main attraction was the walkways beneath the beautiful evergreen trees and the pretty paths.  I kept thinking it didn’t compare to Callway Gardens!  There was a sanatorium nearby that people come to for their health, and I explained to Kristina if you told an American you were taking them here they would get quite upset, because it is too close to the word sanitarium which has a totally different meaning!  We decided we should visit the sanatorium in Vanadzor and find out what kind of facilities they have!

We were accompanied by about ten of our students from the linguistics class who paid to have a van for the day.  They also brought with them lots of food and after leaving the festival we drove to a campsite, and they made Kharovats out of chicken and pork, skewed potatoes, fresh vegetables, fruits, breads, pastries, candies, wine, and fruit juice.  The young girls here don’t have to be asked to help with preparation; they do it all themselves and Kristina and I watched and admired them.  After they finished eating they turned up the music behind the van, and danced traditional Armenian dances.  They are so much fun to watch and so enthusiastic about their culture. 

On Monday, my assistant, Ana, (Curt’s future wife!) and I planned for the event we will be celebrating next weekend.  We are having a Broadway night at the university and have invited two universities, several colleges and high schools to attend.  We’re having it at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, because some of the students live in villages and night time activities are difficult for them.  We have 110 seats and have many students planning to come.  We will show Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, a story they are all familiar with, serve refreshments, and give prizes to the students who can answer the questions on the programs first.  The students will wear formal attire.  It will be very interesting to see how all of this goes over!  The universities all donated money for decorating and refreshments, and we’re quite excited about it.

Today I have nothing else planned except enjoying my free time and catching up with paperwork.  I’ll go out in a little while and do some daily shopping and hope the water comes back on!  The washing machine and I are getting along very well now.  My oven is going great too.  I even found flour at the supermarket.  It was hard telling the girl what I wanted, because I couldn’t remember the Russian word for flour!  Now I know it’s myka, pronounced mooka.  I have learned a few Armenian words also: eeencha means what is it, ha ha – yes yes, cha – long a – no – ha eleya - of course, hotpots – street – shnorkakalootyoon – thank you.  It’s very difficult!  I’ll stick to learning more Russian!

Living in Vanadzor

It’s Saturday morning in Vanadzor and I am sitting at my computer looking over the upcoming week’s plans.  Finally after two weeks it looks as thought my schedule is coming together, so I can plan and think ahead.  My Turkish washing machine in my compact kitchen is going while I eat a breakfast of coffee and the most interesting bread from a delightful bread store purchased on the way back from Yerevan.

My Turkish washing machine is a subject all by itself!  My landlady, who speaks no English, had someone come with her to explain how it works, in Armenian mind you!  Okay, I was ready, then the first day I used “the Sultan” it refused to give me back my clothes, and I discovered it hadn’t even used the soap I had given it!  The next Saturday I was ready again, and yes finally it gave me my clothes back.  I discovered even though the Sultan is slow, it practically dries your clothes before returning them.  I also realized I needed to push yet another button to get it to use the soap.  Help me if I ever decide to use fabric softener!  So today we are doing a dark load, I set the temperature which actually has degrees on it, for the lowest setting and pushed one button for wash and another for soap.  Hopefully at some point today, it will let me hang my clothes on the clothesline.

While we were in Washington, D.C. we were told to get to know our neighbors.  I have been trying to figure out how to do that, because none of them speak English.  Thursday an opportunity appeared.  My downstairs neighbor and her father were trying to rehang her outside clothesline attached to the window after having her windows replaced.  I stood by the window and handed them the wire while they were inside.  Then Ana’s 80+ dad decided he had to cut down the tree branches to make way for clothes, so I held the ladder so he wouldn’t fall.  He was climbing on the tops of garage roofs and cutting branches down; I was sure he was going to kill himself.  Finally the job was completed.  The neighbors thought we were all so funny because we couldn’t communicate, but it didn’t seem to hinder us much!  Now my neighbors all speak to me when they see me, but I have no idea what they are saying!

Last night I went to Sofy’s for dinner.  She is the head of the Foreign Language Department of the Pedagogical University.   She is only 30 years old and got her PhD at 24.  I met her granny who sat on the couch and knitted the whole time; she was really sweet, her sister Sona, and her Mom, who also teaches at the University.  Her mother prepared a wonderful dinner.  She made Armenian shuslik, which is what they call barbecue.  They were thick pork chops cooked over a wood grill with lavash, Armenian bread, and onions.  They were incredible!  She had a table full of wonderful food with salads, meats that were very spicy and tasty, and of course bread.  She served it with fruit juice, cognac, and wine.  The dinners are served here much the same as in Kazakhstan with lots of pickles, cheeses, and meats.  The Armenians use a lot more spices in their foods, and they are quite good. 

I finally got my schedule set up for school.  On Monday Ana and I work all day to prepare for workshops and activities for the Armenian English Teachers Association for the Lori District.  We’re having a lot of fun planning things, and I’m so glad we have the time to spend to get it done!  On Tuesday and Fridays I teach at the Pedagogical Institute to groups of third and fourth years students teaching writing, debate skills, and speaking and listening skills.  I also teach two high school classes that are in the adjoining building.  The students here are better in English grammar than the students in the U.S., because they learn English by the rules.  Their biggest concern is with speaking it and understanding spoken English from native English speakers.  They often learn it from their teachers here who don’t speak correctly, leaving out articles and using rather awkward words.  I have the best part of teaching, because it’s fun for me and for them.  We talk and learn about American culture and sometimes history.  On Wednesday and Thursdays, I go to the European Academy and teach one class of 4^th year linguistics students, a group of students studying tourism, and another high school class.  They are pretty much all concentrating on the same things except the Tourism group, which is studying what there is to see in America.

On Friday, I am traveling with Aleks who works for the U.S. Alumni Association to two villages.  He represents all of the Fulbrighters, Peace Corp, and English Language Fellows who are alumni of the program and plans events.  I am going to speak to high school students on what it’s like to go to college in America.  It will give me more of a chance to see Armenia also.

My apartment is very comfortable.  I have three rooms: a living room, bathroom, small compact kitchen, and a small bedroom. It has everything I need.  It’s on the third floor of the building which means it’s not too accessible from the street and not too many stairs to climb every day, just enough for exercise!  The hallways are lit with sensor bulbs so it’s not dark but the lights don’t stay on long enough!  My neighbors keep their hallways and doorsteps very clean, but there are some things about Eastern Europe I will never understand!  The outside of these old Soviet buildings look like slums.  They are pretty shabby!  The inside hallways are the same and you think nothing good could be behind these walls, but when you open the doors to the apartments, it’s quite another story.  They are quite pretty inside.  My neighbors have metal garages outside the building they keep their cars in, if they have cars, and they are locked.  Their cars are Mercedes!  I have never seen so many Mercedes, but Ana tells me they buy used ones, and they are only about $14,000 here. 

Everything here is soooo cheap!  My apartment is $200 a month.  A manicure is $2.00 unless you get gel which is $10.  Lunch is usually $2 unless you get a sandwich on the street, chabereky, which is 25 cents.  I started wondering why I was cooking.  My internet is $10, cable t.v. $10, utilizes maybe $50 a month until I turn the heat on.  Groceries are very cheap too and no preservatives.  I have to constantly remind myself not to buy too much and to use it quickly, and I’m so happy when my bread molds in three days now! Fresh vegetables are everywhere, but I wonder what we will eat in the winter.  There are no canned vegetables to speak of, everything available is in jars.  There is no frozen food except for a few meats.  It will be interesting to see what’s available.  People dry their own fruit here and do funny things with walnuts.

The people are very nice but I’ve gotten stranger looks here than in Kazakhstan.  Everywhere I go people stare, especially if I’m with someone, and they hear us speaking English.  They are curious.

I finally understand why they like Russia so much here.  After being victimized by the Turks and almost killed off, the Russians stepped in and saved them.  They didn’t mind becoming part of the Soviet Union, because otherwise they would have been dead. I’m reading a lot about the Armenian Genocide.  Because they are a landlocked country, they have no way to import goods except through Iran which is another country they are friendly with.  They told me I should go visit there; can you imagine?  It’s hard to explain to them why I can’t go there!  They also have parents and grandparents who wished they were still part of the Soviet Union, because their lives were better then, and they had more security.  I told them Americans don’t understand why anyone would want to be Communist, but then I guess we’ve never been hungry or had a future that was totally unpredictable!

I visited the new church and had an interesting conversation with the priest.  He said he spoke some English.  I asked him what time services are.  He didn’t understand, so I pointed to my Russian dictionary to the word Sunday, and he promptly told me, “Today is Monday!”  I motioned that he spoke in the pulpit on Sunday and what time: numbers 10, 11 and 12.  He pointed to 11, and I told him I would see him with my Bible later!  He smiled.  I also visited the Russian church and the lady who watches the church was very friendly.  She spoke Russian the whole time and noticed my Russian cross and ring and blessed me. 

My friend Kristina is a devout Christian here, and I think we may go to church together. I knew she was a Christian from the things she has in her apartment. She is a widow and has been for about 12 years.  Her husband was killed in a car accident when she was 23, had a five year old son and was pregnant.  It was very difficult for her.  She lived with her in-laws for many years and then moved into an apartment her grandparents left her.  When she did, her in-laws tried to take her son away from her.  She’s a great mother and dearly loves her son; he looks just like his father.  He’s very handsome and is 17 now.  She told me he sleeps with his Bible under his pillow. 

Most of the people here are not very religious just like in other former Communist countries, but they do seem more so than where I’ve been before.  I guess it will be interesting to see what happens during the holidays.  They don’t celebrate Christmas until

January and usually celebrate New Year’s and Christmas all together for several days.  They tell me it’s a lot of fun but too much food!

More later….