coming back to america: expected and unexpected

There are so many parts of reentry to America to talk about, and I’ve started to make two lists. Here’s what I have so far:

Things that are really not surprising at all:

Super Wal-Mart is super terrifying. For two years, I did grocery shopping the Armenian way. I chatted with shopkeepers, had coffee with my bakery ladies, and shook hands with the vegetable man. There were so many things I couldn’t find in Armenia like brown sugar, buffalo wings, or tostada shells. Still, after growing up on America’s industrial food system, it was actually thrilling to know I could make do and that I actually loved food that was good for me.
I went to Guatemala for a summer during college, and when my mom picked me up at the airport at trip’s end, she took me to Wal-Mart to get whatever I wanted. In the orange juice section I had a breakdown. I couldn’t stop talking long enough to breathe. I hyperventilated. I couldn’t take the aisle of cookies, the plethora of tortilla chips, and now how was I supposed to know which of the juices hit highest marks in taste, vitamin content, price, and what if there’s some orange juice criterion I DON’T KNOW ABOUT!?  Consumer culture made me whack-a-doo. This time I saw it coming years away, and when I go in, I actually alternate between wanting to buy out the warehouse and run from the aisles as fast as I can.  Despite being the only game in this small town, I avoid the place as much as possible.

I can pet dogs. Every Peace Corps volunteer in Armenia felt like their town was the worst when it came to aggressive, angry, barking dogs. Every town had its regular strays, and I had to adjust my route to work to avoid the worst ones. I’ve been in Texas a month, and I haven’t seen a stray dog yet. 99% of the dogs I’ve encountered are well-behaved with owners that treat them like best friends. I’ve got my sister’s dog in my lap right now.

I can take a shower whenever I want to. This is privilege, straight up. I can drink the water. I can do laundry or dishes. I can take a hot shower. And if I want to, I can do this all at 3:00 am. It’s the kind of privilege so huge it inspires guilt.

There are some things that have absolutely caught me off guard:

Our silverware is heavy and shiny and beautiful. I know, not the most massive epiphany. Still, my first day back, I was dropping the silverware into the drawer and couldn’t stop from marveling at the beveled edges, the roses on handles, the gleam on the backs of spoons, the weight of each piece in my hands. In Armenia, I bought all my silverware, some twenty peaces for about $3. I can still feel the edge of a fork against my lip. Each dull piece was simply cut from a sheet and warped. I used to think our Texas silverware was old and dingy. And when I arrived here weeks ago, I at first thought my family must have bought an entirely new set of the same things. But no, the silverware here is just really nice.

I love going to the gym. I know you don’t really know me, and I know I’m lookin’ fly. But this bod hasn’t seen a gym since finishing my college credits in phys ed.  However, after knee surgery, and after a general lack of exercise in Armenian culture, I am so happy to be pushing my limits. I curl things and press things and crunch things, and then I bike until start to drip. And while my jogging figure was a spectacle on the roads of Stepanavan, here I am just one in sweaty crowd.

There are hand-mixers. Do you remember how I made a lot of chocolate chip cookies in Armenia. The landfamily loved them, and I can admit to having way to many, what I called, “Baker’s Dozen Dinners,” where dinner was simply a pile of cookies. (Those were long, cold, and lonely winters!) I have a knack for them now, and the other night my family wanted them. So, I got everything together, including a perfect wooden spoon for the mixing. Butter melted, eggs beat, sugar creamy, I had my little sister start adding the flour.
“This is where it gets a little tough.” I chuckled.
“We have a mixer, you know,” my mother said from the dining room.
For a moment I had no idea what she was saying. Literally, the sentence didn’t make sense. Then, brain finally firing at top speed… A MIXER. I remembered what it was, and I flipped out.
This has actually been my first and only reentry freak-out. Over the mixer. That was the trigger, and the monumental privilege that I now experience slammed me in the face. I have a washer and a dryer. I have a dishwashing machine. I have DVR. I have a comfortable bed. And I have a mixer.

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mold tastes like dirt and ghosts eat cake

Spring Chicken is quite upset with me.  It has been raining for a few days.  Rain makes mud.  Mud gets stuck in paws and then leaves stains on clothes and tracks on the office’s tile floor.  I am not allowed to keep her inside the cottage and bringing her mud ridden to work would be the end of her office life altogether.  So I leave her behind bars, and she screams at me and shivers in her little cage.

Guilt is not a good way to start (multiple) days.  It is also little use to follow them with days of Reneging On Your Plans and Wondering What You Should Do With Your Days/Life and General Work Dissatisfaction and Further Whining About All of the Above Plus My Current Ant Problem.

Since my water only runs from 10am-1pm, I stay home two mornings a week to wash dishes and laundry and myself.  This morning after such cleaning, I made myself brunch, two egg and chicken wiener tacos and a glass of water.  The first bite I noticed a new flavor, a distinct taste of dirt.  This was my last piece of lavash so I attributed the taste to staleness.  However, during a later chew I noticed the blue-green dots on the second taco which could not be attributed to staleness.  These were signs of a new life, one I would rather not ingest.  I searched the taco in hand for such colors, and finding none I continued eating while ripping away the offending half of taco 2.  Getting towards the end of A Serious Man, a movie about the crescendoing crumble of man’s life and emotional health, I picked up taco 2 and began to eat.  I tasted the dirt again, and chose to believe in staleness instead of growth.  It wasn’t until taco 2 punched my soft pallet with a foul wave of dirt-taste that I looked down at the lavash which was now chicken-pocked on the inside with blue-green dots and had a final half-blot of mold on a piece hanging down into the taco’s inside.  I ejected the other half-blot from my mouth along with have chewed bits of egg and chicken wiener.  I heard Spring Chicken outside in her cage whining to be let go, and I joined her with a few small whimpers of my own.

That said, take heart, friends.  There are patches of sunlight coming in through the clouds.  Consider these rose-colored bits o’ life:

1.  I paused in the middle of writing this blog because my coworker, Davit, wanted to quiz me in Armenian words for fruits and vegetables.  The only one I didn’t recognize was a mysterious yellow melon I’m not sure I’ve ever eaten.  Still better than word recognition was the exchange.  It feels good to have friends.  In a few minutes I’m going to go have tea with them.

2.  I am consistently making pretty dang incredible choclate chip cookies.  If you visit my cottage sometime, I will make them for you.  (However, it seems that my town is without milk.  I found one Russian milk product but the aftertaste is so much of old cheese I can’t stomach it.)

3.  I’m reading my first book on Buddhist practice, one by Director of Gampo Abbey, Pema Chödrön.  Based on this reading, I don’t think I could ever really become buddhist; I am much too attached to narrative thanks to my Judeo-Christian roots.  But besides basic meditation practice and an overall admonition to love all parts of yourself and lighten up, I found some real gems including my new favorite religious ritual, Feeding the Ghosts.  Chödrön talks about Ghosts as those negative aspects of you that are often unreasonable, the kind of feeling that is there when you wake up and eats away at you all day.
The idea of Feeding the Ghosts is that you invite those Ghosts, those difficult and hard-to-reason feelings close to you.   Ritually, you do this by offering them cake.  Literally, you put out a tiny cake each morning or offer it during a small ceremony.  You put out a cake for your Ghosts.  From the book: “There is even an incantation that says, ‘Not only do I not want you to go away, you can come back any time you like  And here, have some cake.’”
I am so in love with this idea for it’s hilarity and it’s message I think I’m going to start putting out cakes as soon as possible.  But I have to learn how to make cake.  I wonder if Ghosts like chocolate chip cookies.

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satisfying your needs and a fine cultural moment

First of all, let’s satisfy this need right now.  I know you’re all waiting for shriveled wet puppy pictures similar to those of the departed/possibly-eaten Sanity.

So, there’s that.

Now you’re probably wondering, when I’m not eating Taco Maco, craving Mexican food, plotting to intercept huge shipments of Mexican food things on their way to anywhere, or thinking about how much I NEED MEXICAN FOOD, what do I actually do in Armenia?  Well, I’ll tell you by telling you this:

Earlier this week some Armenian teens, a guy from work, and I crammed into a Lada Niva and drove to some villages near Lake Sevan.  Thanks to prearrangements from PCV’s living in those villages, our Armenian teens talked to other Armenian teens about HIV/AIDS.

The brave little bunch trusting each other during a team-building exercise. (I can't resist mentioning how much the boy's posture, second from the last, brings to mind Junior from "Disney's The Jungle Book".)

Our Stepanavan teens are a brave little bunch, willing to stand in front of their peers and talk about some very sensitive topics (condoms, abstinence, saying no to drugs, discrimination) which is difficult for any teenager but, as I’ve already said, can be really difficult in a world where teenage sexuality is pretty much completely underground.
I am continually impressed by these kids, their initiative, their patriotism, their humor and their hope.

During our trips out to villages, when we aren’t teaching forums on HIV/AIDS, we are playing a new favorite game of mine, Durak, in which I am fairly consitently given that label (which means stupid), or we are playing ERS which I taught them only to dominate the game thoroughly.

On this trip however, things evolved into a particular cultural frenzy. Let me explain.  I am in the kitchen with another PCV and two of our teenagers.  I decided to make chocolate chip cookies, and the kids were eager to see if a real live man could actually prepare something edible.  So, I am mixing butter and sugar and cutting chocolate bars into bits and sounding out the words, “Chak-a-let ch-eep koo-kee-z”.  They want to know exactly what I’m doing.  Having just watched Julie & Julia, I couldn’t resist the opportunity.  In my very best Armenian, and using my very best Julia Child voice, I began,

“AraCHEEN du petk e takaNAL kaRAke.”  I keep it up instructing them not to be AFRAID of the chocolate bar but to simply give it a solid whack.  “Never apoligize!” I tell them repeatedly.  And so on, until the teenagers were giggling reservedly at the joke they were missing and the other volunteer was heartily guffawing.

So there you have it.  What is my work here in Armenia?  Among other things, it is impersonating Julia Child in Armenian.

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spring, cookie dough and a drum circle

I know, I know.  Wow. Very interesting Brent.  Thrilling.  But lets take a minute and really examine what this photo means.  First of all, in this cookie dough you’ll find vanilla, brown sugar and Nestle milk chocolate morsels, none of which you can find easily, if at all, in Armenia.  This is a cookie dough that brought together ingredients from multiple continents.  This is a cookie dough prompted by caring hands back in the motherland.  This is a cookie dough whose creation was so perfectly timed that it may very well have contributed to the continuation of my Peace Corps service.  Without this cookie dough I might have packed it all up and returned home to start a completely different path, a different life altogether.  So, we can say, this is a cookie dough WHICH SAVED MY LIFE, or life as I have come to know it. **moment of reflection in which I have a powerful, gustatory memory wave over me; I mentally roll some cookie dough around on my tongue.**

In other news:  Spring has come early.  I have never been more excited about a season in my life.  Snow has melted.  I got up at nine this morning and cleaned everything.  I pulled up the lumpy wool mattress and took them to the sun.  I swept and mopped.  I hand washed all my sheets.  I scrubbed encrusted cat poop from under the cat pan.  I beat the rugs with one of these.  I did it all under the rays of this incredible sun.  After six hours of cleaning, I played nardi with the Landlord, scarffed on Landlady’s fresh baked bread, and laid out in the sun with the Landcouple’s tiny daughters until we’d soaked up enough energy to pull out some pots and have a drum circle.

Spring, cookie dough, and a drum circle.  Looks like that’s the cure for me.

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lunch sanity

I’ve been looking for grants all day.  All day.  One site says it wants to fund human rights projects for Bangladeshi women.  Another wants to dig wells.   Another is dedicating all it’s funds to democracy initiatives in struggling republics.  Fantastic.   But what I need is somebody who’d like to help a bunch of old ladies in a village refurbish an old house and make it into a cultural center/tourist opportunity for interested travelers.  And I’m finding zilch.

So after a few hours, I got hungry, looked around for my lunch buddies and found out that I’d have to wait another couple of hours until we’d all eat together.  Tick, tock, tick, tock, stomach grumble.  And then when my lunch buds do show up there’s a fifteen minute conversation in which we mull over the same uninspiring old lunch choices: fried potatoes, bread and cheese, scrambled eggs, eggs with beans, mashed potatoes, cheese and bread. With sauce.

Frustrated over the grant search and the lack of lunch options suited to my Texas pallet, I snapped.  When Guyane inquired about my lunch preference, “Lav, Brent, inch es uzum?”  the tension finally wrenched tight enough to send a slight fizzure through my sanity.

“What do I want?” I bit back.  “A bean burrito!”

“What?” Guyane said.

“Look.”  Sitting in front of my computer I immediately Googled up this image:

“Isn’t it beautiful?” I said.  “The beans… oh lord… and the cheese melting, and the heat from the beans squishing into cool sour cream that bursts over my tongue when bite through a warm tortilla!”

Guyane and Arpine give me a quizzical look.

“I’m losing it,” I say, but continue the Google image search. “Look!”

“I used to work here,” I tell them in a flurry.  “Oh man oh man oh man oh man.”

“Doesn’t it look wonderful!?” I gawk at the screen.

“What is it?” Guyane asks.

“Vay, Brent!” Aprine exclaims.  She knows I’m on the brink.

“It’s a Sharky’s Burrito!” I exclaim.  “I used to work here.  I ate it every day, but different.”  I close my eyes, and my hand reaches for an asbsent spoon full of imaginary black beans. “A kid’s veggie.  Black beans. A little bit of rice. A smidge of,” I run my fingers, imagine the feeling of those old latex gloves, squishing, “potatoes. If the boss isn’t looking, a scoop of queso.  Both cheeses. Pico. A little lettuce. One slice of Jalepeno; I like the suprise. Spicy ranch. AND A LINE OF ROASTED SALSA! OOOOOH!”

“Ay Brent, chunenk.”

“And the next morning,” my fingers move with enormous speed and dexterity, typing in the search box, devouring the images on Google with voracity, ” it would be two carne guisada burritos and a bean and cheese at La Pop’.

“For lunch, Taco Bueno.  Mexi Dips and Chips and a Beef MUCHACO!”

“Brent,” Guyane says, “What is ‘muchaco’?”

“It’s fast food.  Tex-Mex.  DELICIOUSNESS!”

“Ok, so maybe you like beans,” she says.

“Absolutely, I do.” I am still madly image searching.

“Maybe we can have lobiyov tsvadzegh (green beans and scrambled eggs)?”

“Oh… ok,” I whimper. “But oh my lord, LOOK!  Can’t we just have my mom’s roast and potatoes!?

“Or spaghetti and meatballs!” I have to dig through my own files for this one. “Don’t worry, it’s only green for halloween!!!”

“How about pizzza?” Guyane asks.  “Alvart jan, pizzan unen khanutum?  Inch chargi? … Yerek hat kberes?” And they leave me to my slobbering, my gastropornographic wanderings over every possible thing I’d eat right now.

“Oh pizza sub.  Oh chips and dips.  Oh chips and SALSA!  Tostadas… Little Caesars… Hot’N'Ready….

“Oh. My. Gosh.” My fingers go absolutely nuts.

“CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

I still have 21 months to go.  I think I’m in trouble.

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Քույրիկս և Ընկերներս

Other Peace Corps Volunteers are invaluable friends. There is no one else in the world who will know what it’s like here as well as your PCV friends will. The good ones provide a safe space to vent, miss home, commiserate, and let your American self hang out. When I’m with my PCV friends, I can talk about Obama, Battlestar Gallactica (never thought I would watch that… but necessity is the mother of you-will-watch-anything-when-desparate), and where to buy vanilla in Yerevan. I can complain about host mom quirks and all the stares. And I can dance like I dance, which can certainly incorporate the Armenian arms-only techniques, but is only complete with wobbly feet and old step squad rolls and swings.

The above picture is my friend Liz. She was the first to welcome me to Armenia with, “Oh, you’re the one living with my old host family.” Because we share this host family connection, she calls me ‘Aghbers’, my brother, and we reminisce about Geghtsik’s wild dancing and Armine’s quick temper. I’m currently hoping she’ll cut my hair when I see her this weekend in Yerevan.

And these are some of my close friends, geographically and otherwise. I went up for the weekend to Baghratashin to visit them. Grace made that plate of cookies (I’m cleary very excited, yeah?), as well as lavash chips and 4 layer dip. We watched Perfume, leavened the night with Dodgeball and slept warmly all surrounding each other on mats on the floor. Peace Corps is one of the only places in the world where not only are you not too old for sleepovers, but the activity is expected, comes with the two year package.

I would not survive here without people like this.

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Binging

(The fact that I have not written here for some time reflects my inability to form interesting and/or coherent thoughts from my current transitional state. Ie, Most of the time I can’t keep up with what’s going on in and outside of me, and therefore, I can hardly find a way to write about it. Below is the best I can do.)

I came back from India confused, upset, delighted, and ready to binge. I have spent the last few weeks gaining more weight than I lost while in Kolkata and drowning my perceived sorrows in reality television.
With that said, it’s been a fantastic reality tv season for me. My Idol favorites have belted their way to the top three. My favorite reality-star-turned-celebrity-turned-reality-star Melissa Reincroft has overcome her rib injury to make it to the Dancing with the Stars semi-finals. Taj and Steven outwitted their way to Survivor:Tocancins final 5 without having to oust the self-proclaimed ‘Dragonslayer’ who is this year’s triumph in sound-bite editing. One of my favorite reality stars to date, the Fraggle-Rockish and kookily quippy Carla, made it to the finale of Top Chef with some gastropornographic peas. The fiercest ‘owl-baby’ to grace the screen is one of ANTM’s last standing, and the hottest girl to have once been a sphere is sure to be this season’s Biggest Loser.
Yes, I have indulged beyond belief in my guilty pleasure, telling myself that this is it for the next to years so live it large.
My mom suspects that the addiction points towards my own upcoming ‘eviction’. I’m sure it’s just my excuse to escape the fact that right now I’m kind of terrified of what’s coming.

I was for weeks telling people that I was not, in fact, joining Peace Corps. My reasons are at this point mostly uninteresting, centering on my experience of terrible discomfort and loneliness in India. Big suprise: being the only American around in a community of utterly depressing poverty is difficult for a comparatively rich American.
However, after emotionally sobering-up, talking with some brave and deeply caring friends and family, and getting a healthy whack from the financial-responsibilities fairy, I am indeed going to Armenia.

I will be living there for 27 months. In preparing, I have joined a internet community full of returned and current peace corps volunteers (RPCV’s and PCV’s respectively). Their advice is as varied as their experience I suppose. Some have given fantastic electrical and apparel-related advice. Others have warned us not to waste valuable packing space on playing cards, making me wonder why anyone cares whether or not I am packing a deck of Hoyle’s.
Based on their projections, the logical expectations to be formed are as follows:

-It is freaking cold over there. (After our first conversation concerning this fact, my host-dad in India referred to Armenia only as ‘Fridge Country’. Perhaps I should do the same.)
-People throw rocks at dogs.
-The snow makes people want to die. Or drown their icy sorrows in any form of cinematic distraction. (I’m told to bring whatever I can.)
-Long underwear is THE most critical item to be packed.
-I should not expect to be doing whatever it is that Peace Corps officials told me I would be doing. Ie, if I was told I would be a NGO Development Specialist, I will likely be anything but that.
-It’s really cold, y’all.

To prepare I:
-bought the long underwear.
-am planning on adopting a Armenian pup.
-am spending as much time with friends and fam as I can.
-am watching more reality television.
-am actually getting excited about going on another adventure. I’m Huck Finn or something.

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