fall plus nardi

I. Love. Autumn. Bring on the soup. Bring on the sweaters. Bring on fall colors and cozying up. Tomorrow is the big apartment move-in day. I moved up here with my Peace Corps bags and a few boxes, so I’m fairly housewares-less. But right now my dreams are filled with me, on a couch with hot tea, warm bread, and an blanket.

I’ve done a lot of wandering around in these first couple of weeks in Minneapolis. I’ve done a lot of sitting in coffee shops, a lot of walking down unknown streets, a lot of wandering into record stores and old-stuff stores and book stores. I’ve done a lot of wondering at the fall leaves.Seriously, yesterday I just stopped and stared at the ground.

Beautiful. There are reds and yellows and greens, and the wind whips them up and lays them down in brushstrokes. Every boulevard offers fantastic colors.

Yesterday was a bizarrely warm autumn day, perfect for the Armenian church in St. Paul which held a fundraiser festival, cooking lamahjo, kebab, and other delicious Caucasian treats. They lined the space outside with picnic table and cooked up a feast. They set up their foyer as a cafe, shuffling jazzves over hot plates to pour coffee into those familiar tiny cups. An Armenian woman hovered ready for anyone whose coffee grounds had settled, whose fortune awaited a reading.

I did balk a bit when she tried to explain to me how to turn your cup for a coffee-grounds reading. A wave of tiny moments rolled over me, moments when Alvard or Gayane or Serine or so many wonderful tatiks (grandmothers) laughed while I looked into their coffee cups and read their fortunes myself. ‘None of these Armenians know,’ I thought. Many of them have never been to Armenia. Certainly none know how much I am missing it, how much I wish I could sit with my landdad and play a game of nardi, how much I wish I could grab the pinkies of my co-workers and dance the kochari.

One man at the edge of the church yard sat whittling wooden boxes. A woman asked him a question, and he said, “My english, not good. Wait?”

“Do you speak Armenian,” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Yes el em khosum hayeren,” I said. I also speak Armenian. And there it was, a glimmer I’d been waiting to see. A connection I had so hoped to make on this Autumn afternoon at the Armenian church.

“Du hay es?” he asked me. Are you Armenian? Sweeter words were never spoken. This man was from Yerevan. When I told him that I’d just come from there a few months ago, he laughed, asked me about the city. Another PCV with whom I served in Armenia was there as well, and the three of us talked about the country and settled into this corner of the church yard for a game of nardi. I sat with him for a couple hours, hours that felt like a breath of fresh air.

The man lives in Iowa, so I won’t see him soon. But how wonderful to have a small, autumn day, a brief Armenian afternoon.

Read Full Post »

Փողոծի վրա լսել եմ հայերեն:

Yesterday for the first time in a month I heard Armenian in the street.  The dus and duks were flying around; the hard sounds rolled right out into the street.

They didn’t look Armenian to me.  Where were the pointy shoes?  Where were the mullets?  Where were the cigarettes?

But I heard it; my ears knew it before my heart did.  There I was listening to Armenians.  And the best part, I understood them.  I walked right up and said, “Duk hay ek?”  They said that they were indeed Armenians. They asked me if I was Armenian which to me felt like a small honor.  I explained that I have lived in Armenia for two years, that I am a Peace Corps volunteer returned for surgery, that I had to stop them and speak some Armenian because I was afraid I’d lost that closeness with the language.

They were from Boston. They said it was such a pleasure to meet an American who speaks Armenian so well.

I told them that the pleasure was surely mine.

Read Full Post »

a ghoul in winter

I’m home in my little Armenian town for a quick minute and feel the need to send out a tiny message to the blogosphere:  There’s a little monster I like to call the I-Thought-I-Knew-What-Was-Happening Ghoul, and it got me again.

I’m not sure if this is a working-in-a-foreign language phenomenon or it’s just me, but I often find myself agreeing to go places for what I think is a short event only to be gone FOR SEVEN HOURS or so.

I thought I was going to “install a khachkar” and have a quick word about the project I’m going to go do for a few days in the same village starting tomorrow.  I ended up gone for 7.5 hours.  We picked up the khachkar with its maker and drove to the village near the Georgian border.  We waited to find out where the khakar would go.  We drilled a hole into a wall.  We mounted the base and waited for the marble glue to dry.  We mounted the khachkar.  We waited for the marble glue to dry.  We thought of ways to further secure the khachkar.  We waited for a dude to go get some tools.  We waited for said dude to mix cement.  We drilled a hole in the khachkar.  We secured the khachkar.  We applied cement.  At this point I had given up on doing the work I had planned and thus welcomed the village mayor’s invitation to dinner.  The Armenian spread was beautiful and since I hadn’t had the opportunity to each lunch or breakfast, I gorged on tomato and fried potatos and cheese and boiled chicken and home cheese and home honey.  Yum yum yum.

And thus, reader-friend, I am not able to write you the summary of My Week of Epiphanies that occured this past week in the capital.  I’m so tired now that the only epiphany I can relate is that I need my bed.

Also, it’s important that you know that MY TOWN IS ALREADY COLDER THAN DEATH. Seriously, I spent seven hours freezing.  It is the first day since June that I had to wear closed-toe shoes.  Also, it is the first day since June that my toes froze through said shoes.  It was the kind of cold that made it hard to use my fingers.  Here comes winter, y’all.

Read Full Post »

beerscum and line-dancing

Last week was spent mostly in a old blue Ford van with mismatched seats and a metal blue ceiling.  It snowed for most of the week (yes, snow in APRIL… no, Texans don’t DO snow in April).  The warmth inside the van caused streaks of condensation to end with tiny drips on our heads.  I looked over at one of the kids in the van and said, “The van is crying because it’s snowing outside.”

You would think that Snow In April would be enough to ruin an entire week, but really the truth is it was one of the best weeks of my Peace Corps service so far.  On Monday I piled into the old van with a guy from my office and seven kids from six different villages.  These are kids I’ve talked about before, kids who are brave enough to talk to their peers about HIV/AIDS.

At the end of our intitial nine hour drive, we stayed with other Peace Corps volunteers down in Kapan.  We did two HIV/AIDS forums thanks to those volunteers and saw Kapan sites which included, among other things, the biggest wild snail I’ve ever seen.

In Goris, I stayed with half of the kids in a Peace Corps friend’s apartment while the other half stayed in a bed and breakfast.  In that little apartment I taught the kids out to play Pondscum and Pirate Dice, both of which they loved.  Pondscum in Armenian is “ganach jrimur”.  I can’t count the times that was used OUTSIDE of the game.  “Jrimur” was pretty much everyone’s nickname from then on, or if not that, then “Garejrimur” which roughly translates to mean “Beerscum”.

Best part of the weekend: I taught them a “Texas Dance”.  Remember back in second grade, down in Central Texas, when during one week the whole class would learn the Boot Scoot.  Well, that line dance made it’s way to Armenia via my memory and the only country music I own, Dixie Chicks.  I’m not sure I’ve ever listened to “Goodbye Earl” so many times in 24 hours, and I haven’t been so enthusiastic about “White Trash Wedding” since I did an impromptu mime to it after a pie party back in Abilene.  I have now been asked to make a disc full of Dixie Chicks for all of them.  Oh, and I’m to tack on Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” at the end.

Things got a little testy at times.  For instance, in the Goris apartment I made the two boys wash dishes at breakfast.  The exchange was something like this:

Me: Hey, whoa, where are you going?  We have to clean the table.

Boy 1: What?

Me: The girls brought out breakfast.  The boys are going to wash the dishes.

Boy 2: But what about you?

Me: I’m a boy.  I’m going to wash the dishes, also.

Boy 2:  But we don’t wash dishes.

Me: Yes, you do.

[We walk to the kitchen where Girl 1 has already started the hot water.  I mix the hot water with cold water and soap.]

Me: Come on, let’s clear the table already.

[Boys clear the table and then begin to walk away.]

Me: Oh, no, no, no.  You are rinsing, and you are drying.

[Boy 1 takes towel.  Boy 2 pouts.]

Boy 1: Brent, listen.  In Armenia, boys work outside.  The work is difficult, so girls do work inside.

Me: Well, in America, men and women both work outside.  And they both work inside.  Men and women share work [Keeps own feminist thoughts about American sexual politics out of conversation].

Boy 2: But we’re in Armenia.

Me:  That’s true, but the good news is, this week you have no work to do outside so you can work inside!

Boy 2: [Whining] But this is our holiday.

Me: [Thinks, 'No its not.  You're here to do HIV/AIDS forums.' Says instead:] Well, it’s the girls holiday, too.  They brought out breakfast, so we’re putting it up.  You think you should be able to sit, and the girls should do all the work this week.  They let us sleep, so now we’re going to let them dance. [Sounds of girls practicing the Boot Scoot to "Goodbye Earl"... again.  Me smiles.]

So there’s that.  There were a few more tense moments.  I realized I would have made a terrible youth worker because by the end of the week I wanted to strangle them all.  But I will tell you that watching those kids line dance, I had one of those I’m-Living-My-Dream moments.  When I was 15, I walked across a ravine with a new friend I’d made in that tiny Mexican village.  We were walking at dusk to join a game of volleyball with other Mexican and American kids.  I thought right then that I wanted to do This for the rest of my life.  I had that feeling again dancing with these Armenian kids.

I don’t remember the topic of conversation or what I said, but in reaction to some joke I made, Boy 2 said an Armenian version of, “Oh, that’s our Brent.”  He had no idea how much that actually meant to me.

Read Full Post »

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.

Read Full Post »

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.

Read Full Post »

please help me name my dog!

You may recall from all your celebrating that Monday was International Women’s Day.  Well, there is currently not a woman in my life, so on Monday I decided to go out and get me a bitch.  I did.  Went to a friend’s house, saw one, wrapped her up in a towel and brought her home.

First thing we did when we got home: took a nap.  Her settled on my lap, little white toes curled up  against my forearm  Slept for a couple hours.  Apparently the whole being-captured-and-carried-to-a-new-place really takes it out of you because I got up, read and then finished West With the Night and the little booger was still asleep in my lap.  It wasn’t until I was a couple chapters into The Golden Compass that she stirred just enough to free her to pee in my lap.  This prompted me to make a list:

Things I learned in the first three days of owning a puppy in Armenia:

1. Armenian dogs just like American dogs WILL take the first opportunity available to pee on me (re: every other dog I’ve ever played with).  It’s must be on every dog’s bucket list.
2. Armenians do not believe in Dogs Inside.  Dogs are “dirty”.  So, my landmother will let my landsisters play with the puppy (playing=running around her squealing), but they are not aloud to touch her.
3. The landfamily, despite their cultural disposition, actually support my keeping her.  They give her bones and built her a little home outside.
4. This puppy-peeing-on-me thing coupled with the I-have-to-wash-everything-by-hand-between-the-hours-of-10-and-1 thing is really no good.  I’m going to have to find a washing machine.
5. Puppy was, in another life, a model.

Indeed, pup was a model before she was born.  And you can see the proof below, but first, you’ve got to help me.  Puppy needs a name.  At first I tried out the name Everybody.  The original thought came from an old friend of mine who was making a joke about giving the name to his daughter.  Since then I’ve been holding onto Everybody for a future pup, delighted at the joke (Who peed on the floor?  Everybody.  Everybody, shut up! Everybody, quit licking yourself).  But after a couple of days I realized that this would mean years of explaining this joke that would quickly cease to be so funny.  And the shortened version, Evi, just doesn’t work.

So, I need you to help me come up with a name. Here’s what I’ve got so far:

(Unsuitable) Names suggested by Armenian friends:
Mickey, Mimi, Gina, Jehko, Sharik

Names suggested by Armenian friends that I actually like:
Dog

Armenian and Russian words that might make good names:
Kyasja (blond), Kapik (monkey), Ket (whale), Knobka (lightswitch)

English names that describe her in some way:
Shivers (she’s a nervous wiggler), Duckling (ok, she’s cute and all, but her muttness makes her all disproportionate, tiny back legs, big skull, tiny ears… I’m considering her my Ugly Duckling)

A name I thought of after reading West With the Night which made me realize how much I like race horse names:
Spring Chicken

Names that come from the wikipedia page about International Women’s Day:
Triangle Shirtwaist, Zetkin, Kollontai

My sister and I really love the idea of naming pets after inanimate objects (she’s got a real cute tabby named Tweezer), so here are names from inanimate objects without which I would not have survived 9.5 months in Peace Corps Armenia:
Thermos, Vararan (heater), Blanket, Podcast, Blog, Karma (our fav indian restaurant in the capital), Boots, Birdya (woollen (things))

So, of those I really like Kyasja, Duckling, Birdya and Spring Chicken. And I swear the next cat I get is getting named Triangle Shirtwaist.

But please, please suggest any other names.  Because look how cute and name-deserving she is:

Seriously, she’s saying, “Please… give me my name,” with her eyes.  (Anyone having apocalyptic flashbacks to that scene in The Never Ending Story?)

I took this picture on our first day.  Apparently girl can work her environment.  Look what happened:

I asked for cute on a shoe.  She gave me cute on a shoe.  Then I asked for pensive:

BAM!  Aloof:

Now give me Goofy:

Sinister:

Now,  give I Want To Eat My Own Hand:

Now, give me Over It:

Now, give me Really Disproportionate:

Oh, she’s good.  But check what she did when I asked for Pitiful:

Seriously.  I know.  So, if she’s going to have a chance in this industry, dog needs a name!  Help!

Read Full Post »

frozen blurbs

• It’s hovering around -1 degrees Farenheit right now.  It was so cold this morning that the moisture from me breath was freezing my mustache.  And the condensation that gathered last night on the livingroom windows was frozen solid this morning.  And I almost lost fingers trying to take this picture of the tree outside my house.
• I had this exchange this morning (in Armenian) while Alvart, our cleaning cook, was preparing food for our Social Worker Training:
  Me: Alvart, how are you?
  Alvart: I’m working like a donkey.
  Me: But a pretty donkey, right?
  … then later Alvart and I had a snow fight.
• I think me and cat need relationship counseling.
• I finally get the idea of “Spring Cleaning”.  I just never understood it before.  I’d ask myself, ‘Why not Winter Wash-up or Fall Free-From-Dirt.  But now I can’t wait for Spring Cleaning.  My synapses went like this: –Gosh things seem kind of damp and grimy in here.—>I really need to clean. —>  It will be so much nicer and easier to clean, open the windows, air out everything, wash it all to the nines, when the spring is here. —> Oooooooh…
• I can still eat an entire can of refried beans by myself in one sitting.  Thanks for the can, Mom!

Read Full Post »

The incredibly-cold is coming.

In the morning I usually walk to work, a routine activity that has become a more frigid exprience with each passing day.  It is no longer sufficient to wear my knit gloves and stuff those covered hands in my pockets.  They are still cold under all those layers.  I certainly don‘t live in the coldest part of Armenia.  There’s no snow on the ground here yet, just crunchy ice puddles.  But on my walk to work I look up at the surrounding mountains and watch as the white blanket of snow is slowing stretching down the mountainside and into our valley.  It’s only cold now.  The incredibly-cold is coming.

However, the cold has led to some exciting new things.  Family time, for example, has taken a warm turn.  My room is in the cold, sunless north corner of the house, and while I appreciate the space of my own, I don’t really welcome the sight of my breath in my room.  So, I venture into the foryer where nightly sits my host mother and sister around a crude gas heater.  They sit on stools made from short two-by-fours, chew sunflower seeds and watch, through a doorway, soap operas playing on the tv in a distant corner of the living room.  So, on the coldest nights, I grab my book, sit on the foryer couch, and read.  I like their company, and now that my Armenian has improved, I can chat with them about the weather, about work, about life in Texas, about my family.  We sip hot tea and tell jokes.  And when their gaze wanders back to the Armenian soaps, mine returns to my book.

This month is looking to be full of changes.  The incredibly-cold is coming.  I’m likely moving to my own place mid-month (which means exciting adventures into cooking for myself and going houseware shopping in Yerevan).  I’m headed to Tbilisi soon, and I’m starting work on some really exciting new projects.  Some A-18′s are bound to start getting their invitations to join PC-Armenia this month and will start popping up on the interweb.  And I’ll be going through my first Christmas without my family around (I’ll save my feelings about that for another post).

In general I will say that I am LOVING life here.  Now all I need is all my family to come here and bring some refried beans.

Read Full Post »