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.

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wearing armenia

Speaking of Mom and her jewelry talents, she taught me to solder. I had this idea before I left Armenia, and with a little instruction, I made these:

I put them together in my first weeks back home. With a few photos, some microscope slides and my mom’s necklace odds & ends, I made a way to wear my Peace Corps experience on my neck. Each of these has a back side with a different picture, and I flip them over throughout the day.

From bottom left, clockwise: The first in the corner is a picture of my house on an icy day. The girl walking is my Belgian friend An, an European Volunteer Service compadre who served in Armenia with me. Above is a landscape of Armenia at dusk, a picture I took the night before I flew back to Texas. To the right of that are feet on the Vardablur gym floor (you might recognize the pic from my blog header!). Below is the Stepanavan central square in winter. And in the bottom right is a view of my tiny training village, Teghenik.

How excited am I to be wearing scenes from my second home? TOO EXCITED.

(For instruction on how to solder a project like this, check this video. And you can order microscope slides over here!)

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in with the old

I’m sitting in the room I grew up in. We moved here when I was six. On the end of my bed is a quilt my grandmom made for me with the state of Texas sewn over large squares of white. Sunlight comes in through a window, and in the patch of backyard outside the window I remember sitting and building a fence with my dad while our new Siberian Husky puppy, Misha, ran through the yard and into my eight year-old lap.

I won’t be in this house long. It’s been a month, and at the most I’m anticipating one or two more. But the way I feel here, the rhythm of push-twist-turn on the bathroom lock, the nights that take our family cooking in the kitchen and then out into the living room to watch a favorite show, the walk up to the church, these rhythms feel like I’m connecting to the past.

There’s been a lot of events like that. A few weeks ago I spent the weekend with my grandmother in a tiny town in Louisiana. She told me about riding on a pile of pears in a wheel barrow when she was five, about the man who fell from the tree and died. She told me of scrap heap drives which she and the rest of the cheerleaders led so they could put on sock-hops. I asked her about her family tree and scribbled lines and names in my journal while she went back generations and generations.

I couldn’t get enough. I made here go around the house with me and tell me about everything, about the wooden camels her aunt brought back from her trip to the Middle East. She told me about the clock she carried from Kentucky on the bus to give grandfather who was waiting for her in Houston. I felt like I was in a museum full of stories that weren’t mine but had a part in making me.

When I got home, my mom and her friend had a garage sale. After two years in Armenia, this felt altogether foreign to me, that we would have enough things to sell to neighbors and passerbys, that they would have money to buy our excess. Still, preparing for the sale became another journey through old bits and pieces, through old stories.

The tiny life jacket which my teenage baby sister has long since outgrown, the size of it, the memory of holding that tiny wonder of a sister in my own two hands and tossing her into the water at my side, it all made me well up. And that was just the one baby life jacket.

At the garage sale itself I felt like I’d gone back in time, all of us sitting around tables of our old stuff, sipping Sonic drinks, catching up with people as they stopped by to look for a knife for their collection or to snag some of my sister’s old softball equipment.

We joked around, sweat, and watched as the hours my mother spent digging through old things payed off quarter by quarter.

I feel something real that’s hard to identify with all this old stuff. I’m trying not to become a hoarder, of course, but when I picked up my old plush toy cat, Kitty, when I held that toy, it was like being six again. I remember when we bought her. I remember buckling her into the seat next to me. I remember sitting her on my stomach before going to sleep at night. I remember the feeling of my hands on her back.

It feels like this last month I have reconnected with the ‘old’, with old things, with generations I didn’t know (I found out I’m kind of Welsch!), with a culture that feels as comfortable as my old stuffed animals. Coming out of Peace Corps, out of living abroad for so long, coming back home feels as comfortable as holding that old stuffed cat but also, sometimes, just as out of place.

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globally loved

I’m back.

After a week of tears and hugs and the kindest words said to me by the kindest friends, I have arrived in this tiny town in Texas.

I took three flights, two with one of my fellow Peace Corps adventurers, and then a third alone. I followed that up with a missed connection which resulted in a very disappointed family and a slumber party for me in the Atlanta airport with very friendly strangers. I finally arrived two mornings ago to the hugs you see above (thanks for the pic, Mom!) and a bag of Shipley’s donut holes.

There was a party that night with so many of my very favorite things like tostada fixings, chips and dip, pulled brisket sandwiches, watermelon, and fresh fruit and veg galore. It was quite the fatted calf. And goodness did I ever feel so welcomed in my life. Moments before the first guest arrived I threw up my maps of Armenia, Yerevan, Stepanavan, as well as pictures that so recently hung on my Stepanavan cottage wall, and then it was five hours of talking with old friends from church and down the street, new friends that  have heard about Armenia through my mom and dad, and teenage friends of my sister, who like her, were just the tiniest little people before I left.

At church the next night I was asked to talk about Armenia and Stepanvan and World Vision and my dear friends that I carried here in my heart. And those kind Texas people asked all the right questions and before I knew it I’d already talked about Privolnoye and my World Vision crew and Meri and Greta and sights and sounds and tastes and dreams I have about returning to that place.

This morning I woke up in a room that my mom and tiniest sister spent hours preparing for me. The drawers are waiting to hold my newly machine washed clothes, and the walls are ready for pictures. My older sister and our oldest brother were both here for the party, hugging and smiling, refilling my glass and making sure there were helping me land, and when they left to go back to their houses I wanted to beg them to stay. We’re all here now, and my family is helping me land with ease. While I haven’t got all my emotions together I find myself not wanting them to leave my sight because believe it or not a whole world seemed to just blink out a few days ago, and my subconscious fears are wanting to scramble and hold on to everything I love.

And there it is, I just named the unnamed tension I feel in my chest. I just had a realization in this very moment that there Armenia went, and in a blink returned a world I love, and it just feels like the world is spinning faster than I remember it.

So happy my family is helping me adjust to this new whirling world. So much missing the rhythm of my life in Stepanvan.

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thank you; your gift is a rabbit-eared family

I woke up in a panic this morning. Five days left before I leave Stepanavan. Two of those days will be spent doing a camp in a village near here, so in truth, we’re talking three short days here before I cram everything I own, and something things Peace Corps owns, into a taxi and ride to the capital.

Good news, I did not stay sick, and Easter-In-June was a wild success.

Bad news, I don’t have time for a good post. I have pictures to get printed, camp materials to gather, unseen waterfalls to find, and flesh and blood people I need to reach out and touch to remind myself that I’m still here. I’m having that behind-glass feeling again that makes me want to touch everything before it becomes yesterday’s.

I will say that the last few days have included a taco dinner, uncountable and quickly eaten batches of chocolate chip cookies, Easter celebrations, visiting friends, games, long talks, and sunsets that make me cry. What am I saying? Everything is making me cry. Including the crying ladies at the grocery store, the long speeches about how they will miss me and never forget me, and the Clooker sitting down at the desk across from me, then immediately getting up to kiss me, pressing her tears-wet cheek to mine.

I’ve got things to get to. However, I do need to say that you are one of the main reasons I am here right now. I would never have finished Peace Corps with having you to share it with. I came here to put down some words, show my family some photos, and I found friends to write to, people who let share my love of this place. You win. I owe you big time.

Thank you for sticking around. Thank you for forgiving my faults. And thank you for letting me know you’re around, seeing me through this.

I’m not sure if I’ll write in the next week, with all the moving across the planet; however, I assure you that I’ll be writing about readjusting to Texas, and then the move to someplace new, Stateside or otherwise.

In the meantime, here’s a few photos which I promise are worth checking out, if only to see my landfamily wearing rabbit ears. They are amazing. Oh, good grief. The tears again.

a favorite American friend, visiting and playing nardi

kneading pizza dough with aven

americans and armenians heading out to the dasht

well, obviously, if you see an abandoned bus in the middle of nowhere, YOU GET IN

claire and heghmine

a favorite friend and her mom teaching us to make jingyalov hats (herbs bread)

our tatik is cooking; our imogen is dancing to enrique iglesias. enrique always makes us forget our work.

closing the jingyalov hats

jingyalov hats roasting on a stove-closed fire

my coworkers and i hiding in the trees

eating a strawberry. as cute as a strawberry.

eight

one of world vision's social workers

workers jumping. the one second from the left is the clooker!

a totally happy easter!

loot!

 

applying a foam rabbit "tatoo"

I will miss this place. A lot.

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my peace corps house

This started as a tiny effort to show you guys my house here in Stepanavan. It became a multi-day ordeal as I waited for each cloudy day’s hour of sunlight to do another take. It became a THING, an event my landsisters and I did every afternoon for almost a week. They loved it, began to tell visitors to their house that they had to help me make a video, that they were my ‘astghiknere’, my little stars. (You can see Greta explaining this to her grandmother in the video.)

I have never felt more myself than I have in this little cottage. It has been a refuge from the cold winter. It has been my favorite reading spot. I have laid out my mattresses for many sleepovers on the cottage floor. I have reveled in morning light coming in through the windows, beckoning me to get out of bed, eat breakfast and read, and then dance my way through daily chores. Every inch of the place feels like me, more than any space ever has. I am the first person to ever live in this house, and right now, for three more weeks, it feels all mine.

(There are a lot of Peace Corps House videos up on Youtube. I like to peruse them and imagine my life around the world. Here’s a friend of mine and her Peace Corps House in Sevan, Armenia. Here’s another friend’s home in Honduras. Take a look around the vids; tell me which ones get you dreaming about life in a new place.)

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i should live on two sides of the world

I took took my language proficiency index exam in Armenian last week. I scored Advanced-Low, which I feel great about. Still, today is exactly one month until I leave my life in Stepanavan behind, and moments ago I was eating dinner with my co-workers, unable to follow the conversation. I might have, I bet, if I listened very closely. But I instead nodded, I smiled at appropriate times, and as I have done almost daily for two years, I let my mind drift. This drifting is familiar to anyone living around an unfamiliar language, and even after learning to speak a new tongue, the habit of drifting is hard to break.

Usually, my mind wanders among go-to drifting topics, pulls them out like worn folders from a file drawer. I think about relationships. I dream about my future life in the US. I wonder about the lives of my friends and family. I worry about work.

This time however, I kept my mind at the table and thought about my office friends. I thought about Davit’s charm, how he sets the table at ease with deep-voiced interjections and warm laugh. I watched the sibling like bickering between Alvart the Clooker and Arman who argued over the location of the tea break’s remaining snacks. As usual Hasmik jumped into the lunch time conversations with questions and prompts that seem to keep the conversation moving. Armen made sure everyone has good food on their plate before piling a big-boy sized portion onto his. And after another one of Edgar’s room-raising anecdotes set everyone chuckling, I realized that here is a family. Every single one of them has a beat in the rhythm of this place, and because I work here I do, too. They would have to tell you what  part I play, but I know I play it because as soon as I walk in from being away I fit directly into the flow as if I never left.

As soon as I hear my name mentioned at the table I start listening again, and it’s Davit asking me something. I have no idea what he said, so I nod and say, “Mmhmm,” and see if the conversation will end or keep on and clue me in. But this time he knows.

“Inke chi haskanum,” he says. (“He doesn’t understand.”)

Somehow I am touched that he knows me well enough to know the difference between my understanding and my merely wanting to. Despite my trying to hide it, he knows the cues that say I haven’t followed a word.

“Asel em, ko oratsuitsi vra es jinjum orere minchev gnalu?” (“I said, ‘Are you marking off the days on your calendar until you leave?’”)

“Che, che.” I tell him I can’t do that because I don’t want to think about how soon the leaving starts.

“You don’t want to go?”

“I want to be home. I don’t want to leave. I want to live in both places at once.”

“Apres,” (“You should live”) he says, and with that common affirmation he leaves me to drift into a dream of a life on two sides of the world.

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dream come true

I am currently on a jaunt through Syunik Marz, the southern most region of Armenia, an hour or so from Iran, 9 hours from my home in the North. I am helping a fellow volunteer and best friend with a project in her town. This morning we met a second round of smiling school directors, all eager to pass out our summer camp applications to their students on this last day of school. Walking into schools, hearing this strange, wonderful language fall from my lips, smiling and shaking hands with bright-eyed Armenians, the morning made me remember everything I’ve loved about working here. Walking in to a new place with some creativity and two supportive organizations behind me (Peace Corps and World Vision), I have found no end to eager and welcoming men and women, all ages, listening for a new idea and a new perspective on how to make their community a better one.

Liana, Gayane, Arman, Armen, Davit, Edgar, Rusana, Arpine, Misha, Tigran, Hasmik, Alvard, Ashkhen, Gevorg, Hakob, Armine, Anna, Nazeli, Mikhael, Adrineh, Amalia, Andranik… I could keep going.  I have been more than impressed by the minds and hearts that have met mine and surpassed me in initiative, creativity, and passion for community improvement.

I keep trying to gather stories of these men and women, people who have changed me and inspired me.  Mostly I am overwhelmed by how generous they have been to invite me in, listen to my ideas, and help me achieve more than I could ever do alone.

I’m pretty sure these kinds of relationships, this kind of work, is why people join Peace Corps. And look at that, a dream come true.

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somebody, turn off that light at the end of the tunnel

I returned to my Armenian town just days ago. Last time I was here, the night brought quarter size snow flakes, and the morning was covered in it eight inches deep.  I flew southwest where I ate mounds of Mexican and Thai and Vietnamese food, relished in Americanness like drag shows, Just Dance, and Thursday night gatherings around “Parks & Rec”.

Now I’m back in Armenia with just a few months before the end of my Peace Corps service, and I’m feeling some things.

1. I so much miss having a group, those friends you see every week for some show you love or at some favorite haunt. I can not wait to go home, reconnect to old friends, make some new ones. Texas, watch out; I’m about to go friend hunting.

2. I am terrified of my future. Job(s)? School? New me v. old me? I lay awake at night wishing all my questions were answered. Will the car I left behind still be broken? Can I survive temping in Austin for a while? Bigger and bigger questions bob to the surface. Here comes that moment I’ve been wondering about for two+ years.  There seems to be so much potential in my return home; can I harness it?

3. How will I handle ‘the missing’? I am utterly in love with this place.  My cottage is my own home in a way that no other building has ever been.  My friends here are so special to me, bring out so many parts of myself I didn’t know existed before their Armenian outing.  I love the mountains, the cool spring, the sunny mornings, the dinners in our office kitchen.  They say that returning home after Peace Corps is much harder than leaving in the first place.  One reason for sure will be saying goodbye to a life I will almost surely never live again.

My time here, which used to seem like a pool I could swim in, seems now like a small collection cupped in my two hands.

Every time I leave a place there is that feeling of deep richness, of knowing myself so much more, of loving the world more profoundly.  There is also a loss, a longing to hold onto something intangible, a sense of the temporal that cuts down ultimately to my knowledge of mortality.

Here it comes. A sweeping change.

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peace corps party

Last night was the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s executive order which established the Peace Corps.  I’m sure you guys all partied it up big.  I definitely did.  I guest-blogged about it over at the National Peace Corps Associations website.  Go check it out!

Meanwhile, stay tuned.  If I’m not totally wiped afterward, I’ll be writing about being part of the Day of Action tomorrow, promoting an independent, growing and robust Peace Corps on Capitol Hill.  Because that’s what you do when you live in D.C.  You promote things on Capitol Hill.  (Also, if you live in D.C. be sure to see me singing “I’m Just a Bill” on the Capitol steps… but in crutches.)

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