another new year in armenia

On the last night of 2009 I was sitting with my best Peace Corps friend, Zoë, talking late into the evening about New Year’s resolutions.  We almost missed the New Year, and with moments to spare we ran outside with pots and pans to ring in the new year with a metallic clamor.

This year I was invited by my friend and co-worker, Gayane, to spend the evening of the 31st with her family.  When I called to confirm the plans, I found out that they had already prepared a room for me to sleep in after we had toasted and danced and otherwise welcomed in the New Year into the wee hours.

After wishing my mom and sister a happy new year over Skype, I wandered in the dark, calling friends to spread around the holiday cheer.  Of course, without street lights Gayane’s house became hard to find (re: impossible).  Eventually Vartan, Gayane’s husband found me wandering the dark, cold streets.  I finally showed up in time to hang balloons around the newly renovated living/dining room.  Little Rueben assisted me, trying his hardest to blow up the balloons before handing their slobbery spouts over to me to tie.

When the party started, we ate every delicious thing available on an Armenian Nor Tari (New Year) menu:  salads and dolma and khorovats and tkhvatsk and more.  We toasted the New Year, shnor-havoring all around  We danced and stuffed ourselves into a food coma which took us to bed around 2:30am.

The real surprise came in the morning.  After a very strangely dry winter, I woke up, finally, to a white spread over our little Armenian town.  I reached up to wipe a spot in the fogged window of my guest room and gazed out onto that tireless cliché, that winter wonderland.

Being from seasonless Texas, I finally get why people dream of that White Christmas thing.  It’s one of the world’s miracles.  The entire landscape becomes absolutely new.  Streets and homes and trees and hills have a new shape.  The place is quiet, and in between racing out of doors to marvel at the new world, we huddle together near the wood stove or under throw blankets drinking in warmth from tea cups and from the souls of people we love.

After looking outside at this new little town of mine, I crawled back in to bed to write in my journal.  I heard Rueben stumble across the wood floor to look under the Nor Tari tree to see what Grandfather Winter brought he and his brother.  He raced back and yell-whispered, “Maaaa!”  I didn’t hear any movement after that and assumed the tot crawled back into bed wide eyed and anxious.

When they finally woke up, I pulled clothes over my long johns and joined them in the living room.  There the boys played with their gifts.  I immediately dove onto my stomach in front of the new hockey/foosball game and challenged Rueben to a game on the ice. Later we set up a firing range of stuffed animals; Mom, Dad, the boys and crazy uncle Brent took turns with Narek’s new bow & arrow.

Then to breakfast, a comfortable meal of blinchik and tea, before we went out to take on the snow.  We built a snow man which I destroyed with an old car battery. It would have made a cool head for that dzyni mart, but of course I was ignoring physics entirely which I tend to do.  No matter; the chunks of snowy body made a perfect pre-fab pile of snow balls to use in the shortly ensuing battle which ended with a crying three year old and a wet but eventaully triumphant me (take that Vartan jan!).

I left their house thinking I’d go home for a few alone hours before going out to visit more friends, but this holiday wasn’t letting go.  The storybook feel continued as I met an old grandmotherly woman in a magenta bathrobe who talked to me about her hopes for the new year and for whom I shoveled a path from from her home to the road.   Her well wishes followed me down the street while I listened to my Sufjan/Brandon Kinder/Arcade Fire/Destiny’s Child/Vince G Mega Christmas mix, giving my heart again to Sister Winter.

Finally, before coming here to write this blog post I ran into a blonde grandmother with her three grandsons.  She was tugging them on an old metal sled down the sidewalk.  I asked to take their picture which turned into me pulling those tiny boys through the white powder in circles like my own Dad used to do for me on Texas ice days.  The blonde grandmom invited me back to their house in true Armenian fashion and spread before me a feast of pases dolma, beet salad, more vodka, more tkhvatsk and a final cup of Armenian coffee before I walked back out into this white wonder of a town.

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birthday in armenia

A couple of days ago I started a new year of life.  My friend emailed me, said she was excited to be celebrating my 30th birthday with me.  Had I known she was joking, I’m not sure it would have made a difference in my flipping out on her.  Turns out that I’ve been around long enough that my proximity to 30 bothers me.  Or perhaps the idea that my twenties are progessively slipping away is just giving me the willies.  But many people have sad many more interesting things about growing older, and to be honest, barring catastrophe I’ll have many more years to consider them.  Moving on.

I started celebrating last Friday, making my way by N’Sync blaring taxi-van to Yerevan in hopes of a festive dinner with PCV friends.  The friends delivered on joy and celebratory atmosphere, filling a room at our favorite Indian food place, Karma, and toasting me to my hearts content.  The birthday wishes kept coming all weekend while we walked around in the sun through the Vernisagge, ate ice cream in the park, and attended some not very impressive IIHF hockey games between N.Korea and South Africa and then Mongolia and Armenia.  I compared experiences with some new friends volunteering in Peace Corps Georgia.  I shared hookah and cinnamon tea with more new friends, these from Iran, and made a lot of jokes about my Taco Maco induced food baby and the differences between conservative and liberal approaches to spin-the-bottle (they were quite interested that while in their version the spinner delivers dares to the pointed, we don’t waste time and get people lip-smacking ASAP).

Monday, back in my little town, I got some major loving from my Armenian friends.
The clooker, I should say, was the number one celebrator of my birthday.  She burst into the office, set down the cake she’d made me, and grabbed me in a big ol’ hug and with a kiss on the cheek wished all the best things for my life. Her cake was an Ant House cake; she knew it’s one of my favorite Armenian foods.  She called me her third son.
I was kissed by everyone in the office.  Some friends from a neighboring NGO came in singing and waving balloons and bearing gifts!
In Armenia, on your birthday, you make dinner for all your friends.  The clooker made me write down a shopping list and took me around town gathering things for tacos.  We chopped and diced.  A couple of the guys came in and wanted to hear “Texas music”, so I put on Dixie Chicks.  I taught the clooker the Two Step in between stirring the simmering ground beef.
15 or so Armenians gathered to celebrate me and eat my tacos.  They swigged vodka in my honor, toasting me, my family, my friends, and my journey to Armenia.  They presented me with a beautiful (if slightly off) crucifix that I’m now scrounging a necklace for.  And they presented me with what you see pictured here, a card from each person from the office with their birthday wishes and thoughts about how awesome I am (their words, not mine).   They strung them up on a ribbon and made me wear them throughout the party.
Serine brought out the she’d made me and I blew out the candle.  Liana then asked, “What did you wish for?”, but as cheesy as it sounds, I was so much enjoying the singing voices and the smiles from everyone and the overwhelming feeling of making such unlikely friends, I forgot to wish for something.

But really, after love pouring in from around the globe via emails and Facebook wall posts and phone calls and texts and 3 cakes and a million toasts and hugs and kisses and so many tables shared by so many souls, what more could I wish for, really?

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These are the most interesting photos I’ve taken so far.  In a nearby village where our World Vision office does some work, they celebrated Military Day.  Two schools formed teams of high form students and battled in games that included pull-ups, demonstrations of First-Aid knowledge, and gun reassembly.  The day was fantastic actually, culminating in a feast of horovats and numerous toasts to cooperation, children’s growth, and country preservation.  A great day.

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the STRANGEST food I’ve ever eaten and other Nor Tari wonders

Yes, we’re already good and settled four days into 2010.  Yes, my American family and friends are already back to work.  BUT NOT HERE!   No no, Nor Tari celebrations are still to be had.  There are hours still to fill with visiting friends, with eating Nor Tari salads, meat pastries, and copious amounts of chocolates and dolmas (not in that order).  It will be 10 days or so until the Hayastan world is back into it’s regular swing, and I am quite enjoying the quiet, hangist way we’re ringing in 2010 here in my currently wet and cold little town.

My friend, Z, came down for a visit, and December 31st found us outside my door banging pots together like I once did with my 3rd grade best friend.  We wrote resolutions and talked about what it will be like in the next year in Armenia as Peace Corps Volunteers.  THAT conversation, with all it’s daunting realizations and exciting possiblities, took hours, so in the morning we let the sun get up first.  After it had already shown brightly for a few hours, we got up to one of the best January Firsts of my life (despite the way it ended).  I’m a sucker for bright blue sky, and all of the sudden we bustled into productivity (I AM SO AMERICAN!).  We dug around in the shed attached to my house and found a paint-chippy old  table.  It was a wild puzzle getting it out of the shed past old doors, ladders, stacks of wood and old rusty barrels, but after rubbing it down and covering it in used flip-chart paper, it now holds my horde of books (yes, Mom, I’ll NEVER grow out of this hording habit of mine).  We carried my mattresses out into the sun to air out, and openned all my windows.  Z then commenced making homemade applesauce (the current and wonderful trend among Armenian PCV’s) while I handwashed a few weeks worth of laundry.
After hanging it all out to dry over the courtyard deck (which overlooks a crowded cemetery), Z and I took a sunny walk to my coworker, Alvart’s house.  Alvart is one of the jolliest Armenians I’ve met.  She jokes with me, scolds me when I do shameful things (like trying to wash dishes or telling people I don’t have money to buy extra things), and dances like someone who’s seen enough to know she shouldn’t hold joy back.

Alvart’s house was the best place to go for our first Nor Tari experience.  Walking into her house, it was as if we were honored guests with an extravagant spread set out just for us.  Of course, that’s the whole idea behind the tradition, behind the days spent in preparation to give a feast to any and every passerby.  We ate two kinds of dolma, blinchi, three types of salad, three peaces of cake each, fruit, nuts, chocolates and toasted with champagne.  We lauded our friends and family, hoped for our health and happiness in the new year, and smiled and smiled and smiled.

We visited other houses, made our way back to my house and settled into what would be a raucous evening for our bellies.  Indeed we were both sick enough that the next day we split most of our waking ours between the armchair and the toilet, watching movies and 30 rock and reading a 8 month old Conde Naste Traveler, respectively.
We did have enough gumption to make my Dad’s pancakes (although I mixed up the measuring cups THAT MY PARENTS SENT ALL THE WAY FROM THE US and ended up making a ridiculous amount of batter).  AND we washed the cat.  That actually made my day.  I mean, look at this rat:

And finally, on the third day of the year and of the Nor Tari celebration, I ate THE STRANGEST FOOD I’VE EVER EATEN.  Now I’ve been to 19 different countries by now.  I’ve eaten a lot of weird things, forced down some unwanted ‘delicacies’ in the name of comeraderie.  But this one,  I do believe, takes the cake… or should I say, takes the pig-head jell-o:That’s right.  A jell-o like mold of contents-of-pig-head. Of course, let’s get the praise/disclaimer on the table, you’ve got to hand it to a culture that has figured out a way to use/enjoy every little bit of something.  The dish takes quite a lot of preparation and is enjoyed by many Armenians (although… this mold remained whole throughout the 8 person meal). However, I interviewed the family who offered me the delicacy, and something that is made from brains, jaw muscle, cartalidge and various connective tissues just doesn’t suit me I think.  Believe it or not, the dish was accompanied by cheese wrapped in slices of pig ear and a little snack made from coiled slivers of pig skin wet with garlic and salt.

I didn’t try its dinner partners, but I did have a go at the pig head jell-o.  It was everything I thought it might be, gelatinous with a taste of pepper and ligament (which I’ve also eaten a lot at Nor Tari tables… I REALLY don’t like meat on the bone).

However, it did inspire me to grab up my shot glass of vodka and offer a toast to my wonderful Armenian friends:

“To Armenians, who know how to enjoy everything.  May I learn from you, and may we keep finding ways to enjoy the world in the New Year.”

The same to you, too.

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ho ho horovats

You thought Christmas was like, SO last week.  You are wrong, of course.

Last night the World Vision crew hopped into our Ladas and drove up the hill to the old Soviet resort,  Pasionat (transliteration) for our staff Christmas Party, a preemptive event for the real Christian Christmas (re: previous post).

The event started with the women setting tables and the men making horovats (Armenian barbeque).  Horovatsing involves touching a LOT of meat, breathing in a LOT of smoke, and taking too many shots of vodka.
After the horovats is ready, then begins the meal which last night included a corn/carrot/meat/pea/sour cream salad, lake fish, salty cheese, lavash and un-regional fruit (we get KIWI in winter.  Kiwi, people).  The meal was, as usual, punctuated with lots of toasts, toasts for family, for the New Year, for parents, for kids, for friends, for World Vision.  I was even toasted at length by Father Vram after which trickled a few very-good-for-my-ego bits from around the table.  And I added my own toasts for my new Armenian friends, for World Vision, and for the English speakers at the office who make it possible for me to understand what’s going on around me.

After being toasted, I was then forced to dance ALONE in front of everyone, Armenian style.  I’m finding that after seven months here, I have exhausted all the easy moves and need to spend a little personal time perfecting the knee-up swing and the quick-jump-hop (I really don’t know what they’re called, but everyone can do them but me).   The wonderful thing about Armenian dances, however, is that there is very little pressure to dance well, and just about any move goes (there are usually plenty of chicken knees, swimming hands, finger v’s floating across the eyes).  It’s pretty darn merry.

And after everyone is somewhere between full-and-tipsy and full-and-toppling-over, we gather up the left overs and go home.

And that is how Sanity got this chicken leg and how I was able to remember that that little kitten is very much an animal.

In other news, the year is just about up.  I hope you got all your jollies for 2009, enjoyed your last Christmas of 2009, wrote 2009 as many times as you could because 2009 won’t be 2009 much longer. My last moments of 2009 will be 2009erifick I do believe.

A couple of PCV friends are making a jaunt up to my place, and one will be staying to help me ring in the New Year.  I’ll be writing some resolutions, and because here in Armenia we celebrate New Years with 10 days of holiday for everyone, I’ll be spending those days, among other things, making some lists.  I may just join the blog fops around the globe with my ‘Best Of’ lists.  Am I behind the curve?  Well, possibly.  But unlike Time or Slate or Rolling Stone, I’ve got my OWN personal decade to cover.  So, lets begin with a list of lists I might list.  And if you think I need to list something else, list it in the comments.  Mmmmmmm…. lists….

So, A List of Things to be Possibly Listed:

1. Favorite Gustatory Moments
2. Resolutions, or Things That I’ll Feel Mostly Guilty for Having Not Accomplished in 2010
3. Book of the Year (a very short one here)
4. The Decade in Significant Moments (The writer in me is excited for this one.)
5. My Noughties Junkdrawer
6. Things I Wish I Hadn’t Done in the Noughties
7. Why I Hate the Word Noughties

I know this has the potential to get really tedious.  But it could be cool.  And if it isn’t, we’ll just pretend that this blog post never existed.

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Scary Things

It’s cold here. My toes are freezing, but strangely it’s a feeling that I’m getting used to. It’s funny how much I don’t know about winter. For instance, I thought I had packed winter clothes. But no, I packed Texas winter clothes, clothes that are sufficient for getting me from one air conditioned home to the next. I am so thankful for all of those years of central heating for sure. But I was so unprepared for nights of being able to see my breath as I’m getting ready to get in the shower.
The other thing that Central Texas does not prepare you for is the drastic change in the Armenian diet come winter. Gone are apricots, cherries (gosh how I would love some cherries!!!), watermelons, green plums. In the States, our industrialized food systems don’t prepare you for seasonal vegetables (a term my mind previously relegated to special “green” efforts, an abstract idea that could ‘better the world’ like buying florescent light bulbs). The term “seasonal vegetables” actually means something to me now. The change of food goes along with the act of wearing sweaters 24 hours a day, or furiously knitting a new hat because I CANNOT BE WITHOUT ONE and I left mine on the bus. I am certainly now involved in a new sensation, this act so strange to me, this bearing down, gritting your teeth, bracing yourself for winter.

I made a verbal agreement on a house today. I’m trying to not get too excited about it, but my wayward imagination is taken with the place. It is a tiny cottage, spackled a plain grey on the outside with new, white trimmed windows. The building sits in the corner of a family’s garden and can be reached by a path that winds through a small forest of drying sunflower stalks and rows of newly planted potatoes. The whole thing looks new, and certainly the inside has been recently tiled and furnished sparsely with cabinets, beds, a table, an electric water heater. The landlord assured me that soon a gas line will be set up, that the water that only runs a few hours a day will be running 24 hours a day by January, and that a wardrobe will be brought in. Now I only need the thing to be approved by my PM, and I can move in. Cause for pause? Only one, that I’ll be moving in the dead of winter, and my first few days will be the coldest days of my life. So be it. I need a place of my own. And I think I’ve found it.

Things at work are going well. I had a fantastic Halloween party on Friday. I made cartoon versions of all my coworkers, had them draw numbers for the costumes that would be put on their cartoon selves. After they were dressed as an octopus, a dragon, a magician and others, the paper selves were handed out to their animate counterparts and hung around their necks by yarn. In the Armenian party tradition, each of my coworkers was also given a pre-written toast to correspond with their character, and so throughout the night my friends presented such speeches as “The Alien’s Toast” and “The Butterfly’s Toast”.
My desk mate, a wonderful sprig of a woman, who brought her husband’s nephew and neice to the party, had the bright idea to cut up some old posters and help all the kids decorate them into costumes. Kings and queens, butterflies and rabbits were all running underneath the strings of orange balloons and tissue ghosts that hung across the ceiling.
We had ordered a cake, a green one. My director actually did the ordering, but despite her saying that it needed to look like grass, it came with lots of beautiful swirls in many greens and creams and was finished with a large spackling of glitter. Much too pretty. However, it became a great deal uglier once we pressed the gummy worms into the icing and laid the gummy snake from corner to corner. Amongst the paper headstones and gnarled tree that were stabbed in a convincing arrangement, the whole thing gave my Armenian friends willies. Perfect. The cake also allowed me this cultural exchange: The security guard asked if this was the holiday on which American’s eat goose. I was able to reply, “No, this is the one where we eat cemeteries.”
We played three games. The dance competition and round of musical chairs were both very exciting. But the most well recieved was the Halloween Lottery. From money we had collected for the pary we had bought mostly food, but we also bought 18 prizes. We attached numbers to the prizes and put corresponding ones in the lottery. We also folded up written dares. So, if you wanted a prize you had to be willing to perform a dare should you draw one. Ah, risk. We then wrapped the pieces of paper in bits of plastic bag and stirred them into a pot of cold, soggy oatmeal. The pot was covered in a box with a hole in the top. So to play you had to be willing to stick your hand into a dark hole and dig around in a mucusy mess. The faces were priceless and the laughs went on for a long while.
The whole party was wrapped up in a video from a website my mom sent me which featured members of my NGO dancing to “Monster Mash” as a mad scientist, a vampire, a werewolf, and Frankenstein and his wife. I think they watched the video at least 8 times before we all went home.

A successful Halloween. Of course, now I’m getting asked the date of my next party. Perhaps I set a dangerous precedent. No… a terrifying, even scary precedent.

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