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.

Read Full Post »

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.

Read Full Post »

togetherness

Best thing to happen in a long time: REUNION.

One of the best people I know who I studied abroad with and lived with in college, one who now apparently runs marathons came to chug one out in DC. So, in a spectacular and unpredicted turn of events, we went and ate burritos and talked for hours while at least three sets of diners came and left around us.

After a lots of catching up, we met up with another one of the best people I know who now studies at Georgetown.

Look at the three of us, here in Berlin, completely young and freshly let loose on the world:

We haven’t been in the same room together in years, and yet here we are so close my little heart wanted to explode with JOY:

We’re so much older now. She studies education policy. He works in finance in New York.  I… heal. Can you believe we all just keep getting older? The idea of it tends to BLOW MY MIND.  And to still love these two souls as much as I do, just fills up the ol’ heart.

I mean look at them, years ago, on our way to Berlin.  What’s not to love?

To borrow, Travis, Kathryn, you are the top children in the United States of America.

Read Full Post »

a european in flight

Not sick not sick not sick not sick not siiiiiiiiiick!   Urakh!  I’m so so glad that my tonsils and I are back on good terms.  They’re still holding on just a tiny bit to their grudge, but I think we’ve come to an understanding.  Yesterday’s headache, induced by a couple weeks of tense swallowing (is that a thing?), threatened to incapacitate me, but a solid nap complete with a dream about a real-life, Latin American Ghost Whisperer episode (complete with JLH!), is exactly what the doctor ordered.  That and some solid time with the soon-to-leave European, An.

An, Kristine and I became friends last summer after some quality hang outs in gorges and along creeks and in my tiny house making tastey food.  As two of The Europeans, they laugh at my label for them and their fellow European Volunteer Service (EVS) cohorts.

An came up to my town a couple of days ago to prepare and implement  science education projects in a couple of villages.  Wednesday night found us at my office until past midnight trying to light up an LED with a potato and making raisins dance in a cup.  Yesterday, on our way to the office we both stopped in the 12 degree weather to photograph the winter wonderland that was just outside my door.

Tonight I’m headed to her and Kristine’s going away party. I am really going to miss these two.  Despite living an hour away, they have every so often made their way into my life through projects or nights in playing Sabotuer or Durak.  I’m pretty sure Europe shouldn’t get them back.  I think both of them should move back to Texas with me.  Come on, how can you resist Tex Mex and rodeos and SXSW and ME?

Read Full Post »

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.

Read Full Post »

i been around

A couple of posts ago I wrote about a time here in Armenia when I didn’t even have a flashlight-wielding friend to stare down into my sickly gullet.

Times have changed.  I have said a good number of times how wonderful are the Armenian compadres that surround me, my nkerutsyun, my akhberutsyun, my harevanutsyun.

However, the last couple of weeks have cemented some expat friendships of mine through the All Volunteer Conference in the capital and multiple visits to Casa Fulbright and multiple visits from My Favorite Europeans (ere known as The Europeans much to their amusement).

So, I haven’t been around the blogosphere all that much.  I’ve been doing stuff like brushing my teeth in Yerevan:

Or playing Settlers in the cottage:

Of course, right before the mentioned conference, Thanksgiving passed.  I woke up why-god-why early to meet these incredible gems for a game of pilgrim dice over Skype:

And in answer to my I’m-a-late-bird sentiment, I was rewarded with an entirely pink town, all of which for about twenty minutes looked like this:

So, you know, sorry for not being around.  But I got things, you know.  So, forgive the lapse.  In the weeks long gap I hope you’ve read something else really wonderful like maybe the 2011 Celebrity Death Watch, or the tub lady’s cat hiding bit (sorry… can’t resist calling someone ‘the tub lady’), or watched the most charming I’m-Back-to-Blog video, or read back entries of the girl in the literal glass house, or used one eye to look at Armenia and the other to look at Austin over there.

I know I haven’t written, but I still read!  We all got needs, people.

Read Full Post »

where would you recover?

Remember that gnarly throat picture of last post?  Even though that picture was from last year, I’m that kind of sick again.  Can’t quite kick the cough.  Kelly, who was sick for our entire Turkey trip is still battling her cough as well back in Fort Worth, and this has caused me to contemplate where I might like to be nursing my cold right now.  I’ve come up with my ideals:

1. On the green couch at my parent’s house.  Tivoed Survivor episodes and chips and dip lulling me into a couch coma.  Dad coming in the house with grocery bags, one of which holds some echinacea tea and box of aloe-treated tissues.  Home.

2. Seattle Greys.  This, of course, has everything to do with my inability to sleep the last couple of nights and therefore my ability to marathon the first season of Grey’s Anatomy.  This also has everything to do with my wanting to be in a fantasy hospital full of beautiful people and a few minor traumas.  The guy with the cheating wife and the hidden ovary would quickly make me forget about my sore throat.  And maybe Izzy would bake me something.

3. Kolkata, first building on the left after the Tamil slum by the train station in Dum Dum Cantonment, Shaji and Beena’s place.  I have been sick there twice in my life.  The first time completely smashed my notions of hospitality and care.  When I was in college I thought that someone showing up at your house with a grocery bag full of canned soup and some Kleenex was a big deal.  But when I caught some monsoon season flu in Kolkata, Shaji and Beena took me into their home.  They called up their doctor to come see me.  They made me a pallet on their livingroom floor, shared their meals with me.  And at night they covered me and pot of hot water under a sheet, letting me breath in the steam while they sat around me and talked.  They became a second family to me during those late night steam baths, and let me tell you, they know how to take care of a sick person.

4. Right here, as it turns out.  Armenia and India are similar in this way.  Being sick in America is an isolating experience.  Being sick in Armenia or India is communal.  My landmom came over and fixed up my bed with another mattress to help me sleep at night.  My friends at work came armed with medicine, herbal tea, and rasberry muraba to battle my illness.  Their constant inquiries as to my health, the constant offerings of traditional remedies like a swig of lemon tea, the application of a vodka rub all over my body, or even stuffing my nose with vodka soaked cotton, they all seem to be a great effort to try to make me feel better.  It’s like their sickness is my sickness.  A simple idea with some profound follow through.

A while back my brother sent me a desk-sized Gonzo (because he knows me), and the Clooker rearranged them this week to show me some love (because turns out she knows me, too.)

So, I’m sick, but as it turns out, I’m in one of my four ideal places to be sick.  That’s pretty good, right?

Read Full Post »

back from the the turkish coast

I have returned from the big country to the tiny country with a million thoughts in mind.

This morning I was asked what the weather was like in Turkey.  “So nice and sunny,”  I said.
“It’s sunny here,” my friend replied.
“Yes,” I said, “but I think the sun is frozen.”

It’s cold, and upon returning to Armenia, I have one.  A cold, that is.  So, combining that and the fact that I am having trouble getting photos off my camera, I believe it will be a couple days before you see or read anything in the form of recap.  *COUGH HACK and NOSE-BLOW*

However, here’s two things:

1. Our Little Drifters project was featured on BOOOOOOOM.  You may know that I love this site, so getting featured for some work we’re doing here made my sickly little day.

2. Ok, I can’t totally hold back.  Here’s a little Turkey teaser:

 

Read Full Post »

stranger’s home

(Mom, don’t freak out.)

I found a friend on the internet.   Well, Kelly and I found a friend on the internet, through Couch Surfing.  I am, some would say, late on the trend, and while I prefer to stay with an established friend, or heck, even a friend-of-a-friend, the lure of free accomodation and the chance to make a Turkish aquaintance hooked me.  And here I am, typing on his Sava roomate’s computer.

Last night, our new friend and his (now our other turkish) friend walked around Istanbul, hopped on rocks by the sea in a wealthy neighborhood where a drunk man’s whippy North  Turkish traditional music lifted right out of a rigged up car stereo to mix with a teenager’s voice which betrayed his borrowed angst, bellowing”With Arms Wide Open” and beating his guitar for his friends.

Yesterday, we arrived in Istanbul after an overnight bus picked us up in Izmir.  Kelly and I visited our friend Sarah there and got to know her fiance Osman.  I found myself all day wishing she were with us, waddling through the crowds at the Grand Bazaar and stopping by a corner cafe for tea and coffee.

Izmir is a completely different culture full of sun and college kids and cafes.  Istanbul is busier, grungier at first, but already I can tell the culture is more diverse, the cafes are better and more expensive, and the people we’ve met are kind and capable of great conversation.

I’ve been all over the map this trip.  My talks in Izmir we’re full of catching up, and from my side that meant talking about the future, after Peace Corps which at this point looks like a million different things.  I’ve got a dozen other countries on my radar.  London, Barcelona, Boston, Austin, El Salvador, Honduras. Dominican Republic.  Everything sounds like a blast. 

Why then, when I close my eyes right now and dream, it’s of a house on a quiet street, movie nights with friends, lazy walks through a grocery store, sitting on the side yard with my parents, hugging people I’ve known for years. 

I cannot seem to keep all this future whispers quiet.  My mind races with elations and fears over choices.  And, still, I should be careful not to miss a beat of my Armenian life.

And right now I should enjoy the Istanbul sun and time with new and old friends.

Read Full Post »

just so we’re clear…

… Kelly and I are having a good time:

Happy Halloween from Armenia!

Read Full Post »