i’m still here in all of the winter goodness

I was supposed to be laid up with knee holes right now, but I’m still here because PC HQ pushed back my surgery.  This makes me lucky in some ways.  For instance, the winter’s biggest snow fell on the day I was scheduled to travel to the capital.  Not only did I not have to brave the feet-deep-buried roads, but I got to see my town covered in a thick layer of snow.  There is nothing like the feeling of waking up on a sunny morning to pillows of glittering snow trying to peek into your windows.  I’ve said it before.  It’s magical.

For the record, the best shoveling chore in the world title goes to shoveling snow.  The soft powder is so light, flies away, and gives you a satisfying crunch when you did in.  What could be better?  Perhaps shoveling marshmallows… maybe.

Here’s a look at the magic of winter.  The first four are simply around my yard, and the rest are from a visit to the nearby 11th century fortress and settlement during my friends’ visit right after the New Year.  Winter is pretty incredible.

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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:

 

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slow roll

I was handed a drink the other day with these little eyeballs floating around in the juice.  I wondered where I can find said drink for the upcoming Halloween party.  I mean, look at all the eyeballs!

In totally unrelated news, my mother just pulled out of the driveway.  She called me to tell me she was doing so.  Normally insignificant, this morning’s 4am slow-roll down our sloping cement is her first movement towards Armenia.  Within a collection of mere moments I will be standing face to face with my own mother, bursting at the seams.

I’m hoping to video tape most of her trip here, do what I’d like to call a Kblog (Kim and Brent’s Log) and perhaps you’ll even see it on the interwebs.  But until then, excuse my absence.  I’ll be a bit busy zooming around Armenia with the source of half my self.

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doing some drifting

Some World Vision coworkers and I have been working on a Youth Leader Small Grants project, teaching Armenian village students about project design and management and, through a series of steps, awarding some of these village kids with small grants to do projects in their communities.  In one small village, Yaghdan, the students applied for furniture and supplies for their new youth center.  The first thing they wanted to do with these new supplies was a small weekend camp.  So, after World Vision supplied the furniture, myself and another Peace Corps volunteer went to the village with a couple days of summer camp planned.

The camp was inspired by a project called Little Drifters (check it out at the killer creative blog,  BOOOOOOOM).  The two of us PCV’s expanded the idea to a two day workshop exploring creativity and nature.  The kids made journals, wrote nature poems, and discussed how creating art that explores nature helps protect nature by helping others come to value it.  We made posters out of their poems to hang on their youth center walls, and just before sunset we hiked up to a hill peak above their village.  Most of them, including the Youth Center Director, had never hiked up the hill; they watched the sun go down with the excited chatter of kids discovering.

The next day we discussed litter, wrote more poems and then talked about creating found art using examples of garbage art and the boats pictured at BOOOOOOOM.  Then the kids went out to collect garbage from their village fields and likewise picked up natural refuse to create their own Little Drifters.  We waded out into Yaghdani Get to let the boats go, splashing at the boats and each other and ignoring the blazing sun.

Enjoy the pics below from our Little Drifter creation:

My Armenian friend teaching about volunteering to protect the environment.

Yaghdan’s very supportive mayor, one of the few woman mayor’s I’ve met

Below: Collecting, building, and sending off our Little Drifters.

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