As I told a friend whom I emailed recently, I won't apologize for my blog posts being so far apart; I would waste far too much time if I did. I may, however, start blogging more. I just found out that Blogspot has a mobile blogging service. This is extremely handy, because I now have a cellphone and can easily access the internet, though only the mobile web. Life has become considerably better since I got my phone.
I am just going to make a general post about what's been going on the last month or so instead of focusing on a specific topic. I won't be making a post with pictures for another month or so, unfortunately, because PST (pre-service training) has become even busier than it was before.
We all recently visited our permanent sites and stayed with our new host families for a few days. I love my new site. It's a large city (at least, what's considered a large city in Armenia, meaning about 100,000) with tons of stuff to do. While there, I visited a large church and watched the service (Armenia is home to the oldest Christian state church in the world, the Armenian Apostolic Church), went shopping at the supermarket and finally bought good chocolate, got decorating ideas for my eventual apartment from the home furnishings store, went to an art gallery, and went to a rock concert--a fucking rock concert, y'all. I know that's nothing in America, but here it's a pretty big treat to be able to live somewhere with easy access to something like that. My permanent site is also incredibly beautiful, nestled between mountains that actually have trees. That's fairly significant, as deforestation is a major problem in Armenia. After the energy crisis of 1988, the country went from about 10-11% forested to around 4%. It used to be 25% forest long ago.
We recently visited Dlijan National Park, which is incredibly gorgeous. It's set in somewhat rugged mountains (though not nearly so rugged as Idaho's) and is completely covered with trees. It looks a little like the Appalachians, but a bit more rugged than most parts of that particular range. It was so nice to just go hiking again for the first time since I've been here. I had missed it greatly.
In the coming weeks we'll be doing our nine practicums for Armenian school children. Six will be in English, but 3 will have to be fully in Armenian. I don't in any way feel comfortable enough with my Armenian yet for that not to be a huge deal. I think most of us feel that way. I'm incredibly anxious about the whole process. Frankly, I don't like kids that much to begin with, but I've been assigned to an educational NGO so I'll be teaching kids for the next two years. I'm sure I'll adjust, but it will be a challenge. It's made slighly better because I'm working with disadvantaged and at-risk youth, so at least the work is much more rewarding, if maybe even more difficult.
By chance, I stumbled upon the town muscle head and have begun working out with him, which is just fantastic. I was going out for a short run before my body weight/water-filled buckets workout that I've devised, when a fellow volunteer stopped me on the street. He was talking to this guy and told me that he had a workout bench with barbell, weights, and dumbells, and the guy invited me to come workout with him. Even better, the guy seems to really know his stuff, so he's acting as a trainer for me. He's a really nice guy, and I'm so glad to have run into him.
Lastly, I'm happy to be able to say that I have less than a month left of PST (pre-service training). It has been an incredibly stressful time, but from all accounts life becomes much simpler afterwards. It will be nice to slow down a bit. I am, however, going to miss my host family in my PST site incredibly. They have become family to me, and they are dear to me. I am going to miss them, I'm going to miss my room, the wonderful garden, my little piece of heaven in Armenia (it's a fabulous little spot under the cherry trees where my host mom has a little glass table and a stump for a chair where she and I both read and write), and all my Armenian friends that I've made. Such is life, I suppose, but I will be keeping in contact with them for sure.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Friday, June 20, 2008
There will be blood...er, pictures
But unfortunately, not right now. I'm spending some free time today downloading some PortableApps utilities to my USB drive. PortableApps is just about the best invention ever for thumb drives, and especially for those of us who don't have our own regular internet access. It's nice to have all my customized bookmarks and settings back in Firefox.
I'm going to take some time today to actually describe my life over these past three weeks, so this will probably be a rather long post.
I think the first thing I have to talk about is my host family and my new home for the next couple months. My host family is quite small. I have a host mom, a host brother, who is 19, and a host sister, who is 17. My host dad is away working in Russia, which is quite common for Armenians. It's unlikely I'll ever actually meet him, as he usually only comes home in the winter. My host family is very intelligent. My host brother is an engineering student in Yerevan and my host sister is a linguistics student, also in Yerevan. Apparently, at one time my host mom was an "economist" (which I think meant accountant) at the old Soviet factory on the hill before it closed. I got quite lucky, in that my host sister speaks quite good English. In one way, however, I think that may be a bad thing, since it's hindering my learning process a bit because I'm not forced to constantly speak Armenian.
Regardless, I really like my host family. They're all extremely nice and very hospitable. I don't have experience in other developing countries, but hospitality is extremely important for Armenians. Even though I've been here three weeks, they still wait for me to start eating before they will eat; they regularly stop everything they're doing to sit down and talk to me; they won't let me help pick up the table after dinner (though I often insist and just start helping anyway). While it's all really nice and I greatly appreciate it, there are times when I feel it's a bit vexing. I'd rather they treat me as a part of the family, with attending responsibilities. But, I'm not really going to complain about it.
The house is nice. It's two stories, though the first story is primarily used as storage and for the bathing area (which is just a little sketchy). Note, that's not the bathroom, but the bathing area. It's in what is clearly the smallest room in the entire house, and consists of a part cement, part dirt floor. There's a tub, but there's also a couple buckets next to the tub with water, one of which I heat up and add cold water to, and then commence pouring it over myself to have a bath. The bathroom is a glorified hole in the ground. Yes, my bathroom is, in fact, an outhouse. But not, you know, an outhouse with a seat and all. It's four walls, a wooden floor with a hole, and a ceiling, all situated over a deep hole in the ground. I was a bit...put off, at first, but have since become quite used to the whole setup. I wasn't really expecting any better, and I actually don't mind either of these things.
The rest of the house is quite nice. The second floor is really the main floor. I have a room to myself, with a lock, that is really quite nice. There's a living room, small kitchen/dining room, my host brother's room, and my host mom/sister's room. It's really cozy, and the walls of the house are so thick that the temperature stays nice and cool, but not cold, regardless of the temperature outside.
My typical day consists of the following.
I wake up at 7:00 and do one of two things. I either hit snooze for a good hour or so, or go out and do some running and working out. Unfortunately, it's been more of the former than the latter. Every couple of days I bathe (because I am not willing to do the bucket bath thing every single day, and because it's not really necessary), I have breakfast, and then I'm off to language class at 9:00. We have 4.5 hours of language class (in small groups; by this time we've all been divided into surrounding villages. There are 7 other trainees in my village), so we get out at around 1:30. I go home, have lunch, and then spend some time--read, a lot of time--studying the language. At this point, I've basically got the alphabet down so I can read almost anything put in front of me. That doesn't, however, mean I can understand it all. In fact, there's a lot that I don't understand. I'm having an incredibly hard time with the verbal language, which is really the most important at this point. I usually have dinner with the family around 7:00, and then lately I've been watching the Eurocup with my host brother, one of my fellow trainees, and his host brother. That's been a ton of fun. On occasion I'll venture into Charentsevan to get some internet access, and one day of the week we have 8 hours of class in Charentsevan with all the rest of the volunteers, going over PC policy, cross-cultural issues, safety and security, and health. About 3 hours or so on one day a week we have technical training for our various jobs.
The process has been extremely exhausting at times. We have only one day a week off (Sunday), and even that is filled with a lot of the studying. As I mentioned, the verbal language is really coming very slowly for me. I still have a lot of trouble picking out individual words when people are talking around me. I relish the days that we don't have language training, just so I can get a break from it. It's really quite frustrating. It's almost exclusively frustrations with the language that makes me homesick at times. Not because I actually miss things like regular access to internet, NPR, comfort, and friends and family so greatly (though I do miss all of those), but because the language makes me so damned fed up sometimes. Luckily, writing in my journal and in this blog has been of enormous help in easing that homesickness.
My fellow volunteers are an incredible group of people. The depth of personalities and experiences contained within this group of (now) 47 is vast. We have many different ages represented, many different socio-economic backgrounds, educational levels, some different ethnic backgrounds, work experiences, and other categories. The one thing that we all seem to share is a very positive personality, which is, I think, really the most necessary trait of all. There's a sense that we're all here to do something good. Why the hell else would we leave the comforts of home, after all. I've made friendships here that I'm already quite certain will last well into the future, and of that I'm extremely grateful.
I'm going to take some time today to actually describe my life over these past three weeks, so this will probably be a rather long post.
I think the first thing I have to talk about is my host family and my new home for the next couple months. My host family is quite small. I have a host mom, a host brother, who is 19, and a host sister, who is 17. My host dad is away working in Russia, which is quite common for Armenians. It's unlikely I'll ever actually meet him, as he usually only comes home in the winter. My host family is very intelligent. My host brother is an engineering student in Yerevan and my host sister is a linguistics student, also in Yerevan. Apparently, at one time my host mom was an "economist" (which I think meant accountant) at the old Soviet factory on the hill before it closed. I got quite lucky, in that my host sister speaks quite good English. In one way, however, I think that may be a bad thing, since it's hindering my learning process a bit because I'm not forced to constantly speak Armenian.
Regardless, I really like my host family. They're all extremely nice and very hospitable. I don't have experience in other developing countries, but hospitality is extremely important for Armenians. Even though I've been here three weeks, they still wait for me to start eating before they will eat; they regularly stop everything they're doing to sit down and talk to me; they won't let me help pick up the table after dinner (though I often insist and just start helping anyway). While it's all really nice and I greatly appreciate it, there are times when I feel it's a bit vexing. I'd rather they treat me as a part of the family, with attending responsibilities. But, I'm not really going to complain about it.
The house is nice. It's two stories, though the first story is primarily used as storage and for the bathing area (which is just a little sketchy). Note, that's not the bathroom, but the bathing area. It's in what is clearly the smallest room in the entire house, and consists of a part cement, part dirt floor. There's a tub, but there's also a couple buckets next to the tub with water, one of which I heat up and add cold water to, and then commence pouring it over myself to have a bath. The bathroom is a glorified hole in the ground. Yes, my bathroom is, in fact, an outhouse. But not, you know, an outhouse with a seat and all. It's four walls, a wooden floor with a hole, and a ceiling, all situated over a deep hole in the ground. I was a bit...put off, at first, but have since become quite used to the whole setup. I wasn't really expecting any better, and I actually don't mind either of these things.
The rest of the house is quite nice. The second floor is really the main floor. I have a room to myself, with a lock, that is really quite nice. There's a living room, small kitchen/dining room, my host brother's room, and my host mom/sister's room. It's really cozy, and the walls of the house are so thick that the temperature stays nice and cool, but not cold, regardless of the temperature outside.
My typical day consists of the following.
I wake up at 7:00 and do one of two things. I either hit snooze for a good hour or so, or go out and do some running and working out. Unfortunately, it's been more of the former than the latter. Every couple of days I bathe (because I am not willing to do the bucket bath thing every single day, and because it's not really necessary), I have breakfast, and then I'm off to language class at 9:00. We have 4.5 hours of language class (in small groups; by this time we've all been divided into surrounding villages. There are 7 other trainees in my village), so we get out at around 1:30. I go home, have lunch, and then spend some time--read, a lot of time--studying the language. At this point, I've basically got the alphabet down so I can read almost anything put in front of me. That doesn't, however, mean I can understand it all. In fact, there's a lot that I don't understand. I'm having an incredibly hard time with the verbal language, which is really the most important at this point. I usually have dinner with the family around 7:00, and then lately I've been watching the Eurocup with my host brother, one of my fellow trainees, and his host brother. That's been a ton of fun. On occasion I'll venture into Charentsevan to get some internet access, and one day of the week we have 8 hours of class in Charentsevan with all the rest of the volunteers, going over PC policy, cross-cultural issues, safety and security, and health. About 3 hours or so on one day a week we have technical training for our various jobs.
The process has been extremely exhausting at times. We have only one day a week off (Sunday), and even that is filled with a lot of the studying. As I mentioned, the verbal language is really coming very slowly for me. I still have a lot of trouble picking out individual words when people are talking around me. I relish the days that we don't have language training, just so I can get a break from it. It's really quite frustrating. It's almost exclusively frustrations with the language that makes me homesick at times. Not because I actually miss things like regular access to internet, NPR, comfort, and friends and family so greatly (though I do miss all of those), but because the language makes me so damned fed up sometimes. Luckily, writing in my journal and in this blog has been of enormous help in easing that homesickness.
My fellow volunteers are an incredible group of people. The depth of personalities and experiences contained within this group of (now) 47 is vast. We have many different ages represented, many different socio-economic backgrounds, educational levels, some different ethnic backgrounds, work experiences, and other categories. The one thing that we all seem to share is a very positive personality, which is, I think, really the most necessary trait of all. There's a sense that we're all here to do something good. Why the hell else would we leave the comforts of home, after all. I've made friendships here that I'm already quite certain will last well into the future, and of that I'm extremely grateful.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
I arrive!
Barev! (Hello in Armenian--I'm sure you could have figured that out)
Actually, I arrived about a week ago. Internet access, however, is available only in the central town, and our Language and Cultural Facilitators (LCFs) haven't yet showed us how to use the bus system on our own.
Right now I'm blogging from Charentsavan, a town of about 40,000. It's about a 45 minute bus ride from Yerevan, the capital city. It's not, however, where I live. I actually won't be disclosing that particular information, for safety's sake.
So far, Armenia is a beautiful country. The mountains are beautiful, and the villages are full of trees. My host family has a wonderful place. The house is nice inside, though it's very blocky from the outside; the garden, however, is incredible. Cherry trees, apricot trees, pear trees, and apple trees are everywhere, as well as tons of vegetables.
I apologize for the shortness of this post, but I have little time today. I wanted to let you all know that I'm here, I'm safe, and I'm having a great time.
Actually, I arrived about a week ago. Internet access, however, is available only in the central town, and our Language and Cultural Facilitators (LCFs) haven't yet showed us how to use the bus system on our own.
Right now I'm blogging from Charentsavan, a town of about 40,000. It's about a 45 minute bus ride from Yerevan, the capital city. It's not, however, where I live. I actually won't be disclosing that particular information, for safety's sake.
So far, Armenia is a beautiful country. The mountains are beautiful, and the villages are full of trees. My host family has a wonderful place. The house is nice inside, though it's very blocky from the outside; the garden, however, is incredible. Cherry trees, apricot trees, pear trees, and apple trees are everywhere, as well as tons of vegetables.
I apologize for the shortness of this post, but I have little time today. I wanted to let you all know that I'm here, I'm safe, and I'm having a great time.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Playing the expectations game
Playing with hoops and sticks; using a sheep's bladder as a soccer ball; being a concubine to an Armenian prince. These are a few of the more ridiculous expectations that friends and I have come up with in jest. But even after joking about it, the question remains: what am I to expect?
In some ways this isn't a question that pertains simply to the matter of my Peace Corps service--it isn't even a question that pertains solely to my individual experiences and work. What can I, and what can we all, expect from the kind of work that is being done by Peace Corps volunteers, by well-meaning NGOs, by governmental aid organizations across the board?
So often, it seems, the improvements that occur in the lives of those in the developing world are marginal. A villager builds a fish pond to diversify his food supply; a child makes it one more grade into school than she otherwise would have; an acre of forest is stopped from being burned. The simple answer I often hear is that all these little things "add up." It's always seemed like little more than a platitude to me, however, because it doesn't address what happens when these things don't add up; it doesn't address what happens when it really is only that one villager or that one acre.
But expectations of anything else are often little more than grandiose gestures by those of us hoping to convince ourselves that our small contributions are greater than they are. I've been complicit in this myself. I often tell myself that my life goal is to create positive change in whatever way I can, while simultaneously expecting that "whatever way I can" means something very large, affecting millions. Perhaps that will someday come true, but in the meantime, a different understanding of expectations is necessary. Because those marginal improvements are still exactly that: improvements. They're positive changes that help a select few improve their lives, even just a tiny bit.
The reality for the vast majority is that improvements in life are only ever small--they're often not life changing. But they are still a good that can be felt, regardless of whether they add up to something bigger and greater.
Which brings me back to my expectations. I have few, except that I expect to create positive change for someone, somewhere. I'm not going into the Peace Corps so that I can be a part of something, the efforts of which add up to a huge difference. Leaving aside the personal benefit that I will receive in my career and my life from this--and I would be remiss if I tried to convince anyone that I don't expect to benefit from this--I'm going into the Peace Corps to help someone, because there is a good to be created by positively impacting even one person's life, and even in a marginal way. This is my expectation: smallness, not grandiosity.
In some ways this isn't a question that pertains simply to the matter of my Peace Corps service--it isn't even a question that pertains solely to my individual experiences and work. What can I, and what can we all, expect from the kind of work that is being done by Peace Corps volunteers, by well-meaning NGOs, by governmental aid organizations across the board?
So often, it seems, the improvements that occur in the lives of those in the developing world are marginal. A villager builds a fish pond to diversify his food supply; a child makes it one more grade into school than she otherwise would have; an acre of forest is stopped from being burned. The simple answer I often hear is that all these little things "add up." It's always seemed like little more than a platitude to me, however, because it doesn't address what happens when these things don't add up; it doesn't address what happens when it really is only that one villager or that one acre.
But expectations of anything else are often little more than grandiose gestures by those of us hoping to convince ourselves that our small contributions are greater than they are. I've been complicit in this myself. I often tell myself that my life goal is to create positive change in whatever way I can, while simultaneously expecting that "whatever way I can" means something very large, affecting millions. Perhaps that will someday come true, but in the meantime, a different understanding of expectations is necessary. Because those marginal improvements are still exactly that: improvements. They're positive changes that help a select few improve their lives, even just a tiny bit.
The reality for the vast majority is that improvements in life are only ever small--they're often not life changing. But they are still a good that can be felt, regardless of whether they add up to something bigger and greater.
Which brings me back to my expectations. I have few, except that I expect to create positive change for someone, somewhere. I'm not going into the Peace Corps so that I can be a part of something, the efforts of which add up to a huge difference. Leaving aside the personal benefit that I will receive in my career and my life from this--and I would be remiss if I tried to convince anyone that I don't expect to benefit from this--I'm going into the Peace Corps to help someone, because there is a good to be created by positively impacting even one person's life, and even in a marginal way. This is my expectation: smallness, not grandiosity.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)