Volume I Number 15: May 5, 2005
BARE JANAPAR!
Hello Family and Friends,
The long haul to get back to Armenia has ended. We have resumed our roles at the school and settled back into life in our town. We have unpacked our boxes and bags and made quite a cozy little home here. Our friends in town were very excited to see us come back, some had even written us off as never coming back. They did have good reason, which we will explain later. With the winter having disappeared, warmer weather is allowing the spring flowers to bloom and the trees to blossom. Our mountains are a lush green and our copper factory is still ugly.
The biggest change for us has been having our own apartment. What a world of difference it has made for us, not only with our attitudes, but also with our productivity at work. The apartment is located on the third floor in a building near the center of town. We are renting from friends who put a lot of time and labor into fixing it up for us. The apartment hadn’t been used for 7 years. Having control over our eating schedule, water filtering, and bathing opportunities, to name a few, has made our life easier and healthier. The comfortable size of the apartment will allow Laura to have her English students meet here during the summer when the school is closed. We look forward to entertaining our friends and family when they come to visit.
This week, our clubs have been back in the full swing of things. The numbers are lower than last November but we still are doing quite well. The first day we walked into the school, we had children running out of their lessons to greet us at the front steps. That was unexpected and let us know how appreciated we are at this school. Recently, we were given a choice to switch sites but with the enthusiasm we have had from the children we couldn’t see leaving this town to start all over. Once school finishes on May 25, we will continue with our clubs throughout the summer. Laura will have her hands full with her English clubs and I will meet once a week for half day hikes with the children. I hope to be involved in a number of camps throughout the summer.
Something we mentioned earlier that we wanted to bring up was the surprise the teachers and children had when we arrived. Everyone knew we had gone home for a vacation but when we didn’t return they had thought we had decided to leave for good. Though we did contact Peace Corps to call our school and notify them what had happened to us, Peace Corps staff never took the time to do it. We had some explaining to do with the teachers and lots of apologizing. Upon telling Peace Corps about the miscommunication, no one would apologize to our school’s director and Peace Corps staff said we never told them. Emails don’t lie. It was just such a bummer to us. This incident, along with a couple others we have had to deal with upon coming back, has motivated us to stay focused on our community, our language skills, and distance ourselves the best we can from the Peace Corps office.
We hope our new format of typing emails works for everyone. We hope to continue to improve this format with a more professional look and more pictures. This is our trial run.
We have more pictures that will be posted on our website in the next couple of weeks so please check them out when you get a chance. They will be better quality than you see here, since these have been compressed quite a bit.
If you are interested in writing us or calling us, here is our latest and, hopefully, the last time we will give our contact information. We have no intentions of moving. If you plan on calling us be prepared to try calling us a few times and/or getting disconnected in the middle of the conversation. In addition, we are a 12-hour difference from the west coast.
Brett and Laura Holt
2/25-8
Sanahin-Sarahart Alaverdi 377130
Armenia
Phone: 0-374-253-3-16-13
That is the latest from Armenia. We will continue to email you as time permits. Thanks for reading.
Love,
Brett and Laura