Volume I Number 2: July 4, 2004
Laura and Brett’s Travels Continue in Armenia!
Barev dsez! (Hello in Armenian)
We are still alive and kickin’. Our last experience with emailing everyone was very exhausting. It’s been a couple weeks but it’s still fresh in our heads. The last time we emailed we spent 3 hours at an internet cafe. A total of4 emails were sent in that time. The reasons for the delay were high internet usage among the 6 computers slowed our computer down, not being able to access Hotmail on a computer and having to switch computers, and well, we are in Armenia so things are just a bit slow. We also didn’t have our email pre-typed so we have decided to take the time to pre-type each email for now on. The cost for the internet use was great compared to USA rates. We spent 750 drams (a dram is what we call our dollar) for the 3 hours. This comes to roughly $1.40. The exchange rate here is $1 to 550 drams. It’s pretty cheap but we are only making a couple bucks a day at this point so it does drain us a bit.
Speaking of having cheap rates not everything is that cheap. Bananas are expensive around here. We have had the chance to indulge ourselves on one banana (banan in Armenian) each. The cost for a batch of bananas comes out to roughly $2 versus less than a dollar in the states. Candy bars run about 180 drams which is great. If we buy them from the local store we get them a bit cheaper. Gas runs about $1.30 a gallon. Now it is cheap for us but the dram isn’t very strong and the economy is pretty weak so that is high for Armenians. This doesn’t stop the use of vehicles. Lots and lots of old soviet style vehicles are being driven around here. Lots of air pollution in Yerevan! To get an idea how the economy has dwindled since the fall of the Soviet Union you should know how strong the dram use to be. In 1992 (a year after Armenian independence) the exchange rate was $1 to 14 drams. It’s been dropping ever since.
Brett had the opportunity to work with some of local children. A part of the environmental education program is to integrate in your community through small activities. Brett and two other volunteers decided to have a bird watching activity for the children. The day of the activity he asked the children that we live with if they would like to do some bird watching. He pretty much got blank stares and a big smile from the mom. Well, that didn’t seem to go so well. When the other two volunteers showed up a few hours later only one child was to be found. Their mom pretty much told her that she is going to watch the birds with us. She then made a phone call and long and behold the middle child, Leleet, came home to watch the birds with them. He didn’t realize they would be forced but they were nice about it. They stayed on the street in front of the house and looked for anything flying. No birds were in sight so each of us let the children just use the binoculars to look at each other and the houses. As this was happening more children arrived out of curiosity. They too, started to look through our binoculars and were laughing. As a bird would fly in our area we would quickly point it out and try to identify it for them. We did have an Armenian bird guide book that was in English and Armenian so we were able to quickly tell them what kind of birds were flying around. We were able to identify a few birds in the span of an hour. Though it started to rain halfway through the hour everyone stayed to be with us. Only when we said thank you for hanging out with us did the children go home. It was a great time for us and, we hope, the children.
We wanted to throw out some vocabulary for everyone. The language is pretty tough and, slowly, we are picking it up. We have conversations with our host family but even that is very broken, involves lots of hand gestures, and lots of laughs. Armenian is a separate language branch of the Indo European language family and consists of 39 letters (7 vowels and 29 consonants). I think a lot more use of the throat is involved than in English. Armenian also has 50 dialects which can make it interesting as we travel around the country. Eastern Armenian is spoken in Armenia and Western Armenian is spoken among the diaspora (the Armenians that live outside of the country). So here are a few words and phrases that we use just about each day (the English may not be the exact spelling for pronunciation reasons, eg., bread is spelled hats but the a is a long a.
Bread = haats
Cheese = paneer
Meat = mees
Good Morning = Barev luys
How are you? = Vons es
I am very well = Shat lavem
Good night = Barev gishyer
Good evening = Barev yereko
Armenia = Hayastan
Armenian = Hiy
English = unglarin
Thank you = schnoralakootsoon
Your welcome = unk trim (you need to put some nasal and saliva into this one)
Water = jur
Tea = tay
Good bye = tsatsuion or hajo
We spend each day studying the vocabulary and are beginning to make baby steps in learning the language. It’s funny that we had “Armenian on Tape” that we were listening to before coming to Armenia and everything we learned in a couple months from the tape we learned in the first week and then some.
The neighborhood kids are very eager to have me join them in a pick up game of soccer. Usually, if one of the kids are out when I arrive home he will come on up and ask me if I want to play soccer with them. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t. The kids love soccer and are pretty good, though I did injure a couple when they tried to block a ball I was kicking towards them. Ooops. They’re okay.
We did a great hike recently. We met up with our friend John, who lives in the village of Takta. The hike took us up into the mountains to the south of Dilijan. We followed what seemed to be a road. A lot of erosion has taken place on the road so only a few vehicles can get up it. The hike started in the forested area. We saw a lot of grazing pigs and their annoying, barking dogs. Towards the summit we were above tree line where everything was meadows of wildflowers. It was beautiful. Laura did a wonderful impression of the beginning of Sound of Music as she ran, twirled and sang through the meadows. The view was spectacular. It was our best day yet in Armenia.
Here are some quick observations from our experience in Armenia:
- It rains a lot in our town of Dilijan.
- Livestock on the streets are as common as the cars, if not more common.
- Students respect their teachers and principals very much in Armenia.
- Family is a very big deal around here. They are always talking on the phone and visiting each other.
- For the most part, dogs are not treated quite as well as the ones in America. Many are on short tethers all day long, donít get baths, and roam the streets for food.
- The oldest son is usually named Tigran.
- Watch your step to avoid the livestock feces on the streets and sidewalks. Poor Laura!
- Education is very highly valued. Homework in the evening becomes a family affair.
- Women definitely run the house and the men don’t. Men will work, socialize, and generally be out of the house for whatever reason.
- Shower curtains do not exist.
If you would like to begin to imagine what it feels like to be a Peace Corps Volunteer, here is a comparison that a recent volunteer told us. Put on a bunny suit, go stand in the middle of downtown Chicago and, in broken English, ask people if you could help them. Yes, we feel like this quite a bit. We are stared at constantly. Laura REALLY gets stared due to being female and blond. On many occasions of walking down the street, Brett will step between Laura and the onlooker to block their view. Recently at the store we were buying some chocolate and a guy working in the store came up to us (even though we were being helped) to ask Laura if is she was married. We both showed our wedding bands and said we were married. He then asked Laura how old she was and Brett kindly answered. We left and hope the guy got the picture. Doubtful! It is very common for Armenian men to ask the American women if they are married. The men are destined to get married and American women, all but 4 of them single, are a hot ticket in this town. Many Peace Corps volunteers (men and women) will say they are married (though they are not) and wear a ring just to stop the constant pressure of getting married. Our host mom and grandmother have asked us a few times if want to have children and say that we should have them while in Armenia so that they can help take care of them. I guess Moms all over the world just think alike in respect to grand kids.
We had the opportunity to go have a picnic in the mountains yesterday. Will, one of the volunteers, organized the event. The eight Peace Corps volunteers in our village, Will’s host family, and two other volunteers all joined in on the fun. We all piled into the back of Will’s father’s dump truck (kind felt like cattle being transported) and drove up to a picnic area in the mountains. It was a very nice area to have a picnic. The occasion was to have a BBQ for 4th of July. We played music (iPod), cards, Frisbee, backgammon, and ate a lot of food. We were eating hamburgers (not necessarily American style) with pickles, tomato, ketchup (lots of sugar in it), very spicy mustard, cheese slices (kind of like Kraft slices), macaroni salad, baked potato, chocolate bars, and homemade goldfish crackers (volunteer made them). Brett did have his first hamburger in 5 years or so and isn’t sick yet. We did the cooking of the meat and potatoes at the site. We chose a nice green grassy area, threw down the firewood and lit the match. There wasn’t a fire ring or anything preventing the fire from carrying into the nearby grass area. Not how we would have done it but the fire did stay under control. We were at the picnic site for about 6 hours and left when it got dark.
The environmental issues surrounding Armenia are very severe and need to be addressed by the majority of the Armenian population if any action is going to be taken. The major issues with environment are Lake Sevan (major reduction in water level, industrial and residential waste disposal, biodiversity decrease), decrease throughout the country in Biological and Landscape Diversity (due to urban sprawl, misapplication of agricultural equipment, and overgrazing), Forest Preservation (70% of natural forests are depleted and at the going rate will be gone by 2030. Currently, only 10-12% of forests exist), Desertification (this applies to most of the country due to bad agriculture practices, logging, and much more), Water Treatment (most water treatment facilities do not have the means to provide for biological treatment, only mechanical, lack of proper maintenance and technical support, waste water is generally dumped into rivers and lakes with no treatment), Air Pollution from motor transportation, and Hazardous Waste disposal (inconsistent, if any, sanitary-hygiene standards for the waste disposal sites, large number of expired medical and unusable chemical, and pesticides that have no way of being properly disposed of). The problems are very evident in the country. We can look at our river and see how dirty it is. We look up in the mountains and see areas that the trees are cut. We know that our water is not always healthy (which is why we always use a water filter) just by the brown color. Environmental Health is a huge problem that is slowly taking time to address by the government of Armenia. The government is helping to take action along with Non-Government Organizations (NGOs). NGOs are a non-profit group. Unlike many non-profit groups in America they don’t have memberships and Armenians in country usually don’t donate money to the organizations. The money comes from the Diaspora community (Armenians living outside of the country). There are about 200 NGOs helping to solve the environmental issues in Armenia.
Laura has been busy in the classroom. She is teaching in the 6th and 7th forum which in the states is middle school, every Monday and Tuesday afternoon. It has been a great experience so far. The students are eager to learn English. Being in a classroom with an American is a big deal. Even during summer school all the seats are full. When a teacher asks a student a question they stand up and politely answer the question. The other day the principle came into the class and everyone stood up, said “Hello, Director” (in Armenian of course) and then sat back down. The director then spoke very loudly and quickly. As he went to leave the class everyone stood back up. Laura was late on all these social cues and the students just smiled at her. Teaching English can be a bit of a challenge because the students have been taught that there are stupid questions. If they don’t understand what the teacher is saying they will never speak up. The Armenian teacher told Laura the first day who the smart students are and that those are the students she should call on to answer question. Armenian students have only been lectured to in class so when Laura has them do group work or play games like Simon Says they get very nervous. Hopefully as the summer goes on they will learn to enjoy these different methods of learning.
We hope that you enjoyed this email. We will keep in touch as time permits. Feel free to send mail to us anytime. We received our first piece of mail last week and we were very excited. We’re sorry if we can’t get to individual emails at this time. Please do respond if you would like. We do read all of them.
Love,
Laura and Brett