August something to something… I’ve lost track of time.

Here are some pictures and explanations of things that have been going on so far!!

My family took me to a fish farm for lunch one day as a treat... they had TONS of fish.. take a look at the next pic!

These are tiny things but it was cool to watch. They had a billion other types of fish there.

Our cows are sick… one ate too much and is a little fat and the other is too skinny. The fat one we gave this mixture of alcohol, baking soda, warm water, and oil…? What?! I don’t know but they force-fed the cow the mixture and said she’ll be better soon. The other cow had to get shots to make her eat more...

Not our cow but I got to feed one of my relatives calf. He was strong! Ate all the carrots I picked from the garden right out of my hand! haha

I got to help herd the lambs tonight! They whack the lambs who don’t follow or who are slow so I ended up chasing after them or stomping right behind them so they keep going otherwise they would get hit, and I did not want that HAHA the sheep herders thought it was hilarious, but I had my little cousin do it with me so it wasn’t as “embarrassing.” But I’ll be doing this every night with my papa from here on out!

This is the view I get almost every single night I go to herd the sheep! Isn't that a cool sight?! And all the lamb in the street... I love it haha all the people along the way know me now and think it's hilarious that this foreigner goes to bring the sheep back home from the fields hah :)

August 9, 2012 (Thursday)

My new host sister’s 16^th birthday!

And kids kids kids! Dear goodness so many kids! HAHAHA 

Sister's 16th birthday and her beautiful butterfly cake! And a bunch of our cousins

We danced during the day... we danced during the night. We danced and danced... like at every other Armenian party I've ever been to... or when we decide to just hang out. They LOVE to dance here! I've got some learning to do... my dancing skills aren't quite ... hah ya you know if you know me :)

Birthday girl Araqsya and our grandpa... let me tell you... he definitely has a character! hah

Like I said... Kids Kids Kids! hah during the day and during the night. We went on a tiny hike up the mountain and ate sunflower seeds outside when it was cooler later that night.

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August 8, 2012 (Wednesday)

Last day of PST. First day in my permanent site. So many tears were shed it was ridiculous. My luggage was also a RIDICULOUS amount as well haha I don’t know how I collected so much in only two months!

Here are some pictures of my first home! I will miss it SO SO much!

The garden I've been eating from for the past 2 months. Our garage area....

 

Our main road that JUST got lined with white paint. And the Marshutini we always take! :) 

My store! The little green thing on the right in front of the huge tree.... But we got everything! :D

The road that always led my to school and of course... my school! Where I learned all my Armenian! They're remodeling it now but it still was a pretty nice school!

I will miss my village so much. It was so comfortable and everyone knew me. Off to a new start!

August 7, 2012 (Tuesday)

Swearing-in Day!

We made it through training! All 41 of us! CONGRATS!!!

August 3, 2012 (Friday)

Got a package today thinking it was from my parents… but NOPE! It was from one of my students in Taiwan! Isn’t that crazy cool?! He sent me postcards from his university and a little note. So sweet, no?! I just think it’s so amazing that we can keep in contact with people from all over the world so easily even years later.

I yelled at some kids for hitting and torturing a donkey today in Armenian and they were so confused. Told them…

1.     Stop. Please don’t do that. The donkey is hurting.

2.     I am sad when you do that.

3.     You don’t like donkeys? I really love donkeys.

4.     Here, do this to the donkey instead (started petting him).

5.     Watch me. Like this.

After my totally embarrassing attempt at model behaving how to treat animals, they kind of stopped and I walked away. I then started calling all my friends I knew would be coming my way and told them that if they saw the kids with the donkey to say how much they love donkeys and to pet the donkey if they can HAHAHA this was my little attempt at trying to change this terrible habit of children... and actually most of the people here in Armenia. Many of us volunteers try to model behave how we (well, most Americans ><) treat animals back in the states just by saying simple things like I did and being nice to animals, but that’s about all we can really do for the most part.

August 2, 2012 (Thursday)

Had my exam today! Received an Intermediate Mid. That’s pretty darn good for two months I think! That’s like something I never received even after three years of French in high school hahaha

I’m telling you, studying every day for HOURS and having to speak the language at home for everything was not easy and there were times that I really needed to just take a breather on my own, but couldn’t…. it was all worth it! It really was. I never imagined to have a full conversation in a new language within two months. It seemed like a ridiculous goal! But now my main goal is to become completely fluent within the next year and NEVER forget it even when I go back to America. But like I said, the only problem I have with learning a new language is that I’m forgetting everything else haha Korean is completely failing and English is slowly leaving me HAHAHA oh man.

August 1, 2012 (Wednesday)

BEST DAY EVERRRR!! Got THE most awesomest fantasmic package today and it seriously made my day… my week! I’ve been having it so rough lately and I’ve been so tired… the package seriously came at THE perfect time. Gave me so much more energy that I didn’t know I had haha

Annie, Ester, and Dasom sent me some treats! Way more than I ever expected plus some really expensive Pringles HAHA adding on the price of shipping these Pringles were ridiculously expensive! HAHA but take a look at what I got!

The big dog bone for my dog Gucci was WAY too crazy and my dog was super scared haha I don’t think he knew what to do with it. I don’t think dogs here in Armenia are quite the same as in America… he didn’t think the bone was cool at all HAHA but that’s probably because he gets real bones all the time from various animals haha eeww but it’s okay! It’s the thought that counts!

The cat toy that they got for my cat Kooka was real sweet as well but she didn’t know what to do with it! She just kept staring at it … plus she just had three kids so she had no time to play. Wrong timing hahaha :p

July 30, 2012 (Monday)

My last teaching day! THANK GOODNESS. It has been SO stressful lately and I haven’t had any time to myself. But it’s okay, this is all a part of the training process and we are all suffering together haha

Since we had a class full of girls we decided to do a lesson on fashion and have them describe different clothes while modeling them on the “walkway.” BUT the tricky part was that they had to dress-up in the random items we gave them HAHA just like this!

 

All the kids got awards today after class to show that they participated in our little program. They were all so excited and us, as teachers, had to award the children with their certificates, but let me tell you it was not easy haha Armenian names can be really hard to pronounce! We tried our best and if it wasn’t correct the kids would just correct us anyways LOL

July 29, 2012 (Sunday)

Went to my THIRD wedding today…. man these people only think about getting married and having a family! Ahahaha JUST KIDDING. But three weddings is a bit much isn’t it?! HAHA this time we just went to the dinner part and it really was no big deal cause I was SO used to it haha

Anyways, going to three weddings and recently finding out that three of my friends have gotten engaged back at home has been making me think WAY too much about my future and kids and etc etc! CREEPY but I’m telling you the honest truth and it’s SCARING THE POOP OUT OF ME! Everyone here is in love with kids and marriage is such a big deal… just all these things put together makes my head hurt!! Haha

July 28, 2012 (Saturday)

Went to Lake Sevan today… the only bit of water they have in the whole country haha but it was nice! They’re so proud of their lake and it’s such a prize for the people here to be able to go to the lake. It’s like one of their “vacation spots” you know? Anyways, Peace Corps took us to the lake, a church on the lake, then another location known for it’s famous wishing tree, also next to this beautiful church.

TAKE A LOOK! 

 

 

 

 

 

July 27, 2012 (Friday)

So every year the capital city, Yerevan, has a big dance session at one of the central monuments/points in Yerevan and all the volunteers are told to go and experience some Armenian dancing. My sister, of course knowing this happens every year, asked me if she can come and if she can bring her boyfriend… secretly of course.. haha she had the whole thing planned out already! We would go separately and meet him there, then she would be able to hang out with him while I chaperoned, of course haha. It’s crazy all the measures they have to go through just to spend some time together… it’s really kind of sad. It was like the first time she got to hang out with him for more than 20 minutes in like 6 months or something. And they’ve been going out for more than 5 years now!!

ANYWAYS, we got to dance Armenian style with like a billion other people in the middle of the capital city and it was just a lot of fun. The beautiful Cascade, which is where the place is called, was lit and everyone was sweating and dancing and getting to know these Americans who can speak a little Armenian! J  We had a great time.

This is the view from the top of the Cascade. Beautiful right?! And look at all the people down below. They're all dancing! Armenians truly love their dancing and music and arts. SO PERFECT FOR ME, RIGHT!??!?!

Me and my sis. That's probably the most "scandalous" I've ever seen her dress haha BUT that's because we were in Yerevan, and everything "goes" in Yerevan cause "Yerevan is nothing like the rest of the country."

July 26, 2012 (Thursday)

My cat is officially a mama today!

THREE LITTLE ONES!

I woke up this morning, got my toiletries, walked over to the bathroom, and said good morning to my family, “balee louise,” like I do every morning, but this time my papa stopped me and said, “you know Kooka is a mom?” and I said “ya, I’ve known, she’s getting fatter,” and he says “no, she’s a mom now!” I was so excited and shocked cause I swore she was only pregnant for like a month! My sister took me to her room and there in a box were 3 little squirming things. CRAZY! First time I’ve ever seen a baby animal on it’s first day on earth!

It's funny cause just the night before Kooka was acting funny and making all kinds of noises. She kept trying to hide behind my back and look at the crevices in the house but no one ever imagined it was cause she was about to give birth!! She wasn't even THAT big yet! haha

July 25, 2012 (Wednesday)

A group of us are practicing an Armenian song for our Peace Corps “Swearing In” day, which is where all the volunteers who have made it through the training session become official Peace Corps Volunteers. There’s an official ceremony, we sign our names, and get the official Peace Corps pin! It’s the day we commit and start our TWO YEARS OF SERVICE!

Oh right, when is this special day? In exactly 2 weeks! After 2 weeks, we are done with our training, we start our 2 years service, we move to our new and permanent site/village, and… AHH it’s all happening. I’m really here. I really know Armenian. I’m really IN the Peace Corps. Has this hit any of you yet? It’s still such a dream to me…

July 24, 2012 (Tuesday)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY REAL MOM! I’m sorry I can’t be there to make you breakfast, give you a massage, and a big long hug! BUT I did send you your favorite flowers … with dad’s money HEHE love you mom! You will always be my first mom and THE BEST mom! Haha Sorry I keep calling everyone my mama here… it’s just easier to say than “host mom” and I feel uncomfortable calling them by their names! J

Yeayuhhh my mom is all tech-savvy now and knows how to send pictures! haha proud of you mom :)

I helped bag grain for flour today. My dad went to the field with this big tractor and brought home a truckload of grain. We raked and bagged them so that we can dry bag by bag and eventually make it into flour… somehow. I’m not sure how that works, but I’m sure I’ll be able to watch that soon.

My grandma and papa. Look at our pile of grain! Apparently it's not as much as last year though... oh well.

After some hard work my sister and I decided to have some fun with watermelon! It was a hot day and big slices of “smiley-face” watermelon sounded perfect… so we went at it! It was messy and refreshing and just the best picture moment.

I think we're cute. Gosh it was so hot that day...

July 22, 2012 (Sunday)

So this is how a wedding goes. You go to the girl or man’s house, depending on what side you are related/friends with, then you watch the bride or groom get prepared and have this big ceremonial thing there. I was on the bride’s side this time so we went to her house, watched her brother put her shoes on for her (traditional), then her gloves, and then her veil. Then the man has to come to her house to “pick her up” and we have this big ceremonial “meeting” for them. A couple shots of alcohol here and there, lots of talking, etc. and then we dance her out of her house and head back over to the man’s house with a brand new suitcase for the bride for her first night at the man’s house. We scope around the man’s house and have another little party there, then we finally dance back out and head over to the church for a short ceremony. It’s usually not private and there are other weddings or other people just walking around… kind of odd to me, but that’s how it’s done. Finally after the ceremony with the priest and everything, we head over to the restaurant for HOURS of dancing and HOURS of eating. Dinner usually starts around 5 or 6pm and goes until midnight. The bride and groom usually do a little dance for the crowd, then there’s a dance for the “horovauts,” which is basically the BBQ’d meat that they serve at every single wedding, then like I said, it’s DANCING, EATING, DRINKING, DANCING, and more EATING and DRINKING for 6 hours!

Both the boy and the girls house has this kind of extravagant setting with pretty foods and flowers on a table with LOTS of alcohol on the side for the "pre-party" ...

The girls on the left. My Armenian parents on the right! We went to this beautiful park in Yerevan for the new couple to take some pictures together.

The famous pretty church in Yerevan where the couple got married. There were like 3 other weddings going on at the same  time. It was ridiculous. They really have no privacy in their weddings... it's really kind of strange.

The priest person does all this ceremonial stuff for a bit, then we all kiss and congratulate the now official couple and then we head out to the restaurant!

We had these cute little paper packets with rose petals in them... good idea! Maybe for my wedding .... someday way later.

Dancing… there’s a lot of it… and it’s not the typical type of dancing we all know. It’s ARMENIAN dancing… which is a lot of hand movement and face-paced feet skipping/tapping ? haha Don’t get me wrong, it’s WAY easier to do than how we dance back in the States, but no matter how I dance, I get a lot of stares, awes, questions, and CAMERAS. So many cameras and video recorders. The wedding video man actually took his video recorder and taped me from head to toe while I danced because he was so “intrigued” by the way I danced… I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or bad thing and if I was dancing well or badly, but either way, he was not ashamed to get right up in my face and record me… then of course the “Macarena” song comes up and I get so excited cause they were playing a song in English and I get ALL the attention cause I was actually dancing to it properly and everyone wanted to “follow the American.” Ha Ha. I really wish I could dance better so I don’t represent American’s poorly haha L 

July 21, 2012 (Saturday)

Have you ever had curlers in your hair to sleep with before?! I can officially say I have and… it was the worst sleep of my life. LIFE. Dear goodness gracious it was so uncomfortable and I can’t believe people would do this to themselves for the sake of beauty! My hair wasn’t even that great afterwards… such a disappointment HAHA anyways, my second wedding tomorrow! I’m not sure if I’m excited or tired or… haha not sure what I’m feeling, but it’s my second and guess what… it’s not my last! I have another one to go to in a week! “Ai kaez baun!” = Oh My Gosh!

July 19, 2012 (Thursday)

Went to the capital city, Yerevan, with a friend today because we finally got a day off after teaching for two days. We rode the Marshutini for 45 minutes, managed to tell the driver to stop at the correct place, and felt super proud HAHA. Tried to find a sushi restaurant and asked a girl in Armenian who started to try and give us directions in English, but quickly decided it wasn’t working and asked if we understood Armenian. We told her we did so she continued in Armenian and we knew basically everything she was saying! BUT we ended-up eating at a pizza/burger place and again, ordered everything in Armenian! Aren’t you proud?! We told ourselves we would go back to language class tomorrow morning and brag to our teacher that we did so well on our own.

HAHAHHAHAHAHHAHA no comment. The burger's name was "BIG BURGER" hahaha

Anyways, I didn’t realize that the pizza would be so big so I took a box to-go just in case I saw a homeless on the street cause I had seen some earlier. Later I saw an old grandma asking for money so I went up to her and asked if she was hungry, if she wanted chicken pizza, and told her that it was really tasty. She accepted and I went on!

We went into a few stores… they were expensive even though they were 50% off sales! We met-up with another volunteer from the 19th group and she showed us to this cheap store… Zara! Zara is real cheap here! Or at least the stuff on sale were cheap… or maybe it’s not the “real” Zara? Haha I’m not sure but I don’t care cause I got a dress on sale for 2,000 dram! Which is almost equivalent to like 6 dollars! I’m going to wear it to my next wedding THIS SUNDAY!! Haha it’s my second one! AND there’s another wedding for me to go to the Sunday after!

After our long awesome HOT day in Yerevan, we waved down a marshutini, and that was the end of our day!

These are the kinds of views I see almost every other day. Don't you wish you were here?! Freaking gorgeous!

July 17, 2012 (Tuesday)

So for the next two weeks I have “Practicum” for the Peace Corps where they basically have us to a “model school” and teach different leveled Armenian students with a partner for 12 classes, which is 12 hours! Ahh.

SOOO I taught my first Armenian class today and got a good review! They said I was a “natural” hehe I was “Ms. Andrea.”

Anyways, the next two weeks are going to be hell, with language classes, teaching, and preparing, and lesson planning… ahhh so much. I’ll probably be absent from blog for a while.

Random picture of my pregnant cat! Kooka is going to be a mama! :)

July 15, 2012 (Sunday)

Happy Water Day! I forget what you call it in Armenian, but basically … EVERYONE GETS WET TODAY. No matter where you are, who you are, how old you are, you get WET and it’s not rude who you get wet or where you are haha you just have to be a good sport about it and know that it’s a blessing to get wet!

So I woke up this morning and knew I had to prepare myself for this day. I put my cap on, my bathing suit on, a black shirt on top… and as soon as I was about to take my flip-flops out my sister asks me to come out to help her fill-up the water balloons… BAM! She hits me with one instead! Then of course a full bucket of water on my head. Within two seconds I was drenched head to toe. Water day had begun LOL we fought, ran around the garden, poured buckets and buckets of water on each other… oh AND grandma too! Our neighbor helped me hold my sister so I can pour a bucket on her cause she was beating me, and he ran off before we could get him wet. Then my grandma went inside and poured water out her window on my sister to help me too! HAHA we had a blast.

Afterwards we dried up, ate a quick lunch, and went on a tiny trip! We went to go see this famous church… I think it’s the biggest church in Armenia called Ejmiatsin. Then we went to this far away village to see this big alphabet letters at the church where the guy who invented the letters had studied at. Finally we went not to far from there to this mountain where someone carved out huge letters and put them on this mountain. It was gorgeous!

The letter "A"

My dad told me to wave hello to Armenia.... so I did haha

                                     

My papa took a picture of every letter of my name so I could do this!

My full name in Armenian. Nifty ya?!

It was unfortunate cause my mom couldn’t come with us. She had to stay at the store and it seems like she always has to stay at the store if we go somewhere because she can’t drive, only my dad can, and someone always has to be at the store because they don’t trust anyone else or have other workers… only time she ever gets to go out is if my brothers are home, but they’re always in Russia so it’s just really unfortunate for her. Apparently she was never even seen the letter sculptures herself even though my papa and sister have seen them like three times.



July 14, 2012 (Saturday)

Trent, and A-19 volunteer’s birthday is today so he decided to come back to his first village, which is my village, and celebrate with a bunch of us and his first family in Armenia. A bunch of volunteers from his group and a few of us from my group joined him at the restaurant in our village and we had a few beers, some BBQ, and of course a cake from his family. We just had a great time talking with one another and getting to know more about these volunteers who have already been here for a year. You can tell that just because we are Americans and are all in the same situation, we became friends AND family real quick and know that we’ll be there for each other no matter what… because we have to, you know?

I bought this puzzle for my family a couple days ago from Yerevan thinking that it would be a great way to kind of come together at night and not just sit and watch TV. Also I wanted my sister to do something or find a hobby instead of always being at home and just doing household chores or watching TV or worrying about her boyfriend not calling her haha. Anyways, we got to start it today and it was interesting to see how tough it was for them. Matching colors and sizes were like completely foreign almost. I always like to connected the edges of a puzzle first in order to know the size and fill-in the rest almost, but it was almost like they didn’t understand that we had to find all the “straight edges” first in order to create the “border.” Eventually after I started to really get into this puzzle, they started to understand how it was supposed to work and I think they really enjoyed it. My papa would keep saying “nayee-nayee” which means “look look” whenever he was about to get a piece correct. One thing I did notice a lot more while doing this puzzle though was how much power my papa has in this family. My mom and sister would be happily working on the puzzle and as soon as my papa came over, they would have to move over for him, and he almost had to be like “the best” otherwise it would be “no good” or something. It was just an interesting dynamic for me to watch.

I wrote my first letter in Armenian today! One full page all in Armenian! It was a homework assignment but I actually sent it to my parents after (with translation of course!).

Pretty cool, right?! Sorry the focus is off but I wrote the WHOLE thing in Armenian! Yeee

My sister and I went with our papa to buy tiny balloons today for the Armenian “Water Day” tomorrow! I’ll explain that to you in tomorrow’s blog.


July 11, 2012 (Wednesday)

Met my first hedgehog today! My sister came in with this brown prickly looking thing in between two lettuce leaves and I don’t know what I was thinking, but I didn’t pay attention to it at all and just kept doing my own thing. She said “look look” all excitedly and you could imagine my face looked like “what the heck…” haha then she started describing that it was a living thing and that it’s hiding/sleeping right now, but I still didn’t believe her cause it didn’t look anything like an animal at all. She then took me to the bathroom with this “thing” in her hands and put it in the shower. She took the shower hose and started spraying it with water and “pop!” the hedgehog pops out like a rolly-polly and starts moving around! It was the cutest little thing! Apparently they hate water so I told her to stop spraying him and we just kind of sat there and watched. She then wanted to show me how they curl back up into a ball so she poked at it and VOILA! Right back into a round prickly brown ball looking thing.

Later on that day my sister and I decided to make banana bread cause we had a billion rotten bananas and nothing to do with them! Armenian’s don’t normally bake banana bread, but my sister knew about it because the volunteers who lived in my village last year tried to make it for their families before… but failed apparently haha my sister said that she wanted to try to make it with me, but better this time haha oops! Sorry A-19 group! Cause my banana bread was the bomb! I made it better here than I ever did at home! The funny thing is I had to substitute a lot of things like baking powder with soda (or so they call it here), honey for brown sugar, less white sugar for white sugar because the sugar here is so much sweeter than back at home, and no vanilla extract. Their oven is also in Celsius and not Degrees so that was some calculating I had to figure out. But all in all, the banana bread turned out great and was super yummy!

She also made me super yummy cream puff type of dessert. YESSSS I'm loved :)

My pretty sister with her super delicious cream puffs

July 10, 2012 (Tuesday)

For the winter Armenians, mainly the villages and people with gardens, have to start preparing for the winter. They make all types of jams, juices, pickled vegetables, dried fruit and herbs, and such to last them through the winter without just potatoes and bread.

Drying apricots. Pretty cool, right?! And they're super tasty :)

Today I got to help pit cherries and cut currants off their branches to make “compote(?)” for the winter… they basically preserve fruit by making them into different juices. They boil water with sugar, put them into jars of fruit, and then air-tight seal them to basically preserve and can them until winter time when they don’t have much to eat.  I felt truly Armenian squatting on a pot and pitting cherries with a bobby-pin.



Green beans from our garden. It's always there and they grow like weeds it's ridiculous!!

July 9, 2012 (Monday)

Walked to the church in the mountains of our village with Kate today. It was only about 4 miles but it was a good darn walk. At one point there was a big dog looking at us around the corner and we got a little scared so I picked up some rocks (just in case! You never know… I don’t want those 6 Rabbi shots from the doctors!) But we were good so I didn’t have to do anything evil ><

Went to another volunteer’s house today to meet her family and kids. The kids call her “tateek” cause she’s basically their grandma, but they are just adorable and made me want to have kids even more! Haha so bad :p But I brought them ice cream and treats like a normal Armenian. The little one took a flower out of the vase and handed it to me. I think I can say he likes me...

Went to a birthday party. My Talking Carl and Angry Birds are super popular with these kids. It’s like an automatic “we like Andrea” method and it’s the easiest method!


Baby I'm obsessed with!! His name is Bobkin Cheek. Freaking spoiled crazy ridiculous kid but SO CUTE no?!