June 15, 2012 

I should NOT have said what I said yesterday. I come home and find this man and my two brothers getting ready to kill our second and last fat pig. And of course, being as curious as I am I had to sort of kind of watch … ahhh!

They took a rope, went inside the pen, chased the pig for a good couple minutes, tied the top of his mouth and his tail, walked him out, tied him to a tree, and then… I turned my head, screamed, and did the whole girly thing. I could hear the squeals, shrieks, and then silence. My brothers kept saying “ari ari” meaning “come come” but goodness I was clutched up next to my mother and she just kept telling me it’s nothing and that it doesn’t hurt, “vocheenj, chae heevaund.”

Again… cutting, skinning, cleaning, bagging, and selling of this poor huge fat pig. That was the end of it.

I guess on a brighter note, I had some really good BBQ “horovauts” and the baby pigs get to see sunlight for the first time soon! They’ve been kept inside since they were born and have never been out! I can’t wait to help bring them outside to their new outdoor pen (still sad, but I’m trying to see it positively).

Random fact I just learned from my sister: you have to be baptized three days before your wedding and for those three days after you are baptized you can’t shower. Then you shower the day of your wedding! Kind of interesting I guess. Also, if you’re pregnant you can’t go to church apparently? That’s what I understood from what my sister was telling me.

June 14, 2012 

We had a “Central Day” today where we (A-20’s) got to meet the A-19 group and got to play flag football with them. It was exciting to see how excited they were to see us! Haha they really wanted to get to know us, hang out with us, answer all our questions, and be somewhat of our mentors since they’ve been here for about a year now. It was really encouraging to see how enthusiastic they were to be with us.

So that was all fun and games… then on another note, I come home and…

There’s a dead pig in our garden… blood and cut-up pig limbs all over the place. These men from the capital city, Yerevan, came to buy our pig cause it’s from a village and is super fresh and “juicy” apparently. Then my brother would taxi them back for less than $20 when it’s like an hour away, but that’s a lot of money here. My sister said they get a lot of money for one pig. And let me tell you, this pig was HUGE, so I’m sure they really got their moneys worth.

Later, instead of feeding me the actual meat of the pig, they fed me its heart and lung in a sort of stew haha eeeks not really my “cup of tea.”  I had a tiny piece and ate other things instead. But I did get to watch my mom cut the meat and it was really scary! I’ll try uploading the video of it later, but she basically took this knife and this hammer-like tool and hammered into this meat and its bones and everything. It really was an interesting sight! You had to be there.

Last note, I’m really glad I didn’t see the pig get killed. Would’ve been traumatized.