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?! 

July 8, 2012 (Sunday)

T.G.I.Sunday! I wish every day was a Sunday. I haven’t had a day off like this in so long! Too bad we don’t get the full weekend. That would be really nice. Only having one day off a week is getting so tiring!

Anyways, I woke up late, ate, talked with my sister for like 2 hours (which, by the way, we had a really interesting conversation… I’ll explain more later), then I went for a walk with my friends, got a lot of stares, ate some ice cream, came home, ate again, found out my dad got pick-pocketed in Yerevan when he was running errands L now my whole family is sad because if one member is sad, the rest is sad as well. That’s how connected everyone is.

Random picture of everyone in my village studying at our teachers house :) Aren't we cute?!

Now I’m writing this blog because I know I have a lot of homework and studying to do, but I’m trying to put it off as much as possible. I have a new Armenian teacher this month because they like to switch it up for us, but she is difficult! I think she thinks we’re a high level class and likes to go fast and pick on us to answer on the spot, but I don’t work like that so it’s been stressing me out. I guess I’m venting a little, but language is no easy thing to learn in two months! Like I said, I’m surprised I can even have conversations already, but I think the stress of knowing that I only have another month left in training is freaking me out! Therefore the over-eating and breaking-out is happening. I really can’t complain because I have been so blessed and this place is FREAKING AWESOME, but if I could and did complain this would be it! Haha

Another note, my new family that’s waiting for me to live with them in a month calls me almost every day now! How did they get attached to me so quickly?!?! Haha I was only there for 3 days as a “trial-get-to-know-your-new-town” kind of thing, but I guess within that span I sucked them into my awesomeness already! :p HAHAHAHA JUST KIDDING! But seriously I think it’s so great that they care for me that much already and call me every day to tell me what they’re doing or ask how I am. Except for the fact that I can hardly understand anything they are saying cause they speak super fast and it’s on the phone, but still, I am very honored and glad I made a good impression even if it were for those 3 days.

July 7, 2012 (Saturday)

The view on the way to Gehrard and a view of what you see when you look up from the church!

My dad took me, my sister Gayane, Kate, and Joy to this church about an hour away from our village called Gehrard. It was gorgeous!

Me and the girls. My papa and the American girls! haha

My dad always brings me to people and asks me to answer: “What do you call me/who am I to you?” and I answer, “Papa!” and the crowd goes wild. Haha he loves it when we do that and doesn’t really answer the people who ask who I am sometimes and just gives them “I’m her papa. She’s my daughter.” Haha

Inside one of the buildings of the church. The building on the right was carved out of one entire rock...

Inside the church. We light the candles and do a little prayer. Papa and his 2 fave girls :)
When you leave the church or monastery or what not, you always have to exit backwards because you don't want to turn your back on God ... I think... ??

Short doorway makes me look pretty tall huh?? All the designs you see on the door, wall, etc are carved by hand. Amazing>
We decided to do a cheesy pose but it turned out to be kinda cute ya?! :)

Every step up was curved in and it was a little difficult to go up... later my papa told me that they were caved in cause so many people walked up and down those stairs that they got worn out.
Picture of us overlooking the whole city of Yerevan in the distance.

Everything was so pretty. "amen inch shaut siroone"

We were dancing and singing to Spanish music in the car, as well as Selena Gomez!

Later I wanted to take a walk so my mom and sister decide to come with me and we end up going to one of their friends house. They have two little kids with red hair and freckles… what?! Apparently the “real/first” Armenians looked like them and they are the “special” ones left or something? I’m not so sure I got that right, but anyways, I simply adored her and I think she liked me back and we got to play with their new puppy who was the sweetest little thing in the world!

Random photo but I really like this one... stole it from a friend. Can you see the rain clouds coming in? We were walking to a nearby friends restaurant and the cows were following, the clouds were coming,... haha

July 4, 2012 (Wednesday)
Happy Independence Day! Happy 4^th of July!

My friend Kate and I attempted to make a feast for our families for this special “American day,” and it turned out alright, but it definitely wasn’t the best! Our baked macaroni and cheese ended up hard and crunchy, the fried chicken was okay, I attempted to make guacamole and chips, but most of them have never seen an avocado before so it was just strange to them. The potato salad was probably the most successful. Then there was a cake, M&M cookies, chocolate, fruits, and fruit punch (with a bit of vodka hehe)! There were no men at this little party cause the dads were all at work and none of our brothers were in Armenia anymore SOOOO just the girls had vodka shots and drank wine haha my mom loved it. Armenian’s really love their alcohol and making cheers every single time.

Later that night my dad took me to the mountains to his “secret place” where him and his friends go to all the time since they were young to get drunk or have BBQ haha it was BEAUTIFUL! In the mountains near this church he put a table, and stuck all these tiny wax candles along the mountain-side. It was a real romantic setting, but with a bunch of old men and my mom and sister HAHA the moon was also super big and the stars were everywhere! I was so in love with the night I didn’t know what to do with myself. I just kept saying “shaut siroon, shaut shaut siroomem” (really pretty, super duper, I love it a lot). One of his friends had this HUGE lighter and if you know me at all, I always have a lighter with me, it’s a weird thing, but I told him I thought it was super cool and he just handed it over to me. Now I have this huge lighter displayed on my desk! Loving it.

June 30 – July 3, 2012 (Weekend)

My new host family. New location. New job. TWO-YEAR COMMITMENT SITE.

I really don’t feel like writing everything cause there’s just too much and I’m so tired! I’ve been taking ginseng pills to get over this exhaustion, but I think I just need one day to sit around, listen to music, watch shows, and be a couch potato haha I know, I’m lazy! But because I want you to know all the little cool things I did this weekend, I shall list them! à

·         My new family makes me eat CONSTANTLY. All the time. Every minute, every hour! It’s ridiculous how skinny they are for the amount they eat! Granted they don’t eat like pigs, but they do eat all the time and force-feed me every chance they get!

·         My new mom doesn’t want me to call her “mom” cause she thinks she’s too young to be my mom and it doesn’t seem like my parents want to grow up or be considered old haha they’re cute. Super adorable young couple.

Minus my new sister who was taking the picture!  

·         New sister and brother. Sister’s name is Areksia, she is 15, and she has the most gorgeous long light-brown slightly curly hair. Brother’s name is Karlos, he is 13, and he is obsessed with soccer. He even gave me this little pink soccer ball keychain and I got to watch him play in his school team. He plays every morning and he’s really good too! I introduced UNO Cards to them and now I have to play it EVERY night with them haha (bad choice :p)

·         My new “papeek,” grandpa, is a goof! He always pushes the back of my head and says I’m his new girl and then goes off in speaking Russian and German to me with such enthusiasm. He’s kind of crazy… haha honestly! He’s odd and loves to just keep talking even though my face obviously shows complete confusion. He also comes to the kitchen in the morning and takes a shot of vodka HAHA I will definitely not have a dull moment with him.

·         I have a second-floor bedroom with my own bed, closet, desk, baby crib, mirror, outlets, and windows! I AM SET. Also, the house is being re-built right now so when I come back in a month to permanently live there, my room will be newly painted and things will be fixed-up a bit. On that note, I had to take my first cold shower in Armenia cause our shower is a bit old, but I think my new parents kind of knew I had to take an uncomfortable shower so later that day they went and got a new shower head and installed it before night time came around. SO SWEET! My dad was so excited that he dragged me into the bathroom, turned on the water multiple times just to show me how smooth it was, and made me feel the hot water. I think I will really love them.

·         One thing I do want to complain about are the lambs outside my window! Every morning, 6am, they are “BAAAAA-ing” like crazy and it sounds like kids crying for their moms. Every morning I was there I ended up waking-up at 6am because of those darn sheep! Haha I guess I’ll have to get used to it. No biggie! Peace Corps always tells us to be “flexible.”

He told me he's going to kill a sheep for me when I come back in a month! haha.. yay(?)

·         Watched my mom milk a cow for the first time this weekend! It was interesting. It looks like hard work too. Her hands were tired after one cow and this might sound weird, but the cows utters (?) looked red too haha eew. I told her next time I would try and do it, but I was too scared to try this time. The milk was also really interesting to look at. Later I watched her make the milk into cheese. She told me I can make the cheese next time as well.


  

Super SUPER fresh milk.



·         Went to a nearby English teacher’s house to meet her and her new twins because she really wanted a volunteer in her school, but the school director didn’t want one so instead she wanted to meet me and become my friend. Again, she fed me like I had an endless pit in my stomach, and of course, I had to eat or else it would slightly be offensive! Haha but by the end of it all she wanted me to be her kids Godmother! I said I was down and that I would be a part of the whole Armenian traditional ceremony and everything! Ahaha AWESOME.

·         Went to see the school I would be teaching in for two years and meet the school director and a couple teachers… I AM SUPER BLESSED. The school is only about a year old. It’s absolutely gorgeous and big and FANTASTIC! I was shocked as to how beautiful it was. Apparently the President of Armenia even came to congratulate the school and take a look. He might even provide some new furniture soon. We have a computer lab, sports complex, and really nice classrooms. The pictures explain it all!

·         My counterpart and school director and other teachers were all super glad to see me. No one had any “beef” with me and they all wanted me there. Previous volunteers and staff would tell us that a lot of volunteers had it rough with people who didn’t want them there and would give them a hard time, but I don’t think that will be my case at all! My director can speak some English and already told me she wanted me to start a choir group and have them perform a month after I arrive there because it’s Teacher’s Day in September and it’s her dream for students to perform in English.

Like I said, I had to come back to Yerevan alone, but it really wasn’t bad! Not scary at all and actually really comfortable cause I had some time to myself and got to relax and listen to some music for 2 hours in a relatively smooth ride in a big type of tour bus. My 2-hour ride was also less than $3! Can’t believe how cheap things are here. I gave the grandpa sitting next to me a piece of chocolate half-way there and he was really happy J After getting off the bus I had to take a Marshutini to the Peace Corps office, but I didn’t really know my way so the bus man helped me. After getting on the correct Marshutini, I guess I missed my stop, but the driver asked me where I was supposed to go and he said that he would turn around in 5 minutes and help me out. He made me come up to the front to sit with him so that he wouldn’t forget about me again haha and then after getting to the right stop, I tried to pay him but he wouldn’t let me! He said it was free and that he was just glad to meet me. Isn’t that sweet?! Armenians are just too kind. Again, I am IN LOVE with this country!

While I was away this weekend my sister in my first village, Gayane, text and called me every day. Kept making sure everything was okay and reminded me constantly that she missed me and was so alone L We even skyped each other one night so she can meet my new family! I AM TOO ATTACHED TO MY FIRST FAMILY! How in the world am I going to leave them and start all over with this new family?! Such a dilemma. I really have to be careful about this. If you know me at all, you know how attached I can get to people and things and animals, etc etc! Yikes.

On the day my brother was leaving for Russia I text him, said my goodbyes, and called him a “houss (pig)” one last time. He later called me an hour before his flight at the airport and we had an understandable conversation all in Armenian with jokes and everything! He said he was glad to have met me and that he was sad to go! That was it! Gone for a year or more…

I came back to my home here in my small village and was greeted with huge hugs and kisses from my mom and sister. And that was that weekend! Glad to be home. Is that weird to say? It was a “home sweet home” feeling and man did it feel good!

June 29, 2012 (Friday)

Saw a double rainbow!!! Surely made my day J Wrote my name in Armenian in the fog on the window of our bus and just watched the double rainbow for 30 minutes. Sounds like a scene in a movie… I even had my headphones in playing Chris Tomlin.

Two different days. First picture of the double rainbow! Do you see it? Second picture of THE biggest rainbow I've ever seen in my life! And you can see the end too!

I’m going to my new site tomorrow for three days as a sort of “trial.” I’m excited and scared and tired and happy all at once. I’ll let you know how it goes! One thing I do know is that coming back from our new site, we have to figure out how to travel on our own back to the capital, Yerevan. Peace Corps wants us to “study” how to get around on our own haha eeeks!

Just found out my brother is leaving for good in two days! After this and that he is finally leaving and I won’t get to see him off cause I’ll be in my new site! My new site is about 2 hours away from Yerevan, which is about 45 minutes away from my village right now, so a total of about 3 hours. My brother said that with his driving and knowledge of the roads he could get me in less than 1.5 hours, but he won’t even be here anymore so it doesn’t matter! I’ll just have to make the 3 hour trip to come visit my family here.

June 28, 2012 (Thursday)

“ARACHEEN ANKAUM HAUNDEEPAUL” = To Meet For The First Time
Today is the day we meet our new counterparts and get to know them.
Long story short … I LOVE HER! LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!! I’ll have to explain later cause I don’t have a lot of time now, but I am SO HAPPY and I know we’re going to be the best of friends. Oh! And she’s short too!! Shorter than me! Heaven sent?! I think YES! Haha

Counterparts sister, Me, Counterpart! Love both of them

Some Armenian English teachers and a couple volunteers at our first conference together!