Catching-Up!!

APRIL

Armenia celebrates April Fool’s Day! I never really enjoyed this holiday back in America but for some reason I was all hyped-up to play tricks with my host brother and sister, and also see how they might do this day differently than from back at home. Well, do they??? NOPE! I guess people all around the world like to play similar types of tricks on each other HAHAHA I have no idea why I thought it’d be any different!

TRICKS PLAYED ON ME =

1. My host grandfather comes into the kitchen while I’m eating breakfast and tells me someone’s waiting for me outside. I quickly put my food down and walk out the front door… no one’s there, but I keep looking, went to the backyard, opened the garage, EVERYWHERE! Confused, I walk back inside and there’s my host grandfather sitting on the couch just laughing at me! I HAD NO IDEA! He says “I got you,” in Armenian and I honestly was confused for a good minute there. Mind you, this is early in the morning, I hadn’t realized it was April Fool’s Day yet, and on top of all of that… this is my host GRANDFATHER! Who would’ve thought he’d be playing a trick on me?!?! HAHA.
2. My host sister and I were sitting at the table; she was doing her homework while I was working on lesson plans. She sees my weekly schedule I had neatly written and organized, asks me if she can see it, and of course I say “ha” without even looking up... a minute later I notice her studying it really hard so I look up and as soon as she catches my eye, she rips the paper in one swift motion right in half! My eyes and jaw drop while she’s sitting there laughing ridiculously! Little did I realize she switched papers and my schedule was sitting neatly right on the table. I admit… SHE GOT ME GOOD!

TRICKS I PLAYED ON OTHERS =

1. When the whole family was in the living room watching TV like we do every night, I took a red pen and put a little color on my left hand as if I were bleeding. Sitting there calmly I would touch it and pretend as if it were sore and hurting. I knew someone would notice and say something without me making a big deal out of it. As I predicted, a minute later my host mother asks what’s wrong and notices the “blood.” I tell her while I was playing with the puppy outside, we got a little rough and he accidentally bit a little too hard. The whole family turns to me and tells me to go wash my hand, my host grandfather tells me that he told me to be careful, and my host sister runs to the cabin to find a band-aid… I stood up all happy and big-smile-faced and said “GOT YOU ALL!”
2. Unfortunately that was the only trick I did all day. It wasn’t the only one I attempted though! Haha. I’m pretty terrible at tricking others and I can’t ever lie with a straight face. So yes, that was the only successful trick I pulled all day haha.  

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My-New-Friend-Mary Story!

A two-hour bus ride early in the morning on an unpaved road is never really fun and I always look forward to listening to my music and reading a good book for those two hours cause it always seems like the perfect time to do so. So when the girl sitting next to me takes out her English book and it’s pretty apparent that she wants to speak with me, you can imagine the battle that was going on in my head… to say hi or not to say hi. After a good five-minutes, I come to the conclusion that I can’t disappoint this girl next to me, that maybe something cool will come from this, and that I have to get out of my comfort zone and do what I came to do here:

“HELLO, are you studying English?”

We ended up talking for an hour in fluent English, exchanged phone numbers, and promised to meet up for coffee next week! She even paid for my bus ride and said that I couldn’t refuse because she’s been waiting to meet me for the past 10 months and was just so happy to have finally met me. These… THESE are the kinds of things that make my service here so worth it. Can you imagine how I felt?!?! ONE, like a celebrity haha! TWO, like a dufus for even thinking that for a second I didn’t want to put my headphones and book down to talk with her. THREE, like WOW, I can’t believe this just happened and I can’t wait to become good friends with her. She’s a few years older than me, is an English tutor in my village, speaks fluent English, and is just the sweetest most calm and understanding person I’ve met here so far. YAY ME! I HAVE A NEW GIRLFRIEND! SO EXCITING!!!

She even came to the National Poetry Competition with me in Yerevan with my students and we had a blast! It was good to have her for support and she gave a lot of good advice to my students. We met one more time in the bus and talked for another hour, again! I’ll be going to her house for coffee this weekend and will meet her family. What a fancy little WONDERFUL friendship this will be! 

                                                                                                                                            So blessed.

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Regional Poetry Competition. Brought my students to their first poetry competition and even though only two of them advanced to the national competition, we all came back to my new apartment to celebrate! We made pizza and oatmeal raisin cookies together. They brought me a big teddy bear as a house-warming gift and the way they hid it from me and presented me with it was so heart-warming. It made my day and my smile bigger than it has ever been in a really long time. But you know what made all the hard work and preparing worth it all?? Yes, the teddy bear was awesome and the time we spent together in my apartment was BEYOND-WORDS-GREAT FUN, but the one thing that hit me hard was afterwards… I was walking my students back home and right before we parted ways, my eldest student, Lika tells me that today is a day she would never forget for the rest of her life and she’s so grateful. I can still picture where we were and how she told me. Now I won’t ever forget that day and that moment for the rest of my life.

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MARCH

First of all, I want to say THANKS FOR ALL THE COMPLIMENTS! I’ve been getting a lot of complaints in person, on Facebook, and in email that I haven’t been updating my blog lately… what a compliment! I’ve been so busy that I’ve been writing bullets and notes EVERYWHERE about things I have to write on my blog and I guess they’ve just been adding up and I haven’t had the time to just sit and get it all out there for you all. I promise I will be better about it! I appreciate all the encouragement and support from everyone here in Armenia and back home in America. I never considered myself as an interesting writer but I really do enjoy writing this blog and it brings me so much pleasure knowing others are reading it AND telling me to write more! Thanks again everyone. Truly appreciate it.

 

SOOOO since I’ve been terrible these past few months. I will write about ALL the highlights and update you all on all the great exciting FANTASTIC things that have been happening!

I made trashcans for my school in January because I started noticing all the wrappers and bottles everywhere inside and outside of the school. Finally realized that they are really being used and I’m going to have to make some more! COAF (Children of Armenia Foundation) donated 4 trash bins after I notified them of my idea, then I bought some white paint and spray cans, cut out some stencils, and made an art piece out of them! I figured that if the trashcans were pretty and not the normal small bucket in the corner of the room where no one notices, then the students would be more willing to use them. Brought them to my school, explained my reasoning to all the teachers and any of the students that asked or were curious, and waited to see how the outcome would be. Now it is March, so about 2 months have passed and I am proud to say THEY ARE USEFUL! The janitors clean them out every day, students know where the big trashcans Teacher Andrea painted are located, and they’re big and bold and hard to miss so you can’t just throw your trash around everywhere like you please! Yay clean school. Yay happy kids!

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March is my birthday month! Happy birthday to me! I turned 24 this year and MAN! It is different from 23! I am THAT much closer to 25, which just makes me think mid-twenties… which scares me! Haha.

For my birthday, I got sweet gifts from my parents back at home and awesome treats from my friends missing me in the States. The most personal “hit-you-in-the-heart” gifts I got was from my friend Meghan. She wrote me 24 things about me for my 24^th birthday: compliments, quirks, talents, skills, and gifts that she knows about me as if we’ve been friends since Day 1 in this world. Never thought I’d be so lucky to have a friend like her with me here to get through it all, good and bad.

Went back to my PST host family for my birthday day and they prepared everything for me! A special cake they ordered for me from a bakery a few days ago, all the sweets and pastries I love, home-made pizza and salads, dolma, and balloons and flowers! All this work for ME!?!?! I was so touched to see how much work and time they put in for my birthday… as if I really truly were their daughter. I’M SO LOVED!

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LAST MARCH NOTE! I met a famous Armenian comedian/actor on the street in Yerevan! They call him Hovo and we spoke in Armenian and English together for about 10 minutes! He said jokes, we laughed, and took a quick picture! Such a sweet man :) 

I've seen like all of his movies (Armenian comedy films) and I was obviously so happy to meet him! Even more glad that I knew him and saw his stuff before I actually met him! Real funny (REALLY SHORT!) dude!! haha <3 

February 20, 2013

I got my Valentine’s Day gift today! KooKoo, my bunny! Now I didn’t realize that “kookoo” could mean “crazy” til after I turned my “Armenian brain” off and turned my “English brain” on, but I swear it’s a cute name for Armenians.

I was eating corn while my student was describing the bunny to me via Facebook and he kept telling me the bunny was yellow, and as I was eating corn, aka “koo-koo-roos” in Armenian, VOILA! “KooKoo” it was to be named! Cute, right? … ?

KooKoo’s Tale

Day 1.

Hey, kiddo! Welcome to your new family! ~ KooKoo came with an older friend, Lulu, but I just didn’t have enough space and time to take care of the both of them. But they both had a blast with my COAF (Children of Armenia Foundation) class and our lesson for the day was about animals and how awesome they are :) :) :)

Look at how many friends KooKoo came with! Thanks Narek for KooKoo and thanks Argishti for bringing LuLu for the day so KooKoo wasn’t lonely.

I bring KooKoo home in a shoebox with one of my old skirts for comfort and without any hesitation he starts to chow down on the greens I brought for him. He’s a little piggy! Eats any chance he gets haha.

My host sisters first time actually holding a bunny. Props for her courage! She was scared KooKoo would pee or poo on her, but good thing there were no accidents there! BUT, an hour later our cousin Minas comes over and takes a liking towards KooKoo, picks him up and puts him on his lap… it took one second, “PISSSSS” right on his lap! We all told him it was good luck, which apparently Armenians really do believe, and I told him that it was because KooKoo especially liked him.

KooKoo sprawls out his legs on my belly and we take a nap together next to the wood (sheep poop) burner where it’s warm. Later that night I let him sleep in his box in my room and man was it a tough night! I woke up to thumbs and skitter-skatter at 2am, 4am, 5am, and 6am… it was like having a new puppy at home! I kept waking up thinking he somehow jumped out of his box and was jumping about everywhere. End of Day One.

Day 2.

KooKoo meets two more of his cousins, Manya and Marine! Just like everyone else who had seen him the other day, they’ve never seen a rabbit like him before, with his color and eyes and ear size… he’s a special one. A real special rabbit. They all say he’s probably from the wild and different from the usual ones bred at home. He’s my little gift from God cause He knew I needed something fluffy to keep me company and that with all this unfriendliness towards animals I’ve been witnessing lately, a sweet harmless bunny could help me somehow display love and affection towards animals and help that practice spread to my neighbors and community.

KooKoo gets a free box! I asked the market lady if she had a box to spare and she asked me what it was for, “what’s it for? You going to store clothes in it or something?” Sure, that would’ve been a normal response. Nothing new. But then I go and give her a shocker, I whisper, “no, it’s for my new bunny.” Let me tell you, this is so much more hilarious if you knew their culture and if you heard this conversation in Armenian! Haha. She looks at me with huge eyes and just smiles and giggles.

An hour later, we go back to the store and I ask her for the biggest diapers she has. She says, “for the bunny?!” with the strangest look on her face… “yup, for my bunny.” She pulls out these huge granny diapers, 300 drams a piece, my host sister looks at the size of these diapers and says, “what kind of baby wears this big of a diaper?!” She was dead serious. HAHAHAHA. We all had a good laugh then left. On our way home my host sister tells me that the people in the store thought it strange I was spending money for an animal because you would never “waste” money on an animal in the villages. I hadn’t realized! But COOL, I made someone in my village think about me and my actions towards caring for this animal. Let others think I’m strange for caring so much about a bunny, if it’ll make them notice and think about how much love I have for a “useless” animal… hey, at least it’ll make them think.

House made! Sign up. Umbrella up. Water bowl, tunnel tubes, bed, pee pad, and cuddly companion!

KooKoo pees on his diaper! TWICE! But I don’t know if that’s just coincidence or I got a one-of-a-kind bunny that’s complete genius.

He got his first slice of apple today and absolutely loved it. Devoured it.

I get peed on when I was trying to comfort KooKoo after my host sister gave him a scare… and man does rabbit pee smell awful!

IT’S A BOY! KooKoo’s a boy! It’s official! I kept saying “he/his/him” without actually knowing if he was a he or a she, but today my host grandfather took a long look and concluded KooKoo was indeed a boy.

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February 15, 2013:  I say Football now!

My host brother made it to a football/soccer league in Yerevan! That’s a big deal here. Once you get into one of these type of teams you can eventually be recruited into an actual team like Barcelona or Real Madrid (which are the top 2 famous teams here in Armenia). For many Armenian boys here, becoming a soccer player is like a dream, a way out of their villages, a way to the top and the riches… their “ticket out.” Reminds me of the movie “Hoop Dreams” where many African-Americans look towards basketball as their one-way ticket to riches and fame and a life outside of where they’re from. My host brother lived and breathed soccer… it was all he could think about day and night: school, soccer practice, soccer with friends, home, soccer game on the computer, YouTube clips of soccer, Facebook pictures of famous soccer players, and then a soccer game on TV. If there was extra time in-between somewhere he would kick a ball around in his room.

Now that he’s on this team he has to go out to the capital city every day after school for practice. Yerevan City is a two hour drive out from our village.

2 hours there + 2 hour practice + 2 hours back = SACRIFICE.

Boys from villages out of the capital city really have to change their whole lifestyle. Families have to figure out how to get their sons out of the village and into the city in order to not waste time and money going back and forth every day. There’s no way the whole family can pick-up-and-go because of family ties in the villages and/or farms, and especially the high-expenses of living in the capital so instead the boys have to move out on their own, live with an extended family member who’s willing to help out or somehow rent a room, if they can afford it… it’s a big move for these small village families, but it’s a move they’re willing to make for the smallest chance that their son will make it to a Barcelona or become a Christiano Ronaldo (or David Beckham for those who don’t know the first).

I realized this type of chance seems a lot more plausible to these families than the chance of education being able to take them high places. Not to say everyone is this way, but even from a cultural view the difference is so apparent. Growing up all I could think of was school, homework, test, school, homework, test, and then a project here and there. This was what everyone was doing, there was competition in school, and we had to get our A+. Again, like I said, not everyone is this way in America, but there’s a huge difference of what is “norm” or “expected” in America and in Armenia.

America: Go to school, listen to your teacher, get good grades, pass your exams, do your homework, read “To Kill A Mockingbird” for English class, and make your Solar System for science.

Armenia: Go to school, listen to your teacher, grades don’t matter cause you’ll pass the class anyway, bad grades reflect worse on the teacher than on the students, no real exams, homework is more or less optional, go home and help the family on the farm.

Now don’t go thinking it’s all like this, but can you see the difference? 

February 14, 2013: Valentine’s Day “սուրբ վալէնտինի օր”

Let me tell you, Valentine’s isn’t really a big deal here. I went to school and everyone said “barev” like it was a normal day, no hearts, no red or pink, no candy grams or secret Valentine’s, and not a single flower or teddy bear in sight! How strange! Definitely made me realize I wasn’t in America. Again, culture shock! It felt kind of good in a weird way, but it was also kind of sad … in a sad way, hah.

The night before I stayed up til 2am making heart antenna headbands for myself and my host brother and sister because I knew this holiday just wasn’t something Armenian’s really celebrated and I wanted to make it special for them in some way.

The next morning we took a few pictures and they went off to school. We decided to make a little romantic dinner for our family later that day, but by the time I came back from school and realized how “ordinary” the day was, I lost my “mmph” and just wanted to watch a lovey-dovey movie and curl up in my bed with my electric blanket. A good cry can never hurt, right?!

But then I get a call from my good friend Meghan and she tells me to make the most of it, know that I am loved, and to GO GET A BUNNY (which I’ve been wanting) haha. Great advice, no?

So I did those exact things…

I made the most of it à we wore our heart antenna headbands, cut-out a billion hearts, strung hearts from the ceiling, brought all our candles out to the table, bought chocolates, cut fruit, and brought out the wine yeayuhhh.  

We drank, we ate, we had a romantic family Valentine’s Day evening, and that was that! I was grateful and so was my host family. They’ve never done anything like it before… I was meant to share this day with them … it’s something they’ll remember for the rest of their lives. Special things really don’t come that often in their village lives from beyond Armenia, so even this simple heart-decorated table and candle-lit atmosphere we had created was something real unique for them, when for me it was something I’ve done a million times before. I was selfish and didn’t realize this day had nothing to do with me and was more about integrating with my community and loving on my host family.

And what about the bunny you ask?

I slightly mentioned it to one of my English club classes the day before and one of my students said he would bring me one next week. YEEE! What a lucky girl I am and what a special Valentine’s Day it turned out to be.

This is the kind of bunny he promised me… I didn’t believe it cause all the bunnies I’ve seen in Armenia all looked the same, black or gray with long ears and not small, but BIG. We shall see what my new baby looks like next week! 

Happy Valentine's Day~!! 

Oh, right… HAPPY 2013! Completely missed out on explaining my New Year’s celebrations in Armenia to you all… it will eventually come along… OR you’ll just have to wait til next year!

Well, can’t catch up now, but here’s February!

February 12, 2013

So this Valentine’s Day lesson plan I made for my English clubs included questions about romance and relationships the students had to ask each other… one of the questions asked, “What do you look for in your future boyfriend/husband?” What was the answer you ask? HIS SHOES. Everyone said shoes, boys and girls alike. How clean they are and what kind of style they are. This is in a country where they don’t have paved roads, cow poop, sheep poop, dog poop EVERYWHERE, mud, etc etc… questionable really… really REALLY impossible to keep your shoes clean if you ask me. I don’t know how they do it. It’s kind of ridiculous actually haha. Oh and the second most popular answer was hair. SHOES & HAIR. There you go. If you come to Armenia and want to impress the peoples, have perfect hair and brand new shiny shoes, and you’re set!

I come home afterwards and tell my host family some of the funny answers my students had given to my questions and how I thought it was interesting that shoes were so important to Armenians, I mean I kind of already knew, but I never knew it meant THAT much.

That’s when they tell me . . . ….

THEY HATE MY BOOTS.

Haha! They’re two sizes too big and apparently EVERYONE could tell, but no one said anything ‘til now. I’m telling you, if I were back in the States this wouldn’t be that great of a problem and no one would really notice cause our shoes aren’t the first thing everyone looks at… right?? Or am I completely off… ??

Apparently shoes are a BIG deal here and because I’m an “American” I apparently get some slack because “I’m not studied” as they would say it. They all say that America has clean streets and paved roads so I just never had to worry about it and therefore don’t know how to keep my shoes clean. These people carry around separate wet naps just for their shoes in case a speck of dirt gets on it… which really, I DO NOT GET. Like I said, they don’t have paved roads here, dirt is EVERYWHERE, mud is deep and squishy, and the mixture of different farm animal poops… haha they gotta REALLY clean their shoes like crazy. But anyways, so I guess my boots were “too big for my short small body” as was said, and they were “all covered in dust/dirt” which couldn’t really be cleaned because my boots are leather… haha. I just had to say it. We laughed for a good hour about my “big dirty boots” AHAHAA.

February 13, 2013 : Jump Over Fire Day!

You jump over the fire three times… once for God, second for Jesus, third for the Holy Spirit… all so that they can give you blessings in your relationships. I still haven’t heard all about it or read up on it, but I know that it’s mainly for newly weds or couples who are serious about each other. My host mother made this mixture of barley, honey, popcorn, and candy for us to eat on this day… she said that barley was for an abundance of love, candy for sweetness in the relationship, honey to keep the couple stuck together, and popcorn… I forget.

Funniest thing about this traditional holiday? The newly weds have to jump over the fire together. Funny, right? Haha no, the man has to carry his wife over the fire three times! Can you imagine? The running joke is that he has to make sure to not catch her dress on fire! Haha it’s no joke! It’s so true… fire is so unpredictable; it can be low and small one moment, then big and flaming the next!

We made a small fire in our front yard and jumped. Good traditional safe fun! ^_^

On another not-so-fun-topic… animal cruelty. THUMP. Sorry, I just can’t NOT say anything…

The fate of animals here, especially dogs and cats… I’ve never felt worse… or rather, I’ve never felt like this before. This is a COMPLETELY different sort of sad. I used to worry my baby Romeo would be home alone for too long or that his food wasn’t tasty enough for him, but here… man, MAN OH MAN is it different! Armenia… I just. I worry the puppies here are going to freeze from the snow or get eaten by a wolf at night or even get kicked by an angry man on the street JUST BECAUSE… it’s terrible. Tragic. WTH?!? This is not a normal kind of worry. These animals are not supposed to live like this… looking into burnt trash or even eating another animal’s poop cause they are just THAT hungry. What can we do to help???

I guess I’m getting into all of this because I saved this puppy in-between all these rocks last night and just couldn’t figure out what to do with her. My heart was so torn. I was in my room and could hear this puppy crying through my double-paned window and I obviously couldn’t just sit there so I went out to see what was wrong. I found this tiny black puppy between the rocks and as I was trying to pull her out this boy comes over to help me, takes this huge stone and throws it to the side, grabs the puppy and brings her back to our garage. I held and comforted her until she warmed up and stopped crying, fed her some cheese, and wiped her tears. As I sat there wondering what to do with her, I realized this poor thing was probably thrown out or tortured by some little kids who didn’t know better and left between the rocks far from her mom… I mean, this wasn’t the first time I’ve heard this kind of story or have seen this kind of cruelty here. You can imagine my internal battle. I think I called most of my closest friends, went back and forth in my head about whether or not I should keep her, prayed like a billion times… then the next morning...

I woke up at 7am worrying about how she was and what she was doing… and well, I can’t find her anywhere. Looked in our garage, garden, barn, every crevice, and even pipes, but she was nowhere to be found. I guess He knew I wouldn’t be able to handle it, especially since I was already getting attached.

I guess a burden was lifted, but I just started to imagine all these terrible things about where she could’ve gone. As I began to walk to school I see a fighter dog with his owner getting ready to go to “the field”… it gives me chills… chills of disgust.  I continue to walk. I guess this day was either not for me or FOR ME cause the next scene ahead was a dead dog, not from a fight or a wolf or even a gun, but from starvation. Complete starvation. I almost wish it had been shot instead of having to go through the torture of being painfully hungry. Lying next to plastic bags, old wrappers, mud, and ice… I had to walk by it every day, twice a day.

There’s so much more I can say, but it won’t do anyone any good and will only anger me more and probably you as well, which isn’t something I want for either of us. You can comment all you want and any advice would be great, but for now all I can do is vent, share, and hope that if I show my neighbors and friends here in Armenia how much animals mean to me, then maybe I can change the heart of those few and those few will change a few more, etc etc.