I've been putting this off for a while now, because I wanted to do right by what may be my last post to this blog. But I've given up on the idea of "doing it right." As most of you probably know by now, my Peace Corps service has finally ended and I'm back in America; at first I thought I knew exactly what I wanted to post for this entry, some of which I will put down but most of which I'll dispense with. I want to explain a bit of what I'm feeling now that I've been back for 2 months.

But first, part of the thing that I thought this post was going to focus on. I logged my first few thoughts and observances when my flight landed in New York (I was connecting from New York to Ohio, where I visited a dear friend). Here are a few of those listed below:

Overwhelming joy upon stepping out of the plane onto home soil, followed by amusement at the pushiness of an American standing in line at Customs.The mixed smells of cleaning products, baked goods, and air conditioning somehow mingling to create that familiar airport smell.Actual help and information from the man and woman at the security/info desk; real friendliness and a sincere attempt to help me out.Overly stressed woman getting help at the Southwest counter and being a raging bitch.The cacophony of voices that I can't block out as white noise because they're in my own language (possibly just brought on by severe sleep deprivation).The guy next to me considering taking back his order because he wasn't satisfied (voch inch chi!).Forced courtesy from anyone behind a counter.Someone asked me if someone was sitting in the seat next to me; I thought "azat e" and then had to translate it in my head into English. Oh situational Armenian...But now I've been back for a couple months, have seen people I wanted to see (though not all and not for long enough), and am working again and I've begun to have a rush of feelings sweeping over me. This is particularly strange to me because I thought that I had adjusted incredibly quickly and that I was pretty well settled back into life here. While I think that's still mostly true, I think it's possible that the freshness of it all when I first got back made me forget most of my life in Armenia. I was so busy seeing people and doing things that I didn't have time to reflect on that part of my life that is now "finished."

I put "finished" in quotes because I actually find that a terribly inaccurate word for what I want to portray. That puts too much finality on an experience that has changed me in many ways, most of which I'm probably not conscious of. So much of my life in Armenia will always be with me; how I think of the world, of people, of my place in life has been shifted because of my time there. To say that that part of my life is "finished" is true in the sense that I'm no longer there, but it's not true in the sense that part of who I am now is formed by having lived in Armenia.

Now that I've settled back into a more stable life 2 months in (stable in the sense that I've got a job that is regular and I at least know what I'm doing most days from now until election day; not stable in the sense that after election day I'll be shifting to something else, I know not what) I'm starting to be able to get a sense of what's missing. I'm especially cognizant of this because it's starting to turn toward Fall. Here in the Southwest (where I'm working) that doesn't mean a whole lot, since it's still 30-31C outside most days, but just the dates remind me. Fall and Winter were among my favorite times in Armenia; this should be odd, considering how difficult winter can be in Armenia, but I'm a cold weather person and I love the smells of Fall and Winter and the feel of biting cold wind on my cheeks. Many of my most treasured memories--as well as many of my first memories--from Armenia came from times and events that occurred October-March: Halloween, all-vol, Christmas, New Years, hiking Aragats in February. I have such treasured memories from those times, that certain things will set me off longing for Armenia. For example, every single time I listen to The Decemberists' "Hazards of Love" and "The Crane Wife" albums, I'm reminded of driving from Yerevan to Vanadzor or Vanadzor to Gavar in the Fall and Winter and listening to one or the other of those albums on loop. They're so viscerally associated with those times, that just listening to them makes me remember how long it will be until I can do that again.

It's apparently going to take more time to adjust than I first expected, and not in the ways I expected. So many people talked to us about how shocking it was to go into a supermarket, or drive again, or just be in American culture. But those are not the things that I find difficult to deal with, at all; it's the knowledge of an experience that has ended that's hard to internalize.

It's always hard to adjust to leaving a treasured place, I'm finding. It happened when I moved back from Indiana to Idaho in 2006. It happened when I went to Armenia. And it's happening now that I've left Armenia. There are things that set me off in sadness that I can't control for; I suppose I could control for some of the music that sets me off, but I like it too much to do that. I also need to do these things, listen to this music, remember those times in order to give myself space to accept what I'm missing and enjoy again what's new.

As I said before, this may possibly be the last post to this blog. But I can't say for sure. I had almost given up on the idea of posting a last entry until these feelings started to hit me. I may yet again need this space to make sense of this new life.

One of the things I will most most dearly is my little outdoor balcony. I'm on the top floor of my building and have a nice view of the courtyard, all the windows of the other apartment building, and the street. It only holds about 3 people maximum, is a bit grimy, and the railing is bowed out so that I feel it might give at any point (even if it is cemented solidly into the balcony), but I've spent a great deal of time out there. I have my morning coffee and oatmeal there in the summer, play my banjo on it in the evenings, sit with a book in the sunlight; but what I do most often is just watch people and events.

If you've ever seen the film Rear Window--and if you haven't, you must--you'll remember that much of the movie is simply Jimmy Stewart's character watching the windows from his apartment, and all the events that transpire during the watching (one in particular, of course). I've often joked to people that much of the purpose of my watching is waiting for a murder to happen so that I can recreate Rear Window, but it really is just a joke. The truth of it, as I was reminded today, is that what happens on almost any given day is much less eventful than even the mundane things that Stewart's character sees.

I was reminded of this because today happened to include something much more out of the ordinary of what I usually see, but even that was not terribly exciting. You see, someone died quite recently in the building across from me. I know this because one of things that people here do when a person dies is to display the lid of the casket outside the stairwell of the building to show people where to go, and to indicate that someone died there. I watched as several people got out of a car to go in. The men stopped before going inside to tuck in their shirts, and finish the last of their cigarettes, and then the story ended for me.

You see, much of my watching is of incomplete stories, snippets here and there really. I see women doing laundry, children playing in the courtyard, old men playing chess, young men smoking and eating samitchka (sunflower seeds), and lots of people doing just what I'm doing--sitting at their balconies or windows watching everyone else. The truth is that there are so many stories going on in each window, but all of us are just getting little pieces here and there from what we can see going on at the edges of the window--I suppose I could weave that into some larger metaphor, but I'd rather not be trite. Let's just leave that as literal as its intended.

I spent a lot of time, especially in my first year, trying to find out some way to go out and "make a difference." I don't want to disparage that, of course, because I still am trying to do that even as I leave. But there have been these large gaps of time where I wasn't doing much of anything in that regard, and I spent a lot of time resenting that, as we all do. Peace Corps often gets set up as a "go out and save the world" kind of mission; and of course, development is a big part of what we're trying for here. But what took me a long time to realize is that the gap times are every bit as important as the busy times. As I've come to accept these periods of inactivity, ones that are unavoidable here, I've also spent a lot more time just watching, and listening. I don't think that's something I used to do enough, and I worry about being able to do it when I go back (but not too much; I don't want to spend much of the time I have left here worrying about the future). I only ever got to see bits and pieces of these stories, but even the most every day, redundant parts I've enjoyed watching.

I have now just about a month left of my little balcony. I'm still semi-waiting to see that murder and be sucked into the plot of Rear Window. But mostly I'll just keep enjoying watching these little pieces of peoples' lives.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the idea of actually going home. I have about 3.5 months until I get on a bus or in a car to Istanbul and finish my time living in Armenia. I don't say that I'll be leaving Armenia for the last time, because I don't think that's in any way true; I have no doubt that I will return to visit in the future, though I will almost certainly never again live here. This knowledge of an impending finish weighs on me--in a good way--and constantly brings me to try to understand what two years here has meant. This is no simple task; I think it's impossible for anyone to understand what two years of their life means to them in a way that is both meaningful and short. I know that I'll have to come up with something to tell people that can be distilled into about 30 seconds-1 minute, either for jobs or for friends, because realistically most people aren't actually interested or don't have the time to hear me talk for hours about my Peace Corps experience. If I think it's difficult to conceive of this experience myself, it's almost impossible for anyone who hasn't done it, or something similar, to really grasp what it's like.

But this post isn't really about getting other people to conceive of it. That's some part of what this whole blog is about, though I haven't been terribly dutiful in recounting the vast majority of my experiences (something for which I am regretful of, but I am simply unable to get myself to keep a journal, either on paper or on the internet, that is regular and thoughtful). This is more about trying to think a bit more for myself about what all of this has been about.

I find myself especially cognizant of this problem because I just passed my second birthday in Armenia. One of the ways in which I initially thought of my Peace Corps experience was in how old I would be when I got out of Peace Corps. It was really the only way in which I could meaningfully understand what I was about to get myself into, and so the idea that I went in at the age of 24 and will come out at the age of 26 is still very powerful in a nebulous sort of way (in that while it does set at least some boundaries on a time frame for the experience, it lacks any sort of qualitative understanding). When I actually turned 26 on Friday, the idea of two years really hit me again, because two years is both a long time and a short time in relative terms. This will be the longest time I've been employed in the same organization since high school (during which I worked at a hardware store for about 2.5 years or so), but only half the amount of time I spent working towards a degree in college; two years in a life that will be many times that long is practically nothing, but the sheer amount of different experiences and perspectives I've had makes these two years incredibly substantial and formative for the course of that life.

I've found it useful in the past to think of my life as being composed of a series of several different lives. By my count, I've lived about 4.5 different lives at this point, demarcated by times in which my life changed drastically enough to provide an entirely different and new set of experiences, friends, and perspectives. The first life for me was composed of the time I could begin remembering up to the time that my parents stopped working at the fishing resort in Canada (this was so important because my brother and I, and my parents, of course, spent all summer long up at the resort, and so my brother and I relied heavily on each other for friendship and fun, seeing as there were no other kids there long term); the second was from that point in time up until the end of high school and leaving for college (again, this is important because summer time is so central to a kid's life, and being in Idaho for the summer meant a whole new slew of experiences and friendships); the duration of college until graduation; the abortive half a life in which I went off and worked on campaigns for a period of time, which opened my world up in ways that are very important for me, but which I stopped short by going back and finishing up a second degree after the campaign season was over; and of course these two years of Peace Corps. All these experiences have been so vastly different, and so incredibly formative, including entirely new sets of friends and major changes in how I think about my world. In the context of a separate lifetime, it's a daunting task to try to conceive of my experience here, because there has been so much that has happened during it.

At this point, it seems I've talked a lot about how to frame the challenge, but have not been terribly substantive in actually beginning to distill this experience. But I guess this is at least a first step. This will likely be the challenge of the rest of my posts to this blog, as it will be to the remaining 3.5 months of my service.

In my last post, I described my sense of chaos at the change of seasons, the feeling of not knowing how I'm going to adjust to this new change in life, in my established schedule, in what I cook and eat, even in the clothes I'm going to wear every day. It seems strange that this should happen, to tell the truth, because the regularity with which seasons change in life means that I should know already how things will go; and of course, in America I do know this, because the change of seasons means only a relatively small number of changes. But here, those changes are monumental, and affect most parts of my life in some way in a manner that I'm just not used to.

I describe this feeling as one of chaos, because I know sure how else to describe it. Maybe it's apprehension; maybe it's a bit of fear of the unknown (even though there are expectations even in the unknown) or simply a fear of change. I think apprehension comes closer than fear, but chaos just feels right. I can tell you where I feel it. I feel it in my chest, and sometimes in my throat. Right there in the center of my chest is a big ball of chaos that makes me stop at times. It tells me that things are about to change, but I can't yet do anything different until they do change, and then it tells me that what I'm used to is no longer acceptable at the given moment that it decides to manifest. I can feel its pressure as I try to breathe it out, and its unwillingness to go away until life finally gives in and shifts.

It's not debilitating and it's not frightening and it doesn't stop me from living life. But it's there, and it rolls around, and it pokes at me. It tells me that I'm going to have to give up life in the way I'm used to it by now but it won't tell me just exactly how. It's messing with me, and I know it, so I look forward to the season getting on with its change and letting me go along with it.

It's starting to turn towards spring here in Armenia. The snow is quickly retreating from the mountains--though there wasn't a whole lot to begin with in these parts--the days are lengthening, and it's fitfully getting warmer. There's nothing particular about spring that brings this to mind, but I begin to feel a bit chaotic around this time of a season. The changing of the seasons anywhere that I am and in any season always seems to me to be a small moment of greater chaos in life (more than the usual) because it brings with it different expectations, different activities, different feelings. Here in Armenia I feel that especially strongly, but not just because these are all wrapped up with the knowledge that I'll be going back to America soon. I felt this way this time last year, and in fact feel it strongly on the cusp of every season's change here. I can feel that change happening inside me, as my emotions roll around and try to adjust to the new reality of what my days will start to be like, what sort of new schedule I'll be on. I have to remember at the end of this season that silence in the evenings--outside of the trucks rolling past--is only a function of winter, as I begin to hear kids playing in the courtyard. And I allow myself the pleasure of contributing to this new noise by sitting on my porch with the banjo.

I often find that I can clarify how strongly the change in seasons is for me in Armenia every time I remember "it's almost time for new vegetables and new fruits!" It's hard to describe in some ways, but the irony for me is that in a place where the culture doesn't change that much that it's the change in what I can eat that brings dynamism to my life. At any point in time in America, though things are constantly changing around me and my life is always in flux, I can and do eat a similar diet all year round. But in Armenia, it's gastronomy that changes my life. Spring's coming, and my mind wanders to thoughts of spinach, and spring lettuce, and zucchini. I'm trying to adjust to this new reality that what I'm cooking is about to move farther from what comes from a can, or from the nourishing potato and cabbage and onion.

But it's chaos! Where do I start?! How do I prepare for its arrival?! This coming abundance is simply too much to think about!

Every change in season brings about these feelings of an increase in chaos, even in America, but I feel it so strongly here, because it's among the few things I find that changes quickly here. When all the culture around me goes on in the same way it's gone on since I arrived in the country, it's the seasons that bring dynamism; it's their change that throws me off kilter.

It's something I do a lot in my work here, seeing as I work at a peace NGO. There's a disturbing amount of it in this region, most of which never comes up outside of the few circles in which it's a concern. Ask yourself this: had you ever heard of South Ossetia or Abkhazia before last August? When I ask myself that question, the answer is no, but it's a conflict that's been seething to different degrees since the end of the Cold War. As is the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict; as is the Chechnya conflict (at least a lot more people know about this one); as is the Dagestan conflict; as are several other conflicts in the Caucasus. These conflicts have just been roiling under and sometimes above the surface for 20 years now, and so there's a lot for my NGO to do, and a lot to keep my mind occupied when I'm at work.

One of the primary ways that my NGO tries to conceive of conflict is through an individual lens, focusing on histories and memories. Conflict isn't something that we can really talk about in one way, because outside of statistics--number of bombs dropped, number of people killed, amount of territory taken or lost, dates of events--there's very little about the history of any war that's set in stone, because everyone experiences war in a different way; everyone develops unique and individual memories of a conflict that inform their own personal histories of a conflict. This can be, and often is, problematic for anyone working in the sphere of peace building, because how can you start to build peace in a conflict if you don't address the places that each individual is coming from? More than that, how can individuals understand the way towards peace if they don't understand the experiences of each other? It's this fundamental issue that we grapple with in our work, and so its the basis of much of what we've done so far; if we were historians (well, I'll call myself a historian) we'd probably call it a hermeneutic approach

I say all this above as a pretext for the rest of my post, just to set out where I'm coming from. I realized the other day that I had never really thought of this outside of the context of the society I find myself in. As absurd as it sounds, up until now I had thought of all the work we were doing, all the methods we were applying, as something that was applicable only to developing countries--surely, after all, my own country doesn't have the problems that Armenia has when it comes to war and conflict, right? And then, my director and I were talking the other day about how peace organizations often encounter so much resistance in their own societies for daring to work for peace; it suddenly struck me how negatively I view peace movements in my own country, and how often I dismiss them as absurd and ridiculous. I don't dismiss the idea of creating a more peaceful society as absurd, but so often I see the efforts of peace organizations and my first instinct is to look down on them as naive or counterproductive.

What I find myself constantly doing is thinking that somehow America can't benefit from the kinds of work that we do at my NGO, because we're so far "above" that--yes, we are a nation at war, but surely we're at a more advanced stage of war, one that demands different ideas about how to achieve peace, no?

Well, no.

If anything, I've come to think of this idea of histories and memories as among the most important methodologies for moving towards peace, especially because when I think of peace movements in the US the word "dialogue" is not in any way associated with them. I don't think of peace organizations in the US as trying to understand the histories and memories of broad swaths of people, nor as trying to bring society together to understand our individual histories together. And maybe it's because I've dismissed many of these organizations (Code Pink consistently comes to mind) for so long and so never see them doing these things, but I wonder how much we try to understand each other in America, and how much either peace organizations or organizations more accepting of war really try to understand each other. We're all operating on our own histories and our own memories, without going to too many lengths to understand those of others.

I feel that if there's anything I need to do better--and there's a great deal in my life that I need to do better--it's to start to broaden my understanding of my own memories and histories of war and conflict in America and to hear out those of others. Most of us are so insulated from it that that's hard to do, but the beauty of Peace Corps is that I'm constantly forced to reflect on my own country and I get to view it as somewhat of an outsider during these two years. So I'll keep thinking about war and conflict, but I'll stop believing that it's only something that touches the developing world, because my own country bears its scars in ways that too often remain invisible.

One of the good and bad things about living in a developing country is the lack of premade products that can be bought for ease of use. In terms of health, it's obvious why this is a good thing, since we eat far too much manufactured/processed foods in the US, to an absurd level that I don't think I fully realized until I got here. But I think less obvious in terms of bad is that that means that more time must be spent on creating meals or even preserving foods yourself for the winter time, which is a clear drain on time for people. Of course, in a country in which most people don't have jobs it's not so much a concern that people (women) could be using their time more productively, because if they weren't spending time preparing things and preserving things it's not like most would be in a job.

But that lack of manufactured/processed foods has had an enormous effect on my own ability to cook. I've long been a good cook, something imparted on me by my mom. I spent a lot of time with my mom in or around the kitchen when I was young. For many years my parents managed a fishing resort in Canada, and my mom was the head chef at the resort. Because of this, I learned a great deal about how to cook from her and gained my love of and passion for cooking by her influence. But the number of things that I've learned to cook since I've been here has vastly increased largely because I've been forced to learn how to cook things that I simply can't buy here. Over the years the PCVs here have collected a large amount of recipes based on the locally available ingredients (and in some cases a few things we'd have to get from either America or Yerevan). So here are the things that I've learned to make that I will likely never buy again pre-packaged in America:

1. Applesauce

2. Granola

3. Granola bars

4. Pie, entirely from scratch, including crust and filling

5. Roasted pumpkin for either bread or pie or soup

6. Chicken noodle soup

7. Salsa

8. Pancakes

9. Hummus

10. Sorting and soaking my own beans from dried beans

This list just happens to top out at 10 right now as that's all I can think of. I mean, I made a lot of stuff in America from scratch anyway, so there's a significant amount that I make here that I already made in America. But a lot of the things above I feel are real basics that I always just bought instead of making. But let me tell you, every one of the things that I listed (excluding the beans--I mean, soaked beans are soaked beans) is twice or more as good homemade as when bought from a store. This is another thing that I can think Armenia for, among the long list of ways that it's changed my life.

I want to relate a story that is occurring in an area of Armenia that I think is rather indicative of how things often tend to operate in this country.

During Soviet times, Lake Sevan was planned to be drained in order to provide a greater area for farming, an idiotic notion in and of itself. Though the plan was never carried out, the lake was at least partially drained. You can still clearly see where the banks of the lake used to be, and it's not an insignificant level. It was drained so much that a small island with a church on it near the shore became a peninsula.

Now, 20 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Armenia has decided that it wants to raise the level of the lake in an attempt to both restore its former glory and solve some of the massive ecological problems the lake faces (regardless of the fact that raising the lake isn't going to really do much to solve those problems, whereas cleaning it would). Actually, this has been going on for a few years now, and one of the primary roads around the lake that connects the surrounding towns and villages has finally been nearly overtaken by the lake. So, of course, they've decided to raise the level of the road, a seemingly worthy goal right? Guess how long this road is expected to last before the lake overtakes it again?

5 years.

When asked what will happen after 5 years, people will simply answer that they'll just raise the road again. Instead of, you know, nipping the problem in the bud and changing the road's route or building it high enough to begin with.

But that's not all. During Soviet times, and even after the end of the USSR, many businesses were built up around the lake at its lowered level, from small restaurants to a large Best Western hotel. As of this point, there's no plan that I've been able to discern as to what will happen to these businesses except that they'll be swallowed up by the lake, displacing the owners (I'm sure the Best Western has enough pull to prevent this happening to it, or may simply not be in danger as much as I think it is). But that's irrelevant, right? Because now the glorious Lake Sevan will be back!

*sigh*

Oh Armenia, I love you but you're so silly sometimes.

Today was a bit disappointing for me.

A fellow volunteer and I have set up a Model United Nations project as a joint venture between our NGOs. We got the idea from the International Student Forum camp that I participated in this last summer in Armenia, which culminated in a MUN simulation. I figured, why not take that and create a whole program around it that includes a culminating trip to an actual MUN conference, in particular the one held in NYC every year that allows participants a day at the UN building for the General Assembly session?

So, we assembled a group of 8 Armenian students and have spent the last 2 weeks teaching the basics of the UN system, its rules and procedures, and how MUN works. As part of this, the students are expected to each write a position paper on the topic for the country they are representing in the simulation this semester. I realize that it's difficult for them, so the expectation was that it would not have to be particularly long, perhaps a half a page to a page--an actual position paper, in any case, is only a maximum of 2 pages anyway and usually only 1.

I received three of them so far this week (they're due on Monday) and so far every single one of them has been grossly and blatantly plagiarized. A couple were at least from reputable sources (one was from a Wiki page), but they straight up copied and pasted the information from a couple different pages to try to make one whole position paper. I am so incredibly disappointed in them and sent an email to all the group reinforcing the plagiarism policy we had discussed (not singling anyone out, of course) and also sent emails to the individuals noting that this was not an acceptable practice and that they would need to rewrite their papers using their own words and ideas.

It makes me wonder how prevalent this is in Armenian universities. I mean, these are university age students, after all, and they're pulling shit like this. I would guess that this thing happens a lot in Armenia (it rarely if ever happened at my own college in America; I don't know how prevalent it is at other universities) and that the idea of plagiarism is simply not instilled in them. I wonder if that comes along with the fact that the education system here is not focused around critical thinking in the first place, so that this is not an issue for classrooms usually, or if it's just not checked.

I tell you, I was so angry when I saw it. Plagiarism is among the most despicable forms of academic dishonesty and I have no patience for it. I am giving them a bit of leeway in terms of my anger if only because I think this is not something that is instilled in them well here, but I'm certainly not accepting any paper of theirs that has been plagiarized.

Looking outside this morning seems to bode ill for what's possibly to come this winter. It's only the end of September, and already there's a snow storm blowing outside my apartment here in Vanadzor. Granted, it's clearly a very heavy and wet snow and it's not going to stick at all--especially considering that it rained for a while last night until it got cold enough for snow--but I fear what that means for what this winter's going to be like. The last group of volunteers had told us any number of horror stories about nasty winters here, but they didn't bear out in the mildness of this last winter. The current group has not had to experience the kind of winter we've heard tales about; but then, in conversations with Armenians it seems that particular winter was a bit of an aberration in terms of its extremity. I hope that this early cold snap and snow storm doesn't end up being bringing with it a terrible winter, but I suppose it's possible.

Actually, perhaps I wouldn't mind so much if it meant a lot of snow. One of the problems I had last year--and I why I was so terribly unhappy--was that I wasn't prepared for the depression that would set in with winter. Coming from Idaho I'm quite used to both long winters and extreme cold, and so thought I'd have no problems with any of that here. And it really wasn't either of those things in and of themselves that caused my depression--what I wasn't used to was the extreme inactivity that came along with winter here. I'm used to being very active during the winter. Winter brings with it several of my favorite things: snowboarding and winter camping/snowshoeing. Unfortunately, I could do neither of those things last winter outside of the one time I went up snowboarding at Tsaghadzor, and so I fell into a funk.

This winter, however, I'm hoping to avoid those things. One of the departing volunteers bequeathed on me his snowshoes, and I plan on making good use of them. While I likely won't do any winter camping (it's just not something I want to try here since I don't have some needed equipment) I do plan on doing plenty of snowshoeing on day trips. I've also heard tell that the Marine embassy guards here are willing to let PCVs borrow their snowboards so I'm going to try to get in on that. There are some mountains near me with potential to be really good boarding if the snow gets deep enough. I also plan on taking my kite and a board out on the high plains that get lots of snow near Mt. Aragats, assuming good wind conditions that is.

I'm actually looking forward to winter this year, under the assumption that I'll actually get myself out and about instead of being lazy (always a danger). I've got a comfortable and warm setup in my own apartment so the cold isn't too great a fear for me so long as pipes don't freeze; let's hope this early snow doesn't forebode that.

Really, third week of coming back to blogging and I'm already late? Shame on me; shame. So here's the post, 4 days late.

As you should all know by now, I've been working with an organization for the last 8 months called Peace Dialogue whose work focuses exactly one what it sounds like. In that time we've managed to do a couple of research projects that were quite interesting (check out our activities page to see them if you're interested). But the perpetual source of frustration for me is our inability to come up with funding for our major projects that go beyond mere research. One of the major problems we have is a funding trap in which we can't start projects until we get funding for them, but organizations won't fund us unless we have past evidence of successful projects--this regardless of the fact that my director previously worked on projects for the past many years in another organization before starting Peace Dialogue. I suppose this is the bane of any new NGO, so we're likely not unique in this, but it is incredibly irritating regardless. If any of you out there happen to know organizations funding conflict resolution or peace building work, please pipe up and let me know (or have some experience in starting an organization and finding funding). It doesn't help that most of the current funding in the Caucasus is going towards the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict, but I think that's actually the least of our problems right now.

More to the moment, we had another earthquake here the other day (I say another, but I didn't hear about the one that happened a couple months ago). Actually, the epicenter was in Georgia but we did feel it down here in Armenia. It was extremely light by the time it hit here, and I'm actually surprised that I even woke up and felt it. I think it's perhaps because I haven't been sleeping well, but I awoke to my bed lightly shaking and then realizing that it was the whole apartment that was lightly shaking; it was really nothing to get terribly worked up about, but the fact that I live in a Soviet-era apartment building (though a friend told me that they're at least designed to handle these minor quakes), that it was 4 or 5 in the morning and I had just woken up, and that a large earthquake in 1988 decimated the nearby town of Spitak as well as parts of Vanadzor and Gyumri (also resulting in the shutting down of the nuclear power plant) all combined to make me right paranoid until I fell back asleep.

Goal for the next post: do it on time (ie: by Monday morning). See you then.

Welcome to week 2 of me posting regularly again and sticking to a posting schedule (of a sort; I suppose a better schedule would have been to post this on Sunday).

First off, a bit of a clarification from the last post. I had a good discussion the other day about just what it means for me to say that I'm going to be living out in my community. To tell the truth, that's not entirely easy for even me to say; this is one of the problems with either being in or going back into the closet, is that it removes your ability to know or remember how you would act if you weren't living within it. I've had several situations present themselves in the past week that could have allowed me to tell someone about my sexuality, but in each case I realized that not even in the US would I say much. Each time was in a taxi riding with other people who asked me questions, including the requisite question about whether and why I'm not married, to which I replied simply that I don't want to get married (which is true in any context for me) and that I'm not interested in Armenian women. Those things are true regardless of the reasons why, and if some random taxi driver in the US asked me these questions I'd reply in the same way. In essence, the people to whom I will disclose are the people I'm regularly around, including friends, coworkers, and host family, but not random people who I'll never see again nor care to. I think that's what I would do in the US (though again, I can't be sure as it's been so long at this point since I lived outside of the closet).

Moving on, this last week several other volunteers and I joined a group of people from the Fuller Foundation on a house building project. This house is being built in phases by volunteers, and this week's involved laying as much of the concrete floor as possible. It largely consisted of a long bucket line from the cement mixing to the house. I got lucky and was inside the house near the end of the line, so I didn't have to sweat it outside. This is actually always more of what I saw myself doing in the Peace Corps than the work that I normally do here. I think that, if anything, says more about the Peace Corps' advertising of itself than it does either about my satisfaction with my work (which is actually pretty high these days since I'm just working at Peace Dialogue and trying to get a couple projects with other organizations off the ground; no more teaching of children) or about whether that's of more use than what Peace Corps does now versus when it started (I'd argue that what it does now is much more advanced than when it started and its focus on capacity building is stronger, regardless of the critiques I've made in the past).

Beyond that, there wasn't a whole lot. I had a meeting in Yerevan with an openly gay guy who's been living here for a number of years now; that was really refreshing and enjoyable, and I'm glad Peace Corps helped set that meeting up.

Until next time.

As is quite clear, I am an incredibly lazy blogger. I've always found it difficult to keep any sort of lengthy record of my life, whether in an electronic format or on paper. I've let my private, paper journal lapse as well during this time and I think that's a shame. To tell the truth, this inability to keep a regular journal is not an isolated phenomenon; I have found it difficult to keep up anything regularly in the last 6 months. I've not been going to the gym; I've not been studying Armenian; I've not been studying for the GRE. The list could probably go on for a while of the things I've not been doing regularly that I should be. So, I'm going to make a commitment here to being more regular and dedicated to things, beginning with this blog. I'll be updating it at least once a week, if all goes well. That will probably mean a bit of inanity here and there if there's not much to tell about, but at least I will be keeping it up.

 

 There have been so many things that have happened in the last 4 months since I've written a journal, so I'm just going to throw out a list of some of them and not go into any really in depth, because I have something else I want to talk about:

 

 --Finally made my way down south and visited a friend in his incredibly beautiful area around Halidzor

--Ended my debate club for the summer break

--Stopped working with my primary NGO because things just weren't working out well

--Planned several projects with the peace NGO I work with

--Searched endlessly for funding for the projects; applied for a number of grants; received none

--Participated in the International Student Forum in Armenia and had a blast (my team was 1 point away from winning the weeklong competition we were having)

--Went on vacation to the UK, Spain, and France for 3 weeks (which was glorious and necessary and I got to see my good Tiger friend)

--Acquired a banjo from a departing volunteer and have begun learning

 

 So those are just some of the bigger things I can think of right now. As you see, there's a lot in there that--had I been keeping a regular journal--I could have expanded on. C'est la vie.

 

 Now to the thing I really want to talk about.

 

 While I was in the UK and visiting my friend Tim we had a conversation--short though it was--about being closeted or not displaying affection out of fear because of where you are (in a really rural area or in a developing country, for instance). He made the case that for him it was an absolute necessity that whoever he's with would have to be willing to hold hands with him in public, wherever they are (though I'm certain he'd make some exceptions if he was, for instance, in Iran or somewhere; but I'm not entirely sure). I made the case that in the developed world I would completely agree with that; I could not be with someone who wasn't comfortable being out or showing affection wherever we were, even if that's in some rural American community. Living in a developing country, however, would be a totally different story. I argued that I can understand why one would be closeted while living in an incredibly conservative country like Armenia, for instance; social exclusion is practically a guarantee for the openly gay here.

 

 But the more I've thought about it, the less I can justify it.

 

 I really couldn't get it out of my head while I was on vacation, because I realized how easy it had become for me to keep myself closeted, and how my first instinct even in Europe was to not say anything that could reveal my sexuality. I find that to be incredibly damaging to my sense of self, because I consider my sexuality to be so important to me and to have given me a great deal of perspective on life that I possibly wouldn't have had otherwise. Both my willingness and ability to "pass" or to be "discreet" bother the hell out of me, because that's not the way I used to live. I used to express my sexuality and myself as I saw fit regardless of any sort of homophobia or discrimination I might encounter; that served me quite well, because I've always been able to be comfortable with myself that way. But here it just presses on me sometimes; it's tied very strongly into the feeling I get that I need to conform or worry about my "reputation" in my community, even though I think people should be more bold here and stop worry so much about what others think of them.

 

 And that comes to another major problem with closeting myself. I often want to tell queer Armenians that their continuing status in the closet is incredibly damaging to themselves and to the queer population at large in Armenia. LGBTQ populations wherever they are are stripped of power when they are forced to closet themselves or when they choose to not stand up and be out; a queer population simply can not move forward and demand its place in society until people know that it's there and know of individual queers around them. I constantly want to tell LGBTQ Armenians that things are never going to change for the better for them until they start to stand up and be counted and refuse to live in the closet anymore; but how hypocritical is that? How can I make the argument that queer Armenians need to be courageous and accept the possible consequences that come with being out when I myself am living a closeted life in my community?

 

 I've made the excuse that because I'm foreign and only living here for 2 years that it doesn't make sense for me to endanger the work I'm doing by being out; that I'm somehow an exception and that my living in the closet is reasonably given my circumstances. I've also made the excuse that because I live in Vanadzor--which is a much smaller place at 100,000 than Yerevan at 1.5 million--it makes it unwise for me to be out. But really, these are poorly justified excuses, which is why I had yet to make the case to Armenians that they need to be out and accept the consequences if they ever have any shot of moving forward in acceptance.

 

 I've decided that I'm just not going to do it anymore--I'm not going to live in the closet in Armenia anymore. Starting from now (actually, starting for a couple weeks ago when I made this decision) I'm not longer going to closet myself and am going to live openly here, consequences be damned. I accept that this puts me at a greater risk of social exclusion; I accept that this puts me potentially in greater physical danger; I accept that this may make my work more difficult. But I accept all of these things in America, and it's too damaging to my sense of self to not accept these things in Armenia. If I think that queer Armenians should accept the risks, then I will too. While I am not going to get out my hotpants (damnit; I left those back in America! :-P) I'm also not going to let people think I'm straight if the topic comes up. If somebody asks me why I don't have a girlfriend or am not married I'm going to tell them exactly the reason why; when someone at work makes a comment or asks a question about attraction to women to me I'm going to tell them why it's pretty irrelevant to me; I'm not going to hide pictures of past boyfriends or pictures from queer events. Essentially, I'm just going to live my life as I did back in the states and ensure that people don't have misconceptions about me, including my sexuality.

 

 I'm still working through questions in my head about how this is going to play out. I've been doing the closet thing for so long now (a year) that I've frankly forgotten how I would react to the US in certain situations: if a taxi driver asks why I'm not married, do I tell him? If some random person that I'm talking about asks whether I like Armenian women, do I tell him? Do I break it to my host family back in my training village (actually, that one seems an obvious yes to me, but you get the picture). Regardless, it's an incredibly liberating feeling to realize that I'm done hiding anymore. Maybe my out status can give someone else the impetus to out themselves to their family and community; it's got to happen more often in this country, of that I'm certain.

This is a placeholder post more than anything. I will update soon, but I need to make at least this one post just to push myself to make an actual post.

I've been here a good 11 months at this point, through good and bad. So it was about time that I got out of Armenia for a bit to see another place. It just so happened that several other volunteers were planning a trip to Tbilisi, and they invited me to tag along.

In no way was that a bad decision.

The strange thing about traveling to Tbilisi by train is that even though it's incredibly close to Yerevan (all things considered) it still takes 13-14 hours to get there. The train is incredibly antiquated, having been built during Soviet times. In addition, it stops a ridiculous amount of times along the way, and the border checks take upwards of 2 hours. You can tell that neither country has had the money it would take to upgrade the train, as it's often tilting to one side or another due to the amount of time it's been since they've been able to do work on the tracks (which would, I assume, require either stopping the train or having a diversion route, neither of which Armenia at least can afford to do). Regardless of that--and regardless of the incident we had on the train traveling to Georgia, which I'll write about in a moment--taking the train was great fun. It's the first time I've traveled anywhere by train, and I actually quite enjoyed the experience.

Alas, not all was well on the trip. We managed to get several things stolen from us, because we were far too trusting, one of those things that you learn from being in this culture. This Armenian guy came up and started talking to us--let's call him Fox Sneakertonyan--and, having learned that the best way to react in Armenia to new people is to chat it up with them and drink with them, we started taking shots of vodka, and then cognac (well, technically brandy, but they call it cognac). He seemed to be a nice enough guy, and eventually we were all buzzed and tired, so we agreed to lay down for a while, stupidly letting him stay in the same compartment with us. Luckily I grabbed my iPod because I'm totally paranoid about losing it but my phone and the two girls' cameras were sitting out. Now, we weren't that drunk, but enough so to let our guard down in this situation. One of the guys was half awake and noticed Fox Sneakertonyan up and looking around in the place where we had put our stuff, and then suddenly leave. By the time we were all able to get woken up he was gone. Fortunately for us, the guy was an idiot and the train folks had his passport number so it's possible we'll get our shit back, but perhaps not.

We finally got into Tbilisi Tuesday morning (having left Monday evening), got set up in a hostel, and explored the city. Tbilisi is an incredibly beautiful city and such a stark contrast to any other place in Armenia, Yerevan included. Many of the buildings are rather old and have been restored, making for a city that feels like you're in Europe and not just a couple hours north of Armenia. The people are incredibly friendly (and the men decent looking), the food is phenomenal, and the sights are lovely. The main Georgian national dish is khatchapuri, which is essentially just bread, butter, egg, and cheese; but damned if it isn't delicious! It comes in a ton of different shapes, flavors, styles, and extra ingredients, but I have not had khatchapuri yet that wasn't delicious. And they make it so much better in Georgia than in Armenia.

I also managed to make it to the gay bar with a couple other people and had a great time there. I just discovered a gay friendly bar in Yerevan, but this one in Tbilisi was more open about it and so was a great ton of fun. I tell you, there is no more welcoming environment for a boy than a gay bar in a small country. All the Georgian homos were so happy to see us there, buying us drinks and chatting like there was no tomorrow.

If there's one place that you ever want to visit in the Caucasus, make it Tbilisi. You will not regret it.

Hopefully I'll be able to post some pictures in the next few days.

There isn't much difference between this country and America in that department.

My current state is best summed up as follows: homeless and mooching.

I had been living in a really fabulous apartment (relatively speaking), and was extremely happy. I had a good amount of space, an awesome stove and refrigerator, and a good location close to my main work sites. It was good.

But my landlord up and decided that he wanted to try to charge me an exorbitant amount of money for the place. I was paying 40,000 AMD a month for January, March, and April. One of the problems was that I was paying him in dollars, and because the exchange rate here recently shot up (they stopped pegging the currency and it's no free-floating on the market) from 300 AMD to 370 AMD, I was already going to have to pay more. But he wanted even more money in dollars, so I was now going to be paying 65,000 AMD a month. To give you perspective, PC gives me a max of 30,000 AMD a month for my rent.

Fuck. That. Noise.

The landlord wouldn't really come down much. He came down to 50,000, as that's what I would be paying now at the current exchange rate if we kept the dollar amount I was paying him the same, but that was way too much for me to pay. Screw that guy; he was a racist and a jerk to begin with.

Now, I did find an apartment to move into. Unfortunately, it needed cleaning and renovation, so until they finish it I'm just basically homeless. All my stuff is at the other PCV's apartment here in my city, and I'm staying on his couch until they finish things. I'm hoping that should be done this week soon, as I hate to have to be mooching off my friend and invading his space.

Besides that one sore point, everything else is basically still good. Work's good, the weather's starting to get really nice, and I'm having a good time with people. I feel that at this point my language has come along so far from before. I still feel woefully inadequate next to a lot of the volunteers from villages when they are speaking, and even the other volunteer here in Vanadzor, but I feel pretty confident. I teach all my English classes to kids in Armenian, minus the words I'm teaching of course. I bought a couple new English-Armenian and Armenian-English dictionaries the other day to replace the crappy one PC gives us, and I really enjoy looking up words I want to use and trying to learn them. I'm confident that my language skills are going to be pretty damn good by the time I leave.

Enjoy spring, y'all; huzzah for warmth and sunshine!

It has been far, far too long since I made a post. For a while I was just really busy, and then I started putting it off because I knew how long it was going to end up considering the time between posts. Regardless, I'll try to cover the most important things over the last two months, and keep it short.

First off, I'm still in Armenia. As I think I noted in my last post, I'm beyond the point where leaving would do any good--but that's no longer the main driving force behind staying. I realized, after several comments I received, just how much bitching I was doing. While no one said that in so many words, in actuality that was the truth of the matter. I was being such a whiny bitch that I was missing out on the possibilities around me for real enjoyment.

Many people in Peace Corps--both volunteers and staff--have told us that Peace Corps is what we make of it; though I'd heard it umpteen times already, it really didn't sink in until after making the last blog post and getting some of the comments I did. So, I decided to stop the bitching and try to start seeing the positive in life around me. Since then, I have been so much happier. I've stopped being so bitter towards this country, its culture, and some of its people and am really starting to love where I am and what I'm doing. Finally, the entirety of the slogan "The hardest job you'll ever love" is starting to be true for me, instead of just the "hardest job" part.

A significant part of the reason I'm so much happier now, of course, is that I've started working with a new NGO that is entirely within my sphere of interest. It's really strange, the times when life decides to throw something your way. Not more than a week after making my last post, in which I complained about the inability of PCVs to do work that may be considered controversial, and noting specifically the areas of peace and corruption, a guy approached me in my organization about working on a new NGO he was starting called Peace Dialogue. The main focus of the NGO is to increase the amount of information that is passed between the government of Armenia and society on the state of the peace process in the region. The goal is basically to build grassroots support for an understanding of the peace process, for government to become more sensitive to the needs of society in this sphere, and for society to understand what the realistic options are for peace in the region. The project that we're working on is both huge and incredibly important.

Just as important, it has been incredibly intellectually stimulating for me, professionally rewarding, and has greatly increased the amount of time I'm actually spending doing work. I'm now actually able to work on a project that I feel is beneficial to Armenian society at large, and that is related to my academic and professional interests (I want to work in DC on Capitol Hill, and it will be of great benefit to have experiential as well as academic knowledge of peace and international relations issues).

I am, of course, still working at my primary organization, though I am in no way doing things related to environmental education there--which is fine with me, as I've found that it just isn't something that interests me. I have 5 English classes a week there, which are fine. I don't love doing them, but neither do I hate it. The kids are good, though this experience certainly hasn't given me any greater desire to work with children nor much more fondness for them. And, of course, still have my debate club at European Academy (no more theater club, just debate club, which makes me happy).

I think that finishes with the work side of things.

I've been having a hell of a good time enjoying the outdoors here the last couple months as well, and just enjoying spending time with new friends. I went snowboarding a while back on the one mountain in Armenia, which made me utterly and completely happy. Had I not been able to go boarding this year, it would have been the first time in six years that I hadn't been boarding at least once during the winter, so it was a relief to not break that chain. I really do love snowboarding with all my heart, and while the mountain was not that great, nor was the snow, it was just so good to be carving around on snow and barreling down a mountain at high speeds. And I managed to get my video of me boarding, instead of just pictures (though it's not terribly exciting).

I've also been making a ton of new acquaintances and friends through CouchSurfing. Being in Vanadzor gives me a great opportunity to host people, as this is one of the places people come to when traveling through Armenia. I've hosted people from France, Lithuania, Sweden, Germany, Ukraine, and Poland. Which is great, because now if I ever visit any of those countries (and I am at least visiting France this summer) I have a place to stay in any of them. Here's a picture of me with a couple of them.

And then here's just a couple other random pictures from hiking.

So, to summarize things, life is pretty fantastic these days. My outlook on life is far brighter, and I've got real, meaningful work. I continue to enjoy greatly the people I'm meeting and the experiences I'm having. It's really an incredible opportunity and experience.

Until next time.

It's inevitable to go through periods where you question your service, what the hell you're doing in Peace Corps, whether you should have gone somewhere else…but after going through that several times a month (and sometimes several times a week) I have come to the realization that this venture was, in no uncertain terms, a mistake. Alas, it's a mistake that I can't really do much about now, but it's been a mistake nonetheless.

 

 I was particularly in a funk several weeks ago about the whole thing. I had just moved into my new apartment and was no longer living with a host family. Like all materialists, I had hoped desperately that living on my own again would be the catalyst I needed to start feeling a lot better about my service--i.e. hoping that some material change would make me happy again.

 

 "Well that was stupid," you say. Okay, yeah it was; but I've never claimed I'm beyond stupidity.

 

 So, there I was, sitting in my new apartment, still just as pissed off about things as before; actually, now I was more pissed off because my new situation hadn't really changed anything. The reality of the situation is that it's not my material conditions that were making me unhappy--hell, compared to many of the other PCVs I've got it pretty damned good in Vanadzor. Instead, I come back to the complaint I've made before, which is that the work that I do here is absolutely unsatisfying to me, in every way, shape, and form. Well, in my pissed off state I decided to send off a few emails to some people, and start seriously considering my options for early termination. In particular, I sent off an email to my former field director from when I was working for HRC and Indiana Equality, asking for his advice.

 

 You see, I've begun fearing that not only was this a mistake in terms of me being unhappy with my work, but that I may have screwed myself in the former career that I was working on as a campaign and political operative (the title "operative" is perhaps being generous, but I was moving in that direction). By the time I get back to the US, it will have been four years since I was last on a campaign, in part because of Peace Corps and in part because I decided to finish up a second Bachelor's degree in political economy. The field director I speak of had given me several pieces of advice and opportunities that I had decided against in the past, but in retrospect were spot on. He told me that I shouldn't go back for that second degree, considering I already had one, and instead should continue working with IE if possible, or if not he'd help me find something. He gave me the opportunity to work on the Clinton campaign, not once but twice (yes, I realize she didn't get the nod, but I probably could have transitioned into the Obama campaign). He was right, every time, and had I taken him up I wouldn't be here right now

 

 I think if he had responded to my email with some options, I very likely would have early terminated at that point; unfortunately, he didn't respond (which worries me even more, but now is not the time for that), and so I've reconciled myself to being here for another year and a half. It's strange, some days, like today, that doesn't really even phase me because I'm in an extraordinarily good mood--I realize it doesn't sound like that from this post, but I am in a good mood today. In all honesty, time does fly here pretty fast. I mean, hell I'm already going on month eight of service, and 25% of my service is finished. But regardless of that, I am certain that I will always look back on this as a mistake. That's not to say there haven't been some extraordinarily good things to come out of it: the friends I've made that I am certain will be there throughout my life; the awesome stories that I have now; the beautiful pictures I've been able to take; the acquisition of a new language; among the most fun and memorable Christmases I've ever had. But that doesn't make it any less of a mistake--at the best a distraction.

 

 *******

 

 Part of what's got me down on Peace Corps is the sense I have that what I'm doing is not really what will make this country better. Armenia's problems go far beyond environmental pollution, health issues, a lack of English speakers; I almost included a lack of businesses, but I actually think the Community Business Development sector does the most good here, in large part because I think what really helps development in most countries is greater access to the benefits of capitalism. The real problems here stem not from these other things so much as they do from severe geo-political problems in the region and endemic corruption (I have the feeling Peace Corps may ask me to redact that last sentence, which is part of my next criticism of this process, but I don't feel it's that controversial of a statement). These are problems I'm not able to have any part in solving, though they are among the most pressing here.

 

 Now here comes my criticism of Peace Corps, or at least my criticism of part of its mission. There are three primary goals of the Peace Corps, though not necessarily in this order.

 

 To help aid in the development of underdeveloped countries so as to further the spread of peace and stability.

 

 To introduce other societies to Americans with the goal of spreading understanding of American culture and to improve the image of America in the world.

 

 To introduce Americans to new cultures and new ways of thinking, with the goal of bringing some of that new understanding back to America, furthering American society's understanding of the world.

 

 Now, these are worthy goals, without any doubt, and theoretically I agree practically in full with them. The problem is with the reality of the situation, which is that Peace Corps is a risk-averse organization. Now, I mean "risk-averse" in a very specific way. Peace Corps is definitely a risk-taking organization when it comes to the implementation of new and different ways of thinking about development. The organization has been at the forefront of implementing teaching strategies for its education volunteers that align with the more radical thinking of people such as Paulo Freire; it's implementing business creation as a primary way of going about development; it understands that successful efforts come from integrating into communities, not flying in, putting people on the ground for six months in the capital city, and then expecting major results (this last has been a part of Peace Corps' uniqueness since its creation). Where it's risk-averse is in terms of coming into conflict with the local political and government conditions that exist, however contrary those are to development.

 

 Now, one can argue that this risk-averse condition is necessary for Peace Corps to function. Peace Corps does, after all, maintain a long-term presence in countries that necessitates working with host-country governments and government officials, and its volunteers are working within communities. Perhaps it doesn't have the same capacity for risk as the US State Department has in a country, whose nationals are working out of the embassy and are, in many cases, more important to the host country government than are Peace Corps volunteers. But then, should it necessarily maintain its status as a development organization if its risk-averse attitude makes it so unable to challenge the counterproductive forces that exist in countries? Some people would argue that no, in fact, Peace Corps should not maintain its status as a development organization (though perhaps they don't make the argument on the same basis as I've laid out).

 

 I would, however, argue that Peace Corps is a uniquely situated organization with great potential for developing countries, but in order for it to be truly successful it has to be more open to taking risks. The problem comes in part, however, in how the US government has traditionally distributed its aid throughout the world. Until recently--and still to some degree--the US government has distributed its aid without regard to how well it would be spent, under the auspices of maintaining friendly relations with countries so as to advance the national interest. While Peace Corps has been somewhat outside of this process, in that its goal is not so seemingly utilitarian, it has suffered in some ways from this same sort of thinking. It has gone into underdeveloped nations without much regard for how the structures of those nations may be counterproductive to the work it seeks to do. That would be fine, if its goals only related to the second and third ones I mentioned; after all, you don't need to be an incredibly effective development organization if you are merely trying to introduce other societies and Americans to different cultures and further cultural understanding. But Peace Corps does--and I would argue should--view itself as, in part, a development organization.

 

 Here's what I argue that Peace Corps needs.

 

 Peace Corps needs to follow in the footsteps of the US Millennium Challenge Account in demanding that the countries it goes into either follow, or begin the process of adopting, certain standards of transparency and ethics in government. The Challenge Account demands that, in exchange for aid, the country should be taking steps to improve its accountability to its citizens; that it moves towards a process in which elections are free and fair; that it puts in place and adheres to anti-corruption efforts throughout all levels of government and the private sector.

Peace Corps should make a broad assessment of the countries it's working in to determine if they follow these standards, or are taking real, sustained efforts to adopt them. Peace Corps should strongly consider pulling out of those countries in which its work is hindered by counterproductive institutions unless it can prove, with econometric data, that its work is making a significant improvement on the ground regardless. It should then refocus its mission towards countries that are benefiting from the US Millennium Challenge Account's aid, as those countries are ostensibly in line with, or moving to align with, the requirements for that Account's aid.

Peace Corps should allow its volunteers to help in implementing projects that are focused towards improving government accountability, stemming corruption, and promoting democratic structures in the country; not just these, but in general projects that are right now considered too controversial. Peace Corps volunteers should be able to take greater risk in relation to the possibly counterproductive structures that exist within their communities, whether those be political or social. Ostensibly, this would take some of the burden off Peace Corps' argument that its need to work with governments over the long-term prevents this type of work; after all, if a government were to complain about PCVs shedding light on corrupt structures, and threaten to expel Peace Corps from the country, this would simply expose the lie that the country in question was taking real steps to improve its accountability to citizens and the world.

 

 This type of risk-taking nature is absolutely necessary for Peace Corps to be an effective organization, and for its volunteers to feel like the work they're doing isn't all going to naught. I tell you, most of the time I just feel like I'm teaching people English so that they can get jobs outside of Armenia and never come back. I'll grant, the money in remittances that are sent back would help families here, but that's been happening for a while now without any significant improvement in this country outside of Yerevan. I reject the argument that Peace Corps has to be risk-averse if it wants to be effective--I argue, in fact, that Peace Corps' risk-averse nature severely hampers its ability to be effective, as much of its money and effort is wasted by counterproductive forces. If Peace Corps wants to continue holding onto the goal of being an effective development organization, it can't continue to insist on working within structures that are inhibiting its effectiveness. It is an unconscionable waste of time, effort, and tax-payer money, and is absolutely disheartening to its volunteers (or, at least, this volunteer).

It’s been a while since I made a post. For about two weeks I’ve been hoping to upload a video that I took from a hiking trip, but the internet connection at American Corner isn’t as good when it comes to uploading as it is for downloading so unfortunately the video will have to wait. Too bad for you, you’re missing out on Russian folk songs; I can feel your seething jealousy.

As I yelled out triumphantly a week and a half ago, dziun galees ey(snow is coming)! Winter has really set in, coating the ground in a nice bit of white powder. Most of it’s melted from the streets and sidewalks by now—except on the sidewalks of Tigran Metz, the main drag in town, where it’s made a nice sheet of ice that is rather dangerous to walk on if you’re not careful. I don’t know how all these women in their heels aren’t falling all over the place—but it still makes a nice cap on the mountains. Everything is really so much prettier when there’s snow on top of it. Of course, snow means frigid temperatures as well. Luckily, coming from Idaho and being an avid fan of winter hiking has prepared me for cold temperatures and snow, so I’m actually enjoying it. I have the feeling that some of my other PCV friends, on the other hand, are not happy in the least about it. Too bad for them; they’re missing out on just how glorious winter is.

My work has finally picked up, which makes me much happier, if much busier. I’ve got four different projects going on right now. First off, I’ve just started English clubs at Zangak, my primary organization. I know, you’re probably thinking “he’s been at site for four months now, and he’s just now starting to work with his primary organization?” And you’d be thinking rightly. I got a talking to from my program director about that, which is why I’ve started these clubs. Though I’m an Environmental Education volunteer, I’m starting out with English because that’s what the kids really want; and let’s be honest it’s probably what will really be of use to them. I still, however, don’t really like working with children, and unfortunately probably never will. I also really don’t much enjoy lesson planning, which tells me I’ll never be a school teacher.

My second project is that I’ve begun a theater/English club at the European Academy, which is a local institution of higher education. The kids in that club are anywhere from 16-19, and all are studying English. This is much better, because I don’t really have to plan lessons so much. I have found an American play for them to do, and we’ve started working on putting on a performance of it. Basically, this is learning English through reading and acting, helping them expand their vocabulary and get a feel for colloquial English.

My third project is a debate/English club, at the same Academy and with the same group of students; this I am really loving. I had so much fun planning my lesson for it, because I got to do a little bit of history teaching and a little bit of philosophy teaching, introducing them to Isocrates and Plato and Cicero. I really did love debate in my college days, so this is something I’ve got a passion for. My debate coach from college is helping me put together a curriculum for it, and I’ve got them split off into groups within the club that will eventually be debating each other. I slipped some EE stuff in there by giving them a topic on environmental law in Armenia that they’ll be working on creating cases for and debating.

My fourth project involves helping a girl from a nearby village create a career resource center. I met her one day at American Corner when she was working on an application for a grad school scholarship in the UK. Though she speaks English well, she asked me to help her review her essays and make suggestions about what kind of programs she should apply for. Well, after that we got to discussing what kinds of things I do here, and she broached the subject of doing something to help her village. I asked her what she thought her village needed, and after a few minutes of throwing things out there she finally settled on this career resource center. Basically, we are going to use a room in their House of Culture in the village and remodel it into a small library of English and Russian language books, a couple of computers with internet access, and a conference room. She and her friend want to eventually start having seminars on how to create a resume, how to be successful in an interview, how to research education and career opportunities online, computer training, and other things in that vein. She’s received permission from the village mayor to use the room, and now we’re looking for ways to fund it. I will being having a PC workshop in February called Project Design and Management (PDM), after which I’ll be able to apply for Small Project Assistance (SPA) grants. I may decide to go that route and so just wait for a couple months, or perhaps look at other avenues of funding right away.

So, I’ve finally got work. Because this has all just happened recently, I’m trying to kick my former laziness and start doing things more than a few hours beforehand. I’m thinking about cancelling my Armenian tutoring sessions to free up more time for work, because I’m doing a significant amount of homework as well as real work. I’ve got a really great Word file on my computer that is about 300 pages of Armenian language lessons, that includes almost everything. Ironically, it was my tutor who gave it to me, which may spell the end of her tutoring lessons. I just don’t have time for them anymore, and I’m not sure how much they’re helping me at this point.

I’m currently on the hunt for an apartment. The four months that we have to stay with out host families is up, and I want to move out ASAP. While I really like my host family, I’m just tired of being in a tiny little room with an uncomfortable bed, not cooking my own food, and never feeling like I can have alone time. I really like being on my own, and having a place to go back to where I can just shut myself off from everyone else. It’s been a bitch so far, however, to find a place; it seems like every time I find a place it’s already been taken. My friend Sergei has been working really hard to find me a place, and both of us have asked all our co-workers and friends about places, as well as checking the classifieds every week. But it’s tough. Hopefully I’ll be out soon. My site mate Davor has managed to get a really nice place because Sergei (who is his counterpart) has an uncle who just finished renovating an apartment, and gave it to Davor. So, until I find a place I’m spending a lot of time at Davor’s.

Lastly, I want to show you all some pictures that really struck me deep, and made me remember how desperate a situation some of the families are in whose children I’m working with at Zangak. My counterpart, my director at Zangak, and I all visited this family and brought them clothes and some food. These pictures don’t really do justice to how bad off these people are. For one thing, the flash on the camera was on, so the spaces are lighted. In actuality, this family has neither gas nor electricity, and subsequently the inside of their house is in a near constant state of darkness. This family has two little boys who most of the time don’t go to school, nor come to Zangak, as well as a little baby boy. I don’t really have anything profound or meaningful to say about this, and I think any comments I try to make on it wouldn’t do it justice, and would influence your thoughts about it. Really, I want you to make your own judgments and thoughts about the pictures, whatever they may be.

I hope you’re all enjoying your holidays, and hope you’re coping as well as you can in times of economic turmoil. Be well.

Like almost all other Peace Corps volunteers, I've had two host families during my service. Some PCVs have more than two--mainly only if something is really bad with a host family and the PCV has to move, or a PCV has to switch sites for whatever reason--but I'm not sure there are any PCVs that have only one host family, at least not in this country. You see, PCVs are almost never--if ever--placed in their training villages as their primary site. This is for a couple reasons, that I know of. One is that the sites that are used for pre-service training (PST) are usually used multiple years in a row, after which Peace Corps chooses a different site to move PST to (in order, it's my understanding, to limit the possibility of a town becoming dependent on the money that flows in during PST). The second is that usually the sites, and their surrounding villages that we actually live in, that are chosen for PST are more developed than a typical site. Now, I don't know that I really buy into that second reason considering my own site and the sites of some other volunteers I've seen, but whatever.

My host family in my training village was much closer to what I would describe as a fairly typical Armenian family, in terms of the social roles and gender norms that they followed. I've mentioned it before, but Armenia is a fairly conservative society. Though this country was a part of the Soviet Union for about seven decades, the forced gender equality created only certain changes in the status of women, at least from my perception: girls go to school as many years as boys; girls go on to higher education in large numbers; girls and women are, by far, smarter and more ambitious than boys and men. But regardless of these things, within the home, gender norms don't seem to have changed much.

This paradox struck me particularly whenever I spoke to my host mom. I've described her before, with her sharp intelligence and wicked humor, her longing for an urban life, her keen perception. But after the end of the Soviet Union, during Armenia's particularly painful re-acquaintance with self-reliance, her role went back to the one that women have had in most conservative societies. She is responsible for all the housework, bringing up the children, tending the garden, and staying home most of the time, while her husband goes off to work in Russia and send money back home. My host sister was in a somewhat similar spot. When not in Yerevan at university, she is as much cook, maid, and gardener as her mom, while my host brother was really responsible for next to nothing except for occasionally helping when something needed fixed or some particularly strenuous task in the garden needed done. It was absolutely not out of the ordinary for him to tell his sister to go get him some coffee or candy, while he sat in the living room screwing around on his phone. While I liked the guy, and he was really funny and fun to hang out with, I wanted to slap him whenever he made his sister go do something that he was perfectly capable of doing himself; from most accounts, however, this is absolutely typical of Armenian households. Old-school, conservative gender norms are the rule, not the exception.

Which is why I continue to be amazed by what happens in my current host family.

For the first four months after moving to our permanent sites, we have to stay with a new host family. I've got just about a month left until I can move out, which I'm going to do just as soon as possible, simply because frankly, I miss the freedom to walk around my own apartment buck-naked. Tangent? Yes.

Back to the point, my host family here in Vanadzor is, for an Armenian household, quite progressive. My tateek ("ï³ïÇÏ" in the Armenian alphabet) isn't really all that different than any other in terms of her status within the family; by that, I mean she's ridiculously awesome. Really, tateeks rock. The rest of the family, however is much different. Yes, my host mom definitely still does a lot of cooking and cleaning; not really much different than my own mom in the states in that regard. But my host mom also has two jobs, even though my host father also has a job at the chemical plant. Speaking of my host dad, imagine my shock when, walking into the kitchen one evening, I saw him standing by the sink with his wife helping dry the dishes and put them away as she washed. Imagine my further shock when I saw him help cook breakfast the next morning and serve it to me and my host brother. After all I had seen in most first host family, and in other PCVs host families, this was not what I expected to see. In many ways, my host family here is every bit as progressive as my own family in the US. Bless my dad's heart, but I think my host dad here might actually help his wife more in the house than my real dad helps my real mom (granted, my dad in the US does a lot of work around our farm, but my mom helps with that sometimes while I don't usually see him helping with dishes). While the kids don't help a whole bunch (my oldest host brother is usually at university in Yerevan, so he gets just a tiny bit of slack on this), frankly, they're kids; it's not surprising that they're more than a little lazy.

I have a great amount of admiration for my host family here in Vanadzor, and especially for my host dad. It would be quite easy for him to not do anything to help out around the house; after all, most Armenian men aren't expected to and have no desire to--but yet, he does, and so he gets a great amount of respect from me, and so does my enormously hard-working host mom. Working full time with two jobs, and still doing so much of the housework and helping raise the kids, is no easy task, but she gets it all done. I have no doubt in my mind that even after I move out I will continue to come over and spend time chatting, drinking coffee, and enjoying the company of this family.

It's no secret that I am thoroughly a Democrat, and have been advocating for Barack Obama ever since the end of the primaries. By all means, today should be, and is, a happy one for me and all people who realized that our country needed change. But unfortunately, this day is all too bittersweet for me, and for many others.

 

 The reason has nothing to do with the fact that I've lived and breathed news from this campaign for the last two years. I watched from the beginning as a set of candidates emerged to make their case for the nominations of their respective parties. I watched as the Republicans fretted about a candidate, and then as the Democrats fretted about the comparably quick choice made by their opponents. I watched as the Democratic side's candidates dwindled down to two incredible, ground-breaking figures, and continued watching as the race between them stretched into the summer. I watched as Democrats across the land became shrill and frightened, and I argued--rightly, as it turns out--that we all just needed to calm down; whichever nominee came out ahead had plenty of time to heal the divisions. And now, I've watched America make a turn for the better, and elect a stunningly bright, charismatic, passionate, and, yes, historic man as its 44th president, shedding the idea that the color of a person's skin is a qualifier, or disqualifier, for the highest office in the land. But frankly, as incredibly engaging and ground-breaking as this campaign has been, I'm glad to see it finished. Our country needs to finally be able to start the difficult work of rebuilding; of reclaiming our innovative spirit; of healing. And as long as the election was still going that couldn't happen.

 

 Nor does the reason have to do with my initial choice for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton. I have great admiration for Sen. Clinton, which is why I threw my support behind her during the nomination phase (moral support, as I wasn't able to get off work to go caucus for her in Idaho). I think she is, by far, one of the smartest, most passionate, and most understanding political figures in America; however, I have long proclaimed that I would support either Sen. Clinton or then Sen. Obama, because both of them were clearly excellent choices for America. I had no regrets about Sen. Clinton not winning the nomination, because I knew that both candidates had the character and wisdom to integrate each others' ideas into their own, even if not fully. And I was proud and exhilarated when I heard that then Sen. Obama won the nomination, because I knew how much good he would, and will, do for America.

 

 Make no mistake, I am incredibly proud of President-Elect Obama. I am filled with hope for our country's future because of the choice we have made. And I am relieved to finally be able to say it--Yes We Can, and Yes We Did!

 

 But there is one thing that has been tugging my emotions from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows: the passage of California's Proposition 8, which has spitefully pulled the rug from under the collective feet of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender citizens of California, and has dealt a blow to the hopes of the LGBT community across the nation. On Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 the residents of California decided to reinforce the notion that its LGBT residents are indeed second-class citizens. After being given another taste of a future in America in which we're treated as equals, we have been shown, once again, that majorities of even some of the most liberal places in the country still view us as lesser, as unworthy of the same class of citizenship as straight Americans.

 

 I realize that these amendments have been passing in states across the country, and that other amendments passed on Tuesday in other states as well; however, California was the hardest blow to date. In any other year than this one, if California had passed this measure it would have been surprising, but not quite so painful. But the cruelty of seeing our newfound equality suddenly stripped away, in one of the most supposedly tolerant places in the country, is indescribable. It's like watching a lighthouse in a stormy sea, and then seeing it suddenly disappear, leaving you only knowing there's something bad out there, but with little left to give you hope of avoiding it.

 

 What does it say about a country in which, years after the Civil War, after universal suffrage, after Loving v. Virginia, after the Civil Rights Act, and the day we elect our first African-American president, we're still looking for someone to call less equal, someone whose rights we can take away, someone who we can offer the hope of equality to and then dash that hope on the rocks of spite, and of hate? In a country I love so much, I'm heart-broken to see this travesty, this mockery of my claim to be an equal member of society.

 

 I have wept more than once today.

 

 I wept as I watched President-Elect Obama's speech, and listened to his stirring plea for sacrifice; his touching portrait of Anne Nixon Cooper and the history she's been witness to; his clarion call for a future in which we can be proud of things we will see; and his inspirational message of hope.

 

 And then I wept as I watched some of my own hopes crumble into the ground. I wept as I realized that Proposition 8 would pass, at just how swiftly equality, once extended, could be torn away. I wept for myself, and for the millions like me who had been so bold, and so foolish, to hope that our journey was a little shorter, our destination a little closer in sight.

 

 Have no doubts: we will overcome, someday. But our path just became steeper, our toil longer. Today, for me, and many like me…for us, hope comes with pain.

As promised, here are some pictures of the Armenian Fall from my area. There were a couple more I wanted to post, but the connection where I get internet for free is really having problems on the upload side, and these were all I could manage to upload.

All the following were taken during a hike a couple weeks ago. You'll have to click on the pictures to see them in full, as my blog didn't resize them from Photobucket.

Hate

Most monopolies, but especially telecom monopolies. I'm looking at you, Beeline. Let me give you a little history of Beeline, to explain why I hate monopolies so much. Beeline, until a short time ago, was formerly called Armentel, and was the only game in town when it came to phone service in Armenia. Cell phone service, under Armentel, was outrageously expensive, so much so that almost no one had a cell phone and relied on the shoddy, archaic Armentel infrastructure. This also meant that almost no one had internet access, as the phone lines that were in existence were largely not equipped to handle data traffic. Granted, a lot of this was due simply to the legacy effect, and the general level of poverty in the country; however, it didn't help that Armentel, as a monopoly, also had no incentive to improve its infrastructure.Lo and behold, as soon as a new competitor—VivaCell—came into the picture, prices for cell phone service dropped dramatically. Now, practically everyone has a cell phone, because the cost is so incredibly cheap. Under a new plan for people living outside the Yerevan area—it's called the "barbar plan," after the word used for any local dialect—it costs somewhere in the neighborhood of 2.5 cents per minute to call someone else on the barbar plan. This actually makes it cheaper to call than to text. Of course, all this competition has forced Armentel, now called Beeline after it was bought by a Russian company, to play catch-up, and its prices for cell phone service have similarly dropped.However, this competition has not reached into the dial-up internet sphere. While prices are not horrendously expensive—due, I expect, largely to the fact that people mostly use internet in internet cafes or they use the mobile web via VivaCell's utterly cheap phone access—the quality of internet service is absolutely horrendous, even in my city of over 100,000 people. It doesn't bother me that my connection rate is somewhere in the neighborhood of 40.0-44.0 kbps; I expected that. What bothers the fuck out of me is that even though I'm connected at a reasonable speed, it almost never actually operates at that speed, and more than half the time pages simply time out. Now, in a country where a monopoly on dial-up service doesn't exist I could simply switch to another company, and Beeline would then improve their service, thanks to the beautiful mechanics of capitalism. But here, Beeline has essentially no incentive to improve their service, and simply doesn't, regardless of how much I complain to them about it. Again, I recognize that part of the problem owes to poverty in this country and its subsequent inability to improve telecom infrastructure. But that doesn't really fly as an all-encompassing excuse, since at those times that dial-up service is particularly shitty, I can always easily connect to the mobile web on my VivaCell service. Too bad most web pages aren't mobile, and so aren't subject to creating competition for Beeline.

The sexual repressiveness that is so prevalent here, especially as regards homosexuality. This is by no means exclusive to Armenia; rather, it's a function of most developing countries, especially ones with such a long tradition of religious devotion. But what's so surprising is that it's even prevalent among many otherwise progressive people here. While my LCFs (language and cultural facilitators) during training were all very progressive and accepting—having worked with so many Peace Corps volunteers over the past 16 years—other people I've met here that I would consider progressive have decidedly not been.Mostly, I simply don't bring the issue up, since I'm not out to almost any Armenians except for the aforementioned LCFs. But I happened to get into a discussion about gays with a 23 year old Armenian girl that I've been tutoring. We were talking, and somehow gays came into the discussion (she brought up the issue, not me). Though it was in passing, she then went on to say that she simply couldn't accept gays or lesbians. Now, normally in this country that type of statement wouldn't shock me at all. But this girl is extremely cosmopolitan and educated, having lived in Yerevan for many years and having traveled a bit internationally (mostly to Russia, I believe). Her attitude about almost everything is decidedly different from most other Armenians', so I didn't expect her to have that opinion. Of course, I couldn't let it pass so we got into a discussion in which I explained that I believe that GLBT folk are equal members of society and that, contrary to her claim, there's not something mentally wrong with GLBT people—well, most of them at least.

Love

In general, my city. I'm one of the luckier volunteers, having been placed in Vanadzor. As I mentioned above, and in the past, this is, by Armenian standards, a large city; the third largest, actually. Almost anything I could possible need, I have. I have gas. I have regular hot water, which means I have regular access to a shower. I have shopping. I have good alcohol (gin, huzzah!). I have parks. I have restaurants. I have a place I can get a latte, even if it's not anywhere close to as good as I could make. I have internet in my home (even if, as described above, it blows). I have a gym, for heavens sake! While it means that I'm likelier to spend all my money than other volunteers, I'm a good saver of money, so I'm still managing to save about $100 a month so I can do some traveling next summer.There are also plenty of opportunities for me to do work outside of my assigned organization and outside of my assigned field. To be frank, I really don't have any passion for environmental education. I haven't yet started teaching, because I've been continuing my Armenian language education but don't yet have the language skills to teach yet, but I really don't relish the thought of it. I decidedly did not enjoy the little bit of teaching I did at the end of training to fulfill our practicum requirement, so I don't think I'll really enjoy it any more when I start teaching here. Thankfully, my options for other work are wide open. There are a multitude of NGOs in this city, so I've got plenty that I can do.Now, if I can get a boyfriend, I'll basically never need to leave this city. I'm not going to hold out hope on that one.

The nature in my area. I don't include this as part of the reason I love my city, because I mean it in the sense of Lori Marz (a marz is like a province) in general. I did some hiking last weekend and the views were absolutely stunning. I took plenty of pictures, so I'll post some next time I get a chance. I had to make my own trail, since I don't know where any particular trails start, but that's okay since I actually prefer to do that. The underbrush was thick until I got into the tree line, but the work was worth it. Climbing the mountains around my city was catharsis that I badly needed.A couple of weeks ago, I also went to visit another volunteer in her village to the north of me. One of her big projects is that she has put together a harvest festival for all the surrounding villages. The ride in the taxi up to her place was stunningly beautiful. Huge patches of forest cover many of the mountains, with rugged rocky patches on others. The valleys are all filled with beautiful, expansive farmland and gorges in places, while the volunteer's village we continuously described as "magical." Yes, we in the north are lucky.

My tateek (that's Armenian for grandmother, although it's only a transliteration; remember, they use an entirely different alphabet). I love this little old lady. She is so freaking nice and so funny. She's always bringing me fruit and sweets, and feeds me whenever I'm hungry. She's always concerned I'm going to be cold, or that if I take a shower when I have a cold I'm going to die; that does get on my nerves on occasion, but I deal with it. We constantly sit around and watch "Lost" together, and terrible Brazilian soap operas. Every time something dramatic happens she gets emotional and starts talking to the TV. Tateek and I, we love our stories.

There's a lot more that I love these days than hate. Frankly, I can't imagine being back in the states at this point. It's such a dramatic change from a few months ago, when practically every day I wanted to go home. But I'm so comfortable here now, that when I think about the prospect of going back to the US, with things the way they are right now that thought actually makes me far more apprehensive than the thought of being here for 22 more months. I'm definitely starting to get attached to this life I'm living, and once I get my own apartment I'll basically be as happy as can be…but I will miss my tateek.

I can't help but be reminded today of better days past. Not because I'm unhappy--in fact, quite the opposite. As I walked outside today I was reminded of just how good Fall days are in almost any climate that actually has a Fall: the cool crispness of the air tempered by the warmth of the sun; the light cool breeze slowly blowing the leaves from the trees; the clarity of the atmosphere that allows you to see farther than on a normal day; even the sounds of children playing in the schoolyard actually somehow sound more pleasant--and that coming from a guy who doesn't even like the little buggers.

 

 But it's that very euphoria of a fall day that brings memories flooding back of a time when, I think, I could say I was truly happy. You see, two years ago this fall I was working with the Human Rights Campaign and Indiana Equality in Indianapolis, and Indiana at large. I was in the thick of the campaign season, organizing volunteers for weekend canvassing trips, organizing phone banks during the week, and constantly either on the phone with a union or campaign manager or else sending off emails to folks, or making sure that all the logistics for the weekend were ready.

 

 And I was loving every minute of it.

 

 I had really discovered my element, something that I was incredibly happy doing, both because of the work and, more importantly, because of all the people that I was working with. I don't presume to claim that I was the absolute best at doing it, or that there was nothing more that I could have done--there's certainly more that I could have done and could have done a better job at. But then, it was my first time as an organizer, and I got valuable experience from it--more importantly, I was passionate about it. Had I not, at the time, been so intent on going back to Idaho to finish up my Political Economy degree--I already had a Bachelors Degree, so one more was just icing on the cake--I surely would have stayed in Indiana.

 

 When Fall comes, those memories are the ones that have been imprinted in my mind, and they're what I associate the season with: walking through Ft. Wayne with my walk list and candidate materials in hand; grabbing a $5 lunch from the Cajun place; driving around Indiana with a van full of volunteers; the day spent with my friend and boss Mark in Nashville and Bloomington--and my befuddlement until I realized we were going to Nashville, Indiana, not Tennessee. The memories come unbidden, but they're never unwelcome.

 

 It may be that I will form memories of Fall that I will associate with this place. Probably not this year, but perhaps next year. But I don't think they'll ever be as strong as the ones I have of Indiana. After all, I also have wonderful and intense memories of my Fall trips to Stanley, Idaho and into the Sawtooths that I made last year, but they're never the first on my mind when the season comes. Indiana was good to me, and so on this Fall day I remember it well, and treasure the season that's upon me.

There are a great many things in this country that I have had trouble understanding. I don't simply mean the language. While difficult, and constantly a problem in the past, it shared a place with a number of others. I've had trouble understanding why volunteers come to feel great affection for the country; I've had trouble understanding how to interact with Armenians; I've had trouble understanding how any work gets done in this country and how to not give into despair.

But I'm beginning to get it after this weekend, which has been a watershed for my ability to feel a sense of place in this country.

Over the last couple of weeks, I've started up language lessons again. I've been far more studious now than I was in the last three weeks of PST, and that—combined with a more frequent use of the language in everyday activities—has begun to really pay off. I certainly don't understand everything people are saying. But my ability to quickly pick out enough words that I know, in order to patch together the idea being presented, has grown dramatically. I often understand what it is people are asking me, or saying to me, and can respond fairly well. I still often have to have things repeated, but it's not nearly as bad as it used to be. Paradoxically, my own knowledge of the English language has grown phenomenally as well, in large part because I'm teaching a couple of English classes a week and have to be able to explain structure and terminology (infinitives, conjugations, definite articles, participles, etc.).

This weekend especially, however, really went a long way in dissolving my last two difficulties, if not yet entirely by any means.

In Armenia there is an environmental NGO called Sunchild that does a lot of environmental education work with kids, as well as national public education campaigns. This weekend they kicked off a new campaign called "Save the Nature" (yes, I know it's a bit odd of a structure for a name, using nature instead of environment) and needed help setting up and running the event. The purpose of the event was to get a couple hundred tables from kindergartens in Yerevan and paint them with environmental themes to give the kindergarteners something prettier to use, and to instill in them an appreciation for nature through constant visuals. About ten of us decided to go into Yerevan and help. Four of us from my marz (similar to a state but more equivalent to a county in terms of their power to act independently; perhaps even less so) and an adjacent marz went in on Saturday with a bunch of kids that they bussed in to help paint the tables (they bussed in well over a hundred kids total from all over). We were up until about 1:30 in the morning setting up tables in the park that the event was held at, while hanging out with Armenians from the organization and just bullshitting a lot of the time. I very much felt like a Peace Corps volunteer at one point as I was sitting in the back of a truck full of tables in the middle of the night, with just enough room for me, driving through Yerevan with just a view out the flap covering the truck. I know that isn't a great description, but it was an absolutely surreal moment that I can't describe well.

After staying up even later at our extremely old-school Soviet hotel, drinking a bit and just talking a bunch, we got up very early in the morning, had breakfast with the kids, and headed back to the park to finish setting up. By about 10 or 11 in the morning the park was packed with hundreds of kids, drawing on and painting the tables as we dished out paint, helped move stuff (including an absurdly heavy helium tank for balloons), and watching the kids paint. And I have to tell you, a lot of those kids were absolutely amazingly talented. Some of the pictures they painted were stunningly cool. A woman from the US embassy mentioned to us that if they were selling them, there were some tables that she easily would have paid good money for. I was blown away by how well the event turned out, and it really lifted my spirits that, if there is a will and drive, big events can be done in this country and progress can be made. Does painting a bunch of tables necessarily fix the environmental education problem here? No, but when it's accompanied by a really entertaining and informative show during the painting (as it was), it sure is a good start.

To make the weekend even more incredible, a guy, and his wife, from the US embassy bought all of us lunch and brought us into the place he lives directly attached to the park. It definitely was a gated community, which normally I'm not a big fan of, but we had a great time talking to him and his wife, eating, and relaxing. What was so incredible was that he didn't even have anything to do with the event whatsoever. He merely saw it going on, walked around with his wife and daughter checking everything out, and then after meeting us straight up went out and bought us all of this stuff on a whim. The generosity and hospitality that he showed us, totally out of the blue, was such a phenomenal thing. We all had a wonderful time talking with him and his wife and his brother, who was visiting from the US, and I just couldn't have even imagined how great a day it would be.

Topping things off, in the evening we finished up by going out with some Armenians that one of the volunteers had met previously and went to a really cool pub. We all sat down and drank some beer, having wonderful conversation. We talked about Armenia and America—both the women we were with were around our age and had studied in America through an exchange program—told jokes and stories, and just relaxed. These women both really have it together. They are professional, hard-working, ambitious, and intelligent and have clearly done a lot to get themselves in the position they're in now. They are the perfect people to know, with such great insights into Armenian culture that only someone who's lived in both America and Armenia could get across to us.

I am indeed finally starting to understand.

It was suggested at one point during training that we have things to remind us of home, in order to keep us sane.  I thought it was a sensible suggestion, so I have a bunch of movies on my computer and, when I can, I manage to download the podcasts I used to listen to daily, stuff like Fresh Air, A Prairie Home Companion, This American Life, Savage Lovecast, and a couple others.

Unfortunately, I find that they just remind me of the things I'm missing out on at home.  They make me miss having access to them whenever I want; having reasonable access, in fact, to practically anything I want or need.  They even remind me, for instance, that I haven't been hiking or camping since I got here and that even when I do get a chance to go, it's not going to be nearly as good as I can get in Idaho.

But then, it doesn't help to just not have those things at all, because I do miss them when they're not there.  That may be a bit different now, though, because the last time that I didn't have things and was really missing them was about three weeks in, when all of that was still very fresh in my mind.  

I find it strange that it's not the obviously material things that I miss most:  a comfortable bed, good food, restaurants, shopping.  It's actually the experientials I miss most.  Listening to NPR or hiking through the mountains of Idaho have little to do with tangible, material possessions.  They're actually more of regular experiences that I valued that cost me little to nothing beyond a tank of gas or time.

And maybe that's why it's still so hard; I'm not really having enjoyable experiences yet.  Right now I'm just bored out of my mind because my NGO is on vacation for another week, and I have nothing to do except for sit around and study and read.  I've been enjoying reading in the park, which is my substitute for reading at a coffee shop, but that's about the only thing I've really enjoyed and been content with in the last week.  I need to actually start doing something, or I'm going to go out of my mind with boredom.

Here's the benefit to being in a large city (well, large for Armenia at somewhere around 120,000): I get to update my blog far more often.

As I promised, I've finally edited and uploaded pictures. The pictures are necessarily small because the internet connections in this country, outside of Yerevan, are terrible; they're akin to perhaps a 28.8 kbs connection most of the time. It's better when there aren't a lot of people in the internet cafe, but unfortunately there are always people here. C'est la vie.

All of today's pictures are going to be of my PST village, with an emphasis on my host family's house. A friend wanted me to post pictures of the garden, so those will be the first.

This has been my bathroom for the last two and a half months. I know, you're seething with jealousy.

Here's a picture of my house from the outside.

This was my room. Small (though bigger than my current room in my permanent site), but I loved it; it was rather comfortable.

This was my absolute favorite place in all of my village. My host mom had set up a little glass table and stools where she liked to read and write. It became my study, reading, and writing area, and my sanctuary when I just needed someplace to sit. It was always the perfect temperature, and it was nice and quiet; and, as a bonus, it was right beneath the cherry trees so once they were ripe I could just reach out and have a tasty treat.

This is a picture of the area at sunset. It looked like this at least three days out of the week. There was little better than going for a run through the wheat fields as the sun was setting and enjoying the view.

That's all for now. Expect more pictures soon.

I am now, officially, a Peace Corps volunteer.

Let me repeat that.

I am now, officially, a Peace Corps volunteer.

That's a damned good feeling, for a number of reasons, the first of which being that it means that PST is finally over. I have so, so much more freedom now than I did as a trainee; freedom to set my own schedule; freedom to learn the language as I want to learn it; freedom to create my own work.

It's also a damned good feeling because taking the oath to serve my country by spreading American goodwill and development assistance gives me a great sense of pride; pride in my country, for creating a program that seeks to lift others out of poverty in a sustainable way; pride in myself for slogging through some very hard and stressful work so far. It sounds cliche to talk about pride in country, certainly, but I don't think there's a better expression for how I feel about it.

Lastly, it feels so good to know that I will now have access to a shower again, instead of a bucket bath. Something minor, perhaps, but good nonetheless.

So, now I'm at my permanent site and I've settled in with a new host family. The only downside to completing PST is a sense that I'm right back where I started at. I have to get to know my new host family, continue learning the language, start an entirely new job, make new acquaintances in a new place...I've somehow come full circle and it's only been a little over two months.

But oh well. I'm free to do my thing and make good things happen. Here's to the next two years!

I managed to survive the last three days, so life is much better now.

Our community project went fairly well. We decided to train counselors on how to run a "green camp." After soliciting about 60 or so folks for their opinions on the village--its strengths and its weaknesses--we noticed several things that we wanted to partly try to address. One was that the villagers were very proud of their natural environment; and rightly so, as the village really is quite nice aside from the persistent trash problem. The other was that there was a distinct lack of jobs in the village. Now, this particular complaint is quite common in Armenia, since unemployment is very high here (as in many other developing countries). While we couldn't address the complaint in the fullness that it really needs, we did decide--after the wonderful suggestion by our Language and Cultural Facilitator--that the idea of training young adults to be camp counselors for an environmental camp would help address this problem at least in a small way, since we suggested that they charge a small fee for this camp.

Anyway, it went off well, though after the initial training and interest section we only had a couple people interested. Better a couple than none. We came back several hours later and had a mock camp session, and then went and cleaned a section of stream. That was quite disgusting, but that section looked so much better after we finished.

The Armenian practicum was okay. Happily, we're not really expected to be full on teaching as soon as we get to site, so this practicum was just to demonstrate our coping strategies and to prove how hard it would be if we don't eventually have the language. Didn't really need that to be demonstrated, but it went off okay anyway. It's done, and that's the important part.

Alas, another person decided to Early Terminate. That brings us down to 45, from an original 50. I hope that we won't have many other people ET, since I really like almost everyone, but I guess we'll see.

Here's to one more week of PST before moving to my new site!

So, PST (pre-service training) really, really sucks these days. I am not exaggerating when I say that, right now, I really hate PST. We are so overloaded with stuff to do right now, and it's driving me crazy. We have language lessons every day but Sunday, we have been planning our community project and doing a stupid amount of translation for it (we really overextended ourselves in what we decided to do; I am now regretting that we picked an ambitious project), and creating lesson plans and translating them into Armenian. Plus, we have had a couple central days and tech days each week, giving us even less time to get done what we need to. In addition to all of this, I've had unhappy news coming from home (though I won't detail it on this blog), adding to my general stress. This is absolutely one of the most stressful times I've ever been in.

Because of all of this, I just constantly feel angry. I wake up every day and dread the day to come, knowing how much we have to do. As the day progresses I just get angrier and angrier, wanting to lash out at people for the simplest annoyances. Then, when I'm at home and take a short break I get frustrated by the fact that half the time I still can't understand what people are saying when they're talking to me. Every single day for about a week now I've just wanted to punch someone, or yell at them, or just scream at the top of my lungs. I go to bed at night and toss and turn for an hour and a half because I can't stop thinking about all the shit I still have to do, and I don't really want to sleep because I know I have to get up the next day and start all over again. I feel like I'm going crazy.

Things should get better after the next three days, since we're finishing our community project tomorrow, and our lesson plans will be finished as of Tuesday. I just need to hold out and hopefully I'll begin having a bit of free time again, and feeling better.

As I told a friend whom I emailed recently, I won't apologize for my blog posts being so far apart; I would waste far too much time if I did. I may, however, start blogging more. I just found out that Blogspot has a mobile blogging service. This is extremely handy, because I now have a cellphone and can easily access the internet, though only the mobile web. Life has become considerably better since I got my phone.

I am just going to make a general post about what's been going on the last month or so instead of focusing on a specific topic. I won't be making a post with pictures for another month or so, unfortunately, because PST (pre-service training) has become even busier than it was before.

We all recently visited our permanent sites and stayed with our new host families for a few days. I love my new site. It's a large city (at least, what's considered a large city in Armenia, meaning about 100,000) with tons of stuff to do. While there, I visited a large church and watched the service (Armenia is home to the oldest Christian state church in the world, the Armenian Apostolic Church), went shopping at the supermarket and finally bought good chocolate, got decorating ideas for my eventual apartment from the home furnishings store, went to an art gallery, and went to a rock concert--a fucking rock concert, y'all. I know that's nothing in America, but here it's a pretty big treat to be able to live somewhere with easy access to something like that. My permanent site is also incredibly beautiful, nestled between mountains that actually have trees. That's fairly significant, as deforestation is a major problem in Armenia. After the energy crisis of 1988, the country went from about 10-11% forested to around 4%. It used to be 25% forest long ago.

We recently visited Dlijan National Park, which is incredibly gorgeous. It's set in somewhat rugged mountains (though not nearly so rugged as Idaho's) and is completely covered with trees. It looks a little like the Appalachians, but a bit more rugged than most parts of that particular range. It was so nice to just go hiking again for the first time since I've been here. I had missed it greatly.

In the coming weeks we'll be doing our nine practicums for Armenian school children. Six will be in English, but 3 will have to be fully in Armenian. I don't in any way feel comfortable enough with my Armenian yet for that not to be a huge deal. I think most of us feel that way. I'm incredibly anxious about the whole process. Frankly, I don't like kids that much to begin with, but I've been assigned to an educational NGO so I'll be teaching kids for the next two years. I'm sure I'll adjust, but it will be a challenge. It's made slighly better because I'm working with disadvantaged and at-risk youth, so at least the work is much more rewarding, if maybe even more difficult.

By chance, I stumbled upon the town muscle head and have begun working out with him, which is just fantastic. I was going out for a short run before my body weight/water-filled buckets workout that I've devised, when a fellow volunteer stopped me on the street. He was talking to this guy and told me that he had a workout bench with barbell, weights, and dumbells, and the guy invited me to come workout with him. Even better, the guy seems to really know his stuff, so he's acting as a trainer for me. He's a really nice guy, and I'm so glad to have run into him.

Lastly, I'm happy to be able to say that I have less than a month left of PST (pre-service training). It has been an incredibly stressful time, but from all accounts life becomes much simpler afterwards. It will be nice to slow down a bit. I am, however, going to miss my host family in my PST site incredibly. They have become family to me, and they are dear to me. I am going to miss them, I'm going to miss my room, the wonderful garden, my little piece of heaven in Armenia (it's a fabulous little spot under the cherry trees where my host mom has a little glass table and a stump for a chair where she and I both read and write), and all my Armenian friends that I've made. Such is life, I suppose, but I will be keeping in contact with them for sure.

But unfortunately, not right now. I'm spending some free time today downloading some PortableApps utilities to my USB drive. PortableApps is just about the best invention ever for thumb drives, and especially for those of us who don't have our own regular internet access. It's nice to have all my customized bookmarks and settings back in Firefox.

I'm going to take some time today to actually describe my life over these past three weeks, so this will probably be a rather long post.

I think the first thing I have to talk about is my host family and my new home for the next couple months. My host family is quite small. I have a host mom, a host brother, who is 19, and a host sister, who is 17. My host dad is away working in Russia, which is quite common for Armenians. It's unlikely I'll ever actually meet him, as he usually only comes home in the winter. My host family is very intelligent. My host brother is an engineering student in Yerevan and my host sister is a linguistics student, also in Yerevan. Apparently, at one time my host mom was an "economist" (which I think meant accountant) at the old Soviet factory on the hill before it closed. I got quite lucky, in that my host sister speaks quite good English. In one way, however, I think that may be a bad thing, since it's hindering my learning process a bit because I'm not forced to constantly speak Armenian.

Regardless, I really like my host family. They're all extremely nice and very hospitable. I don't have experience in other developing countries, but hospitality is extremely important for Armenians. Even though I've been here three weeks, they still wait for me to start eating before they will eat; they regularly stop everything they're doing to sit down and talk to me; they won't let me help pick up the table after dinner (though I often insist and just start helping anyway). While it's all really nice and I greatly appreciate it, there are times when I feel it's a bit vexing. I'd rather they treat me as a part of the family, with attending responsibilities. But, I'm not really going to complain about it.

The house is nice. It's two stories, though the first story is primarily used as storage and for the bathing area (which is just a little sketchy). Note, that's not the bathroom, but the bathing area. It's in what is clearly the smallest room in the entire house, and consists of a part cement, part dirt floor. There's a tub, but there's also a couple buckets next to the tub with water, one of which I heat up and add cold water to, and then commence pouring it over myself to have a bath. The bathroom is a glorified hole in the ground. Yes, my bathroom is, in fact, an outhouse. But not, you know, an outhouse with a seat and all. It's four walls, a wooden floor with a hole, and a ceiling, all situated over a deep hole in the ground. I was a bit...put off, at first, but have since become quite used to the whole setup. I wasn't really expecting any better, and I actually don't mind either of these things.

The rest of the house is quite nice. The second floor is really the main floor. I have a room to myself, with a lock, that is really quite nice. There's a living room, small kitchen/dining room, my host brother's room, and my host mom/sister's room. It's really cozy, and the walls of the house are so thick that the temperature stays nice and cool, but not cold, regardless of the temperature outside.

My typical day consists of the following.

I wake up at 7:00 and do one of two things. I either hit snooze for a good hour or so, or go out and do some running and working out. Unfortunately, it's been more of the former than the latter. Every couple of days I bathe (because I am not willing to do the bucket bath thing every single day, and because it's not really necessary), I have breakfast, and then I'm off to language class at 9:00. We have 4.5 hours of language class (in small groups; by this time we've all been divided into surrounding villages. There are 7 other trainees in my village), so we get out at around 1:30. I go home, have lunch, and then spend some time--read, a lot of time--studying the language. At this point, I've basically got the alphabet down so I can read almost anything put in front of me. That doesn't, however, mean I can understand it all. In fact, there's a lot that I don't understand. I'm having an incredibly hard time with the verbal language, which is really the most important at this point. I usually have dinner with the family around 7:00, and then lately I've been watching the Eurocup with my host brother, one of my fellow trainees, and his host brother. That's been a ton of fun. On occasion I'll venture into Charentsevan to get some internet access, and one day of the week we have 8 hours of class in Charentsevan with all the rest of the volunteers, going over PC policy, cross-cultural issues, safety and security, and health. About 3 hours or so on one day a week we have technical training for our various jobs.

The process has been extremely exhausting at times. We have only one day a week off (Sunday), and even that is filled with a lot of the studying. As I mentioned, the verbal language is really coming very slowly for me. I still have a lot of trouble picking out individual words when people are talking around me. I relish the days that we don't have language training, just so I can get a break from it. It's really quite frustrating. It's almost exclusively frustrations with the language that makes me homesick at times. Not because I actually miss things like regular access to internet, NPR, comfort, and friends and family so greatly (though I do miss all of those), but because the language makes me so damned fed up sometimes. Luckily, writing in my journal and in this blog has been of enormous help in easing that homesickness.

My fellow volunteers are an incredible group of people. The depth of personalities and experiences contained within this group of (now) 47 is vast. We have many different ages represented, many different socio-economic backgrounds, educational levels, some different ethnic backgrounds, work experiences, and other categories. The one thing that we all seem to share is a very positive personality, which is, I think, really the most necessary trait of all. There's a sense that we're all here to do something good. Why the hell else would we leave the comforts of home, after all. I've made friendships here that I'm already quite certain will last well into the future, and of that I'm extremely grateful.

Barev! (Hello in Armenian--I'm sure you could have figured that out)

Actually, I arrived about a week ago. Internet access, however, is available only in the central town, and our Language and Cultural Facilitators (LCFs) haven't yet showed us how to use the bus system on our own.

Right now I'm blogging from Charentsavan, a town of about 40,000. It's about a 45 minute bus ride from Yerevan, the capital city. It's not, however, where I live. I actually won't be disclosing that particular information, for safety's sake.

So far, Armenia is a beautiful country. The mountains are beautiful, and the villages are full of trees. My host family has a wonderful place. The house is nice inside, though it's very blocky from the outside; the garden, however, is incredible. Cherry trees, apricot trees, pear trees, and apple trees are everywhere, as well as tons of vegetables.

I apologize for the shortness of this post, but I have little time today. I wanted to let you all know that I'm here, I'm safe, and I'm having a great time.

Playing with hoops and sticks; using a sheep's bladder as a soccer ball; being a concubine to an Armenian prince. These are a few of the more ridiculous expectations that friends and I have come up with in jest. But even after joking about it, the question remains: what am I to expect?

In some ways this isn't a question that pertains simply to the matter of my Peace Corps service--it isn't even a question that pertains solely to my individual experiences and work. What can I, and what can we all, expect from the kind of work that is being done by Peace Corps volunteers, by well-meaning NGOs, by governmental aid organizations across the board?

So often, it seems, the improvements that occur in the lives of those in the developing world are marginal. A villager builds a fish pond to diversify his food supply; a child makes it one more grade into school than she otherwise would have; an acre of forest is stopped from being burned. The simple answer I often hear is that all these little things "add up." It's always seemed like little more than a platitude to me, however, because it doesn't address what happens when these things don't add up; it doesn't address what happens when it really is only that one villager or that one acre.

But expectations of anything else are often little more than grandiose gestures by those of us hoping to convince ourselves that our small contributions are greater than they are. I've been complicit in this myself. I often tell myself that my life goal is to create positive change in whatever way I can, while simultaneously expecting that "whatever way I can" means something very large, affecting millions. Perhaps that will someday come true, but in the meantime, a different understanding of expectations is necessary. Because those marginal improvements are still exactly that: improvements. They're positive changes that help a select few improve their lives, even just a tiny bit.

The reality for the vast majority is that improvements in life are only ever small--they're often not life changing. But they are still a good that can be felt, regardless of whether they add up to something bigger and greater.

Which brings me back to my expectations. I have few, except that I expect to create positive change for someone, somewhere. I'm not going into the Peace Corps so that I can be a part of something, the efforts of which add up to a huge difference. Leaving aside the personal benefit that I will receive in my career and my life from this--and I would be remiss if I tried to convince anyone that I don't expect to benefit from this--I'm going into the Peace Corps to help someone, because there is a good to be created by positively impacting even one person's life, and even in a marginal way. This is my expectation: smallness, not grandiosity.