In trying to put on paper my feelings about Armenia after two years living here, I find my emotions in conflict with each other. I feel that I am generally an optimist, but I feel depressed for Armenia. I have come to love many individual Armenians, but despair over the lack of individual responsibility Armenians feel for their country. The over-wrought American expression “It takes a village to raise a child,” is not felt in Armenia. There is an under current of hopelessness in this country. I have been discouraged by the number of people who have asked for help to “get out.” I am really thrilled when I run into a young person who says that he wants to remain in Armenia and make the country great. But a part of me also wonders how that is possible.

I see myself as forward looking. I am always hopeful that things will change, and for the better. In Armenia I felt I was living against the tide. Because Armenia is land-locked and border-locked to the East and West (and South if you want to count Iran), this very poor country cannot advance economically until border issues are resolved. I have enormous sympathy for the Armenians in their relationship with Turkey. Armenians simply hate the Turks, and with justifiable reasons. The genocide of over one million Christian Armenians at the hands of the Muslim Turks in 1915 after decades of low-level conflict seems to have left the Armenians permanently depressed and unable to move forward substantially. Armenians are still discriminated against in Turkey. And with the increased rise of a Muslim consciousness in Turkey today I find it difficult to believe that the conflict can be resolved in the near future. The Armenians need an apology from the Turks. My hope is that Turkey will not be able to join the EU until it offers this apology, as many nations are asking, and that our President will use the word “genocide” in referring to the Armenian-Turkish border conflict, which hinges on a solution to the Azerbaijan dispute over Nagorno Karabakh. Our Presidents have refused to mention genocide because the US has military bases in Turkey, which take precedence over the despair of this nation of three million people.

Turkish citizens are news-suppressed, and students do not learn about the Armenian genocide. At the direction of the Turkish government, the incident “never happened.” But the independent reports from prominent European observers, aid workers, and missionaries leave no doubt about the indiscriminate murder of Armenian women, children, and old men. Christian Armenians who had lived in areas of the Ottoman Empire for centuries before it shrank in the 1910s due to excessive debt, war-mongering, and lack of a central structure became a target for the Turk’s drive for a Muslim state. For decades Istanbul Armenians had been bankers, merchants, and traders, positions not entirely compatible with Islam, and they were resented. During this period the Ottoman Empire lost Greece, the Balkans, what is now Eastern Turkey, and most of what became the Soviet Caucasus. (The story is much more complicated than what I’ve outlined.) I’ve come to believe that to psychically “save” Armenians, the Turks need to acknowledge what they did, and the world community needs to demand it. (There are 70 million Turks and three million Armenians in Armenia.)

I used to think that the Armenians should “just get over it.” The Germans apologized for the Jewish slaughter. In many other genocides, leaders have been brought to trial. The world community has condemned offending governments. But for political reasons, Armenia has not had the same backing. The country is not strategically important. The Armenians have a common expression, “I feel your pain.” They need to hear this for healing.

Armenians live in multi-generational family groups. Everything is passed down from grandmothers to grandchildren, including this ethnic pain. They hate the Turks, but I’m not sure that the Turks hate them; they just see them as “the problem” which is even more painful because it is as if the Armenians don’t exist, and never have, to them.

Armenia is also still remembering the good-old Soviet days, incorrectly. Education, business, work attitudes and ethics, and community responsibility are all still heavily influenced by the Soviet socialist period, though the Soviet Union dissolved in 1992. The country does not feel like a democracy, though it is in name, and it does not operate as a capitalist economy, though it is in name. Corruption is rampant in all aspects of society. A few families of oligarchs control strategic businesses and government.

I have often felt psychologically trapped in Armenian. It was knowing that I could not cross the border five kilometers to the West (Turkey) of Gyumri, to the South (Iran), or to the East (Azerbaijan). I’ve become very aware of how Georgia exploits their position to the North by charging unfair transit taxes for all goods that enter Armenia. Then the corrupt Armenian Customs Department levies unfair import taxes so that Armenians (per capita income is $3,000, though people I know make far less) pay far more for common goods of less quality then we do. In addition the border between Georgia and Russia is closed, further limiting trade.

I felt frustrated by my work in Armenia. You can’t talk to businesses about financing inventory when bank loans are based on human relationships (and holding your wife’s gold jewelry as collateral), interest rates are 24%, the payback period is always two years, and the supply of goods is uncertain (due to the customs and duty ministries.) Students don’t do assignments unless they feel like it, and if they don’t feel like it they know they can “buy” their grades. Plagiarism and cheating are rampant, and not seen as something “bad.” NGOs, who do social good, often inflate their numbers, hire their own unqualified family members, redirect donations to their own use, and lie on their reports. The list goes on.

But I have no regrets about my decision to live and work in Armenia for two years. I have learned much about another culture, another language, and about the effect the shifting alliances and politics in this region have had on shaping what Armenia is today. A friend related a story about a diaspora Armenian she met at the US Embassy in Yerevan who asked, in a meeting, what the Embassy was going to do about the sorry state of the Armenian National Art Gallery. The issues and problems in Armenia are huge, and this is the very least of them. I appreciate what many of the issues and problems are, and I am grateful for that understanding. But the solutions seem over-whelming. I know much of what has to happen, but how to make it happen is the problem. The corruption in daily life is so endemic and Armenians seem so passive about it; “passive” in the same way that they were to the Ottoman Empire’s encroachment on their human rights.

I spent well over a year on several projects that I had hoped would help the Shirak Regional Library in Gyumri. (The library is like a main county library; it supports five district libraries and 127 village libraries.) One project was successful; a bathroom remodel funded by USAID. Another project, to obtain a “biblio-bus”, has been approved, the Mercedes 14-passenger van identified, and it is in transit from Italy as I write this. The bus application process began last August 2010 and a major disappointment is that it did not arrive before I left (though I did offer to go to Italy and drive it to Armenia.) The van has been donated by the US through EUCOM. My major project was to try and help create a modern library. The catchwords are a “Center of Civil Society”, meaning public meeting spaces, free Internet access, access during hours outside the normal workday, and educational programs. I identified financial and material help, including foundation aid, help from the US Embassy, individual donors, support from librarians in Los Angeles, a US based architect interested in historic preservation, and the possibility of help from a historic preservation foundation. The goal was to identify a new location for the library in the Kumaiyri Historic Preservation Area of Gyumri. Then I got lucky. 2012 is the 500th Anniversary of the Printed Word and Yerevan was selected the Book Capital of the World by UNESCO, so the Armenian Government wanted things to happen to celebrate the occasions. The Armenian Ministry of Culture offered a historical building that was under renovation in Gyumri for a new library.

The problems became insurmountable. The existing library has 10,000 annual users, 80 employees (though at no time did I ever count more than 32 employees in the library at one time), 200,000 books (mostly stacked in piles to the ceiling in storage), and realistic space for about 10 users. There are also ten obsolete computers (four of which are available to outside users), two newer donated computers, and an actual manual “card” catalogue. An equivalent US library with 10,000 users (per the American Library Association) would have 7-11 employees, 20,000 books, and space for 40 users. While the new space is more than three times the existing space, the architect calculated that shelving all 200,000 books would take up all the floor space offered, and that the floors could not support the load. The director insisted that each of the 80 “cultural workers” had to have her own workspace “by law.” We talked to the director about a book collection management policy following loose US guidelines, such as dumping scientific books after ten years unless they have historical merit. This step alone would have eliminated a significant portion of the books, which are Soviet era technical manuals, many of which are more than forty years old. The director insisted that “by law”, no books could be discarded. (Knowing that, if given three hundred new books, the director would never get rid of obsolete books, I never offered new books from the numerous sources open to volunteers. The library simply did not have the room.)

My plan had been to help create a vision of what this new library would look like, create a floor plan with the architect, outline the steps to make the vision a reality, and then apply for grants and the other sources of funding to create the reality. As it stands, the building will be finished in December and the library will move-in in early 2012. The Ministry of Culture lacks additional funds to provide new computers, furniture, shelving, or any amenities. The director insists that I don’t understand the “law” which places all books (obsolete, non-circulating, non-relevant, etc.) and cultural workers ahead of the needs of library users. What I do understand is that the director is not a librarian and he cannot prioritize his books, he has immense status as the result of having 80 cultural workers, and, as was true in Soviet times, the end user is the least important part of this equation. The director has sole authority for the management of the library.

So we reached an impasse. The architect told him that she could not work on a project that she did not believe in. I told him that I could not work without her to create a plan to present to potential funders, and I told him that he was not creating a “new” library but was re-creating a Soviet-style library in a new space. As disappointing as this whole process was, I do realize that the actual move may cause him to re-think what we had discussed about creating user-friendly spaces. He feels that after the move, he can create the center of civil society, which he really wants, if he can keep all his books and all his cultural workers.

I first met Maria last year at the regional library in Gyumri. Of eighty employees, she is one of two who speak English, so I leaned on her heavily over the following months to gather information and complete reports. Maria has a real glint in her eyes, a matter of fact attitude, and she is living a typical Armenian life.

Maria was married at seventeen to a young man five years older. As is customary, they lived with his parents. They quickly had a baby, Christina, who is now fourteen. Maria did not work and neither did her husband while they were together. They were divorced after seven years. She and Christina then moved in with her parents where they continue to live today. In Armenia this situation can be unusual. Often families do not welcome divorced children home. Divorcees bring ”shame“ on the families involved and very often parents will counsel their daughters to continue in a loveless relationship, even where abuse is involved. Maria is very grateful to her mother for her financial and emotional support, and for pushing her to get more education. Her ex-husband currently lives and works in Russia. She has never received any support from him. (It is very common for Armenian men to avoid paying child support by either moving out of the country or by working “off the books.”) In 2004, at 26 years, Maria started working at the library.

Maria’s mother is an actress, active on the stage in Yerevan. She has been in two movies and has traveled to the US as a performer. Her father is a musician and as a young man he performed with a group called Precious Stone. His partner was referred to as “Jag” after Mick. Now her 28-year-old brother plays guitar with a group, Bambir, which also includes Jag’s son. Christina wants to study performing arts at the university level.

Maria says that she was too young to be married, but at the time she could not be talked out of it. I asked her about re-marrying, and she told me that it is impossible. It is very rare for a divorced woman to ever remarry in Armenia. As she is 33, I asked her what is in her future. Her main concern is helping to pay for her daughter’s university education in three years. She also said that she feels exhausted just thinking about the future, as she really has no options. Her salary, which is 34,000 drams ($93 per month), leaves her dependent on her parents for a place to live and with no money for extras. Finding a “better” job is not really an option in this town, which has a 60% unemployment rate. When I asked her how she feels about the library, she said that originally she found it boring, but currently she finds it interesting and is realizing that there is a lot to learn.

I had talked to Maria about going to graduate school in library science. The first program ever offered in Armenia is two years old. But as is usual, just having a job brings security, and in Armenia most “workers” earn the same wages regardless of their education (a practice left over from the socialist Soviets), so the incentive to improve your knowledge to increase your wages does not exist. I suspect that Maria will be at this library for many more years.

Christina and her mother, Maria. Note Christina's T-shirt which is typical of those worn by Armenian girls. Christina does not speak English, and so she does not know what it says. But it is colorful, and in English, so it is "cool."

I live in an apartment building located next to a cultural theater (performance auditorium). When I walk to the central square, I walk behind the theater. When I first moved in and began taking this path I would often stop to watch an older man who was carving animals or crosses (khachkars) from stone in front of a house directly behind the theater. About two months ago a very different object began to grow. At first I thought that he was sculpting a mountain. It has now become the most amazing object. Jesus is rising!

The sculptor, Artush Papoyan, has been commissioned to create a bronze sculpture of Christ that will rest on the top of a Russian Orthodox Church in Syria (a Muslim country.) The church (not yet completed) is located on the slope of Mount Hermon (also known as Mount Sion in the bible). The location is in Syria where four countries intersect (Syria, Israel, Lebanon, and Jordan.) The hope is that it will become a place of pilgrimage for all religions.

The form for the statue is at least three stories high. About one block away through a densely packed neighborhood, the sculptor has a foundry. When I asked how the form (fashioned from Styrofoam and plaster) could possibly be moved, his son said that they will cut it into four pieces, lift it by military helicopter to the foundry, create the mold and cast it in bronze. In February, it will be lifted by helicopter to the Gyumri International (two flights to Russia once a week) Airport where the pieces will be transported by a Syrian military aircraft to Syria under the guidance of the Syrian President. The sculptor will then assemble the statue with a team on the top of the church.

The figure is of Christ with his arms held up (cross) and the thumb and fourth fingers touch in the orthodox blessing sign. This is usually done with just the right hand, but in this case they wanted a cross form. Christ has his foot on the head of a serpent and touching the foot is a statue of Adam with a submissive Eve at his side. It was in a city at the southern base of Mount Hermon that Jesus Christ told his disciples that he would build his church upon the Rock Peter. (A friend noted that Adam and Eve are clothed in this sculpture, which he feels is artistic license!)

The statue of Christ the Redeemer on Corcovado Mountain in Rio de Janeiro is 125 feet tall. This statue is at least half that. One of these days I’ll remember to ask how tall it is. I feel like skipping every day as I gaze at this magnificent creation in my backyard. Maybe some day I’ll get to see it in its final resting place, as a pilgrim!

Note the sculptor on the top platform for an idea of how large this is! Fully clothed model figure of Adam, which will be touching Christ's foot at the base of the statue.

Sculptor's son with model of statue in background.

Anahit, Barbara, Gevorg

Yesterday an Armenian friend asked me if I would have dinner with him and his family “out of town.” So he and his wife and son picked me up in his car: unusual, because I know almost no Armenians who have cars. We drove at frightening speed on a country road to a place called Amasija where my friend has a summer “dacha”, which is really just a railroad container car on a fruit treed and heavily overgrown piece of land. Many Armenians have such small pieces of property as families were given “farms” when the Soviet Union broke up its 840 centrally managed collective farms (usually one in each village) into 440,000 individual farms.

Anahit, Gevorg’s wife, brought along a typical Armenian picnic dinner. It consisted of baked chicken, fresh thick green string beans which had been boiled, drained, and then mixed with raw eggs which are “cooked” by the warm beans, extremely salty Armenian cheese, a stewed eggplant dish (delicious), and the ubiquitous white bread and cucumbers and tomatoes (no dressing or seasoning.) (Note: “chicken” never includes white meat. Most of it is imported from the US under the Pacific Pride label.)

Their son’s wife had a baby just over forty days ago, and as is custom, after forty days she went to stay with her parents for forty days so that they could enjoy the baby. In the family three-room apartment in Gyumri, inherited from Anahit’s mother, live Gevorg and his wife, Gore and his wife and baby, and Gevorg’s daughter, Ani. The baby’s name is Anahit. It is customary to name grandchildren after the paternal grandparents, so the same two names alternate every other generation. It is also extremely unusual to have more than two children.

Anahit led a wonderful discussion about Armenian culture. She identified several problems that she thinks are holding the country back:

Armenians are thieves. Armenians always talk about the “good days” under the Soviets when everyone had a job, a place to live, free medical care, and a secure adequate pension. But people who worked in factories stole the products they made and then sold them on the black market. In Gyumri this was often clothing, socks, leggings, and chocolates. There was a very large black market for all these stolen goods, and as a result people did not shop at small stores. The real market was in stolen goods. There is no shame in stealing or in selling these goods even today. Which must explain why all bags are checked before you enter a market, why there are always an excessive number of clerks, and why I am always followed around by a store employee when I shop (a huge annoyance.)

Armenians do not understand the concept of “public/common property.” If it is not my neighbor’s property, then I can take it. A perfect example of this are the thousands of missing manhole covers which people have stolen to use as garden decorations or to sell as scrap metal. I am still amazed, after two years, that I have not stepped into one of these coverless manholes and broken my leg. You cannot walk around Gyumri without your eyes on the ground, and a flashlight at night. (Just last month a volunteer ended up at the hospital with a missing tooth, a scar on her lip, a black eye, and head x-rays, just for looking up.)

School directors operate under incentives that encourage cheating. Students can “buy” their grades so that they can get into “good” universities, which only accept students with perfect grades, which everyone knows are bought. If a teacher fails a student for non-performance, the teacher will lose her job. Everyone knows this. So many students make no effort or even attend classes. Since parents choose which school their child attends, most will not choose a school where their child cannot pay for excellent grades. The schools receive funds based on how many parents choose to send their children there. If the school director chooses to disallow the corruption, parents will not enroll their children and the school will close.

After the devastating earthquake of 1988 when Gevorg and Anahit’s 1978 Soviet-era nine-floor apartment building collapsed, they were given 20,000 rubles ($126 at the time, a lot of money) to replace what they lost (everything.) For the next several years they lived with other family members and then lived in a domik (metal shipping container) for ten years until they moved into their current apartment, a 1938 Stalin-era four story building. The outside of the building, halls and stairwell, and roof appear to have had no improvements or maintenance since 1938. There is no sense of common ownership for the shared spaces. The family living directly under the roof is responsible for the roof above them, not all the building occupants. So walking around, and taking a chance looking up, you see several sections of roof on apartment buildings, all of different materials and conditions.

In 1992, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Armenian government converted all rubles in banks into a new currency, the Armenian dram. Between the conversion rate, and rampant inflation, Gevorg and Anahit’s bank account became worthless. While most people lost their jobs, Anahit continued to teach, though she would go as long as six months without being paid. Their lives were so incredibly difficult in the nineties, that she attributes this for the nostalgia for the Soviet system of the eighties. The collapse of the banking system led to a massive distrust of any banking system. Today Armenia is a cash-based society. Few people have any consumer credit and I do not know any Armenian who has a credit card. (Actually the Internet is so unreliable that a credit-based society does not seem possible since ATM machines are regularly down, and vendors could not run credit transactions through.)

Gevorg told me that they couldn’t leave their car parked on the street overnight (no one does this) because the tires will be stolen and the car will be broken into. People are obsessive about locked doors, barred windows, and not leaving anything out. There is no community trust.

Anahit tells me that the only hope is for the next generation that did not live under the Soviets, though I am skeptical because families have a very powerful and persuasive effect on the young. I am thinking of arranged marriages, the inability to let go of the 1915 Armenian Genocide (looking back instead of forward) and the fact that multiple generations live together.

Viola at the front door to her apartment.Viola and her fifteen year-old daughter Alice.

I live on the fourth floor of a Soviet era Armenian apartment building that was heavily damaged in a 1988 earthquake, and then renovated in 2002. From my living/sleeping space I look down on a similar three-story building where my neighbor Viola lives. The space that Viola and her youngest daughter Alice live in is approximately 20 feet square. Three-fourths of the space consists of a large room divided by cabinets lined up horizontally, which create two sleeping spaces and a small living area. From the outside you step into a small kitchen/eating area that has a very small bathroom on one end. Walling off the backend of her brother-in-law’s three-room apartment and then cutting an illegal entry door into the tufa stone wall created the apartment. The apartment is barely heated by a small electric space heater, as Viola cannot afford ($220) to run a gas line to her apartment.

Yesterday evening, after Viola spent four hours meditating with a close friend and her father, I went over to visit. Her fifteen year-old daughter Alice has been accepted into a program (FLEX), for high school students from former Soviet bloc countries, to study next year in the US. It’s an exciting time for Alice and her mother and we were discussing the possibilities, and the obstacles.

Viola was born in November 1962 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan into an Armenian family. In May 1966 an earthquake in Uzbekistan led the family to move to her grandparents home in Gyumri after one month of living in the yard outside their Uzbekistan home. Viola went to school in Gyumri, married at 23, and in December 1988 she was teaching school at 11:40 am when a devastating earthquake, which killed 25,000 people in Gyumri, shook the earth. She ran outside, watched a tall building collapse, and ran home to check on her one and a half year-old daughter who was with her husband. Her husband ran to check on her parents who had survived. Days later the bodies of her uncle and his family were found in the collapsed fourth flour of a six or seven story building. Initially bodies were laid out on a public square for identification and left there as there were no coffins. She described the horror and chaos of the situation. Because there was no gas or water the family made its way to Yerevan for two weeks and then returned to Tashkent for one year. The family then returned to Gyumri, lived in a domik (metal shipping container) for eighteen years heated by a wood stove, and moved into the apartment just over one year ago. She divorced her husband in 1988 after he was institutionalized (and still is) for mental problems.

In the meantime Viola earned a doctorate in philology (a type of linguistics centered on written texts, common degree in Armenia) in Russian and English. She has now been teaching for eighteen years and currently teaches at two universities in Gyumri.

Immediately after the earthquake, she prayed for God to help her, realized that she needed God everyday, and that began her spiritual journey; hence, the long weekly meditation sessions. Her spiritual master is an Indian (Sant Baljit Singh) who she met in Crimea (Ukraine) many years ago.

Viola says that her fellow teachers don’t like her, and while she rustles with some discomfort at that statement, in the end, it doesn’t seem to bother her. And this is precisely why I enjoy her so much. In a country where everyone worries about what others say, and everyone conforms, Viola goes against the grain. With her bleached blonde hair, progressive attitude about her daughter’s opportunity in America (few men would let their daughters go), vegetarianism, openness about discussing problems in Armenia, divorce (6.4% of women and 2.3% of men ages 50-59), religious views (93% of Armenians identify with the national Armenian Apostolic Church), un-Armenian name (her father named her after the flower) and not living in a multiple family situation, she is anything but typical. And in a society where women are obsessed with meticulously clean homes, Viola can’t be bothered to keep up.

Viola struggles to make ends meet, though she says that she doesn’t “pity anything in my life.” Her oldest daughter lives in Yerevan, where she is an under-employed university psychology graduate whose biggest concern is that she may have to move back to Gyumri. Her mother worries that her daughter can’t afford heat and was sick much of last winter. Viola has resigned herself to paying bribes to get a visa through in time for her daughter to leave for the US in August. Last week she paid a judge AMD6000 ($17), a significant portion of her monthly wages, to get paperwork related to her husband’s incompetency processed, after being told initially that it would take at least three months. Additional fees to the translator and courts are AMD24000. Both she and her daughter are struggling to learn how they will communicate by Internet once Alice is in the US. In Armenia, daily Internet access outside of Yerevan is rare (and prohibitively expensive.)

Alice’s self-assurance amazes me. At fifteen I could not have done what she is about to do. She currently goes to school when she feels like it, a common practice in Armenia where there are no penalties for absence. She wondered what would happen if she did not go to school everyday in the US; what if she didn’t feel like it? I told her that her host family and the school would have a problem with that. She told me that she heard that students didn’t “help” others (cheat) on tests. (This is the area that probably bothers PC TEFL teachers the most!) I confirmed that cheating was unacceptable. (I could see her mind spinning as she was trying to figure out how that could possibly be so.) And then she is mildly concerned about money, clothes, prom dresses, the possibility of being on a farm, not having access to a large city, not fitting into her host family, etc. She seems amazingly comfortable with her English, often cutting off her mother who tries to translate back to her in Russian, to let her know that she understands. Alice is fluently tri-lingual. I think that Alice will be a charming addition to any American host family, and they’ll be fortunate to have her.

As volunteers we have to report quarterly what we are doing. The following is from a report submitted in February 2011 which the PC recently asked if they could publish. In rereading it, I thought it was interesting, so I'm passing it on.

Early last year when my work was slow, I walked into the Shirak Regional Library, introduced myself to the director and asked if there was any way I could help. I was given a complete tour of the library, was introduced to much of the staff, and began a series of Monday afternoon visits over coffee. The library is over-staffed and underfunded by the Armenian Ministry of Culture. It has received very few new books since 1992. In addition the building is not heated and is in need of major repairs. The library needs a new building. The staff needs training in the use of basic programs like Word, Excel, Power Point, and effective use of the Internet. The library is the central library for Shirak Marz (281,000 people) and supports five district libraries, which in turn support 127 villages. The previous new library (open only one month) collapsed in the 1988 earthquake. This "temporary" library has existed since 1992. It was obvious that the library needed almost everything to meet the minimum requirements of a modern facility including new computers for users, heat, lighting, bookshelves, current books on science and technology, a community meeting space, and much more. The director really wanted a van to visit the district libraries for the purpose of training staff, delivering and rotating books, visiting blind and homebound users, etc. A notice came through the PC for the gift of a surplus US Government van. The library request was approved and it has been promised a van as soon as one becomes available through EUCOM HA. The library director asked if I could help with the public bathroom. A SPA Grant has been approved for the bathroom remodel.

Currently I am working on identifying a site for a new library. A woman with connections to a world historic preservation trust will work with me to get funding if the site involves the renovation of a historic building in the Kumairi Historic District of Gyumri. She will also help develop architectural plans for the library. An Armenian American in San Francisco is interested in helping fund a new library. (His original offer was $400,000.) The US Embassy will help if the library creates a center for civic engagement, and especially if the space will be available one evening a week. Civilitas will help if there is a viable proposal for upgrading the library. And several other people have offered their services in site identifications.

I am also working on a particularly promising project with a professor from ASUE-Gyumri who obtained a significant grant, mostly from the US Embassy in Turkey, for promoting cross-border tourism in Gyumri. Included in this project are tourism classes at the university, the development of brochures and maps for Gyumri, and identification of other specific tourism-related projects in Gyumri, such as a student guide service during the summer. Another goal is to contact guidebooks to update their information, setup a website, and work with the Armenian government tourism office to promote Gyumri. Students who are successful in this project will be able to study at the University of Florida and/or at a Turkish university in Izmir. Funds for this travel are included in the grant. In addition a sister city relationship is being established with a city in Florida.

Both these projects are challenging in that neither the library staff nor the students are prepared to go to the next level. In both cases I have had to step back and really help them to achieve our goals. For instance the library director has written a few grant proposals which had no focus or sustainability. It has been difficult to get him to refine his goals and narrow them so that we can achieve something. The students (3rd year college) have no idea how to make Power Point presentations or create brochures. They lack the imagination to just attack the project and it is necessary to give them concrete examples to even begin. I n the next few months I will be trying to have something concrete and sustainable come out of these challenges.

An important thing that I have learned is that, especially in the PC, we are responsible for our own success, so if our primary assignment is not working out it is possible to find something fulfilling to do by introducing yourself to your community. I have had many more opportunities. It has been nice to pick ones that feed my soul

My favorite person in Armenia on our Peace Corps staff is our Safety and Security Officer. I have great confidence in what he would do to ensure my safety and in what he would do to address any situation I might get into. I have no doubt that if I needed him in the middle of the night, he would magically appear. My confidence is a little unrealistic, but it helps me sleep better. I also think that he has a very tough job. Peace Corps Volunteers have a penchant for getting into trouble.

Sexual assaults have been at the forefront of safety discussions here ever since a 60 Minutes program that suggested that the PC is lax in protecting volunteers against sexual assaults. I don’t know about other PC countries, though I suspect that many of the issues we face here are common in other countries. And many of the issues arise when volunteers do not make adjustments for cultural differences.

Armenia is a country where women marry young (22) to men five years older. The average age at first birth is 22. (All statistics from National Statistical Service of the Republic of Armenia.) Men have two years compulsory military service at 20, which delays their marriage age. When a girl marries she is expected to be a virgin. In Gyumri, because we have a Russian military base with 5,000 men, there are a lot of prostitutes. Many of those prostitutes are Russian. It is not unusual for an Armenian to think that a young attractive foreigner is a prostitute. While young unmarried Armenia girls often dress provocatively, in a way that would suggest to most Americans that they were “easy”, this is almost never the case. When women marry, they often change their dress and hairstyle to be less provocative at their husband’s request. In this country where there is a clear preference for males, men exert macho control over their wives and daughters.

We are supposed to be sensitive to the Armenian culture. This means that just because young Armenian girls dress like tarts, we should not, or we’ll be seen as easy. So the following are some situations we’ve had in-country over the last few years:

• More than one female volunteer has worn tight summer t-shirts (nipples showing), with her midriff exposed and then wonders why she gets unwanted attention. One of these volunteers reported an assault. (In these instances I don’t know why the PC doesn‘t tell the volunteer that her clothing is inappropriate. We are too politically correct. What is acceptable in the US is not always appropriate here.)

• Another volunteer, very pretty with blonde hair, was beaten with a broom by an old lady who was yelling “prostitute” at her.

• Another volunteer was “American” friendly with a man she worked with. He asked her out for coffee and then explained that he had “needs” that his wife was not satisfying, and he knew that she had “needs” that he could satisfy. It became very uncomfortable for her at her worksite. This is not an incident that you could “report” in Armenia.

• A volunteer was dating a young Armenian man; she told him that she was not a virgin, and he went ballistic, broadcasting the ”news” to the whole town to the point that she could not be effective at her site.

• A volunteer living with a host family was “grabbed” by the host father. The PC quickly moved her out of that house.

• There is a Facebook page for new volunteers and I noticed that someone said that you “could” wear shorts in this country. Yes, and you can also go naked. I have never seen Armenians wearing shorts in Gyumri. Also, girls do not play sports where you might see shorts.

• A volunteer went walking alone in the country, was approached by a herder, and was grabbed on the breasts. (Female volunteers are warned against hiking alone. Was this volunteer in any way responsible for what happened to her? I very seldom see young Armenian girls alone, even in this city. They are usually locked arm-in-arm with another girl.)

• A volunteer was out drinking with others, went home with an Armenian, and when she woke up in the morning “realized” that she had been assaulted.

• Another older very friendly volunteer was grabbed by a mentally disabled young man she had be-friended. The incident was reported to the police and the young man’s family, which brought great shame on the family and also made her life difficult. This is an isolated country where men often do not understand how to relate to foreign women. Their “insight” is gained through provocative Russian music videos.

• In this city a group of volunteers had a meal at a high official’s house, where we must have made 100 alcoholic toasts. Then we went to his restaurant. He sat next to a young attractive volunteer, and began fondling her. He did not speak English. One of the male volunteers told her to get up, say she was going to the bathroom, and then to walk out the door; we’d bring her things. We had just been at his house and had talked to his wife, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren. I am still amazed at the liberties he took in front of all of us.

• Two young women, who were hitchhiking, were driven off the road by the driver. They did get away with a good scare. I have never seen Armenian girls hitchhiking. We have been told not to hitchhike.

• A few male volunteers have “dated” Armenian girls. After just a few dates, the fathers want to know what the man’s intention is, and then the choice is marriage or cutting off the relationship. In Armenia arranged marriages are still common. It is very common for couples to marry after knowing each other only two months. I can’t help but think that this brief courtship period is related to the importance of the girl’s virginity on her wedding night.

• We have several wonderful gay volunteers, in a country that does not admit that homosexuality exits. Many volunteers are active on our GLBT (gay, lesbian, bi- and trans-sexual) committee. Volunteers cannot be “openly” gay in Armenia.

• In Gyumri we have a public swimming pool. I’ve been there twice, debating whether to swim. The pool is open to all, but I’ve only seen men swimming. Sunday afternoon the pool is open to women only. It has become obvious to me that it would not be appropriate to swim any time other than Sunday.

• A volunteer in a nearby city asked a few co-workers to a café for coffee. They would not meet her because women “do not go to cafes alone.” Until very recently that was the case in Gyumri. We now have two restaurants where women can go alone. Female PC Volunteers often go to cafes alone, or together. This situation and the following are the only ones I can immediately think of where female volunteers ignore this culture.

• I live alone. This is highly unusual situation in Armenia and leads to lots of discussion. (No I am not lonely. No I am not afraid.) Young women do not move out of their family homes until they marry, and then they move into their in-laws home. Multiple generations of families live together. For many volunteers, especially in towns, it can be uncomfortable to host opposite sex volunteers overnight.

I think that the PC here is very good about responding to sexual incidents. Often the real problem is that incidents arise because of volunteer stupidity, carelessness, or cultural sensitivity. Our Safety and Security Officer has tried to inform all of us of things we should be aware of, and much of the information has been anecdotal. In too many instances the volunteer could have avoided the situation.

I love this picture, on many different levels. It was taken this month when I was a special guest at Lord Byron School in Gyumri for a poetry recitation by the school’s English students.

The British Government built the school in 1991 at the time of Margaret Thatcher’s leadership to aid the community, which had lost most of its schools in the 1988 earthquake. The school was modeled after the latest British school design of the time. It is composed of three classroom areas and a fourth area, which is a large gym, all connected by enclosed walkways in a square configuration. It is a wonderful concept, with great spaces for kids. But the building has had little maintenance since it was built. The roof leaks, there is no running water (and a terrible stench from the bathrooms where water is carried in and poured into the drains once a day), and there is no heat. The gym is currently not usable due to floor problems.

On the day this picture was taken, there were several inches of snow on the ground outside, and all the kids and teachers were wearing their winter coats in the school. This picture shows several of the students who recited poetry written by Lord Byron (1788-1824), their principal, and the English teacher, a special friend of mine.

Note how I tower above everyone (I may be the tallest woman in Gyumri), the usual dour school principal expression, and what really pleases me, there are a few smiles escaping from some of the kids’ lips. Armenians do not smile. The predominant color worn by all Armenians is black. Note my brown coat. Two women here have told me that my “coat would be nice if it were black!” The teacher, Anahit, is a warm bubbly person, something that could never be captured in a photograph, as she would never allow that side to be shown. She is incredibly typical of Armenian women of her age (54), short hair dyed reddish, ten pounds overweight for each decade past twenty, stylishly dressed (the snazzy boots don’t show), and very proud. She adores her students, and her husband.

Last week I was invited to attend a conference in Yerevan which centered on regional libraries in Armenia. There are ten regional libraries outside Yerevan, which are all supported by the national Ministry of Culture and therefore receive no local funding. Civilitas Foundation, which, among other wonderful activities, supports libraries in Armenia, sponsored the conference.

The guest of honor was a librarian from the Los Angeles Public Library. She is an Armenian American and headed up the American University of Armenia Library from 1992 to 1996, its startup days. Previous to this meeting she had been making site visits to the regional libraries.

I had met with Ani the day before at the Shirak Regional Library (SRL). The week before I had been to the library; there was no heat, the few employees who were present were heavily bundled up (snow blanketed the ground outside), and the roof in the main section was leaking badly. When I arrived at the library to meet Ani, space heaters had been cranked up, workers were repairing the roof, and all 72 employees of the library appeared to be working, though there were few library users. I made sure that she saw all the corners in this labyrinth called a library. Ani said that many of the problems in this library were present in the others.

The meeting the following day was very instructive. She mentioned so many things that are intuitive for us, but which were eye-openers to the Armenians. Such as: Heating is important for preserving books. Moisture in books can contaminate adjoining books and can ruin a whole collection. Shabby and ruined books are anti-hygienic. The entrance to libraries must be attractive to users and have good signage to invite people in. Books in the children’s section must be within reach of children and the furniture should be sized for children. There needs to be open space and lots of places to sit. People need to see that you are actually improving the library; if they don’t see progress, they will not contribute or support the library. Of course, none of these things are happening at the regional library.

Global issues are that the libraries see themselves as individual entities. Through a united association they can address larger issues. It is important to re-activate the library association.

She talked about how disturbing it was to see more employees than users in the libraries and talked about how this was a relic of the Soviet era. She suggested that libraries could work with a fraction of their current staff if they were trained professional staff, and if they were hard working and dedicated. She questioned why people who work should be paid the same as those who don’t. (All staff receives the same pay.) The LA Public Library, which has 850 librarians, would have to have 5,000 librarians for the same level as seen in the regional libraries.

Then the regional directors talked about having bookstores within the libraries, to raise money for additional programs. The other professionals were dismayed at this idea. One of the directors’ reasons was that there are no bookstores in some areas. (In Gyumri, population 150,000, there is not a single bookstore.) Ani said that if they opened bookstores there would be a disincentive for organizations to donate books because they might fear that the libraries would sell them, a thought that had not occurred to the directors.

Libraries should be seen as public centers of civil society. They need mission and vision statements. They need to be involved in outreach. They should be pulling in grandmas and kids. They need to ask people why they don’t come to the libraries. They need to advocate for their own libraries and study the needs of their communities, and collect feedback. They need to clarify their objectives. They need to set priorities based on their vision. “You know what you have, you are not clear what is needed.”

There was a very heated discussion when Ani said that the libraries needed to have a collection development policy and weed out old books. She said that generally scientific books should be kept no more than ten years. The directors said that they were not allowed to throw away old books. They need “justification.” The Ministry counts books. They have to keep whatever books are received from the Ministry. They don’t receive many books, so they can’t just throw some away. Farmers are detached from modern technology and they still need the old books. Ani asked if the library association could discuss this with the Ministry. (The SRL has thousands of un-catalogued books, mostly Soviet-era technical books, dumped on the floors of several small rooms.)

One director admitted that his library had many employees for social reasons. He could not cut his staff. They could increase their workloads. He admitted that it was difficult to retrain older employees. New functions are being added so he needs all the staff. “Employees of culture should not be fired. It is better to fire teachers.” You cannot alienate cultural employees. (This man’s background is in physical education and there are no trained librarians in this library.)

Ani said that the role of regional libraries has changed since the Soviet times when they were serving all the smaller libraries. Today the regional libraries should each be able to operate with 20 active employees who can all work and are well trained.

Civilitas gave each of the libraries a Wi-Fi router and suggested that they put up signage that Wi-Fi exists as a sign that they are actually improving the libraries. And they were given a Flip camera to be used for publicizing events on a new regional library website for Armenia. (Libraries.am)

Then there was a discussion about free open source library software. The speaker (Tigran Z) gave a demonstration of OpenBiblio, which Georgia is very happy with, is widely used in Europe, is designed for libraries having 50 to 200,000 volumes, is very user friendly, works with MARC21, maintains a user database, and has check-out and check-in capabilities. It can also handle multiple languages (Armenian, Russian, English). He even offered to set up training classes.

The head of the Information Resource Center of the US Embassy (Nerses H) introduced their web page, suggested the new regional library web page, and offered to help the libraries set up their own individual pages, and then give trainings.

Another interesting guest was the head of the National Tempus Office (Lana K) who provoked much of the discussion. Her organization, in cooperation with several EU countries, is offering a masters program in library science, a rarely studied but much needed skill here. I’ve been talking it up to as many of my students as I can interest.

I gave a presentation on what Peace Corps Volunteers are currently doing in Armenian Libraries, and presented ideas about other possibilities. The directors were enthusiastic, and said that they were interested in IT help (setting up Wi-Fi), Excel trainings, and help with grants (which have to be presented in English.) Then I received a message from the Peace Corps that they were not interested in placing volunteers at libraries, a huge disappointment to me.

Mission Statement:

The Los Angeles Public Library provides free and easy access to information, ideas, books and technology that enrich, educate and empower every individual in our city's diverse communities.

I was in the States at the end of the year for two brief weeks. I had a wonderful time visiting with family and friends.

My most overwhelming impression had to do with customer service. I went out to a seafood restaurant with my book club friends. One of the women ordered a glass of wine. The waitress said that they were out of that particular wine, could she suggest another alternative that had a wonderful oaky bouquet; it was medium dry and would go well with our seafood choices? Sold! Then she offered suggestions for our meal, promptly brought put the wine and bread, delivered the five meals at the same time, with help, continuously checked to see how we were doing and if we needed anything else, and then offered coffee and dessert after we had a long visit. And the most miraculous thing of all was that we did not have to beg for the bill.

In Armenia the US concept of customer service does not exist in any form. If I complain about customer service here, people say that if I think it is bad here, I should visit Russia, as if that is an excuse. In restaurants it is difficult to get waited on, meals never come at the same time, the waiter never checks back with the table, and it is a struggle to get someone to bring the bill, to come back for payment, and then to bring back the change. You never want to leave a tip, and they do not expect it. A service charge is added to all bills.

I went to Nordstrom. As I walked into the women’s clothing section a saleswoman asked me if I was looking for anything in particular. I told her that I needed two pairs of washable pants for work. She went over to the sale rack (half-price), pulled off three pairs, took me to a fitting room, checked back on the fit, told me that she thought that we could do better, went and got a few more pairs of pants, two pair fit beautifully but she did not have black (just grey and brown). So she said that she would locate them that day and have then shipped to my home free of charge so that they would arrive before I headed back to Armenia. I was blown out of the water. And I thought of my full shopping day in Yerevan trying to buy pants with no help or suggestions. They were all short by three inches.

A new Gyumri grocery store has opened down the street from me. The place is extremely disorganized, and I feel as if the owner has no grocery experience. And this is reflected in the customer experience. When you walk in, all bags must be placed in lockers. Someone follows you around the small store, never offering help, though that person does seem put out as I peruse the shelves just to see what they have (mostly candy, sweets, and alcohol.) I make my selections (pasta, juice, cheese) and head to the checkout area. The two women there, who have no other customers, cannot be bothered to look up. I put my items on the counter, and experience the surliest reaction possible. She is about 20 years old and is annoyed that I do not have smaller bills. Why would I ever go back? Because every other store of this type is the same.

I am working on a tourism project for Gyumri. The hospitality industry depends on a warm welcoming smile, a “How can I help you?,” and free information. (Bus schedules, rates, restaurants, events, etc.) I feel as if climbing Mount Rainier would be easier.

Gyumri is having all its city trees trimmed by a trained arborist, I'm sure.

Closeup of trimmed tree.

When I arrived back in Gyumri on January 7th, I could not find any eggs, but there were plenty of pigs heads.

Two weeks ago I was at a meeting when a top US Government official mentioned that a poll had been taken in Armenia and that 37% of the respondents said that if they had a place to go, if they could, they would leave Armenia. She talked about the definition of a “failed state.” She suggested that when 37% of your population wants to leave, maybe the nation has “failed”, meaning social, economic, and political failure. Later that afternoon I was in a meeting with a young Armenian man who works for the Millennium Challenge Corporation, an organization trying to help improve irrigation and join farmers together in co-operatives for their economic benefit. He said that none of his friends were working on anything other than getting out of the country, hopefully to America. He mentioned that he loved Armenia and wanted to stay to help his country. He has traveled, playing tennis and representing Armenia at the Davis Cup.

Two days ago I was helping a professor with a focus group of Armenian college students. He wanted to find out their perceptions of Turkey. Only one student, out of twenty, had ever met a Turkish person. None of the students had ever traveled outside Armenia. Their sources of information were their grandparents, parents, television (controlled by the government), friends, and teachers. They specifically mentioned that teachers had told them that Turkey was “bad.” The genocide threaded through most comments. Interesting comments were that the Turks are bad people who don’t like other people, they don’t want to accept their mistakes, they don’t like people who have other religions, they are Nationalists who don’t like other nations, and they treat the Kurds poorly. When asked what images come to mind when they think of Turkish culture, they mentioned that the Turkish culture was not old or rich, they have “stolen” Armenian culture, they didn’t know much about its culture, Armenia has 1,000 years of culture and the Turkish culture is much younger. They did admit that Turkey is more developed than Armenia, that it has a sea that gives them access to other countries. They seemed to have mixed feelings about whether the border should be opened; many feeling that more time is needed to do so. (Time for what?) Since this was a focus group, I could not comment. Needless to say I felt disheartened.

We will be working together on a project to develop tourism between Gyumri and Turkey. If/When the border opens; the Gyumri border crossing will be the main route between the two countries. The grant to fund the project comes from the US Embassy in Turkey and involves cooperation between the university here, a Turkish university in Izmir, and the University of Florida. Students who do well (especially in English) will be able to travel to the US and Turkey. This is a tremendous opportunity for these students who cannot afford to travel otherwise.

I am convinced that the only way Armenia can develop is if the young are exposed to other cultures and the world. This is a very small country, the size of Maryland. Their misinformation and misperceptions about the world are daunting.

A major issue in Armenia is emigration for work to other countries, most often Russia. A young Armenian woman I know is working on a project to measure the numbers involved, funded by the World Bank, for the purpose of addressing the issue. Population statistics in Armenia are very unreliable because often families include members who are working in Russia, for as long as twenty years. In addition the government does not want to admit to the huge emigration issue. It is currently dealing with the issue of what to do about returned Armenians who have been kicked out of European countries and who have come back from Russia with no resources. A family I am close to is about to emigrate to far Eastern Russia where they have no friends or family. They would like to stay five years, save money, and come back to Armenia. But the reality is that Armenian workers are heavily discriminated against in Russia. Because they are illegal, employers often take advantage of them, hold their passports and pay less than a living wage. But the Armenians are so desperate for work that they will still take a chance that things will work out for them.

A fellow volunteer called a few weeks before Thanksgiving and asked for help on Thanksgiving Day when he wanted to serve turkey (hundkahav in Armenian) and all the trimmings to his school. Mike works in a village at a school that serves about eighty children with disabilities and those who have issues at home; absent, abusive, or addictive parents. Some children live at the school Monday though Friday. Mike assured me that the school had everything necessary to prepare the meal. But I asked him to double-check. It turned out that the school had no way to roast three turkeys. So after many phone calls back and forth, talk about volunteers cooking the turkeys (though no one had a large enough oven), using a restaurant, etc., Mike left the cooking to the school. He went to check out the situation the morning of, and there were big pots of boiling water in which they were about to drop the turkeys. He left.

I made four pumpkin pies at my apartment. I bought a pumpkin from a lady on the street who told me to cut the top off, clean it out, fill it with rice, raisins, nuts, salt, and water, and then bake until soft. She had never heard of pumpkin pie. The pies were wonderful even though I had to make all kinds of ingredient substitutions. I also made a big pan of stuffing. Then a friend and I headed off to this village.

The turkeys had been cut up, boiled, and then roasted over a fire with a delicious basting sauce. They were wonderful; moist and tasty. I made gravy. The school made a grain pilaf. And after a few words we sat down to eat. It truly was a wonderful feast.

This was a combined Thanksgiving Day and monthly birthday celebration.

Note dessert plate: Slice of pumpkin pie, chocolate cake, candy, and an orange and apple. Very typical! The guys passed out the stuffing and gravy individually to each child and convinced them to eat it. Miraculously, they did.

Danny and Mike cutting up the turkeys. Literally, cutting (see scissors).

Kitchen crew, Mike, and staff. This group was wonderful to us.

Teacher, Mike, and Judy with students.

The second Thanksgiving dinner was held on Monday the 29th in Yerevan at a hotel. I was in-charge of the All-Vol(unteer) Dinner for 120 people. It was weeks of work, the food was ordered early, a lot of prep work was done before we got there, and it turned out to be wonderful. I had a decorations committee, a pie group (they made 25; pumpkin, lemon meringue, walnut, and apple), a turkey duo, who brined the six birds (Norbest from Minnesota) for a night, and a side-dish trio (carrot soufflé, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes). I made the stuffing and gravy. Throughout the night before and day of, volunteers kept coming into the kitchen to help where they could. People were amazingly helpful. I overheard a woman say she found sweet potatoes in Armenia, and tracked down the only source in the whole country. One volunteer brought back four cans of cranberry sauce from the US and a staff member bought four more at the Embassy. Another staff member loaned us his wife’s food processor. The hotel prepared the mashed potatoes. My daughter sent critical foil pans, spices, Karo syrup, and a whisk. Parents sent spices. We only had three ovens so timing was the most critical factor. The turkeys had to be roasted in two shifts. Then we had to take turns with baking everything else. Somehow, someway, it all came together and was a wonderful celebration.

Making gravy for 120 people. Note whisk, courtesy of St John Vianney kitchen. My daughter got carried away when she picked the "right" size.

The Side-Dish Trio; Danya, Amanda, and Rani at an AIDS Day event, the day after our dinner.

Recently I received an e-mail from an Armenian friend who completed and submitted his doctoral dissertation this month to one of Armenia’s leading universities. I have been eagerly awaiting some word of what happened. Below is his update:

P.S. – I know some of you want to ask me what’s new for your thesis? Well, guys, one of the opponent who was kicked out from the university because of taking bribes was criticizing my work strongly whereas the other two were really happy that this topic is researched in Armenia for the first time and they confessed that they have learned a lot from it. However the first opponent could fail me as he was asking 300.000 drams for his signature and I PROMISED him that I will never bribe him. He got furious and he PROMISED to fail it though the day of defending my thesis was already set on December 8. So he did !!! Later he called me and said that if I will change my mind I should know that his signature now costs 600.000 drams. Heheheheeeeeeeee. Now that I have his remarks on my work which is – there are not Soviet authors read and mentioned in Bibliography and that all the authors I have read are not familiar to him – I am going to appeal to the rector and will see what will happen.

300,000 drams is equivalent to approximately $835 which is probably what my friend makes in two months, and it is probably more than the professor demanding the bribe makes in several months, though who knows what he makes in other bribes from students and doctoral candidates. This is a very common story in Armenia.

Corruption, including bribes, is not new in Armenia since the breakup of the Soviet Union. It has been going on for centuries. There is a lot of Internet information in Armenia about corruption at the highest levels, and Armenia has not been improving on Transparency International’s Corruption Index. Armenia ranked 123 of 178 countries. The US was 22 of 178. (The financial and foreclosure crisis caused a fall from 19 for the US.) Most disturbing is that corruption pervades all areas and levels of society. I am constantly faced with it. I need to get receipts to get reimbursed and no one wants to give receipts because then they have to report income. It is estimated that in Armenia 70% of income goes unreported. (In the US that number is 7%; workers not reporting tips or casual labor and sellers on eBay, for instance.)

I also think that intellect and creative thinking are not prized in Armenia. I hear constantly that people don’t trust their own doctors. They are probably aware that he may have paid for his medical degree and for his hospital position, so how can they trust his skills? People most often get jobs because of who they know or who they pay, not because of their skills. Most software and movies in this country are pirated through Russia. When I mention that we have to pay for software for a project or grant, I get dis-believing stares. Educated people here, especially those who have studied abroad, constantly talk about the education system here, and how poor it is. A recent poll in Yerevan listed education as the number one concern for Armenians. But I feel as if those same people don’t realize that as long as parents and others corrupt the system, it cannot improve. Students never fail a grade (because the teacher will lose her job if they don’t all pass), grades are for sale, teachers get jobs through relationships, not scholarship, and there is no system for evaluating teachers. Textbooks are hopelessly outdated, which is especially critical in IT classes, and even in my business English classes, where the mandated textbook dates from 1996, before computers were on every desktop and e-mail became the primary means of business communication.

The NGO (non-governmental organization or non-profit) that I was assigned to when I first arrived in Gyumri is on the verge of closing. It had been established in 2002 by diasporan Armenians for the purpose of stimulating business recovery in this area as a response to the earthquake and to the collapse of the Soviet Union. The NGO had been successful for several years, but then funding dried up as the management changed. So the director’s purpose in having me has been so that I could apply for grants for new programs. Unfortunately funding for most NGOs in Armenia has been sharply curtailed because of the worldwide economic crises, because of the corruption involved in NGOs and the demand for greater accountability, and because of the larger questions about how effective aid to Armenia has been, and a re-focus on where aid can do the most good. So I have been searching for a new focus, in addition to doing a lot of teaching.

Several months ago I walked into a regional library here, introduced myself, and asked if I could help. The regional library, similar to a main county library, supports five district libraries and 127 villages. Over more cups of tiny Armenian coffee than I care to remember, the director and I talked about changes in the library. So I began to read about libraries in Armenia, visit NGOs which support libraries, look on-line for grants, visit other libraries, attend library meetings, and I had several meetings with people in Yerevan who were significantly involved in changing the direction of libraries in Armenia. This included a meeting with a man who is equivalent to the head of our Library of Congress. So I got excited, but today I’m depressed.

Several weeks ago I went to a conference in Yerevan that had to do with libraries, book publishing, and book authors in Armenia. Of course the program was all in Armenian, but headsets were handed out to people like me, and the simultaneous translation was fabulous. From this meeting and a few other sources I received the following information: The average number of books checked out per year per capita from libraries in Armenia is 3.39; in Yerevan it is .98. The average number of books purchased in Armenia per capita is not even measurable, far less than one per year. (In the US the number of books checked out from libraries is 9 per capita, but the number of books purchased is around 18.) 95% of Armenian libraries have not seen new books since 1991. There has been a serious decline in interest in Armenia in books, reading, and publishing. The libraries were decrying the fact that they received inadequate funding from the Ministry of Culture, the publishers were saying that 1,000 copies was a best seller in Armenia, which was too small of a run to be profitable, and the authors were complaining that the publishers won’t publish their books. Someone mentioned that they never see Armenians reading, whereas in the US on public transportation, in coffee shops, doctors’ offices, etc., people are always reading. I always carry a book. It is absolutely true that I never see Armenians reading. The book publisher also said that it was too expensive to have a book translated from another language into Armenian, and then to sell enough copies to cover expenses. At my meeting with the top library guru in Armenia, I was told that outside the universities in Yerevan, there were no qualified librarians in the country. The only masters program in library science is just two years old and has six students. Electronic card catalogues outside Yerevan universities are unheard of. In the city I live in, Gyumri, which has 140,000 people, there are no bookstores. In Yerevan there are only five true bookstores, which are very small, though some office supply stores sell a few books.

I love public libraries. But the Gyumri regional library is one of the most depressing places I have ever been in. A library had been completed just one week before the devastating earthquake of 1988 and the new library collapsed. The current library has been in temporary quarters since 1989. The first time I walked in there were buckets all over the floor and plastic on all the bookshelves collecting and warding off rainwater. There are over 100,000 books, 99% are over 25 years old, most are in Russian, and there are not enough shelves to hold them so they are stacked all over the floor also. 70 women work in this library with one male director. They have a manual card catalogue system, which is in terrible condition, and you are required to leave your passport when you check out a book. (Is this because theft is an issue?)

The answers about what to do seem so easy to me but they are nearly impossible to implement in this country. The library needs to get rid of books, especially the old Russian technical books that are uselessly out of date, and the hundreds of books about Lenin and Stalin. But the director tells me that because his is a regional library, he cannot get rid of books. The Yerevan library guru tells me that copies of all these Russian books exist in the Yerevan central library where they can be used for research purposes and that it is absolutely unnecessary for the regional library to keep these books, but that there is no direction from the Minister of Culture to these libraries and there are no qualified library directors who can make these decisions. The Armenian Library Consortium (headed by the library guru) has data on which books to purge but the local libraries lack the equipment and sophistication to access the data. Storage off-site for the books on the floor is not an option because the director can’t afford to pay for it.

I am really curious about the library budget. Each of the 70 women is paid the same, equivalent to $94 per month. In Armenia, workers are paid by the month. The minimum wage is $83 per month, going up to $89 in January 2011. There is no hourly wage. There is a woman who works in a little hut outside my apartment building selling bread who works 12 hours a day seven days a week for $83 per month. The women in the library work five days a week from ten to six. I can’t figure out what they all do other than drink coffee all day. But this is the Soviet system where people show up and get paid but do not have to produce. So I wonder if the library could function with 35 women who really worked and if the director could use the money saved for repairs and new books. Is it possible to change a culture where there is no work ethic, or no understanding of what work is? I suspect that the director’s budget includes a certain amount for salaries, where he tries to employ as many people as possible, and another amount for the rest of his expenses.

I asked the director about the possibility of keeping the library open later, maybe until eight at night during the week, and opening on weekends for limited hours. He said that the government wouldn’t let him do it, that his employees are government employees and they keep government hours. I asked the Yerevan library guru about this question. He said that the director can change the hours, but that he does not want to, probably because he would feel that he had to be there all the time since the level of trust, which would allow him to trust his employees to manage without him, does not exist.

The director says that he needs a new building. A few years ago an American of Armenian descent from San Francisco came to Gyumri and offered the director $400,000 to build a new library (an amount which actually would pay for a new library in Armenia.) Somehow the (corrupt) city mayor became involved, proposed an excellent site, and had plans drawn up for a combined library and museum. The donor said that he was willing to finance a two-story library but not a museum. The mayor would not reconsider and the library was never built.

I visited a small local library in a town called Charentsavan, which I had been told was the best local library. It was wonderful. The library director had “donated” all the old non-circulating books, began a focus on attracting children, who then brought in their parents, received some old computers and offered computer classes, began art classes and story-telling for the kids, and then was able to attract some grant money which allowed her to create a large flexible common space where she has community meetings, offers classes, has small plays and puppet shows, and where she has a computer center open to the public. I realized that the director is key to the success of a library (or any organization.)

The Gyumri regional director is about 52 years old, and a very nice man. He worked in some other government capacity until 2002 until he was appointed library director, though he had no experience with libraries. (In Armenia experience means nothing. The only thing that counts is whom you know.) He desperately would like financial help to “fix” the library but he is not willing to cut his staff, not willing to encourage free use of the computers and the internet, not willing to purge useless books, not willing to face up to the mayor who cost him a new library, not willing to change the library hours to accommodate the times when people could use it best, not willing to hire staff based on their qualifications vs. relationships, etc.

So what can I do? Several months ago, a notice came through the Peace Corps that a van was available through the US Government for a useful cause. I asked the director if he would like the van to visit the district and village libraries, and to shift books around. He and his staff currently go by taxi to visit their other libraries, which means that they don’t go often because of the expense. He was so excited. We are first on the list to get the van, and I’m waiting to hear. The cost of tuition for going to graduate school for library science in Yerevan for 2-1/2 years is $1,200. I asked the director if he had someone who could go if I could find the tuition. (I had someone in mind.) I’m hopeful that Marik will start next September. The director specifically asked me if I could help with a grant for the bathroom in the library. (See picture below.) The PC has small grants available to volunteers for projects. I am applying for a bathroom grant. This has become an incredibly difficult project because of all the “ifs” and “buts” voiced by the director who says that he can’t get quotes for the job, which are required for the grant. (I am tired of saying, if you can’t get them, I can’t get the grant.) Actually in Armenia it is very difficult to get anything in writing, including quotes/bids and receipts because the underground economy comprises more that 70% of the economy, a direct result of an ineffective and corrupt tax system. (In the US it is estimated at 7%; people who don’t declare their tips and those who sell on eBay without collecting sales tax!) This bathroom is used by the 70 women, the director, and the general public, but not by me! The water for coffee also comes from there. I asked the director what kind of toilet he wanted to put in the renovated bathroom, and he wants to replace it with the same hole in the ground. He tells me that it is “more hygienic.” I’m thinking about telling him that since the grants are for community projects and that here must be a community consensus about what should be done, that I will have to poll the women to see if they prefer a sit-down seat, or a hole in the ground!

Public toilet in Gyumri regional library.

Last Saturday my Armenian tutor was married. 

I have been seeing Narine twice weekly, and often three times a week, for over a year for Armenian lessons. I have been to her home a few times, she has been to mine, and we have dined, walked, and talked all over Gyumri. About three weeks previous to last Saturday, she told me that she was getting married. I did not even know that she had a boyfriend. At my last tutoring session on Friday afternoon, the day before her wedding, I told her that I wanted to talk about her wedding. How did she meet him? Her mother and his mother work together. How long had she known him? She first saw him two years ago. How long had they been dating? A few weeks. How does her mother feel about it? VERY happy. What does he do? It doesn’t matter. What kind of work does he do? He’s a programmer. He comes from a very good family. Where will you live? With his family (as is Armenian tradition.) His mother is a very good mother-in-law. What will your mother do all alone? When we move to Yerevan, she will live with us. Will you continue to work? Till the end of the school year. (Often Armenian men do not want their wives to work.) How old is he? 33. (Narine is 30.) What do Armenians give for wedding gifts? Gold. Gold? (As I’m thinking about what to give her.) The husband’s family always gives the bride gold. Bars of gold? Gold jewelry. But I never see women wearing gold jewelry? They wear it for special occasions. Are you going to wear a white wedding dress? Of course.

I was astounded by this whole conversation. Narine is an only child and her father died when she was very young. Her mother works as a cook at a small restaurant. Her home is very modest, really just a shack. Earlier in the year she had told me that she would like to marry an American. Did I know of any? Then her best friend announced her engagement. I was feeling Narine’s desperation. She is at an age where marriage becomes highly unlikely in Armenia. (It is not uncommon for a man to marry someone ten years younger.) So his mother and her mother “arranged” this marriage in a few short weeks. I felt no excitement in our discussions. In Armenia the bride is never supposed to smile at her wedding (though Narine did somewhat) because she is sad to be leaving her family. I wondered if her lack of enthusiasm was a reflection of a cultural attitude towards marriage. I felt as if Narine was almost apologizing for this decision and I wondered if it was because he was not the kind of man she thought that she would marry.

I met the bridegroom on the wedding day for the first time. He was very nice, warm, cuddly, and speaks good English. (Narine does not speak English.) My gut feel is that they will be happy because their mothers made a good match and they both come from “good” families. It is tradition in Armenia that newly married couples spend their first night at the groom’s family home. In the morning, if there is blood on the sheets, his family sends a basket of red apples to her family home in celebration. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to ask the obvious question.

There are a few Armenian customs that I do not like: The Armenian Apostolic Church is the national church. 97% of Armenians identify with this church.  So all weddings are performed in the national churches. "Justice of the Peace" weddings are not an option. The mother of the bride does not attend the wedding ceremony.  I am told that it is "just custom." (But it is a disturbing custom for me.) Between the bride's family home and the church, the wedding party takes a long drive while blowing their car horns all the way. It is unbelievably annoying, and I was part of this loud procession. It is extremely unusual in Armenia for anyone to live alone.  Narine and her husband will be living with his parents, the grand-mother, his brother and two grandchildren in a two bedroom apartment.  The bride is always expected to be a virgin while the bridegroom is expected to be experienced. Families go deeply into debt for weddings. The reception is nearly always at an expensive restaurant. Honeymoons are nearly unheard of.

Members of the wedding party leaving Narine's modest home, in the background.

On the way to the wedding. My first look at the groom.

Before leaving for the church. Note dancers in foreground, woman holding up bread, fruit on stick, flower petals in baskets, and limousine in background. Wedding picture taken in Gyumri's central square.

Coming out of the church after the ceremony.

Leaving the church.  Narine and her husband had just released two white doves, and the crowd threw flower petals and chocolates.

I am going back to the States for a short visit in December at which time I will have been in Armenia for almost nineteen months. My primary purpose is to see my two daughters, my sister and five brothers, other family, and close friends. All these people are asking me what I want to do. I do not specifically want to “do” anything. I am looking forward to satisfying some of my “longings”. These are things that I miss, but they are not needs. My longings include:

Water available 24/7. Hot showers.

Good wines. Homemade cherry wine fermented in the sun doesn’t cut it.

Navigating streets without constantly looking down. Looking up.

Browsing bookstores. (There are none in Gyumri.)

Food with labels. Labels that I can read.

Drivers who observe speed limits. Women drivers. Driving a car.

Ground coffee for filters. Rich Columbian coffee.

Soft pillows vs. hard-as-a-rock filled with sheep’s wool pillows.

Washing machine and dryer. No hand washing and line-drying.

“Safe” cars. No Ladas, bald tires, or broken windshields.

Salads, with red leaf, Romaine, butter, and Belgian endive lettuce.

Anything but cabbage, turnip-sized carrots, and potatoes to eat.

Recognizable cuts of meat. Refrigerated meat.

Dogs that sleep at night, instead of wandering the streets in packs.

Fresh chicken breasts vs. frozen breasts from China.

Pizza without mayonnaise.

Mexican food. Any ethnic food but Armenian.

Fresh juices. Juices that don’t taste like sweetened water.

Central heating vs. small gas heater that heats space within three feet.

Men who dress in anything but black. No pointy shoes.

Milk with a shelf life beyond one day.

Artisan breads: raisin pecan, challah, and rye.

Raisins without seeds.

People who smile when photographed. Healthy teeth.

Cranberries. Berries of any kind.

Thick fluffy towels that do not have to be hand-washed.

Four buckets of water and I'm bathed. The spray does not work!

Yogurt, flour, baking soda, sugar, and oatmeal.

Emma and Anahit, two of my favorite people.  They do not smile for pictures.

I’ve been doing some snooping about Armenian oligarchs because in every report I read about economic conditions in the country (by the World Bank, USAID, IMF, etc.), the influence of the oligarchs in politics and the economy is central to the country’s problems. Armenian oligarchs control the importation of goods into the country and the few commodities that the country exports. It is nearly impossible to find out who is on the list of the top ten, although interestingly a list that came out a few years ago (put out by a bogus Forbes Armenia) showed that six of the top ten were important figures in the government; I.e., president of the leading political party, Chairman of the State Customs Committee, Mayor of Yerevan, President of Armenia, Minister of Justice, and Minister of Transport and Communication.

Then I read something interesting: “…all of us, including oligarchs, are carriers of an archaic national mentality, in correspondence with which one the zone of the responsibility of each Armenian is confined by the family and his own “village”. In present-day, urban conditions the concept of village was transformed to concept of the district of habitation, in this connection some oligarchs psychologically limit zones of the responsibility to known Yerevan quarters or to the region of origin." And, "Therefore, an estrangement, the absence of feeling of belonging to the country and responsibility for it is characteristic not only for the ordinary citizens of present-day Armenia, about what the sociologists and the publicists speak during last years with an alert, but also for oligarchs." This struck me because it is my impression that Armenians generally do not identify strongly with Armenia the country, but rather with Armenia the ethnic group. I hear discussions about the "fatherland", which included those parts of historic Armenia given to Turkey by Russia in 1922 and parts of southern Georgia, Nagorno Karabakh, and loosely includes the Russian diaspora (who will return.) Armenians identify strongly with their families, loosely with their communities, and not strongly with their current country. So there does not seem to be much outrage about the power of the oligarchs who take care of their families, perform token projects for their immediate community, and show little responsibility for the whole of the country.

In the current economic downturn, the average Armenian has suffered greatly as the amount of remittances from family working outside of Armenia has greatly decreased. These transfers make up 20% of GDP. However the government came out with a report suggesting that Armenia has recovered faster than expected, which feels misleading because this was a result of increases in the price of commodities controlled by several oligarchs; increases which I don’t see trickling down to Gyumri.

I was in a meeting several months ago where a member of the mayor’s office said that his office did not care about the farmers in the community. And I felt that his comment reflected the general attitude of many Armenians. I am not responsible for my country, for my marz (like a county), or for my community. I am responsible for my family. I see this in a larger sense where organizations hire family members first, then friends, and then whoever can pay them for a job. Actual qualifications are immaterial. This is a country built on relationships. So what is discouraging about this is that the country has a highly (though poorly) educated populace who cannot find or create jobs without these relationships. This country of three million people is just small enough that this Soviet-era mentality seriously hampers development and growth.

“Nestlé is a Nutrition, Health and Wellness company committed to increasing the nutritional value of our food while improving the taste.”

This candy bar is in the checkout aisles of most larger Armenian grocery stores. Hidden in the ingredient list (which I cannot read because it is in Russian) is testosterone and Viagra, I’m sure. Because why else would it only be marketed to men?

I’m boycotting this Swiss company.

I have wanted to visit India for many years. Both my daughters were born in Calcutta, and as a consequence I have long keyed in on the country when I’ve seen news commentaries and have read many memorable fiction accounts of the country by outstanding Indian writers. But what I have read was not all pretty and so it was with a little trepidation that I traveled to India from Yerevan, Armenia on the once-a-week only direct flight. (Other days would involve long layovers in Moscow or Dubai and considerable more expense.)

The first two weeks of August were a convenient time for myself and my friend as she was leaving to return to the US after this trip. I’m usually a careful trip planner, but in this case because of time and project constraints we decided to take a packaged tour of an area called the Golden Triangle, which included Delhi, Jaipur, and Agra. The second week was spent in Kerala state on the southwest coast of India about 1,200 miles south of Delhi, which we reached by plane.

I was left with several strong impressions of India. I could not believe how clean it was. Somehow I was expecting garbage everywhere. But there appears to be a big government campaign to recycle and control garbage. There are fines against spitting, and food waste and recycle cans are everywhere. There were signs up saying “No plastic bags.” Purchases we made were put in flimsy paper bags or wrapped in newspaper and shoppers carried their own shopping bags. Storefronts were clean. Rivers and lakes were not cluttered with garbage, including refrigerators and cars. (This is a major problem in Armenia.)

There was some obvious poverty, but in a controlled way. The government allows people who have homes a distance from their work to “camp” in the city. There were a lot of beggars who approached us, mostly in Delhi. Many of these had serious deformities or wretched looking children. One man, who I can not get out of my mind, approached our taxi with enormous exposed testicles that sickened me. But when I asked about these people, I found out that medical help is available, and that “they are professional beggars.” Indians we talked to felt a huge personal responsibility to help the poor in productive ways. There were food banks and subsidies available and the major Sikh temple runs a huge twice daily feeding program. A few people mentioned that their Hindu faith requires them to help those worse off. We often saw lines of peoples waiting to buy government subsidized food. I did read that China has been much more successful in moving its population out of extreme poverty than India has.

I was amazed at the industriousness of the people. Everyone appeared to be working and busy. There were little shops for everything. Along the street we were staying on there were all kinds of little shops to support rickshaws, like wheel frames, re-tread shops, decorative painters, upholstery repairers, glass replacement shops, etc. In shopping areas every shop was different from the next, each with colorful signage. (This is in strong contrast to Armenia where you can see five shops next to each other, each selling identical poor quality items, with no signs to distinguish themselves.) The quality of the goods and the choices available seemed overwhelming. I had to remind myself that India has a middle class population larger than the total population of the US.

I was amazed at the Indian reverence for life. My favorite sign was: Don’t scare the animals. I never saw anyone strike an animal. Cows are sacred in India, but I would say that all living creatures are sacred to Indians. Our drivers gave a wide berth to all animals we encountered (and outside Delhi we saw as many animals as people.) Even when our host at the cardamom plantation was talking about the “pest” animals that ate his fruit and spices, it was in a loving way. In Armenia dogs cower around people because they are regularly beaten or kicked and cows and sheep are abused by their herders. (In Armenia I once watched two boys beating a calf that was following the wrong mother home as idle men just watched.)

I was surprised at all the Muslim mosques, Hindu temples and shrines, Sikh gurdwaras and Christian churches and at the fact that they were always busy. When we visited any of these places hundreds of people were worshipping. The Catholic churches in the south were overflowing. This is a culture that actively participates in its religions. We saw thousands of religious pilgrims walking hundreds of miles in colorful orange attire carrying water from the sacred Ganges to their temples. The Hindus believe in reincarnation (in any animal form), which may explain why the whole country appears to be so kind to animals. In contrast, in Armenia, where the state religion is Apostolic Christian, all marriages are performed in churches but other than for that 10-minute occasion very few people actually ever attend church.

I loved the beautiful and colorful saris worn by most women. Even women working in fields wore saris. There were so many possibilities in terms of how to wear them and color combinations that they seemed like a wonderful way to express your personality. We saw many women shopping for saris, and lots of discussions among women over combinations that blended and complemented each other. Most men outside of Delhi wore a dhoti, a piece of cloth wrapped around the waist and legs in place of pants. When I asked about it, I was told that it was extremely comfortable in hot weather. In Armenia most people wear black. There is very little color in dress, especially men’s dress.

In addition many houses were painted incredible colors, like hot pink, scarlet, peacock blue, etc. Many times I found the colors jarring. This was in sharp contrast to the warm Mediterranean colors seen on Turkish homes. In Armenia I think that it would be safe to say that less than five percent of the homes are any color other than natural stone or cement-block grey.

We visited a school where the children were beyond thrilled to have visitors. They started school in their native tongue (Malayalam), and then studied English and Hindi. (The official language of India is Hindi though several people said in situations where it is not the first language, few students become proficient in it. There are 28 languages, other than Hindi, spoken by more than a million people.) All secondary schools and universities use English for their curriculum. School was in session while we were in India. It did appear that there were too many young people not in school though they were working. I thought that the most prominent advertising on billboards (some of the largest billboards I’ve ever seen) and in newspapers was for questionable higher education schools. It is hard to believe that most of them are legitimate. Teachers are held in very high esteem in India, though there are many reports of wide shortages.

We had many discussions about arranged marriages, dowries, and the caste system. Our young female tour guide in Delhi had hoped for a “love” marriage, but she is now 23 and has turned to her parents to arrange a suitable marriage. “Suitable” means that a professional who suggests complementary horoscopes reads her horoscope and then a partner is sought who meets the criteria. If both horoscopes are complimentary the parents get together, decide if the families are compatible, and, if so, the two young people meet briefly, and if there is interest they become engaged and marry shortly, often within two months. The wedding celebration often includes 1,000 to 2,000 guests. Nearly everyone we talked to had parents whose happy marriages had been arranged. Dowries still play a very important role in marriages. Even though the government opposes the caste system everyone told us that there are very few inter-caste marriages. We spent several hours with a man and his wife who are Brahmins, the highest caste (teachers, scholars, and priests.) They were a little strange (eccentric) and it seemed obvious that their caste status is an important part of their identities. They were also light-skinned and tall as expected of Brahmins.

I never saw a Hummer or Land Rover in India, for a good reason. The roads are narrow and the competing traffic (rickshaws, elephants, people) seems to get priority. There were an amazing variety of really small cars, something for everyone including a $2,500 Tata Nano (in cute colors) that hopefully offers an alternative to all the four passenger motorcycles I saw. (Dad driving with four year old in front of him and mom on the back holding the baby.)

Everyone we met was extraordinarily friendly (even the hawkers.) Many times I was amazed that we would both be speaking the same language, and I couldn’t even understand them. Between British English, the accent of their regional language, and the use of a little higher pitch, I often just didn’t get it. (They may as well have been speaking Armenian.) Most people went out of their way to help us. Another surprise was that when we mentioned that we were Americans, all the Indians praised Obama. On the other hand, I am impressed that this country of 1.14 billion people has a female president!

We definitely traveled to India at a terrible time.  It was hot, humid, and monsoon season.  The best months to go are January and February.  Tourist season is October to March.  Only crazy people (or the uninformed) go to India in August.  My daughter pointed out to me that I was going at a bad time, after I was committed.  It rained most days, sometimes torrentially, was always humid, and got as hot as 1o4 degrees.  I tried to find out what appropriate clothing was for monsoon season before I left, but found nothing.  As in Seattle, when it was really pouring, people waited undercover for the worst to pass, when it was raining normally, all the umbrellas came out, and when it was drizzling/misting, people carried on with their activities as if it were dry.  I did buy a $3 monsoon umbrella that is far better than my $40 Seattle drizzle umbrella.   Halfway into the trip we washed a few clothes which never dried in the humidity.  I just always felt damp.

India still has a lot of problems. Half the population lives in poverty. We talked to some women working in rice fields (who begged to have their pictures taken.) They make 250 rupees a day ($5.36) for grueling work. The education system is so poor that families struggle to send their kids to private schools, though Kerala state has the highest literacy rate in the country at 90%. Still the positive attitudes of the people and their buzzing activity make me hopeful that their lives will improve rapidly.

Several years ago (2006) I read and saved a series of articles in the Seattle Times written by Carol Pucci about her trip to southern India. So for our second week in India we flew 3.5 hours southwest to the coastal state of Kerala for homestay visits and a backwaters cruise as Carol had done. Kerala is lushly green, tropical, and as different from our first week in India as you could get within the same country. I arranged a homestay with a family in a fifth generation house that had a separate cabin along a freshwater canal frequented by fishermen, ferries, other boaters, bathers, and women washing clothes and dishes. Highlights were a shower in the rain outside, breakfast at a neighbor’s simple home where two men went out in a boat, threw out a net, and caught our fresh shrimp for curried shrimp breakfast, and a great tour of the town of Kochi.

After two nights we headed to Alleppey, an area of rice fields, where we boarded an Indian house boat for an overnight cruise of the Kerala backwaters (rivers, canals, lakes). This felt like the ultimate indulgence; to be on our own two-bedroom boat with a captain, cook, and steward, for an incredibly small sum. I would have loved to share this adventure with family and friends. Around 3 pm a fishing boat pulled alongside and we bought five-inch freshwater prawns for dinner. Behind all the homes lining the waterways were rice fields. Our young cook told us that he had just spent two months (during slow season) helping his mom and dad plant their rice fields. He mentioned what hard work it is, a strain on the back and done in the gruelling sun.

Kerala is 35 percent Christian and there were wildly colorful Catholic churches everywhere, church schools, nunneries (ok, convents) and seminaries. There were also Hindus (45 percent), Muslims, and Jews. All the religious holidays were celebrated. We were there for the Feast of the Assumption and for New Year’s (Malayalam calendar- August 17).

The following day we stayed in a another home along a canal and spent a fun day touring their wonderful garden full of spices, getting lost on a long walk (few people were out as they were all watching boat races on TV), having a facial and pedicure, watching 40-person oar racing boats headed to the boat races, and their accompanying spectators in other boats, and then watching the final boat races on television from Alleppey where over 100,000 people had gathered for snake boat races pitting local groups (villages, churches, clubs) against each other. St Sebastian’s church, which we could see across the canal from our homestay, came in first in the third group in their 100-man snake boat. The village went crazy and fireworks went off. The next day we met several of the participants from St Sebastian’s including the driver and brother-in-law from our homestay. They were so excited!

The following day we drove on winding switch-backed roads east into the mountains to Munnar, famous for its tea plantations and spices. Our homestay was at a cardamom plantation. I learned more in the two days that we spent there about spices than I ever knew in my former life. The main source of income was cardamom but the plantation also grew coffee (Robusta and Arabica), cocoa, bananas (finger, red, plantains, Cavendish), mangos, jack fruit, oranges, peppers, figs, nutmeg, cloves, and vanilla beans. Bananas are the world’s largest herb, and a fruit. As I watched the monkey families playing in the trees near our room I asked if they picked the bananas when green and was told that if they did not, the monkeys would eat them and the two kilo (4.4 pounds) Malabar giant squirrel would eat the cocoa and figs.

Along with all these fruits and spices were huge bugs which included some noisy (almost deafening) crickets, moths, spiders, and praying mantises. (The female eats the male after mating. Yikes!) Mosquitoes were not a huge issue.

I flew home to Armenia two days later from Delhi.

Our homestays and boat cruise were arranged by Jos at www.keralagraman.com. I would highly recommend him. Our homestays with all meals averaged about $60 per night for two people. Round trip airfare from Delhi to Kochi was $140 per person.

Students at St Thomas School

Students at St Thomas School

Site of our shrimp breakfast

Catching breakfast shrimp

At Gramman homestay

Typical market in Kerala

On our  houseboat

Typical canal scene. The man just finished bathing.

Public ferry boat

Prawns we purchased for dinner from fisherman who pulled up alongside our houseboat. 

St Sebastian church in background and 40 person oar-boat on way to race.

View from porch of our homestay

Toddy man in coconut tree retrieving nectar from flower.  Nectar will ferment and create slightly alcoholic drink. Toddy man used to be "untouchable" but because he is so well paid he is now "touchable."

One of dozens of waterfalls we saw near Munnar

Five-inch moth on door at cardamon plantation

Homestay at cardamon plantation

Woman picking cardamon seed pods, down near ground of plant

One of numerous colorful Catholic churches

Lineup of auto-rickshaws waiting for customers

Barbara and I (confusing to people as both our names were the same) arrived in Delhi on a Wednesday at 2 am after a direct 4.5 hour flight from Yerevan. We had decided to take a six day tour called the Golden Triangle (Delhi, Jaipur, and Agra) after realizing that neither of us had the time to do the thorough planning I’m accustomed to. It turned out to be a most fortunate happenstance. A car and driver met us at the airport and drove us to our hotel, the Good Times. The hotel was a shock; on a crowded tiny street undergoing major construction, with people sleeping across the street under tarps, and rickshaws (cycled), auto-rickshaws (motorized), taxis, bicycles, cars, buses, people competing for space, a tiny storefront said “hotel.” I immediately regretted my 3-star (air-conditioning guaranteed) decision (out of 5), but once we stepped inside it was fine to my amazement. We laughed on room inspection because the bathroom had a bucket bath which we had looked forward to escaping from on leaving Armenia, but it turns out that Indians like bucket baths and all our rooms had one (and sometimes a shower option also.) In the afternoon we toured Delhi with a car, driver, and guide provided by the tour company.

Delhi is the capital of India and was undergoing major construction projects to prepare for the Commonwealth Games which the city was hosting for two weeks beginning October 3rd. The newspapers were full of stories of games-related corruption, reports of delays, reports about team preparations, etc. The metro was being extended out to the airport, major road construction and landscaping operations were underway, and it seemed as if tens of thousands of people were working feverishly. In a way it was exciting. But I asked several people how this could possibly be pulled off with the crazy crowds. Not to worry! Trucks can only enter the city from 9 pm to 7 am. Only commercial vehicles will be allowed on the streets (busses, taxis, rickshaws, auto-rickshaws, government cars, etc.) No personal cars will be allowed. Schools will be closed, and government offices and businesses will be closed where possible. Somehow I think it will be a success.

I was impressed by the national government buildings (and by the monkey families running around the grounds), monuments, temples, mosques, etc. Delhi is a city of incredible contrasts, and wonderful vitality. People were very friendly, most spoke English, though Hindi to each other, and whenever we hesitated or stopped there were many people asking to help us.

The next morning we took a second tour and at noon headed off to Jaipur. The drive was crazy. It was about 120 miles and took about five hours. There were improved toll roads but bicycles, rickshaws, three-wheelers, and motorcycles, entered for free. Along the way were numerous broken-down trucks, walking religious pilgrims (carrying water from the Ganges to Shiva temples), other walkers, cows, and water buffalos on the roads. The next day we toured this “pink city”, rode an elephant (it was too hot to walk), and shopped a little. I loved the city.

The following day (4th) we headed to Agra and visited several monuments on the way, another five hours through mayhem. On the way we saw:

Working camels pulling carts with greens, bananas, wood, etc.

Working elephants carrying greens, pulling carts, used as transport by people, etc.

Monkey families playing in the trees.

Water buffalos bathing in rivers, clogging the roads, and groomed and mustard-oiled for the market.

Peacocks on the loose.

Brahmin bulls and cows herded down the main roads and hundreds of single cows or bulls just lying in the middle of the roads. (I kept asking why someone didn’t shush them off.)

Pigs, donkeys and oxen, everywhere.

And lots of carts carrying dried animal dung to market. The dung is used for fertilizer, cooking fuel, as a mosquito repellant, and for heat. So the ground was not as dirty as one would expect!

The previous day we had had a late lunch in an Indian restaurant. Within a few hours I was nauseous and suffered all the following day. The next day was our scheduled visit to the Taj Mahal, India’s exquisite mausoleum dedicated by a Mughal emperor to his third wife who died during childbirth with their 14th child. I woke up terribly nauseated and would have stayed in bed except that I realized that this would be my only lifetime opportunity to see the Taj Mahal. It was also 104 degrees with dripping humidity. The building itself was larger than I expected only because I had so often heard how small it was. It appeared to be about three stories. We were told that we were fortunate because the air was clear and the view was good. In normal tourist season, the air is often polluted. We were asked to take off our shoes to enter, but I could not as the marble was too hot to walk on, so we got footies to cover our shoes. The mausoleum was crowded with Indian tourists. Suddenly I was overcome with nausea, ran to a corner where five Indian men were gathered, and promptly vomited on the flour of this pristine white marble building. I was humiliated, told myself that I would never see these people again, asked my friend to find the maintenance crew (no such thing), and I limped out feeling much better than when I entered. I’m attaching a picture, and while I’m smiling, that is not what I was feeling!

In the afternoon we visited a few more monuments and rested from heat exhaustion. The following morning we left for our six hour drive through mayhem back to Delhi and another day of sight-seeing.

The cost of this whole tour including out own private touring car and driver, guides, hotels and breakfasts, admissions, airport pickup and return was $611 per person. It was money well spent especially as I think about the crowded trains that passed us with passengers riding on the roof. (www.indianholiday.com)Sikh gurdwara in DehliAt Qutab Minar in Dehli

At Qutab Minar in Dehli -minaret constructed in 1193

Monkeys playing near President's home

Jaipur - the "pink" city

Working camels in the middle of town

Elephant ride at the Amber Fort - Jaipur

Reflection at the Amber Fort

Mughal home in middle of lake

Rickshaw delivering chickens

Closeup of chickens

Camels on road

Camels on toll road

Working elephant

Taj Mahal

Side mosque at Taj Mahal

At the Taj Mahal - the smile is a fake

Monkey resting 

This past week was significant as it marked the completion of half my Peace Corps service. We had a three-day conference at an Armenian sports resort, which we shared with the Armenian weight-lifting team (I was surprised at how short they were) and some wealthy families whose children (about 6 – 10 years old) were involved in competitive sports. (Crazy!) My team, the A-17s (17th group in Armenia), competed against the A-18s in kickball. We won, of course. The resort had a wonderful Olympic size swimming pool and I was in heaven as I kicked and pulled down the lanes. I was the only one with goggles and so was the envy of the other swimmers. The rooms were very nice. The food was really terrible. When I leave this country I never want to see another hot dog or processed meat in my life!

To add to my misery about processed meat that mainly comes from Russia, I was reading that when Australia culls its kangaroo herds and camel herds (that’s right) the Australians won’t eat the meat and so they send it to Russia for … processed meat! Now the European Union wants all meat products identified by source (Australia) and type (camel) so Russia most likely won’t be able to sell meat in Europe but they still will be able to in Armenia where there is almost no labeling on food products. I feel like a snob as I write this. I just want to know what I’m eating!

At the mid-service conference we had a language test (I did well), a physical exam (I’m in excellent health), and we got new water filters. The water filters are significant because there was a lot of discussion about water. My old one is really disgustingly dirty with lots of unidentifiable things in it. I now throw a capful of bleach in the water when I change it to keep the slime from growing. Ingesting bleach may kill me. Two of the volunteers were complaining about worms in their water filters. The water that comes out of my faucet is observably dirty. In spite of all this I have never heard stories of Armenians sick from the water.

After I moved into my new apartment, and spent too much time crowing about my water pump and access to water, my neighbor downstairs complained about the pump noise and cut the power cord to the pump. So my landlord moved the pump up to my kitchen where the noise and whine of the pump makes my teeth ache when I switch it on. Now I have water without the pump from 8 – 9 pm when the city turns it on, and I periodically have water with the pump when there is water “in the system.” I don’t really know what this last statement means. In Armenia 95% of those who study English at the university level are women. Armenian women know nothing about anything that has to do with “traditional” male fields, including household water pumps. So I need to find an English-speaking Armenian male who knows about water pumps. The task feels impossible. Right now I have a small tub full of soapy towels that I need to rinse out and hang before 8 pm tonight!

I have made many trips to the local hardware store with lists of things I need like two short screws, ten tiny screws, shelf paper, small piece of linoleum, paint, etc. Yesterday I needed two larger screws to hang a heavy mirror. (I am fortunate in that a friend sent me a selection of nails so I don’t have to deal with those.) Of course I did not study any of these words in language class so I need to study-up before I can go to the store. When I get there, the three men working there always jointly help me out as I realize that Armenian women never go to the hardware store and I’m an oddity. My Armenian amuses them. I know that “shelf paper” is not really made up of shelf and paper in Armenian.

Armenians never live alone. A male is not capable of taking care of himself. Some of our male volunteers don’t even have to do their own laundry because their Armenian host mothers know that they aren’t capable. (Just this last week one of our volunteers was commenting that she went over to her neighbor’s home to drop something off and the woman was spoon-feeding her two sons, eight and ten, because they “would not eat if she did not feed them.” If they were girls, she would let them go hungry.) It is very common to have three generations sharing a house. So every time I go to the store and ask for just two tomatoes, four potatoes, six carrots, etc., I have to explain that I live alone and can’t eat more. Then the sympathy starts: You live alone? Poor thing. (They don’t say this but I feel it.) So the two tomatoes, four small potatoes, and six carrots, which I bought yesterday for soup for 60 cents, left three women shaking their heads in concern for my singleness.

We received a group e-mail a few weeks ago about a used bus that a US government agency was giving away, did anyone want it? I immediately e-mailed back that I wanted it for the Shirak Regional Library, which serves five district libraries and 127 communities, as a book mobile. The library does not have a vehicle and they have to go by taxi to reach their regional branches. The PC told me that my idea for the bus was the best one they received. Someone at the Peace Corps suggested that I contact another NGO (Civilitas) which does library support about outfitting the bus, and then I found out that we have a new older volunteer with a masters in library science and lots of library experience. I e-mailed Civilitas which told me that the library had only received minimal funding because the director does not have a clear idea or plan about what he wants to improve. (This library is a miserable place and it serves thousands of people.) So I re-visited Gevorg, the library director, and told him about the bus. He was incredibly excited. Then I told him that I might be able to get additional help and funding for this project. He kissed and hugged me and ordered coffee. I talked about this project with the two volunteers remaining here and we decided that we would enroll the three new volunteers and make improving the library a group community project. I’m excited because this is a real need in this community.

So I’m in the fifth week of living in a fourth floor apartment. I go down and up at least three times a day and am getting stronger. I marvel at the three families on the fifth floor who all have small children to tote up and down. There are no buildings in Gyumri over five stories tall because there are no elevators or escalators and, under Soviet rules, buildings over five stories have to have elevators.

Gyumri has a lot of homeless dogs. During the day they are nearly invisible unless you go by the garbage collection spots where they go through all the garbage. At dusk they gather together and patrol the streets in packs. They don’t seem particularly threatening, but it is hard for me to relax around a pack of a dozen hungry dogs. Then we hear them barking and yelping, as if in pain, all night long. Some nights the cries are really disturbing. In Turkey all the dogs have tags in their ears. Woe to the dog who does not have one. I wish that Armenia would adopt that practice.

This picture was taken right outside my apartment door.  Women open up their family's bed covers once a year and wash the wool inside, then stuff it back in and re-sew the seams.  Right now the neighborhood is filled with scenes like this as the families get ready for winter.  I have contemplated opening my bed cover and washing the wool.  I continue to contemplate.

This is a typical apartment building in Yerevan.  Families own their own apartments and they make (or do not maintain) changes without regard to esthetics or value.  This building has vacant apartments on the top floor (probably the elevator does not work), at least one burned-out apartment, all different kinds of balconies, various painted facades, and various kinds of windows.  It is beyond ugly.

This is my local garbage spot.  The bins are emptied regularly but the area around them is not cleaned.  There were several cats and dogs in this garbage.  Note the dog on top.  Gyumri dogs can perform unbelievable athletic feats to get food. 

Last week I visited another volunteer who lives in Berd, a small town (7,000 people) in northeast Armenia very near the Azerbaijan border.  Berd originally had 32,000 residents in the Soviet era when it was a center for diamond cutting, shoe and clothing manufacturing, and wine and cognac production.  Rebecca was an emergency room nurse for many years in Florida.  She was assigned to an NGO which helps children with disabilities, but when it turned out that they wanted her only to bring in grant money and to teach English (her native tongue is Chinese and she did not feel comfortable teaching English grammar), Rebecca began making the village rounds with a female doctor.  The doctor serves three clinics in neighboring villages. Rebecca is leaving Armenia this month after two years.  Behind she will leave a medical lab that serves the three villages and a very close friend in the doctor who has relied on her for information and confirmation especially about heart and internal problems.  Armenians are very wary of their poor health care system and often patients only agreed to do what the doctor asked after they received assurances from Rebecca that the doctor was right.  We went to visit the lab, which is currently being constructed through grants Rebecca obtained.  The laboratory equipment has been paid for but is currently two weeks late in arriving.  The major improvement is that Rebecca got the mayor of the village to put in a water line to the clinic.  She threatened not to get the money otherwise.  (The clinic has existed for years without water. Can you imagine a doctor not being able to wash hands?  The outhouse was across the street.)  The clinic will only be able to do simple lab work but Rebecca says that even being able to do urinalysis will be a great help.  The next nearest lab is two hours away.

Berd is heavily forested and hilly, and it was very hot and humid.  It was a total change from dry, rocky, windy, cooler Gyumri.  Across the street from Rebecca’s apartment lived a crowing rooster and many chickens, two oinking pigs, and a barking dog that kept me up all night.  We left Berd at 8:30 in a shared taxi to return to Yerevan for a meeting.  The taxi arrived a few minutes early, unheard of in Armenia.  Then we began our four-hour trip back to Yerevan on narrow switchback roads that would challenge even the hardiest seldom-carsick passengers.  Our journey was an experience in itself. First, after a few minutes Rebecca realized that she had forgotten to turn off the water. She had no running water the day before; we had emptied all the buckets the day before and had not been able to wash that morning.  She had turned on the faucets hoping that we would get some water before leaving and then had forgotten to turn them off.  Her apartment would have been flooded when the water started flowing.  So we went back. Next we stopped to drop off her garbage.  All garbage has to taken somewhere (or people just throw it in the streets or rivers.) Next came a potty stop in the woods.  Then the driver made another stop to pick some yellow flowers which he said made wonderful tea.  Then we stopped at a gas station.  This took 25 minutes.  I absolutely cannot understand why it takes so long to put benzene in a car.  Passengers cannot remain in the car, the trunk has to be emptied to access the tank, and the hose is about ¾ inch thick.  It looks more like the hose we use to pump a bicycle tire.  In the meantime the driver picked more flowers for us as we stood out in the hot sun.

Next we stopped for Armenia (same as Turkish, strong tiny cup) coffee at a small roadside stand and sat outside.  I have never seen a take-away coffee cup in Armenia.  Then the driver insisted that we take pictures by a waterfall. Next we stopped at a statue of a deer because another passenger in our car wanted a picture of herself there. 

Lastly we drove off the road onto a winding dirt road through fields and stopped at a house where the driver bought fresh honey, which had to be laboriously ladled from a cylinder into a glass jar.  Then the hostess had to show us her beehives, which were so sweet because they are near an orchard of mulberry trees.  Miraculously we did arrive in Yerevan 4-1/2 hours later.  All these stops are typical of taxi rides in Armenia.  Just the week before three of us were in a taxi from Gyumri to Yerevan when the driver took us in the opposite direction to pick up a friend and then took us in another direction to go with that friend to the bank.  After twenty minutes of waiting we hopped out of the cab and grabbed another one to take us back to where we could catch another taxi to Yerevan.  Just as we were shutting the doors to the second taxi, the first driver came out of the bank and started yelling at us.  Our second driver would not take off until we had settled the matter with the first driver.  We explained that we were going to be late for our meeting, but in Armenia everyone is late for meetings so they really could not understand our problem. 

Moving into my Armenian apartment was the quintessential Armenian experience. I was buffered by many stores of similar other volunteer experiences, but somehow I knew that my story would be better. It was not.

The apartment had not been rented out for three years, since grandma died in her bed. The closets were still full of her clothes and all the drawers were full of her things. The apartment had not been painted in twenty years and was very dingy. Water was available two hours a day (which means that you have to be home at that time to flush the toilet, fill buckets for bathing, cooking, and drinking, and get as much done as possible. Forget work or any other obligations you might have.) There was no hot water. You had to heat water on the stove and carry it into the bathroom to bathe. I asked the owners to put in a water holding tank, put in a hot water heater, and to paint. They agreed. The Peace Corps approved the apartment. (They make sure there is no mold, the gas is properly vented, the doors have adequate locks, and that the windows cannot be easily entered.) The owners said that the apartment would be ready in two weeks. It was not ready the Saturday that we agreed on, but the next day they called to say that it would be ready on Monday. I made arrangements for the strong young men living in my house to help me move. Monday at noon we arrived to find a huge state of disorder. A man was painting, his wife was cleaning, and grandma’s clothes were still in the closets. I really wanted the apartment empty but as is typical in all Armenian rentals, the owners leave behind things they can’t store in their own homes. I did get her to take the clothes out, but the drawers are full, and a huge amount of unsightly stuff is stored in a corner. My big win was to get them to agree not to re-hang the cheap Armenian carpets.

The owners left at 11:30 pm Monday night. I was exhausted. As I woke up Tuesday morning, after a sleep deprived night as I couldn’t get used to the loud refrigerator, and looked at the ceiling, I could not believe I was in the apartment. The paint job could be topped by any three year old. But it is typical of so much that is done in Armenia to not take pride in your work. Professionals are never hired. If I brush against the walls, paint powder comes off on my clothes. No drop cloths were used so there is paint all over the cheap linoleum floors. (The linoleum is just laid down, not glued or tacked.) When I bathed in the teeny tiny tub, the water sprayed all over the bathroom from a joint that is not tight. The water heater is too small to provide enough water for a hot sit-down shower. The oven works, as they assured me, but the door does not shut. It has more than a one inch gap. Yesterday we had a huge storm, including hail, and all the windows leaked. The apartment only has one small sink, in the kitchen. The bath tub doubles as the clothes washing basin. Oh, my aching back!

I’m on the fourth floor, which means that every trip down involves carrying garbage, and every trip up involves carrying food or some other item. There is a small store within a few steps where I can buy the basics, but I find myself really wondering if I need something after previously going down and up five times.

On my third day here the neighbor from just below banged on my door to complain about water leaking into his apartment, the noise generated by the water pump, and how loud my refrigerator is. I called my landlord who came over and tightened a pipe with a wrench (it still leaks) and who then said he could not do anything about the other problems. So I'm dreading another door knock. Of course, these conversations are all in Armenian and I may have this information all wrong! For all this I am paying $108 a month (the most allowed by the Peace Corps) and about half that for utilities.

I’m in an excellent location. And aren’t the three most important things about real estate location, location, and location? I bought a table and an oven. So now I think that I can stay here for a year.

This is my living area.  On the right are the backs of the closets, on the left is a pile of "stuff" left by the landlord.  I bought the table and will need to get more chairs, somehow.

Another view of the living area and the "stuff" hidden behind a curtain, which was left by the landlord.  The green sofa/bed has storage beneath which is filled with grandma's things.

My bed.  Beneath it is a storage area filled with grandma's shoes and purses. The cabinets on the right do not close. All the joints are sprung.

The only sink in the house is in the kitchen, and it leaks so I have a bucket and towels beneath it. The two-burner gas stove actually works well but the oven door has a one-inch gap so it is useless (and it does not accommodate a 9X12 pan.)

Both the pipe to the bath and the toilet leak.  This is the tiniest tub I've ever seen. It sits on a wobbly steel frame. Armenians never use shower curtains so water gets all over. The buckets to the left are for hand-washing laundry. The toilet seat is a squishy cracked plastic. I've searched all over for a replacement that will fit. It is thing that bothers me most now. 

I had to throw this picture in. It is the "shower" at another volunteer's house. The tank in the center is filled with water and then wood is put in the stove below the tank, the wood is lighted, and voila!, after an hour you have a warm, not hot, shower.

Detail of the paint job in my apartment. I almost wish I had not asked the landlord to paint.

See the following website for an interesting discussion of the imbalance between males and females in Armenia. The links to The Economist are also worth reading.

Gender imbalances | The South Caucasus on the top of the list

http://www.crrccenters.org/news/?id=41

When I forwarded this article to a fellow volunteer, she said that it upset her and she mentioned how often people had said to her, “You only have daughters?” I have also received the same reaction. And then I don’t know how to respond in a culturally sensitive way, as I fight back my anger.

This favoritism towards males is very evident in families I interact with. The number of young males far surpasses the number of females. And volunteers who work in schools have huge issues with the immature and spoiled male students. Then just yesterday, my host sister expressed concern that her 20 year-old son who just came home from the compulsory military service, may go to Russia to find a job. My host mom’s two sons have lived in Russia for over twenty years. (One family has two sons, the other has a son and daughter.) So now I’m confused about the “value” of sons who leave the country, though they do send money, in terms of providing emotional and physical support in your old age.

Last week I met several interesting people in Armenia:

(Diaspora: A dispersion of a people from their original homeland. This includes Armenians in Glendale, CA and other parts of the US, and those in Russia, Italy, France, etc.)

The first person was a young woman who had recently graduated from the University of Vermont. She was spending a month in Gyumri. She is of Armenian descent, had studied Armenian through her church in the States, and comes from a family that has been actively involved in Armenian issues within the diaspora community. Her grandmother had been forced to flee this area during the 1915 Turkish genocide. We had a little heated discussion about the current state of affairs in Armenia. Her points were that America does not provide enough aid to Armenia (USA per capita aid to Armenia is the second largest in the world after Israel), that Turkey must apologize for the genocide and pay reparations, and that until this happens the status quo is OK. I feel strongly that this country receives too much ineffective aid, that the government is not committed to make the changes necessary for an effective economy (revising tax system, customs regulations, banking regulations, and consumer protections), and that the government is relying on the international community to help its farmers while expressing no interest in helping them itself. (Half of Armenians live below the poverty line. Two out of ten of them are extremely poor.) In a country the size of Maryland, it is surprising how few people have ever been out of this country, which would expose them to new ways of considering the world. The closed borders isolate this country from trade and cultural exchanges. The anger at Turkey and Azerbaijan is palpable here; an anger that dates from 1915 and 1992. Russia has a significant presence in Armenia (8,000 soldiers) as it patrols the closed Turkish border. I can’t help but feel that this situation is to Russia’s advantage as it keeps Armenia tied to it economically and Russia can maintain a military presence in the Southern Caucasus. Armenia is at war with Azerbaijan (an oil-rich country) which requires mandatory two-year military service for all Armenian males. Turkey has a fast-growing population of over 70 million versus 3 million in Armenia which is experiencing a low birth rate and significant outward migration. Armenia is on Turkey’s less-developed, poor, and Kurdish-populated eastern border. Other than because of pressure from the international community, it does not appear that opening the border is a Turkish priority. It has been 95 years since the genocide and the diaspora community seems more concerned about recognition than the fate of Armenia today.

The next day I met a woman in Gyumri who is an architect and a professor at Mississippi State University. She has been coming to Armenia since 1992 during the summers (while her husband teaches at the American University in Yerevan), is currently a Fulbright alternate, and is doing research on Gyumri’s historic houses with the goal of finishing a book and, hopefully, creating interest in preserving Gyumri’s historic homes. She has not been able to get the government interested at all. The current mayor of Gyumri is building a huge city hall, which will not have a tourist office, though he does have a “tourism” person whose focus is outdoor concerts. He is not interested in promoting the churches, historical homes, home stays, reliable maps, or signage that might draw tourists. During the 1988 earthquake, most of the Soviet-era buildings (1922-1988) were destroyed or suffered major damage. Homes from the pre-Soviet era survived, and many of those survived because of their vaulted foundations according to the architect. She talked about going into one of these buildings in the Gyumri city historic district where several families live. There was a courtyard with an outhouse shared by about thirty people and there was a single spigot for water from which all residents drew their water. She interviewed a mother and daughter who lived in a basement-like vaulted area in the worst poverty conditions she had ever seen. This “home” is less than 1/4 mile from the new obscene mayor’s office. We had a long discussion about corruption in Armenia. She was reading a Russian history book which brought up the subject. She said that the corruption is not a recent phenomenon. It has been a part of the culture of all Soviet countries since at least the time of the tsars (about 1500.). She feels that it is so endemic to this area that the custom of “payments” for services by public officials, jobs, political offices, grades, etc., can never be changed. She was also discouraged by how little improvement has been made in individuals’ lives since 1992.

In Yerevan, where I went for R&R, I met the American Embassy medical officer. This doctor and his New Zealand-born wife are tri-athletes (and they definitely looked the part) with three very small children. They do not live in the embassy compound because he said that they do not want to socialize with people he treats. They have actively embraced living in the Armenian community, which I really admire, because the compound would be so much easier. Then another man, an American doctor who is evaluating rural health care delivery systems in Armenia, joined in our discussion. This doctor said that Armenia has at least three times as many doctors as the country needs, and that the majority of these are very poorly qualified. (Current doctors graduated from high school at sixteen, then went to medical school for six years, and became doctors at 22.) These doctors are not “qualified” for internships or specialized study at any European or American universities or hospitals. Armenia is putting in place tougher requirements for a medical education but it is not limiting the entrants into medical school. Most graduates of medical school are not able to find jobs in their field. Diabetes is a huge issue in Armenia. The first doctor said that there are no endocrinologists, and that when doctors prescribe for diabetes they often do too little too late because they do not understand the disease. Another issue is “stones”, gall stones and kidney stones because of diet and because of the fact that most Armenians do not get enough fluids. They said that people suffer hugely from these stones. Another issue is the lack of diagnostic tools. Many tissue samples have to be sent to France for diagnostic purposes because there is little faith in the labs here. While there is a huge excess of doctors, there are very few medical technologists and pathologists.

Medical school graduates, who have “paid” for their grades, have to “pay” to get a position in an office or hospital. They recoup this expense by charging (off the records) their patients for services. As a result rural areas are under-served as these patients are often barely surviving and cannot afford to pay for supposedly free services. There are a few rural clinics supported or staffed by German and Belgian organizations, and by Doctors Without Borders. The second doctor said that Armenia pays about 1.5 percent of its budget for medical services which is the lowest of any country he knows of. (Just think about Medicare and Medicaid in the US.)

Yesterday (April 24th) was the 95th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, when the Ottoman Turks exterminated 1.5 million Armenians. The TV went on early in my family’s home and was tuned into a Yerevan station that showed a long all-day procession of people laying flowers at the Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan. In Gyumri there was a procession with flower-carrying people through the city to the main square where the local government was providing transportation to a memorial site, about an hour out of the city, where Turks had pushed Armenians to their deaths over a cliff at the time of the genocide. At three in the afternoon, with my family, I watched an excellent Italian movie about the genocide, which was dubbed in Armenian. (I was a little lost!)

Two days ago Armenia announced that they were dropping out of the protocols that were supposed to lead to an agreement to open the Turkish border because the Turks are asking for many preconditions before the border opens, which are unrealistic at this time, and which were not part of the original agreement. It’s hard not to feel disappointed because I think that the border opening would bring many economic benefits to Armenia. My family appeared relieved at this announcement.

I returned a few weeks ago from a vacation in Turkey and have had to restrain what I would like to say to the Armenians about Turkey. Turkey is a country with many problems, so I can understand why the EU is not jumping at the opportunity to admit them as members. At the same time it has a lot to offer Armenia. I am not sure that even an apology from the Turks would suffice for the Armenians who can’t forget the horrors of 1915 and who spend a great deal of time assuring that their children don’t forget it either. It’s hard for me to see how the grounds for respect, which are necessary for a beneficial relationship, can be laid.

I have been working with an NGO, helping them to get a new accounting software package up and running. In a few weeks I will be working with another NGO, again training users on a new software package. This process has been one of my greatest challenges, ever.

I have years of experience with accounting software implementation from a $6 million implementation of Oracle down to QuickBooks and in all kinds of environments, from manufacturing and distribution to non-profits. But accounting software in Armenia is so different.

When Armenia was part of the Soviet Union with its top-down planned economy there was a mandatory chart of accounts (COA), used as a planning device, for all enterprises. Fourteen percent of the average enterprise’s resources were tied up in collecting data. Because everything was state controlled and state owned there was no accounting system as we know it and also because “profit” was not the motive, their system could not be used for a capitalist system. In 1991 when the Soviet Union fell apart, Armenia had to institute its own accounting system. Of course, it was modeled on the Soviet system. So the COA, which is the framework on which accounting transactions hang, is mandated by the government. The mandated COA is entirely inappropriate and insufficient for the particular NGO I am working with which receives donor funds and provides services through various programs to the needy, such as a child care center, a center for disabled children, home services to the elderly, etc. You can imagine that these were not services tracked by the Soviet system.

Three of my favorite accounts on this mandatory COA are “Depreciation of long-lived saplings”, “Grown and fattened cattle”, and “Expenses on irretrievably received assets”. In the late 90’s Armenia adopted International Accounting Standards (IAS) officially, but in fact neither the government, the banks, nor businesses actually used them. In 2002, USAID funded a project to place the standards in use which involved training trainers, major businesses, banks, and the government. In 2005 USAID funded a project to translate the International Financial Reporting Standards (formerly IAS) into Russian because in this way other former Soviet countries could use the books and there would be a basis for measuring and certifying accounting knowledge. So fourteen books were translated in Yerevan into Russian and for Armenia a fifteenth was added, The Armenian Chart of Accounts. The task was far more difficult than anticipated because the Russian language did not include many accounting terms and concepts used by the IFRS. (Neither does Armenian which means that many items that would have one word in English involve long descriptions in Armenian.) Under IFRS entities can adopt their own COA within certain parameters. But the Armenian government decided to maintain something similar to the old Soviet COA because of pressure from government entities and especially the tax collectors who thought the old way was just fine.

The NGO I’m helping essentially uses just three profit and expense accounts. (Grants related to assets, Administrative expenses, and Main production) All income or expenses are put into these three accounts. Sub ledgers are maintained for the breakdown within these accounts. It means that ratio analysis is very difficult as is that quick glance to see if all utilities are included, because all expenses related to the programs are lumped into main production.

USAID started their project because Armenian financial information is not comparable to anything in the European Union or the US, which makes it difficult for investors and donors to analyze information and to determine if money is spent as they require. As a result many beneficiaries have to keep two sets of books, the mandatory one and one for the out-of-country donors and investors. The goal of USAID was to improve the investing climate and provide some transparency. Though the Armenian government says that their goal is the same, the reality is seems quite different. (Armenia is currently 38 on the Index of Economic Freedom with Hong Kong at the top and North Korea at the bottom at 179. The US is at 8. This is a huge improvement for Armenia.)

I think that the only hope will come as the younger generation learns the IFRS standards, becomes certified and licensed, and attends continuing education classes, a whole new concept in Armenia. This process has only been in place for three years. Traditionally accounting was seen as a bookkeeping function, and when it was taught in the universities, only one class was offered. The current group of bookkeepers trained in Soviet times is incredibly resistant to change.

Because the COA is of little use for traditional accounting and analysis purposes, I have to be very creative in helping to set up sub-ledgers to track the information we need. It’s frustrating when I know that there is a much easier way that I cannot use.

I was in a discussion meeting with a USAID (United States Agency for International Development) advisor and a group of mostly young people in Gyumri last week. The subject was corruption. The advisor listed several incidents of recent corruption in the US, starting with Rod Blancovitch, former governor of Illinois.

In Armenia people are affected by corruption from the day they are born. One young girl said that her mom told her that when she was born, she had to pay the nurses, who are salaried by the government, to care for her baby. Health care is provided by the government, but the reality is that people still have to pay for services that are supposed to be free. Doctors in Armenia are salaried at $200 a month which is difficult to live on and cannot provide the benefits to which they feel entitled. (I.e., car.) In addition they have most likely paid someone (the head hospital doctor) for the position they are in, money which they feel entitled to get back by charging patients for services that are supposed to be free. The additional amount that patients have to pay is not posted anywhere (because it is illegal), so the amounts charged to patients are inconsistent and are based on the doctor’s reputation and what he thinks the patient will pay. This is such a common practice that people do not even question it. I have heard my family discussing what they think they will have to pay for various services, and they chose the “cheap” doctor.

Teachers are also paid on the side by their students. Teachers often “pay” school directors to get their jobs. The school day is short. Teachers do not stay after school to help students, but they do tutor anyone who wants it for a price. The seventeen-year-old grandson who lives with my host family is currently paying three of his teachers for tutoring in hopes that he will get good scores on the university entrance exams in May. It is common practice for students to pay teachers for good grades. Some students at Yerevan State University posted a list of teachers and what you had to pay them for good grades last spring. It caused an uproar. University teachers are paid $200 per month as are many secondary teachers. The advisor asked those people at the discussion how they would feel about having heart surgery performed on them by a doctor who paid for his grades, and then paid for his job, so that there was no way of gauging his qualifications to do heart surgery. They were mute.

The Armenian government recently raised the salaries of police officers with the goal of reducing payoffs to the police by citizens stopped for “questionable” vehicle infractions. Everyone would acknowledge that they did not make a fair wage and these payments were the only way to make ends meet. People I talk to don’t think that this has been effective even though the government is threatening to prosecute policemen who take bribes.

The costs of doing business in Armenia are affected at all levels by corruption. The customs department has to be bribed to move imported goods into the country, the tax department can be paid off to look the other way, and people have to pay to expedite anything that the government has a hand in. Businesses keep two sets of books. Tax books for the authorities and another set of books that includes bribes paid and actual revenue, most of it paid in cash to escape the authorities who do not fairly tax businesses. Oligarchs and political friends of the government receive preferences. In Charentsavan last year a business which bottled water was shut down by the government for “tax” reasons though it was commonly known that the real reason was because the owner opposed an elected official. In Arzakhan where I lived last summer, a hot springs spa was shut down for tax reasons. The government said that the business owed $100,000 in back taxes. This was another political move. The government would not allow a successor owner to takeover the business unless the taxes were paid. The sum is ridiculous, which is obvious when you see the business, essentially an outdoors hot tub that accommodates about twenty people. But several people lost their jobs, and the community lost a minor tourist attraction. In the US an unrelated new owner would not be responsible for the debts of the prior owner and it would be in the government’s best interest to preserve the jobs and the revenue tax base.

Many businesses here hire relatives and friends who are not qualified for their jobs. Employees are not evaluated. Unrelated employees often have to pay to obtain their positions. Everything depends on who you know or who you can pay. This means that resumes have little value. Work experience is no reflection of whether or not you know what you’re doing. The work ethic is so lax that it is difficult to determine if a person is qualified for anything. Grades or a degree are not evidence of anything.

Armenia has been revising its school system over the past few years. A few years ago students were qualified for the universities after ten years of education. Then they spent four years at the university, which means that many students graduated from universities at 19 or 20 years. Medical school requires five years of higher education, so doctors graduate at 21 years. The system is now phasing in a requirement that students must attend twelve years of lower education, which is common in the European countries. Several reasons have been given for this change including a push from the European nations and the fact that students from Armenia are rarely qualified to study overseas for higher education.

Two years of military service is required for all Armenian males (though if you can stay in school until you are 28, you can get out of this requirement.) One of the volunteer’s was saying that her family was complaining because their son, who is in the military and who is paid approximately $25 per month for incidentals and cigarettes, ended up with very little at the end of the month because he had to pay commanding officers for supposed infractions.

I feel overwhelmed by the level of corruption in this country. I haven’t even touched the issue of the favouritism shown to oligarchs in this country. The last piece of news that stressed me out is that the amount of payments coming into Armenian from the Armenian Diaspora and foreign aid equalled what the oligarchs were investing outside the country in foreign real estate. They receive all these preferences and then do not reinvest in Armenia, which shows the lack of confidence they have in the Armenian economy. While corruption at the highest levels is a real problem, the fact that corruption is endemic at the lowest levels also makes the situation feel impossibly overwhelming. The USAID advisor suggested that in order to turn the ship around the young had to refuse to make the payments and participate in the corruption. But it was very obvious that they did not want to be sacrificial lambs and ruin their opportunities for jobs by doing so.

Last night we had borscht soup, two salads (beet and greens) and then Emma gave me a plate of a grain pilaf with a chicken leg which had been cooked with the borscht. Then she gave Albert a plate of pilaf with a small head, which had been cooked with the borscht. It was not a chicken head. (He eats sheep heads regularly, by himself with vodka.) It appeared to be a cat’s head based on the size though the nose was too long and the teeth were too sharp. Albert’s eyes lit up like two candle flames as he contemplated his delicious meal. I decided not to ask what it was for fear I’d get sick. (Today I wish that I had asked.) This is when life gets difficult, as I hold onto my stomach and try to be culturally sensitive, and not express my inner emotions!

I’ve had several friends ask about my work, which is a difficult subject to address because there have been so many downs and few ups regarding it. So I’ll relay what happened yesterday.

I went to a meeting composed of a delegation from Georgia representing CARE International in the Caucasus, CARD (Center for Agribusiness and Rural Development funded by USAID) from Armenia and several NGO (non-profit non-governmental organization) representatives. There were approximately thirty participants. The meeting was in Russian because it was the common language between the Georgians and the Armenians. A few people translated for me. The purpose of the meeting was “increased cross-border cooperation for sustainable rural development.” CARE is considering re-entering Armenia to facilitate rural development projects.

After lunch we went to visit a milk collection and cooling point which is part of a farmers union. The farmer in charge had been told that we were coming. When we arrived, the farmer and a few buddies had to push a welded-together vehicle, which they had been repairing, out of the small building so that we could see the cooling tank. The project had been funded by CARD. The inside of the building was filthy with dirt, a lot of engine grease, and a water hose (used to clean the tank?) lying in the grease. The cooling tank at the end of the building was empty because they had not been able to collect the milk yet that day. It also did not appear clean. I have toured the Carnation Dairy plant and the Alpenrose plant in Portland and remember pristine conditions and gleaming tanks.

I asked a ton of questions and received a lot of answers that I question. The milk is collected by the broken-down vehicle from eight points in the area. Two to three hundred cows are milked by farmers who then deliver this milk to one of the eight collection points twice a day. The milk is collected in these large white plastic containers (about 3 ½ feet tall by 2 ½ feet) and then is picked up by the collection vehicle and brought to the cooling point. Three times a week the milk is picked up from the cooling point by a major milk processor from Yerevan. The cooling point is paid twice a month by the milk processor and then the profits are distributed to the farmers. I was reeling as I thought about the inefficiency of the operation, the lack of quality control, the dirtiness of the operation, and all the food safety issues. The operation made no sense to me from a sustainability issue or as a step into the 20th Century for these farmers.

Which brings me back to lunch: Several weeks ago there was a television report regarding a wedding party at a restaurant in Gyumri where thirty participants went to the hospital for severe food poisoning and another ten were sent to Yerevan for especially severe problems. The news said that the problems arose from the salads. Our lunch was at a restaurant and there were two salads that did not look fresh, both with chicken and mayonnaise. So I could not eat them. Food safety is a huge issue in Armenia in my mind. The meat conditions at the local market are appalling and any American would be horrified at the way that bread is handled. (Never wrapped and pawed over by the producers, deliverers, food store clerks, and families. I’ve seen it dropped in the stores and put back on the shelves. But I’m alive. What else can be said?)

After this visit, we went to a manufacturing facility which is an NGO funded by several Americans (about 100 individuals and groups were listed) in 1989. This plant makes furniture, doors, windows, concrete building blocks, and pavers. I have visited and worked in dozens of similar manufacturing operations in the US. The building blocks were nearly identical to the ones I’ve handled in Mexico when volunteering with Esperanza in housing projects, except that they were available in colors (red, yellow, white, and the normal grey concrete color.) The furniture manufacturing area produced low-end desks, cabinets, doors, and chairs. There was a cloud of wood dust with no suction equipment to get rid of it and the workers were not wearing masks. There appeared to be no safety mechanisms on the cutting equipment, and lacquer was applied manually. There was no lacquer booth or spray equipment and no ventilation system was visible. Outside there was a huge wood drying kiln manufactured by a Portland, OR company. I was surprised by the humidity in the kiln.

In the block manufacturing building there was a large mixing machine where the sand, gravel, iron oxide (yellow) and concrete were conveyed up large belts to the opening and then to a machine composed of molds, cutters, and drying racks.

I had several impressions. The facilities were severely under-utilized, something that no company could afford in the US. It appeared that the equipment had not been updated since the initial installation. There was no new equipment. I saw no sign of re-investment. When I asked how the company marketed its products, since I visit lots of stores in Gyumri and had never seen them, I was told that they show in trade fairs. They do not advertise on television or have effective printed materials. I know from my past life that trade shows for building products are a very ineffective means of promotion. The big surprise was that the company is ISO9001 certified by a body I did not recognize. I am not sure that these kinds of projects, funded by generous American donors, are helping Armenia in any effective way. I see waste, poor management, poor promotion, and a business culture that is not helping the country. Where is the incentive for these companies that are funded by donations to improve?

My NGO organization would like to be involved in CARE’s entry into Armenia to promote local development. I’m not sure what my role will be. There are so many needs in this country and most projects funded by the US Government or individuals do not appear to be successes if we measure success by measuring sustainability and improvements to the country. Many projects revisited five years after implementation are failures.

I'm posting this itinerary in the hope that all my friends and family will consider a trip to Turkey. The "perfect" trip would include a third week gulet cruise (Blue Voyage) from Marmaris east on the southwest coast of Turkey.

Barbara Harrington

Staci 

Rebecca 

Turkey Itinerary

3/13, Saturday. Take bus from Gyumri to Istanbul (36 hours).

Leave from Gyumri center at noon

Cost: $70 one-way per person

3/14, Sunday. Arrive Istanbul around 8 pm.

Stay at Eurasia Hostel five nights. Cost: $19 per person per night including very good breakfast, excellent location. Recommended

In Private Triple Ensuite (with bathroom)(Tel: 90 212 518 13 06)

3/15 – 3/18, Monday – Thursday. Sightsee in Istanbul. Drink apple tea!

3/19, Friday. Fly to Izmir at 7:55 am (One hour) Cost : $297 for three. Note: This flight was $316 per person on Expedia. Buy all in-country air tickets in Turkey. Bus to Selcuk (1 ¼ hours) Consider renting a car for a week in Izmer. This is an easy country to drive in.

Stay at Hotel Bella for two nights Cost: $72 per night for three with excellent breakfast. HIGHLY recommended. (Tel: 90 232 892 39 44)

Visit Ephesus

3/20, Saturday. See Ephesus Museum, Isabey Mosque, St John’s Basilica, Temple of Artemis, House of Virgin Mary.

3/21, Sunday. Travel to Pamukkale (3 hours). Aydin bus = $16 at 9:15 am. See travertine’s, Hieropolis, hike around hot mineral springs. Overnight in Pamukkale at Venus Hotel, $49 for three with breakfast, recommended.

3/22, Monday. Travel to Konya (7 hours) by public bus, $19 per person. Visit Whirling Dervishes Museum

Stay at Ulusan Hotel (Tel: 0532 488 23 33) Cost: $49 for three, recommended

3/23, Tuesday. Travel to Cappadoccia (3 hours) 11 am bus, $16 per person

Eat at the Orient Restaurant and walk around Goreme.

Overnight in Goreme for two nights at Anatoliacave Pension. Cost: $40.80 per night for three persons. (90 384 271 22 21) Highly recommended.

3/24, Wednesday. Take all day “Green” tour of Cappadocia which includes underground city of Derinkuyu, hike in Ilharra Valley, and lunch for $33.

3/25, Thursday. Visit open-air museum of Goreme. After lunch hike in Love Valley from Goreme to Uchisar.

Travel to Kayseri (1 hour) by bus to catch 0:23 overnight train departure for Kars. Sleep on train.

3/26, Friday. Arrive in Kars at 19:31 Stay overnight in Kars.

3/27, Saturday. Kars to Gyumri

Catch bus from Kars to Posof (Georgia border crossing) (4 hours) Then short taxi ride to actual border crossing. A taxi will meet us at the border crossing and take us from the Posof crossing to Gyumri. Cost: $150. Taxi Driver: Nodar Mercede 99599703557

CALL DUTY OFFICER: 091 40 96 41 to let Peace Corps know you’re home safe!

When I was nineteen I traveled to Istanbul by overnight train from Salonika, Greece with several college friends. I remember the train ride as being creepy, the city in dark tones, a few amazing buildings, and the Grand Bazaar as being loud, confusing, and filled with hawkish leather merchants. So with not great expectations, more than forty years later, I went again. I LOVE Istanbul.

Immediate impressions were that it is spotlessly clean, friendly, easy to navigate, wonderful public transportation, inexpensive, colorful, lively, and very Western. And the food is delicious. People were wonderfully helpful and interesting. The tourist area was full of tourist buses with people from China, Korea, Japan, Spain, Italy, and the US. It appeared that few people, other than wonderfully adventurous students, traveled on their own to Turkey. But Turkey is a very easy country to navigate on your own.

I had just read a revealing book by Nobel Prize Winner Orhan Pamuk on Istanbul. He talks about the cloak of melancholy that all Istanbullus wear, the feeling that their once great city, the center of civilization, peaked in 1453 with the Fall of Constantinople, and that they can never achieve those heights again. The Byzantines disappeared and the Ottomans never achieved as much. I asked several people if they had read the book, and how they felt. All agreed with Pamuk. You can feel this tension in the city. This mix of Christian and Muslim. Five times a day loudly recorded prayers are broadcast from the city’s mosques reminding Muslims to pray. While 98 % of Turks identify themselves as Muslims, I suspect, after reading Pamuk’s book, and observing the Turks that the number practicing their faith is far smaller. At the same time the Turks are quietly respectful of the importance of the country’s Christian heritage and the amazing buildings and art resulting from this connection. (I was surprised at the number of Turks who asked us if we visited Meryemana, Mary the Mother of Jesus’ home until her assumption into heaven and a popular pilgrimage site. I had no idea it was near Ephesus.)

There are fifteen million residents in Istanbul. It is an immense city situated on hills facing the Bosphorus Strait which we cruised by public ferry, a highlight of our trip. We had Rick Steves’ Istanbul guidebook, saw all the required sites, wandered the streets, enjoyed the delicious food, and soaked in the atmosphere. Highlights were Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace, the Grand Bazaar, the Mosque of Suleyman the Magnificent, the Underground Cistern, the Chora Church Museum, the Spice Market, a Turkish bath, and a non-fat no-foam latte from Starbuck’s. (Actually Gloria Jean’s, from Australia, is better!) There are more than a week’s worth of sites and experiences to enjoy in Istanbul at a very reasonable cost. (See my “Itinerary” post.)

(Olives in Spice Market)

From Istanbul we flew to Izmir and bused to Selcuk to see the Ancient Greek ruins of Ephesus, which felt very humbling. We had fabulous weather.

(Ephesus public toilets)

(Ephesus Library of Celsus))

(Rebecca in Roman Theater)

(Storks nesting outside our hotel room)

Two days later we took a public bus to Pamukkale to see the bizarre geological formations of cascading hot mineral springs. Then we traveled to Konya, the center of Sufism and the home of the Whirling Dervishes founded by the poet Mevlana Rumi in the 13th Century, to visit the Mevlana Monastery. This city has more mosques per capita than any other city in Turkey. We noticed that with the exception of one other woman, we were the only women not wearing headscarves or burkas.

(Pamukkale)

From Konya we took the bus to Cappadocia a surrealistic landscape of weird geological formations caused by wind and water erosion of volcanic material. We spent three days visiting underground cities, monasteries, and hiking. Cappadocia is one of the most amazing places I’ve ever seen.

(Cappadocia view)

(Staci in Valley of Love.  Can you see why it is called this?)

From Cappadocia we headed back to Armenia by overnight train to Kars, a journey of 19 hours. A new experience was trying to use a Turkish toilet (squat) on a rocking bumping train.

I had so many “aha” moments on this trip. Remember Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians or the biblical mentions of the Cappadocians? It just felt so strange and humbling to be walking in these ancient areas and reflecting on all the changes that have occurred, and wondering if we’ve really improved the world. You can’t help but feel that the answer is in many ways yes, and in many ways no.

I just returned from an incredible two-week trip to Turkey.  Two other volunteers and I saw the major tourist sites and much of the country from the perspective of volunteers who had not been out of Armenia in ten months at least. Making the arrangements to travel was a very difficult process.  Besides needing to let the Peace Corps know where we were going to be at every minute, when often we did not know, we had the issue of crossing the border to Turkey.  I can see Turkey to the west from where I live in Gyumri, a few kilometers away.  But because the border is closed we had to take about an eight-hour detour east and north to Georgia through the capital of Tbilisi, then west to the Black Sea which we followed most of the way to Istanbul.  The bus ride was 36 hours.  We wanted to bus to Istanbul and take the train back to eastern Turkey, but were originally told that we had to buy a round trip bus ticket and carry $1,000 because the Turkish government had recently put in this rule since they have a serious problem with Armenians going to Turkey and remaining illegally as they look for jobs.  (I’ve also been told that the issue is with the Armenian government, which is concerned about the outward emigration from Armenia.)  The bus company did not know how to handle American travelers so we had to search for a company that would sell us a one-way ticket. There is a lot of talk about opening the border between Turkey and Armenia, and in fact it appeared that this might be happening several months ago.  But “opening” the border involves more than just opening gates.  The current roads to and through the border into Georgia are unbelievably awful.  Leaving Armenia and entering Georgia is an arduous task at two different gates.  The roads leading up to and away from the border are often gravel, dirt, or so severely pot-holed that travel commences at less than twenty miles an hour.  And the roads are so twisty and winding through river canyons or on the tops of snow-covered mountainous fields that you feel even God has abandoned these places.  The point is that very little attention or money has been devoted to these crossings.  The experience is tortuous. From Kars, Turkey, the nearest town to Gyumri (89 kilometers if the border were opened), we had to travel north to Georgia over an often-graveled road that climbed a hill topped out by snow at 8,400 feet.  I hesitate to call it a mountain because it looked more like a huge wind-swept snow-covered hill than a sharp rocky mountain mass.  At the Turkish-Georgia border (Turkgozu crossing), the rifle-armed Turkish guards stamped our passports and then the Georgia guards checked our passports and our luggage.  The crossing buildings consisted of four small trailers, a large storage shed, and an outhouse.  But both border agents were hooked up to computers, scanned our passports, and took our pictures.  Then three hours later, after traveling on a very difficult road in a valley alongside a river (and seeing several castles or maybe monasteries), we arrived at the Georgia-Armenia border (Bavra crossing) where we went through the same process again, though this time there was snow and ice on the ground, a very strong wind, and it was about 35 degrees.  (You always have to get out of the car/bus at these crossings.)  So it took us from 9 am to 4:30 pm or 7.5 hours to cross the border. The border crossing from Armenia to Turkey near Gyumri, which is also the most direct route to Ankara and Istanbul from Armenia, has not been used in more than twenty years.  People here say that the roads and bridges are not passable.  I’ve seen a picture of the little two-lane bridge at the nearby crossing here (about five kilometers away) and it is inconceivable to me that it could handle a semi, and certainly not two semis side by side.  So even if the two countries could come to an agreement that they could abide by, it would still be at least a year or longer before the infrastructure would be set up to allow the opening to happen, and that is assuming that each side improves their roads, bridges, and customs/emigration stations.  I think that we are talking about years, as Armenia has no money for infrastructure.  We were stunned by the differences between Armenia and Turkey.  The most notable was how clean and well-maintained Turkey was.  In Armenia people dump their trash (and cars) in any vacant spot; in rivers, streams, fields, streets, etc.  The people do not see “trash” as their responsibility.  They also do not maintain the outside of their homes generally.  Those who own their own apartments feel free to do anything to make their apartment their own without regard to their neighbors.  The result is some of the ugliest apartment buildings imaginable.  Turkey felt spotlessly clean, and beautiful.  Apartments and houses were well maintained and landscaped.  And they were painted in wonderful Mediterranean colors.  There were lots of parks and nice public spaces.  And there is a lot of landscaping alongside roads.  It is obvious that there is a major effort to plant trees. Another huge difference was signage.  It is easy to find your way around Turkey.  Roads, cities, towns, streets, and businesses were identified attractively and well.  (Better than in the US.)  It helps that in 1928 Turkey replaced the Arabic script by adopting the Latin alphabet (though they don’t use the q, x, and w).  Some of the letters are pronounced a little differently and they have a few enhancements but if you can’t say it, you can write it, and they will understand where you want to go.  In Armenia it would be fair to say that signage does not exist.  To make matters worse many streets have both Armenian and Russian names and some people don’t know both.  When I first arrived and was distressed about the lack of signs I was told that “everyone” knows the name of this or that street.  I quickly learned that I was not “everyone.” Turkish people generally have very good teeth.  We did not see either missing teeth or gold teeth, which are prevalent in Armenia.  In Armenia about 30% of small food stores are devoted to candy and cookies, something that we did not see in Turkey.  It is very clear that Turkey has a one foot planted loosely in Eastern culture and one foot planted firmly in Western culture.  Many times I was surprised as I watched a group of young people in Istanbul and thought to myself that they looked as if they were from Southern California.  Armenia’s closest ties are to Russian culture and the difference is startling as it effects dress, manners, and their view of the world.  My host mother’s father was from Kars, Turkey and several times she has talked about the pain of her family’s forced march from Kars.  And about how bad the Turkish government has treated the Armenians.  So when I walked in the door from my trip I had a difficult time talking about it.  I did tell them that I enjoyed it a lot.  I have not told them how nice the people were and how clean the country was. Very few people in Armenia travel.   Armenia is about the size of Maryland with 3 million people.  Turkey is about the size of Texas with 70 million people.  Free trade with Turkey and exposure to their Western outlook (as opposed to the Russian influence) can only work to Armenia’s advantage.  I would sure like to see the border opened.  Wording regarding the genocide issue seems to be the current  political holdup.

This past week was Peace Corps Week internationally. With that in mind my community of volunteers planned educational projects at four locations around Gyumri. The first was at an orphanage close to my house, which has about 80 residents from the ages of 4 – 18. I find the place incredibly stressful because of the aggressive behavior of some of the residents and the chaotic feel of it. But we have one volunteer who spends a lot of time there helping kids with their English lessons, and playing games, who as a result has really connected with the kids. As we were getting ready to leave one of the boys, about 16, came into the room we were in with a beer and a smoking a cigarette. In the few hours that we were there we never saw an adult who appeared to be in charge. Fortunately not too many kids showed up for our activities, because the ones who were there were a handful. A constant topic of discussion among us is the cheating that goes on at schools, and even in simple games there was an incredible amount of cheating (as there is in society in general in the way students pay for grades, people “pay” for jobs, police are paid off, etc.) So the struggle was to prevent students from “peeking” under their blindfolds, or preventing other students from “helping.”

(Elizabeth with a student. Typical ceiling fixture, even in my home.)

The second location was an afterschool program for at-risk low-income children, which includes counseling for the children and single parents, a hot meal (often the only one all day), English classes (which the moms are especially exited about because they cannot afford tutors), and job training for the moms. The Catholic Church donated the location, an ex-seminary. The facility is wonderful as is the staff. The program is funded by Caritas of Germany. These children were delightful. (Finished masks.

Amanda with decomposition group. 

Judy with students making masks. )

The third location was a school in a small town where a Peace Corps volunteer teaches environmental education classes. The school itself is in miserable condition. There is a terrible stench of urine as you walk in the door. There is no running water in the bathrooms. It is in desperate need of repair. The children and staff were great. We were invited to a children’s performance of spring speeches, songs and dances. It was unbelievably long for kids who were about eight to ten years. They had memorized material that must have taken months. But then the education system here is based on rote learning. After the performance we started our activities.

(Showing off masks.)

(Students on stage for music performance.)

The activities consisted of “Pin the Toothbrush on the Mouth”, making facemasks, which represented endangered species, a food pyramid chart where you tried to guess the healthy foods and their importance, and an activity about waste decomposition. We had a few planning meeting where we eliminated some ideas as being too difficult or too time consuming. We talked about hygiene but felt hampered by the fact that many kids do not have running water in their homes, many use outhouses, and most never see a dentist. So we had to be culturally sensitive to these conditions, which makes it difficult to talk about washing your hands before meals and after using the toilet, and brushing your teeth. Mentioning bathing at all was not possible. (Body odor is a huge problem in Armenia.)

Most of the kids cheated playing the pinning game by looking under the mask. When we “pushed “ their heads down a friend inevitably shouted out directions. The kids had no concept of a food pyramid, so that required a lot of explanation, in Armenian. (Sugar is a major health problem here. Candy and sweets take up 35% of every food store. Diabetes and heart disease are rampant. Tooth decay is prevalent, even in the youngest kids.) Recycling and waste management are nearly unheard of. There has just been a push by a US company here to start recycling so that is a difficult concept for kids to grasp. And in the endangered species activity, most kids at a table copied another child so there was very little originality. There are several endangered animals and fish here as a result of deforestation, water management errors, and pollution. One of the volunteers had his mom send over toothbrushes and toothpaste, so those were the prizes for all participants.

We have one more location to visit, in a rural village. I certainly learned a lot. If we could just tackle one of these issues and make a difference, there would be a major benefit to the country.

February 17, 2010

Two weeks ago I went with the Peace Corps doctor to a clinic to have an ultra-sound after months of mild diarrhea about twice a week, and after several rounds of antibiotics, probiotics, oatmeal and yogurt, and strictly adhering to guidelines for filtered water. The first day I went my stomach was all lubed up, the technician went to work, and then he asked me if I had eaten breakfast. I said yes, and he turned off the machine and said that I should have come in with an empty stomach. I just looked at the PC doctor who failed to tell me this fact. I went back five days later, and he found nothing.

But what was interesting were the signs on the clinic halls. They were in Russian first, then Armenian and then English. There was an andrologist, a sexopathologist, a sonagrapher, a scientific nurse, a therapeutist, and a gynoecologist. The last one was the only one that I understood. I saw the sonagrapher who I would have told you, out of this situation, had something to do with finding things in the ocean. My exam cost $13 and I would say that this man was technically competent, though I know nothing about these things.

When you walked into the clinic, you checked in at the front desk and then went down the hall to sit in the next chair in line in front of the room of the person you were seeing. First come, first served.

Just after this experience, I was walking around Yerevan to get some air, and went into a hotel gift shop where I met an American woman who had recently moved to Armenia with her Armenian husband of ten years. He is a concert pianist and wanted to come back and spend time with his family. She had never been to Armenia and was still in a state of shock about the conditions she found here. I mentioned that I had just come from the clinic, and she teared-up as she related her experience in the hospital shortly after she came here, when she had to have a D & C for menopause problems. She said that she felt the staff was incompetent, the room was dirty, the sheets had been used, and on and on. As she left the hospital she was crying hysterically, and at this point does not know if she can go on in Armenia. Part of the problem is that she went to a bad hospital. Next time I am in Yerevan I am having dinner with this woman and her husband.

Just the week prior to my medical experience, and the week after I recovered from bronchitis, my host mother’s nephew died of the flu. He was 45 years old. He went into the hospital on a Monday and died on a Wednesday. His mother was at our house the Saturday before he died and Emma asked me to bring out the medicine I had been taking for bronchitis. I showed it to her, she made a few notes, mentioned that her son was sick, and then I heard he died. I was crushed.

The body was brought to her house and lay there until Saturday when it was transferred to the cemetery. The women sat around the body (open casket) for days on end, and the men stood outside smoking and talking. Bodies here are not embalmed, so the air was pretty foul by Saturday.

My 2.5 hour visit in the hotel bar with the American woman made me realize how fortunate I am to have fellow volunteers to gripe to and share with when I think I’m going to go crazy with all kinds of things. (The latest is that we only have water for one hour in the morning, 7 to 8. Since the bathtub is the water holding-tank for five people, not including the toilet, my turn to bathe comes around not more than once every four days. Clothes have not been washed for weeks. I am the only person in my house bothered by this. There is a solution: a holding tank and pump, but they cannot afford it.)

On the sunny side, it is 42 degrees outside, all our snow is gone, though the mud is incredible. A good friend sent me an electric blanket and I have a toasty bed at night though I had to plug the blanket into a converter and warning flashes go off all the time. In Armenian, we say “Voch eench!” (Who cares!) Such little things make life good.

January 17, 2010

Yesterday my host family had a large khash party. Khash is made from cow’s hooves (legs) and tripe (cow intestines). It is absolutely the worst thing I have ever eaten in my life!

Khash is a very traditional soup for this region of Armenia. Three days before the event Emma (host mom) bought two cows’ legs and tripe, which was in a large rectangle about ½ inch thick and white and gelatinous. Albert (host dad) scraped the hairs off the legs and then cut them across into about three inch sections. Then the leg pieces and tripe were soaked overnight. The outer dark part of the hooves then separated from the bones. Then they were boiled for a short time, the water was changed, and they were set to boil overnight in a huge pot of water over several gas burners. The smell was terrible. Early yesterday Emma cut the tripe up into smaller sections and added a few spices (garlic and pepper) to the pot.

The party began at one in the afternoon. Each guest was served a bowl of the soup with a section of the leg in it and a piece of tripe. It had absolutely no flavor until you added garlic and salt. It was also extremely greasy from all the fat. Guests tore up small pieces of lavash (like tortillas) and put it into the soup, to give it the consistency of mush with chewy lobs of fatty gelatinous tissue in it. There was no meat to speak of. I am the only person in the group who did not think that this meal was nirvana. Lots of vodka was consumed. Albert was in heaven!

(Below: Bowl of khash soup, men eating and drinking lots of vodka, desert: fresh fruit, dried fruit, bowl of nuts, bowl of candies, and pastries from New Year's!)

(Expectant men, kitchen preparations, home canned cauliflower, okra, and unknown things, and food accompaniments.  Note "green" string cheese in left side of picture, a Gyumri specialty!)

January 15, 2010

I was sick this last week with bronchitis. In early November I was given a mandatory flu shot, and then about ten days ago was inoculated against H1N1, so I thought I was safe against all things viral (and bacterial.) I was wrong.

So I languished in bed hacking violently for five days until I called the Peace Corps doctor. She asked me to go to the pharmacy for Ciprofloxin ($1.97), an antibiotic, and Broncholytin ($1.45), a narcotic cough suppressant. Within hours I felt remarkably better.

The pharmacies here have exactly one of each item. The pharmacist took a foil wrapped pack of ten Ciprofloxin pills out of a small box, and placed them with the bottle of Broncholytin into a small plastic bag, and I was on my way. There were no instructions about when/how to take the medication, side effects, or anything else. The Broncholytin bottle has writing in Bulgarian and Russian and the Ciprofloxin pills had writing on the foil that said Ciprofloxin, though no expiration date or lot number. This felt a little disconcerting for someone who likes to be able to read about what she is taking. No prescription was involved and the doctor did not talk to the pharmacist. If the next person in the door needed the same thing, they would be out of luck. The pharmacy is right across the street from the main hospital.

So everyday my host mom made many cups of green tea and soup for me with lots of garlic. Garlic is good for everything that ails you. My favorite was a warm yogurt soup with green onion, a little rice, and garlic. But by the end of the third day my pores were exuding garlic and I felt as if I smelled foul. To add to my woes, my host mom would not let me bathe because you should not bathe when you are sick. I even heard her telling the Peace Corps doctor that she had not let me bathe, like she was my savior! On the seventh day I bounded out of bed, announced that I was very well (even though I still felt unwell), and was able to coerce her into a bucket bath. Afterwards was the best I had felt in a week.

On the seventh day I went out and did a few errands, though I still had a slight cough and a little congestion. I had to go to the VivaVell store (like Verizon) to see why my modem was not working (out of megabytes) and to the phone repair center (“washed” my phone) just to find out that I needed to buy a new one, so I was off to the phone store. But I coughed slightly and had to blow my nose at each place and I am fortunate to be able to relate this story to you because in Armenia no one coughs and no one blows his or her nose. I am not kidding. I received glares that should have killed someone in my condition. People do not go out when they are sick! And they do not go to work either. Several weeks ago in church an older man blew his nose hard during the service, and everyone in the church turned and stared at him. I was amazed at the time about their reactions. That should have been my clue! (They do subtlety wipe their noses on their sleeves, but you never see tissues.)

Getting medical information here about people’s conditions is nearly impossible. They just don’t talk about it. One of the volunteers said that her host mom’s sister was not feeling well. So the doctor told her that she could either take some pills or have a hysterectomy. (I can’t imagine being offered the same alternatives in the US.) The volunteer is still trying to find out what the problem is. Another village volunteer’s host sister (20 years old) was not feeling well so the doctor came to the house and took vials of blood out of her arm and injected them into her buttocks along with aloe in the buttocks. Again the volunteer tried to find out what was wrong and was not able to. Though the girl is fine now so the “cure” worked. Another girl’s uncle (57) was not feeling well, went in for surgery, and died on the operating table this week. When I asked what the problem was, she said that he was not feeling well. I asked if he had cancer, heart problems, intestinal problems, etc. No, he just didn’t feel well. We hear horror stories here everyday about women who sat on stonewalls, chilled their ovaries, and had to have female surgeries. Or people who did not wear their slippers, got cold feet, and died of something. There are huge numbers of unemployed doctors, a totally broken medical system, and very poor training. We had one volunteer here who was sent to an eye doctor in Bangkok for what turned out to be a non-event (broken blood vessel in back of eye) because the Peace Corps does not trust the eye doctors here.

So I’m taking extra caution here on the icy streets in fear of breaking something and having to go to the hospital, and then finding out that I need surgery on some unrelated body part!

January 10, 2010  There was a recent excellent article in the New York Times (How to Train the Aging Brain, 1/3/10)  “… stretching is exactly what scientists say keeps a brain in tune: get out of the comfort zone to push and nourish your brain.  Do anything from learning a foreign language to taking a different route to work.”  Well I don’t equate learning a foreign language to taking a different route to work.  I immediately sent off e-mail to one of the professors quoted in the article outlining my frustrations with learning Armenian.  She responded, saying that I was not the only person to e-mail her on this subject, with some suggestions of places to get resources.  (Google: adult second-language acquisition.) The news was all “bad.”  There is absolutely no empirical evidence that older adult learners cannot learn a language as well as a college student.  It is NOT true that the ability to learn declines, as we get older.   (The aging brain does not lose 40% of brain cells!)  It is true that young children can achieve near native language tonal sounds while adults have difficulty because they often don’t hear as well, but aside from this, adults learn and understand languages faster than children.  But there are three factors that seriously impact older adult learning.  If these factors are adjusted for, the older adult is able to learn just as well as younger persons. These factors are motivation, self-confidence (fear of failure), and anxiety.  We are all motivated to learn Armenian.  This is not a factor for us.  “Self-confidence” plays a part in that I want to get it right, and will hesitate to say something if I’m unsure of the grammar.  “Anxiety” (stress) is a factor in that often I can’t pull the right word out of my brain, though I often know it, so the frustration level is high.  So one helpful suggestion is to reduce the focus on error correction.  (I often go back and correct myself immediately after I’ve said something.)  Memorizing long lists of verbs is not helpful as my short-term (rote) memory skills are not as good as my long-term skills.  (I find that I can remember that a word is the 4th one down on a list and the corresponding English equivalent is the 4th down, and so I put them together.  Off the list, I can’t remember.) Carrying around a notebook and writing down new words or phrases I hear, and then looking them up or getting help understanding them is most helpful, because these are the words and phrases I hear daily.  I was half-panicked all summer with 4.5 hours of Armenian classes six days a week for eleven weeks, and at least an equivalent amount of homework each day.  We had drills, oral conversation where we had to speak about specific topics, tons to memorize, etc.  Adults learn best in a less stressful environment where they are not put on the spot and where they are allowed to absorb the material.   Speed is not my forte. So I am trying to relax and focus on communicating and not on “getting it right.”  I’m working on vocabulary lists I’ve created from what I hear, not those strictly from the book, and I’m listening harder for the meaning of conversations instead of for specific words.  And life is better. But I still wonder if the empirical data is correct.  I’m amazed at how fluent some of the “just out of college” kids are!  

January 9, 2010

January 6th was Christmas Day in Armenia, and my expectations were running high.

On Christmas Eve, four volunteers and I met in Gyumri’s main square for a candle lighting celebration. It was a very cold day (20 degrees) and the streets were deadly with ice. Outside the main Armenian Apostolic Church, people were selling candles and holders (Coke, Sprite, etc., plastic bottles with the bottoms cut out) for 53 cents. (This answers the question I had about seeing so many people rummaging through public waste bins and gathering plastic bottles.) We each bought one and headed into the church. There was a service going on but at least a thousand people were talking and pushing their way in to light their candles at the candle offering stands. We lighted ours and walked outside, and then decided to get something to eat. So as we walked into the restaurant to have beers and pizza (very mediocre) we put out the candles. On leaving we lighted our candles again, using a volunteer’s match, and walked home. My family was thrilled that I brought them a lighted candle from the church. They promptly used it to light four other candles and then got another one out of a drawer for me so that I would have “blessed” light all evening!

(Mass on Christmas Day.  Note Bishop's mitre, staff, and medallion. Also note manufacturer's label on red water bucket.)

On Christmas Day, I left the house early for Mass knowing that the church would be crowded. I was so disappointed. The church was sparsely filled; there were no Christmas decorations, no nativity scene, no changes at all. As the Mass started the church began to fill with latecomers. The Mass was no different than any other Sunday. The service and music were the same. The bishop offered the Mass, but there was no sense that this was anything other than a normal offering. At the very end, tubs of water were blessed, and people filled up their empty soda bottles with the water to take home.

(People crowding up to get their "blessed" water.)

As I passed by the main square, I saw a crowd of people jostling at a platform. Again people were selling empty plastic bottles. At the platform, people were handing up their water bottles to be filled with water spewing from a faucet with a gold cross above it. Nearby was a city water truck (to refill the water tank?) I did not feel like buying an empty bottle, or pushing through the crowd. So I went home empty handed and as I walked in the door, my host Mom asked me if I had brought blessed water.

(Gyumri's Christmas tree.  Note water tank on left and crowd to get "blessed" water on right.  The snow is for real!)

My Christmas Day at my host family’s home was no different than any other day. It was hard not to feel a little depressed in this "Christian" country.

One thing that surprises me about Armenia is that people do not take labels off of things. For instance, our toilet bowl still has the large manufacturer’s label plastered to the tank, and it must be 20 years old. All the glasses we used for the six days of New Years had the small sticky labels still on them. Everyone’s computers still have all the manufacturer’s labels on them. We have several small buckets around the house for garbage and water that still have all their original labels. And this was true at every home I was in over the past week. And where this really struck me was at the candle lighting and the “water filling” where everyone’s holders advertised Coke or Sprite or Jermuk (fizzy water).

January 4, 2010

Only two days to Christmas, and it’s the fourth day of a week long New Year’s Celebration in Armenia. At my host family’s home we have had a constant stream of visitors from late morning to late at night. The dining table is laden with food and drinks, most especially alcohol. Every visitor is seated at the table and then “given” a plate full of food. The food consists of dolmas, meat crepes, ground chicken rolls, various fresh fruits, dried candied fruits, various cheeses, various meats (ham, salami, unrecognizable items), mixed nuts, and more homemade pastries than you’ve ever seen. Oops, and I forgot the ubiquitous bowl of candies.

Today it is snowing, and there is about seven inches of fresh light snow on the ground. It is absolutely gorgeous outside. My family left to go and visit more relatives and friends. So I’m alone and it is wonderful that I don’t have to eat anything! Yesterday we visited five neighbor and family member homes, and at every home a plate full of food was put in front of me. And all of it was exactly the same food as we are offering here. It is inconceivable to me that we could have a six-day open house in the US where every home offered the same food.

Last Saturday another volunteer and I went to the home of our Armenian tutor (who does not speak English) and ate with the tutor, her mother, and a cousin. The mother works as a cook in a restaurant by our international airport (which has two flights a week to Russia.) The tutor works in the local high school as a translator of “Old Armenian” into new Armenian. Their home was at the end of a path through incredibly run down homes. The very small home had a small gas heater that heated the three rooms, no hot water, though running water in the bathroom that had to be carried to the kitchen. Carpets hung on the walls for decoration and insulation. The house has had no fixing up probably in thirty years. And yet there was this beautifully laid table with all the foods mentioned above. At the end I had never eaten so much in my life, and promised not to eat for another week; a promise that lasted until I got home and food was again thrust on me.

Many Armenians go into debt to celebrate the New Year. Welcoming friends and offering lavish food is a sign that all is well, even when it is not. No one brings hostess gifts. They reciprocate with visits to each other’s homes.

For really special guests, my host dad brings out his homemade vodka, which is 70 proof, incredibly smooth, and stored in canning jars. There have been many medical warnings about this home vodka, which has caused all kinds of problems including stomach, which require hospitalization. The everyday vodka on the table has a label that says “Siberian Vodka.”

To celebrate our American Christmas, I traveled to Kapan in the south near the Iranian border, and had dinner with 23 volunteers. We went to Sue’s house, which is up a steep cow path in a high mountain village just outside Kapan. The view was incredible, as was the hospitality. It was a fun day.

(Trekking up to Sue's house. View from Sue's deck.)

I stayed at another volunteer’s home in an apartment just outside Kapan. She had the most interesting water heater (that I regret not taking a picture of.) It was in the bathroom, and consisted of a tall narrow water tank mounted over a small wood-burning stove, with the faucet (directed over the bathtub) located between the tank and stove. So all you had to do to bathe was to get the fire going!

Kapan housing consists of all Soviet era apartment buildings, which are built along the mountain walls. The buildings are different from anything I’ve seen before in Armenia. The town subsists on local mining operations for precious metals though it is currently in trouble as the world commodity prices for metals are down.

(Kapan apartment houses.  There are few single family homes in this town.)

Kapan is on the main route between Armenia and Iran. The two-lane road is in unbelievably poor condition with lots of potholes and washed out sections of the road going over high mountain passes. Iran is a very important trading partner with Armenia as evidenced by the many trucks bearing Iranian license plates (which means those unrecognizable Iranian numbers.)

(Views of the market in Gyumri before New Year's Day.)

September 5, 2009

Hi All,

This has been an interesting week with everything that has happened.

Tuesday I went to Yerevan for my second dentist appointment. Somehow I broke two teeth shortly after getting here. While I was waiting at the bus station for enough passengers (four) to fill a shared taxi, a woman started talking to me in Russian. (Do I look Russian?) I told her that I spoke a little Armenian. She told me that her daughter, who was going to ride with me in the taxi, was going to medical school in Yerevan. She was in her last year (sixth) of medical school and would be a cardiologist like her mom. Then she wrote her numbers down for me so that I could contact her if I ever had heart problems. (I assured her that I had none, in Armenian.) Then she suggested that I should call her anyway and visit. What was running through my mind is that the Peace Corps medivacs all persons needing surgery to Washington, DC if at all possible, and that I was already stressed out about going to a Russian-trained dentist with whom I have a communication problem. To add to that, I was angry at myself for judging this woman because every other tooth that she had was gold, so I was wondering if she was up on the latest cardiology practices.

From my doorstep in Gyumri to the dentist in Yerevan is three hours of treacherous travel. (Other volunteers have assured me that I’ll get used to taxi drivers going 140 kilometers an hour over pot-holed, cow and sheep-obstructed roads. I doubt it!) At the first visit, the dentist decided that I needed a root canal on one of the teeth before he put on a new crown, because if I needed a root canal later, it would not be possible with the crown. So that procedure took two hours during which he consulted with another dentist constantly because my actual root canal was so narrow. I felt that I was getting excellent care though I kept thinking that this would never fly in the US where endodontists see a patient every 15 minutes. Tuesday’s appointment was to prepare the two teeth for crowns and take impressions. And that took two hours. I felt that he did a more-thorough job than I have ever had. I have two more appointments; one to fit the crowns, then they will be sent back to the lab for polishing, and they’ll be set on the fourth appointment. And they’ll be white zirconium (vs. gold). So I’m happy. I had stressed-out too much about this whole dental thing! In the meantime I’m not smiling, and am walking around with two ugly stubby teeth, because in Armenia you do not get “temporaries”.

(Nice home in Gyumri.)

Last night two volunteers and I went to the home of a woman who runs an NGO, for dinner. It was the nicest home I have visited in Armenia, and the food was some of the tastiest. I tend to look at everything from an economic perspective and it was wonderful to hear her view on several subjects. There is talk of opening the border here between Turkey and Armenia. Armenia is land-locked for starters, and its east (Azerbaijan) and west borders (Turkey) are closed. So trade is limited to using the Georgian boarder and the small mountainous Iran border. Interestingly, the schools opened on Tuesday the first. Last weekend I was walking around the market watching kids buy school clothes labeled “Made in Turkey”. And the prices were outrageously high, and the quality outrageously low, compared to the monthly wages here. (A teacher makes $200 per month. Most workers make substantially less.) Bundled clothes enter Armenia through Georgia in huge convoy trucks. The vendors then buy a “bundle” and do not specifically choose each item that they will sell. If the border opens, this woman was saying that Turkey would benefit the most because Turkish goods would come into Armenia by a much shorter route. I think that this is true, in the short run. Her real problem is that she’s afraid of Turkey. I think that Turkey has a population of approximately 70 million, and Armenia has 3 million. She thinks that Turkey will “overrun” Armenia in terms of Turks moving here (Why? There are no jobs.) and that Turks will marry into the Armenian population. (This seems impossible to me given the fierce nationalism of Armenians. Families would not allow inter-marriage.) This is a highly educated woman who was articulating her issues with Turkey. Of course she brought up the genocide issue. There is not popular citizen support for opening the border either in Turkey or in Armenia. There are political and economic reasons to do so but there are huge cultural barriers. Another issue is that Azerbaijan has large oil reserves that are enabling it to beef up its army at a time when Armenia is struggling to get enough troops because of a low birth rate vs. a high Azerbaijan birth rate. (Military service is compulsory for two years.) Turkey closed its border in support of Azerbaijan. I think that opening the border would weaken this alliance.

A few nights ago a group of us got together for dinner with a former Burkina Faso PC volunteer who is now working as a structural engineer in Ireland. He “crashes” at PC volunteer homes as he travels the world, because building has come to a standstill in Ireland and his company is encouraging everyone to take leaves. So this young man was fascinating as he described his most current adventures (Georgia, Turkey, and Armenia) and his next trip (Thailand, India, and China.) The most interesting part was the insights he had because of the fact that he stays with people who actually live in these countries. Many of these trips are arranged through a website (Couch-surfing?) which many volunteers are hooked up with. Hostels are out, couch surfing is in! At this same dinner, volunteers were talking about getting “ready” for winter. This blows my mind. It is September 5th, and we were talking about covering the windows with plastic, heaters and wiring, and storing water. And one volunteer needs to buy wood for her wood stove! But January and February average below zero for the full two months!

(Nice street in Gyumri)

Take care all! I’m still trying to figure out my Blogspot with limited Internet access.

Barbara

August 17, 2009

Hi All,

I’m looking at the date above and can’t believe that I’ve only been here 2 ½ months, because I feel like its been much longer just in terms of how much I’ve been through!

On the 14th we had our “graduation” ceremony from PST (pre-service training) and the US Ambassador to Armenia swore us in as official Peace Corps Volunteers. The ambassador is a Princeton graduate, and a graduate of the US War College. (I didn’t know we had such a thing!) She speaks fluent Russian and French, and is studying Armenian. I would guess that she is in her late fifties. She spent a lot of time as a State Department Officer in Kiev, and in many other overseas areas. It was a nice ceremony, though I was thinking that I hadn’t “graduated” from anything in 35 years, and I’m at the point in my life where most ceremonies I attend are recognition events for people who’ve made exceptional contributions, not events for people who have yet to do something.

That evening my Arzakan host family threw a big party for me. We had khorovats, a traditional Armenian barbeque. Mild peppers, eggplant, and tomatoes are grilled in flames, and the charred skins are then removed. Then chicken (though no white meat) and potatoes were grilled over embers. In typical Armenian fashion dinner was not served until 10:30 pm, and we finished up at 1 am because all the neighbors came over to say goodbye, and then they were invited to eat! The neighbors gave me a few “tourist” type gifts, and then my family gave me a pair of Armenian pajamas, which I think was a comment on my oversized LL Bean flannel nightgown. The pajamas are very fitted in lime green with silver sparkles. When I tried them on, they were so happy. I suggested that I might need a larger size so that I’d have some more room, but the crowd of women was adamant that they were perfect! We had what felt like thousands of toasts (vodka and wine) to my family, my health, my future, etc., and then to their families, health, ancestors, etc. Toasting is another huge Armenia tradition, and an excuse to drink lots!

The next morning I got up early to follow my host mom to the chicken coop to rob the hens of three eggs, then to the neighbor’s barn for a jar of milk. I left tearfully after breakfast for my trip to Gyumri, where I’m now living.

After a very scary trip (high speed and blind corners over pot-holed roads with cows or sheep crossing around every bend) by taxi to Gyumri, I met a current Peace Corps volunteer for lunch. We went to a shop that sold a spicy ground beef sausage wrapped in lavash (flat bread). They also sell sheep heads (skin-off) that have been cooked, a dozen of which were sitting on a tray for display. My already distressed stomach forced me to turn away. Then several hours later when I went back to my new home, my host dad was sitting at the kitchen table with a bottle of vodka and a sheep head, having a feast! Several hours after that, I was in the courtyard, looking at jaw and skull bones, and a very happy dog!

(Albert, host dad, with his very tasty sheep head!)

Today is a holiday in Gyumri, so I spent the day walking around this city, which included an hour at the Berlin Hotel. The German Red Cross built a medical facility here after the devastating earthquake of 1988 when 60% of the buildings were destroyed and 25,000 people were killed. Then several years ago Germans funded a hotel to fund the ongoing costs of the medical clinic. Another volunteer told me about this relationship, and about the fact that the hotel supports Gyumri artists with a gift shop and displays in all the hallways and rooms. So as another new volunteer and I were walking around, the manager asked where we were from and we told him that we were new Peace Corps volunteers. He was so excited. He has worked with Peace Corps volunteers before (a current one designed his web page) and he heard that a finance person was in Gyumri. So he was thrilled to meet me, and I have another part-time job! He needs some help with a budget and proposal for tours to artists’ studios, which would include dinner at an artist’s home. For any friends who visit me (and don’t want to sleep in a sleeping bag on the floor), this is the hot lodging place!

Tomorrow I begin working. We are only committed to 15-20 hours per week at our primary jobs, and are then expected to find a secondary job. I have had several requests from other volunteers to help their organizations, so I expect to be very busy. I also have to work on my Armenian language. We are given a substantial amount of money to hire a tutor, and I would really like to become semi-fluent. Needless to say, studying a language takes a lot of time!

I met a young woman in Arzakan who trained to be a travel guide in Armenia. She knows a lot about Armenian history and is semi-fluent in English. She has not been able to find a job. And there are very few tourists in Armenia. She raved about how beautiful the country is and about how proud she is of Armenia, its history, its religion, and its people. 97% of the people who live in Armenia are of direct Armenian descent. I asked her if she had ever traveled any place else. She had not. This pride in all things Armenian is so common. But Armenia is not beautiful. And it is a very difficult place for a non-Russian or non-Armenian person to travel in. To rent a car in Armenia costs $100 per day because the car includes a driver since rental companies will not allow tourists to drive themselves; the roads are too dangerous. Armenia is very interesting; but I sometimes think for the wrong reasons. Two environmental disasters come immediately to mind. In 1949 the Soviets began draining huge Lake Sevan, in the center east of the country, for irrigation and hydroelectric generation. The plan was to reduce the perimeter of the lake by 70%, and the volume by 91%. In 1962 when the lake had dropped 60 feet, the Soviet government realized the devastation caused by this plan. Algae blooms occurred, the trout population became nearly extinct because of a rise in temperature of the lake, and construction around the perimeter of the lake made it nearly impossible to undo what had been done. Today the murky lake looks windswept and bare, though the beaches are still an attraction for the land-locked Armenians.

The second environmental disaster was partly the result of the collapse of the bankrupt Soviet Union, partly the result of shutting down an unstable nuclear power plant after the earthquake, and partly a result of the border dispute with Azerbaijan. From 1992 to 1995 most Armenians did not have electricity (heat) or gas (disrupted service from Georgia). As a result the northern part of the country was largely deforested as people cut and burned anything that would keep them warm during their harsh winters. 19 years later much of the northern part of the country remains bare. About 15% of the entire country is forest. Much of the country is high desert plateau with fertile soil, but severe irrigation problems.

(Railroad car home in Gyumri)

I live in a neighborhood of many abandoned and run-down looking buildings. The street out front is a real challenge. Mostly it is dirt and rocks with some remaining asphalt. What few cars go by madly drive left and right desperately trying to avoid potholes, and worse. (Missing sewer covers where the drop is three feet.) It is not pretty. But it is a very busy neighborhood with lots of families and kids playing in the streets. There are no abandoned cars, because very few people have cars, and because parts are so valuable. There are several very small (10 ft X 5 ft) family run stores which all sell the same things; potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers, watermelon, peaches, onions, etc. Several of these small stores are right next to each other and they are totally oblivious to the fact that they are cannibalizing each other’s markets. These stores seldom have signs, unless the sign says “honute” (store). These storeowners work seven days a week and twelve hours a day. There is 70% unemployment in Gyumri. There is nothing else.

(Street vendor in Gyumri)

On that cheery note, I’m going to bed!

Love to all,

Barbara

August 4, 2009

Hi All!

As I write this Eileen is on a plane traveling back to the US from Japan where she has spent the last school year. And I’m grieving at not being able to see her.

Last weekend we had a group trip to Yerevan to visit a history museum, an art museum, and the Genocide Museum. Unfortunately something was not agreeing with my intestines, so I sat in a park, and then joined the PC country director and a few other volunteers at the Marriott Hotel for lunch, which was really not a good idea for me. What I found interesting about the semi-American food were the reminders about the contrasts after two months of strictly Armenian food.

(Peace Corps Volunteers on Outing)

In Armenian village homes and the few local restaurants I’ve been in, all food is served on one small plate, smaller than our salad plates, about the size of a teacup plate. This means that you essentially eat one course at a time and that you fill up your plate repeatedly. Food is never passed. You simply reach over the table for anything you want (which I had a difficult time getting used to as I felt it was so rude.) There are far more offerings than there might be in a typical American home, including fresh cheese, two salads (one cabbage and one cucumber and tomato), fresh bread, grain of some kind (rice, kasha) or fried potatoes, and then maybe chicken, fish, tolmas, or dumplings. Tonight we had trout, which was delicious and a surprise for me as this country is land-locked and many of the rivers and lakes are seriously polluted. As I’ve said before, nothing is wasted, and the family ate the whole fish except for the bones. They ate the skin, the head, the eyes, etc. The same thing is true of chicken, and when I taste meat, I don’t ask any questions because I know that I don’t want to hear the answer. The grandma takes the liberty of “salting” anything at the table that she does not consider salty enough with an eye on me to let me know that she is not salting it as much as she would really like to because of me. I really love that woman!

We had watermelon for dessert as we have had almost every night for the past few weeks. And Armenians eat all the seeds! Late at night (10 pm) we usually have popcorn.

Armenians typically eat late, around 8:30 pm. Then it is very common to visit neighbors at 10 pm or to have neighbors come over at 10 pm. This very late visiting is a common topic of conversation among the volunteers who can’t believe that our families are out until 12:30 am and then are up at 7 am milking cows, washing clothes (because we don’t have water during the day), feeding the chickens, then getting ready for work which usually starts at 9 am. Meanwhile the volunteers are exhausted with language requirements and other tasks, and we can’t keep up with the locals!

As I mentioned earlier, my next-door neighbors are impressive people. There are three older sisters who grew up in Uzbekistan of Armenian descent. They moved to Armenia in their 20s and one sister speaks Russian only though she totally understands Armenian. Her two daughters also speak English (and Persian and German.) So ours conversations cover many worlds. One of the daughters is a film producer, and the other one is a violinist with the Hamburg Symphony. She is visiting and seriously practices about four hours every day. I am in heaven because the music is so beautiful.

Marina, who is thirty, just finished playing with a chamber group throughout Spain for 26 performances. She loved Barcelona and especially the paella. The group mostly lived in a villa and prepared their own meals. She said that there were two Americans, one from North Carolina and one from Boston, and one Italian who kept complaining because someone was “breaking” the spaghetti. Marina is having the time of her life.

Last Thursday was my host mom’s 46th birthday. So we had large party. She was up early fixing all the food, then went to work, and at about 7 pm dinner was served with lots of wine toasts to her health and all the family’s health, and we had a steady stream of visitors until well after midnight, though I went to bed exhausted at midnight. Families brought flowers, small gifts (dishes), and food. I’ve learned so much here about hospitality. If visitors show up you welcome them with open arms and then offer them anything you have to eat. And the first offering is always a thick black Turkish coffee in tiny little cups.

(Zara's Birthday Party)

This is my last week of language classes. Next Thursday we have our “graduation” ceremony. In Armenian we just finished studying Little Red Riding Hood, where the grandma kills the wolf. So I mentioned that I was glad our training would soon be over. When the language teacher asked what I would do if it was not over soon, I was able to go into great detail in Armenian about killing myself. Which is really how I feel at this moment. So next Friday I will be moving to my new permanent (two years) site in Gyumri. I will really miss my Arzakan host family though.

Love to all,

Barbara

July 19, 2009

Berev (Hi! In Armenian),

Today was a perfect day. It is Sunday and Water Day in Arzakhan village, which means that all boys between twelve and sixteen spent the day throwing water at cars, buses, people, cows, dogs, etc. The younger crowd doused their parents and friends. The amazing thing is that we had no water between ten and six, so the kids “stocked up” to take advantage of this yearly “pass” on throwing water. I was hiding out, but then decided to take some pictures, and four boys hit me from behind. Some adults, in the spirit of fun, dressed for their dousing. I was not one of them!

(Neighbor in tree picking cherries.)

It was a beautiful day; 85 degrees with a slight breeze. I spent an hour in the garden with my host mom and her daughter. There is an enclosed hen and rooster house (where the fresh eggs come from) and there were 20 little chicks loose in the garden. We have three kinds of cherry trees, walnut trees, several pear and apple trees, apricot and plum trees, and many others with names that I can’t catch with my limited Armenian. We also have green beans, strawberries, raspberries, cucumbers, and tomatoes, many different kinds of herbs, and rows and rows of potatoes. For dinner tonight we had a tomato, cucumber and herb salad, a hot dish that was peppers, eggplant, onion, tomatoes, and herbs, green beans with scrambled eggs mixed in, and homemade bread. Except for the bread, everything came from the garden.

(Canned juice apricots)

Early this morning my host grandma left the house with four gallon buckets of raspberries to sell at a market. This woman is 75 years old and rode a small bus to the market in the next large town. The raspberries here are delicious but about half the size of those in Washington, so it took her a long time to pick them. She was laughing when she arrived home because some kids had soaked her. Age has no privilege here on Water Day!

The past two weeks my family has been very busy canning juice, making jam, and drying cherries. Apples will not be ready for juicing for about a month while the apricots will be ready in a few weeks. A big treat here is walnut jam, which everyone says is a long process to can, but that it is delicious. Canning and drying is very important because in the wintertime imported fruits and vegetables are prohibitively expensive for the families. The volunteers who have been here a while all say that their biggest first year regret was not taking full advantage of the fresh food in the summer because winter food is very monotonous.

(David and I picking cherries.)

Early this afternoon the neighbors invited me over for a visit. The family lives in Yerevan most of the year, but tries to spend as much time as possible in Arzahkan in the summer because the temperature tends to be about 15 degrees lower. It was almost 100 degrees in Yerevan today. Few people have air-conditioning because they cannot afford it. The family is so interesting. The two older women are sisters. One of them worked in a candy factory developing candies. Her guest is a woman who worked for her who said that she was a great boss (“chef” in Armenian) and a “candy expert.” Of course, there was a big bowl of candy on the table, and fruit (apricots and cherries), and torte. Her daughter, who is about 35, is a filmmaker who graduated from a university in St. Petersburg, Russia. She had friends with her who had just finished helping her with a documentary about adoption in Armenia. She said that Armenians do not adopt children. It is not part of their culture. But after the earthquake of 1988 when thousands of children were orphaned, the Armenian diaspora (mostly Americans) adopted these orphans. Then I told her about Annie and Eileen and we had a very lively group discussion. Luckily several of these very educated Armenians spoke pretty good English. (I’m uncomfortable speaking Armenian when I don’t have the exact words I need. I loved hearing these women get the message across using “close” words.)

The filmmaker has a sister who is married to a Norwegian. Last September she visited her sister for the first time. (Usually her sister comes to Armenia.) The pictures she took of Norway and Sweden were some of the best travel pictures I have ever seen. She has that special filmmaker eye. Her son (14), who I adore and vice versa, attends a private school in Yerevan which her sister pays for. She is incredibly grateful for this gift as the schools here are so poor and uninspired. (With the average wage here around $280 per month, I’m sure the tuition is low by US standards.)

My host family wastes nothing. Everything is re-cycled or composted. Saran Wrap does not exist, and every plastic bag (of which there are not many) does double duty as food wrap. Napkins are not used and toilet paper is scarce. They also own just barely enough clothes to get by. Even the two year old has the bare necessities. They essentially have one good outfit and two others that they wear every other day. And they are well-dressed by American standards in that their clothes are stylish, and well-fitted. Clothes are hand-washed every week.

(Right outside my front door, sheep and cute cow.)

A few days ago when I came home from language class, there were five very dirty sheep on the front porch. They were nibbling some bushes near the porch. As a city girl, I just laughed, (and did not think to take a picture) as I thought about how ridiculous this scene was to me. Shortly the sheep saw me and scrambled off the porch. Then I went to get the house broom to sweep the porch, and promptly was scolded by my host grandma (in Armenian, but the tone told all) for using the house broom to sweep off sheep poop! I have so much to learn about rural life!

Peace,

Barbara

July 10, 2009

Hello All,

I am visiting Gyumri where I will be living for the next two years. I have spent two days walking around and visiting a few NGOs where I will be working.

Gyumri has not fully recovered from an earthquake in 1988. And it has been economically depressed since 1992 when the Soviet Union broke apart and Armenia became an independent country. Unofficially the unemployment in the area is around 70%. Only one of every five college graduates is able to find a job. At the time the Soviets left, many companies owned by the Soviet government or Soviet citizens closed, as those companies were manufacturing for the Russian market. These items included military arms, motors, cars, and building equipment.

It is difficult to walk around this city as sidewalks, where there are any, are in terrible condition. There are lots of obstacles, such as garbage, construction materials, and rubble left over from the earthquake. There are very few private cars, and in Armenia pedestrians seem to have no rights. I was careful to qualify that sentence because an Armenian attorney whom I’ve met says that Armenia actually has a very good set of laws on the books (including property laws) as a result of the attention of the World Bank, the European Economic Community, etc., but as a result of a corrupt judicial system, nothing is enforceable. Armenia has been rated one of the most corrupt countries in the world.

Armenia has very wealthy citizens. Forty families control 60% of the country’s wealth. The customs department and the taxing department are the most corrupt government organizations, which is largely to the benefit of these wealthy families who heavily influence the government through “support” for their favorite candidates, and bribes and paybacks. And the government controls the media, including print and television.

Armenia is the second largest benefactor of foreign aid per capita of any country in the world (after Israel). This astounds me. When I asked why, I was told that it is because of the Armenian diaspora, which is significantly larger than the population in Armenia itself. In the US alone there are more people of Armenian descent than in Armenia itself (concentrated in Glendale, Ca and New Jersey.) And the Armenian Community in the US heavily influences US aid and US foreign policy towards Armenia. For such a small country (3.4 million), the US Embassy in the capital of Yerevan has a staff of nearly 500 people. Currently the US Government and many European countries are withholding aid in that they are making it conditional on Armenian government reform. Armenian citizens and NGOs receive significant remittances from the Armenian diaspora. The country has been significantly affected by the worldwide recession, especially in the construction industry.

Back to Gyumri; I am at the home of Albert and Emma, who are around 70 and 68. They exist on a small government pension (around $100 per month) and remittances from their three sons who work in Russia, because they cannot find work here. Armenians in Russia are discriminated against and the only jobs available there are manual labor. Albert and Emma’s house is very modest, of stone block construction, and very old. We live on the second floor. On the first floor are an old, closed, and run-down lavash bakery, chicken coops, rabbit coops, and two parrots. I have been told, by the last volunteer who lived here, that one of these days we will eat rabbit! I have a very modest room that was probably last “fixed up” thirty years ago. The small bathroom is off the kitchen. We do not have a shower. Bathing involves heating a pot of water on the stove, and pouring water over myself in the non-functional tub. We do not have any water between 10 am and 4 pm. Emma is a wonderful cook, and today Albert brought me a big bouquet of flowers from their garden. They are thrilled to have me living with them. The Peace Corps will pay them $170 per month for the four months I am here.

(Host mom Emma, center)

I had intended to set up a blog about my service in Armenia but the Peace Corps has very strict rules about blogs. We cannot say anything about politics (criticism), or comment on culturally sensitive issues without having our comments reviewed by the Peace Corps staff before posting the comments. The really interesting things about Armenia are the culturally sensitive issues and the ramifications of the corrupt political system. The Peace Corps is concerned about people “Google-ing” blogs about Armenia. In last year’s political elections, they said that because media is controlled by the government, outside media sources had a difficult time getting information, and they were struggling to get interviews (not allowed) or blog comments from volunteers. The US Embassy can only say “No comment.” We are allowed to have a blog if it is password protected, though I’m not smart enough to figure out how to do that at this point. And the password has to be difficult enough so that the average Joe cannot figure it out, and we have to give the password to the Peace Corps staff. So I feel flummoxed.

I have had a wonderful time in Gyumri meeting current volunteers. Today we had a potluck at a volunteer’s home, in his wonderful garden. Hamburgers (the meat was specially ground), potato salad, coleslaw, eggplant salad, and watermelon were on the menu. The group was very funny as they were relating stories about current volunteers. The group that is leaving in two weeks is very giddy about their prospects. Many of them are spending their last two weeks visiting their two past host families, and other in-country friends. The southern crowd has donated all its winter clothing, and most of the group is burning or giving away the clothes they have worn out over the past two years. Many are donating items (kitchen) to new and current volunteers. (I am the recipient of an iron and hair dryer.) Some are shipping home things they’ve decided to keep, and then are headed off to travel more of the world. They are so happy that they “made it” to “close of service.”

Peace,

Barbara

June 30, 2009

Hi All,

I have been assigned to work in Gyumri, the second largest city in Armenia with a population of about 150,000. Gyumri is situated in northwest Armenia at an elevation of about 5,000 ft. I have been told that it is bitterly cold in the winter and that school is often cancelled because buildings cannot be kept warm enough. The two volunteers I am following, an attorney from Florida and an accountant from LA, have told me that if they can live where the temperature does not go above zero for two months, I certainly can! Worse than the cold is the ice which is treacherous for walking. Their solutions were to get apartments close to work.

I will be working primarily for the Shirak Marz (County) Competitiveness Center Foundation, which is a spin-off of a USAID program. The center’s primary mission is to provide services to businesses including business consulting, business planning, market research, loan consulting, accounting, financial services, etc.

I will also be working with Armenian Caritas, a Catholic organization, which also provides many of the services mentioned above.

My host family for four months will be an older couple who live in a house close to my work, and who have a very large “sweet” dog.

Next week I will visit these two organizations and stay with my host family for four days. I am mostly looking forward to this because I will not have language classes those days! When I told my current host family that I was moving to Gyumri, they were extremely excited for me, and that has been everyone else’s reaction, as most people feel that Gyumri is the best assignment. So I’m happy.

On Wednesday 12/7/88, at 11:41 am, Gyumri was hit by an earthquake that destroyed 60% of the city buildings, many of them schools and hospitals of modern Soviet construction. 25,000 people died, and over 500,000 were left homeless in the area. From 1992 to 1995, the city had no electricity (no heat) as a result of border closures with Turkey and Azerbaijan, and the closure of a Soviet constructed nuclear power plant. As late as 2001, 40% of the city population was living in railroad containers into which windows had been cut. Gyumri has not fully recovered from the earthquake.

A few days ago, my “tatick” (host grandma) brought me a bowl of strawberries which she had just picked. I ate the delicious red ones and left the white ones. In Armenian she chastised me and held a white one for me to eat. It was the sweetest most delicious berry I’ve had. The white ones are rounder than the red ones and are simply a different variety. I am constantly pleasantly surprised by the food here. We’ve been eating a stem from the garlic plant, that is boiled and lightly pickled, and is a great treat. Living under the house, right under my room, is a hen, and twenty new chicks. One day, some of them will make it to the soup bowl. Interestingly most Armenians don’t prefer chicken breast because it does not have as much flavor as the rest of the chicken, so white meat is a bargain at large markets.

The eight volunteers temporarily living in Arzakhan are throwing a community party this 4th of July. We had grand ideas about hamburgers, hot dogs, chips, potato salad, pop, etc. But we can’t get ground beef, or buns of any kind, or chips, or celery and vinegar for the salad, and ice is unheard of. Watermelon isn’t in season until August. So tomorrow we are going shopping, and the menu will be a surprise!

All of us (47) went to Yerevan (the capital) last Saturday to visit Ejmiatsin, which has been the spiritual center of the Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Church since the 4th Century. We had a wonderful American priest guide who filled us in on the history and the architecture of the buildings. The museum has a piece of Noah’s Ark (carbon dated back 6,000 years), the blade which pierced Christ’s side and a piece of the cross he was hung on. The church suffered seriously under Soviet rule, especially in the forty years leading up to 1992. Few people attended church during those years, and it has been difficult to rebuild the congregation. The priest also mentioned that competing groups have been “invading” Armenia, including Catholics and Mormons.

Peace to all,

Barbara

June 19, 2009

Hi Again,

Last week walking home from language class, I saw that my neighbor had just killed a cow and was in the process of skinning it. Earlier in the morning I had reported that my neighbors (three of them) had three cows, nine sheep, 26 chickens, one goat, one dog and one cat. (This was all part of an exercise to learn animal names and how to count!) But that afternoon we were down to two cows! I walked by every 20 minutes as my stomach felt too queasy to stay and watch continuously. After about two hours, what was left looked more like something I’d see in a butcher shop. I knew that I would be a direct beneficiary of this cow; one that had not been injected with hormones, fed corn to fatten it, or any other “enhancing” item.

The next night the same neighbor had a huge party with live music, dancing, and barbequed cow! The occasion was the entry of the 20 year-old son into compulsory two year military service. Armenia allows no exceptions for military service. Many young men go to college for two years, then into the military for two years, and then finish college on scholarships provided as a result of their service. Armenia has closed borders with Turkey and Azerbaijan, so the military is on alert always as the result of disputes.

In the six days since the cow’s demise, I have benefited several times. One night we had something very close to meat raviolis that were so light and pillowy, I thought I was floating in heaven. Another night we had dolmas. Zara grinds the meat herself and the leaves for the dolmas came out of the garden.

For lunch today we had the only possible processed food I’ve had yet, noodles, with a homemade yogurt sauce, a shredded cabbage, green onion, carrot, and dill salad, tomatoes and cucumbers, homemade cheese, fresh homemade bread, and homemade apricot juice. The food is really wonderful, and healthy.

We’ve had several all-volunteer classes this week regarding cultural differences, safety issues, and health issues. On Tuesday we had the big talk about STDs and HIV. For those of us who thought that this might not be an issue, the doctor told the story about the 70 year-old Africa female volunteer who died of aids. Peace Corps surveys indicate that 90% of all volunteers are sexually active during their two years, 40% with in-country nationals. PC hands out condoms by the gross. From all the talk after the pictures, movie, and discussion, there are some pretty worried volunteers.

Last Sunday my village of Arzakhan lost water for four days as the result of a broken pipe. It has been forty years since I’ve gone without a shower for four days. I was dying! However, it only seemed to be an issue for myself and the other volunteers. We have learned that we cannot count on water or electricity, so we have to bathe, wash clothes, and drink as much as possible whenever possible. We lose water from about 10 to 4 everyday as a result of a loss of water pressure due to farm irrigation.

Language continues to be a struggle. We have several volunteers who are fluent in Spanish, French, German, and Russian. But this Indo-European language is so different that we are all stressed out. The two year-old in my family has just started talking to me, and I feel that it will take two years to get to her level. The alphabet has three letters similar to the Latin “R”. One aspirated, one not aspirated, and one rolled. I cannot really “hear” the differences. The alphabet has three “g” sounds, three “ts” sounds, and many other challenges. I asked Eileen’s doctor when she was ten if her hearing would ever improve, and he told me that we all continuously lose some hearing as we get older. I can attest to this!

Next week I find out where I will be living for the next two years. I have been told that I will be in a city (which to me means a flush toilet, running water, and mostly dependable electricity.) I will also find out what kind of work I’ll be doing. Most volunteers don’t have a hint of where they’ll be, though they vaguely know what kind of work they’ll be doing, so there is suspense in the air. The degree of suspense depends on if you’re 23 or over 50.

Peace,

Barbara

June 8, 2009

Hi All!

I arrived safely in Armenia along with 47 other Peace Corps Volunteers one week ago. It’s been a very difficult week between adjusting to the 12-hour time difference, beginning 5.5-hour daily language lessons (with lots of homework), and moving in with an Armenian family who speak no English.

I am living in Arzakhan, a village of about 1,200 people near Charentsavan. Nine of us are in this village and we go to language school daily at the village school. There are four in my class. The instructor is Armenian, has studied English for 15 years (since she was two judging by appearances) and she is fabulous. Which does not mean that I am not struggling mightily with the Armenian alphabet (39 characters) and the script. No one in this village speaks English. Russian is usually the second language.

I am living in a stone block house that must be over 150 years old. Right outside the front door are chickens, cows, and sheep. I dodge them or they dodge me when I leave. My “family” consists of a grandmother, her step-daughter, her 25 year old daughter, and her almost three year old daughter. The family is wonderful and extremely supportive of me, though most of the time I have no idea what is going on. My house mom (the step-daughter), around fifty, works in town as an accountant at an agricultural something. I’m still trying to figure out if it’s a co-op, a business, processor, etc. The daughter works in the capital, Yerevan, as an “economist”, and I haven’t figured out what that is.

(Sevin, my host grandma.)

(Host mom Zara and her daughter Guyane)

The food has been wonderful. Everything is fresh. For dinner tonight we had chicken soup (bones, skin, and all), a kidney bean and beet salad, a tomato and cucumber salad, homemade bread, cheese, and homemade sweet cherry juice that is to die for! All around me are gardens and fruit trees. The apricots will be ready in about three weeks. Everyone grows potatoes, tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, cherries, rose hip, beets, and much more that I can’t identify. In the morning Zara goes out for a few minutes and comes back with a couple of eggs and a little cup of milk. She heats the milk for me, and it is delicious. Based on the number of roosters running around, I’m sure that the eggs are fertile. The milk is in lieu of the worst coffee I’ve ever had. I think that I saw the chicken we had for dinner running around the night before!

(Anahit, Guyane's daughter, 2 years old)

The school accommodates 300 students from the surrounding area for twelve grades and kindergarten. I don’t believe that the principal has ever laughed. The school itself is completely depressing. Built by the Soviets, it is concrete block, three stories high, and totally utilitarian. There is no playground, and no evidence that there are sports of any kind.

The roads in Arzakhan are desperately in need of repair. Drivers stay in the middle of the road in order to be in the best position to dodge pot-holes, sheep, cows, people, and broken down cars. Water is not available from around 10 am to about 4 pm, when the water pressure picks up again. My family fills the bathtub so that water is available when there is none in the tap. We have had daily quick hard storms that are associated with the power going out, sometimes for hours. Everyone in Arzakhan seems to just accept these inconveniences.

(Arzakan)

Needless to say, there is no internet service in Arzakhan. There are three small convenience stores that sell paper goods and Vodka. (Plus shampoo, detergent, toothpaste, candy, sausage, etc.) These stores are about the size of a small bedroom and have no fresh food items because everyone has them at home, or at the neighbors’ homes.

I’ll be in this village for ten weeks and am actually looking forward to the experience. I’m really motivated to learn the language because I absolutely can’t communicate without doing so. I have not run into one Armenian word that sounds like an American word.

(Arzakan Cultural Center)

The other volunteers are from all over the US. I think that five of us may be over fifty, which is fewer than last year. Tomorrow we have a large group meeting where we learn more about what kind of work we’ll be doing. And hopefully I’ll be able to send this out on the internet.

Peace to all,

Barbara