onwards through the snow

My life went on, as life is wont to do. I still had no real job, but I went to karate classes on a regular basis and started to know Alaverdi and the people there a bit better. Somewhere in here I also started to think about working with the karate school as a possibility - the building was in pretty wretched shape (the roof leaked, the floor was rotten, the kids had to carry water from a nearby building, etc.) and it WAS the only regular after school sports program in the area. The director seemed relatively honest (unlike many others) and I liked the way he worked with the kids. I took the co-director with me to the training in Tsakadzor - and that started the process that finally led to my doing something useful

But for now, it was winter, and my first New Year's in Armenia - and that was an experience. Here's what I wrote to the kids in America:


I had a site visit recently- the director of my program came up to Alaverdi and looked around, saw what I was doing and who I was working with. (This was a direct result of that little article I wrote - o, they were NOT best pleased!) As a result of that, I may have a new organization to work with, which would be very good. Unfortunately, nothing can start until next month - all the schools are closed for this month, because of the cold, and the lack of heat. Actually, it seems as though most everything is sort of half closed down right now - the shuka is smaller, some stores are closed, the bakery shelves are a bit bare. It’s the after New Year’s crash, I guess (New Year’s is VERY big here - but more on that later). Meanwhile, I’d been working on rewriting and revising some Peace Corps forms for my program, and had to go into Yerevan on the 21st of December for a committee meeting.

That was the day it started to snow here. I woke up in the morning and everything was beautiful and white - a bit sloppy, but still pretty. Got on the bus at 10:00 am, with my enormous backpack (I planned on going to my host family’s for the holidays as soon as I got through in Yerevan) and my friend Lilit, and we were off. It was a lovely snow, just wet enough to stick to the branches, and it made everything look clean and new, the way the first really good snow does. It made everything look like Christmas. It just kept snowing, big fat flakes coming down, and I was feeling all warm and fuzzy all the way to Vanadzor, and about a third of the way from Vanadzor to Yerevan. Then the bus started having trouble getting through, and I began to feel a bit apprehensive about all this snow, and about getting through the mountains between Vanadzor and Yerevan. Then the bus stopped. I didn’t like the snow at all by this point; I wasn’t feeling warm and fuzzy and Christmassy anymore. It was cold, and the snow came swirling in the bus as people got off to shovel and push. Chains were put on the tires. There was no bathroom, there was no food, there was no heat. This went on for a long time - we would move forward a bit and it would seem as though progress was being made, and then we would stop again and it would seem hopeless. The cold was slowly seeping into my bones, I was hungry, and there was nothing I could do, nothing at all. Halfway between Vanadzor and Yerevan, with nothing in sight. There weren’t any plows on the roads, the friendly highway patrol wasn’t driving by, I doubt there was even a CB type radio on the bus. It wasn’t just our bus - there were cars and buses stopped on the road ahead and behind us, and we couldn’t move until they moved. It took a long time, and there was a point where I was sure we were just going to stay there on the bus all night in the middle of nowhere. It was not a pleasant feeling..

Now, I should add that Lilit is 16, and this was the first time she had been allowed to go to Yerevan ‘alone’ - her father ended up driving to Vanadzor and then partway to Yerevan looking for her that night. There was no way to contact him until we got into Yerevan, and by that time he was on the road. He had heard that the bus was stuck in Vanadzor. What time he got home, I don’t know - I just found out this part of the story yesterday.

As luck would have it, we made it though eventually - we got into Yerevan around 9:00 that night, 11 hours after we left Alaverdi. Cold and hungry and desperately needing a bathroom. I waited at the bus stop with Lilit for her brother, and then took a taxi to the Peace Corps office. Which is open 24/7, is heated, and has a bathroom - I tell you, sometimes the little things make a big difference. The guards were very sweet indeed. They made me coffee, shared my chocolate, hooked me up with a hotel for the night (I had almost no money, since I had been planning to go to the bank once I got into Yerevan, and the person I was supposed to be staying with wasn’t at home), and got me a taxi to the hotel. It’s one of those adventures that makes a good story, but isn’t much fun at the time.

I went to my meeting the next day, still exhausted and a bit shaky, and then caught a marchutney up to Vanadzor. The roads were still pretty ugly, and THAT journey took longer than expected - we got into Vanadzor around 8:30. The buses out to Shahumiyan had long since stopped running, the sidewalks and roads were sheer rutted ice, impossible to walk on. I loaded myself and my enormous backpack into a taxi, was grossly overcharged for the ride, and was happy just to be home, with the endless road behind me. Normally I never take taxis - they’re just too expensive on a Peace Corps budget - but there are times when it’s worth it.

I ended up staying with my host family for almost a week and a half, through Christmas and the endless Armenian New Year’s - by the end of that time I felt quite recovered from my little ordeal and about ten pounds heavier. A lot of the holiday celebration here involves eating, and a lot of eating at that. Christmas isn’t celebrated until January 6th here. Well, that’s the Armenian Christmas - the Russian is January 7th, and if you’re from Georgia you might celebrate December 25th. It doesn’t seem to really matter that much where you’re from, though, Christmas is not the big holiday here. New Year’s is. My host family threw a little something together for me on the 25th, just to make me feel at home - but real stuff started happening after that.

First, New Year’s is not one night here - it’s a four to five day event, with lots of preparatory work. The whole house gets cleaned, decorations are hung, a ‘Christmas’ tree (doan-na-zar - literally, ‘holiday tree’) is brought in and decorated - and food is made. Lots of food. New Year’s Eve the table is laid; great joints of meat, salads, dried fruit, dried meats, sweets, tortes, fish, dolma (grape leaves or cabbage stuffed with a meat and rice mixture), fresh fruit, nuts, little blintzes stuffed with meat or cheese. Wine, vodka, and liqueurs at one end of the table; the best dishes and glasses laid out. You start eating at midnight, and basically continue for the next four days. The food stays on the table (except for perishables, which get refrigerated and brought out anew each time), and people visit - and you go visiting others. Every time you visit someone, or someone visits you, you eat. And drink. The toasts alone go on for days. New Year’s is also the night Zimmer Papik (a.k.a. Santa Claus) comes - and guests continue to bring presents he left at their house for their host’s children throughout the four days.

It’s positively exhausting - and I wasn’t even doing any of the work, just dandling baby Anya now and again, or trying to keep Hasico amused. None of the cooking, none of the endless clearing and washing of dishes, the laying out and putting away of food, none of the cleaning. I was just eating and trying to keep up with the conversation (not easy - my Armenian still needs a lot of work), or playing nardi (a form of backgammon). I did really well at the nardi this time (luck was on my side), and positively slaughtered my host father time and time again, which made me most happy. Other than that, I did a bit of visiting to families I had met during the three months I lived in Shahumiyan - and everyone had a table laid out. Even the poorest houses (a lot of the families I know are refugees) had their table laid out with the best they could manage, and everyone wanted me to eat.

The food fest was finally winding down by the 4th, and I was ready to try my luck with public transport again, so I boarded a marchutney to Alaverdi, and have been here ever since. I had a second Christmas (Armenian) at my friend Nellie’s house, and am going there tomorrow for a second (small) New Year’s - apparently it’s by the old calendar. I know the holiday season has got to end someday, right? It just seems like its going on forever… I think this is the last of it. Already karate has resumed and business will be back to normal soon enough.

Well, relatively speaking - there are some major changes in the works. The biggest one being that one of my sitemates, Mandy, has decided to Early Terminate and will be leaving at the end of this month. That’s going to be a bit difficult for me - my other sitemate, Matt, has fallen in love with an Armenian woman and now spends the majority of his time in Yerevan, so I’ll be pretty much alone here once Mandy leaves. Not to mention she was the main courier of mail and various Peace Corps documents in and out of Yerevan - mail’s going to be a bit more difficult now. Plus, having been here a year already, she had lots of useful survival tips for me. On the up side, she’s shedding a lot of things on her way out of Armenia, and a lot of them are falling in my lap. Clothes galore, and a TV with a VCR , and an oven, and various and sundry other oddities - books and a printer and puzzles and cookware and duct tape and batteries. I’d still rather have the company - but it’s pretty obvious that it’s time for her to go, sad as it is. I will miss her - it’s not that we spent all that much time together, but we did see each other at least once a week, and I’ll miss that contact.

As for mundane details of my life here - I’m still taking a bath every day! It’s an accomplishment here - though, to be honest, it’s not been that cold. I guess we’re having a warm winter, and I’ve been steadily burning through the 100 liters of kerosene stored on my porch. The smell is pretty nasty, but it’s warm in my house, and that’s what counts. That’s what makes the daily baths a reality - when I was staying at my host family’s, it was just too cold, even with hot water. Vanadzor is a lot colder than here, and Shahumiyan a bit colder than that - it’ll be a lot nicer there during the summer, when I’ll positively swelter here, but right now I’m happy.

And my phone finally works.

and I hear back!

I finally got my first letters from the school, with lots of questions from the kids, and promptly sent off this reply:

Hey you -

Wow! Thanks for all the letters - it was great to get so much mail, all in one massive package. From what I can tell, the envelope got sent out on the 19th of September, and I got it on the 13th of November - it looks like the mail may take a while. So if it seems like I'm not answering your questions, it's pretty likely that I just haven't gotten your letters - I can only hope the outgoing mail (i.e., from me to you) is a bit faster. This should be your 4th letter from Armenia, and you probably know some of the answers to your questions by now. I'll answer them all anyway - or at least all I can remember - just for good luck. Before I start on that task, I wanted to let you all know that those were really great letters, and some marvelous questions. I wish I could write each of you back your very own letter, but as there are 50 of you and only one of me - well, it would be pretty hard. I like writing you-all very much, but there are only so many hours in the day. It's the best I can do for now. If you'd like, I could try to set you each up with an Armenian penpal - I don't know if I can, but I can try. Let me know if you're interested in this, ok? For now, I'm just going to try to answer all your questions, in no particular order - if I skip something, let me know and I'll cover it in my next letter.

Here goes: My birthday? September 22nd - it's often the fall equinox as well, which I think is pretty cool.

Where did I go to school? I went to school in a lot of places - when I was very little I went to school in New York City; then in Northfield, VT (1st grade through 4th grade); then in Montpelier, VT (from 5th grade through 8th grade); and then U-32 High School in East Montpelier; and then Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, PA (part of Temple University). Since graduating college I've taken various classes here and there but haven't been in school full time - learning is just one of those things that never ends. I'm 37 years old now, and I'm still doing homework! And taking tests, too. Because you're such smart kids, you've probably figured out that I grew up in Vermont (well, mostly - I was only in New York a couple of years when I was very young); then I moved to Philadelphia for college. After that I moved to Maine, then New Mexico, then Texas, then New Hampshire, then Vermont, then Texas, and then Vermont again. In between all this, I've visited (in chronological order) Canada, Egypt, Somalia, Mexico, and England. Now I'm here in Armenia, and expect to be staying my full two years - possibly three. Everywhere I've been is different, everywhere has things to like and dislike - usually we're most comfortable with what we know and are used to. Myself, I've pretty much found things to like everywhere I've been - though I think I'll probably end up in Vermont eventually. It's my home state, after all - it's where I grew up, and where my parents still live.

Which brings us to my family - one older sister, who lives in Minnesota, MN; mother who lives in Burlington, VT; father who lives in Northfield, VT; various relatives scattered about the country, and a lot of friends all over the place. I think of my friends as part of my extended family - it's just as likely that I'll be at their homes for holidays as it is I'll be at my parents' or sister's. I don't have any one 'best' friend - I have a lot of very close friends, all of whom I love dearly. Neither my sister or I have any children - you can't join the Peace Corps if you have children unless the children are all grownup, and I'm still too young to have children that are all grownup. Now I have my host family here as well - I lived with them for three months when I first got here, and they continue to be an important part of my life here. They are great people and I feel very lucky indeed to know them. Mama, Papa, Karina and Artush, Hasico and Anya, all living in one house; cousins and extended family all around. Artush is the son of the family, Karina his wife, Hasico and Anya their children - it's common here for the sons to stay at home and start their families under their parent's roof, if it's possible. Most people continue living with their parents until they marry - and if they don't marry, they may stay at home all their lives.

That's one of the many differences between Armenia and the US - in a lot of ways it isn't that different here from there, but in some ways it's very different. The weather's pretty similar to the Northeast (right now we're at the start of fall, and it's chilly outside, there's snow in the mountains and frost in the fields); the people here worry about heating bills, too; the clothes aren't that different - a bit dressier in general. I usually wear just what I would wear in Vermont - but most people dress up a bit more. Appearance is very important here, and people take a lot of pride in how they look. Shoes ARE shined, clothes ARE ironed - on the other hand, people often wear the same clothes day in and day out. A lot of people only have a couple of different 'good' outfits, and so it's not shameful to wear the same clothes day after day - it IS shameful to wear dirty or wrinkled clothes, to not shine your shoes. No one cares or even notices if you wear the same clothes for a week - but get a smudge on your jacket (which I do a lot - mostly from leaning up against walls) and your friends will start brushing you off as soon as they see it.

A lot of you asked me if I had any pets - right now I don't, but I have had cats, dogs, mice, gerbils, hamsters, ducks, rabbits, and a horse in the past. I didn't think it would be fair to the animal to get a pet when I was going into the Peace Corps, and I think it would be really hard for me to have a pet here in Armenia. There are a lot of animals here, but not a lot of pets. So for now, I'm without animals - maybe when I get back to the States and settle down I'll get a cat again. I do miss having pets - they're good friends to have, and can be great comforts. I'll be in Armenia for two to three years though, so it'll be a while before I get another pet.

The time difference - from what I can tell, we're about 9 hours ahead of you. It can make telephone calls difficult - I've gotten up a 5:00 a.m. (my time) to call my friend in Vermont at 8:00 p.m. (his time). It's 1:30 in the afternoon right now, I've just gotten my phone working (that's been a battle) - and my computer tells me it's 4:30 in the morning in Vermont, which means I can't call anyone there right now. I'm going to do my dishes instead - it's not quite the same as talking to a friend in the States, but it's a lot cheaper. I do get lonely at times, and miss my friends and family back in the States (and a really good cup of coffee from Muddy Waters - and sushi! Last night I dreamed about eating sushi, and it was really tasty) - but most of the time I'm just too busy trying to figure out how to pay my phone bill, or what that person just said to me, or how to change the wick on my kerosene heater, or SOMETHING to get very homesick. There simply isn't time - and there's so much else to think about here. A lot of things take more time here than in America - things like taking a bath, or washing dishes. Get the bucket of water, wait for it to heat up, pour it into the basin, fill the bucket with rinse water - it's a good fifteen minutes before you even start the washing up. Wash the dishes in the basin of hot water, put them in the sink, and then rinse with the bucket of cold water. Making a phone call? Walk twenty minutes to the post, place your call with the person behind the desk, and wait for the call to go through before walking the twenty minutes back. It's not that any of this is terribly difficult - it just takes more time. Or maybe it's just what my teacher used to say to me about tasks expanding to fill the time available - it seems like I should have more free time than I do, but somehow it's never there.

Now, about Armenia - yes, there's a national flag and a national anthem. No, there are no oceans (Armenia is surrounded by four countries - Iran, Georgia, Turkey, and Azerbaijan) but there is one big lake, Lake Sevan. Armenia is a very old country, which used to be much larger, with a history dating back over 2600 years and its very own alphabet and language - the people here are very proud of that history and of their heritage. However, life here has been - and still is - very difficult for many people, and many Armenians have left and now live in other countries. For the Armenians are still here, life is often very hard, and it has been since the earthquake and the breakup of the Soviet Union. I wasn't in Armenia during the earthquake, and there haven't been any new earthquakes since I've been here, but the damage is still very visible. My life here isn't very difficult, but for many people life is extremely hard. For almost everyone here, the last twelve years have seen a drastic drop in living standards. I think it's important to remember what most Armenians had fifteen years ago - they weren't hungry, they had medical care, the roads were paved, everyone had a place to live, everyone had the opportunity for education, the factories worked, there was new construction all the time, the trains ran, and the lights and water worked. There were problems, but they were very different problems.

Now very few of the factories work, many people still live in the temporary housing brought in after the earthquake - big metal shipping containers which may or may not have running water. Many people who work aren't paid for their work - doctors and nurses haven't been paid for over a year; teachers haven't been paid for three to four months. The roads aren't fixed, the buildings aren't fixed. Construction projects are stopped; the cranes rusting in place around the skeletons of buildings. People are hungry. Education is expensive, and not everybody can afford it. Healthcare is also expensive, and most people can't afford to go to the doctor or the dentist. It's a big change from the past - and while it is getting better, it's a slow process.

It's as if you woke up one day and the power was out, and when your mom tried to call the power company no one answered. And then the water stopped working, and there was no one to call about that either. When you went to the store there wasn't much there, only a couple of sacks of flour which were really expensive. And that kind of cereal you really hate. This sort of thing just went on - if your car broke down you couldn't get a new one or parts to replace what had broken. Even if you had the money, there was nowhere to buy what you needed - but you probably didn't have the money anyway. The trash stopped getting picked up, and no one repaired the roads. Streetlights went out. Elevators broke down, and weren't fixed. People stopped going to work, because there wasn't any work once they got there. Your school didn't have heat in the winter. That's kind of what happened here. So, even as things are getting better - the lights are on, and there's food in the market - it's not the way it was before; nothing works the way it should or the way you're used to it working. You always remember the way it was before, when everything worked.

That's what living here is like - the amazing thing is that despite it all, despite all the hardships, people have been incredibly kind and generous to me, this stranger in their town. Not everyone is, of course, but I've met some truly wonderful people here. And coming here has given me the chance to write you - truly, I am very glad to be here in Armenia now. I realize I haven't answered all your questions, but I've written three pages and this has got to stop somewhere! Or I'll never get it to the post, just sit here typing madly away and you'll never get a letter at all, and THAT would be a great pity indeed. So, I'm going to stop here, and get on with cleaning my room - hopefully this will be enough to keep you entertained for a while.

Love to you all - Meg

World Wise

The Peace Corps World Wise program matches up interested volunteers and teachers in an attempt to help educate American children about life outside of our borders. I was paired up with a middle school class and was pretty faithful about sending them off a letter every month. Every now and again, the kids were assigned to write me back - I suspect when the teacher had a gap in his lesson plan and needed to fill it - and I would get a sheaf of letters from the little buggers and attempt to answer them all. One year they sent me a Christmas package - lots of toilet paper and (weirdly enough) bottled water.

Here, for your reading pleasure, is one of the earlier letters I sent off to them. It was November, and I hadn't gotten any messages from the teacher or students yet, so I was writing blindly, posting letters off into the void. The letters were all numbered, as mail sometimes disappears enroute, or arrives out of sequence:

11•2•00 (start)
Letter #3


Well, I'm still hoping I'll hear from you one day - and who knows? There may be a letter from you waiting in Yerevan even as I type, or somewhere in the postal system between here and there. Mail can take ever so much longer than you'd think. It will just be easier for me once we start some sort of dialogue going, rather than my simply posting letters off into the void, bumbling along and hoping you find something of interest or use. I do wonder at times. After all, it WAS a government agency that set this up - and between bureaucracy, computer errors, and the inevitable red tape ANYTHING is possible. For all I know at this point, you've long since moved to Istanbul, taken your students with you, and these letters are sitting in the dead letter office of your old school. Assuming it's still standing, that is.

As for me, I'm still here in Armenia, with no thought of leaving anytime soon. For Istanbul or any other destination. Most of the last month I've stayed right in Alaverdi except one trip into Yerevan - it's Armenia's capital - on the 20th of October for our Emergency Evacuation Drill. It's a sort of fire drill for Peace Corps Volunteers, to make sure all of us can get out of the country quickly if we need to. We actually had a bit of trouble getting out of town - there was a funeral going on and all the roads out of town were blocked off by cars with wreaths and pictures propped on their hoods - but once out of Alaverdi, everything went smoothly. Everyone else managed to make it in, despite various small problems, and we all stayed at the Erebuni Hotel for the weekend. The hotel's right in the center of town, with HOT running water - it's the lap of luxury, even if we had to spend most of our weekend attending various workshops. I did manage to get into the Peace Corps office Sunday (we went in Friday night), pick up some new books to read, and weigh myself before catching a marchutney back home. I got to see my first Armenian snow on the way - it's not here in town yet, but I'm sure it's coming, and there was a good four to six inches in the mountains when the marchutney went through.

Marchutnies (pronounced mar - shoot - knees) are one of the main forms of public transportation in Armenia - they're smallish minivans with extra seats added so that they can fit 12 or more people (depending on the length of the trip and the size of the passengers). On shorter trips it's definitely 'more', with the seats being at a premium and the rest of the people standing in awkward half crouched positions, bracing themselves as best they against seats or other passengers. If someone has a child or other fragile package another passenger will often hold it for them, and the floor fills with bags of vegetables or fruit. On the longer journeys, everyone gets a seat - but it may be small and you don't get much leg or wiggle room. The trip from here to Yerevan is about four hours (on good roads), and I'm usually a bit stiff by the time it's over.

There are also trains and buses, taxis for those who can afford them, streetcars in Yerevan, at least one cable car (it's here in town, going from Alaverdi to Sadahart many times a day. Sadahart's a little town on the steppe overlooking Alaverdi proper) - and many families have their own cars as well. I've used everything so far except for the streetcars in Yerevan - I don't have a car here myself, but my host family has one and they've given me rides. There are also horses, donkeys, and mules - ridden, led, or pulling carts - sharing the roads, along with cows, people, goats, and sheep. It can be pretty interesting - aside from all the various types of traffic, the roads themselves are often in poor shape, and it's standard practice to drive on the side of the road with the fewest potholes. No matter which side of the road it is. Headlights at night are apparently not mandatory, but killing the engine and coasting down hills may be. The rules of the road have been adapted to the circumstances here. Surprisingly enough, I have yet to see an accident - and I'm hoping it stays that way for the next two years - though I've heard about several, some of them bad. I think there are simply less cars on the roads, and probably fewer people driving fast. Also, cars are a lot more valuable to their owners here - people are more careful with them in general.

Meanwhile, back in Alaverdi, I voted - way ahead of most people. Because I'm all the way over here in Armenia, and mail takes so long to get from here to there and back again, my state sent out a ballot by mail early so that I could take part in the election. I got it, marked it, and sent it back the weekend I was in Yerevan. By the time you get this it will all be over and done with, and we'll be looking at a new President - and, assuming the mails came through, I'll have done my part towards making that choice. I think it's pretty cool that I can still vote, no matter where I am, and really important to take that opportunity. If you don't vote, you're letting other people decide how to run the country - a vote is your voice in government, and I want to make sure I'm heard all the way from Armenia.

We also had a Halloween party for the English classes at the Language Center (on the 31st, of course). Halloween doesn't exist here, which meant we had to explain everything, from why we wear costumes and masks to how to bob for apples. We had a piñata as well, and a version of 'Pin the Tail on the Donkey' called 'Pin the Head on the Cat', three jack-o-lanterns, bags of candy, and paper pumpkins to color. The bags of candy each had a toothbrush as well - a lot of the children here don't brush their teeth, and many adults don't have a lot of teeth as a result. It wouldn't be Halloween without candy, and too much of it at that, but toothbrushes are a good idea for afterwards. Everyone had a good time, and I should have some pictures from it sometime relatively soon.

There should be a couple of photos in with this letter, if all goes as planned, so you can see what I look like, and what Alaverdi looks like as well. I'm planning on taking the train tomorrow morning into Vanadzor - my host family lives in the nearby village of Shahumiyan, and I want to visit them. While I'm there I'll get some shopping done (Vanadzor is a much bigger town than Alaverdi, and the shuka there is bigger too. A lot more variety - things like European cheese! Box milk! Oatmeal! Chicken! Fancy teas! Italian pasta!), and get some reprints at the photo lab there. If there are photos with this you'll know I succeeded - right now I'm still trying to reach my host family to let them know I'm coming.

Which is proving more difficult than I had hoped. My phone isn't working right now, so I need to walk the 20 minutes to the Central Post Office to place a call - I tried last night, but no one was answering, so I'll try again today and hope to get through. I also need to work on my Armenian homework (I'm learning to read now! It's very exciting - though I'm still very slow. Soon I'll be able to decipher street signs and package labels… it's good to be reminded of the joys of literacy) - I have a lesson tonight after karate, and I really want to learn the language so I can talk to people a bit more. Right now, at this very minute, I need to take my vitamins and get going on my day - I'll write more later, after this weekend.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 11• 7•00 •••••••••••••••••• Election Day!

No mail to speak of in Yerevan (I'm expecting a package from my mother, and keep hoping it will show up SOON), and one lone postcard here in Alaverdi - that took almost a month to get here - so I still have hope there's more in transit. Maybe next week, when we'll all be going to Yerevan for yet more training - well, the training will actually take place in Tsakhadzor, but we'll all be assembled in Yerevan before being shipped out by bus to Tsakhadzor. I'm hoping you have a good map of Armenia and can find at least some of these places on it. A lot of the names have changed in the last 10 years, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, so some cities may be hard to find but you should be able to find a few at least.

I spent the weekend in Vanadzor, went to the bank and the photo store, did some shopping, and spent time with my host family (in Shahumiyan), who are simply wonderful. I left loaded down with presents - Apples! Potatoes! Walnuts! Homemade apricot jam! Pots! Garlic & Onions! Sheets! Carrots! Beets! An extension cord! - and they kept asking if there was anything else they could do for me, or give me. Did I need anything? Was I warm enough? Was anyone bothering me? Did they need to come up to Alaverdi? Remember, I am 37 years old, and pretty well used to taking care of myself - but I must say, it's very pleasant to be watched over when you are in a strange country miles from your home. I went to Vanadzor with my friend and Armenian tutor, Nellie - she has friends and a great aunt in Vanadzor, and spent her time visiting them - and when we came back her brother and sister met us at the train, walked us back into town, and helped carry various packages. All those potatoes and apples get fairly heavy after a little while, and it was great to have the help - once again, I am amazed by the kindness and generosity, the trouble people take for the stranger in their country, the endless gifts of time and food and skills and strengths. Of course, there are also the people who try to cheat me in the market, the children who yell or throw things at me or mock my accent, the people who don't have the time or patience to decode my attempts at their language - and the kindness and warmth of my host family, my friends here, and strangers makes all the difference in the world. Something for me to remember.

A quick note about mail: Send all mail 'Via France'; the Yerevan address is slightly faster, but then we have to pick it up in Yerevan, so in general it works out even in the end; anything other than standard envelopes should definitely be sent to Yerevan (or it's likely to disappear en route); mail in general takes between 2 to 6 weeks in transit. Interesting note about mail in general - except for in some parts of Yerevan, there is no door to door delivery of mail. We go to the Post and pick it up ourselves - which means if you're expecting a letter, you need to keep going to the Post and checking to see if it's come yet.

days went by

Weeks went by. Months went by. There was still nothing for me to do - I showed up at the Polyclinic on a regular basis and sat there in my 'good' clothes, drinking coffee with the staff, having my fortune told with Russian fortune cards. I seem not to have written many emails during this period - or at least none of my friends saved them - but I did write a monthly letter to a school in CT, part of the Peace Corps 'World Wise' program, and I knocked out an article or two for the in-country Peace Corps newsletter.

here's the first of those articles - I got in big trouble for this one, BTW.

This is where I live now, out here on the edge, somewhere past the buttend of nowhere - or so my stateside friends are happy to inform me. It really doesn’t seem that isolated to me - after all, I share Alaverdi with somewhere between 30,000 and 15,000 Armenians (depending on whose count you believe), and Matt even shows up from time to time. I have a phone, I get my mail at the post, I’m an hour from Vanadzor, and three to four hours from Yerevan. I have running water often enough, I have a working toilet, I have electricity and a television and a VCR - as any Armenian could tell you, ‘This is not Africa’. It may still be the edge of nowhere, but I’ve got the amenities. Where I am doesn’t seem hard to me, it’s not a difficult place to live - it’s a sort of extreme low budget resort or maybe a rest cure for the terminally idealistic. I wasn’t planning on taking a rest cure - I didn’t think I was all that idealistic - but I can’t say I wasn’t warned.

After all, I did my research. I have my friends. Beverly spent her service in Togo, and she told me of sitting around counting mosquito bites to pass the time. Sixty-seven on one leg. She also taught herself German, which to me implies that self motivation was perhaps not the problem. Melanie simply left Bangladesh once her lack of job became apparent to her. Bryn was an A-3 volunteer right here in Alaverdi, and he said no matter what I was doing, my main job would be most likely be ‘American on Display’. I read the stastics of failed Peace Corps projects. I heard time and time again that the reason Peace Corps volunteers always say that they get so much more than they give is that they really don’t give that much. There was more. I was warned.

Of course I was convinced I would be different. I wasn’t sure exactly how, but I knew I would be. I’d be given all the information I lacked in PST, there would be a job once I got to site, and I’d pick up the language somehow. How I wasn’t sure - my family remains firmly convinced I’m dyslexic, and had no such hopes for me - but I thought total immersion might do the trick. From small beginnings things would proceed apace, each success building on previous projects, until my particular area shone like a small and perfect jewel. I’d be off on the sidelines, having adroitly worked myself out of a job in perfect Peace Corps style. Somewhere along the way I hoped to acquire a beatific smile - a sort of younger and cuter Mother Theresa, if you will. I didn’t expect to meet the Pope, of course, and I wasn’t really interested in fame - though I’m not saying I would have refused had it been thrust on me - I just expected to change a small corner of the world. I’d be making a difference with my two years, really I would. Well, we all have our dreams, and the sin of pride will get me every time. Give it up to Jesus, girl, give it up to Jesus.
But what do you do when Jesus doesn’t want it? I knew better, of course, I knew better all along.

Reality is always waiting around the corner, and there are such a lot of corners in Armenia. My reality is that I have no job here - the polyclinic I was assigned to has no use whatsoever for a non health professional, and the maternity house feels much the same way. You don’t know how I’ve envied the TEFLs, with their classes of unruly children and abusive principals. They have jobs - why can’t I? After all, it’s hard to work yourself out of a job if you don’t have one to start with. My resemblance to Mother Theresa may have actually waned in the last six months. This is not exactly what I had planned.

I’m holding out hope. Things may not be going exactly to plan in my life, but when have they been? It’s early enough yet that there’s still hope that some of my projects will coalesce, and my previously noted resemblance to Mother Theresa will return. Unlikely, perhaps, but still possible. I’m not obsessively folding paper cranes just yet; I got my orange belt in karate in the last month (which is progress of a sort, if not exactly the sort Peace Corps is likely to reward), and it’s still early. Or so I keep telling myself. And - who knows? - maybe I’m right. Things are starting to pick up and seventeen more months should be long enough to get something accomplished.

If not - well, I can always re-up for another year.

What I did there

And good morning again. Oatmeal and tea and a "multi vitamin and mineral hi-potency tablet", courtesy P.C. It's the breakfast of champions. Plus a couple of ibuprofen because I tweaked my back this morning. So it goes.

You'll notice that in all of this ranting I've said NOTHING about my work. It's simply that I don't really have any yet. I'm assigned to a PolyClinic and a Maternity House, and I've toured both and am showing up at the PolyClinic regularly for a couple of hours a day. At the moment, however, there's really nothing for me to do once I'm there. The facilities are pretty impressive - by Armenian standards - x-rays, dentist, sonogram, isolettes, etc. Lots of staff - the PolyClinic has approx. 125, with 25 doctors, and the rest nurses or lab techs or other; I'm not sure about the Maternity House. Babies are swaddled here; they look like they're straight out of a medieval woodcut - weird little bundles with tiny heads sticking out, perfectly rigid. There's also a hospital and a children's PolyClinic here (I haven't been to either yet - it's only my second week here), and I've seen evidence of UMCOR, USAIDS and the World Food Programme, but am not sure how involved they are, or what exactly they're doing here. Remember, no medical staff in Armenia has been paid for a year - and often it seems like there's not much for them to do. They show up, sit down, and wait. Maybe a couple of people come in, maybe not. Records are kept in something like copybooks, handwritten with glued-in pages. What I'm actually "supposed" to be doing, god only knows - and I panicked about it bigtime my first week, until I unearthed some site survey forms that need to be filled in. A sense of purpose and a semblance of structure - thank ye gods and little fishes - though god only knows what I'll be doing when that's finished. Matt is working on an AIDS seminar for the end of this month, and I'm supposedly helping him (Matt & Mandy are the 2 other volunteers in Alaverdi - Mandy's currently en route to Greece with her mother, but Matt's been a great help. He even made me dinner that first night in town, which was a blessing), but so far I've done zilch. At this point I'm just trying to find my bearings and my way about town. For example, last night I went to visit one of my neighbors who had invited me over the night before. Somehow I ended up in the wrong building - but was still invited in to this random person's apartment, given coffee and cake and talked to. Watch the Amerikatski mangle your language! The one phrase I've thoroughly mastered is, "My Armenian in very bad now, but will be better later." The rest of the time it (my language) bears a frightening resemblance to David Sedaris' French the first year he was there. Now if I could only learn the Armenian for "bottleneck", I'd be all set.

Such is my life at present. O, and my computer's problem has been solved, though I don't currently have direct access to email, and won't while I am here. Burnt out power supply cord. Jim (my mother's boyfriend) sent me a new one and problem solved! Just think how outdated it'll all be once I get back to the States... and that's nothing new.

I could go on for days about the various details of life here (or about my cleaning), or about the giardia I'm pretty sure I've picked up, or about immersion heaters (an easy step to electrocution) and bucket baths - but, hey! I've got two years yet to bore you with the details of life in Armenia. Who knows? Eventually I may even find some work to do - and that will be a whole ‘nother story with its own peculiar set of details.

At home in Alaverdi (Armenia, natch)

Early September, 2000 - one of my first letters from site:

I'm sitting here in my new home (for the next 2 years) in Alaverdi - a canyon town in the north of Armenia. Despite being in the north, it's one of the warmer sites in Armenia - one might even say HOT right now at 2:00 PM. A mazy town with twisty streets and alleys, tons of stairs everywhere. After 2 years here I should have great legs - if I'm not dead first. A river runs through it, with an ancient crumbling bridge (disintegrating stone lions et al) at one end of town, across from the copper factory belching smoke. You can taste it in the air, the heavy metal coating your mouth on bad days. Lots of trees - and lots of trash, blowing about the ground or in small burning heaps here and there, or in the river as per norm. Some sadly abused and overflowing dumpsters where I put my trash in the hopes it will actually go away somewhere.
I've been here a week so far - arrived last Saturday, and it's all still very new and confusing - not to mention my language skills are still pretty pitiful, which doesn't aid in the struggle.

At first it was quite dismal. I got in on Saturday, as I've said, riding the marchutney up from Vanadzor with one of my counterparts (I have two - neither speaks English) who escorted me to my apartment and then buggered off to her own life. I had to wait for the P.C. driver to come with my mountains of things (including my water filter) - I had had nothing to eat, and was nursing a half empty bottle of Fanta. And couldn't leave. ARGHH! Not a joyful occasion. But he came at last, and brought all my stuff, and it was good. Aside from the fact it wasn't a water day (every other night for 2 hours here) and there wasn't a lot of water stored, and the place was filthy. Sort of surface clean, but the grime of ages on everything, a thin layer of dust overlaid. So I had to clean before putting anything away - all in all, it's kind of lacking some of what I'd been led to expect. It's one of those times when you really really miss WalMart, evil as they are. It could be so easy, though...

Pots, pans, dishes, silverware, furniture, and linens are supposed to be provided. Some of that was somewhat true. I had 4 plates, 4 spoons, 4 forks when I first arrived, and some of the normal furniture (i.e. bed, sofa, table, 7 dining room style chairs) and bed linens. 2 teacups, one small glass, and a teakettle. It was looking pretty bleak - OK, I fully expected to have to buy some of the stuff, but not so bloody much! I could even handle buying it if I could figure out where I could get it (hence the urge for WalMart, sick as that may be). My stores have increased somewhat since then (3 pots and a frying pan - solid aluminum! - 4 knives, a couple of bowls plus some stuff I bought myself) but there's still more I'm looking for. Mostly simple stuff - like a cutting board, a bread knife, a couple of normal sized pots and pans (she keeps giving me really small stuff - 1/2 sized or so), and boy! it would be nice to have another shelf in the refrigerator. I know I'm a greedy American - what can I say? It's my culture! Embrace it! A bedside table, a desk, some shelves and some hooks, more clothes hangers... o, the list goes on. A fucking clean house would be nice, for that matter - I'm making progress, but it's slow. All the walls need to be cleaned, and the bathroom is a scary prospect.


Some notes on my apartment: There are two hallways, arranged in a ‘L’ shape with the front door at the top of the ‘L’; one big room with a tiny porch off it straight ahead (at the bottom of the ‘L’); a tiny kitchen at the end of the short end of the ‘L’ hall; and a largish bathroom tucked between the entry hallway and the kitchen. In the bathroom I have a huge, defunct, water heater, a normal toilet, and a bi-level tub. The walls are tiled to about halfway up, and there’s a central drain that the floor slants towards (very handy for the bucket baths). I’ve added two plastic ‘trash’ cans – one small one for TP by the toilet, and a large one for water storage – the bathtub also serves this function. No sink – I’ll be brushing my teeth in the kitchen sink for the next two years.

There's a window between the bath and the kitchen. The refrigerator in the kitchen is the larger dorm size; my stove and gas ‘balloons’ are from Peace Corps. No oven, and sink is truly tiny. There’s a dish cabinet on one side, but no other cabinets or counter space.

The balcony off the main room is about half the size of a standard elevator, with double ‘French’ doors. There’s a stack of boxes by my bed, currently doing service as a bedside table; there’s a huge wardrobe cum bookcase cum cabinet cum entertainment center - everyone here has one – against one wall in this room, still half full of my landlady's stuff. Dark wood, heavily and glossily varnished, lots of trim – really quite elegant in its way. There’s another one of these things, a far less elegant pearlized gray plastic laminate entity, in the main hallway - some coat hooks, an overhead shelf, and a mirror above a box thing. The bottom half of the wall between the bathroom and the kitchen is clean, the kitchen is clean, and maybe half of the bathroom – that’s a daunting task. Exposed pipes, that huge defunct thing squatting in the corner, and the tub - god only knows what's lurking under it. Oy vey.

Yeah, I know I'm in the Peace Corps and these may seem like odd things to be bitching about - but here they're not. It's a very "Westernized" world in many ways. It really wouldn't be half bad if I could get some shelves, my assorted oddments, and a desk. And get it clean.

But here and now it's almost midnight (there have been some breaks in my timeline - I've signed up for karate, seen Matt, annoyed my neighbors, and gotten my laundry) (among other things) and I'm tired. Tomorrow I'll go to the Red Cross with Matt, go to the PolyClinic at noon, and something else I'm forgetting now. Besides writing you, of course - and since all my mail is still going to Yerevan, I'll just have one more letter to write and I'll be caught up for the nonce. Whooo-hooo! All progress is to be celebrated, no matter how small -- and note that I am NOT bitching at ALL about the amount of mail I'm getting (keep on writing, folks!), just how long it's taking me to respond. At any rate - it's bedtime for Bonzo. Good night, wherever you are...

Armenia - two months later

I didn't have regular internet access during my three months of training, so emails were few and far between. Here;'s the next one, from the end of training, early August 2000.

OK, Chicago is a distant memory by now—it all seems so long ago—and so far Armenia’s been a lot kinder to my system. I’m one of the few folks here that’s managed to escape sans digestive tract troubles—actually I’ve had very little trouble with anything so far. To start with, I’ve got a great host family, and a great house to live in—it makes all the difference in the world. I’m not really living the life I always thought of as ‘Peace Corps’. 24/7 water and electricity, a toilet that swallows everything (a rarity here); refrigerator, stove, television. Hot water on demand, a beautiful garden, great food and amazingly plentiful. OK, laundry is a drag (I got blisters one time) and I’ve learned that I relied on the dryer’s amazing shrinkage action (my clothes are getting big—but so am I. Losing muscle mass, but not weight)—but I am truly in the lap of luxury here.

Soon enough I’ll be tossed out of Eden though—we find out our sites (for the next two years) on the 18th, and leave the 23rd. So by the time you get this, I’ll be in much less luxurious digs—most likely in a shenk somewhere. Shenks are these big ugly Soviet built apartment buildings, where things like water and power and elevators don’t work or don’t work well. Think ‘projects’ and you’ve got the concept. Quality construction it ain’t. Not the exotic travails of a thatch hut—more like really bad student housing ( you know, the kind that would be condemned, even in Burlington).

Concrete cracking walls in cheery shades of gray; floor and ceiling the same. Maybe a porch sort of thing—but no green space. Ah, it will be a sad day indeed….and I’ll have to start doing all my own shopping, cleaning, and cooking— o, the quality of living will be dropping right on down. Assuming I’m anywhere close, I’ll be visiting my host family quite a bit. Trust me on that one.


Armenia itself mostly reminds me of sort of a combo plate of America in the depression and the backroads of Vermont now—with all the usual warpage you get in translation. House gardens everywhere, potatoes and beans in neat rows. Women in heels, housedresses, and makeup; men in neatly pressed shirts and pants. Heels on dirt roads, heels everywhere and always. I’m probably the only woman in Armenia that doesn’t shave my legs or armpits. Disintegrating roads—people drive to avoid the worst spots, no matter the right or left side—and open manholes are not uncommon. Broken decaying factories, cranes that haven’t moved for years, broken glass everywhere. Random livestock as well. Lots of missing teeth, lots of gold shining in the smiles. Casual gross mistreatment of animals. People who almost always invite you in for coffee, or for dinner, people who stare at you in the streets and on the marchutneys (minibuses) and buses. Constantly. It’s like being in training for stardom – I’m not quite ready for my closeup, Mr. DeMille. Some pretty scary toilets. The tap water runs brown after the rains. People dump their garbage in the river and believe that water will make you fat. Televisions in every home I’ve seen, along with jars upon jars of gleaming preserves. Lots of fat and salt in the food. Lots of sugar. Fairly impressive deforestation. Ruined and semi-ruined churches everywhere, every time you turn around. Highly educated and literate population; a lot of misinformation, a lot of pride. "This isn’t Africa" again and again. Fields hayed by hand, tilled by hand—there are tractors, but there isn’t gas for them, or they’re broken and the factory that made the parts is closed. High unemployment rate, a lot of apathy. The effects of the war of attrition, the closed borders, the embargoes, and the earthquake.

In general I think I’m doing pretty well with the cross-cultural adaptation (and feeling pretty smug about it, I might add—I’m not homesick, I’m not scared of the toilets, I know how to cope with no water, I’ve adjusted to the weekly bath routine, I can deal with people staring, etc., etc., ad nauseum) and then something rises up to smack me between the eyes, and I suddenly realize I’m not in Kansas anymore. It’s not just the language that’s different here. The last time it was my across-the-street neighbor dealing with a stray cat that had been coming into his home*; the time before that it was learning about the kidnappings that are not uncommon here. For the getting of a wife—simply pick your girl (you don’t have to know her) abduct her, beat and/or rape her if you choose, hold her a week or so, and she’s yours for life. No other choice—her honor is ruined, and there’s nothing else to do. No one will interfere, so daylight is fine—you know, after class or something. Great way to start a marriage, don’t you think?

And while the Peace Corps may have it’s official "it’s all cultural differences" stance, I’ve never been able to toe that line. Sure, it’s all cultural as long as your actions affect you alone—after that it moves into human rights issues. Or so say I. With my strong moral stance and absolutely no power.

Meanwhile, I’m struggling through (and with) the last few weeks of language class. As I feared, I am somewhat slow (note the use of gross understatement here). However, on the up side, I’ve been told I have the best pronunciation of anyone in my village—with my 20 words, that’ll get me far. We’re also in the midst of practicums—I’ve been teaching BASIC first aid to a group of young women (ages 13 to 22?) and then, this week, discussion on a wide variety of topics, chosen by the students. The first aid was a bit of a hoot, since I’ve never taken a first aid course myself—o, it’s the Peace Corps way! And this week we’ve got global topics—like "Relationships" (tomorrow) or "Drugs" (today) or "Education" (Tuesday). The best is when the students get here before my translator, and I’m sitting there smiling blankly, no doubt looking like some sort of demented Kewpie doll, and feeling like an utter ass.

I tell you, playing teacher has made me miss Kinko’s like no one’s business—O, for little spiral notebooks! 18x24 laminated paper for that wipe off reality! Multiple copies of everything—now I can’t just rely on handouts and pretty posters of stuff, or even big sheets of paper to draw on. I have to TALK—and since they don’t understand English, and I don’t speak Armenian that presents a bit of a problem. Yet more practice at acting like an idiot--I’m getting a LOT of practice at that here. I think I’ve got a natural talent for it.

Next week is workshops, and then it’s off to the big bad world of reality. Badly dubbed TV et al—seriously, the dubbing here is godawful. Beyond belief. They leave the original soundtrack intact, and just overlay monotone Russian dialogue over it. I think there are maybe 4 people doing the voiceovers—it all sounds the same, and you can hear the original actors relatively clearly under it all.

What else, what else—o, this is really funny, IMHO. My family doesn’t know I smoke (and, yes, I am smoking now—and, as always, am planning on quitting). So I go on a lot of walks. Down behind the school, smoking out behind the school—it’s like being the bad girl teenager I never was. I’m half convinced they really know I smoke (I’m sure I reek of it when I come back from my little strolls), but don’t want to know, and as long as I’m semi-discreet won’t acknowledge my sins. I smoked one cigarette in front of my papa (after I had just found out my aunt was dying, and then had to go to some relative’s party and couldn’t call my mother because you can’t call England collect and my prepaid calling card doesn’t work here) and was shamed that night (they say "amote case!" which translates to "shame on you!", but is a really big deal) and again the next morning. But I figured it was worth it in that case. The men are pretty much pigs here, even the nicer ones. The next 2 years is not going to help my opinion of men in general.

Oh, here’s a tragic example of the knowledge gap I was talking about earlier. My host sister-in-law, 24 years old, English teacher, very bright, did really well in school even when going with the new baby (who is now 3), etc, etc... She’s in her last month of her 2nd pregnancy (which gives her no break in doing housework and taking care of her husband, by the way), and I just found out she didn’t want to be pregnant, that it was an accident. She had an IUD, but found it painful and had it removed. After that they used:
A.) Coitus Interruptus
B.) Douching after sex

And—big surprise!— she was pregnant within 3 months and the big surprise is that it WAS a big surprise for her and her husband—they thought they were being really safe and she wouldn’t get pregnant, that she couldn’t get pregnant. Remember that this woman has been to university, and is well educated.

I’ve also been told (by a nurse, with something like 30 years experience) that you must not mix cold water with hot (for example, diluting tea with fresh water) or it will make you sick. About 3 weeks later, I figured that one out—if you boil water to make it safe, and then add cold water from the tap to cool it, you defeat the purpose, yes? So, adding cold water to hot will make you sick—and it doesn’t matter anymore if it’s clean water, it doesn’t compute. All my water is filtered—the P.C. supplies very good large filters—but that wasn’t the point. The point is adding cold water to hot makes you sick. Period. So that’s the glitch in the machine, that’s the warp in the fabric. And I live with a rich, well educated family—there’s Walker Evans reality within easy walking distance. It’s that kind of hard, and now it is easy.


*he had caught the cat, and was wiring a series of cans around its neck - it was appalling.

Armenian notes

In the spring of 2000, I went to Armenia as a Peace Corps Volunteer; I stayed there until the fall of 2003. I've decided to start this blog off with some of my letters from that time. Why? Well, aside from saving me the trouble of composing new posts, and thus appealing to my inherent laziness, it also gives background information and I get to revisit those Armenian days. Not to mention that my life now is hardly as interesting as it was then. I'm going to try to post the letters in rough chronological order, and include notes of explanation where needed.

So, this post will be from one of my first letters home - I had just started the three month training period and was living with my host family in Shahumiyan village, just outside of Vanadzor. The food poisoning incident referred to in the letter occured my last night in America, just before we were all bundled up and flown off to Armenia - it WAS ghastly.

Here's the letter, sent snail mail to a friend who then transcribed it and sent it out:

As you've probably figured out by now, my internet access is nil as of yet - and I've been far too busy to really research the possibilities. The language is a killer - I have to keep reminding myself I'm only in the 9th day of language, and if I can't read the ENTIRE alphabet yet it's probably OK (if incredibly frustrating - that and the one-sided conversations have been driving me crazy). The time is very tight these first weeks - 6 days on, one day off; homework and the obligatory visiting with the host family; trying out the "cross-cultural" experiences (shopping in the shukas; riding the marshutnies; eating, eating, eating). It is exhausting. The hardest thing for me so far - and certainly the most tiring - has been the amazing amount of effort it takes to communicate. I identify with David Sedaris more and more as the days pass by. Me talk pretty one day – but for now it's pretty grim.

"Knife?" "Cherries?" "Go school, yes?" I've mastered basic greetings and farewells; I can ask where the bathroom is and how you are; I can count to ten (well, usually), ask the price and say what I want, how I am and who I am (OK, I haven't mastered "Peace Corps" yet, but I've got my name down pat). Today I thought - for a sweet fleeting moment - I was breaking through to actually be able to read, but alas! I fear it was an illusion. I really really really want *The Cat In the Hat* in Armenian -- it would give me such a sense of accomplishment. And - Lo! - how the mighty have fallen.

The really good news is that -- aside from that food poisoning incident in Chicago - I've been astoundingly healthy. Others in the group have not been so lucky - and I'm sure I'll be joining the ranks of the sick (hee-vand) one of these days, but I'll be postponing that as long as possible. I'm really glad I got all my shots beforehand - even with the extra expense, it was a good idea. God knows I don't need any extra stressors on my system right now.

So, what is it like? Where are you going, where have you been? The trip here was endless - airline seats are definitely getting smaller - and the luggage hideous to manage. 102 lbs of check-through (which I only had to deal with in Chicago and Armenia), plus the three coats I was wearing to save on luggage weight (before and after it seems like a really smart idea, but in the middle of hauling through the Frankfurt airport I was having my doubts). Then Armenian airlines, which are a bit of a trippy experience but fun, and the arrival to sweltering heat, and the joy of hauling way too much baggage around (still wearing 3 coats, lest we forget) and waiting for the wheels of bureaucracy to grind us through - while the previous Armenia group (A-7s) screamed their welcomes through the glass. Eventually we all got through, with our small mountain of baggage, collapsed onto a bus and were delivered to the hotel (in Yerevan). The next day training began (in the morning, no less!) and the day after (5th) we were moved (yes, the baggage blues again) to the "sanitorium" in Vanadzor. Which was somewhat less than a treat, but nothing horrid by any means. Cold running water, electricity, earthquake damage. And the lumpiest beds this side of the sea. Lumpy beds seem to be a speciality here, and lack of an exterior/interior charm in the buildings is a definite style. Not in homes per se, but public buildings - concrete, concrete, concrete. Badly mixed and poorly maintained, peeling paint and disintegrating stairs at strange angles. Two days there and thence to our host families, with our halting and limited language skills. "Good morning!" "How are you?" "I am fine." It made for fascinating conversation around the dinner table.

Gradually we're learning. Basic commands and food come first - it's like training a dog, I guess. The care and maintenance of the PCV. "Sit" "Stay" "Slowly" "Come" "Go" "Speak" "Eat". Ruff.

I'm actually really lucky in my host family - one woman (my "sister-in-law") speaks fluent English, my "brother" does karate, and "Dad" is a mechanical engineer, while "Mom" is a retired mathematics teacher. One 3-yr-old "niece" and a cousin or two (9-11 yrs?) staying the summer. Running water with optional hot (switch on electric heater), an indoor toilet that swallows everything (usually the TP goes in a basket, NOT down the drain), obviously electricity, and meals 3 to 6 times a day. I hardly remember what being hungry feels like - and I'm beginning to really want that memory refreshed. Food is a big thing here - that and incredibly badly dubbed television. "Cafe con Aroma de Mujer" every day. You hear snippets of the Spanish, and the Armenian overlay; the same for the American movies - the original soundtrack is never erased, loud Armenian is simply added. ( ummm, actually the over dubbing is mostly in Russian, but I didn't know that yet, and was unable to tell the difference at that point) Swears are translated as "You pig!" or "You cow!" - or so says my sister-in-law, Karin. My translation skills aren't up to that yet - I'm pretty much sticking with the "Hello/how are you/my name is/what is your name" and all that stuff on the table. You want a tomato, I can get you a tomato. Beyond that level of communication it gets real sketchy real fast.

The country itself - at least here in Shahumiyan - is very beautiful. At least as long as you ignore the garbage in the rivers. The rusted abandoned machinery, the broken glass and broken buildings. Mountains, trees, neat little gardens of beans and potatoes; apple trees and roses and wildflowers everywhere. And tremendous poverty, of course - cute little kids with mouths of rotten teeth. Visiting the clinics is depressing - to start with, no one's been paid since September, and they're working in godawful conditions. Lovely crumbling cheery concrete buildings, no supplies to speak of, antiquated equipment, no labs or ambulances in house - and the doctors and PAs and nurses continue to try. Against all odds, without pay for 9 months. It amazes me.

Beyond that, what to say? This is all a bit disjointed because it's been stopped & started so many times, written in what time I've been able to snatch. Now I'm sitting out in the family garden with my Mama and a neighbor - they're peeling unripe walnuts for preserving. I'm writing. It's warm & sunny, and the world's behind the wall, behind the gate. Papa's been working on my adapter/converter for hours now - all my cleverness in bringing ahead of time, and nothing works. My discs won't spin, my computer won't charge. It's a sadness - but pretty survivable at this point. I'm a lot more concerned about the amount of food I'm eating and the lack of exercise - it's not that I'm worried about getting chunky (though if it's ever going to happen, this is the place) - it's just uncomfortable being stuffed all the time. Maybe they're planning to slaughter me come fall.

Personal History

This is how it began: Grace Quimby invited my mother and I to Cold River Camp for a week or so. We went, and there my mother met Shari Eniti, who was there as a babysitter*. Later Shari became one of our babysitters, for my sister and I, and later still when she moved to California she rented her house in East Montpelier to my mother. The house came with a deaf white cat (one eye blue and one brown) and a fat old mare, nominally a palomino. That horse was pastured during the summer down the road, on John and Polly Holden’s land.

And thus when I was 13 years old I met Polly Holden and, shortly after meeting her, became her garden helper. During the six or seven years I worked for her I did just about everything that needed doing: I weeded, I planted, I turned compost, I put in edging, and mulched the vegetable gardens with Austin Cleve’s old hay; I dead-headed the flowers every morning, and picked the lettuce first thing but the green beans only after the dew was dry; I pruned trees and bushes and mowed the lawn, cut down the iris after they had bloomed and braided the daffodils down in early summer; I made apple sauce and apple butter and put up quarts and quarts of vegetables for winter in the cellar freezer. I painted inside and outside the house, hung wallpaper, organized Smith alumni files according to Polly’s arcane system, wrapped presents for family and friends, cleaned the attic and the toy closet under the eaves, vacuumed and dusted, hung out clothes and brought them in, babysat for her grandchildren (this included going back to Cold River Camp with Polly’s daughter Bonnie and her children when I was 15 or so – and you see how it all goes around?), baked cookies with the grandchildren, and served dessert at her daughter Sally’s wedding in a black skirt and white apron. I started at a dollar an hour or less.

It was the best job I ever had. I loved it, the sheer joy of working outside in the summer among all the green and growing things. But far beyond that, it was that Polly and John gave me a haven from my life, at a time when I had sore need of it. I had a place where I knew what was expected of me, a place where everything was in its’ place and I knew where that place was. I knew their house, the flowerbeds, the gardens, the inside and out, I knew where to find the various baskets and tools, the system of the three bins for garbage in the kitchen (burnables, compost, and other) and I knew I would have lunch with them every day I that was there and I could tell you what that lunch would be. Soup, salad, toast, and a source of protein. Every day. Homemade soups more often than not, salads fresh from the garden – it was heaven.

Then John would have his after lunch nap, by all means, and Polly would usually lie down on her slant board in the upstairs hall near her office for a time, and I would return to the garden. It was stability. I had my napkin for the table, and a napkin ring of my own to mark it. There were jars of nuts and ‘Hollywood’ crackers in the kitchen; I was told to help myself and did so. If the day was exceptionally hot, Polly would bring me out a glass of cranberry juice or Schweppes bitter lemon in the afternoon, and make sure I took a break, that I wasn’t getting too sunburned. When I burned anyway – inevitable for me – she put lanolin on my back and neck, smoothing it over my angel wing shoulderblades. I was welcome there and loved. It meant more to me than I can say.

After two years in East Montpelier, my mother bought land and built a house in Fayston and we moved there, but during the summers I continued to work at the Holden’s, staying over a night or two every week, sleeping in the crooked window room. I ate breakfasts of granola and yogurt, or softboiled eggs, and lunches and dinners with John and Polly; I played Scrabble with John in the evenings or rehearsed the lines for whatever play he was in with him; went swimming with Polly in the neighbor’s pond; got up and was in the garden by 6:00 am, worked until 6:00 at night. I did this through the first two years at college, coming home to Vermont and the Holden’s garden, the green and growing things and Polly and John in my life. I knew all their children and grandchildren through Polly’s reports on them and from the artifacts they had left in the house and from meeting them throughout the years; I wore Spike’s old highschool coat throughout college and for years thereafter. I watched Princess Diana get married upstairs on the scratchy old TV in their house, Polly and I marveling at her incredible youth and at the gown’s train spread over the steps.

Then my mother rented her house, and I needed a summer job that included full time housing, and that was the end of the halcyon garden days. Polly and I stayed in touch and later, after I finished college, Polly took me to Egypt and Somalia with her, since John was unable to go (he was having his hip replaced at the time). Three weeks in Egypt and the Sinai, where I was the youngest and she the oldest on the tour, bracketing the rest of the group nicely, and a week in Somalia visiting her nephew and his family. I came back to Philadelphia horridly sick with some sort of flu and completely elated at having seen the sun rise over Cairo from atop Cheops pyramid, the Bedouin tents in the desert, St. Catherine’s monastery and the sun breaking across the desert from the top of Mt. Sinai, the beauty and the glory of it all. I had swum in the Nile (and it was very cold indeed), and eaten truly fresh bananas for the first time in my life. – I had been completely happy. It was like being six again, completely happy and completely free. We had a wonderful time, the two of us, the almost sixty years between our ages as nothing.

Life went on, as life is wont to do, and I visited them when I could, at their home in Vermont or in Hot Springs where they were wintering then. I moved – first to Mount Desert Island, and then to New Mexico, and then to Texas, and to Vermont again. Polly and John moved into Wake Robin; I moved back to Texas to care for a dying friend and came back again to Vermont once that was over. I visited them in Wake Robin now and we all grew older; they moved gradually into assisted living and then to the nursing units at Wake Robin. Polly no longer knew quite who I was when I visited, though her social manners were as graceful as ever, and John was in a wheelchair and seemed to nap much of the time. Polly told me tales about her childhood, her as a small girl riding perched on her father’s bicycle handles into town, and asked me again where she knew me from. The last time I saw them was just before I left for Armenia – I knew Polly wouldn’t know me, but it seemed important to see them anyway, to say my goodbyes while I could to these people who had given me so much throughout the years.

John died while I was in Armenia; Polly this past week. My mother saw the notice in the paper and told me; I wasn’t going to go. I had said my goodbyes four years ago, when I knew I was unlikely to see them both alive again and when Polly no longer had any idea of who I might have been in her life. I knew their family, but they were unlikely to know me – I was a bit player at best in their lives, after all.

I ended up going, and not just to one but two services. It stuns me, how much it did mean, to see the family again and to have the chance to honor Polly and John and their presence in my life. Amazingly enough, I was known- Cat (Polly’s granddaughter) picked me out first - and I knew them all, Polly and John’s children and grandchildren. Like their parents, they are good and gracious people; they made me welcome in their midst, they extended invitations to their homes. I, for one, am glad to know that Polly and John live on not just in my memories and the memories of others but also in the kindness of their children and grandchildren; these the things that do not die.

meg

*She may have actually been babysitting for the Holden's grandchildren, which would make it that much more of a circular reality - but, then again, she may not.