The Truth, The End, and the What’s Next

Some of you might already know that I was medically separated from Peace Corps in early April. I might have told some folks other stories about why I came home 2 months early, but I wasn’t ready to talk about things yet. So this will be one of my last Peace Corps stories (I might do a reflection story over the next few days), but lucky for you folks, there are many more adventures on the horizon.

Long story short, I was assaulted by another volunteer and was experiencing some nasty PTSD and anxiety over it. Things are getting better now… And no worries, the other volunteer is no longer serving in the Peace Corps. I told the in-country staff what happened to me, and after a long and fairly painful process, the person was punished for what he did to me.

I want to say a few things about this. Not too many details because that’s not important, but a few things. First of all, the in-country Peace Corps staff who helped me when I told them I needed help were amazing. They have the biggest hearts in the world, amazing endless patience, and made me feel so cared for and safe. So… if any of you Armenia volunteers experience something like I did, this assault by another volunteer, know that you are safe with staff. They are truly amazing people.

Second, these last few months have been really, really difficult. I’ve felt like my service was taken away from me, I felt cheated, weak, sad, and angry. These past few days, though, that feeling that I had my service taken away from me are fading, though. Now, my thoughts are more along the lines of… I sacrificed the end of my service to do the right thing. I didn’t lose the end of my service, I just ended it differently, by doing the bravest thing I’ve ever done in my life. What a way to end it, though. I left America 27 months ago imagining that I’d come back braver, more sure of myself, and better able to stick up for myself, and I went above and beyond what I thought I would be able to do. I surprised myself at my strength, even though it didn’t feel like it at every moment, here we are at the end. I’m proud of myself. It took me a while to get to this point. But ya. I’m proud of myself. Sometimes I still can’t believe that I was brave enough to tell Peace Corps who did it, but I’m very happy and grateful that I did find that strength.

Lastly… I want to remind the Peace Corps men and women that you folks are a family. We are family. Don’t assault each other. Love each other like brothers and sisters or more if you want to but don’t hurt each other like that please. Sometimes, we were all each other had. Respect each other. Support each other. I had amazing support from my fellow volunteers and I am beyond thankful for those people. Keep being good people. Keep putting the “peace” in Peace Corps 🙂

If any of you find yourself in the position that I was in and want advice on the standard reporting process or an ear, I am here for you. Leave a comment on my blog, and when I receive notification to approve it, I won’t publish it and will respond to you via email.

So that’s all. I’m healing. I’m taking my well-deserved close of service trip. Its DAY TWO of Marrakech, Morocco سيارا في المعرب I’m visiting the piece of my heart that I left here. More stories to come.

AND AMAZING NEWS…. Elaine has her own Instagram. She is elaine.little.meow and she wants to be a viral kitty, so you should all follow her 😀

Finishing up the Debate Team

Gayane in a debate

Today I (finally) closed out my Let Girls Learn grant, which was used to start a debate team at my school. I wanted to share some of the pretty cool things that my community, my counterpart, and I accomplished. This grant was successful beyond what I imagined it would be, and even though we weren’t able to put on the final debate because of circumstances beyond our control, those kids were ready, they were excited, and they were working hard. The important part, I guess, wasn’t whether or not the kids were able to show off what they had learned, but that they had actually learned it.

Let’s just start with some impressive numbers:

• I expected to attract 20 kids to the first few meetings and keep 10 of them on board for the whole project, and I was expecting most of them to be girls. However, I had 35 kids regularly participating in the project, girls and boys. Go kids!
• I expected my counterpart to spend 35 hours helping me teach and design the material for the project. She spent over 200 hours on the project, and that’s only including hours that I could count. She spent countless hours learning the material herself and lesson planning with me.
• We were going to meet once a week to learn debate and once a month to actually debate, but my counterpart and I were doing lessons in debate 6-8 times per week, and I think I lost track of the number of debates we actually had.

Me and Gohar 🙂

I also want to start by saying that a lot of times, projects like this that involve more learning from the kids than materials provided to the school fail quickly or don’t achieve as greatly as the volunteer expects because there is little support from the community’s counterpart. I wrote this project expecting little support, and instead, I got more support than I ever thought was possible. This project would never have been a success without my counterpart, Gohar. She was always pushing the kids and herself to think differently and critically, made sure everyone participated to his or her full potential, and taught the kids public speaking in ways I would have never been able to by myself. She also mastered a lot of different technology skills, like using Google Drive, how to use Google, and email, some things that other volunteers spend their whole services trying to teach their counterparts with no success. She was always so eager to learn and to teach, and I’m very grateful that I had the opportunity to work with her.

Now, the kids. I think I want to tell one of my favorite stories to demonstrate what my kids learned. They got to choose a lot of the debate topics, with many of them focused on gender equality, stereotypes, or rights that women and men have. Siranush in 11th form wanted to debate whether or not boys and men should be allowed to have long hair and piercings. The day we had this debate, we quickly found that not a single student could think of a reason why men and boys should be allowed to have long hair. That is, until I told them that when I was born, my dad had very long hair. One of them said that I was “normal.” How could I be related to someone who had long hair? How could someone with long hair be a father? Finally, when I asked them if my dad should have been forced to cut his hair, somebody said no, because it was his hair. I think that was one of my proudest moments with them. That was the moment that they realized that other people can choose what to do with their lives and bodies. “Your dad can do it, my friends can do it, but I would never do it!” said my 11th form boy. (They’re learning to accept others for who they are!!)

Ani and Siranush doing debate research

I also can’t get over that debate we did over CEDAW, the United Nations’ document on women’s rights. You can see that blog post here. That was not only one of our most complicated debates, when we talked about whether or not Armenia and America should sign this document and turn it into law, but also a moment when my students realized that they were a lot smarter and more capable than they realized. I remember when I had to look through CEDAW in my university class. I don’t even know how much of it I understood myself, as a native English speaker. But those kids were able to pick out enough words, phrases, and sentences to make a little bit of sense over what it was saying. And from then on, all my kids were just slightly better readers. Besides learning about women’s rights from the text, the also realized that they didn’t have to understand every word in order to understand a text.

I think this is my favorite picture of those boys.

One more thing: I was very proud of the boys’ participation in this project. Yes, this was a “Let Girls Learn” project, aimed at teaching something to the girls, but in Armenia, things are a bit different when it comes to education. When you think of “the rest of the world,” often times, people imagine that the girls in rural communities are the ones that have trouble getting an education and need to be encouraged to go to school. This isn’t the case in Armenia. Volunteers quickly learn that the boys are the ones who hardly speak English, don’t want to participate and learn, and don’t attend school as much as they should. I was expecting one boy to maybe come to some of the debate team meetings. Instead, I had 19 boys working on this project regularly. (and 16 girls, for comparison.) 19 boys! This meant that we actually shifted debate topics to things that applied to boys, as well. We didn’t do as well in these debates, I think because the boys aren’t as comfortable with English, speaking out for what they believe in, and critical thinking. For example, we never did find out why the boys didn’t want to study hard and go to university, why they thought it was wrong for them to help their mothers in the house, and why they didn’t want to be involved with raising their future children. (I have answers, ones that Peace Corps and my counterpart told me and that I’ve observed on my own) but it was very difficult for the boys to identify these reasons for themselves. I guess I just hope that I planted seeds. That, even if they couldn’t share their opinions or answers, that somewhere in the back of their minds, they had ideas and thoughts that they’ll be comfortable with someday. Or they’ll work things out later. I don’t know. I’m just happy that so many boys participated and had the opportunity to even think about these things.

I’m very proud of this project. I feel like everyone, including myself, learned a lot from it. I’m sure, though, that it’ll live on in my counterpart’s future curriculums and classes, the knowledge will be useful to my students at university and in their future jobs, and I’m sure that they will be able to pass everything they learned about technology onto the younger grades when the time comes. As for me, now I understand just a little bit more about my students and their lives and ideas. And that’s one of the best parts.

This is a long post, but I wanted to share some of the debate topics we talked about in the classes. Many of these questions came from my students or my counterpart. After that I promise it’s over…

• Is it easier to be a man or a woman?
• Are men and women equal?
• Should women be encouraged to learn to drive?
• Should boys be encouraged to attend university?
• Should girls be encouraged to go to university?
• Should girls be encouraged to play football?
• Is it acceptable for men to have long hair and/or piercings?
• Should women have jobs?
• Should men have jobs?
• Should boys help their mothers with housework?
• Should fathers help raise their children?
• Do boys need to study well in school?
• Are gender roles necessary in society?
• Can a woman be president of a country?
• Would you rather have a son or a daughter someday?
• Can girls and boys be friends?
• Should Armenia agree to the CEDAW document?
• Should America agree to the CEDAW document?

Researching researching.

Creative Writing at the University

I have one, last catch-up post to write before going back to current-day experiences and excitement. This one should have been posted in January.  

Such a nice time 🙂

January and December brought two of the most rewarding days of my service. I worked with a wonderful woman at the Project Design and Management conference, and she invited me to spend a few days working with her students at the Russian-Armenian University in Yerevan. These were really smart, talented students, and even though I love my little fourth graders, no matter how many times they mixed up the letters of the alphabet, it was really nice to work with students with such good English. I got to pull out some of my fun, creative writing lesson plans and experience what these talented students could do.

On the first day, I worked with a wide range of university students and gave a quick lesson on creative writing. We read Ray Bradbury’s “All of Summer in a Day,” and used it to learn about characters, plot, themes, dialogue, and morals. Then we talked about some famous first lines of stories, like Albert Camus’, “Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday; I can’t be sure.” So powerful. We discussed why this was a good first line and what kinds of questions it made us ask. Why didn’t he know when his mother died? How did his mother die? After their creative juices were flowing, I showed the students some pictures of random people, and they had to write short stories about what that person did that day. Then, they were ready to write their own stories.

Such nice, smart students!

On the second day that I went to the university, the students participated in the annual Write On! competition. The happiest moment was when a girl ran up to me at the end of the competition and told me that she couldn’t hand in her story. She had written the beginning of a little story about the moon, and it was very well-written and unlike anything I had ever seen before. I told her it was fine and that she should give it to me anyways. I thought that she didn’t think it was good enough for the competition. But what she said made me the happiest teacher in the world on that day, I think. “I want to turn it into a novel! I’ve never written anything creative before, and I think this can be a real book!”

I didn’t have a choice but to let her keep her story instead of entering it into the competition. (She had strayed from the prompt, anyways. That girl’s imagination was running away!) I was also proud to hear that one of these students won second the national competition for the University II level. You can read her story here. The first story on the page is the first place winner, and the second story is my student’s. 🙂 Go Diana! (You can also read the other winners’ stories on this website. It’s kind of fun.)

If you click on it and zoom in maybe you can read it (I don’t know, good luck)

I also taught a class of “well-read Ph.D students” (who were all older and more educated than me). We played a little game of what life is like in America, a board game I made called “The Game of Life: Green Card Version!” and it was a hit. They got to roll the dice for a green card, take a citizen test, work crappy jobs in big cities, and not make enough money. (Kind of like what I’ll be doing soon, minus the citizenship test….)

A budding journalism student also interviewed me for their school news. You can read that here.  I’m really happy that I had the opportunity to teach at the Russian-Armenian University.

Being a teacher…

Teaching…

Teaching some more…

Teaching with a powerpoint…

Busy students….

 

How Can I Help?

I meant to post this in December and I don’t remember what happened… I got busy… but it’s still important and relevant so here it is!

There it is! Don’t get hit!

I was sitting in the marshrutka (the minibus– read more here!) in the city recently. I was lucky to have a seat on this Soviet-era van-thing, for most people have to stand when they ride these because they are so crowded. Armenians always find a way to squeeze an extra person in. In a bus with maybe twelve to fifteen seats, often times there are closer to twenty or twenty-five people squished into that thing. Many times, the men stand and give the women the seats, maybe to be gentlemen or maybe because the woman are often wearing high heels and carrying bags, and everyone will give up their seats to the elderly. I’ve even seen teams of people boosting up old women who can’t pull themselves in, and I’ve also seen people taking other people’s children on their laps to free up more space. Armenians do so much to help each other on these buses.

On this particular day when I had a seat, a woman was squeezed up next to me, standing, holding her bag, shifting back her weight back and forth between her legs, clearly uncomfortable. The thought that came to mind was: “It’s really too bad that I can’t do anything to help.” But then, the pair of women sitting in front of me also noticed this woman’s discomfort, scooted closer together, and opened up a third spot in a seat that was made for two people. The woman sat down as this magical space appeared, and then another woman sitting near them took all their purses, piled them into her lap, and held onto them safely for the rest of the ride. I learned something from this situation. When the bus stopped again, I held onto the bag of the next woman who got on.

That tire haha

Ok, I learned more than that. What I realized was something that sometimes takes a long time for us Peace Corps Volunteers to understand, which is that, as foreigners in this land, we don’t really know how our communities need help unless we ask them. I saw no way to help in this situation, or I wanted to help in the wrong way, but the locals knew exactly what to do. This is a trap that we spend our services trying not to fall into, and often times we end up in it without meaning to or realizing it. We like to do things like buy English chapter books for kids who can hardly write all the letters. We are also known to buy smart boards for village schools when nobody in the school would know how to use one, let alone how to use a laptop computer. We’d get a lot more accomplished if, say, we brought picture books to the school or if we bought a single computer to use to teach our counterparts and older kids. And sometimes we have trouble seeing this, as foreigners. I guess, as my service nears its closure, one of the most important things I’ve learned here is that the best thing I can do to help others is to listen to them.

And there’s a nice picture of Yerevan 😀 Such a nice city.

How to Bring your Peace Corps Cat Home!

Hello 😀 I’m back. It’s been a while, but I’ve been really busy being a Peace Corps Volunteer and such things. The good news is that I’ve saved up blog post ideas in my head and I think I have time to get back into it now 😀

Look at how spoiled and happy the princess is in her new home!

I wanted to start with this post, which I should have done in early January, but early March will do just fine, I guess. As many of you know, me and Elaine, my Peace Corps kitty, went on an adventure to America for the winter break, and now she’s an American citizen living with my parents and our old cat, Dan. Surprisingly, bringing the cat from Armenia to America wasn’t difficult at all and was not worth all the stress and panic that I put into it. I hear a lot of volunteers who end up abandoning their Peace Corps pets at the end of service because they’ve heard that it’s really difficult and expensive to bring cats into America, and I wanted to write this blog post to tell future volunteers that it’s completely doable! (Also, you can read more about my experience having a cat in-country here)

To get your cat into the country, all it needs is a rabies shot (15,000 dram/ $30) and a passport ($2,000 dram/ 4$). We also had to have paperwork done, and the vet offered to do it for me for 10,000 dram/ $20. I could have done it myself for 2,000 dram/ $4, but that would have involved taking her to the airport the day before the flight and having her inspected by someone there, and it just seemed easier on everyone to pay the extra money and have her vet do the inspection. So, the cat doesn’t have to be quarantined and it doesn’t need crazy blood work or expensive shots; yup, all you need is 27,000 dram. You can find many trustworthy vets in Yerevan, and to get the number for the “Peace Corps Vet” (the vet that us volunteers use regularly), just ask around to other volunteers. It’s been passed down through the volunteer generations for a while, so somebody’s gotta have it.

Elaine was not happy with the amount of space she was allowed on the plane (like most of us). You have to get a soft cage of certain dimensions for your cat to fly in cabin, but your airline will tell you what you need.

One challenge that me and Elaine faced was with traveling in the country to go to vet appointments and such things. Since I live four hours south of the capital, that meant a four hour car ride with the cat. The taxi drivers were surprisingly understanding and would really just laugh at me. Nobody ever refused to take me and my cat. However, I always found that it was easier on me and my brain to rent out a whole car to get me and my cat north. This was a little expensive (and a personal choice– shared taxis are just fine!) and the reason why I decided to do this was because I hated having to spend a four-hour taxi ride explaining to the other riders why I was bringing a cat to Yerevan, why I didn’t want it to have kittens, and that, yes, I do let her sleep with me. Also, there are many Airbnbs in Yerevan that will let you and your kitty stay. Throughout her time in Armenia, we stayed at three different airbnbs and at each one, the owners were thrilled to meet my cat. Me and Elaine had a travel-sized litter box and some spray sent from America to keep her calm on our adventures to the big city, and I came to think that she liked riding in the car.

I had to pay $100 to fly with her, and I had to call the airline when I bought my ticket to reserve her spot. We flew Aeroflot because they let me keep her in the cabin of the plane, but I’ve heard that AirFrance also does well with animals. On the plane ride from Yerevan to Moscow, she cried a little bit, but on the 13-hour flight between Moscow and Los Angeles, she hardly talked at all. She just slept in her little cage (which we bought at a pet store in Yerevan!) the whole time. My mom sent puppy pads to keep in her cage, but she didn’t go to the bathroom the whole time we flew, not even when I let her out of her cage in a family bathroom in Moscow and Los Angeles. But the internet said that was normal, so I didn’t worry. I fed her cat food and salmon from my salad– that was the only time she made a peep on that flight, when she realized that I’d only given her half the salmon and she wanted all of it. She didn’t have any medicine to keep her quiet, either, so I was very impressed. However, I always wonder if she was so well-behaved because she’s deaf. She couldn’t hear the strange plane noises or the other people on the flight, she was just in her dark little corner and fell asleep easily.

Tatik and her friends just thought Elaine looked hilarious in her harness!

We were going to have her wear a harness the whole plane ride, but security in Yerevan made me take it off and I didn’t want to bother putting it back on. I did have to take her out of her cage for security, but both in Yerevan and Moscow, I happened to be on the same flight as a friend and she was able to help me stuff the cat back in the cage. When I went through security in Los Angeles, they put me and Elaine in a little room so she could freak out in private. (That was very helpful.) So, if you find that you can fly with a friend, at least to help you get through security in Yerevan, that’s a nice option.

Coming into America in Los Angeles, I thought that I would have to get her out of her cage, let her be inspected, and show six people her paperwork, but in reality, all I had to do was declare her. Nobody even wanted to see her paperwork and I just walked right through like she was a normal piece of luggage. I wonder if somebody made a mistake, but I told every airport worker I saw that I had a cat and nobody seemed to care. I did not have to show her expensive paperwork and passport until we were getting on the Air Alaska flight from Los Angeles to Portland. It was a little strange, to be honest, because I could have brought a rabid cat into the country. Whatever. This might not be the same for you, because I’m pretty sure someone messed up, but for me, it was easy.

I want to tell all you future Peace Corps Volunteer pet owners that it’s not as bad as they say it is! Bringing your cat to America requires a lot of planning, but you have time for that since you’re a Peace Corps Volunteer, but it wasn’t nearly as expensive or complicated as I thought it would be. I always feel so sad to hear about volunteers who take care of pets for their whole service and then leave them here, but I also understand that people need to do what they have to do. I just want people to understand that it’s not as hard as it sounds to bring the cat back 🙂 If you’re a volunteer in Armenia and you have any further questions (like if you want to know the vet’s phone number or where I bought the soft cage for the plane ride) please let me know! It would amazing if all the Peace Corps kitties were able to follow their volunteers back to America 😀

Going Home and Coming Back

My sister gives the best cat nicknames: they are no longer Dan and Elaine, but Sweet Potato and Marshmallow Fluff.

I went home, and I came back, and what an adventure it was. The cat went home and she didn’t come back, and that was an adventure for her, too. She flew very well. We had over 24 hours of travel time, and she cried on the plane between Yerevan and Moscow, slept the whole time between Moscow and Los Angeles (13 hours!), flipped out at LAX, but the workers were so kind and understanding  that they gave us a room to calm down in and took my stuff through security for me. She made it through customs, no questions asked, all of her paperwork was in order, and next thing we knew she was an American citizen. She’s currently adjusting to her new host family and her host brother, my elderly cat, Dan, and going through some culture shock, good and bad, between not being allowed outside in the big city, squirrel-watching instead of chicken-watching, and fancy Science Diet cat food because she’s gonna be a healthy cat from now on. 🙂 I’m so grateful everything went according to plan, and other than the fact that she’s adjusting slowly to the other cat, everything is going fine. When I got back to Armenia and saw the dogs sniffing through the trash on the street, I got really happy that I went through all that work and stress to bring Little Meow home. What a lucky cat.

❤ OH HOW I MISS HER ALREADY 

Enough about the cats. I also saw my people family! It had been too long since I’d seen them, especially my dad and my sister (I’d just seen my mom in May) and it was so nice for us all to be together again, because last time we were all together was February of 2016. Some extended family came for a visit, too, and I made everyone borcht and perushkis. I made my sister Armenian coffee and we told fortunes together, and everyone seemed to enjoy the selection of jam I’d brought back– walnut, pumpkin, and blackberry. The vodka and wine also made it through customs and that was a hit at the holiday party. It was no Armenian New Year’s (I didn’t force cake and vodka on my family the next morning for breakfast like Tatik did to me last year) but it was so nice to be with everyone again and to share what I’d learned to cook with them. We also went hiking, to the zoo, out to eat, and to the historical society on a typically rainy day in Portland. It was so nice to see their new house, which I haven’t seen with our things in it, and to see their new neighborhood. I’d spent my service not really knowing what home looked like, but now, having that image in my head, I feel much better.

The reverse cultures shock was interesting. At the airport in LA, I was minding my own business, waiting in line, when the man in front of me turns around and asks if I could give him more room. I looked around me to see that I was waiting in line Armenia-style. Americans leave a foot or two between parties in line, but Armenians are line up so close to each other that one barely has enough space to turn around. Apparently I’ve grown used to that. Also, other volunteers have reported crying when they enter a Walmart, panic attacks, or having to go wait in the car, but on the first day I went with my dad and had a lovely time, but when we got home my mom commented on how we took forever and my dad said, “Ya, we had to go down every aisle and look at everything!” (Americans have an incredible selection of snacks, and it seems as though Reese’s has been busy while I was gone.) It was just amazing. Walmart. I didn’t realize how much I missed Mexican food until a place we went on New Year’s Eve. That was amazing. I also wasn’t used to how smiley the customer service workers were and it almost made me uncomfortable. Armenians are much more serious than Americans, so we’ve kind of adjusted to their demeanor, and it was weird to be back in a place where all these strangers were smiling and wanting to laugh with me! It is truly a strange experience to be plucked from your own culture, adjusted to another, and then back in your original culture. It really makes you see what is specific to the place you live, what makes your culture unique, and it makes you more aware of the fact that we can’t all be the same 🙂

Sandy River

At the zoo

Cat

TREES. We don’t have those in Khot.

Willamette River and Portland bridges

And now, I’m back in Armenia. Tomorrow I’ll go back to my village and see Tatik again and then I’ll be back in school for my final semester, my last five months. Seems like yesterday I was only five months in. It’s bittersweet and I’m not in the mood to think about it right now. I need to concentrate on the next few days, being back in the classroom, and finishing this out strong. I need to live in the moment more than I ever have before. I got a Peace Corps service to finish 🙂

But Why?

A few weeks ago in class, we were in the middle of a debate over whether or not women in Armenia should be taught to drive. Believe it or not, most women here don’t know anything about driving, and I usually shock the villagers when I tell them that I can drive. I think that many women want to drive, but they’re either too scared or discouraged by their family members from learning. This wasn’t the most interesting of debates. All the girls agreed that they want to learn how to drive, and they boys didn’t see much of a problem with their sisters driving.

Using some of technology our grant bought to do research! 

One of our reasons why women should be allowed to drive led to an interesting question from one of the boys. When it was mentioned that women should have the right to go where they wanted when they wanted without having to rely on a man to take them, I, of course, asked “why,” and one of the girls told me that women are equal to men, and if men can drive, women should be taught to drive, too. One of our young gentlemen in the class (who may be fed up with these discussions) asked me, “Who says that men and women are equal?” “Do you think men and women are equal?” I asked. (The girls nodded eagerly. The boys never know how to answer this question.) “Does Armenia think that men and women are equal?” (Again, girls nod and boys shrug.) “How do we know?” Nobody knew.

First of all, I’m very proud that my students have gotten to the point where they can ask these questions– this is a win for the debate team. Even if there is no way that they can answer this question, I’m very happy that they’re asking things like this because that means that they’re thinking, something that my counterpart and I worked very hard to help them learn how to do. But that’s not all. This whole semester, along with our debates, my classes have been learning how to read, summarize, and talk about our opinions on texts, starting with simple, fiction books, and working towards simplified articles that talk about things related to women and equality. Next semester, we’re going to learn how to find sources on our own to support our arguments. So, to introduce them to this, we did a Google search to find out what Armenia thinks about men and women and equality . . . found that Armenia has signed a treaty called CEDAW with the United Nations. Of course, they wanted to know what it said.

This is a very difficult document for even a native speaker to read, let alone eleventh and twelfth graders who can hardly ask me what I did over the weekend. I decided to see how far I could push them, though. I handed each team a copy of the document and told them to highlight all the words, phrases, and sentences they could understand.

Our lists included phrases like “equality between men and women,” ” freedoms in the
political, economic, social, cultural,” “human rights,” and we learned the word “discrimination,” to find phrases like “eliminate discrimination against women.” Our list of words included things like, rights, equality, women, men, enjoyment, cultural, social, family, husband, wife, children, education, girls, school, political, government, social, professional, work, nationality, and health. Then we discussed the question, “Given that this document is about women’s rights, what do you think the documents says about these things?” Here are some of the rights we came up with:

• Right to work, a have a job.
• Right to be healthy, see doctors
• Right to have a family– (at this point, I told all the girls who they were going to marry and how many children they were going to have, and they realized that they wanted to choose who they were going to marry and how many children they would have)
• Right for girls to go to school and have an education
• Right to speak freely, be free
• Political rights– like a woman can be president. Right to work in government.

After this discussion, I asked them if it was an easy document or a difficult document to understand. The answer was, of course, easy. That evening, some of the girls threw the whole thing into a translator and learned some of the other rights that the treaty says they have, and we had a bit more of a discussion. So, for their final paper, the kids in the class are supposed to write a paragraph about one of two questions: Is it good that Armenia has signed this document and why? OR Should America sign this document and why? (there was shock and disbelief when we talked about the fact that the US hasn’t agreed with this document. I couldn’t explain the process very well in a simplified way and I think a lot got lost in translation, but they got the point. Armenia has signed/ratified the treaty, America hasn’t.) I can’t wait to see their answers to these questions (aaand I hope they actually do their homework…) I’ll share what they say (if they say anything!)

THEY UNDERSTOOD! (enough)

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Bari Galust Khot :p in winter

Yesterday was our first snow in Khot (over a month later than it was last year!) and, of course, Thanksgiving! Last year, I remember that I kind of tried to ignore the holiday and gave into the misery that the snow and the cold brought, but this year I’ve decided to ignore the snow and the cold and embrace the holiday. (I’m still wearing my fall coat and “forgot” my hat and gloves for the Thanksgiving weekend party) This year, I went to school and put on two Thanksgiving parties and did a wild debate team experiment with the 12th graders (which you’ll hopefully hear more about later), then went into the closest city, Goris, for a Thanksgiving party with the local volunteers, and on Saturday I’m going to Sisian-giving! So far, it’s been a very good choice to embrace the holiday 😀

In fifth form at school, the fun started on Thanksgiving eve. I had one of the most chaotic and successful clubs of my whole service– we started with some yoga, danced a little bit, played some improve games where the kids had to go around the circle making strange noises at each other, played charades, learned maybe 6 English words, then played football for a half hour with Beatles music in the background, girls vs boys, and the girls won (NOT because they had me on their team; I tried to stay out of the way, but they wanted me to play so badly…) The fifth graders are my favorite part of my life right now. During class on Thanksgiving day, my counterpart was very stressed out and let me do what I wanted, so I put Charlie Brown’s Thanksgiving episode on the projector, passed out markers, paper, and feathers, and we made hand-turkeys! We had so much fun that it may have gotten a little out-of-hand ( 🙂 ) so it was a good thing that my counterpart was running around the school trying to prepare for the sixth form… “party.”

Yurik (boy genius) and Larissa

Isabella and Melina

HOW could I forget this kid’s name….

Solomon

Vahe

Gohar

Tigran

In sixth form, we had a “party” the way the director likes it. We invited all the other teachers in the school to listen to the children recite what they knew about Thanksgiving. There isn’t an optimistic way to put it. Three kids stood up and recited “Over the River and Through the Woods” with the verses in the wrong order. We watched 3 minutes of Charlie Brown. We didn’t get to do art. I got some good pictures out of it!

Attempt at a group pictures

Attempt at a poem

Zjenia telling us why we eat turkey

I’m thankful for….

Hand turkeys!

When I made my hand turkey-example (don’t have any pictures because Vahe wanted to take it home), I put on the fingers that I was thankful for family, friends, my village Khot, and my cat. I’m going home to my American family in less than a month and I can hardly believe it. I can’t wait to see them and cook Armenian food for them! I’m just as thankful for my Armenian family, too. Tatik, of course I don’t need to go on and on about Tatik again, but she’s made my service not only doable, but amazing. I’m grateful for all sorts of friends, near and far. I’m grateful for the ones I’m spending Thanksgiving with, I’m grateful that one of them made me vegetarian stuffing, I’m grateful that I have these wonderful Peace Corps people to get through everything. I’m grateful for my tutor and her family and my counterpart. I wouldn’t be able to work here without their friendship and support. I’m grateful to Khot for giving me a home and wonderful kids to work with, and, of course, I’m grateful for my kitty. ❤

Snowy Khot

View from the school

Kids and a snowball fight!

Trainers at a recent Peace Corps training

The Princess Miss Elaine Little Meow

 

How to be a Runner in Peace Corps Armenia

A PAVED, PRIVATE, PRETTY PATH!

When preparing for coming to Peace Corps in Armenia, I remember that an important question on my mind was if I’d be able to run at site. I would run five or six days a week in America, and it was an important part of my life, so, of course, I was worried. The short answer to this question is yes, you can run here. The long answer, though, is . . . good luck. It’s complicated. 😉

Before this week, I hadn’t run since August (that run was a disaster that ended with the sky spinning and me sitting down on the side of the road!) And before August, I have no idea when my last run was. But the events last week threw my mind into chaos, and I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to continue functioning in a healthy way if I didn’t take care of myself in the best way that I know how: running. I was feeling very angry and very sad, events of the past were creeping up on me and causing more stress, fear of the upcoming winter was getting to me, and my mind and body were twitching for some exercise. So, I put on my shoes and warm clothes and turned down a road I’d never been down before. It was the best decision I could have made: I’ve run 5 out of 6 days so far this week, and plan to do the same next week until it snows, maybe even after it snows (snowy runs are my favorite). I had to wonder why I quit in the first place.

So pretty.

During a (shockingly) long run this week, between processing thoughts about all sorts of sad and uncomfortable situations, my body seemed to ask me why we quit this. It’s because running here is stressful. The road I used to take was between my village and my sitemate’s village, a gravel road with a moderate amount of drivers on it. Whenever I run down that road, I always come home angrier and more stressed than when I started. See, its unusual to see a young woman alone on that road and it’s unusual to see anyone running, so people like to honk their car horns and stare at me, yell at me out their windows to ask what I’m doing, if I’m ok, and if I need a ride. All of this, I’m sure, is very kind and innocent. When they honk their horns, they’re saying, “Hey, look! The American! We know her! HELLO, AMERICAN!!” But (as an American) I’m conditioned to go into fight-or-flight mode when someone honks at me, because in America, if you get honked at, the driver is likely saying, “There’s danger!”  When the cowboys stare, they’re probably thinking, “What the hell is that woman doing? Where’s she going in such a hurry?” in a harmless, curious manner. But, again, as an American, my brain wonders if the staring man is thinking, “Look at that ass,” and again, I’m uncomfortable. And, even though people mean the best when they offer rides, my instinct is to turn around and run the other way as fast as I can, even though they’re probably just friendly parents of my students who want to help. My American upbringing tells me not to trust people who offer me rides and candy. Even though I know that most of these things are harmless and friendly, they stress me out. I try, I really do, to suppress my instinct but loud car horns will always freak me out.

Oh, and dogs. You have to be very confident in your dog-fighting skills. You have to throw rocks and yell at them loudly and confidently. Don’t show any fear. Stop running and face them. You have to be the bigger dog. This week a pack of them tried to run at me, but I was full of adrenaline and was able to be much scarier to them than they were to me, and they backed off.

Ew.

And the weather is not always pleasant, especially if you live in my village or near the lake. I would recommend bringing bright or reflective clothing for potentially foggy days, or just for general safety. My grandma sent me a bright-pink jacket and saved me on those foggy runs. You have to run with one ear-bud in and one out and with the music not too loud so you can hear cars racing up behind you.

Besides how unpleasant and stressful running was becoming, I physically couldn’t do it anymore. I eat a lot as it is, but when I’m running regularly, I’m a bottomless pit. I eat on the hour. I snack like crazy. And I still look good 😉 Here, our diets are low in protein and, at least during the summer, almost exclusively veggies. And that’s probably why I almost passed out on that run in August. I’ve had to get used to eating a lot less here and a lot less carbs and protein, and that makes runs short and unpleasant. To be a runner in Armenia, you have to have control of your diet (which won’t happen until after the first six months of service), and you have to work hard to get what you need.

So how did I do it this week? I took a chance on a new road! It was paved, private, and pretty, it was perfectly inclined, and it goes past the reservoir. According to the map, it goes a whole ten kilometers til I can’t run on in it anymore, so that’s 20 kilometers for a round trip, as opposed to the whole 4 K I can manage to do between my village and the other before having to run on the highway. My counterpart says that it’s safe and she knows where I’m going in case I fall. I’m going to be extra-careful with what I eat over the next few weeks (pasta!) and hope this lasts until the snow gets too deep. The best part is that the nature, the peace and quiet, and the mountains clear my mind, and once again, as I shuffle down it, I can think lovely thoughts to myself about how every human being deserves to be able to run in such a beautiful, peaceful place.

Peace 🙂

Autumn Evenings

Borcht, vodka, pickled cabbage, lavash, greens, juice, and butter.

I’ve been feeling especially grateful for my life here in Armenia. I’ll always remember nights like this. It’s almost like being in a different world; I can hardly remember what feeling warm all the time is like or how I felt on a fall evening in America. We don’t have heated homes and cars and pumpkin spice here in Hayastan. And this year, so far, I don’t miss it. It’s just normal now. The sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of my Armenia home are just so familiar to me. As tough as last winter was, I had to smile a little bit when Tatik knocked on my bedroom door and told me that she had lit the fire and that I should sit on the couch so I don’t freeze. These days are hard, of course, with the feeling of never being warm and wearing so many clothes you forget what you look like. We just kind of fall into habits like going to bed too early, watching too much TV, and eating too many potatoes and sometimes (unfortunately) we fall out of habits like exercising and writing and eating fruit. But something about it feels familiar and almost comforting (somehow).

Tonight, Tatik made borscht, the winter soup with cabbage, carrots, beets, and potatoes– the winter veggies– and we had juice made out of some strange fruit we don’t have in America. It went along perfectly with the fire; both make me feel cozy. The cat sat under the table and begged for butter, but Tatik kept throwing pieces of lavash at her and yelling about how she was going to kill her if she didn’t eat all the bread we’d wasted on her– a harmless, funny threat of course. I gave the cat a little butter when Tatik went to the kitchen. We toasted vodka to not freezing in the night or our good health or something. We had tea and autumn fruit for dessert, persimmons and pomegranates (I’m so lucky! Those are expensive in America!) And after dinner, we’ve settled down with a bit of work, blogging for me and cracking open walnuts for Tatik, half-listening to the dramatic Indian soap opera in the background. Now the cat’s fallen asleep by the fire, and if we don’t think about the freezing-cold realities of this situation, I feel content.

Here is the theme song to the Indian soap we watch. This song will follow me for the rest of my life. I can just picture myself dancing to it years from now when it plays in my head randomly. It’s catchy. And the show is so weird and entertaining. It started last year with those two little girls, but now they are women raising each other’s children. The show, quite honestly, is a mess, but I’ve learned to enjoy it, especially the intense drama, like when they showed five or ten views of the grandmother throwing open the double doors and entering the room with a look of shock on her face. Or the entire episode where he was deciding whether or not he was going to shoot her in the forest. Or, my favorite, when the man and the women were in bed together, fully clothed, indicating that they were going to sleep together, and Tatik turns around and yells at me: “Vy, vy vy! Sierra! Tesnum es?” (Do you see what’s happening here????) and I replied, in English, “They’re still wearing all their clothes, Tatik! Nothing to worry about!” and she goes “Ha,” (yes) as if she was agreeing with me. Oh the joys of living with a wonderful Tatik who can’t hear. I realized the other day that living with Tatik will probably be my favorite part of service when I look back on it 🙂 I’m lucky and very grateful for nights like this.

Yes, lots of this is hard, but there is so much here to be grateful for: friends, Tatik, cat, good food, new running trails, the fifth graders, a family back home who loves me, and a Peace Corps family here who loves me. It’s just too bad that sometimes it takes something horrible to happen to remind us of how grateful we are for what we have.

https://www.peacecorps.gov/news/library/peace-corps-mourns-loss-volunteer-hanna-huntley/