Armenian Soap Operas
I have recently started team-teaching high school English with a couple Armenian teachers. I enjoy the challenge of finding new ways to make the material somewhat interesting. Last week's lesson in their textbook was on the different types of television shows from news to nature shows to soap operas. So I offered a prize to whoever could find out why they were called soap operas. I had read somewhere in the past that the manufacturers of soaps and other products for the home were the primary advertisers in an effort to reach the heavily female audience. What I didn't realize until I Googled it last week was that "soap operas" started with radio shows back in the 30's. And to this day their popularity continues world wide with Latin America now leading the way with over 2 billion viewers annually.
When I moved into my own apartment last year I never bothered to plug in my television as all the shows are either in Russian or Armenian. But from my first couple months living with a host family I did get a taste of the local soap operas popular in this country. We have those imported from Latin America that seem to have been made in the '90's or even the '80's. It is quite a cross-cultural experience for an American to watch a jealous rage between two hot-blooded Spaniards with the dialogue dubbed in Russian. And of course there are the very popular Russian mafia soaps. These seem to be have been produced on a very limited budget judging from the limited number of sets used. You have the two mob rivals posturing on their cell phones with each other. The words escape me but their facial expressions say it all. Or there are the scenes where one of the mob bosses is giving an earful to one of his underlings who apparently misplaced a body or some money. I can usually figure out what was happening from the body language, especially when the boss slaps him in the face. These shows usually try to break up the boredom by occasionally throwing in a Jacuzzi scene with the rather corpulent head of the Mafiosa and his rather svelte girlfriend (in bathing suits, of course). But his enjoyment can be short-lived should his enemies offer her enough money to change sides. It is all rather mindless.
After moving out from my host family to my own apartment about this time last year, I soon discovered some local "soap operas" that weren't so mindless. My initial business assignment at my site was to help expand tourism efforts at in my town of 12,000. With little besides one company that bottles water, Tourism could be a great boost to the local economy. And with our town's reputation (as mentioned in an earlier blog) as being The Little Switzerland of Armenia, our area has a history of being a popular tourist destination during the Soviet period. I soon go to know the two staff members at a newly-opened Tourism Information Center. They were in their mid-twenties and lucky for me spoke pretty good English. When I had a "bad hair day" at my NGO, I found myself stopping by just to have someone to talk with on my walk home. Fortunately, my two new friends didn't seem to know how much psychiatrists are paid for such conversations in America.But it wasn't long before I discovered their problems were more serious than mine. Their office was functioning as a "show piece" for the headquarters in the capitol. They were given almost no support. There were even periods when their Internet services didn't operate for lack of payment and they could do nothing to generate contact with other tourism agencies. And as the tourism season wound down, all they could do was to sit and wait for the occasional young hikers to stumble through looking for a map. Soon the situation became worse as their salaries started to come a couple weeks then a month late. Contacts with the main office were fruitless as their boss was usually away at trade shows in Paris, Brussels, and even the US. While she was busy collecting brochures, her tourism branch office had come to a complete standstil from a lack of direction.
Then this summer a "soap opera" showed up at my front door in the midst of a youth development project I was involved in. When we wrote a proposal to be one of the six Youth Bank sites in Armenia, I was attracted by two goals of the program. We would train some young adults in our town in leadership and teamwork and then they would manage a handful of local community improvement projects, each receiving a small grant of $500 each. I don't think many applied for this grant as it was for only $2.500 and all the money went into the community. Since there would be no salaries for those managing the grant, very few bothered to apply.At first the program seemed to progress according to plan. We interviewed a couple dozen young adults (16-22) who applied and selected the best six. We then spent 3 days in the capitol with the Youth Bank teams from the other regions where they received training in how to evaluate community projects. They were taught to evaluate the proposals based on the “SMART” guidelines: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely. If nothing else, this was an opportunity for them to be gain some skills in logic and analytical thinking. Most of what passes for education in Armenia schools is rote memorization, just like learning your multiplication tables. I have a feeling this is a hold-over from the Soviet system. Good citizens did not question or analyze the information but just absorbed it as Truth. Last year I tutored a very bright high school senior as she prepared for her college entrance exam in English. We would read a page in English and then she would want to close the book and repeat it . . . from memory. But when we started to discuss the article, she had almost no idea what it meant. That did not keep her score on the college English test from being the 2nd highest in our city.
So, when our Youth Bank group returned from their training in Yerevan, they posted announcements for our region requesting applications for community projects. Then applying the "SMART" guidelines, they eliminated half of the 40 proposals. They scheduled interview panels for the rest and finally selected the best 5 projects to receive funding.
The funding was to take place in early summer so our Youth Bank team could monitor the implementation of the projects. Well, summer came and went. Then it was September and then October and we were still being given "reasons" instead of funds. Since 5 projects of $500 each were not going to change the future of Armenia, I wasn't concerned about the project start dates but the "ripple effect" on our Youth Bank team. The plan was to give this handful of talented young adults a practical experience to learn leadership and teamwork. Now they had nothing to do but like my friends at the Vistor Center to sit and wait.
This was when the "soap opera" started. I tried to meet with partner in the project, who agreed to be the Youth Bank sponsor. That didn't prove to be so easy as he was busy traveling to other countries for seminars on…………. "Youth Development Training." It was truly deja vu. He was busy collecting brochures on leadership while our group floundered. I wished my skills in Armenian were better so I could have created some team meetings.
I began to see that our members were not just bored but discouraged. Then one young lady who I felt had the most leadership potentional in our group dropped out. This was truly a "red flag" that something was going on. It turned out, our Youth Leader would return from his trips and call individual members and berate them for poor attendance and performance. I did meet with a couple individual members and tried to reinforce my confidence in their abilities.
Eventually, our team members decided to call their own meeting. As usual when I have conversations in Armenian, I add new words to my vocabulary. When they told me about their meeting, they agreed that they had all "been offended" by the way they were talked to by the Youth Leader. The group decision was to have a meeting in the capitol with the organization that funded our program. I could hear their frustrations but I could also see their teamwork and leadership skills coming to the surface. In some strange way the program was working.
This type of "CYA" leadership where blame is passed down is surely not new to any of us who have worked in business, government or schools. Most of us have probably been on the "receiving end" of such politics before. Yet I found this especially difficult to watch for a couple reasons. We recruited these young adults to develop them not to discourage them. Secondly, good leaders in Armenia are in very short supply. Many of those in leadership positions today are just those who have survived the posturing and intrigue of Soviet politics. I think that will have to be a topic for a future blog: Soviet Ghosts in Armenia.
As I finish up this entry, the holiday celebration of Thanksgiving is just around the corner. But like December 25th, the 4th Thursday in November has no special meaning in Armenia. Peace Corps does create an opportunity for us to gather a week early for an "All-Vol Conference." It is billed as a training conference. But what most of us remember from last year was the camaraderie of fellow Volunteers and traditional American cooking, something we see little of for our two years.
When I was growing up, I remember America being referred to as The Land of Opportunity. This vision easily gets buried under the constant news barrage of Middle East wars, Health Care reform, and financial crisis. But now living in an under-developed area of the world, I can see one reality very clearly: our children are truly blessed with opportunities unknown to many around the world. And for that I give thanks. I hope your holiday is also a celebration.
