The Other Side of Disappointment

Last weekend a new Peace Corps Volunteers from another village stayed at my apartment. His sense of discouragement after the first four months in his village was truly déjà vu.   He came to Armenia to make a difference but the apparent lack of planning and specific goals at his worksite was making him crazy. This can be very frustrating for Americans with our focus on achievement and results.  I should know.  I spent the first six months of my service trying to get two Tourism organizations in my village to work together.  I was not successful.  As I saw my own attitude starting to sour, I switched from business projects to community development.

This past spring I become involved with a youth development program.  And then my Armenian tutor introduced me to some other young adults wanting to improve their English skills in the hopes of finding a better job . . .   and maybe even a better life.  I also helped her tutor a couple  high school seniors preparing for their college entrance exam in English.  By the time summer ended, I was ready to find more full-time work at a local K-12 school.

 My hopes were high as the director of my Non-Profit agreed to introduce me to his buddy who was the Principal of the one of the four schools in town.  I was excited to "be doing something" again, a favorite American pastime.   And the students seemed enthused and excited to have a new face in the room, to do something besides rote memory.  My only concern was my fellow teacher.  She seemed to be pretty set in her ways.  I had been told that English teachers in Armenia made half their money outside the classroom with tutoring.  I had been warned not to speak better English than her which might threaten her image.

Well, after a couple days of working at the new school, my NGO Director stuck his head in my office and said in a dead-panned voice: "Your teaching assignment is now complete.  The kids were too noisy."  He then walked away.  I was stunned not just by the rather cryptic method of communication but the fact that the "problem" had never even been discussed.  I decided that I was now living in the Post-Soviet world.  Otherwise, I might have gotten an invitation to a train ride to a labor camp in Siberia, as I had read about in Soviet history.

 It was at this point that my “relationship network" so central to village life came to my rescue.  My Armenian tutor called the Principal of another K-12 and two days later I was team-teaching English again.  This time I was fortunate to be matched with three teachers who enjoyed having help with their lesson plans.  One even admitted that her English had gotten rusty during two years of maternity leave and was looking forward brushing up her skills.  I was excited, again.

But then the country’s fears around the Swine Flu stepped in. The Armenian Ministry of Health decided to close all the schools in the country for a month until mid-January. While there had been less than fifty cases in Armenia, they lacked the needed vaccinations to respond to a potential outbreak.  Disappointment again raised its ugly head and I was again back to Square One with just a couple tutoring classes.

So this morning seemed like a good time to regain my perspective for the holidays.  I had no place to go so I grabbed my camera and started off on a tour of my street. It was perfect that one of our two local busses would appear.  In my experience the bus drivers are the backbone of normal life for our village, especially in the coming weeks when the snow becomes an issue. In a country where “punctuality” is hard to find, one cannot but be impressed by their reliability.  Each of the drivers goes from one end of the village to the other all day long.  You "can set your watch" (if I still had one) by their arrival on the half-hour. And like two hands of a clock they tend to cross at the same place in the middle of town.  And then there is the community aspect of taking the bus.  The busses have seating for 20 passengers and yet every morning they arrive at my bus stop with 40 adults and students already packed in.   Even as an American, you can't help but feel like part of the community as they figure out how to make you the 41^st person wedged into the back of the bus. 

Once the bus had pulled away, I noticed a couple of my favorite people in the village: the ladies who sweep the curbs of the streets everyday with their traditional home-made brooms.  Somehow for me they represent the part of Armenia that just “keeps on keeping on.”   One was busy making little piles of dirt along the curb.  The other had stopped to chat with my barber in front of his shop.  It is not too hard to see the past two decades of struggle for independence in their faces. 

 

But this morning as I continued the walk along my street, I passed a handful of storefronts where residents sell a variety of fresh vegetables and fruits in front of their houses.  Some have even built a little room in front and added a window for transactions so they could include a small sampling of packaged goods and ever present convenience items like cigarettes and phone cards. Our daily interactions are limited (by my language skills) but sweet.  It takes just a simple greeting or a friendly word to bring a smile to their faces.   Sometimes we might even share a reflection on the snow that we both know is coming soon.  But today our butcher had his axe out so I kept moving.

It’s a simple life they live and one I share with them on some level.  Their joys and hopes are simple and tightly bound up with their families.  Not much will happen this week despite the fact that this Friday is the 25th.  This week is one of preparation for the New Year, Nor Tari. The New Years is not about champagne and Times Square.  Rather the first 10 days of January are for visiting family and friends.  Almost nobody “goes to work” during that time.  As my loved ones are 7,000 miles away, I will be spending time with my Peace Corps family.  And along the way I will surely enjoy some time with my local Bus Community.

Enjoy your holidays.......... and your Families!