I was sitting in front of my laptop, listening to some music given me by a new Volunteer, and wondering how to start this month’s blog. The song came on, “Slow down everyone, you’re moving too fast/ Frames can’t get you if you’re moving like that.” It is not exactly a new bit of advice for Americans but one that seems to keep showing up. Before I left for the Peace Corps the self-help shelves had plenty of titles like, Slowing Down to the Speed of Life. And of course we can go back another century to the writings of Thoreau. As he declared in his memoir of the two years alone at Walden Pond: “I went into the woods for I wished to live, deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life! To put to rout all that was not life, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” And yet these romantic views of the “simple life” seem to leave something important out of the discussion.
And I think I found that missing piece this month in Armenia: boredom. It’s the ghost that chases many Americans to invest in their plasma televisions and other state-of-the-art entertainment devices. And that art keeps changing so quickly. I remember back in the 90’s that I had barely figured out what a Walkman was when it was already passé to own one. And from what I read in the business news, the improvements in the iPads and iPhones just keep on coming. Maybe before I pass, I will actually get to see a consumer version of Dick Tracy’s watch-phone. But for right now, I am feeling more like Fearless Fosdick with some holes in my psyche.
I know part of my discomfort comes from the loss of my primary hobby in the States: gardening. No matter how difficult my week had been as a teacher or a consultant, there wasn’t anything so bad that a weekend of “playing in the dirt” couldn’t fix. I would disappear in my backyard Saturday morning and re-appear renewed sometime Sunday evening. In fact, I can still hear my dog, Angel, barking to remind me that the sun was setting. She was real clear when my gardening time was over and her walk was to start. I tended to become involved in renovating some area of the backyard and just lose all track of time. Life’s major problems disappeared as I searched for the best location for my little handful of seeds.
My first year in Armenia, I did find myself collecting flower seeds out of habit during my afternoon walks. The problem was I had no garden to plant them. When I arrived in my current village last August, I did discover two sections by the fountain downtown that had nothing but foot high weeds. It was my first introduction to the socialist system. Government jobs here seemed to be more about titles, salaries, and status in the community but not necessarily responsibilities. After a couple of weeks I was able to find out who was responsible for the garden that nobody was tending. The assistant was supposed to be assuming the title since the boss left for a better job in Moscow. After a week I was advised to wait a little bit since one of the judges in town was lobbying to have his nephew be given the position instead. Unfortunately, all this makes perfect sense in a village where jobs are very scarce. If you are not a taxi-driver, a teacher or own a mini-market, you better hope to have a relative with connections.
After a couple weeks the “dust settled” and I was able to arrange a meeting with the person who had inherited the title. Our conversation was a little bit like a scene from a Woody Allen movie that humorously illustrates miscommunication. Apparently the idea of a “volunteer” is still a strange concept in Armenia. I kept offering my services to weed and cultivate a flower garden near the fountain and he kept asking how much salary I needed. After three attempts to communicate that Peace Corps Volunteers get no salary, “voch pogh,” he finally seemed relieved and was happy to have me do his work. I am sure Tom Sawyer would have been proud of me.
And so this past summer I enjoyed a couple nostalgic weekends of playing in the dirt. Of course I did draw some strange looks from passer-bys, wondering why someone was working over the weekend. But in the end, they probably just figured it had something to do with the fact that I was an American. It would have been too hard to explain that I was having fun. This May I will find out whether I planted the right type of seeds for the area or whether they even survived the Armenian winter. However it turns out, it was a wonderful physical outlet and a place to direct some creative energy.
By this time the cooler weather had moved in and I returned to what has become my primary form of relaxation: reading. Our Country Director here once commented that she never read more books during any two years of her life that when she was a Volunteer. I know that is true for me. I was surprised how much I started to enjoy reading books about history. When you don’t have to memorize a bunch of dates (when was the Battle of Hastings, again?) and can work from your interests and experience, the whole thing seemed to change. Seeing all the churches in Armenia from the 9th and 10th centuries, I started reading about the construction of cathedrals in the medieval ages. This led me to biographies about Michelangelo and Galileo who both had their hands full dealing with the popes of their times. Next thing I know I am wandering through the Dark Ages and all the wars fought over religion. (Spending a little time with The Crusades can make the events of 9/11 and today’s terrorism a lot more understandable.) By the time I got to the 20th century, I decided to check out the Darth Vader vs. Luke Skywalker saga of my childhood: Communism vs. Catholicism. I had been plowing through this rather large book on the fall of the Soviet Empire when the book arrived on Pope John XXIII, one of my heroes from the 60’s. Reading them both at the same time added an interesting perspective. When I finished I wasn’t sure who had a more difficult job trying to change their particular organization. Gorbachev had an impossible job trying to wrestle control away from the KGB and the old guard of the Communist Party. But then again Pope John had to deal with the Cardinals and the Curia. It was kind of a toss-up. And what will future history books say about Obama's struggles to improve the healthcare of our country? He surely has his work cut out for him, haven taken on the Titans of Profit in the Health Industry: the insurance companies, the pharmaceutical manufacturers, and the AMA. I guess that’s where a large plasma screen comes in handy, as a good diversion from those painful growing pains on in our society.
For the next couple months, I think my wide-screen TV is going to be the sidewalks and paths of my village where I can check out the Mother Nature Channel. And as you can see from the photos, she’s put on a pretty good show lately.
