Leaving my small village

I had to include this photo as part of my final days living in the tiny village of Karenis. I walked by this water trough everyday on the way to school in the morning and on the way home, my head filled to the brim with new words. Now when I think of the village, it is the ever-present image of water that comes to mind, rivulets, and streams guided downhill along roads and eventually guided into the orchards that fed all the families. One day as I was finishing a travel memoir about Armenia ("The Crossing Place"), I came across a description that seemed to add another dimension to the water trough I passed every day. These springs were a part of every Armenian journey. I had been on buses which had stopped simply so that people could visit a certain spring, filling up like litrurgants to take water. Many of the churches were built near water, no doubt replacing earlier sites of worship. Water held a peculiar significance for Armenians. Here the water was channelled into a pipe which pushed through a large stone. At the foot of the stone was a trough and the water slopped constantly over the rim of the trough to drain away down a gully. After two months Armenia, I could feel just what he was describing.

During my last couple days of my stay in Karenis, I could sense those things I would miss the most: the sweetness of the people and the land. The "tateek" in my family was in her early 80's but as you can see even in this photo, never lost the sparkle in her eye. And she had a world of patience for the goofy "Americatzi" who tended to put on the hats the women wore in the orchards. I sure came to appreciate the value of humor to relieve the stress of having no idea what you are doing for days at a time.

Group Graduations..........

A friend emailed me recently that I must be in a busy period since I had not "posted" anything to the blog in a month.....Yes, the past month has been a whirl!

But after 11 weeks of wandering around a village where most things were "unfamiliar," we finally had a couple familiar events: Graduation. As part of our "community development work" four of us created a local "Youth Group" before leaving on August 15th for our new " work sites" where we will be for the next two years. I believe it was a learning experience for the teens and us. They learned something about the power of working together and making a difference in their own future. (It is not too hard to imagine how difficult it can be to keep "hope" or a "dream" considering the past 600 years in their country.) And on the Peace Corps side, the Volunteers learned to "trust the process," as there were times we were losing hope ourselves....that the group would make it! We also created (surprise, surprise... *;o) a new flower garden along the walk of their school. Or should I say we did some serious weeding, brought in new soil and put in a couple dozen iris to get started. I am going back to the village at the end of October for a "family birthday" and plan to finish the job, sprinkling in lots of wildflower seeds that I have been randomly collecting as I walked the roads for the past 2 months. Hopefully, some of the seeds will survive the winter and become flowers in the Spring. Hope Springs Eternal, as they say.

The other focus for the past month was the Final Language Exam. While some of the adept language learners achieved their "advanced" and "intermediate" rankings, yours truly was more than happy to be annointed as a......."novice." At least I am one step up from the hand signs that got me through my first couple weeks in the country! The graduation photo is of our village along with our two language teachers. In the back row on the far left is Lee Lacey, the Country Director for Armenia.

After graduation, it felt just like another day of work in Sacramento.....as I went home put on my "grubbies" and shoveled dirt into the school garden, as we were leaving the nex day. I was pleased and relieved to have a couple of the local teens show up on their own to help finish the job with me. It felt like they were starting to take ownership of the project.

I am not usually a big fan of cemeteries....not really a mystery for someone in his 60's. But when I was walking around in my future "permanent site" of Dilijan last week, I stumbled upon these grave stones. I felt a strange connection with the lives of the peoples whose faces I saw. That evening as I read another chapter on my book on Armenian history, I came across the following quote. It seemed to confirm the feeling I had that these were special places. "And perhaps for the Armenians, whose history has been no more than a continuous quest for order, a struggle against an unimaginable chaos, these marshalled plots are cherished more than most. To own a grave is to own land." For people whose history has been over 600 years of being forced from their lands, I am sure the relatives of the deceased found much joy in providing their loved ones at last a piece of Armenia to call their own.

Weekend Fun....

So, this past weekend I decided to walk the streets of the nearby village and see what the locals do. As you can see the men have an outside gathering place for cards and chess. It was fun just to hang out and watch the games! The "tateek" with the soccer ball ( or "football" in Armenia) is not really the goalie in a Senior Citizen League. Rather she is the sweet grandmother of my Host Family who was helping to unload the car after a trip to the river..........and I couldn't resist taking her photo!

Our Village

This was a group photo after we put on the July 4th party for our "Host Families" in the village. We are all in the sector called "CBD" (Community & Business Development) and will be all moving to different villages on August 15th. The intensive language part of training will be over but I am sure we will all be working with tutors as 10 weeks has hardly given us mastery of the language.

Village Life

This is the first year that the Peace Corps has done language training in our particular village. So when the 4th of July came around, it seemed like a good time to provide some American food dishes for our Host Families as well as share a little of our American traditions. One photo shows the young people in the village lining up to have their sparklers lit. Another shows a "brainstorming session" in a school classroom with some of the young adults (18-25). It was a community development exercise to help them identify what they would like to create in their village. The photo shows the guys and the gals in the group comparing the differences on their lists. Yes, the worlds of "Mars and Venus" exist even in Armenia. The first photo is of my Host Mom showing me something my own mother had talked about from her early days on a farm in northern Indiana: how to make butter. All the dairy products my host family puts on the table from butter to yogurt to cheese are wonderfully fresh.

Host Mother's Birthday

So these are some photos from our trip to the nearby river for a birthday barbeque. On the walk down to the ravine, we stopped in a very old chapel that some still visit and light candles. I was struck by the view of the surrounding cliffs that the hole in the wall provided. Once we arrived at the picnic site, we took some time to relax on the stone picnic tables, where my Host Mom practiced her kebob techniques....on her husband! There were some other families there as well enjoying their time cooling off in the water. I am slowly dusting off my former Midwest skills at playing cards and we played a little "Hearts" with the family members. Something tells me that I will need them during the November to April period of winter.