Youth Camp in the Country

Sometimes we all imagine how things might have been. I thought about joining the Peace Corps 40 some years ago when in college. I used to tell myself it was because I studied classical languages in high school and had no experience with spoken languages. But I think during the past 10 days working at a Youth Camp in a remote village I re-discovered the real reason. I imagine I knew I was not ready for those assignments in the early 60's to the remote areas of Africa and South America. I was ok with having just one lukewarm "bucket shower" while at the Youth Camp. But after ten days of using the outhouse with its wonderful fragrance and logistics, I was ready for my apartment. I was delighted actually to return to …. a shower and a toilet seat.
But despite that, the whole Youth Camp event was quite wonderful. There were 50 teens from 14-16 years old that were full of energy and joy. Some of us like me were teachers for three 50 minute classes a day (Leadership, Project Planning and Theater) and the other half of the staff functioned asTeam Leaders, motivating and coaching their groups of 10 in preparation for various cheers and competitive challenges. For many of them it might have been the first experience of working as a team. One could see the resulting growth in confidence and maturity. And having functioned as The Lone Ranger for most of the past year, I was also delighted for the interaction and support of teammates

The week overall was a good blend of learning and fun. The goal was to help them acquire some new life skills and to improve their English speaking along the way. But the journey was filled with much laughter and friendly competition. At the completion of every day, the kids were told the theme for the coming day. And the next morning the judges were ready to award the prize to the team who showed the most creativity for "Crazy Hat" or "Crazy Hair" day. Classes and lunch took up the late morning and early afternoon and by 2pm they were back in their teams preparing for the new Team Challenge for the day. Most of the kids were sorry to see the camp end but for me and several of the other counselors, we were "running out of gas." Riding home on the bus to my usual worksite, I couldn't help but remember that my best memories of my youth were those spent at summer camps. Funny how that works out.

Now I go back to tutoring English for the month of July and hopefully will have a chance to help out as a counselor at a "Green Camp" in August in another part of Armenia that I haven't visited yet. I imagine I should get my hot showers in before I leave as the joys of modern plumbing will most likely be absent again. Yet when I look at my photos and see the joy on the kids' faces, I am reminded what is really important.

New Group of Volunteers Arrive

Dear New Volunteers to Armenia:

In February of last year I was waiting for Amazon to deliver several books written by former Peace Corps volunteers who served in Africa. This was to the site of my two years of service according to the letter I received in mid-January. The books arrived and I devoured them quickly, anxious to discover what my new life would be like. Then in the middle of April I received another letter from the Peace Corps informing me that I was really going to Armenia. I think the Universe was hinting that this was not to be a journey of the head but one of the heart.

Yet I still spend the first couple months in Armenia trying to figure it all out. My brain was working overtime sort it all out. First there was this new language with the very strange alphabet. Then this was this confusing culture that was a strange mix of medieval culture and modern technology. There were satellite dishes everywhere you looked and yet you couldn’t find a clean public toilet. During the day one could witness the high unemployment rate as men stood around cars with their friends smoking. And yet in the evening, one might be invited to a lavish banquet where heaping plates of food and lengthy vodka toasts continued until late in the evening. During the weekends I enjoyed taking long walks to enjoy the lush natural surroundings and would always come upon piles of garbage strewn along the roadside. There were cows walking amidst the roads with cars and yet I saw more grade school children using cell phones than in California.

Of course, I figured this would all sort itself out after our Pre-Service Training was completed in mid-August and we were finally be assigned to the cities where we would work for the next two years. I was still hopeful that my years of experience in business would guide me in assisting their efforts in tourism. Instead it was the Al-Anon Serenity Prayer that proved to be my guide: God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the Courage to change the things I can’t and the Wisdom to know the difference. As we approached the Christmas holidays, I began to doubt if I was my efforts at my NGO (or “Non-Profits” as they say in the States) were of any value.

Over the holidays I approached last year’s group of Volunteers seeking some insight into my confusion. Some seemed oblivious to the problem and many others voiced frustrations similar to mine. While all the Volunteers worked in one of four programs, many felt were just “putting band-aids” on very serious problems. Some like me worked in Community/ Business Development and others worked in Teaching English, Health or Environmental Education. The Health Volunteers I met seemed frustrated just to find a time slot in their assigned schools which had no real health curriculum. But wasn’t this a country whose smoking population had the highest percentage in all of Europe? If the Armenian government would implement a non-smoking program for teenagers, we could serve as trainers and educators throughout the country. I saw the same lack of effectiveness with the Environmental Volunteers. We organized village “Clean-up Days” or “Green Camps” but the mindset of the citizens in general seemed the same. Nobody seemed to think twice about tossing plastic bottles or vodka bottles in the rivers and their empty cigarette packages in the streets. The situation wasn’t too different than I saw in India during my trip there in 2007, where the country couldn’t keep up with the growth of disposable consumer products.

The Community / Business Development sector where I worked had its own issues. Most of us were assigned to NGO’s where the primary focus was to obtain grant funding. The drawback here was that the focus was on the outside with little consideration of how poorly the organization functioned. I couldn’t help but think of the oft-quoted definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. It seemed easier just to write another proposal than develop a more effective organization. Amidst all this I clung desperately to my basic mantra: “It’s better to light a candle than curse the darkness.” But I could feel I was getting very low on candles.

Fortunately a shift occurred during one of our conferences. Our packet of information included some articles written “pro”: and “con” regarding the effectiveness of today’s Peace Corps. One writer said that most of the criticism of the Peace Corps is the result of evaluating our efforts in terms of being a “Development” program. He went on to say that the Peace Corps’ original mission was to function as a people-to-people program with a development component. At first this distinction just seemed liked semantics.

Then I began to reflect on those folks in my life who had made a significant contribution to me. In truth, they didn’t really change the circumstances of my life. And many probably never knew the impact they made. But they all gave me something I needed at the time: encouragement, friendship, hope or just some new skill. I now realize that when I complete my service in August of 2010, Armenia’s problems with unemployment, the environment and health won’t be any different. Yet all I can hope is that a handful of young people will be stronger and more confident to meet the challenges of their lives. And I do know I will take back to the States with me the many gifts of their friendship I have received.

Another Historical Adventure

Although The Pyramids are one of the 7 Wonders of the World, I honestly can't see myself flying 7,000 miles from California to see them.  But one of the perks of the Peace Corps I am discovering is proximity to places you normally would not visit.  So after 6 months of winter in Armenia, the warm weather in Egypt sounded pretty good.  Sunshine, historical sites and a round trip airfare of 450 euros made an attractive package.  (Our fare did require a 4 hour layover in Moscow but since we have more time than money in the Peace Corps, that was not a problem.)    So the first weekend in April my friend and I boarded a plane in Yerevan for Cairo.

 Before we left, I tried to recall any first-hand experience with the Egyptian culture but could only remember one classmate from years ago.  We were both in graduate school in anthropology but surprisingly enough I don't remember any conversations about the culture in her country. What I did know was that it was going to be very different from Armenia.  I am currently living in a very rural area of a Christian country whose entire population is under 3 million people.  And Cairowas not only in a Muslim country but had a population of more than 19 million people.  Kind of like going from Rio Vista to New York City.

C

To expand my appreciation for upcoming sights in Egypt, I spent some time reading up on their culture and history.  I tried to imagine what it would be like for the current residents in Cairo whose country was now a tourist destination after having been dominant political power 3000 years ago.  It's kind of like imagining tourists from China coming to the United States in the year 5000.  Will we still be a World Power or a tourist destination for those wanting to visit the Grand Canyon and the Mississippi River?  Time will tell. 

 You can't read about Egypt's history without noticing the cycles of history larger than  the 300 years of American History.  When Egypt's power began to dwindle some 1100 years before the birth of Christ, there began a rotation of conquering nations beginning with Persia.  These seemed to continue in roughly 300 year cycles where Alexander the Great, the Romans, the Ottoman Empire and finally even Napoleon for a brief period at the end of the 18^th Century conquered Egypt.  By middle of the 19^th century it was less Egypt's fertile soil but more the newly constructed Suez Canal that attracted the attention of France and England.  It wasn't until the middle of the 20^th century that Egypt like India was able to gain their independence from Britain's control.

 During our 5 days in Cairo, we did the usual tourist things like visiting the pyramids in nearby Giza and taking a brief evening sail on the Nile.  But other than these two outings, I enjoyed having my two feet be my "travel guides."  We just wandered around parts of the city and seeing what we could discover.  Sometimes what we would discover is that we were lost.   But after 8 months in Armenia, I was kind of immune to that experience.  We stayed in a small hotel ( $19 for a double room with a nice breakfast) that was oddly enough located in an area of town that seemed to specialize in industrial products.  So whenever we got lost we'd just follow the trail of   storefronts with pumps, generators and electrical items and we would soon find our bearings.  The shopping in Cairo was obviously set up to accommodate foot traffic and not cars.  You'd seen stores with wallets, and then briefcases and pretty soon it was luggage.  The same was true with ladies' clothes where as you can see in the photos, the store selling contemporary fashions were adjacent to those with the traditional burquas.

But there were plenty of cars, many of them taxis with the identical black and yellow colors hand-painted on their doors and side panels.  Crossing the street with four lanes of one way traffic did take a little getting used to.  But after a couple days you found yourself like the rest of the pedestrians in Cairo, walking across the street one lane at a time, letting the cars whiz by on both sides of you, like an amateur matador. Fortunately, there seemed to be a symbiotic relationship with the pedestrians and drivers I have never seen anywhere else. I wouldn't try it in New York City for sure.

 But like NYC, the compact urban setting with all its high energy activity just added charm to the small places where the locals ate.  Around the corner from our hotel was a small cafe selling fresh-squeezed orange juice in tall mugs for 50 cents. You could find a father and son cooking up a storm at the end of the alley, with fresh beef and chicken smoking on the grill for your falafels.  And of course, every block seemed to feature at least one café where the locals smoked their water pipes for hours at a time while they drank tea and discussed politics.

Then at night the whole scene changed as the lights in the storefronts turned on and the sidewalks filled up with shoppers, many of them women checking out the latest fashions.  Living in an Armenian city where they "roll up the sidewalks after 6pm" it was fun to walk around in the midst of all the activity.  The Egyptian people as a whole were very congenial and most of the men seemed to have been given the same script: Welcome to Egypt was said to us innumerable times with a very gracious smile.  When they find out I lived in California, a surprising number of men felt "Hi-Ho Silver" was the appropriate response.  I can't imagine they watched the same Lone Ranger TV shows I did in the 50's but oh, well.  Somehow the people all realized the importance of tourism in the Egyptian economy and acted as good-will ambassadors.  At $6 Billion a year, tourism even surpasses oil and gas as the leading contributor to the national GNP.

 

The one thing I was most curious about was how it would be living in an Islamic culture.  The Lonely Planet book on Egypt even talked about not staying at certain hotels in Old Cairo unless you wanted to wake up at the break of dawn to the sound of the loudspeaker calling you to face Mecca.  As it turned out there was the whole range of responses to the 5 daily announcements for prayer.  If you were near a mosque you would see and hear groups bowing down for prayer.   There were even times in a store or the airport where I witnessed people kneeling and praying.  And then there were those who never missed a puff on their water pipe or whatever else they were doing.  The only thing that was surprising was the number of men whose foreheads had a black spot in the center.  Having been raised in a Christian culture, it first reminded me of Ash Wednesday.  Then I realized that these were permanent marks from years of putting their foreheads down on their prayer rugs.  I don't know if this was true of the women as well for you seldom saw their foreheads.  Some women wore the traditional black burquas as you see in movies with a small slit for their eyes.  While many of the younger women covered the tops of their heads with scarves of many colors that also served as a fashion accessory.

Overall, I had only one bad experience inEgypt and could have avoided it had I been more cautious.  I had heard before our trip that "it's cheap to get on the camels but expensive to get off."  And sure enough I crossed paths with a couple of hustlers on camels at the pyraminds in Giza and wound up spending $30 I hadn't planned on. When they approached us to have our photos taken on their camels, my Peace Corps friend took off as he found all the vendors and dealers a little overwhelming. Having spent a couple years in sales myself, I assumed I could dance around the problem and suggested they take my photo "in front of the camel."  While I was standing there, one they came up behind me and lifted me on the camel.  And of course, their well-trained animal stood up immediately.  You can normally negotiate a reasonable price for a camel ride but not when you're stranded 8 feet in the air.   Chalk another up to experience.   (And yes, he is checking his cell phone on the camel.)

 For the last 3 days we journeyed a couple hours north to the City of Alexandriawhich was a wonderful change of pace from Cairo.  In addition to the usual number of taxis, there were several dozen horse carts for visitors who wanted a leisurely stroll down the crescent shaped boardwalk facing the harbor.  It was great just to sit in front of a large body of water again and watch the waves.  It may have been the Medditeranean Sea instead of the Pacific Ocean but it had the same calming effect on my spirit.

The 24 hours of Planes, Trains and Automobiles going back to Armenia was a little tiring but overall our trip to Egypt was an excellent break from 6 months of winter.

A Good Investment

A Good Investment

Having left for my Peace Corps service June 1st, I only saw the early signs of the financial crisis that is apparently in full swing in The States. And yet every week someone here in Armenia asks me about the "financial crisis" in America. I saw last week on the internet that housing values in California have fallen 40%. For me these times just confirm what is always the best investment one can make: the youth of our country.

The young adults in my village may speak a different language and have different fashions than the American kids but actually seem to have a lot in common. They are energetic, curious and would like to have more say about their future. They are pointed down the path of education and promised rewards when it is completed. In the meantime, they are seldom invited to participate in the workings of their community. The result in both countries is similar as they attempt to create their own community networks over the internet and amuse themselves with computer games and cell phones. Instead of "MySpace" it's a Russian online program called "ClassMates." Lacking the money for expensive iPods, it is a common site to see one teenager holding 2 cell phones so they can share music through Bluetooth software. And while home computers are somewhat of a rarity, it is not uncommon to see students at their school computer labs playing "Vice City." So much for my idea of not seeing violent computer games for a couple years!

So several months ago when I heard about a Youth Bank program, I was interested to learn more. I liked what I heard and applied for the grant with a local youth NGO in our city. We were successful and then conducted interviews to select those young people who seemed to possess the desire and enthusiasm to make a contribution to our community. We selected 4 girls and 2 boys. ( I've had to get used to the fact that an unmarried 30 year-old is still a "boy" or "girl" but an 18 year-old who marries is not.) We had to find a replacement for one of our two guys as military service is mandatory for all 20 year old males.

Two weeks ago we took our group to Yerevan for 3 days of training in the world of "grant-making." American tax dollars are still a primary source of "seed money" for social change through organizations like US AID which funds this program through Eurasia Partnership Foundation. As you know the major drawback of such programs is that it can become like welfare, a crutch that some people become dependent on. There are countless numbers of NGO's (what we call Non-Profit businesses) that seem to exist solely for the purpose of getting salaries for the applicants.
What I liked about the Youth Bank Project from the beginning was that there we NO salaries. The grant funds were only $2,500 and all of that money was to be put back into the community via $500 projects. Our 3 day training was to help our youth through various role-playing activities how to decide what is a good project worth funding.

Our group met yesterday and began the process of designing a questionnaire to find out what our the main problems to address in our community. When they have finished their community interviews, they will design a poster requesting applicants and sometime in May will start interviewing those who have applied. I spoke with the leaders of a Youth Bank in another city who said they had about 20-25 applications to review before selecting the best for interviews. Whatever comes of all this, I can't help but feel our young people will benefit much personally. They will not only gain some financial understanding as they monitor the projects they fund but they will also become more engaged with the social issues of their own communities. Seems to me to be a good return for the $2,500 of tax invested. And then next year, they will be required to take it to the next level and raise the money themselves in the community. As was printed on the back of the shirts of our Youth Bank trainers: real problems, real money, real change.

This project had its origin in Northern Ireland so I got to enjoy the company of 3 people from Belfast during our time in the capital. I also benefited from the fact that our trainers spoke almost no Armenian so three translators were working all the time in each of the groups. And from the young people from our city, it was a great opportunity to make connections with their peers from other regions of Armenia as they mixed the groups for the first 2 days of the training. As the sessions went from 9 in the morning until 9 at night, the coffee breaks were very active social times.

As the program was winding down the final day I wound up chatting with one of the local cameraman filming the event. Having been raised himself during the Soviet era, he had a wonderful perspective on all the meetings and discussions the young people were engaged in. He told me that most of his generation of Armenians lacked the skills for collaboration, something I have greatly struggled with to help grow the tourism industry at my site. He commented to me that watching the young people working together was for him like "pushing back the invisible wall to progress in Armenia." I'd have to say that was a "good investment."

Moving into my own Flat

     So a couple days after I posted my last blog, I moved into my own apartment.  The Peace Corps requires that you live with an Armenian family for the first 4 months in your new site which is a good idea.  You have an opportunity to continue to work on your new-found language skills as well as being immersed in the Armenian culture and customs ( like the custom of visiting families during the first week of January I mentioned in my last blog.)  You also are more quickly assimilated and accepted into your village through the relatives, neighbors, and friends of your host family.  I had a little taste of that growing up in Indiana where both my mother and my father both had two siblings in our town.  This experience of clan and "extended family" is even more intense in a small city of about 15.000 residents (I think South Bend was about 100,000 at the time.)   Nobody bothers to make distinctions between ”first" and "second" cousins.  One of the young men I work with lives with his grandmother and his mother's brother's family who have a small baby.  The first time he talked about his "little brother" I was confused.  Since everybody seems related somehow, it makes sense to not spend time sorting it out. 

    So today when I awoke, I discovered a lovely gentle snow falling.  Much like when I lived in Denver, the snow in our city will fall and then be gone in a week.  (This is not the case for some of my fellow volunteers who get "the real Midwest experience of winter" that I was anticipating.)  Since it was Sunday, I figured it would be a good time to take my camera with me when I went to the little grocery store........right across across the street.  As you can see in the photo, I also have a bus stop right outside my place.  The couple days when it did get very cold or when I don’t have time for the 30 minute walk to work, I am very grateful for the location. All bus trips are 70 drams, or 25 cents.   It was also great last Saturday when I needed to carry my laptop to work so I could finish up my Turbo-Tax program online.  ( One can have Internet in the house for $30 @ month but I just can't justify spending over 10% of my salary for that.   Saving money for a trip to Cairo makes a lot more sense!)

 

These photos will hopefully give you a sense of a "flat" in Armenia.  As I understand it, Russia built these apartment buildings as part of the  socialist program.  When the USSR collapsed in '92, they were sold as individual units.  I remember when I was looking for a place back in November thinking I could just ask the "Apartment Managers" about vacancies.  I was a little confused when we stopped at the nearby stores to ask about "vacancies."  This is where that "family network" comes in.  Somehow we heard through a contact at the local gas company that somebody's sister had moved to the capital of Yerevan to work.  I would have never found this place on my own.  My rent is $80 a month and I pay for water and gas.  I am still waiting to find out what the utilities will be for last month.  They gave me my first month's rent free for installing a new toilet, which cost me about the same.

             My apartment building is almost identical to every other one you see in our city.  I live on the second floor and have a little open air balcony outside the kitchen.  When spring arrives, I am looking forward to my weekend cup of coffee looking out at the surrounding forests and mountains.  ( Our city used to be promoted in tourist literature as "Little Switzerland".)  As you can see from the photo of my kitchen, the balcony also "doubles as a clothes dryer." I used to chuckle when I'd see clothes on the line in winter.  And now.......I'm doing it!  *;o   Since sometimes it takes 3 or 4 days for clothes to dry, I asked Meghan to make a trip to WalMart for some more "skivvies."  I am getting pretty good at wringing the last drop of water out of my clothes before hanging them up.  Hanging them up with the old wooden clothes pins has been a little bit of déjà vu from my childhood in Indiana.

             One of my earliest California memories of Armenia was hearing that the people don't bother to plug in their refrigerators in winter……as the kitchens are cold enough.  It's true.  I haven't plugged in my refrigerator yet so I don't even know if it works but my balcony is plenty cold to serve as "cold storage."  It's surprising how soon one adapts.  I actually look forward at the end of work each day of "coming home" to my little place.  I open up my copy of "A Year in the Maine Woods" and feel right at home.  I was originally disappointed that I was not assigned to Africa as the Peace Corps originally indicated.  But now in many ways Armenia seems like the best location for my two years of service.  It surely challenges every assumption I brought with me about how life is "supposed to be."  

 

           

           

 

Holiday Bus Ride

When you don't know the bus routes and have limited language skills, traveling in a new country can be a real adventure. I can still remember my first solo trip to the capital of Yerevan. Getting there was easy. The return trip was another matter. I was told that I could catch the bus back to my city at the bus station on "Abovian." How difficult could that be? After one of the locals showed me which bus to get on, I felt like it was "mission accomplished." Mission Impossible turned out to be a more apt description. Twenty minutes later I found myself leaving the city with

the bus approaching a fork in the midle of the road. One arrow pointed left to my city and the other pointed right to another city called . . . Abovian. Тhis 19th century Armenian writer was famous enough to have both a street and his home village named after him. Fortunately the bus driver was kind enough to stop the bus in the middle of nowhere and flag down a bus going in the opposite direction for me. It was not to be the last time that the kindness of locals rescued me from my errant wanderings.

So here I was five months later, preparing for my big adventure to the capital for a New Year's Eve rendezvous with my fellow Volunteers. I had been warned that it was a limited bus schedule for New Year's Day so ...."Good luck, getting back." And it was imperative that I return the next morning at the request of my host family. While Americans are just winding down their holidays on January 1st, the Armenians are just "winding up." I had been told that all the businesses close down for at least the first week of January to accommodate the tradition of family visits. During that week apparently everyone is expected to have a buffet ready on the dining room for at least two dozen visitors who might drop in. ( Apparently, cell phones have been a blessing since families get a little warning now!) This time it was no problem for this seasoned veteran of bus travel as I successfully located the only bus leaving for my city that day.

Such was the prologue to my first Christmas in Armenia. It is now January 10th and I am sitting here trying to remember what exactly happened that first week of January. One thing I know is that I was actually glad to go back to work on the 8th just to have some relief from all the eating and drinking.

My expectation was for a simpler, quieter holiday. I was relieved to be spared all the pre-Christmas sales in November, the December mailbox filled with Wal-Mart flyers, and the never-ending schedule of college bowl games. Here in Armenia I thought it would be wonderful to see what it was like to, as the slogan goes, put the Christ back in Christmas. The Peace Corps had stressed during our training the importance of 301AD when Armenia had become first Christian State in the history of the world. I would just have be patient and wait for January 6th, the date the Eastern Churches had chosen for Christmas.

So during all these family feasts, I waited. And January 6th came and went with no religious festivities.   It was just another day of family visits.   I had this feeling like I had missed the bus again. Guess it takes a while to learn the bus routes in another culture.   At least next year I won't have to be disappointed by false expectations.   I can just enjoy it enjoy the Christmas season in Armenia for just what it is: a celebration of family ties.

Next Phase of my Service

Upon our arrival in Armenia last June, we were led into an auditorium where we were loudly welcomed by 40 other second year Volunteers.   Well, a couple days ago another 1st year volunteer mentioned that in another 6 months we are going to be up on that stage as the "Newbies" come in.  Seems strange as most of us feel like "newbies" still.   So I guess this is a good time to reflect on the past 6 months in-country.

Odd as it seems, probably the most important book I have read since my arrival is a murder mystery, Child 44.  Set in Russia during the 1950's (when I was adjusting to the wooden rulers of the Catholic nuns at Holy Cross grade school), it gives a very poignant portrayal of just how unsettling life in the Soviet world could be.  In a world where fear predominated, keeping information to oneself and hiding problems was important for ones safety.  Well, the Soviet Union may have crumbled in the late 90's but they surely left their cultural heritage behind.        (Probably not too different from the Puritan influence in America, although we seem to have outgrown it of late *;o).

By reading that novel, I have finally been able to come to grips with the what show up for my American eyes as a totally dysfunctional business culture where information is closely held and collaboration is reserved for family functions.  And above all, "walk around the elephant in the middle of the room." ( Not that Corporate America doesn't have a smidgen of that, too.)  The operative mode is to "circle the wagons" and wait for the next grant of American funding to continue paying salaries.  

After 6 months in the country and 3 months at my work site, I think I have finally realized that this is "what is"  and my efforts are not really going to change it.  When we came to our work sites,  we were assigned to one of four sectors: language, environment, health or business.  Our sector is actually called "CBD" or Community/ Business Development.  So I believe my next year and a half is going to be "CD," letting the "B" takes its own course.

The photos above are a good example of Community Development.  One of the second year volunteers has directed a lot of her efforts to supporting a Harvest Festival where the local residents of nearby villages could gather and celebrate.  There is even some friendly competition for the best presentations and food preparation.  As you can see, the children also have a great time dressing up, dancing and singing.

  I have recently become acquainted with both an art school for youngsters as well as an art  academy for older students and am hoping next year to help promote their work.  The current leaders of my city are the products of the Soviet times but the young people will be Armenia's future.  Whatever I can do to enhance their hope and confidence are seeds for the future.   I think I just found my New Garden for the next couple years.