In the middle of skyping with my friend Alli last night, I
got a text from my site mate, snow had arrived in Gavar. (Alli luckily kept it to herself that
Baltimore was experiencing incredible pleasant, warm weather, but of course Dorrie
later burst my bubble, I am sure giggling as she did.) I quickly looked out of my window just as a
car rolled past to see the snowflakes falling in the light coming from his
headlights. Snow actually fell in many
parts of Armenia yesterday, quite a bit earlier than last year, which I fear
means, winter is going to be a bit rougher this year than last. This is the view I got to wake up to this
morning, Baltimore friends and family, I know you are jealous as you experience
your high 80 degree weather….
But I think I am ready, at least as ready as I can be. I have more winter clothes than can fit in my
wardrobe thanks to my obsessiveness with buying as many socks, Under Armor long
sleeve shirts and pants, sweaters, gloves, hats and whatever else I could get
my hands on as soon as I got my invitation informing me I was being sent to a
ridiculously cold country. I also spent
this past weekend cleaning and winterizing my apartment to help block some of
the cold. I also am grateful for the
amazing work that has been happening over the last several weeks and that
promises to keep me busy for the next several months. So, I definitely think I am in way better
shape for winter this year than I was last.
That being said, I still had to throw on some reggae music this morning
just to pretend I wasn’t going to have to inevitably put on the layers and face
the cold weather waiting for me during my walk to Good Hope this morning. It worked, my spirits are high and I can even
appreciate that the snow covered mountains surrounding me are quite beautiful.
So, since I last wrote, the Resource Center has been
cleaned, stocked, and made ready for our trainings and guests to the
center. In two weeks, I, along with my
wonderful co-workers, installed furniture, equipment, decorated the playroom
with sun catchers the children painted, stocked the library with books, and
more. I have been lucky that my
counterparts have been 100% committed to this project from day one, but I was
even more impressed with how involved the other volunteers of Good Hope and
staff from CDRC have been in helping to get everything ready for our
beneficiaries. The specialists also took
a lot of time and effort to prepare for their trainings and it has already paid
off. Last week, we had our first two
trainings, one with parents who have children with physical disabilities, and
one for parents who have children with mental disabilities, and the parents
were engaged, supportive of one another, and already expressing their
enthusiasm for the project. The staff
was also super supportive of one another, sitting in on each other’s trainings,
helping to answer questions for the parents, and clearly showing their
dedication to the trainings. In
addition, we were able to tell the parents that this project was made possible
because of their input and the satisfaction my counterparts and the CDRC staff
felt by being able to tell them this and follow through on their promise to
further support the parents was pretty great to witness. During our first trainings with the parents,
we let them know that we want their further input on ways to continue to use
the Resource Center to suit their needs and they have already started to share really
awesome ideas with us.
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| Getting the playroom ready |
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| Our first visitor to the playroom |
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| First Training |
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Our first training
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I know it all has
just begun, and I don’t want to get too ahead of myself, but I am feeling
pretty good about the direction this project is going and have confidence that
this project and increased access to the Resource Center may prove to be
sustainable well after I leave. We also
found out that the Director of Arbes will be coming to sit in on our training
on Wednesday, which has gotten the staff very excited. CDRC is under the umbrella of Arbes ( Arabkir
is the main hospital, Arbes is responsible for children development and
rehabilitation, kind of like Johns Hopkins is the main hospital and Kimmel is
the Cancer Center) and Arbes is very interested, if our project is successful,
to implement these trainings in all of the other CDRC’s throughout Armenia!
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the library/computer room
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| Caritas kids trying on clothes from FCN |
Things have also been going really well with Caritas. Diana and I have started to change the way we
are approaching our work with the NGO in Vardenis by putting together a more
comprehensive plan and agendas for our meetings complete with expectations and
deadlines. We are also working on
beneficiary questionnaires with them as well and have a meeting with them
tomorrow to help them finalize the questionnaires and to create a timeline for
project planning with the results received from the surveys. And I am loving my time with the Caritas
Little Prince program kids. Last week,
we received a generous donation of clothes from a California based aid
organization called Focus on Children Now, who is committed to providing aid to
children in Armenia. (I was also
selected to be on Focus on Children Now’s Small Grants Committee, a new
initiative the organization started this year, focused on giving grants of
$1,5000 quarterly (more if approved) to organizations with which PCV’s
work. There are four members of the committee,
myself, another PCV, the Director of FCN, and a member of the board and former
PC Armenia volunteer. We spent several
months putting together the guidelines, application, reporting documents, and
more and have recently had a meeting and have selected our first grant!) Tatev and I have also been working to
schedule more activities and seminars for the kids and just last week had a
successful World Animal Day celebration.
We did a presentation on the background of World Animal Day,
relationships between people and animals, how to behave around dogs, and a
story about an animal helped a human.
This story led into the children telling their own stories about
positive interactions they have had with animals. Then we surprised them by having one of the
girls from the community bring her dog in, the kids loved it! We have also started to plan future
activities to include a celebration of World Food Day, where the kids will
learn how to make dishes from a couple of different countries from around the
world, a Halloween party, we are starting to work on their costumes this week,
and a presentation and activity for the AIDS Day Pledge quilt, which we are
going to do with both the kids and then their parents.
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our little visitor during our World Animal Day Celebration
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So needless to say, I have realized how true it is that your
second year is so much better and more successful than your first! On Thursday, I will be heading to Yerevan for
an HIV/AIDS and Sexual and Reproductive Health TOT for a week, which I am very
excited about as the misconceptions here about HIV/AIDS are pretty surprising. And it also means I will get to celebrate my
birthday with a delicious meal surrounded by several of my PCV friends, makes it
a little easier to celebrate away from home J
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| some of my wonderful PCV friends:) Elisabeth and me |
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| with David, Phi, Elisabeth, and Harry |
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| saying farewell to John who has just finished his 3rd year in Armenia! |
That’s the latest from Armenia, hope all is well at home and
enjoy that sunshine and warm weather for me!
