Finally writing my first blog post from Armenia! I am going to backtrack and play catch-up later, but figure the beginning of my service as a PCV is as good a place to start as any. Sorry for the long post, but my first day in Gavar is one I never want to forget!
August 9, 2012
I really hope to do my experiences of my first 24 hours in
Gavar justice as I try to explain the most entertaining, ridiculous, and unique
day I have had in countryto date. This
is a bit of a long post, but I also want to remember today so wrote out pretty
much everything that happened. Fair
warning, part of my day includes a chicken which started his morning alive and didn't make
it through the whole day, so you can skip over those parts of the story if you
want.
I arrived in Gavar Wednesday after sad goodbyes to both my
wonderful host family in Argel who I am going to miss terribly as well as all of
my fellow trainees who I will forever have a bond with after PST and whom I will
also miss, but Peace Corps was able to get us on a phone plan in which we can
call all of the volunteers for free so we won't have any problem staying in
touch. Saying goodbye to my family in Argel was way tougher than I thought
itwould be, they really did become family to me, I really depended on them when
I first moved to Armenia and couldn’t speak a lick of the language, they were
there for me when transitioning to life here was tough, and I really grew to
love them. Arpi will be having alittle
boy in mid-September, so I am going to be able to head back to Argel in a few
weeks to meet the baby(who Arpi is naming after her father Liova) and meet my host father Liova as he lives
and works in Russia and comes back to Armenia very rarely. (Unemployment rates in Armenia are incredibly
high so migration to Russia to provide for the family is very common, though
Armenia would obviously like to see big changes in the employment arena) I will also be able to go
back in mid-Octoberhopefully for baby Liova’s 40 day birthing party. In Armenia, they do not celebrate when a baby is
actually born but 40 days after the baby is born to celebrate the
baby’ssurvival, such is the
tradition here.
So, my first day in Gavar was somewhat uneventful. I went to VivaCell, my phone and
internet provider, and was able to successfully communicate with the employee
in Armenian which was pretty awesome and took a walk around town by myself. After being in PST, and lacking a bit of my independence, and being used to always having other Peace
Corps people around, being alone for a few hours felt very strange unexpectedly,
but it was nice at the same time. I don’t start work with VIA until Friday, PC
was to give us an extra few days to settle into our new homes, so Thursday, I
thought I would just be relaxing, organizing, unpacking, and reading. That’s how
my morning started, but what followed was the most entertaining few hours I have
had in a long time.
I got up super early to upload some of the pictures of
Argel and swearing-in and was able to read for about an hour before the rest of
my host family woke-up which was lovely. Then, at about 9, Alita’s neighbors
starting coming over. Alita is a very social
woman and knows a lot of people which will be wonderful for integration and
making connections with people. So for the next few hours,
I drank a ridiculous amount of coffee,introduced myself to countless new people,
spoke the little Armenian I knew,and said no to candy and pastries at least 20
times. Armenians love to show up at
friends houses whenever they want to, they also expect to have coffee, and they
eat more,especially candy and sweets, than any other group I have ever been
around. And, when it comes to food, they
don’t like to take no for an answer, I think the word Ker!(eat!) is actually the
word Ih ave heard most since I moved here. Luckily, I am over the sweets and candy,
so I have no problem saying chem ozoom! (I don’t want!)
At about noon there was a bit of a break in gossipy ladies,
so I was sitting in the living room chatting online with some of the other
PCV’s when my host mom, Alita walked in with a live chicken. I was so shocked I didn’t even have time
to think what the chicken may have been for. Also with Alita was an 11 year old
girl whose name I learned was Karolina and who I have since realized will
probably be someone I will rely on very heavily during my first few months here
in Gavar. Alita put the chicken, whose
legs were tied, next to me, saw my surprise, and let me know that we were going
to kill the chicken. Even though I know
some Armenian, the communication breakdown over the next few hours was pretty ridiculous. She kept saying the name Hovannes, which is my
host brothers name, so I thought she was telling me that Hovannes was going to
kill the chicken, had no idea why but thought since he was 14 maybe it was a
rite of passage or something. Turns out
what she was saying was St. Hovannes and that the chicken was going to
be sacrificed for St. Hovannes (took me two hours to figure that out).
After a few minutes, Alita left me and
the chicken in the living room alone.
WhileI love to eat meat, I have never witnessed an animal being
slaughtered nor has it ever been on my list of to dos. As the chicken and I stared at each other, I
seriously considered becoming a vegetarian, I was a bit freaked out and a little
irrational about the whole scene. About
20 minutes later, I had kind of forgotten about the chicken and went back to
chatting with friends whena ll of the sudden, the chicken started screeching,
flapping its wings and somehow managed to go airborne. I started to scream, Karolina started to
scream, Alita couldn’t stop laughing and we realized that the chicken had pooped
and as he/she was flapping its wings,it was flinging poop all over the room. I
am sorry to share those details, but today was so ridiculous that I just can’t
bring myself to not share everything that happened. Karolina and I both went running from the room
so that we wouldn’t fall victim to the chicken or its poop and Alita grabbed it
and somehow it disappeared, apparently to someone elses’ home. At this point, I was sure I had dodged the
witnessing the slaughtering bullet and sat down to read after my heart calmed
itself down.
An hour later, Alita took me with her to a friends house
to teach me how to make Gavaree gatas (Gavar pastries), which were of
course delicious, but I let Alita know quickly that I didn’t want to gain any
more weight but in fact wanted to lose it, at which point she got really
excited,said something I didn’t understand in Armenia and led me to one of her
friends bedrooms. Turns out, she wanted
me to weigh myself, you learn quickly in Armenia there is no privacy and there
are no secrets. Luckily, I have lost 5
pounds since I’ve been here, but I have a feeling Alita and I will be seeing
that scale together again several times over the next two months to check
my progress. At this point, I was
starting to get tired and was ready to just chill out and read.
Alita and I went back to her apartment and I had just
sat down to read when Karolina showed back up. She told me to put my shoes on
and motioned that it was time to slaughter the chicken, awesome, thought I had
missed out on that delightful event. So,
I left with Karolina andAlita with it not even occurring to me that Alita
wouldn’t be joining us, silly me. Alita
put me in a car with 5 other people, I knew Karolina and the others looked
familiar, but pretty much they were all strangers, oh and the chicken was
sitting in the lap of the passenger in the front seat. I trust Alita, she has hosted 4 other PCV’s in
Gavar before me, so I knew whatever I was doing was for my benefit in some way,
but doesn’t mean that I wasn’t totally weirded out, confused, a bit hesitant,
but certainly intrigued. A few minutes
later, wew ere on a road which was clearly under construction going a direction
I had never been with a live chicken in a bag staring at me from the front
seat.
After a really interesting ride, some cool houses,
some really run-down and clearly very poor areas, we parked the car next to a
little chapel on a hill. The scenery was
beautiful so it calmed me down a little, but as we walked up to the church, I
realized we were there for the sacrifice.
Luckily,Karolina knew I was totally not into watching the big event, so
she grabbed my hand, moved quickly past what was clearly the sacrificial area
thanks to remnants of past sacrifices, and took me inside of what ended up being
one of the most unique and beautiful places of worship I have ever been. Happily, I was so distracted by the beauty
of the yerkaretsee(church), that I completely missed the scene with the
chicken,huge relief! After lighting some
candles and taking some pictures, we all piled back in the car, yes people and
animal,and headed to Lake Sevan for horovats (BBQ). By this point, I had
decided that I was not going to be a
vegetarian and that I had to get over being there for the death of the chicken
I was about to eat.
When we got to
Sevan, Karolina and I decided to take a long along the water, and it was just
lovely, cool as a fall day in Maryland and the lake looked absolutely
beautiful. It also meant we got to be
very far away from the horovats preparation.
We ate and I admit the chicken was delicious and getting over everything
that had upset meabout the chicken was actually a good bit easier than I
thought it would be. For the next few
hours, we laughed,I spoke choppy Armenian, they spoke the 5 words in English
they knew, and we played a game called Gorts ants Gorts (kind of like monkey in
the middle meets dodge ball). I of course am still just as clumsy as I was in
the states, so during the game, I wiped out and landed badly on my right
foot. It’s just a little sore, not
really a problem, but I mention it because it feeds into something which
happened a little later in the evening.
After the game, we sat down to eat some fruit(we ate something which they
call melon, and tastes like a mix between cantelope and honeydew but is a white
fruit) and looked up and saw that there was a rainbow stretching from one side
of Lake Sevan to the other, one of the most amazing moments I’ve had since I’ve
been here.
We enjoyed Sevan and then headed home. After the day, I was really excited to be able
to relax, read my book, and go to bed early.
But within a few minutes of being back, Karolina called to invite us
over. We stayed at her house for a bit,
drank more coffee, ate more fruit, said no to chocolate and headed back to Alita's. In many apartment
buildings in Armenia, there is no light in the hallways, so it’s very difficult
to see when going up and down the stairs and also outside as there is very
rarely light on the streets outside either.
Of course, I was the one
leading us down the stairs, Alita clearly doesn't know me well enough yet... I was on the
last step when I literally fell out of the apartment building and into a
garden. I would like to blame my gimpy
right foot,but realistically, it’s because I couldn’t see …so for the second
time in one day, Alita doubled over laughing at me, luckily this time I joined
her:)
Oh and almost forgot, found out the horovats we ate
wasn’t even the chicken which was slaughtered, turns out he becomes a meal
on Friday….oh what an amazing introduction to my new life in Gavar, can’t say
I’m not excited to see wherever this crazy experience is going to take me next!
