And the drum-roll please…

What a wonderful day it is today. It’s not often I get the chance to wake up to a rainy day, then have the option to stay in bed and listen to the rain for a while! Today we have our mid-training language assessment, which is a trial run of the real thing we’ll have the first week of August before swearing in. Normally I wouldn’t be so excited about test day, but since the interviews are one-on-one, that means I only have to be at school for about half an hour today and the rest of the day is mine! Definitely a rare treat during PST.

I’m not too worried about the test, but I am trying to bulk up my vocabulary a little more because of what’s going on this weekend, that’s right, it’s time for my site visit!! On Monday the Peace Corps staff announced our sites and this weekend we’ll go visit, stay with our host families, meet our organizational counterparts and visit the offices.

For the announcement we all gathered in front of the school where we have our trainings around a map that they had painted onto the parking area/street in front. Each year the new posts are freshly painted just for site announcement day. The A-19s (those who have been here a year) and some A-18s (those who are leaving in just a couple of weeks!) came to hear the news and meet their new site mates/site neighbors. It was so fun to see each of my friends called out along with their organization or school name and then walk to their location on the giant map. By the end of the announcements we could see how far we’d be from our friends during PST and after all the A-20s (my group) were placed, the A-19s and A-18s joined us so we could meet our seasoned site mates.

And the drumroll please…I’ll be living and working in Vanadzor! The third largest city in Armenia and the capital of the northern region, located in the Lorri Marz (like our states). I am excited to be in a large city only two hours from Yerevan, Tblisi and Gyumri, Armenia’s second largest city where Brian and Amie are placed.  My A-20 site mate is Debra, the woman who was my roommate back in DC when we were there for orientation! We hit it off then but have been separated by sector and village since we’ve arrived in Armenia, so we’re happy to be together in Vanadzor.  My other two site mates are A-19s, David and Matt. I haven’t met David, but Matt has been a facilitator for some of our trainings and seems like a great guy.

My new host family is just one woman living in a house by herself. I’m not sure of her age, or if she has family in the city, but I’m looking forward to getting to know her. I’m worried there might be some problems being introduced into the community by a woman as a woman, but I’m sure I’ll find a way, maybe through my organizations.

Now, for the most exciting part, I will be working with two organizations, both of which are incredibly exciting. One is the Youth Foundation of Armenia, the Vanadzor branch. This NGO is more of a start up. The original organization had been set up by the Ministry of Sports and Youth, but was discontinued some years ago for some reason. The need for such an organization was still there, so the group became a registered NGO and is conducting a number of programs. The organization is primarily focused on youth and provides professional seminars and trainings, recreational events and occasional clean-up projects or other fun event.

The organization’s main requests of me are to start an English Club, to help the organization be better able to undertake project design and management as well as needs assessments, and of course, to share my Western experiences as a professional.

The other organization I’ll be working with is called the NGO Center (NGOC).  This organization was started as an initiative by the Armenian Assembly of America, one of the powerful US Armenian lobbies, in conjunction with USAID.  It was one of the first USAID Democracy and Governance program initiatives and served as the model for Armenian NGOs.  What excites me about this organization is that both of my research projects I did on Armenia before I came here included the NGOC.  One project focused on the roll of the Armenian diaspora in the US in Armenian and US politics and the other explored how the USAID’s strategy of democracy building has impacted Armenia’s NGO sector and perhaps contributed to the public’s misunderstanding and/or mistrust of the local Armenian NGOs. So you can understand how I am incredibly excited to get to work with this organization, having researched its founding and the environment in which it developed and grew.

Both placements look extremely promising and I’m eager to get started. I think it’ll be a good balance to have one more start-up organization and one more established organization to work with.  Aside from all of this, my language teacher is also from Vanadzor! She’ll be going home after PST, so I’m hoping I might be able to convince her to be my tutor in Vanadzor.

Aside from this exciting day and the exciting weekend ahead of me, I’ve been greatly enjoying my time here. We visited Yerevan last week which was fun and a good contrast to village life. Tomorrow and Friday we meet our counterparts in Tsakhadzor, the beautiful resort town that reminds me so much of Colorado ski-towns, and this weekend I’ll stay with my new host-mom for three nights. I’ll travel back to Yerevan by myself (Peace Corps is slowly weaning us off of our dependence on them to get us everywhere) on Tuesday and be back with my Argel family by the evening. I’m sad to leave them, but I will be able to visit pretty easily on my way in and out of Yerevan.

Next post I’ll talk about city-life in Armenia and compare it to my experience in the village Argel. More pictures to come as well!!

Cross-Cultural Adventures

As promised, I want to take a post to talk about all the funny cultural mishaps that have happened to myself and the other trainees since we’ve been here.  I had some idea of what type of culture I’d encounter in Armenia, but nothing beats experiencing it first hand! Here are some examples of typical Armenian cultural habits:

Privacy: I was warned that the Armenian culture is very communal, like most other countries other than America.  As an introvert, I was concerned that I would not be able to get personal time I need to be able to re-charge (and stay sane). Luckily, my host family had a Volunteer last summer, so they were accustomed to some of the more universal American cultural habits regarding time, so I haven’t had too much problem finding a balance.

However, the best advice I have gotten in terms of living with an Armenian host family is to be consistent. I vowed to be consistent on my two biggest issues–sleeping early and not overeating–and it has paid off! After only 3 weeks my family makes fun of my for eating so little (which is actually my normal amount, plus sweets with the coffee visits which I never usually eat) and for going to bed so early. So now my family doesn’t push me to eat too much (so I hopefully won’t gain 15 pounds), and they look out for me when they make plans to visit with others late.

A funny thing happened this week when I was having a bad language day (sometimes it’s there, sometimes not). My host-sisters invited me out for a walk and visit with some of their relatives. My host-mom looked at the clock (it was 9:05ish pm) and said to me, in essence, “don’t you want to stay here so you can go to bed when you usually do?” However, it being a bad language day, I just stared blankly at her and she looked back at me with the expression–“come on, I know you know what I’m saying and I’m trying to help you out!” She gave up on me and told my host-sister just to walk around the block with me before going over to her relatives. By the time we had walked past the relatives’ house and had circled back around to our house,  had gotten the idea and silently thanked my host-mom! I took the opportunity to say, “you know what, I’m going to go home,” and I got to bed on time and they were able to visit at their normal time without worrying about having to get me home!

Food: We were all warned that food is hugely important to Armenian families, as it is in most cultures. Especially with guests, Armenian families can be very forceful with demanding that you eat. We all have found different strategies for dealing with this, and those who haven’t I’m sure have not felt the sensation of hunger in 4 weeks! A few funny stories go along with this.

One trainee, the first week he was with his host family, had forgotten the Armenian word for “tired.” Incidentally, he used the word for “hungry” instead. It’s an easy mix-up: tired in Armenian is “hoknats” and hungry is “sovats.” So he kept trying to go to bed but his family kept bringing him more food instead! This lasted a couple of days and once everyone realized what happened he was the talk of the town!

Another trainee also forgot the word for “tired” and substituted the Armenian word “horovats,” which is Armenian grilled meat (and so tasty!!). So once again, confusing tiredness with hunger/food landed her in a confusing situation. It’s funny how we all are concerned with these two basic things–sleep and food–and how easily we get mixed up with the words!

Independence: Another concern of mine was the hospitality issue. Armenian families are SO welcoming and will do absolutely EVERYTHING for their guests–even though we’ll be living with them for 3 months. Many Americans like to be independent and find it difficult to let someone do everything from them. This varies from family to family, from complete laundry and cooking service to complete independence. I’ve been lucky enough to FINALLY break through with my host family on some small things, most importantly the breakfast I mentioned last post! Today my host-mother stayed in bed, as I asked her, and let me cook my entire breakfast. It being the weekend, I thought it’d be easier to convince her to stay in bed, and it worked!!

However, I had a minor incident when I did cook it this morning. Her main concern was my ability to turn on the gas stove to cook my egg and boil my water for tea. The knobs on the stove aren’t the best, so it’s a bit of a trick to get the burners on and off. And of course you use a match to light the burner. I assured her I could do it, but this morning of course I had an issue. I had no problem getting them lit, but I could not get one of the burners to turn off again! I spent about 15 minutes trying and trying to turn the knob and was so close to waking up my host mother and admitting defeat when I realized that I had made the most common of mistakes–I was turning the knob for the wrong burner!! Not just a wrong burner, but one that didn’t work at all! I was relieved to realize my mistake and my host-mother asked if I enjoyed my breakfast. I’m hoping to make a habit of this, but we’ll see! I’m enjoying the small victories!

Ok, so those are some funny stories so far. I’m sure there are so many more, but I will leave it at that for now!

In addition to these mishaps, we’ve been seeing different parts of Armenia and it’s been beautiful! We traveled to the ski resort town of Tsakghadzor last Wednesday and I was reminded so much of the cute ski towns in Colorado. The landscape was gorgeous and the weather perfect. We got to meet the A-19s, the Volunteers who have been here for a year, and hear from them what they’ve been up to and what we can expect. Everyone is trying to piece together who is going to which site from the few hints we’ve been given, so  the excitement is building up to site announcement day which is not this coming Monday, but the next.

We also conducted our first practicum, a new format for my sector’s PST. We are going to visit a local NGO 6 times throughout PST to assess them on the learning segment we’ve completed for that week. For instance, our training this past week was on NGO Leadership and Governance, so our group of 4 traveled to the NGO and spoke with the staff to try to ascertain their governance system and legal organization. Though terrifying, it was exciting to get a taste for what I’ll be doing for the next two years and it really put into perspective the environment I’ll be working in. Communication will definitely be an issue, but the organizations have such heart and drive it really is interesting to see how they manage to do so much with so few resources.

Next week we travel to Yerevan to visit museums and see the Peace Corps offices.  It’ll be interesting to compare the city to life in a village and I’m excited to see something new. More on that next time!

Feel free to comment if you want to know about something specific!

Kamats-kamats

Slowly, slowly as I say in Armenian for about everything I do. I’m slowly getting to know my host family, slowly learning the language, slowly getting comfortable in the country and slowly getting everything I need, including some independence. Though I’ve been enjoying eating my usual egg and cheese on bread for breakfast every morning (which I ate every morning in the States), today was the first time I was able to cook my own eggs! Of course, my host mother and sisters insisted on preparing everything else, but I am happy for the small accomplishments. AND I get to do laundry today!

We’ve been in the country for 16 days and with our host families for 13. It feels like it’s been longer, but it’s going quickly at the same time. Peace Corps keeps us busy with language training every day except Sunday and Technical Training (for our jobs) about three afternoons a week. Along with one “Central Day” a week in a nearby town where we have 9-5 policy and cultural sessions, it’s a jam-packed schedule. And we have nine more weeks to go! Coming from the quarter system of DU, I can kinda of grasp that time frame and understand how quickly it will go by, but also how much can be packed into those weeks.

On that note, I graduated in absentia from DU yesterday! I am now a Master! How appropriate that I’m here in Armenia working on putting my degree to use as I receive my degree. I revisited my Peace Corps aspiration statement on Thursday to prep for a meeting with my program director to talk about what I see myself doing with an organization here in Armenia. He pretty much has us placed, but wanted to meet with everyone to make sure there were no major concerns that would require a re-working of what he had planned.

I was happy to hear that the organization he has in mind for me will allow me to pursue my interest in the mismatch in Armenian NGOs between the community’s needs and the NGO’s mission.  One of my independent studies focused on this issue of “donor-driven” NGOs and within the first couple of days in Armenia I had been given reports that confirmed just what I had been researching–that Armenian NGOs face public mistrust and misunderstanding, largely due to the funding strategies of the NGOs. The reports confirm that many NGOs in Armenia chase after whatever grants are out there, changing their mission to fit what the grant is supposed to go towards. It’s obvious how this can lead to donor-driven rather than community-driven organizations. For example NGOs get a grant to develop a recycling system in a community when what they really need is a youth recreational center, for example.

So I’m excited to get to see first hand how this happens and to help an organization or two develop programs that better fit their community’s needs. This means I’d like to be on the needs assessment, project development and analysis side of things.

Additionally, the Program Director gave me a good idea for a secondary project–food safety and/or health and nutrition. This is a nod to my mom of course! I’m looking forward to the possibility of raising awareness of proper food handling techniques, which are rare here, and also possibly getting into health and nutrition as the Armenian diet isn’t always the most health-friendly. My host family does a fairly good job at refrigerating food properly, etc., but it’s not the case within every Armenian family.

Aside from these professional updates, the language is coming along well. It’s frustrating to feel like I learn so much in class then come home and still understand almost nothing. But I’m starting to understand more and my host family makes an effort to use the words I know, and only the present tense. I imagine what I must sound like to them talking in fragmented sentences, using only the present tense when I need the past or future, and having the vocabulary of a kindergartner, if that. But they’re very patient and they can see I’m learning a lot.

At our last Central Day we had a special visit from the US Ambassador to Armenia, John Heffern.  He visited us the day after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in Yerevan! Our little country has gotten a bit of press (at least here it was a big deal) and it was interesting to hear his take on the US’s role in and goals for Armenia. According to Ambassador Heffern, the US’s goals are three-fold: to help Armenia succeed (regionally, politically and economically), to give Armenia options for success and to keep Armenia Westward focused (on Europe and the US).  Having been engulfed in the strictly a-political environment of Peace Corps, it was a reminder of why I find Armenia so interesting and how my role within Peace Corps can support the US’s strategy.

That’s it for now. Next post I’ll be compiling some funny culture-mishap stories from myself and fellow trainees. And of course, check out some new photos!

Love and miss you all!

Bari Luis Mt. Ararat!

After a week of travel, including two overnight flights and a 12 hour layover in Vienna, I have safely made it to Armenia.  On the morning we arrived (3:30 am local time), we met the Country Director and other Peace Corps staff at the airport, loaded our massive heap of luggage onto a truck and stepped into a bus that took us to the 5^th century ruins of a cathedral near Yerevan.  Though the clouds covered the sky most of the morning, we did manage to see some light rise over peaks of Mt. Ararat.  What a welcome! We were met at the site by coffee and a fruit crumble type breakfast food and had a chance to walk around and take in our first views of Armenia.

We spent three nights in a nearby “resort” in an area of Armenia where locals often go to relax on vacation.  Our group of Americans overtook the entire hotel for the weekend to get to know each other, the staff and of course to get a crash course in Peace Corps policies. We also managed three hours of language lessons giving us just the basics required to attempt to communicate our necessities to our host families.  My first impression of Armenia is basically based on sight. The country reminds me a lot of Colorado with high mountains and bright wildflowers.

The group bonded just enough to miss each other when we moved to our host families in the villages surrounding a large town in the Kotayk region.  I will complete 11 weeks of language and technical training in my village with seven other trainees and another 15 or so who come to our village for technical training a few times each week.  My host family is wonderful.  I have a host-mother, -father, -brother and two sisters.  Though we can’t communicate too well, the women and I sit in the living room in the afternoon sipping surch—strong Armenian coffee (like Turkish or Arabic coffee)—and eating sweets.  We seem to feel at ease around each other, though once I have more language I might realize they now think I’m a little odd.  I feel so lucky to be in a home with a flush toilet, shower and even a washing machine.

I’m excited about the Community and Youth Development program.  The objectives of the program align so closely with what I’ve been studying at the University of Denver and what I want to do in the future as a career, I’m eager to get started. I know what I actually end up pursuing during my service will differ greatly from what is presented as the framework, but I look forward to digging in and working with an organization to help it improve issues with governance and management.

Enjoy these photos of first impressions of Armenia from the last week.  http://s1150.photobucket.com/albums/o605/lizinarmenia/ More to come!

Mt. Ararat!