lavash bakery

I was unable to get the videos onto dropshots.com. I will need my own computer hooked up to the internet to make this possible. In the meantime, here are a few more pics of the lavash bakery and a couple of shots of a door in my courtyard. First, the dough gets mixed up in this huge container.

Then, it is rolled out by one person (Emma's sister), tossed by another who puts it on a mold and then into the fiery oven.

This is a door to one of the downstairs rooms that opens to the courtyard. I really liked the glass design on the door and hope you enjoy it.

Dear readers,


I’m attaching some pics of activity in the lavash bakery that is on the first floor of my new house. I’ve also put a couple of short film clips at dropshots.com. Go to dropshots.com/elizpou and look at August 27, 2007.

This is the whole room. One person rolls out the dough which has been rising since 5 am. Another puts it, pizza like, on a slightly rounded form and puts it in a very hot cylindrical oven. The third, takes the just baked lavash, sprinkles it w/ water and stacks it for packing.

This is Emma, the bakery owner and my host "mother" stacking the lavash for packing.

Today I am visiting a center for youth “at risk”, a facility in Vanadzor that works with children (teenagers mostly, many of whom are already on police department lists as troublemakers) to give them marketable skills such as hairdressing, cooking and shoe making and self-confidence. I'll write more on that later.

Sunday, August 19, 2007
Greetings from Gyumri,

I moved here on Thursday with 2 large suitcases, one small suitcase, one big box, and several bags, all stuffed to the brim. Fortunately, the PC van took us right to the door and I had much help getting all the stuff upstairs into my new bedroom.

I think I have mentioned before that Emma and Albert have a lavash bakery on the first floor.

4 PCVs already reside in Gyumri. With this year’s batch, there will be 8 of us. One of last year’s group is my age (Betty). She has been most generous with her time, taking me all around the city to show me the markets, shops, museums, bus station, etc and has introduced me to the language tutor several of the vols use. I have my first lesson scheduled for tomorrow evening.

Gyumri used to hold over twice its current population. The ’88 earthquake devastated the area. While there is some reconstruction happening, and much that has already occurred, evidence of crumbled buildings are on every block. It lends an air of faded glory to the place. Jobs are scarce. Many former Gyumri citizens joined the Diaspora. Others work in Russia several months during the year to provide an income for their families.

It is a walking city. I can get to about everywhere I need to go by foot, a real treat for me. The market area (shooka) is quite large – hundreds of mom and pop kiosks selling a lush selection of fruits and vegetables. Not to mention many other items for sale from hardware to underwear and lots of shoes with pointy toes and high, high heels.

Right now is about the most productive time of the year for produce and fruits so the stands are piled high. The things that are missing are what surprises me – no celery, tho I understand it is available in the fall. Almost no lettuce. I found one stand out of the hundreds here that had a couple of heads of romaine. Only one variety of tomato – its delicious and I think says something about the culture that the many different kinds of tomatoes available in other countries are missing here. Limited selection of spices. No sweet corn. There is some corn available, but not the kinds that will taste the way our sweet corn does. No anchovies, not that many will care about that.

The city has a historic district dating back to the late 1800s. Many beautiful buildings were destroyed in the earthquake; however, there are still some lovely ones left. I’ll send a pic of a beautiful church that was ruined and is in the restoration process. I have temporarily misplaced my camera. I think I left it over at the house of the PCV who sponsored a welcome to Gyumri gathering last night, but he hasn’t seen it yet. The A-14s (I’m an A-15- get it?) have really given us a nice welcome – many sincere offers of help, both for work and personally.

My host family, Emma and Albert, usually live alone. When I arrived, there were another 6 people in the house, relatives visiting from Russia. We’re down to 3 or 4 now (I’m not exactly sure – there are a lot of comings and goings and its hard to tell who is here overnight). I’ve had one bucket bath and will take another tonite. Its actually not bad. The arrangement is very functional and there is plenty of hot water that Emma heats on the stove and dumps into a wide, deep sink adjacent to the tub.

I’ve bought a length of rope with the idea of teaching the house dog, Gosher, to walk on a leash. I have never seen a dog in Armenia on a leash and my sister has warned me not to make him look foolish in front of his friends.

I’m very excited about work, which starts tomorrow. My counterpart is supposed to be my guide, community integrator and interference runner while I am here. I’ve mentioned her in earlier posts. She has already been a help and I’m sure will continue. More about work as I start to learn more.

Before I finish, I would be remiss not to mention Shahumyan. It was hard to avoid tearful scenes leaving Sveta and Grigor. I have grown close to both of them. I think what saved the day is my promise to come back frequently. I don’t think Gyumri at its very best will be able to take the place of the sheer beauty of those lovely green mountains and the peaceful village pace.

Gyumri’s splendor will lie in the resources the city has to offer. It has several reasonably nice open areas that I am sure were fabulous before the earthquake and ensuing economic disaster. I spent some time at a lovely park just a few minutes walk from my house. Many nice shady benches that are perfect for a book on a warm afternoon.

Now time to start the bathing process.

August update

Its 9 pm on Thursday August 9, 2007. It is raining. I just finished a very long break from studying for my language exam tomorrow morning.

I spent the break making lavash chips and watching the sky darken on our balcony. I think the Armenian lavash is wonderful. I don’t recall seeing anything this good in the states. The bread is very fresh and made into thin sheets about 16” x 8”. Put a teaspoon of oil in a baking pan, rub the lavash on the pan, add a little salt and some herbs, bake for a few minutes until it crisps up and there is a treat that is as good or better than the best potato chip and much healthier.

I ate the chips on our balcony watching the storm come up and savoring the opportunity to look at the brilliant colors of the flowers that begin one of the
gardens. The rain makes their colors supersaturated. The background are the mountains. And then there are the animals. Today I saw our fierce watchdog trying to play with the pig who was allowed to run around the yard for several hours. Very cute.

The geese are always fun to watch. The little ones are almost as big as the mothers – not as big as daddy goose. He’s definitely the man of the house. If you have ever looked at geese for any length of time you will notice that a considerable amount of their weight is in the back. When they walk they look like slightly plump, cute 16 year old girls who are well aware of how cute they are and walk to show it. It’s a wonderful sway.

If I don’t get the pics up this time, I will with the next post. The flowerbeds look like color bombs. I’ve taken lots of pics, but none do justice to the real thing. There is a big row of dahlias that line the yard from my window to the gate. They look like a receiving line of queens.

The mountains are a constant reminder of how beautiful nature can be. Also, how hard it is to make your living from it. This is haying season and many of the local farmers are spending days in the fields, scything the hay, packing it into rickety trucks piled so high you can’t imagine how they are navigating the roads and loading it into their storage barns for winter feed. It is hard, hard work and there is little in the way of mechanical help.

I have really enjoyed the last two months in the village on a working farm. Instead of traffic noise, we have cows, roosters and donkeys making their voices heard early every morning. I’ve been caught in a couple of cow traffic jams. Much more interesting that freeway traffic jams. I like walking to school each day for the language lesson, passing more chickens than cars and saying good morning to villagers out starting their day. I love this pic of the mother hen and her babies. There are about 10 of them underneath her.

Tomorrow after the test some PC friends and I are celebrating the end of language class with a leisurely lunch in a local restaurant with a great outdoor patio, raised above the street and covered with umbrellas. Great for sun-free dining and people watching.

Next week, we get sworn in on Wednesday and leave for our new sites on Thursday, August 16. While I am looking forward to starting my actual PC job and living in a city again, I know I’m going to miss Sveta, Grigor and the village ambiance. This family has made me a part of theirs and it is nice to know that I now have a large family. I am sure I will make return visits to this nice farmhouse and the warmhearted people who live here. If anyone wants my address in Gyumri in order to send letters or packages(!), send me an email and I’ll give it to you.


I don’t really have the words to describe the intense ups and down of this 11 week boot camp. For 11 weeks our schedules have been tightly controlled and our work load (mainly learn the language and lots of other study thrown in the mix) has been substantial. We have been severely limited in where we can go and what we can do. Internet access has been infrequent and often frustrating – rushed for time and dealing with much slower connections than we have become accustomed to. As we go to our permanent sites, we will have a good portion of our schedule under our control and the opportunity to make our own plans about how to accomplish our goals – exhilarating and frightening as we are responsible for creating the activities that hopefully can result in improvement of some of the lives in this developing country.

I’ve made some friends I think I’ll keep for a long time. I’ve just started to get acquainted with this country, its people and its customs and know I have a lot more to learn. Actually, learning new things all the time is a welcome challenge. I will be glad when I know the language well enough to understand most of what I hear and speak it well enough so I am understood outside the classroom. Sveta and I have managed communicate pretty well between her very limited English, my very limited Armenian and the bararan (dictionary). It’s very funny to see both of us running for our reading glasses when I get stymied in mid-sentence and have to look up something. Not a kid anymore.

Speaking of which, this break has gone on for about two hours now. Time to finish up studying.

Addendum - its now Friday afternoon and the language test is over. I'm sure I made the minimum and doubt I did much better than that. Relief!!! No serious schedule and no homework til swearing in on Wednesday.