New Years in Armenia

At last, I have an internet connection and blogger is working. These are only a few of the pics I have. Let me know if you want to see anything else. This is a pic of a chorale and christmas pagent a friend and I saw before Christmas. It was charming and a most enjoyable collection of music from classical pieces to gospel. The pagent included a number of children playing the different roles. The angel who represented God's voice to Mary lip synced to a booming male voice.

Here are the Christmas decorations at my apt. The fancy looking tree is a music tree about 10" high sent by my sister who also sent the Charlie Brown tree.

I painted a Christmas tree on my gold fingernails. The reality looked better than any picture I could get.

I also decorated my toes in Christmas colors.

I spent Christmas day and two days after w/ two age appropriate vols in a very nice B and B in Yerevan. We had a wonderful time, catching up with each other's lives, eating some nice meals, looking at various stores. I discovered Yerevan has several nice tea shops and at least two of them had good varieties so I won't need to beg and plead for merchandise from the states. The B & B supports an art school in a region that was destroyed in the 89 earthquake. The school students craft very nice pottery. I bought three pieces and plan to get more every time I return to Yerevan.

On the way back to Gyumri, I stopped in the big produce market in Yerevan, bought some house gifts for the various places I was going to visit for Nor Taree and some treats (lettuce, mushrooms, and a few other hard to find items).

On the 31st, I headed out to Shahumyan to spend Nor Taree w/ Sveta, Grigor, family and Phyllis, the vol who stayed there last year. Sveta is recovering from bunion surgery on both feet. I won't describe the process in detail but here are two small factoids – she was given only a local anesthetic for a 5 hour procedure and saw the doctor drinking vodka throughout the surgery.

Here is a pic of the only heating source in the house in Shahumyan, a very inefficient wood stove. You could see your breath in every room. My sleeping bag saved me or I would not have been able to stay two nights. It reminded me of my grandfather's house, heated by only a pot bellied stove in the living room – boy, were those upstairs bedrooms cold.

Here are a few pics of the Nor Taree table.
The family had been cooking for several days and were putting dishes out on the table when I arrived at about 4 pm. We had a khorovats (specially for me) about 4:30 in the room w/ the stove. Dishes continued to get assembled and put out in the living room throughout the evening. We ate in that room at midnight and toasted the new year, our friends and families. Once food is set out, it stays on the table until it is eaten, through the 6 day New Years celebration. I worried about freshness initially. Fortunately, the living room (as well as the rest of the house) stayed about the temp of a refrigerator so I don't think I subjected myself to anything harmful. I did decline the three day old dolma for breakfast on the 2nd morning.

People come in at random beginning on the morning of the 1st. Usually relatives, some neighbors. There are no set dining times. Whenever someone comes in, the family goes to the table again. Toasts are an essential part of the process. The guests may stay a few minutes or a couple of hours. The idea is to make sure there is always a clean plate available for whoever comes in.

Edmund, the son who lives at home, will be getting engaged to his girlfriend, Anahit (see pic) in February and married this summer. They've been going out with each other in a serious way for about a year. After they get married, they will both live at the farm (tradition is that son's wife lives with his family and the mother-in-law (in this case, Sveta) is the authority figure for the new wife.

this is me acting like an Armenian woman putting on makeup in front of everyone using the one mirror in the house. Public annointing of oneself is typical in most Armenian households.

Grigor has acquired some guinea hens. Those of you who have been to my house know of my fondness for guinea hens.

Here's a pic of the farm in winter. It's so different from the same scene in the middle of the summer (see some of the August entries for comparison).





Phyllis came back to Gyumri with me on the 2nd. We tried to go shopping on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th, when she left to return to Sevan, her site, but except for a couple of small food khanoots (stores), everything was closed.

On the 2nd, we visited Emma and Albert – similar table set up of course and stayed to eat a few things and participate in several toasts.


We also visited my across the street neighbor for a few minutes – here is a pic of her, her husband, and Phyllis. More toasts.

My favorite day was the 3rd, when I visited 2 houses of friends at Caritas. Their tables were still full of food and guests continued to pop in and out at both places. The pace was slower than the first two days and we had some nice conversation time. More toasts. In one of the houses, I received the first pressure to put vodka or wine in my toasting glass. The husband of my friend told me it was bad luck not to put alcohol in the glass. Since he was the first person to tell me that, I decided that since nothing bad has happened in the last 7 months of non-alcoholic toasts, I could survive on juice and prevailed. The younger vols, especially the men, receive huge pressure to drink and the vodka (especially homemade hootch) is as strong as grain alcohol. Fortunately, my gray hair is a real asset. No one is going to bully a tatik (grandmother).

During the day 3 visits, I enjoyed a few dishes I had never tasted – both Georgian – one a sour plum sauce, delicious w/ pork (yes, I ate pork that had been sitting out for three days and I'm here to tell the tale) and a chicken dish that looked a bit like pudding and was full of wonderful spices. I also ate a piece of fish – dont know how long that had been on the table.

That was the end of my visiting. Yesterday, after Phyllis left, I checked in with the other Gyumri vols and ended up having them all come over last night for chili and jigsaw puzzle. There were 8 of us altogether and everyone seemed to find a place to sit and a bowl for the chili – it turns out I have exactly 7 big spoons so one of us ate w/ a small one – it didn't change the flavor at all. None of the plates and bowls match and that didn't change the taste either.

Today is a bit of a relaxing day. I'm going to try to find an internet cafe and send this entry, then get my hair cut, then wander over to another vol's house for a bit. Update - one day later - now at internet cafe.

Time for a public thank you to all my friends and family who have sent boxes. I received several in the last few weeks, each with fabulous contents, from new puzzles to exotic foodstuffs. It is always a high point to get that slip from the mailman that means a new package has arrived. And I love being able to make a dinner for friends that contains ingredients we cannot get here – a little touch of home to chase away the blues. Thank you, thank you, thank you Bobbe, Tom, Joey, Michael, Wayne, Bob, Maureen, Susan, Anne, Claire, Janet, Melissa, Larry and Susanne!!!!!!! Several others have sent emails saying something is in the mail so I look forward to more slips of paper from the mailman when the post office reopens (they closed from the 31st to the 7th).

Love, Elizabeth Lynne