Friday, August 29, 2008

Antibes France






Beach off of the ramparts (looks like an ancient wall that may have been a fortress). 















view of my hotel from the pool.   My room it on the upper flooor - closed shutters on the right.   We can see the mediterranean from the window. 





Picasso museum on te ramparts at the mediterranean. 






Andrea and I stopped here to stick our feet in the sea so we can say we
 
were in the mediterannean. 

This is the open market.   Such an array of herbs, olives, vegetables, cheese, sausage.   Oh my.   My suitcase will be considerably heavier when I leave. 






  These are pics from Marmashen, a medieval church/monastery near Gyumri.   My friend Mimi and I visited this summer.   As you can see, its a lovely setting.   Hard to imagine how life was when these structures were built in the late 900s to 1100s a.d.   



The pics below are of a camp I visited to help my organization work on a grant proposal.   Caritas sponsors a camp for disabled children every summer.    My Caritas colleagues and I came up a day before the camp opened to set things up and work on this proposal.   The pic on the left shows one of the dorm buildings on the campsite.   The pic on the right is the group bathrooms - actually very nice - flush toilets and running water all day - not all that common in camp sites around the country.   





I'm writing these blog updates from my room in Antibes, France where I am ending a 5 day vacation.    I'll put some of the pics from here in the next post.    Because of the way  the blogger software works,  its easier to add pics then write.   

So one more blog then I'm through for awhile.   

I'll be sending a fairly detailed email to several of you to describe a very exciting village business project I'm working on.   I've avoided asking friends and colleagues for funds to help out w/ the many needy situations I've encounter.   I wanted to wait until a really exciting opportunity occurred and I think I've found it.   Since this blog is more of a travelogue,   I'll send the info separately.   However, if anyone is intriqued by this teaser and wants to find out more,  email me and I'll give you details.   

Thanks for all your patience waiting for me to start writing again.   I'd love to hear from you. 

Elizabeth

Where has she been?

Dear Faithful readers,  

I 'm surprised at how long its been since I last posted.   This has been a whirlwind of a summer.   Here are a few highlights:

- new vols have come, completed pre-service training and been sworn in.    I visited the training site a few times for presentations.   The most popular was the cooking day when several of us made a big array of dishes for the new vols.   I made satay salad (really yummy), humus, salsa and lavash chips.   Other dishes included egg rolls, pad thai, date bars and choc chip cookies.   The newbies were wowed.   After nearly two months of Armenian food only, they were really happy to experience some variety and glad to find out that its all doable w/ local ingredients. 

- the old vols have left.   I find I miss the friends I made, especially the Gyumri vols.    One of them (Scott) announced in July that he was engaged and would get married as soon as he left service in August.    Here are scott, brian and Dominic on the day Scott told us about the engagement.   That's scott on the left with glasses.   


Fourth of July party at Brian's place.   
Another good bye dinner at my friend Anahit's house.   That's her baby in the swing and her husband w/ the beard. 

- went to a Green camp in July.   This was a group of 40 kids led by Armenian and Peace Corps counselors - one week day camp w/ a focus on environmental issues.   My friend Patti and I cooked for the counselors every night.    


Here are all the kids after they had cleaned up trash at a local park.   


I have more news and more pics which I will  add to another post.