View full size
This is the table and old iron bed where I can study in the afternoons. On Sunday, our only day with no school, I went to a church service with one of the volunteers and her "family". We took a marshutni to Vanadzor and walked a few blocks to a newish small church built by disapora members. Several very old stone carvings, mostly ornate crosses, were placed into the stonework itself or mounted in a rose garden outside the church. The service reminded me of pre-Vatican II Catholic services. Lots of ritual. When we entered, Hasmik, the head of my friend's family, bought candles for each of us. We lit them and placed them in raised boxes filled with sand. Most of the women wore scarfs on their heads. The church held about 6 rows of pews. A choirmaster and a choir of 5 teenage girls sang at various times. When the priest entered, he was in full regalia, burgundy silk floor length robes imprinted w/ gold designs. An incense bearer came with him and filled the chapel w/ incense throughout the service. A good portion of the service was chanted, similar to Jewish services I have attended. We left after about 45 minutes. I understand the service continued for another 30 minutes or so. Mimi and I basically mimicked Hasmik. When she stood, so did we. When she sat, ditto. A good spiritual experience. Very peaceful.
A couple of farm stories. I was sitting on our porch watching the chickens and geese. Grigor decided I needed to get a bee experience, strode over to the bee hives and plucked a bee from one of the busiest. He held it in a way that it would not be injured – a delicate hand – brought it over to me, and squeezed the bee right above my finger. A drop of honey came out. It was delicious. I think that is all the honey I will get until late summer when he harvests the honey from the hives.
Grigor and Sveta have been working with armloads of wool for several days. This is wool straight from the sheep and let me tell you, these are not clean storybook sheep. First they hung it on fences to let the rain do some of the cleaning. Then, Sveta put a large amount of wool on a raised wire screen and proceeded to beat it with a big stick. I'll try to include a pic of that. That cleaned it a bit more. Then it was hung in another place and pulled and pulled to help make it soft. Then she took some of that wool and did more pulling and pulling by hand. It is a laborious process and done without any machines or helpful tools other than the screen and the stick. The final product is very soft. Sveta puts the wool in our mattresses and quilts. The quilts are about 2 inches thick and very comfortable for sleeping. The mattresses are about 3 inches thick and also comfortable. My pillow is filled w/ feathers from their geese.
I am enjoying experiencing the farm life. It is very hard work. I think it requires real dedication to live that life these days. Certainly Sveta and Grigor put their hearts and their backs into the farm. Sveta was correcting my Armenian in one of my homework assignments. I wrote they lived on a farm. She explained to me in a combination of Armenian and English aided by my trusty dictionary that cows live on a farm. They have a farm. I changed the verb.
The language continues to be a challenge and the main focus of my pre-service training. We must test out at a novice-high level to be sworn in as a real volunteer. I'm aiming for one notch higher, intermediate-low. However, I will be happy just to get a "pass".
After we are sworn in, we get a large allowance for tutors and I intend to take every advantage. While I learn new words every day, new tenses, etc., my understanding of spoken Armenian remains extremely low and I have nowhere near the skills I would need to conduct business in their language. I believe my counterpart at the NGO speaks some English. I'm supposed to meet her in a couple of weeks. PC holds a counterpart conference to have us meet the people with whom we will work the closest and then sends us to our actual sites for a few days where we visit the workplace and stay at our new host homes. It will be nice to get that kind of orientation before I actually move to Gyumri.
Back to tanayeen ashkatank (homework).
Elizabeth Pou
25 Broad Street
Asheville, NC 28801
25 Broad Street
Asheville, NC 28801
No comments:
Post a Comment