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.
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.
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