Sunday, December 7, 2008
This pic is Patti, Katheryn and I at a calm part of the process.
We decided to spread out the labor and found several people to be in charge of various portions of the dinner. Katheryn was Sweet Potato Queen. Lindee was Queen of Pies. Dustin was King of cauliflower casserole. Brian was Director of Turkeys. You get the point.
Here are Dustin, Mimi, Austin and Patti working on the Cauliflower casserole.
Here are two of the members of the pie team, Heather and Elizabeth. Elizabeth had worked in a bakery and turned out beautiful crusts very quickly. Heather made fillings for lemon and chocolate pies, topped w/ meringue.
The results of their efforts - some of the 16 pies they made.
this is the hotel kitchen we had to work in. Interesting seeing how an Armenian hotel kitchen is equipped. Only two ovens. Fortunately they were big enough for us to get two turkeys in each. We cooked 6 big turkeys (35 K) for the event.
Here are Eloise and Mimi putting together plates of crudities for the tables. They remained virtually untouched as the hordes dove into turkey, dressing, gravy, etc.
Of course, Thanksgiving dinner was not the only thing that happened in the last 6 weeks.
Now I'm on a two week vacation which I will write about in another post.
And work went on during the last 6 weeks. The Armenians were very excited about US election results, very happy to hear about the outcome.
I found out during this time that a grant I had worked on w/ Caritas had been awarded. Its a big EU grant and will support a 3 year project impacting 15 villages in a 3 marz region and will involve 3 additional NGOs in the planning and execution. This will be a major focus for the my next several months. More about it later.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Armenian fingernails
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Harvest Festival
This being a village, my friend's house, while possessing a spectacular view, was somewhat limited in amenities.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
random thoughts
This is an old Russian church near the center where my exchange student class resides.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Antibes France
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.
Where has she been?
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
a wonderful day
Now I need to describe this past weekend, a series of delightful experiences. Friday, a group of vols gathered at the one place where we have outdoor space and had a breakfast for dinner party. Everyone brought appropriate dishes like pancakes, eggs, cinnamon rolls. I made ham biscuits and fruit smoothies. A fun dining experience. I highly recommend it.
Saturday, one of my fellow vols came to Gyumri to conduct interviews of local teens for a two week international camp led by Peace Corps volunteers. I joined her for the interviews that afternoon - a great opportunity to glimpse Armenian teenage thoughts and opinions. Ate lunch at a local Georgian restaurant (lots of melted cheese) with the vols who were interviewing as well as two Armenians who are working with the camp. I continue to be impressed at how well the Armenians who speak English do it.
Afterwards, a nice walk to the shooka for some fresh veggies (strawberries are in season now and lovely - eggplants are here as well as fresh lettuce and assorted herbs), a quick visit to the park and then home to cook up a few things for dinner. My visiting friend and I had a pleasant quiet evening working a hard jigsaw puzzle. I have to remember that just because I love VanGogh's paintings doesnt mean that it will be a joy to assemble a puzzle of a VanGogh. I would have appreciated more straight lines and clear colors. Maybe Mondrian.
Sunday, I went on an "art tour" sponsored by a local hotel and a woman from Yerevan. The other tourists were an older couple visiting their daughter and her friend. The daughter is a fullbright scholar studying in Armenia and her friend is doing some graduate research here. Two local Gyumritzis guided us. One of them took us on a walking tour in the old district. While I was quite familiar with the streets, I heard several good stories about the history behind some of the beautiful buildings. Gyumri was a well known center for the arts from the late 1800s until the earthquake in 1988 which destroyed the city and the heart of the art scene.
This pic illustrates a classic jerry-rigged electrical system.
(Some of the pics here are going to be out of order as rearranging things is quite a challenge with this particular software).
Then we visited a local sculptor at his studio. The piece he is showing here is his effort to show the beauty he sees in women who are not considered classic beauties (read: thin). The other pic shows some of the instruments in his studio.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz2g1HN7KDhpm4YtAQsAwVunrrpfvMmkvblI9nWCsfHeRD2UrKoHoS_IktCw8JB4aRs8ReHQmUQWI-2vGLkdQlZ6qmtTf0jsj67Ts3aO-9ybQeGxk4d8F10-e_BjOXfUtBhFFLMIGyH9s/s1600-h/P5242306.jpg (This might show you a pic of one of the buildings on the tour - or not).
Another pic of the artist with one of his pieces. The artist was very generous with his time and answered all our questions about his process. In addition to his conversation about passing on the beauty of ordinary women, he talked about another series of pieces that are parts of armour - without a knight inside. The idea is that the trappings may be there, but there are no more knights. Alluding to the loss of virtue and civility in modern days.
Then we went to one of my favorite places for lunch, the fish farm. As you can see, the setting is bucolic and the day was perfect for outdoor dining.
The pools are where the fish are raised, fed by flowing natural springs on the property. They have sturgeon (good caviar), rainbow and golden trouts (my favorite). They grill the fish and serve with traditional Armenian side dishes. Lots of fresh herbs now that spring is here and lavash they make in their own ovens.
After lunch we watched the horse and colt as some locals tried to interest their children on getting on top of the horse. A couple of them did and they were taken on short walks around the property, fathers close by. The path you see in the background leads to my apartment. I'm only about a 10 minute walk from the fish farm.
The pic below is looking down at the fish farm from the walk to my place. The scary dog is on a chain. He lunges at everyone who passes. Thank heavens the chain holds.
This out of order picture shows some of the knights I mentioned earlier.
I took many more pics on Sunday than I can show here. Go to the dropshots site to see more.
The new volunteers arrive in a few days. Its getting exciting to think about meeting them. Its nice being on this side of the learning curve. They will be the ones asking all the dumb questions for us to answer.
The spring weather, while rainy on several days, has been great. Several shirtsleeve days. Long periods of daylight - nearly 10 pm before it gets dark.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
1000 words
view of Mount Aragats from the Manookyan bridge
cemetary in Echmiadsin, site of old Armenian church complex that was the seat of Christianity for the country.
more road repair
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Serpentine, shel, serpentine
Sorry I havent written since
I'm trying to start some tomato seeds to grow some heirlooms over here. We'll see. They are at the two leaf stage now and I have no access to good growing medium or fertilizer of any kind. I'll poke around in the hardwareish stores near the shooka this weekend and see if I can't find something to give these sprouts a chance.
A couple of stories:
1. A friend at Caritas invited me to Easter dinner with her family. I came early and sat with her in the kitchen watching her and her mother in law cook. Kind of strange for me to be a spectator in a kitchen. That's not the normal order of things. Lots of hardboiled eggs for the table, dyed with natural dyes so a little more quiet than what you see in the
An easter dinner tradition is to click eggs with another person and try to break theirs and keep yours whole. I tried a couple of times. The 5 year old daughter beat me. Of course, she used a trick egg. There is apparently technique to this, but it is not yet a recognized sport. Look for egg cracking at the olympics one of these days.
2. Roads
I'll definitely have to include some pics here. Those of you who saw The In-Laws - the original version with Alan Arkin and Peter Falk understand the reference in the title of this blog. The rest of you should rent this movie immediately and prepare to laugh out loud.
Road repair is underway on the main street near my house. Its done very differently from the
There must be 50 holes in less than a mile and some of them are 4 feet across. No consistent pattern exists. In the daytime you can see most of them and twist out of the way. I'm sure at night the number of broken axles increases dramatically.
3. Pics for this part too. I have a few examples of how Armenians prune trees. What I learned at master
Most of the volunteers in the June class have been selected and they are busy emailing those of us on a group Armenia PC list and asking all the questions I asked last year. Its nice to be on the other side of the queries about what to bring, what to leave, what's it like and how about that language. I've heard there are 13 vols in the 50+ group. Let's hope more of them stay than in my group (6 out of 10 are still here).
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Last post from Istanbul
Here is a pic of me with one of the guards at the Bosphorus gate. Here is the gate that faces the street. We were moved through the required tour (it would be dangerous to let tourist roam through such valuable items by themselves) so fast there was no time for pictures. I'm sure you can find some on the internet if you are really interested.
We made it to the Hagia Sophia - another splendid creation - full of beautiful mosaics as well as the ubiquitous Isnik tiles.
We continued to hunt for restaurants that had fish.
Here's one display.
We also ate under this bridge one day with the fishermen above dropping lines right outside the restaurant windows. One of my favorites was the grand bazaar. 4000 shops under one roof with many more in the alleys outside the main building. It is sheer luck alone that I made it out of there with only 3 shirts and a copper coffee set. I nearly succumbed to the extremely good knock off designer bags. I still think about the red Prada knock off I walked away from. Its hard to walk away in this country. Every store and restaurant has a roper standing outside entreating you to come in. They follow you down the street ---"lady, lady wont you come and see my store, no obligation, come in, please...." The only way to deal with this is to treat it as their accepted cultural behavior, say no thank you, walk on or make a joke and leave. Doesn't matter if they are still talking when you walk away. Its a special challenge walking down a street of restaurants, most of which are offering the same thing and all insisting on you coming into their place.
We also walked around neighborhoods where real people lived. I like this shot of the house that's seen better days with the crisp white dresses fluttering outside. This is a park that is just like any other park except the women are all wearing scarfs.
Patti and I are hanging around the last few hours before our plane. Time for one more meal. Today was the perfect day climate-wise. Temp had to be in the mid-60s, sunny with only a slight breeze. Perfect for the last tour of the spice bazaar.
Back to Armenia and winter.