First month in Armenia

This is the first month or so all crammed into one post. Enjoy!

Okay the plane ride here. We meet in DC for staging and the next morning we leave at noon to get to the airport and get on our flight by 5 pm. The bus is over an hour late. The bus I then get on has no air-conditioning. It’s 80 degrees with as much humidity in DC that day and the bus has been sitting in the hot sun while we packed our stuff into the buses. We’re all sweating like crazy on the bus. And we’ve been warned that we won’t be able to shower for several days, though we probably will have time in Vienna during our 14 hour layover. The other bus does have AC and my chocolate I had wanted to keep cool to get to Armenia for my host family melts. It doesn’t even make it because I ended up leaving it at the airport. More on that later.

We get to the airport, unload our stuff and go to the counter, keep in mind there is almost 60 of us, all with 100+ pounds of luggage each. We get to the counter for Austrian air and we tell them how many of us there are and they almost gasp when we tell them how many of us there are for one flight. They apparently had no idea we were coming, someone never told them or someone never passed the message along. Keep in mind we were already running late, because the buses came late, and oh yeah, funny story, the bus ride was supposed to be less than 30 minutes, but it takes more than an hour because the bus driver takes a wrong turn and goes to the wrong airport, Reagan, not Dulles. So we’re running late, the line is a total mess, the tickets were given weren’t tickets but the stubs that we could use to get the tickets. Some people didn’t have a connecting flight to Yerevan. Who knows what happened but it was very stressful and we weren’t sure any of us would make it, let alone all of us. They were giving us trouble about bags as well. We were told two checked bags, one carry-on and one personal item. And we were told have enough clothes in your carry on for several days because you won’t have access to your bags for three or more days. That turned out to be not entirely accurate, and maybe I misheard it, I’m not really sure. But anyway they were charging for the second checked back, eventually it got worked out and the travel agency took care of it. In the end we all finally made it onto the plane. I was so dehydrated from the bus ride, sweating out most of the water in my body.

We made it to Vienna okay, I left my camera on the plane, I was half asleep and yeah I’m dumb. Oh well. We get to the hotel. I see that a highlighter had been crushed and exploded in my bag all over one of my new books (Thanks for packing the highlighters I didn’t want dad!!!!!) The book had a cover and so that got ruined but not the book itself, so I guess the cover did its job. I find out my computer was busted and an amazing tech guy who was actually the first fellow PCV I met in DC helped me out and eventually, several weeks later we figured out it was a minor problem, a plug got wiggled loose, something like that, I don’t need to go into details but it’s fixed and totally fine now. Hence this message being sent out.

So in Vienna me and my tech friend after trying to fix my computer had the idea to try to do laundry while in Vienna for 14 hours because we both sweated like crazy on the hot bus and wasn’t sure when we’d have a washing machine again. So we walked around our little suburb-like place in Vienna, not bothering to go into town and see the city (yes shoot me, I didn’t go to the city, whatever, I had a blast) and tried to find one here. I took German in high school and knew about five words, my tech friend had studied a bit in high school and a bit in college a long time ago and was much more conversational than me, but eventually we found that they only had a dry cleaner and no laundro-mat. We eventually got some baked goods, ate some ice cream, went into a toy store with the cute girl that we think was the owner which was strange cuz it was a toy store and they had legos and we bought Uno (amazing game that does not take language and only colors and numbers which are pretty universal) and the girl was totally flirting with my friend and got her number more or less, though I think it was the work number, but all in all Viennese Suburb fish-burg or something do to with fish was pretty surreal and awesome. So I’m not living with a host family in the town of Alapars. I have an amazing house, my own room, water is always running, which for other villages this cannot be said. Others only have it certain days of the week or certain times of the day, but I think I have it 24/7. And I have an indoor toilet, not an outhouse, and a shower, with heated water. It’s really amazing. I live with a grandmother (grandfather deceased) who is awesome and so nice, and one of her sons, his wife and their 5 year old son, Henri who is a little terror, and really exactly what you’d expect from a 5 year old, language barrier or no. Sometimes I think he looks at me and thinks I am somehow defective or mentally challenged because I don’t speak his language, and he has only met infants who can’t speak, never adults, though he does remember the other volunteers I think. I think he told me once that he liked the previous volunteer more. I guess I haven’t met his expectations.

Language is going well and It’s relatively easy when compared to learning Slavic languages (at least the ones I’ve learned). There is still case, but accusative is generally the same as nominative save for animate nouns and the other cases seem very natural. There is no gender on nouns and adjectives which is nice. They do have infixes (infixes!!) though these aren’t too hard and they have postpositions (one preposition, meaning without) which is taking a little while to get used to but isn’t so bad. The alphabet is a beast! Upper and lower case. 30+ letters. Gotta cowboy up, though, I’ll learn it eventually. We had out first oral interview, kinda the halfway point and I think it went really well and I talked a lot more than I thought I could. It was a good feeling. About the week before that I felt like I wasn’t learning anything but then all of a sudden everything just clicked and now I can kindof have meaningful conversations with my host family.

Anna, my new favorite soap opera, they speak slowly and use simple language and is the most language I can understand on the television. Also they steal music from movies all the time. It’s great! Where else am I going to get to hear the theme from Lord of The Rings and Pan’s Labyrinth! They use music all the time on the show and it is totally over the top. There will be a scene of this mean lady (you know she’s mean because of the music) with this epic, edge-of-your-seat music where you think somebody is about to get shot/stabbed/karate-chopped . . . and the scene just has the mean lady making coffee. That’s it! She’s making coffee. Or putting ice into a glass. They do this in many of their action shows where they have this intense music playing, where I’m about to have a heart attack and just want a release, some action, or something, and nothing at all happens the scene just ends with absolutely no action or anything that really moves the story forward. I still speak too little Armenian to know what is going on in the show but I know when the characters are happy, who the evil ones are, the sympathetic ones are solely because of the overbearing music in the background. It’s pretty great.

Okay so Armenia has a lot of foreign commercials on the television and what not and all around. The commercial I just saw was one of those classic stain remover commercials from way back in the 80s in the US where the person gets something on their white shirt and they show you how their brand will get rid of the stain. I think this has to be Russian because the guy with the shirt stain was a sailor. Armenia is a landlocked country so I don’t think they have a very big navy (though during the Soviet era there was a famous admiral that was from Armenia SSR)

And they steal a lot of music too. I swear I hear a song by Regina Spektor about candy, the commercial is about candy, not the song, and I’m pretty sure they don’t ask permission to use the music first, which is also great and funny to hear possible copyrighted music.

I have read a book, recommended by John Hedgcock Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue. It’s my McWhorter (tom or John, I know one, a co-worker, and the other is a famous linguist I want to know). It has some pretty awesome stuff in it, and really convincing arguments about some of the weird stuff English has and why, and while I wanted to discount and/or dislike the book just on principal, so I could disagree with John, I am in love with the book (such a good writer) and the ideas are very convincing and was an awesome read.

Lastly . . . I found out my site placement! I am going to Vanadzor! It’s the third largest city in Armenia, about 100,000 people and supposedly really nice. I can’t wait to visit in the next week or two. I’m going to be working at an NIE, a National Institute of Education! A university basically. I’m so happy to be teaching university students and feel that I will be able to make the greatest impact in Armenia as a teacher training and teaching English at the college level. The site seems like the perfect fit and I can’t wait to move there and start my service! I’m so excited. The weather is supposed to be mild, both in summer and in winter, and hopefully I will have reliable water, electricity, indoor facilities and a shower. I won’t believe I have those until I see my site but from what I have heard from past volunteers it is a very nice city and should have many of the amenities that one might expect in the US. Some people call this the “Posh Corps” instead of the peace corps and my site may be that though I will wait and see before actually labeling it as such.

When I first wanted to do Peace Corps I wanted to be out in the most rural area possible, away from civilization, but ultimately I am glad I am in a city and wanted to be in a city because the way I look at it, I am here to help the people of Armenia, specifically in the education sector, English language learning. The less problems and hurdles I have towards my own personal hygiene, physical health, and mental health, the greater impact I can have in the community that I serve and the more I can focus on why I am here. It will be harder living in a village to get my whole community to know who I am, and integrate better, but I hope that I will at least be able to do this into the community of the school. We will see what happens and I really have no idea what I’ll be doing at site as this is the first year they have had a volunteer. With the last year spent at MIIS I feel prepared to tackle anything TESOL related whether it’s curriculum/materials development, assessment, or teaching General English or English for Academic and Professional Purposes (EAPP) and am so happy with my education thus far from MIIS. Okay I think that’s about it. This is my first month in Armenia, hopefully I should be able to post weekly, or every two weeks from now on.

Guess that's it for now.