Peace Corps, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

Here's what we're working with:

I've got a one bedroom place, a little balcony, on the fourth floor apartment complex.

I have water in the evenings starting around 3:00 pm. No water in the mornings.

But I do have 3G internet, which I am using to write this blog post.

I have a questionable shower, with hot water for about ten minutes until the breaker trips.

I have a stove that I light with matches when I turn the gas on.

I have a coincidental horse theme on my dresser. My host family gave me this nice ceramic (and very fragile, right on the day before I moved to Vanadzor, 2 hours away, on bumpy Armenian roads!) and my landlord gave me some glasses with horses on them with the date '1990.' No idea why. But it almost looks like I planned it or something.

My toilet wasn't working, but a repair guy came over yesterday and fixed it, leaving a pretty big mess all over the bathroom floor. "You can clean this, right?" he asked me in Armenian. I find it hard to argue with Armenians. It's strange, I could easily tell another American repairman to clean up their mess, but I find myself tongue-tied with Armenians. This is likely due to language, but I think it has more to do with culture. I don't want to be seen as inhospitable, and my reputation is something very important to trying to get things done here, so I don't say anything.

And also, from the repairman's perspective. He probably doesn't clean around his house. That is women's work. Why would he do it? He likely wouldn't even know how. So I cleaned out my bathroom this afternoon, sort of, just, making it up as I went along. While it's cleaner, it's still not really clean. I need some scrubbing bubbles, some really powerful cleaner stuff. I already went out today to get groceries, and I feel a bit lazy, so bathroom cleaner can wait for another day.

I forgot how boring cooking for yourself can be. So that's not fun. Though I'm happy to be in control of my own diet again.

I made Armenian style coffee today. I bought some cheap coffee today, just to have around the house, and I figure I would try out my little coffee maker (mine is a little bigger and more modern-looking than the one shown), got to choose my own amount of sugar, so what I was drinking tasted like coffee rather than sugary brown water.