Tales of Its Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

We're a quarter of the way through March, and despite a glimmer of hope, snow rapidly melting, it seems that winter is here to stay, at least for a few more weeks.

It looked like the last snow would be melting here during the first week of March and it would be (relatively) smooth sailing (in this landlocked country) from here on out. March looked like it came in like a lion with no teeth, but apparently, even without teeth, its paws (cats have paws, right?) can still kill you.

In general though, the winter here, wasn't as bad as I expected. Assuming this doesn't carry on through April, though I've been told that farmers here start planting some time in April so hopefully the weather breaks by then. I was told horror stories about the winters here, but a combination of volunteers much higher in elevation than me (I'm only about 4,700 feet, no point is below 1,300 feet), and volunteers coming from warm climates not used to lake-effect snow, meant I expected a Snowpocalypse until May. I then ended up in a valley, that doesn't get the worst of the Armenian winter, so I have been presently surprised by the weather.

What is awful is that the snow here very quickly turns to ice. Salt isn't us

ed and the sidewalks very soon become sheets of pure ice. No one has snow shovels here either. I have seen some people using brooms to sweep powder off their store front steps, and I saw a shovel being used today as well. Occasionally you'll see what looks like a legitimate snow shovel, but when you get closer it's just a piece of sheet metal attached to a piece of wood. Gets the job done.

So really I woke up this morning and saw yet another new coat of snow, after yesterday so much of it had melted, and I thought, dammit: The whole rest of this week I'm going to be walking on sidewalks covered in ice.

Some other things:

I ordered a kabob, and they cook the meat over coals they have going the whole

day. The goals the guy had pulled out where starting to smolder and weren't producing enough heat, so I see him get out a blow-dryer. Just a normal blow dryer you'd use on your hair after a shower. He then proceeds to use that on the coals and it works, they relight and are burning bright again.

This use of a blow dryer is such an obvious use but it would probably never occur to an American who is just using plates and newspapers to give a fire oxygen (albeit you have to do this without any electric outlet nearby, but if there was one, I don't think I would have thought of it anyway). There's a sort of mental block that one can have when you've grown up with these appliances and take them for granted, their uses are already agreed upon, and it's not even worth thinking about what other ways this device or that could be used for.

I'm at work today and my co-worker comes in and asks about my hair. I

'm not really sure why or what at first, but then she asks if I'm trying to be a hippie, using the English word. I laughed as I understood. I haven't cut my hair since the end of September, and I tell her it's cold here so I will cut my hair once it is warmer.

Last weekend I read Doctor Seuss Books to Children at a YMCA at another volunteer's site. It was great fun and I was able to read Green Eggs and Ham, the first book I ever read as a child. It was great fun and the students were interested and engaged for the most part. But one thing about Green Eggs and Ham: It is very, very repetitive. It is a children's book, and it's great for learning to read because it repeats and repeats itself as it goes over all the places that he would not eat Green Eggs and Ham. At the end I asked if any of the students would like to try green eggs and ham. One girl in the front started to raise her hand, but then all the other students said they wouldn't like to try it so she stopped raising her hand and said she wouldn't like to try it either.

And I have a goal: Before I leave Armenia, I want to track down the coat of arms of the Transcaucasian Soviet Socialist Federative Republic. It existed from 1922-1936 before Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan where made independent republics. It's a really unique image that combines elements from all three republics, as well as Soviet and Islamic imagery. I don't know if I'll be able to find one, if any symbols were actually even made, but hopefully I'll be able to track one down.