Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.

My new hobby

My new hobby is village popping.  I show up in a village that's never been visited by anyone from outside of Armenia, start talking to people, play with the kids, tell them I'm from America, show them pictures of New York on my cell phone, practice my Armenian, get invited to spend the night, get introduced to the daughters, marry, settle down, have a flock of kids in a 250-person town in the middle of the Caucasus, become a patriarch of the town, die and get buried in the local cemetery while everyone gets drunk at my funeral.

Well, the first half of that, anyway.  Today I stopped by a little village on the outskirts of my small town that had a fast-moving cement irrigation ditch in it that the kids liked to jump into.  No one has bathing suits, so the boys just strip down to their skivvies.  Whenever a woman walks by, they hide behind the bridge.  Here's a picture of my site-mate Scott taking the plunge.

And here's one of my host-dad doing some beekeeping

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I’ve been at my permanent site a week now.  Things move slowly here in the desert, and that’s a good thing for now.  The adjustment to site is harder than the move from America to my training village. I need to learn to deal with the harsh desert heat, the rusted metal outhouse, made hotter by the decomposing shit below it, the flies in my bedroom and the kitchen, moving over the food and my body.  Dozens of tiny itchy bug bites have appeared on my hands and feet and seem to be working their way towards my torso.  Meals here are variations on bread and cheese with potato, yogurt or egg.  Meat is for a special occasion.  On the night my arrival, I was given a ribby quarter of a small chicken in the broth of my potato soup in honor of the special occasion. I was feeling sick at the time, so I made excuses to avoid picking the meat from the ribs and wing. 

I haven’t eaten as much as my host family wants me to.  Last night, I picked at the potato pieces cooked in a pan with oil. 

Eat! Encouraged my host father

Eat! Demanded my host nephew, a 14 year old who tells his elders what to do.

Ok, ok. I said.

My host father dumped a spoonful of potato pieces on my plate. 

No, thanks, I’m good. I said

My host father dumped another spoonful of potato pieces on my plate.

I squeezed on some more of the ketchup I bought on my last visit to the nearby town with a supermarket, and kept picking.

Yogurt. Said my host mother

No thanks. I said

She ladled the watery yogurt into a bowl for me. 

Sugar. Said my host mother.

I don’t want any.

She poured sugar onto the yogurt.  Flies started landing on it.

I finished picking at the potato pieces. 

Thanks for dinner.

Eat! Said my host father.

Eat! Demanded my host nephew.

I’m full. I said

This is yogurt! Said my host father

I know.

It’s good!

Yes.

Eat! Demands my host nephew

I’m full.  I say. Yes, this is yogurt.  I know this is yogurt.  It is good. I know it is good, but I’m full. I don’t want it now.  Thank you.

I haven’t yelled or screamed, but I’ve told them directly that I’m not eating their food.  The table is tense.  I get up, and go into the house for my bottle of filtered water.  I think about Richard Shweder, an anthropology professor I had at the University of Chicago, an academic battleship who assigned the books he regularly published with names like “Thinking Through Cultures.”  He had done his fieldwork in a Hindu Temple town and taught “Cultural Psychology,” the point of which was to disabuse undergraduate students of the idea that any set of moral order could be considered universal.  “In the Hindu Temple town where I did my fieldwork,” he would open the first class, “it is considered a greater moral offense of a man to eat chicken after his father dies than it is to refuse medical care to a person who cannot pay.”  The rest of term would be spent examining the culturally-appropriate justifications for excising the clitori of pubescent African girls, executing tribal ne’er-do-wells for witchcraft, abstaining from or indulging in contact with the opposite sex, certain foods, certain bodily fluids and many other anthropologically relevant cultural practices.  For my final project for the class, I crashed a party of tipsy Singaporeans and interviewed them on how they would divide a family with six children, three boys and three girls into two beds.  I found that “the moral grammar of Singaporeans places a high value on The Sacred Couple but is unconcerned with the incest taboo.”  The moral I took from the class was that most of our customs and values are cultural, and quickly change amongst other peoples.  

The Armenians are very concerned about the welfare of their guests.  They’re also quite certain that this young, unmarried guy who can’t even speak properly is completely unable to take care of himself, and if left to his own devices would soon get lost, starve and die of cold, in dirty clothes.  If I don’t eat this food that they love and have eaten all their lives, something must be wrong with me, and that would be terrible, and would require much worrying and home-remedies. 

I need to release the tension.  I return to the kitchen.  My host father has finished his bowl of yogurt, after pouring sugar and torn up chunks of bread into it.  

Ahhh.  He says.

Eat! I say

I did! He says

This is yogurt! I say

I know he says, and my nephews and host Mom crack up.

I force the bowl towards my cousin.  Eat!

No, no, thanks, and my host father starts laughing.

This is good! This is yogurt!

By now they’re in hysterics.

Eat! Eat! Says the 7 year old nephew to the 14 year old

You Eat! He says

No, no, you must eat! I say.

No! no thank you!

Ok, I’ll eat then.  I take some bites of the yogurt.  The family is wiping their eyes from laughing so hard.  I eat about half the bowl.  I’m getting used to the taste.  It will take time, but I’m getting used to it. 

So here I am...

My first 48 hours at site.  How did it go?  There are some accomplishments. My site-mate, Scott, and I rode the marshutney one way to get to the nearest town with an ATM, a shuka, an airconditioned supermarket and a sit down restaurant, then read the Russian train schedule to catch the Soviet-era train back into town.  This felt like an accomplishment.  The six-car train seemed to carry as many people as a single marshutney.  In my car was a middle age Armenian lady and two long haired dudes passing a bottle of Armenian wine.  Long haired dudes with sandals.  And beards.  Armenian men keep their hair short, their beards trimmed and their shoes black and pointy.  "Hey, what's going on fellas?"  They look a bit stunned.  "Francais?" "Espangol?" I try the other two languages I know.  "Paval Ruskie?" They ask.  "Nyet.  English and Hayeren and Francais."  "Oh! English! Good! We are Slovakians! We are hitchhiking!  We were in Iran, and we met an American, he was from California, his father died and left him a date farm.  What do you think of this country?  It's just like Slovakia was when we were young."
We sit with them, pass the bottle.  I break out the extra-fancy cheese I bought at the air-conditioned supermarket.  It's the kind that comes wrapped in individual triangles.  "Oh! Cheese! We are starving!" Say the Slovaks.  They share their sunflower, and we pull the seeds of out it.  I open up one of the seeds and find a maggot.  "Oh! That is gross!" they say, "Throw it out the window! We will try to hitchhike to the Georgian border tonight! We need to be back in school next week!"  We jump off the train at my village.  It's a real jump, at least a vertical meter to the platform.  "Goodbye! Good luck living here for two years!" call the Slovaks as the train pulls out towards Gyumri.
When I get home, my family is worried.  Where were you? They ask.  I explain that I had gone to town to do banking and shopping, like I had told them this morning.  Yes, but we didn't know when you would be back.  I took the train.  You have my cellphone number right?  Ah, yes, well, you know our nephew is a little touched in the head.  He ate the paper you wrote your cellphone number on.  Oh, well, let me give it to you again then.  Ha ha ha, isn't this funny.
At the air conditioned supermarket, I buy two lemons.  I want to prepare "Ice Tea" I tell my family.  What is "Ice Tea" asks my family.  It's tea with lemon that you put in the refrigerator.  It's very American.  Okay, if you want, they say.  While the water boils, I slice the first lemon and squeeze the juice into a canning jar.  My host mother provides a tea bag.  I'll need three or four I tell her, but she only has one.  We add an herb that's used in medicinal "teas" instead.  This is good, I tell her, do we have sugar? She reaches for the sugar bowl on the table, and dumps the entire content into the canning jar.  I taste.  It's good.  Host mama puts out the teacups.  No, we have to wait.  It will be ready in four or five hours.  Oh. Okay.    Five hours later is 3 pm, the hottest time of the day.  My sitemate is visiting.  I break out the Ice Tea, pour it into cups for myself, host Mama, each of my host nephews and Scott.  mmm....That's good ice tea.  Scott and I agree.  The nephews are happy.  Mama doesn't want to try it.  Ice tea is not for her, she says.  Papa walks in from working on a truck.  Here Poppa, try some "Ice Tea."  Hey, that's really good.  Well, maybe I'll try a little, says Mama.  She tries a sip.  By this time, Scott and I have drained the canning jar.  We'll make another one, says Mama, only this time, we'll put some sour cherries in it.  Okay.