Him: How can America be strong when you let in Muslims? Aren't you worried that they'll betray you?
Me: Immigrants come to America because they want to be there, and because of that we become loyal to America. But American society also founded on the notion that all religions are equal within American society. We can be members of different religions and ethnic groups and full members of American society at the same time. My best friend was born in a muslim country, and our president's father was born in Kenya.
Him: We had a king once. He built a city, and brought in people from other countries to live in the city. Then there was a war. The other people opened the gates of the city and let in the enemy, and the king was killed.
Also-Bananas here cost 50 cents, and women's haircuts $2.50. Bananas in New York cost 25 cents and women's haircuts $50. Discuss.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Friday, July 23, 2010
It's been awhile since I gave you something to step to...
I haven't had it in me to sit down at my laptop and write a coherent post. Here's some notes on village life while I'm at the I-Cafe.
My family has been harvesting hay for the winter, to feed their cows. My host brothers spend their days in the fields with scythes, getting sunburned. My uncle spends his days working on his Belorussian tractor. When the tractor is working and the hay has been scythed, he drives it around to the fields and bales it with a hay-baler-trailer. By the time I get home, there is a pile of hay bales in the backyard as tall as the house. I help my family lift them into the attic and the barn to store for the winter. "Thanks for helping us," they tell me. "Thanks for the yogurt and cheese," I tell them.
A blond young man, much too pale to be a villager, stopps me in the street. "Your teacher, she is Ms. L?" He asked me in English. Yes, she is. "What is her number?" Are you her friend? He cannot answer the question. "This is where she lives, yes?" She does live there. One of the other PCVs goes to get her. "Tell him I am not home. He likes me. I do not like him. We were in school together." she says. The young man parks the green car with two of his buddies in it in front of the house I'm in with some other PCVs. He comes in. "Where is she? What is her number?" She's not here, we tell him. Maybe she went to Hrazdan, a 40 minute drive away. He doesn't believe us. We don't have her number. "Maybe you do, you just don't want to tell me." Well, if you're going to lie, lie big. I directly confront him. She's not here, I tell him, and we don't have her number. Intimidating body language. Stand tall, cross arms. Wearing mirrored Sunglasses. No more friendliness, no clueless American abroad. Careful, measured, direct speech. Suddenly I'm glad I weigh so much more than everyone else, that I'm a head taller than him. "You do, you're just not saying," he says. But as he says it, he laughs, and looks away, and I've won. We don't have her number, She isn't here. Go home. Do you understand me? He's not going to go home right away, he doesn't want to lose face that much. But he stops bother us, sits in the car for 15 minutes while I watch him, then turns and drives the three hours back home.
Teaching model school in the village, we expected eight or ten kids to show. Instead we got fifty or sixty. One boy begins to disrupt the class. I pick up his chair to move him away from the disruptive group of boys and to a studious group of girls. "Ganatsi, Ganatsi," I tell him, using the imperative. He runs out of class. "What happened?" I ask my PC trainer, observing the class. "You told him to go. You meant to say, 'Ari,', come. Don't worry, he'll be back tomorrow."
In the city where I come to use the internet, I run into Mormons! They're wearing white shirts and silk ties from Hong Kong, carrying the book of Mormon in Armenian. One is from Utah, the other Washington. I'm surprisingly enthusiastic to meet them, trying to preempt the creepy friendliness of the missionary. But they've been in the country 6 months and are starting to stray. They thought they would be going to Latin America and learning Spanish. They've lost the enthusiasm for their work, and are just going through the motions. In a way, I'm dissapointed.
My family has been harvesting hay for the winter, to feed their cows. My host brothers spend their days in the fields with scythes, getting sunburned. My uncle spends his days working on his Belorussian tractor. When the tractor is working and the hay has been scythed, he drives it around to the fields and bales it with a hay-baler-trailer. By the time I get home, there is a pile of hay bales in the backyard as tall as the house. I help my family lift them into the attic and the barn to store for the winter. "Thanks for helping us," they tell me. "Thanks for the yogurt and cheese," I tell them.
A blond young man, much too pale to be a villager, stopps me in the street. "Your teacher, she is Ms. L?" He asked me in English. Yes, she is. "What is her number?" Are you her friend? He cannot answer the question. "This is where she lives, yes?" She does live there. One of the other PCVs goes to get her. "Tell him I am not home. He likes me. I do not like him. We were in school together." she says. The young man parks the green car with two of his buddies in it in front of the house I'm in with some other PCVs. He comes in. "Where is she? What is her number?" She's not here, we tell him. Maybe she went to Hrazdan, a 40 minute drive away. He doesn't believe us. We don't have her number. "Maybe you do, you just don't want to tell me." Well, if you're going to lie, lie big. I directly confront him. She's not here, I tell him, and we don't have her number. Intimidating body language. Stand tall, cross arms. Wearing mirrored Sunglasses. No more friendliness, no clueless American abroad. Careful, measured, direct speech. Suddenly I'm glad I weigh so much more than everyone else, that I'm a head taller than him. "You do, you're just not saying," he says. But as he says it, he laughs, and looks away, and I've won. We don't have her number, She isn't here. Go home. Do you understand me? He's not going to go home right away, he doesn't want to lose face that much. But he stops bother us, sits in the car for 15 minutes while I watch him, then turns and drives the three hours back home.
Teaching model school in the village, we expected eight or ten kids to show. Instead we got fifty or sixty. One boy begins to disrupt the class. I pick up his chair to move him away from the disruptive group of boys and to a studious group of girls. "Ganatsi, Ganatsi," I tell him, using the imperative. He runs out of class. "What happened?" I ask my PC trainer, observing the class. "You told him to go. You meant to say, 'Ari,', come. Don't worry, he'll be back tomorrow."
In the city where I come to use the internet, I run into Mormons! They're wearing white shirts and silk ties from Hong Kong, carrying the book of Mormon in Armenian. One is from Utah, the other Washington. I'm surprisingly enthusiastic to meet them, trying to preempt the creepy friendliness of the missionary. But they've been in the country 6 months and are starting to stray. They thought they would be going to Latin America and learning Spanish. They've lost the enthusiasm for their work, and are just going through the motions. In a way, I'm dissapointed.
Monday, July 5, 2010
I walked through stinging nettles two hours ago and my legs are still tingling...
Here's a little game that Peace Corps likes to play with new volunteers. First, they tell them to plan and implement a community project by their fourth week in country. The new volunteers will be given no financial resources, except for a lesson on Community Organizing tools like, "find out when everyone's schedule is, so that you won't be weeding fields in the middle of the winter" and "Make a map of your community so you'll know where things should go" and "figure out what your communities highest priorities are by making a neat little matrix." They'll tell the volunteers to make sure that our projects meet the community's wants and needs and have a sustainable impact. The volunteers will be encouraged to meet the mayor and plenty of other strangers and to ask their help in designing and implementing a project. Because they've only been studying the language for a month, they're not going to be able to say much, but some major points will get across. Some mayors will ask the Americans to repair the roads, others will ask for a new irrigation system. Ours encouraged us to teach the children English and said that she really loved sports, so maybe we could do something with that.
So we planned a sports day, and put up a sign at the school inviting the children of the town to the football field, where we'd repainted the goalposts a brilliant white, the sustainable part of our project. We painted a map of town on the sheet, and had the kids sign it and mark the locations of their home as a gift to the town. Some of us played football with the kids, always a winner, and some of us taught Yoga, which was a surprise hit, even with the 14-year old boys. I got ambitious and set up an orienteering course, drew a map, translated "Orienteering" into "Depee" which literally means "Towards," gave a quick lesson on English words for cardinal directions, gave them some compasses to use and pointed out the first flag, at the top of a hill. The kids were superexcited to find a flag, but had no idea how to use a compass or find the next flag. So I ran up to the top of the hill, and yelled for them to go West. They had completely forgotten the lesson on directions. "Aravmooq!" I yelled, and pointed to the west. They ran west, and found the next flag. I led them around the course, and they had a great time. Three more times, with three groups of kids, I ran up the hill, pointed them towards flags, then ran them down. At the end of the day, we played a 30-person football match with all the kids in town that remained. With no language skills and only a few dollars out of our pocket, we had a pretty good community project. By the time it was presented in Powerpoint to the other volunteers, it was a pretty great community project.
Peace Corps will then play the second round in the game. They'll tell the volunteers to host a July 4th party for their families. They'll tell them to share their American culture. The volunteers will get excited. Burgers! Hot Dogs! Fireworks! They'll think of all the things they love from home. They'll think of beers by the grill, watermelon seeds and water balloon fights. Here, Peace Corps will say, is all the money you need to make this happen. Don't buy booze with it, but spend it however you see fit. Go for it, have a blast.
But here the difficulties will start. Where to have the party? 50 people is a big crowd. There's no public space in a small village to accomadate that many people. One of the families agrees to let us use their storage room on the 1st floor. A little carpentry on some tables, and appropriation of furniture, and there is enough space for everyone. We hunt around the main town for food and supplies. The butcher provides ground beef for the burger. We find watermelon, we find Cokes and ice cream for floats, we find water balloons and sparklers.
The 4th finds us missing a few essential resources. There's no grill to be had, so we put the patties on a chickenwire fence laid over wood that has been burned down to coals. The water's off in most of town, so Kathryn and I walk to the other end of town to a house with water to fill the waterballoons, then carefully lug the bucket back. The grills not quite ready yet, so we play waterballoon toss with the kids, a big but quick succcess. We notice that mostly women and children have come, and few men. The ones that have come seem to be searching around for something. One of them finds a bottle of beer someone has brought. Aha! He says, and cracks it, pouring a round. But it is just one bottle of beer, and it's not a drinking kind of party. Dissapointed, they retreat upstairs to drink coffee and smoke cigarettes. We cut the burgers into sliders, because Armenians are usually wary of new foods. They politely try them, then eagerly devour the Chicken Khorovats in an American Glaze that we've also made. We've made a few side dishes, but nothing like the decadent spread of yogurts, salads, breads, and cakes at a typical Khorovats. There's little time for us to sit and enjoy the meal. We're running around bringing in different foods and shooing the chickens away from our grill. At the end of the feast, we wash 50 sets of dishes in a bucket-assembly line. By the end of it, we're exhausted, our host families have tried a bit of hamburger, listened to American music (we dance with the kids to Elvis and the Beach Boys) and watched their kids run around with sparklers. They politely thank us and head home.
Here's the lesson Peace Corps likes to teach with this little game. If you come into the country, listen to their needs and give them what they want and what you can offer, things will be surprisingly easy for you and they'll appreciate it. If you come into the country with plenty of money and give them what you want, with resources they don't have, you'll end up stressed and exhausted and they'll politely thank you and head home.
So we planned a sports day, and put up a sign at the school inviting the children of the town to the football field, where we'd repainted the goalposts a brilliant white, the sustainable part of our project. We painted a map of town on the sheet, and had the kids sign it and mark the locations of their home as a gift to the town. Some of us played football with the kids, always a winner, and some of us taught Yoga, which was a surprise hit, even with the 14-year old boys. I got ambitious and set up an orienteering course, drew a map, translated "Orienteering" into "Depee" which literally means "Towards," gave a quick lesson on English words for cardinal directions, gave them some compasses to use and pointed out the first flag, at the top of a hill. The kids were superexcited to find a flag, but had no idea how to use a compass or find the next flag. So I ran up to the top of the hill, and yelled for them to go West. They had completely forgotten the lesson on directions. "Aravmooq!" I yelled, and pointed to the west. They ran west, and found the next flag. I led them around the course, and they had a great time. Three more times, with three groups of kids, I ran up the hill, pointed them towards flags, then ran them down. At the end of the day, we played a 30-person football match with all the kids in town that remained. With no language skills and only a few dollars out of our pocket, we had a pretty good community project. By the time it was presented in Powerpoint to the other volunteers, it was a pretty great community project.
Peace Corps will then play the second round in the game. They'll tell the volunteers to host a July 4th party for their families. They'll tell them to share their American culture. The volunteers will get excited. Burgers! Hot Dogs! Fireworks! They'll think of all the things they love from home. They'll think of beers by the grill, watermelon seeds and water balloon fights. Here, Peace Corps will say, is all the money you need to make this happen. Don't buy booze with it, but spend it however you see fit. Go for it, have a blast.
But here the difficulties will start. Where to have the party? 50 people is a big crowd. There's no public space in a small village to accomadate that many people. One of the families agrees to let us use their storage room on the 1st floor. A little carpentry on some tables, and appropriation of furniture, and there is enough space for everyone. We hunt around the main town for food and supplies. The butcher provides ground beef for the burger. We find watermelon, we find Cokes and ice cream for floats, we find water balloons and sparklers.
The 4th finds us missing a few essential resources. There's no grill to be had, so we put the patties on a chickenwire fence laid over wood that has been burned down to coals. The water's off in most of town, so Kathryn and I walk to the other end of town to a house with water to fill the waterballoons, then carefully lug the bucket back. The grills not quite ready yet, so we play waterballoon toss with the kids, a big but quick succcess. We notice that mostly women and children have come, and few men. The ones that have come seem to be searching around for something. One of them finds a bottle of beer someone has brought. Aha! He says, and cracks it, pouring a round. But it is just one bottle of beer, and it's not a drinking kind of party. Dissapointed, they retreat upstairs to drink coffee and smoke cigarettes. We cut the burgers into sliders, because Armenians are usually wary of new foods. They politely try them, then eagerly devour the Chicken Khorovats in an American Glaze that we've also made. We've made a few side dishes, but nothing like the decadent spread of yogurts, salads, breads, and cakes at a typical Khorovats. There's little time for us to sit and enjoy the meal. We're running around bringing in different foods and shooing the chickens away from our grill. At the end of the feast, we wash 50 sets of dishes in a bucket-assembly line. By the end of it, we're exhausted, our host families have tried a bit of hamburger, listened to American music (we dance with the kids to Elvis and the Beach Boys) and watched their kids run around with sparklers. They politely thank us and head home.
Here's the lesson Peace Corps likes to teach with this little game. If you come into the country, listen to their needs and give them what they want and what you can offer, things will be surprisingly easy for you and they'll appreciate it. If you come into the country with plenty of money and give them what you want, with resources they don't have, you'll end up stressed and exhausted and they'll politely thank you and head home.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Happiness is an Internet Cafe with Microsoft word that lets me get to blogger...
I have to recalibrate my readings of strangers. In America, I can gauge strangers fluently. The 20 year old from France who has come to Columbia University to study Politics and Economics? I will go to bars with him, talk with him about life, invite him into my home, introduce him to family and friends. The 22 year old from Mexico who has come to New York to work in a restaurant’s backroom? I will sit and drink beers with him and talk about life, bring my friends over, but unwritten rules keep him out of my home and family. Meet someone, and they’ll know when it’s appropriate to ask your number and you theirs. Are they a friend of a friend, or someone completely random? Maybe you should google them first, be their facebook friend, or not. That guy in the reading room of the New York Public Library sitting next to you, do you trust to say “watch my bag and laptop while I go to the bathroom?” What about the Columbia library, or the Starbucks? Do you take rides from strangers? Not if they offer in the street, but if the posting comes on craigslist and they reasonably put-together, then you might. You’re not to judge a book by its cover, but in a city of millions that’s all you have the time to go on.
But what about Armenia? I can’t speak the language, can’t detect the vocal and cultural nuances that indicate so much about a person. So when Katie and Michael and are I walking a dirt path around the mountain to see what we can see, and we wave hello to some farmers, and Katie walks right over and starts talking to them in Armenian, opening up who she is and where she’s from without any wariness or the well-practiced distancing that lets bargoers and subway riders talk politics before exchanging first names, I’m a little startled. Oh Sam, they tell me, you’re just a New Yorker. Strangers are okay, people are friendly here, you can talk to them, it’s fine. So we walk a little further, and the next group of farmers waves to us, excited to see the novelty of strangers, and beckon for us to join. “Ari, Ari, Nesti” Come, come, sit down, join us. Go for it Sam, this one is all you. Yeah Sam, try it.
And so I walk over. Hello I’m Samuel. I’m Vahag, I’m Arman I’m Daniel. Daniel? My father’s name is Daniel! Where are you from? Russia? Norway? Germany? America. AMERICA? Yes, America. Where in America? New York City. Is that close to California? No, California is here, New York is here. This is Katie, this is Mikail. We’re living here. We’re studying Armenian. We’re teachers.
Bundles of hay are pulled up. Sit down, sit down. It’s lunchtime, eat with us. That’s Lavash, that’s Varung, that’s Dzu, that’s Vodka. Oh, you know the names of things! Great! What’s that? What’s that? Here, drink a toast. Okay, one or two. “To America and Armenia and Friendships.” Hear Hear! Gaynost! Here, have some lavash! Let’s take another toast! Oh, you’re toasting with Lavash instead of Vodka, that’s very funny! My son here studies English! “Hello, what is your name” “My name is Sam” Aha! Very good! He will go to university and be a professor!
Thank you, thank you, we should be going now, we have to get back before dark. Here, take a ride on the tractor. Katie can ride up front, we men will ride on the harvester in the back. Michael and I sit on the harvester. He points out that a single cruise missile costs more than my entire stay in the country, and isn’t it more cost effect to make friends in foreign countries rather than killing enemies? Up front, the driver offers that Katie take the wheel, but she refuses. He insists, she refuses. He takes his hands off the wheel and steps out of the cab, riding on the sideboard. The tractor goes straight on the dirt path, but the path starts to curve. He laughs and gets back in the tractor. The tractor drops us off a mile from Fantan, and we walk back into town, stopping to right the shell of an overturned abandoned car. In town, a stranger with a dump truck greets me, “Sam, I’m going to Naverj’s house, come in, I’ll give you a ride.” I take him up on the offer.
But what about Armenia? I can’t speak the language, can’t detect the vocal and cultural nuances that indicate so much about a person. So when Katie and Michael and are I walking a dirt path around the mountain to see what we can see, and we wave hello to some farmers, and Katie walks right over and starts talking to them in Armenian, opening up who she is and where she’s from without any wariness or the well-practiced distancing that lets bargoers and subway riders talk politics before exchanging first names, I’m a little startled. Oh Sam, they tell me, you’re just a New Yorker. Strangers are okay, people are friendly here, you can talk to them, it’s fine. So we walk a little further, and the next group of farmers waves to us, excited to see the novelty of strangers, and beckon for us to join. “Ari, Ari, Nesti” Come, come, sit down, join us. Go for it Sam, this one is all you. Yeah Sam, try it.
And so I walk over. Hello I’m Samuel. I’m Vahag, I’m Arman I’m Daniel. Daniel? My father’s name is Daniel! Where are you from? Russia? Norway? Germany? America. AMERICA? Yes, America. Where in America? New York City. Is that close to California? No, California is here, New York is here. This is Katie, this is Mikail. We’re living here. We’re studying Armenian. We’re teachers.
Bundles of hay are pulled up. Sit down, sit down. It’s lunchtime, eat with us. That’s Lavash, that’s Varung, that’s Dzu, that’s Vodka. Oh, you know the names of things! Great! What’s that? What’s that? Here, drink a toast. Okay, one or two. “To America and Armenia and Friendships.” Hear Hear! Gaynost! Here, have some lavash! Let’s take another toast! Oh, you’re toasting with Lavash instead of Vodka, that’s very funny! My son here studies English! “Hello, what is your name” “My name is Sam” Aha! Very good! He will go to university and be a professor!
Thank you, thank you, we should be going now, we have to get back before dark. Here, take a ride on the tractor. Katie can ride up front, we men will ride on the harvester in the back. Michael and I sit on the harvester. He points out that a single cruise missile costs more than my entire stay in the country, and isn’t it more cost effect to make friends in foreign countries rather than killing enemies? Up front, the driver offers that Katie take the wheel, but she refuses. He insists, she refuses. He takes his hands off the wheel and steps out of the cab, riding on the sideboard. The tractor goes straight on the dirt path, but the path starts to curve. He laughs and gets back in the tractor. The tractor drops us off a mile from Fantan, and we walk back into town, stopping to right the shell of an overturned abandoned car. In town, a stranger with a dump truck greets me, “Sam, I’m going to Naverj’s house, come in, I’ll give you a ride.” I take him up on the offer.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Starting to Come Together
6/20/2010 10:32 PM
Things are starting to come together. Languages, relationships, perspectives. I can now communicate my basic wants and desires, make simple declarative sentence about what I’m doing and where I’m going, and what I will do and where I will go. Nouns and verbs come slowly. Only after dozens of repetition will words stick, especially verbs that are always changing and conjugating. The oddest words stick in my brain. I remember Tzeetzernack, swallow (the bird), but not to drink; Tan, a yogurt drink, but not sandwich; Chosel, to speak, but not to see. I feel less and less like a baby in a man’s body and more like a pre-teen, just starting to explore the world and be trusted with responsibility. I’ve written very little this week. Here are some highlights.
-Technical training becomes more sophisticated. We ask Tatiks about their traditional remedies, and family members about their views of the health system. We view a hospital and a health clinic. On the wall of the hospital is a soviet era-poster of bespeckled doctor in a medical gown and white van Dyke beard showing which foods are nutritious and which are not. Next to it is a USAID poster of a softly focused woman and her baby explaining that prenatal care and delivery are paid for by the state and international aid agencies and women should refuse to “tip” their doctors to ensure their baby is born healthy and cared for.
-Bringing out the first Frisbees in town. At first, we play in the schoolyard, a good way to exercise during recess. After school, I hike up to the hill where my host brother is herding the sheep. Before I go, papa spots him through the soviet-era telescope, sitting on the hillside chewing a blade of grass. He’s naturally very good at Frisbee, being both athletic and a top-notch physics student, and we play until it’s time to drive the sheep home. Herding sheep is surprisingly entertaining. The flock moves like one big plastic animal. To get them to move faster, run and yell behind them and thwack some rumps with a stick. Eventually they will get ahead of you, and come to a huddling stop and start eating grass.
-Going to Yerevan Yerevan street Leningrad
Friday, June 18, 2010
Sunday Was Another Day for the Peace Corps Brochure
Sunday was another day for the Peace Corps Brochure. The town was celebrating a feast day, a regular occurrence whose schedule condones and controls the slaughtering of precious livestock for meat. Before I woke up, my host brother had slit the throat of a ram, tied it up by its hind feet, skinned it and disemboweled it. “I didn’t want to wake you. It’s too cruel to see,” he said. When I got to the house of my host uncle, these pieces were laying on the side of the path, and the muscular bits of the ram were being cut into chunks and skewered for Khorovats, the Armenian Barbeque[1]. I cut some potatoes, which are physically, morally and gastrointestinally benign.
“Come, we go to church,” said my host brother. We walked to Maggie’s farm, where her host grandfather was behind the wheel of the town’s Marshutney. Ordinarily, he’s friendly, but will occasionally turn on an intense temper, especially on other drivers and disobedient children who get into the milk. Afterwards, he’ll be friendly and charismatic again, as if nothing happened. Inside the van are Maggie-jan and her extended family and my 9-year old cousins. There’s grandmother, her sister, the son, the daughter-in-law, their three children, several sets of cousins and their broods. We drive through the center of town and turn left at the post office. We are now on the dirt road leading to the mountain. The van’s windows are covered with black velvet, and I push it back to see pilgrims climbing the steep dirt road the van is now bouncing up. None of the windows in the back of the van open, and there are no air vents, so we pilgrims endure the four seats in the back, feeling each other’s body heat and smelling each other’s smells as we look towards the front window to keep from getting carsick. As we come to a particularly steep and slippery grade, the van starts sliding backwards. Some of the men jump out. The van tries again, and fails again. I see my chance, and jump out the door. The air is cool and clean. The van tries again, stops in the middle, tries again, stops 2/3rds of the way up, tries again, and clears the hill.
At last we make the church and the van is descended on by a horde of four-foot tall grandmothers bearing thin yellow candle sticks. Noticing the Americans, they glom onto me. Maggie’s grandfather urges me to just wade through them, but I trade a 100 dram coin for a roll of candlesticks, then wave my 25-cent talisman to keep the others away. The church is a small stone structure, built into the side of the hill, with a slanted metal roof to keep off the rain and snow. I step inside, and the bright warmth of the day is replaced with a cool moisture of a stone room, lit by hundreds of small yellow candles stuck to the walls and placed in braziers dripping wax on the floor. I light my candles and stick them to the walls, and my host brother points out a stone cross that was carved by his uncle to commemorate a relative who was killed. “Was this in the war?” I ask. “No, by neighbor” my host brother replies. “When did this happen?” “2006.” Oh.
I could stay in the church a long time, examining the icons and elaborate models of other, larger churches, but Maggie’s grandfather wants to get back. Getting back in the van, I graciously let the other pilgrims in first, and grab a seat near the front of the van and the open driver’s window. Two minutes later, I am justly rewarded when the six year old girl sitting on a lap behind me ejects whitish vomit onto my shoe.
We go to my host uncle‘s house, where the skewers of lamb meat have been roasting in the pit oven used to cook lavash. In the smokefilled kiln, men pull out the skewers and taste the lamb. The meat is ready. We bring the meat to the women in a tub lined with lavash. They put the meat into bowls, set the table, put out the salads and juices that they have made. The men sit and pour vodka into each others glasses, toasting Armenia, the noble sheep, each other, and the pleasure of good company and good spirits. The women bring the bowls of meat, and offer me the first choice. I pick a rather squishy offering and cut into it. The inside is white and fatty. I take a bite. It’s oddly creamy, almost like butter, and not chewy like fat. “Inch e sa?” I ask. The men laugh and grab their pants. I’ve just taken a big bite of sheep balls. “It’s good for you!” I’m told “and it’s tasty too!” Well, I don’t want to be greedy. I cut the ball into eighths and pass them around the table. A fine solution. I offer up a toast, and the sweet warmth of Russian vodka gently burns away the slick of prairie oyster in my mouth. Soon I’ve eaten all the Khorovats and salad that I can, and am having trouble moving off of the deep couch. But not to worry, the women have brought out pastries and cookies. Not even a strong cup of Sourch can help me as I stumble home, into my bed, and fall into a deep and satisfied sleep.
6/16/2010 10:30 PM
A storm knocked the electricity went out as I finished that last piece typing on my notebook in the living room. My host family has brought me four candles in elaborate holders to type, so I work on my laptop by candlelight. “Just like when the neanderthals sat around the fire and surfed the internet” says my host father. In return, I shined my headlamp on the cows as they were milked and as the milk was poured through a coffeecan strainer into a vat. I have about 30 minutes of battery life left. Should I waste it on playing music or save it in case I need the computer before the electricity returns. When will the electricity return anyway?
[1] Traditionally, Armenians believe a man is as rich as he need be if he can eat Khorovats at least once a month.
The Taxi Drops Off Me, Jillien, Danelle and Lala...
6/13/2010 7:12 PM
The taxi drops off me, Jillien, Danelle and Lala at the edge of Yerevan proper. “It’s a twenty minute walk into the center of town” says Lala, pointing at my map to show us where we are. Someone walks up to us and offers assistance. I buzz the guy away, but Lala stops and explains in polite Armenian that we’re fine, thanks for offering, and all the best to him and his family. Apparently it’s the kind of town where strangers offer directions with the best of intentions.
The girls are here to do some shopping, and I’m here to flaneur, or, as the Armenians put it, zbosnel, to stroll, to observe, to perhaps be entertained. Some people are music snobs, others are drink snobs. I’m a city snob, a connoisseur of the urban environment, picking out themes and interactions like notes in a melody or bouquets in a wine. Like music and wines, there are cities for different tastes, and judgment is subjective, but certain things CAN be universally agreed on, and certain subjective judgments will hold true across a wide range of critics and consumers. A city connoisseur will pick up on things like a city’s walkability, its street plan or lack thereof, its locality and distinctiveness, and a half-dozen or so other characteristics.
The city center is on a hub-and-spoke plan, with Republic Square at the center, broad commercial and institutional avenues extending out at regular intervals, connected with residential and retail streets. Our first stop is a 24-hour pharmacy, a good find, stocked with brand names behind glass counters and professional looking women in lab coats ready to advise you which brand of toothpaste or razor to use. Jillien and Danelle judge this too expensive looking, and they do sell exotic foreign goods like contact lens solution, at 8000 dram a bottle. For reference, 8000 dram will get you a car and driver for the day. So we stop into a convenience store, with a full range of products from Russian “Kapo” shaving soap (250 a tube) to Parker fountain pens (7500, with one ink cartridge, a box of generic replacement cartridges are 200, a box of waterman cartridges 2000).
Underneath each major intersection is a pedestrian passageway full of unbridled capitalism, small stalls selling sunglasses, candy, soda, cell phones, home décor and books. Books are very popular and expensive. Armenian-Russian, -English and –French dictionaries and textbooks are the biggest sellers. One intersection is exclusively for booksellers. They sell used Armenian tomes and a few glossy new ones in Armenian and Russian. I pass on a Russian version of Twilight in favor of an Armenian copy of The Little Prince to practice my letters with (600 dram). LaLa knows these particular booksellers. She was also a student of the author of the most popular and comprehensive Armenian-English dictionary.
We stop at a café in a park that rings the city. Lala, like all people who have dwelled in a city long enough to see it change, laments the changes since she first knew it. The city used to be distinctively Armenian, now it is becoming a hodgepodge of imitation European, turning public parks into cafes, mixed with the bustle and chaos of Asian cities, with hundreds of little stores in what used to be austere Communist underpasses. Also, the city is getting too expensive, the middle class is getting pushed out and traffic has gotten worse than it used to be. There’s a kind of universality to her complaint. I share with her New York’s disneyfication, suburban sprawl and gentrification, and we agree that things used to be better in the old days.
We stop at what in New York would be a vacant lot, but in Armenia houses a 13th-century church. The church looks much smaller than it should be, a small chapel of a large complex. In fact, it was before the communists came. They destroyed the larger church and the Armenians built a school of science and engineering in its place “to hide the chapel” according to Lala. When communism fell and religion was rediscovered as an integral part of national identity, the school of science and engineering was destroyed. A billboard displays an ambitious computer-graphic of what the original church would look like rebuilt.
I drop into the Moscow theater, an ornate building in a large square filled with Lovecraftian metal sculptures of spiders. The movies are all mass-market American: Computer-generated comedy #3, Video Game Adaption, Comic book adaption #2, Formulaic Action-Comedy. The prices range from 500 dram for a seat in the back in the middle of the day to 2500 for a “VIP seat.” I’m anxious to see what that entails.
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