Nagorno-Karabagh

From Yerevan and back was a total of about 15 hours of taxi, hitchhiking, and marshutni rides, but was completely worth it. It wasnt incredibly different from Armenia but it was different. There was a different feel to the area. It seemed less chaotic which is a weird feeling considering its recent history. I will not go in to its history or the current conflict because that is not the point of this blog. You can read a basic overview here. This blog is just to update my friends and family and those that happen upon it about my whereabouts and experiences along the way.

Before going to Karabagh, I headed down on Saturday to Goris to spend time with a friend before I left. The two guys I was traveling with and myself spent the night with our PCV friend that is a part of our group but has courageously decided to continue for a little longer. It was a very nice night of interesting conversation and good food. Thanks to him for his wonderful and gracious hospitality, even though he had his father visiting and very little notice!

The next morning, we packed up our few things and headed out to go to Stepanakert. We hitch-hiked there and it was my first experience with that and I loved it! Hopefully I will be able to do it again. It is just nice to experience people's trust and openness. It took us about 3 cars before we got to Stepanakert but each person we met was interesting and interested in us!

Stepanakert was a good town to walk around in and check out different areas. It was really hot and humid there so we were kinda slow doing things. We walked to the Tatik and Papik statue that is on a lot of the brochures or Armenia information. It was interesting to visit Karabagh because I have heard so much about it these last two years and it is such an important part of their foreign policy.

The next day we visited Shushi and saw more of the effects of the war. There were many bombed buildings throughout the city and while walking on the back roads, we saw a lot of the destruction. It was also interesting to see a few mosques and the old fort around the city. Also on a few buildings we would see Farsi writing. Farsi is a beautiful script and one I would love to learn.

While walking through the streets of Shushi, we met a few diaspora that were building a hotel there. I have very mixed feelings about diaspora. There have been a few that I have met that have realistic ideas of what Armenia needs and how to implement those needs efficiently and then there are some that throw money at the problem without actually fixing anything. I think this is a problem with international development in general and not just with diaspora, so please do not confuse my message. Building schools to say you built X amount of schools does not change anything for the children if you are not simultaneously teaching the instructors better classroom techniques. Its like giving resources to people without training them on how to use them. It might look good on paper and to donors but it doesnt actually change anything. Granted, there are lots of places that just need schools built, but Armenia has some infrastructure. True, it could be updated, but I think the focus should be on educator training. Again, this is just one opinion.

To move on from my soap box about international development... We only had two days in Karabagh and on the third we took the earliest marshutni they had back to Yerevan. That night we saw the newest volunteer group swear in and it was weird and satisfying to see a new group join the ranks of volunteer status. They were just like us two years ago, eager to get to work and nervous to leave their comfort nest. I felt like a weirdo being the only 17 that was not extending. It was like the high school graduate that still goes to the high school parties, creepy and incredibly out of place. Thank goodness I had friends in the 18 group!

This was my real last night in Armenia and I did it up right! I visited all of the people that I wanted to visit. I said my goodbyes to the remaining friends in country. The next morning, I packed and repacked my life and donated about half of my stuff to lighten my bag, repacked again, and jumped in a taxi with D and headed out for the train. We made it with 5 minutes to spare and said our final hajos to Hayastan.

It was a mixed feeling train ride and we were able to speak Armenian to an older couple who were pretty impressed about what we have tried to accomplish here. Writing this blog (now a week after the fact), I still dont feel as though I am done with Armenia. I guess that is how all Peace Corps volunteers feel. You can finish your service and say your goodbyes but it never really leaves you. A piece of my heart will always be in Armenia and I am okay with that.

The Love and the Lost

WoW! I have felt loved by my friends and family before, but this was overwhelming. My birthday was the exact definition of bittersweet (pleasant but including or marked by elements of suffering or regret). I had a wonderful khorovats with my students and director as my going-away/ birthday celebration! I would say it was so much better than simply pleasant and there wasnt suffering in the sense of what most people think of suffering, but there was definite heart break.

My last day:
I frantically cleaned my apartment and tried to finish that so that I could enjoy the afternoon. The 11th I was leaving my village around 930 am so I needed to finish everything up before I went out to say my goodbyes and have the party. I hadnt really planned details of the khorovats, just the idea of what we would do.

For those who dont know--- khorovats is the Armenian word for barbeque. It is usually chicken or pork meat but my director was insistent on fish. Usually I dont eat fish, especially in a land-locked country, but they assured me it was going to be delicious, so I went with it.

Back to the story- The day before (the 9th) my director told me about a church opening that was happening in my village. This is a typical experience of PC Armenia, you find things out last minute about projects that you didnt even know were going to happen. It worked out perfectly within my schedule. I walked around before the opening to say goodbye to people, met up with my students, and then went to the church. A lot of people were out to watch the church be blessed. The head hancho from Echmiadzin came to do the blessing of the church. It was a beautiful ceremony although it was incredibly hot! Oh my!

From there, my director and I ran around the village buying the materials for the khorovats- vegetables, bread, fish and dishware. It was a fun experience. Doing that also allowed me to say goodbye to other people I hadnt been able to say goodbye to. Buying the fish was a fun experience because I have always seen those guys but never really talked to them before. They were hilarious and kept trying to hide my eyes from when they would kill the fish... Mind you too, the fish is sold at the gas station/car wash. Great combination!

Once we were materialistically prepared for the khorovats, it was on to setting the table, preparing the food (which took quite some time ~4 hours), dancing, and all around good times. My director, his son and a fellow PCV went to start the fire to cook the fish on while my students and I danced around.

My girls gave me a surprise and all pitched in to buy a cake. On the cake it said "Rani, we love you." and I about cried when I saw it. (Actually tearing up now thinking about it.) The night went on similar to that, laughing and getting sad and then laughing again. My director gave some of the nicest toasts I have heard and made me feel indescribable. My students were amazing, as usual. They slowly trickled out because it was getting late. The last was my director, my PCV friend, and two of my students. It was a beautiful night!

That was my goodbye portion of the day. The other portion of the day was all the love from all over the world. I received so many sweet messages through facebook, email, and phone calls. It made me feel so loved beyond words. I have been so fortunate to be able to have this experience and then to have all of the support on top of that is really breathtaking. There isnt much more to say then (than?- my English is awesome right now.) THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!

The next morning was really hard. I finished packing up my apartment, doing dishes and other random cleaning/rearranging. I ordered a taxi to take ALL of my stuff and myself in to Yerevan for the last time as a Peace Corps volunteer. A few of my students came over and helped me with all of my stuff and then to see me off.

I didnt cry and I dont know if I will be able to. I definitely have gotten teary eyed but have not been able to cry. It is a dream that I am still in. It feels like I blinked and the whole thing has passed through. There have been incredible highs and lows and there were some things I would have done differently and definitely things I wouldnt change for the world but it doesnt feel real.

Thursday, the 11th, was another fabulous/frantic day. Once I left my village I was nodding off in the taxi and I had like a flash visual of being in India. It made me panic a bit because I am going on this trip of a lifetime and it, too, doesnt feel real yet. I am closing one chapter so quickly to open another without really breathing time between the two. I am super, super excited, dont mistake that, its just a LOT to take in right now.

Thursday, though, was a bit of a hurricane. I was in the office signing my life away, AGAIN! There is about as much, if not more, paperwork to get OUT of Peace Corps than there is to get IN! I had to get signatures from multiple people, drop this paper off there while this paper had to go here... But I finished it, got the certificate, and was an official (on paper anyway) Returned Peace Corps Volunteer! (It isnt official until Friday, the 12th, at midnight.) After that, I helped organize a staff get together/ send off or as a staff member called it, a swearing-out. :) Then we had a going away/birthday dinner at a Georgian restaurant that I also helped organize. They were wonderfully accommodating and had really good wine! I know- me and wine, who am I? After that it was a night on the town, at my new favorite place- Eden! Fun times were had by all and it was so nice to see everyone get together.

I have realized how much I like organizing events. I think my favorite part is to take a step back and just see everyone interacting and laughing. It was another heart warming experience!

So as you can see, Wednesday and Thursday were super, super busy and it was like I was on for a week. Then Friday came. I was like a sad, pathetic lost puppy. It was the first time I didnt have a to-do list for Yerevan, I didnt have anything to plan, I didnt have any work on the back of my mind. Most people would find this feeling relaxing or take it in but I am not most people. I was walking around Yerevan a little lost. This place that I have called home for two years will no longer be my home. This work that I have been doing is no longer my own. My to-do lists were all checked off and I am a little freaked out.

Although- there is a place that I can call home in Yerevan. The Envoy Hostel has become my home and the staff have become wonderful friends that I can add to the list of "To Be Missed." This list just continues to grow and while it is good because it means I have made friends and connections, my heart hurts a little every time I say goodbye.

Well that is it for now. Mom, I hope you are happy with the detail of my last few days. Hehe! I took about 200 pictures and will be posting soon (hopefully) on facebook. One thing I can add to my nonexistent to-do list!

Again- thank you all for the birthday wishes! Bittersweet! Much love to all!

First group... :(

The first group of volunteers have completed their service and have headed out on their journeys. It was a sad day for me to say goodbye to friends that have become my family in this country but at the same time it is incredible to look back on the last two years and see how much we have gone through and grown. To look at how we have integrated, how we speak the language, we wouldn't be able to recognize ourselves from the scared trainees that landed more than 2 years ago. Nor, I think, could we even imagine these day, the final days.

On one hand there is this sense of accomplishment and reward and on the other hand, there is a very sad feeling of the goodbyes and the closing of the two years. I have written about this topic before and dont want to beat it to death.

The sense of accomplishment is something I want to focus on in this blog post. Learning the language, community integration, successful and unsuccessful projects and learning from them, group projects, initiatives, and many other aspects of our service contribute to the sense of accomplishment volunteers usually feel. However, one aspect of the sense of accomplishment is a personal success. The amount of personal growth we go through during our PC service is surprising and different for every volunteer. Some people say they dont change, while others change so drastically that they are unrecognizable. Most people fall in the middle of this spectrum and everyone changes whether they want to or not. You can not go through an intense (as it feels at times) two year experience and not have been impacted.

The other night, I went on a TED talks bender. TED talks is according to wikipedia, 'a global set of conferences owned by the private non-profit Sapling Foundation, formed to disseminate 'ideas worth spreading.'' Basically on their website, they have a list of different videos about all different topics. I was introduced to this website from a professor back in my college days and every once in a while I will watch about 2 hours worth of different videos. They range in all kinds of topics and the other night I went on the topic of happiness. I came across a few videos.

This video from TED talks really spoke to me and about my service: Brene Brown: The Power of Vulnerability.

The idea of opening up and allowing experiences is pretty impacting. Also when she spoke about courage being from the original Latin word, is to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart.

There were a few ideas that came from this video that I want to post about. The first is the fact that all human interaction comes down to connection. Making connections with people is vital to our survival and ultimately the way towards happiness. Making connections to ourselves (to continue with the quote 'I am enough'), making connections to others, and making connections to our surroundings. I connected this portion of the talk with another video: Thandie Newton's talk about making connections and losing your sense of 'self' to become a part of the whole. (I told you I went on a bender.)

I think an important part of PC and traveling to extend it is to make connections. The more connections you make, the smaller the world becomes. The more connections you make to people, the more commonalities you find between people. I think this is vital as our world becomes more globally focused. If people realized the humanity found within everyone maybe there would be less war? The less 'otherness' people had means people could not as easily justify wars. Just a thought.

This also goes into what Ms. Brown talked about in her talk. She talked about people making connections and the fear of disconnect. In order for connection, according to her and which I agree with, is the ability to be vulnerable. To be vulnerable we have to be seen, really seen.

She makes other points along the way that I find really interesting. They are:
1. Her study came down to those who felt worthy of love and connections and those who felt they weren't good enough.
2. The people who had a strong sense of love and belonging felt they were worth of love and belonging. It was that simple.
3. She also found that those people had a strong sense of courage. As I mentioned before, courage is the ability to tell your story with your whole heart. They had the courage to be imperfect.
4. They had compassion to be kind to themselves first and then to others.
5. "And the last was they had connection, and -- this was the hard part -- as a result of authenticity, they were willing to let go of who they thought they should be in order to be who they were, which you have to absolutely do that for connection."

This all leads to the fact that they were vulnerable and felt vulnerability was necessary for connections.

She continues the talk with the way we, as a society, have become afraid of vulnerability and have thus have become to numb our vulnerability. She gives examples and could not be more on point. The danger in numbing vulnerability and fear means that we numb all emotions. We cannot selectively numb. We cant say we dont want to feel pain but we will feel joy. We either dont feel either or we feel them all.

She ends the talk with this:
"But there's another way, and I leave you with this. This is what I have found: to let ourselves be seen, deeply seen, vulnerably seen; to love with our whole hearts, even though there's no guarantee, to practice gratitude and joy in those moments of terror, when we're wondering, "Can I love you this much? Can I believe in this this passionately? Can I be this fierce about this?" just to be able to stop and, instead of catastrophizing what might happen, to say, "I'm just so grateful, because to feel this vulnerable means I'm alive."
And the last, which I think is probably the most important, is to believe that we're enough. Because when we work from a place I believe that says, "I'm enough," then we stop screaming and start listening, we're kinder and gentler to the people around us, and we're kinder and gentler to ourselves."

Wow. I keep reading this over and over. This part of the talk impacted me the most.

To bring this back to growing in the PC, I viewed this video with a few other volunteers and we had an interesting discussion about the PC service and making you more vulnerable. PC puts a mirror in front of you and if you are open to it, it will show you a lot. You learn a lot of things that you need to work on as well as hidden talents you didnt know you had. For me, that mirror did both and I am better because of it.

PC also makes you more firm in your beliefs. As one friend said, you come here with an idea of who you want to be and PC makes your more confident in being that person. PC kind of fills you out in the idea of who you want to be. For most people, PC doesnt change you completely and turn your world upside down, but it does allow you to grow.

The "I am enough" quote was the most important from the talk and something I am learning how to say, while also learning how to be vulnerable and to tell my story with my whole heart. That is one thing I am trying with this blog and once I am done with PC, I hope to be able to tell more of my story.

Leave a comment if you watched the video, I would love to know what you thought of it.

Mama Visit Part 2

My mama came two weeks ago and just left yesterday... sniff, sniff. But it was a wonderful visit. These last few months I have been checking things off of my Armenia bucket list and with my mom here, I had another excuse to check off more items from my list!

She flew in on a Monday night and Tuesday we were in my village, meeting my counterpart and her family! She was wonderful, as always, and had a whole spread of khorovats (Armenian bbq), salads, dolma, and lots and lots of food! It was wonderful and we were stuffed! We took a walk around the village and saw my schools, the canal, my culture house, and lots of other stuff. It was great!

The next day we went to the culture house again and my mom met my girls! It was a lot of fun to see my students interact with my mom.

My mom's visit last year was so different than her visit this year. This year we spent more time in my village (granted I had to be in Yerevan for my mom's visit last year because I was sick). Last year, we went to all the places in and around Yerevan. This year, we were in my village, camped out on a mountain, and traveled ALL over the country.

Outside of my village there is a mountain that I have been looking at for 2 years. I have always wanted to camp outside in Armenia and always thought that mountain would be great to camp at, especially because it is so remote and we would be able to see all of the stars. So I got a group together to camp on the mountain while my mama was here.

We coordinated to have a marshutni take us to the bottom of the mountain and we would hike up from there. If we started from my village, it would have taken longer and we didnt have that much time. Thursday morning we started the hike and made it to the tower that is right by the peak by 1 or 2. We met a guy that works there and he invited us to leave our stuff at the building and climb the peak. We figured we would camp outside of the tower and if it rained, we could move inside of the building.

After dropping our stuff off, we hiked the last portion. It was beautiful, there were so many great smells from all the herbs growing on the side of the mountain. There were SOOOO many beautiful mountain flowers too, small and bright colors. The hike wasnt that hard and we took our time up the side. We had a few photo shoots on the mountain. Then we hiked back to the tower and some of us took a nap, others played durak, while others just hang out. After a bit, we set up dinner and all ate together. The guy that worked at the tower, David, joined us and shared his tea with us. It was tea that was made from the herbs that were on the mountain. It was DELICIOUS and sweet, just the way I like my tea!

It was a great day and to end it we shared life stories. I love hearing people's stories and it is interesting to see what they decide to put in their life story and what they choose to leave out. We all gradually fell asleep.

The one thing about camping was it was the night after the eclipse (which we saw from my balcony the night before). This meant that it was a full, bright moon. It was so bright, we barely saw any stars and the whole night I kept thinking the sun was coming up. The mountain is also very rocky and none of us had sleeping pads, so we didnt get that much sleep. But it was still a wonderful experience and I would totally do it again!

The next day we went in to Yerevan after packing up my apartment a little more. I took down all of my pictures and it is slowly hitting me that I will not be in this country in less than two months. We packed up things that I wanted my mom to take back and went in on the bus. 7 Americans and a LOT of stuff, I think my bus driver thinks I'm weird. In Yerevan I had some running around to do and my mom was not accustomed to the once-a-week showers... so the Hostel was wonderful!

My mom made me a promise a year and a half before I came into PC. She has always said she wanted a tattoo but never had a reason to get one. So we made a bargain, I fulfilled my half and while she was here, she fulfilled her half!!! She got a cute little turtle tattoo on her foot and I got four flowers on my foot. They both are beautiful and it was such a fun experience to get tattoos together. Two other volunteers got tattoos while we got ours. It was a great experience and pictures will be posted!

The tattoo parlor that we go to is called Body Art and it is awesome! About 7 volunteers have gotten tattoos there and they all are awesome! The tattoo artist, Siro, is an awesome guy that I met at That Place, one of my favorite places in Yerevan. He now has opened an cafe, called Eden, which is quickly becoming another one of my favorite places! So many people and places I will miss in Armenia, but so glad that I have made so many memories that I will be able to look back on and giggle about!

The next day we shopped and spent a LOT of money on souvenirs and gifts. I was able to buy Armenian memorabilia and send it home with my Mama so I wouldn't have to carry it forever. We shopped until we dropped. It was great.

About two weeks before my mom came I met a taxi driver named Apo. He drove me and some other volunteers to our friend's village. The entire way he joked and laughed with us. He was great and I told him about my mom coming. He told me to call him and that he would take us anywhere. A few days before I arranged for him to take us that afternoon down to Meghri. So we shopped at the Varnisage in the morning and then had an afternoon taxi ride down to the border of Iran and Armenia. He was so much fun! He is from Goris and we had lunch outside of there. He took us to this really good kebab place and ordered for us. It was cheap and delicious! He also would stop and allow us to take pictures along the way. Most taxi drivers I have met are not that accommodating, but he was understanding and wanted to show off His Armenia to us and my mama.

We made it to my friend's village outside of Meghri around 8 that night after a 6 hour taxi ride. She showed us around the village and then we all went back and zoned out for a bit. The next morning we woke up and went to her school so that my mom could see an Armenian school and meet some teachers. This was the first time I had been this far south and it was beautiful. I had never been in the south in the summer either and it has gorgeous scenery.

We also arranged for a taxi to take us to the border town. It was crazy to be able to see Iran but know that we are not allowed to visit. We could see the border town in Iran and saw the spires from the mosque. It is such an amazement how a country can be surrounded by countries that are so closed off to them. They are so similar in so many ways but because of their past and the differences, they are completely closed off. It is different with Iran because Armenia and Iran have a working relationship, but I wonder if they didnt depend on each other what kind of relationship they would have.

After Meghri we traveled to Kapan for two nights. We walked around town at night and it was cool to see how many people were out just walking the streets. We were followed by a creeper for a little bit who offered to buy us ice cream. The vendor was not happy about this and shooed the guy away. It was a weird interaction but I was grateful to the vendor for sending him away. Other than that, our first night in Kapan was really relaxing. The next day we walked up to the WW2 memorial and saw all of Kapan!

That night we took a marshutni up to a village outside of Kapan where another volunteer lives. We walked out to another point in her village that overlooks the gorge. Absolutely beautiful scenery. We had dinner, chatted, and laughed. We talked all about COS and what we would be doing after service. It is a good thing my mom has had the PC experience otherwise I think she would have been bored during some of our conversations! She met this volunteer last summer in Turkey and they got along great so I promised I would bring her back so they could meet up again. It was a really good night of just hanging out in a village. My mom, who is a lover of flat lands, was impressed by this volunteers steep village.

It was nice for my mom to see smaller villages because even though my village is classified as a village, it is large. Both places we visited in the south (besides Kapan) were less than 1000 people. One school only had 106 students while the other school had 36 total... small villages. She thoroughly enjoyed seeing the volunteers and their villages.

The next morning we took a different taxi driver (not Apo) back to Yerevan. We asked the driver to stop by Tatev so that we could ride the Longest Aerial Tramway in the world! He was really nice and a cool driver too. He went on the tram with us as well and we spent an hour exploring around the monastery. It was beautiful and another thing on my Armenia bucket list.

Back in Yerevan we hung out and took an evening to ourselves. My mom and I were both exhausted and were able to relax. My mom was invited to Gavar to give a presentation about how she teaches to an NGO that works with children with disabilities. She planned out her presentation and the next day in true PC fashion, things did not turn out the way they were planned. Also in true PC fashion, it turned out wonderful! My mom was able to pass on a little bit of knowledge while also learning about the children with disabilities in Armenia. It was interesting to see and I was there to help translate, although another volunteer did that completely. It was impressive to see her Armenian skills and watch her translate back and forth between my mom and the NGO workers.

That night we went back to Yerevan and that is the night I got my tattoo. It is beautiful, hurt like hell, but I love it!!!

The last day my mom was in country, my mom, three friends, and I went to the UNESCO World Heritage sites. Apo, my favorite taxi driver, took us on a wonderful 8-hour trip! We stopped in the Aparan bakery on the way for their famous baked goods. Apo is hilarious and joked with us the whole time. He also said it was his first time to all of these sites so he was excited to see them as well. He didnt know the north as well as the south, but he was perfect in his navigation!

This whole time my mom has been OBSESSED with goats! She has loved goats since she was younger and just about freaked out every time we saw them here. We told Apo this and asked if he saw goats, could we stop so my crazy mom can take a picture of them. He joked that if we wanted to take a picture of a goat, we could go to his mother-in-laws house!

This day was probably my favorite because it was a full day and we experienced Armenian hospitality through our wonderful Apo. It was a great way to end my mom's vacation. That night we went to the opening of Eden cafe and had a great time with a few other volunteers!

Taking my mom to the airport was weird. It was almost like my experience had come full circle. She drove me to the airport and said a short goodbye when I first boarded the plane to Philly. She said when her mom dropped her off at the airport for her PC service, it was a quick kiss on the cheek, I love you, and good luck. When my mom and dad dropped me off, it was the same thing. Goodbyes are hard. I did the same thing to my mom too, knowing I wont be seeing her for another 7-8 months.

Saying goodbye to her is the first of many goodbyes that I will be making. But I keep reminding myself that tears mean that it mattered. Its okay to cry because of it means I made lasting friendships and memories.

Camp Pictures

Check out my pictures! There is a link at the bottom of the General Pictures or you can just click here.

English Summer Camp!

I had a week long English summer camp in my village last week. There were about 50 students that were involved, a great group of PCVs, my awesome director, and a few onlookers that completely supported the camp. It was a ton of fun and now I want to have another one for my younger students. I had a smaller group of older girls (mainly from my older English club, 10-11th form) that were there in the morning. I split the day up into morning and afternoon camps, with my older girls becoming junior counselors in the afternoon for the 7th, 8th, and 9th form students.

One day was rained out but the 6 others had perfect weather! On Sunday we took a hike out to the small church/religious spot that is about an hour walk outside of town. It was really fun because we had a picnic while we were there. In typical Armenian fashion, each student brought one item to share with the rest of the group. We had hotdogs, hard boiled eggs, sausage, fried potatoes, greens, tomatoes, cucumber, bread and cheese. We sat under the sun at the top of a hill and I just soaked it all in.

This camp really made me feel a part of my community more so than anything else. Having about 15 volunteers come through at different times and introducing them to my director, students, and CP was a lot of fun because it brought both of my PC worlds together. I am pretty sure some of my girls were smitten with a few of the counselors which was fun to see. I remember having a crush on one of my counselors when I was their age. Fun to see.

One final point about my camp was that it was cheap. With the help of other volunteers, my director, and my students, the total cost for this 7 day camp was about 10,000 dram (roughly 30 dollars). That was mostly for the paper supplies. And now we will have another one at the end of July. After that is a English teacher workshop and then I am done... (panic, panic, panic)

I will try and upload some pictures soon.