my last post

Right now, as I post this blog entry, I am already back in Vienna VA (not Austria). I have sort of procrastinated on posting it. I will post the remaining pictures on facebook sometime within the next week (if I am not continuing to procrastinate).

I'm just going to continue from where I left off:

On Wednesday night, for our havak, we went to the Vanatur restaurant, and were encouraged to invite our host families with us. My host parents came with my, but not the kids. Others invited their host brothers or sisters or parents to come with them. This dinner was a sort of fairwell party for the volunteers in Gyumri, since all of us except for Allegra were leaving to go back home in the next week or so.

Thursday night

One of our volunteers, James, invited the rest of us to come over to his house that evening for some coffee and tea. However, I told him I'd be a little bit late, because Allegra, one of the other volunteers, had asked if she can come over to my apartment and take pictures of me with my host family in my apartment. (this was part of her volunteer work, to take pictures of the other volunteers with their host families, and tonight was my turn for this). What ended up happening was that my family insisted on having her stay with us for dinner (which was not cooked yet), and then doing the photography. (I'm probably going to be tagged in a lot of pics on facebook soon). So, then we arrived late to the party at James' place. I played the duduk there, and James's host father asked me to play not only for them but also fo his relatives in moskow, who were on skype with him

Friday:

after my duduk lesson, Gagik took me to the museum, where we saw some artwork by various artists. Paintings of Gyumri, and of several monasteries and stuff.

Saturday:

We had an excursion, first, we did a train-ride, then we did bird watching and then we went to Khor Virap, (this was my third time in Khor Virap) and then we went to a village and talked to the locals there, and then we visited a tomato farm. One of the volunteers, Mona, had invited her Swedish coworkers to come with her on the excursion. Unfortunately, our normal tour-guide, Suren, wasn't with us this time, and so instead, I helped explain the story behind Khor Virap (which I had been to twice before this) to the others on the tour.

Monday, Tuesday.

after a debriefing in Gyumri on Monday, I took a taxi to Yerevan, and met up with my friend Rafayel there. I stayed at his house Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Tuesday morning I had another debrief in Yerevan.  I will not be surprised if I will have been the last Birthright volunteer to have been placed at GITC for the volunteer position.  After their problems with not assigning me work to do for 3 consecutive weeks, it is unlikely that any future birthright participants will be placed at GITC.  

Wednesday, September 21 = Independence Day

today marked the 20^th anniversary of the independence of the republic of Armenia. There was a parade on the street in the morning, which we watched from the balcony and from the roof of the Birthright office. There were military personelle marching in the streets and riding in various types of tanks, trucks, etc. In the sky, helicopters flew in formation, and there were planes releasing sky-writing clouds of red, blue and orange, (the colors of the Armenian flag).

After the parade was over, I met up with Rafayel again, and walked around the town for a while. One of the places we saw was the Komitas Conservatory, which is dedicated to the music of Komitas, a very famous Armenian ethnomusicologist/composer/priest who in the early 20^th century went through many villages in Armenia, studied the folk music therein, and wrote these songs onto paper. Much of our folk music in Armenia would not have been preserved after the genocide had it not been for Komitas. Several of the songs that Gagik had assigned me to learn on the duduk are Komitas's compositions. Another stop in Yerevan was the vernissage, where I bought some gifts for my family.

Since I had not eaten any pomegranates yet in Armenia, and they don't grow in Virginia (since they were not in season during the summer) I asked Rafayel where I could buy some. We went from market to market looking for them. Finally we found one market where they had them, in packages of 2 for 1500 dram (about $4.50). I decided to save them for the homeward journey the next day.

Later that night the streets were very crowded. People were cheering “Hayastan! Hayastan!” (the armenian name for Armenia is “Hayastan”), and others were carrying Armenian flags. I didnt stay for the concert in the republic square, since it was too crowded and I was getting tired already. I took a taxi back to Rafayel's apartment. From there, I could see that the radio tower in the distance (which is normally changing colors every few seconds) was a steady red at the top, blue in the middle, and orange at the bottom, (the colors of the Armenian flag, to celebrate the occasion. Also, we saw some fireworks out in the distance as well.

Thursday:

I only got three hours of sleep that night, before I went back to the states. I ate one of the pomegranates in the Yerevan airport for breakfast. Since I didn't want any complications with the US customs office, I decided to eat the other one at the Moskow airport for lunch. During the flight, they showed a world map, showing where there is daylight and where it is night. Because it was so close to the equinox, the separation between night and day was almost a straight line. (the 23^rd of september is the equinox, and I was flying on the 22^nd).

Etchmiatsin, etc.

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Thursday Afternoon:

After my duduk lesson (which was moved from friday to thursday this week, since Gagik was out of town on Friday), I went to the arts and crafts festival in the hraparak (town square). There were performances of the youth playing musical instruments and dancing, and people were showing off different types of arts and crafts in booths.

Saturday:

For our excursion, we rode bicyles (provided by Birthright) from Yerevan to the holy city of Etchmiatsin. Our first stop in Etchmiatsin was St. Hripsime's church. A bit of history about this church's name sake:

Hripsime was a beautiful virgin from Rome, but she fled from Rome to Armenia because she had refused the Roman Emperor Diocletian's marriage proposal. She refused because he was a pagan, and she had devoted her life to God. In Armenia, she faced a similar problem: King Drtad also wanted her to be his wife. (this is the same Drtad who had imprisoned Gregory in the pit at Khor Virap. Gregory was still in the pit at this time) Hripsime refused to marry Drtad for the same reason. So, the king asked Kayane, the leader of the group of nuns that Hripsime belonged to, to convince Hripsime to marry him. Kayane refused to convince Hripsime to marry the king, and instead encouraged her to resist him. Therefore, Drtad tortured both of them to death, along with their companions. First, he had their tounges cut off and eyes gouged out, and then had them stone to death. That is, heavy stones were placed on top of them until they died.

The church that bears Hripsime's name is built on the spot where it was believed that Hripsime had died. There are stairs leading down to the spot directly below the altar, where Hripsime's tombstone is located. On the right hand side of the main sanctuary is a very curious painting. It shows in the foreground, a young woman, Hripsime, standing on top of a king, Drtad, and she's holding a full-sized cross. There is an angel holding a crown over her head. Behind her in the background, are on the left, and image of a woman being stoned to death, and on the right, a soldier who is about to cut a woman's tongue off with a sword.

Here's my interpretation of this painting: The crown above her head given by the angel appears to be even more glorious than the crown upon Drtad's head. This represents that the crown of life given to those who are faithful even to the point of death (Revelation 2:10). While Hripsime would have received a queen's crown had she married Drtad, what she had received for her faith was the crown of life from God, which is much more glorious and lasts forever. The images of her being tortured in the background are behind the image of her victorious of Drtad, because those things happened in the past. She is victorious over Drtad in the image, because historically, she was victorious over him, not in a physical manner (as is shown) but in a spiritual manner. He failed to convert her to paganism, and after she had died, her death haunted him to the point of insanity, which could only be cured once Gregory was set free from Khor Virap and converted him to Christianity.

Our second stop was the main church/seminary complex of Etchmiatsin. There is a large cathedral there, with many paintings therein. It was said that after Gregory had converted King Drtad, Gregory had a vision in which Christ had told him where to build this church, as well as where to build the other chapels to honor Kayane and Hripsime. We had only a short time to visit it though, because Vahan, one of the BR coordinators, told us to come out so that we could meet the Catholicos, who is the equivalent of the pope to the Armenian church. What is interesting is that he was dressed all in black robes, indistinguishable from any common derhayr (Armenian priest). I would not have known he was the Catholicos if nobody had told me. None of us had expected to actually meet him. He had only one remark to say to us: “If you were to meet the president, or the leader of the parliament, would you be wearing those clothes you are wearing?” (most of us were wearing shorts and comfortable outfits, since we had just biked there from Yerevan).

Afterwards, we visited St. Kayane's Church, named after the leader of the aforementioned group of nuns. We had to leave early, because there was a wedding about to take place there. In some of these famous churches, there are multiple weddings per day at the same church. This was definitely the case the day we were there, because we saw one bride, and then not too long thereafter, another one.

On the way back, the tire on my bike went flat, (I was not the only one this happened to), and so I signaled the people running the bike tour. Rather than fixing it or replacing it with another bike (which is what I wanted them to do), they put the bike in the back of their truck and told me to get into the van (which was moving next to the bikers). I assumed this was because they didnt have any bikes in the truck that they could switch out my bike with. I later found out that there were indeed bikes that were good in there. So, after a riding in the van for a little while, at one of the stops, I got out of the van and asked if they could give me a different bike so I wouldn't have to sit in the van. And so they gave me another bike to ride for the remainder of the trip.

Sunday:

At GITC, I was been assigned the task of “teaching assistant”. However, the only class that I could be of any help is the Java class, which is taught only on sundays. All the other classes are on things I don't know anything about. So, after church, I went to GITC to help out. I was actually able to help the other students. Mainly with very simple problems such as syntactical errors in Hello World programs, and with errors caused by being in the wrong directory and therefore the JVM cannot find the right file. This is their first time ever coding anything in Java, so this was very easy to help out with it.   

Monday:

we had a special forum in the kitchen behind the birthright office.  learning how lavash is made.  Lavash is sort of like a tortilla, except flatter, Armenian and not Mexican, larger area, and made of like wheat or something instead of corn.  Anyways, they roll out the dough, throw it onto this like rounded thing to make it even flatter, stick it onto the wall of a cylindrical oven, and then do the same for the next piece of lavash, and when a piece of lavash has been in there long enough, they take it out.  They do this really fast, pipelining the entire process.  

Odzun, Kobayr, etc.

Since last post:

Wednesday:
(after posting my previous entry) We had a forum about the architecture in Gyumri.  We have a forum every wednesday, but I haven't mentioned the previous ones in this blog because they weren't very noteworthy.  Week 1:  human rights issues.  basically, the point is that laws protecting human rights aren't very well enforced here in Armenia.  Week 2:  crazy long-winded soviet-nostalgic feminist lady tells about how much better it was back in Soviet times, and only rarely stops talking in Armenian to allow Shoghik to translate for her.  Now, for week 3, we learn about something much more exciting: Architecture.  This time, we didn't need any translator, since the woman who was lecturing us is an American and speaks perfect English.  She showed us pictures of architecture and gave us physics-based reasons for why people built things the way they did.  Also, she talked about how poorly built the soviet buildings were (most of which fell down in the '88 earthquake).  She explained why it's actually a good thing that the ugly bank in the central square exists; because it makes people aware of how much better the other buildings are.

Saturday:
Excursion.  First we visited the Odzun monastery, which is located inside of a village.  I had already been there, with LCO.  Then afterwards, we went down to our second location called Kobayr.  In this location, we climbed down a cliff into a valley to reach the ruins of a small monastery, which was built into the side of the cliff.  The monks who worked there lived in cave-houses.  Actually, from an architectural standpoint, this is a very useful trick for what my professor, Dr. Siochi, would refer to as appropriate laziness.  Why build 4 walls, when you only have to make one wall around the opening of the cave, and then install a door?  Then, we climbed down even further into the river valley.  At the bottom of the valley is Deveri Get, the "river of the dragons" (this river is so called because the river is shaped like a dragon.

Sunday:
This time, I made sure to bring my liturgy book to the church service.  Last week, i didn't go to the service because I was with my host family in their parents village, and the previous week, I was in Yerevan.  So, halfway through the service I was able to find where in the liturgy book we were at, and after the service, I went with a few of my BR friends to visit a museum, and then to another monastery.
At the main exhibit of the museum were maps of historic Gyumri, as well as everyday items traditionally found in households in Gyumri.  In another exhibit were sculptures of heads of deceased people.  Some person whose name I do not remember carved sculptures of heads of people after they die, and this exhibit shows these sculptures.  The eyes are closed, and they appear to have a solemn dead expression on their faces.

Monday and Tuesday:
I'm still awaiting being transferred by Birthright to another volunteer position, other than GITC.  I had talked to Shoghik on Thursday about my problem with there being no work for me to do there, and she said she would try to transfer me elsewhere if they cannot find any work for me to do there.

Since last post:

Friday August 26th:
I met up with Gagik again, and he sold me the new duduk.  It sounds much better than the old duduk.  I noticed that Gagik is attempting to learn English, and has asked me how to say English words like, "hear", "breath", "read", "repeat", "play", etc.  He decided to take a sticky note and write down all of the words in english he's trying to learn on there:  the Armenian word, followed by the English word transliterated with Armenian letters.  The sticky note looks like this:
լսել           հիր
շունճ        բրիտ
կարտալ   րիդ
նորից անգամ    րիպիտ
նվագել    պլեյ
տուն        հոմ
դու           յու
հանգիստ    րելաքս
հոգնած       թայրդ
etc.


I might need to start charging him for English lessons one of these days.  Maybe 5000 dram an hour.  that would be about half the amount he charges me for duduk lessons.  Also, he taught me how to do the vibrato  (vibratsia in Armenian)

Saturday August 27:
Birthright Excursion at Lake Sevan!  We left Gyumri on the bus at 6:30, while it was still dark, to go there.  In the later part of the morning, we went birdwatching.  We saw several types of birds through the binoculars.  Unfortunately, no storks today, but I did see some a few weeks ago and got a picture of two of them.  Then, we went to one of the shores and picked up trash, for a community service project.  Afterwards, we went on a boat cruise, in a wooden boat designed to look like the ancient boats from the Kilikian kingdom era, but with a modern engine and stuff inside.  It was cold and windy, but it was fun though.  Then, we went to the peninsula (which I had visited previously with LCO) where there are two churches on top of there.  Since this was my second time there, I decided to have a look around to see if there was anything I didnt see the first time I was there.  Behind the churches was a trail, leading to a summit near the end of the peninsula.  At the summit is an abandoned building.  I climbed onto its partially-destroyed roof, and surrounding on all sides (except for a thin isthumus) I could see water.  It was a breathtaking view, which I did not get to experience the first time I had visited the peninsula.  Afterwards, we went back to Gyumri, and by that time it was already dark again.  So we left in the dark and returned in the dark.

Sunday August 28:
Since it was a free day for me, I went with my host family to the village where my host father, Tigran, is from, and visited at his dad's place.  Tigran's father owns a grocery store, which is connected to his house.  There, we had khorovats (Armenian barbeque).  In the backyard, the two boys (Hayk and Gevork) and I played games such as hide and seek, and also stick fights.  I had to go easy on the kids, because ...they're kids.  They had a lot of fun.  Afterwards, we went back to Gyumri

Monday August 29:
Not much really happened.  Another duduk lesson with Gagik, improved on what I had learned the previous lesson.  At the end of the day, I asked Amalya, my supervisor at GITC to tell me what my next assignment is.  She said talk to Arevik, the receptionist, but unfortunately Arevik had already left for the day.

Tuesday August 30:
I met up with my cousin Vahan, who had decided to come up to Gyumri with his friends for the day, for lunch.  It was fun.  We explained to his friends the story about how we had met in Yerevan 6 weeks ago and that I had not recognized him (scroll back through previous blog entries to read the full story).  After lunch, I showed him and his friends my workplace, and introduced them to some of the staff there.   After he had left, I asked Arevik what I'm supposed to do.  She said talk to Aram, one of my coworkers.

Wednesday August 31:
First thing in the morning I met up with Aram.  He said to hold off until tomorrow.  On another note (no pun intended), during the duduk lesson while attempting to sight-read a traditional song Dle Yaman, I accidentally played it fast and jubilantly, ignoring the tempo marking "andante cantible".  Gagik's response was something in Armenian, about how it's a sad song about the 1915 Genocide, not a happy song.  Playing Dle Yaman like it's a happy song is kind of borderline offensive.  Oops...  He then showed me the correct way to play it, andante cantabile, like it say on the music.  He also assigned me a few other songs to practice.  I'll have to make sure to read the tempo marking next time I sightread music.  

The Duduk Master

Yesterday (tuesday), I met with Gagik Malkhasyan, a professional duduk player, who also teaches people how to play the duduk.  The first thing that Gagik told me when he saw my duduk that I bought from the vernissage was "vat e" (it's of low quality), both the duduk and the reed are of low quality.  A good reed makes it much easier to blow into it, and with a good duduk, it doesnt take special effort to play in tune.  So, he ordered a new duduk for me from Yerevan, which will be here on Friday, and he arranged for lessons for today and for Friday.  He said it would take me only one or two months training with him to reach professional level.  Also, it costs 10000 dram, (about 30$) for each 1 hour lesson, and we would begin the next day.  Throughout the entire conversation, my friend Shoghik from BR was translating between me and Gagik.  I asked her if she would come and translate for him again for the next day's lesson, but she said she wouldnt make it.

Today I met up with Gagik again, this time to start lessons.  It turns out he does know a little bit more English than I had thought he did, more cognitive than conjugative though.  And with the amount of Armenian that I know, i was able to understand most of what he said without a translator with me.  He showed me his own duduk (made of real dziran wood, and not cheap wood from idk what type of tree), and showed me the difference between his and mine.  The dziran wood is black (rather than brown) and more dense than the other wood (this he demonstrated by having me hold my duduk in one hand and his duduk in the other hand and feel the difference in weight).  Also, a good reed makes it  actually sound like a real duduk, and not like a cheap saxophone.

He told me to bring 10k dram next time for the lesson, 20k dram for the new duduk, and 5k dram for the new reed.  35k dram (about a hundred dollars USA).  Gosh, this is expensive.  But fortunately, everything else is inexpensive here (100 dram (~ 30 cents) for a bus to anywhere, and for food, lunch rarely costs more than 1000 dram (about 3 dollars)).

As for the duduk I currently have, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it.  I'm probably going to give it to a friend as a souvenir, but I'm not sure yet who to give it to.  Souvenir duduk?  anyone?  

First week with birthright

I actually have no excuse for waiting another week before writing my blog entry.

On tuesday and thursday, I had Armenian language lessons with the other Birthright volunteers.  We met up with tutors, one or two students per tutor.  The lesson consists partly of assessment of how much we know (since some people know more than others), and partly of spoken practice and dialogues, and at the end we are assigned homework to be done by the next class.

On Saturday, we went to Khor Virap (the monastery built on top of the pit where Gregory was imprisoned).  On my previous visit to KV, (while I was with LCO) the pictures I took didnt turn out very well, because they would either overexpose due to a bright flash (and thus not accurately reflect how dark it is in there), or be blurry due to long exposure time.  I found a way to fix this, which is done by partially covering the flash on my camera, and thus having the short exposure time of a flash photograph but also reflect the fact that it's dark in the pit (the only light comes from an electric chandelier that certainly did not exist at the time of St. Gregory).
Afterwards, we visited Noravank, another monastery (which I had also visited previously with LCO, and described it in my blog as having steep narrow steps leading into the upper sanctuary), and then we visited the village of Areni, which is famous for its wine.  Since I don't drink alcohol, this wasn't very interesting for me.  I asked the guy there how long it would take to remove the alcohol from a mug of wine using a microwave, and he said around 8 days.  (seriously?  This seems like an experiment to do when I get back to the states.)
Saturday night we went to Yerevan.  Since staying overnight in Yerevan is optional (although everyone did it this time), we had to find our own places to stay.  Rather than staying in a hostel, I asked Rafayel if I could crash at his place.  He lives with his parents, his brother, his sister-in-law, his niece, his sister-in-law's brother and his uncle, all in one crowded apartment.  His parents cooked dinner and breakfast for me while I was there.

Sunday around midday was a pool party in Yerevan at the BR coordinator Sevan's house.  This was partly a going away party for Hovhannes, who was moving back to his home in Jordan.  This is sad, because he was a funny guy.  <flashback>When I first met him on the ride to Gyumri my first day in BR, he attempted to guess where I was from based on my accent.  "Somewhere in the southern US, but keep talking, and i'll try to figure it out".  ... "somewhere in the southeast"...  "Virginia"   Then I asked him, "how did you figure that out?  In the Northern part of Virginia I'm from doesn't even have the stereotypical virginian accent".  He then told me that he knew all along from reading my information submitted to birthright, but he was only pretending to be guessing.  </flashback>

After this, we went back to Gyumri later that afternoon.  And now I am here in the office on Monday afternoon.  

First weekend with BR and first real day of work.

first weekend with BR:

So, I haven't been in the office since friday, so I haven't posted anything since then.

Saturday, we (as in, the Gyumri BR group) went down to Yerevan for the Pan-Armenian Games, where teams of both diasporan Armenians throughout the world, and Hayastantsi Armenians in all regions of Armenia gather together.  We didn't come merely as spectators for the game.  We came for business reasons.  See, with the many diasporan Armenians that had come to Yerevan for the games, it seemed natural that we would want to give them an opportunity to learn about how their next trip here to Armenia could be totally paid for. 

            Some of the people there didn't speak English (and I do not know enough Armenian to be able to explain to them what BR is), such as all but one of the members of the Ukraine team.  But the one Ukrainian girl who spoke English translated for the rest of her team though.  Also, I met up with the team from Spain, who were all very friendly.  It wasn't really necessary that I took 4 1/2 years of spanish in high school/college, since they already speak English, but I got to practice it a little bit with them. 

            <sarc> Later on, I discovered that my hometown, Vienna, has its own team.   However, the people on my team kept insisting that Vienna is located in Austria, and not in Virginia.  I'm surprised at their lack of skills at geography, especially when it comes to the town that they allegedly are from.  I later realized that their town is named after my hometown in northern VA.</sarc>  So, nevertheless, I got someone to take a picture of me with them.  I jokingly asked them if I could get a uniform and play on their team.  They said they were all out of uniforms.

           

Sunday, I went down to the local church, where there was a badarak service going on.  Unlike the more modern Armenian churches in the US, they don't have liturgy books in the pews.  More than half of the people were standing, and there were pews in the center of the sanctuary, making it sort of a mixture between the modern churches with pews filling most of the sanctuary, and the more ancient churches, which I had visited with LCO that lack pews altogether.

            That night, i hung out with my host mother, Irina, and her son, Gevorg, who is ~7 years old.  Gevorg was showing me some of the pictures he drew, and I was guessing (in armenian) what they were of.  Later when Irina was helping Gevorg with some math, I decided to write out a calculus problem to challenge Gevorg (obviously he wouldn't know what any of that meant).  However, Irina was asking me in Armenian what all of this stuff meant.  I unsuccessfully attempted to explain to her in Armenian the concept of an integral, since my vocabulary of math words in Armenian is quite… limited.  I tried drawing a graph of a parabola, two lines representing the integration limits at 1 and 3, and shading in the area between the parabola, the two vertical lines and the x axis, but that didn't help at all. 

To sum, the lessons I learned this weekend: 

1)   Don't make fun of Vienna, Austrians, <sarc> even if they did steal the name from my hometown</sarc>. 

2)   I should bring own liturgy book (with translations) to church.

3)   Math is NOT a universal language. 

Monday at the office:

            I finally get to meet my supervisor Amalia.  She assigned me with a very strange task:  writing a proposal for a computer game designed to inform young people and warn them about AIDS/HIV, and it's due on Wednesday.   Wait, what?  Using computer games to educate people about serious issues? 

            Not only did this seem like a strange program, but the fact that after she interviewed me about my skills as a programmer, she asked me to write a proposal for a program, not the program itself.   Uhmm… writing a proposal or other formal document is the job of a secretary.  Not a programmer.  I stared for about 15 minutes at the information she gave me about the proposal requirements.  Must include detailed budget?  Sealed envelopes?  Reference from tax inspection on tax liabilities?  CHEM HASKANUM VOCHINCH!!!!  (i don't understand any of this!)    I finally told her, "Look, I think it might be better if you have someone else do the proposal, and I do the program".   Her reply to this was, "Oh, sorry, that's what I had meant.  You write the program, I write the proposal.  I accidentally switched the words 'proposal' with 'program' ".   What a relief!  

            After lunch, one of then guys there, Aram, showed me some examples of these "educational games" that other people had made.  These seem quite simple, and a little silly.  In one of them, you play as a guy in a spaceship, and you have to maneuver the spaceship in a 2 dimensional plane, dodging flying needles and shooting lasers at them to get points (because needles are dangerous, since they can give you AIDS).  If you touch a pair of floating lips or a mosquito, you gain points (because kissing does not give you AIDS, nor does getting bit by a mosquito).  It was silly, but it's still more fun than I had expected it to be.  

Anyways, I'll post more later. 

*<sarc> ... </sarc> indicates sarcasm.  

Karabagh and my first 2 days in Gyumri

Karabagh:

The passageway to Stepanakert in Karabagh is a very difficult drive. Fortunately, we have a driver named Mayis who knows what he's doing.  First it goes up through mountains, along many switchbacks.  Then through the plateau of mist, where you cannot see more than about 7 meters ahead of you.  (I only assume its a plateau because the road stays straight and doesn't go up nor down very much in this area).  Then, past the high village of Shushi, down another mountain, and there in the valley is the city of Stepanakert.  

On the second day we were there, we visited the battle field where the Karabagh war was fought about 20 years ago.  The Azeris were attempting to attack the city of Stepanakert from up on the high ground, and they didn't watch their backs, because behind them was a steep cliff.  The villagers in a nearby village, however, used to take their goats and cattle up there all of the time through shortcuts.  So, the villagers taught the Armenian soldiers how to get up to the top of the cliff and surprise attack the Azeris.  Kicked their rear ends!

On the third day, on the way back to Yerevan, we crossed through the fog again in the van.  We stopped while we were still in the fog at cable-car station, where we rode a cable car leading to a monastery called Tatev.  The cable is so long you cannot see the end of it from the start.  Well, I don't know if you can on a clear day, but through that fog, we were often unable to see the ground from the cable car.  

When we got back to Yerevan, we went to a restaurant, and ate, and then we met up with my friend Rafayel and some of the other participants who were at the other worksite.  (my cousin Vahan was not there unfortunately, since he was still in the village).  I tried to call Ani to see if she would be able to meet up with us, but her phone was not working.  (I told Rafayel about this, and he said that she was out of town, back in her home village of Stepanavan, which is actually closer to Gyumri than it is to Yerevan. 

That night was my last night with the LCO group, and so I said good bye to everyone.  The next morning, I went to the Birthright Armenia office for them to introduce me to the program and stuff like that.  Afterwards, they gave me a ride to Gyumri, the second largest city in Armenia, where I will be staying and doing an internship with the Gyumri Information Technologies center.  A Birthright representative named Hovhannes showed me around the city, and then took me over to my homestead place, with the Tigranyan family.  They speak less English than I speak Armenian, so I'm sure I'll be learning a lot of Armenian while I am there.

And this morning, i started my internship with GITC.  I'm not sure what I'm actually supposed to be doing here, but whatever.  Since I am planning on waiting until tomorrow @ 1:30 PM to use Facebook (that's when 28 days will be up), I've just been writing this blog entry and some emails to a few friends for now while I'm here.  Tsdesutyun!

on the way to Karabagh: Monday, August 8

We visited several sites on the way to Karabagh.  The first was a monastery built on top of the pit where St. Gregory the Illuminator lived for 13 years.  For those of you unfamiliar with the story of St. Gregory, continue reading.  Those who are familiar, move on to the next paragraph.  <tangent>The year was 288 AD.  Most of the Armenians were pagan at the time, including the king Drtad.  One of his officials, Gregory, was a Christian.  One day, the king got angry at Gregory because Gregory refused to bow down to pagan idols.  So, Drtad put Gregory into this pit, intending that Gregory would starve to death and die in there.  Little did he know that the villagers were feeding Gregory and keeping him alive while he was in the hole.  It came to pass, about 13 years later, that Drtad was on the search for a wife.  He met this girl named Hripsime who, like Gregory, was a Christian.  Drtad, knowing that Christians absolutely refuse to worship the pagan deities and bow down to idols, decided to try to make a deal with Hripsime.  "You convert to paganism and abandon Christianity, and you can become my queen".  But Hripsime refused, and he had the guards kill her.  Then he went insane.  Trouble arose in Armenia, because it was run by an insane king.  The king's sister, who was a Christian, told the guards that the only person who  could restore the king is Gregory.  The guards were astonished at what she said, "surely he cannot be alive after 13 years!",  but they were wrong.  They lowered a rope into there, and pulled Gregory out of the pit.  And he healed the king, and the king chose not only to become a Christian himself, but also to endorse Christianity throughout his kingdom.  This is how the Armenian church was founded, in 301 AD, the first Christian nation. </tangent>

So anyways, here in the 21st century, I got to visit the inside of the pit.  A ladder leads down into there and there is an electric chandelier (which wasnt there in Gregory's time, when it would have been almost absolutely dark).  There was no toilet in there, so, I'm guessing that whomever fed him also carried out his waste products.  If it were me, I'd just jailbreak the man out instead.   <paradox>However if I had been there (by way of time travel), and I had jailbreaked him out, it would not have been miraculous, Drtad would not have believed, Armenia would still be pagan, Gregory would have been forgotten, and I would have had no reason to go back in time in the first place </paradox>  

Another site we found was a church with steep narrow stairways with no railing leading up to the sanctuary.  Another site was a village where people used to live in caves, and other LCO groups were doing some excavating.  

On another note: After having used a village squat-hole for excrementing solid waste 24 consecutive times over the past 3 weeks, it felt good to sit on a real toilet instead.  Yes, I did keep count.  

Sunday, august 7

We left the village this morning to return to Yerevan.  We had to leave the cat behind.  I had attempted to ask the villagers if they wanted to keep it, but all they would tell me is, "che, chem uzum", which means, "no, I don't want it".  So, I left it in front of the town center.

Along the way to Yerevan, we visited yet another ancient Armenian church; this one was right near a canyon.  We've probably visited at least 10 early churches, including some that were from the 4th century, when for the first time, buildings were being built with the intended purpose of Christian worship.  <tangent>After having visited so many old church buildings, when I get back to the United States, and attend church services at First Baptist Church in Newport News, it will probably come as a shock to me the lack of pencil-thin candles and candle-trays, khachkars and other stone carvings, ornate robes on the derhayr (pastor), and the Armenian language; and also the presence of a projector screen/projector, pews, guitars, drumset, amplifiers, organ, pianos, stained glass windows, a baptismal pool in the back of the sanctuary, brick rather than toof rock, and most strangely of all, electricity.  My friends at FBC, if you are reading this, do not be surprised if I walk backwards out of the sanctuary crossing myself and addressing Pastor Seley as "der hayr", and start lighting candles everywhere.  However, there is one very important thing that is the same.  We are worshiping the same God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and praying in the Holy Spirit. </tangent>

I am now in Yerevan.  This evening, I got to meet up with Rafayel, one of my friends who used to intern at Jefferson Lab.  My other friend, Ani, was supposed to meet with us, but dueto certain circumstances, was unable to meet up with us.  Rafayel showed me the cascades, which are on a hill, overlooking most of the city, and from which one has a view of Mount Ararat on a non-cloudy day (today the top of Ararat was not visible).  It started raining hard, so we took a taxi back to the hostel.  And here I am again at the hostel, watching weird pop music video on the flatscreen TV.

Tomorrow I go to Karabagh, which is 7 hours away, and will be staying there two nights, and then returning to Yerevan on August 10th and then leaving Yerevan the next day to go to Gyumri.  Hopefully I'll get to meet up with Ani next time I'm in Yerevan, on August 10.  She has yet to call me back to let me know if the evening of August 10 will work for her.

Also, today I purchased a duduk (a type of Armenian musical instrument for 7000 dram. (about 20 dollars).  It sounds kind of like a saxophone, except it's made of dziran (apricot) wood, has a double reed, and is shaped more similar to a recorder.  It's the same type of musical instrument used in the soundtrack of the movie Gladiator (which i have not watched).  The duduk is truly a breath-taking instrument, and by that I mean you have to blow very hard into it otherwise you make no sound, and you get out of breath quickly by playing it.  The breathing on duduk is much harder than an ocarina.  (well to be fair, with the ocarina, the fingerings are less intuitive than with the duduk, since the holes on an ocarina don't need to be in a line, and therefore generally are placed wherever it is most ergonomically convenient to put them.  But it only requires a little bit of effort to memorize the fingering placements on an ocarina, whereas, it takes an increase in lung-power to improve one's duduk playing.)

I'll have to post a video of me playing the duduk at some point.  But not until after I improve at it. 

a

Thursday:

In the evening before dinner, we climbed a very steep mountain nearby the village.  It took us about an hour and a half to climb up to the top.  The slope was about a 60 degree incline (about .3 radians, for nerds).  At the top, there was an altar, with several khatchkhars and other Christian icons around.  Also on the altar are soft candles that people had pushed onto the altar to spell their names on there.  Most apparent at the altar, however, is a full-sized wooden cross.  Several pieces of cloth had been tied to the cross.  When Arman, our archaeologist, got to the top, he asked in Armenian for a knife.  I was not sure what to expect.  I thought he was going to cut off a piece of his own shirt or something and tie it onto the cross.  However, what he did was the exact opposite.  He cut off the pieces of cloth.  I asked why.  Since he doesn't speak much English, all he said was "very bad, not Christian".  I later found out that this tradition predates Christianity, from pagan times, when they would tie a piece of clothing to a tree or bush when they got up to the top of a mountain, and I inferred that it's disrespectful to tie it to a cross.  He and I stayed at the top after the others had left, as he and I were praying at the top, while the others had left to explore a different peak.  So, coming down the hill it was just myself and Arman.  

When I got back down, I decided, quite spontaneously, to shave, which i haven't done since I was in Vienna (VA, not Austria).  At the request of the other participants, I did sideburns and a handlebar mustache.  When I get back to Yerevan, I might shave off the handlebars and just leave the mustache.  I'm not sure yet.  Normally i have a mustache and a goatee, but I don't have time to grow a mustache back yet.  

Friday 

was our last day working at the site.  While I was working the wheelbarrow during the second-to-last hour of our work, we got a flat tire.  So, instead, we used buckets to transport the dirt out of the hole for the last hour and a half of work.  THE last hour and a half of work we will do here in this village.  We are now done with that.  

Saturday:

today I am borrowing Haig's orange dongle again to write this blog entry.  Also, I found out that i will be working with the Gyumri Information Technologies Center starting a week from now.  I received a message from birthright about this:  http://www.gitc.am/Gitc/

Oh, and by the way, if you want to see the pictures I and the other participants have taken on this trip, go to www.lcousa.org.  Some of the pics are mine, some are taken by the others.  Then you wont have to wait for me to post to facebook a week from now.  

Week 3 part 1

Sunday:

This sunday was a special holiday involving water.  (I forgot what it's name is).  On this holiday, kids take buckets of water and splash it on cars that are driving by, and people pour water on each other and use squirt guns and stuff.  While we were in the van, with the permission of the driver, Mark spilled bottles of water on pedestrians twice.  The driver, told him which ones to do it to.  I heard him say, "spasek!", which means "wait", in this context, for a better victim to pour it on.

  So, in honor of this holiday,  we did the most natural thing to do and went to Lake Sevan, the largest body of water in Armenia.  On a steep hill on a peninsula overlooking the lake are two churches right next to each other.  Up on the trail to the churches are people selling stuff, such as obsidian sculptures, mini-khachkhars, and other trinkets.  One man was selling a duduk for like 100 $US, but I didn't buy it because it was probably overpriced (I plan on buying one either the next time I visit Yerevan, or while I am staying in Gyumri (and I still don't know what I'm going to be doing in Gyumri yet.)).  After visiting the churches, we had lunch and then went swimming in the lake.  It wasn't too cold in there, fortunately.

Monday:

Because all but one of our pickaxes were broken, we got off work early today.  We visited the village's preschool and had some snacks there.  This is the first time I've ever eaten honeycombs.  The honey is good, but I don't really care for the taste nor texture of beeswax.  Caleb, one of the Canadian participants, commented (not-exact-quote), "I love how we are screwing over the bees by eating the place where they live in".  After eating these snacks, and later eating lunch, I napped most of the afternoon.

Another thing:  up until today, I was wearing protective gloves whenever touching the cat.  Now, I've decided to give up doing so.   Also, I have attempted to teach the cat 0008ytttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt8gptgh6iiiiiiiiipppppppppp how to use the computer.   (the 0008…ppp is where the cat was sitting on my keyboard.  She has a long ways to go before becoming a true hacker).  It's also a good thing that this computer has a trackpad instead of a mouse.  Otherwise the little kitty would attempt to eat the computer mouse, which is not healthy for it. 

Tuesday: 

work continued, now with the pick-axes replaced and/or repaired.  Now all our efforts are focused on digging trenches next to the worksite to make the courtyard wider.  It looks like we won't be able to finish this task by the end of the week, which is unfortunate, because we will be leaving the village Sunday, finished or not.  Also, while checking my email today I discovered that my Flickr account will only allow for 200 pictures unless I pay to upgrade my account.  I guess I'll just wait two weeks and then upload pics to facebook.  Or delete some of the pictures from Flickr that I don't care as much about to make room for good ones.  I think I'm more likely to do the former.

Week 2

I now have in my possession a great and powerful item.  This is called the Orange Dongle, a device with the power to bequeath internet connection upon my computer and not have to use the internet cafe.  I'm actually borrowing the Orange Dongle from Haig, one of the coordinators of the trip.  The problem with the internet cafe isnt the price (which is equivalent to a few cents an hour), but rather that it's only open for a short window of time each day and there are only 2 computers there.

This week was an eventful week.  Whereas the previous week it rained on and off and was (allegedly) cooler than it usually is in Armenia in the summer, this week was normal for Armenian summers (ie, really hot).  At the worksite, we dug up more bones, filled up buckets with dirt and dumped them out.

There has been much drama here.  One day, the landlady started yelling at us in Armenian, and I couldnt understand it.  Two of our participants in our house, Chris and Nick, the two twins, could understand this stuff. something about feces next to the front step (which probably came from some kind of animal) and that we were making interior of the house she was renting us a mess.  Finally, Haig explained the situation to her, and she got off our case.

Later on, a new housemate entered into the scene.  A small furry housemate.  For some odd reason, Sarkis, one of the participants staying in the other house, found a stray one-eared kitten and gave it to Chris.  Chris decided (quite contrary to his alleged cat-hating nature)  to keep the cat in the house.  He strokes it, saying "I hate cats".  Except he inserts an explative between "I" and "hate".
  We still do not know what we are going to do with the cat at the end of the trip.  It's probably too young to be able to hunt it's own prey, especially with one of its ears missing.  My guess is that I should send it to my friend Renee who lives in the US, and see what she thinks (Renee, please respond to this blog before this week is over, otherwise I will bring the cat home and give it to you.  Just kidding)

Today we got a chance to visit the area near the border of Armenia and Turkey.  We attempted to get the Russian border patrol to let us into the neutral zone, but a new policy does not allow tourists to visit the neutral zone very easily, so we had to turn around.  We did get to see the neutral zone, and a church just inside the neutral zone.  After visiting the fence of the neutral zone, we visited Gyumri, the second largest city in Armenia.  It is also the same city where Birthright has assigned me to do 5 weeks of unknown work starting two weeks from now.  By unknown work, I mean, they havent told me what I will be doing, and it's 2 weeks before I go there.  It's frustrating.  But Vahan my cousin assured me two weeks ago that this is perfectly natural for Birthright to not tell us anything, as he is an alumni of said program.  Sorry blogreaders for going off on a tangent.  But it is obviously frustrating.

Another note:  new pics are being posted on Flickr.

week one in the village

so, I have arrived at the village of Shirakamut last tuesday, and there is an internet cafe here, which i havent gotten around to using until tonight, which is the following monday.  Here is a snapshot of what's been happening around here:

Tuesday:
We set off for the village from Yerevan.  It took several hours in the bus/van to reach there, and when we got there we had a tour thereof.  Our group is staying in 2 houses, which the villagers had rented out to us.  In our house, there is a sink, several beds (enough for each person in the house, and more comfortable than those in the hostel), and no toilet.  <gross details>The outhouse has merely a hole in the ground, and no toilet seat.</gross details>

At another house is where we eat our meals, and one of the villagers cooks the meals for us.  Further down the road is a market, to obtain more supplies.  It turns out that there is indeed an internet cafe here, so I will be able to communicate through the internet, however, it costs dram (money) so I will be using it sparingly for email, blog and picture uploads on flickr purposes only.  No, i will not be using Facebook.  (Obviously).  I probably wont be able to ssh into JLab systems either (I cannot find SSH or Putty on here).

Even further down the road, about a half mile, is the ruins of an ancient vank (monastery complex), on the side of a hill.  This is where our work is to be done.  The LCO group last year built a retaining wall around it, to cause water to flow around it rather than into it.  Inside the sanctuary is an image of the Virgin Mary and the Lord Jesus, stuck behind which is a small 3-month prayerbook/devotional book titled Z'Hats Mer Hanabazort (our daily bread).  I could tell this was from a few years ago, since it had the days of the week and the days of the month in it, and a devotional for each day in it, and the days of the month/days of the week don't line up this year.  We were told that he sanctuary is actively used by the villagers for lighting candles in there, and for praying, but they don't yet do badarak (mass) in there.  

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday:
Our typical day went as follows:  wake up, eat breakfast, ride in the back of the truck to the worksite, do some work, eat lunch, return to village, free time/take nap, eat dinner, free time, go to sleep, etc.  

work:
Our task is to restore the ruined church/vank, in the style of when it was first built.  Our architect, Arman, determined this to be originally built in the 7th century AD, and then destroyed and rebuilt several times since then.  

First we removed the weeds from the courtyard and sanctuary.  Then, we started the task of removing rocks and dirt from there.  Arman, our architect, told us, medz kar [aysdegh], pokr [yev geti] kar [ayddegh] (big rocks [here], little [and river] rocks [there]).  The big rocks will be used for constructions later on.  Smooth river rocks (geti kar) are not good for construction, except as filler if they are small.  

There are tombs surrounding the sanctuary, the bones in which we are gathering to be buried in another location.  It is a weird feeling, digging up bones of people who may, many generations ago, have been my ancestors.   We have to sift through all of the dirt that we find for bones (vosgo in Armenian), and ceramic (khetsaghan).  The bones are for reburial (as a sign of respect to the dead) and the ceramic shards are taken for research purposes.  

This past weekend:

On saturday, we rode about 40 miles in the back of a truck from the village to see a waterfall, and have a picnic there.  Sunday, we visited several vanks (monasteries) and there was a mass at one of them.  When the mass was over, I decided it would be a good idea to play Hayr Mer (Our Father) on my ocarina inside of the sanctuary, since there was such great reverb.  It sounded awesome.  Unfortunately, there is (to my knowledge, and I have tried to find this online) no word in the armenian language for "ocarina", so several times people asked "inch e?" (what is that?)   to which I had to answer "mi okarina e, mi chinestantsi yerazhdakan gordzik", (it's an ocarina; a Chinese musical instrument).  

I plan on adding more photos to the flickr account, maybe later this week, when I come back to the internet cafe to check if certain people have responded to my emails.  As for right now, gisher bari!  (good night!)

flickr account

Since I have decided to fast from Facebook during the first month that I am in Armenia, I have decided to set up a Flickr account to post images thither as an alternative.  My username there is khentgitnakan.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/65365838@N02/

the first few days: Yerevan

On sunday afternoon, I reached Yerevan, the capital city of Armenia.  Since the details about the flights would not be interesting to the reader, I'll simply not mention anything about it and just move on to the more interesting things:  what has happened the past two days.

Sunday:

When I left the airport, I was greeted by several representatives from the Land and Culture Organization, the group I am volunteering with and they gave me a ride to the hostel, where I later met up with the other participants.  We have a very diverse group of participants, from places such as Los Angeles, Canada, Paris, London, and 1 participant from Virginia (guess who that might be).  

That night, we went to dinner at the Caucasus Restaurant, where (payed for in our program fee) we recieved a buffet-like dinner.  There was lavash (flatbread), dolma (i'm not sure exactly how you describe dolma), khorovats (barbeque), banir (cheese) and other foods there, all at the table for us to share.  

Afterwards, we had some free time and went walking around the city.  I have two friends who live in the city who both did internships at Jefferson Lab, so I called both of them and tried to see if they would want to meet me.  Ani couldn't meet up with me, since she was out of town until monday.  My other friend, Rafayel, had some trouble trying to find me, even when we were using cell phones and I was attempting to describe my location to him.  Well, at least Yerevan isn't nearly as complicated to meet someone in than, let's say, New York City, and we were able to meet up near the Rich Cafe near the Opera.  we walked around, and he gave me a small tour of other parts of the city, including the subway system, which is not nearly as extensive as NYC, or even Washington DC.  There are only 13 stops, most of which are in a linear topology.  

Monday:

In the morning, we visited two historic sites: Geghard and Garni.  Geghard is an ancient monastery built into the rock of the mountain, which was founded by St Gregory in the 4th century, making it one of the oldest monasteries in Armenia.  There were many khatchkhars (stone crosses) all around the monastery and inside of it.  Since there was no electricity at the time that this was built, there were holes in the ceiling to let the light in in all rooms, and in some of them there were candles to provide additional lighting.  We witnessed a madak, a sacrifice of a lamb there.  Most Christian denominations do not participate in animal sacrifices (as Christ's self sacrifice was all sufficient for all time, making repeated animal sacrifices unnecessary).  However, in the Hayastantsi* Armenian tradition (which is not carried over into the Diaspora) they continue to do sacrifices, old testament style. The reason for this is that before Christianity was introduced in Armenia, the pagans used to do sacrifices, and when they converted to christianity, it was hard for them to give up their tradition of doing sacrifices and thus changed the style and meaning of it to reflect Christianity.

Our next stop was Garni, one of the few ancient Roman pagan temples that were still standing in Armenia.  Most of the pagan temples in Armenia were destroyed, with churches built over their ruins, however, for some reason, they didn't destroy the Garni Temple.  There were ruins of a church that was built right next to it, which had been ruined in an earthquake.  (according to the Wikipedia article, the Garni temple was also destroyed in the earthquake, but it was reconstructed in the 1970's.  

In the afternoon, we had free time.  I went with three of the other participants, Mark, Chris and Nick, to a club/restaurant and ordered manti, a type of soup containing small pieces of meat wrapped in dough.  It was very delicious, and I hadnt had manti in several years (my grandmother used to make it some times, before she got alzheimers).  

After we got back to the hostel from there, some of the other participants asked me to provide them with entertainment by singing and dancing and playing my ocarina (a taiwanese musical instrument that there is no word for in the Armenian language.  I checked :) ).  So, I sang some American pop/rap/rock songs, including "Living on a Prayer", "Don't Stop Believing", "Lose Yourself", and even sang for them MC Lars' "Download this Song"

Oh and another side note.  That morning, before we left for the tours, I was greeted by one of the other participants who had arrived I guess earlier that morning.  "Hey Sebouh, I'm your cousin, Vahan".  (I had known previously that I had a second cousin living in Paris named Vahan who was going to be going on the LCO trip, but I hadnt seen him in a long, long time and I had forgotten what he looked like).  

Today, my half of the group will head out to a village called Shirakamut, and the others will head to another village called Yeghvard.  Shirakamut is in the north, whereas Yeghvard is in the south, so it's unlikely that the two groups will meet one another except perhaps if we both visit Yerevan on a daytrip later on.  In the village, we will be doing our work on rebuilding a church that was destroyed in an earthquake some time in the past.  

It is very likely that there will not be any internet in the village, so this may be my last post for a while.  I think we will be visiting cities and stuff during the weekends, so I will be posting then.

*Hayastantsi refers to Armenians who live in Armenia, as opposed to the Diaspora, which are Armenians who live outside of Armenia (such as myself).

Tonight, I leave for Armenia

It begins tonight.  My journey into the past.  Not literally into the past, but into a place connected to my past.  It's an ancient land called "Hayastan" (the name that the people of Armenia call their homeland), where my ancestors came from.  This will be my first time visiting there.  I will be there for 2 months.  The first month I will be volunteering with the Land and Culture Organization in a gyugh (village) called Shirakamut.  The second month I will be in a city called Gyumri, where I will be assigned some hitherto undecided task.

My first flight is at 6:30 AM and I will be on planes and in airports for about 24 hours before I arrive in Yerevan, the capital city of Armenia.