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.