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).
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