une semaine à Paris

Bonjour, mes amis.  Excusez mon français.  Cette semaine, J'étais à Paris pour rendre visite à mes cousins.  Is parlent anglais, arménien, et français.   Avec leur amis arméniens et avec moi, ils parlent arménien principalmente.  Mais ils parlent le dialecte occidental, et je parle le dialecte oriental (que les "hayastantsis" parlent en Armenie).  Nous nous comprenons mutuellement, mais si c'est dificile.  

 J'ai participé à quelques réunions et conférences avec mes cousins.  Leur amie, Ani -une professeure de la langue arménienne aux Etats Unis et restait chez eux en même temps que moi, a fait une presentation orale que j'ai écouté.  Elle a dit qu', "apprendre une langue est ouvrir une fenêtre au monde."  (mais elle a dit cela en arménien, pas en français).   Elle a dit aussi qu'afin d'enseigner une langue aux enfants, un instituteur doit parler avec les élèves, jouer avec eux, chanter avec eux.   Les élèves doivent apprendre à aimer le langue, avante d'apprendre à la parler .

Aussi, j'ai vu la Tour Eiffel, et Le Louvre (un très grand musée ), et l'eglise du Sacre Coeur (Church of the Sacred Heart) et bien d'autres monuments.

Et... Voilà!  Des photos!

un appareil très interessant! 

la Tour Eiffel

Maral, moi, Shushan, et Vahan (de gauche à adroit)

Aram joue le kanon

If I have made any mistakes, comment and correct my grammar, and I will edit it so that it will be corrected on the blog.  Thank you!

**Update***

merci à Achod Papasian, pour ses corrections grammaticalles!  

The end of my internship

Even though i was supposed to have completed my internship at YerPhI on Tuesday (as Wednesday was a holiday and Thursday afternoon I flew out to Paris), certain bugs in my program have caused me to have to bring some of my equipment back to the house so that I could work on it from home on Wednesday.  Thursday I came in to work, so that my coworker Mikayel would be able to drive me over to the airport during his lunch break.    And now I am here in Paris.  

        It's been a fun experience again in Armenia; not only fun, but also very helpful to the people I have been working with.  Until I came, they had never considered the idea of using the language C to program microcontrollers, and had been doing it the old fashioned way, using assembly language.  For those of you with lack of experience in computers, assembler is the Latin of computers.  I came in, and taught them a new way of doing things, and using this new technique, helped them create a control system for a furnace.  

The furnace, the control-board, and power supply system.

     This is in stark contrast to my previous internship last summer in Gyumri, where I did barely any work at all (no offense to my dear friends at GITC).  This time, my work was very important to my coworkers, and I feel a sense of accomplishment worthy of being placed on my resumé.  Perhaps I may be able to come back to work at YerPhI again in the future?  I cannot say yet about that.  

And here, I shall post some pictures from the last few weeks:

I'm riding a horse!  

Mourners gather and lay down flowers at the Genocide memorial on April 24th

Candles lit in the Geghart Monastery (it's not as dark as it looks, it's just that I put the shutter speed very fast so that less light enters the camera.  it looked cooler this way)  

The opera house, and a concert taking place in front of it

Me and my extended host family, only a few nights before I left.

datev, dilijan, ejmiatsin, the past three weekend excursions

Ok, so I've been procrastinating on writing another blog entry.  I've been busy with work for the physics institute, work for my job at Jefferson Lab in the states (especially with the software review coming up), my Armenian language lessons, US federal income taxes, my thesis, very informal French lessons with my friend Allegra, and of course facebook.  So, I'll tell a little about each of the excursions that happened these past few weekends:

three weekends ago:
We went to the castle monastery Datev, which is located next to the edge of a cliff.   I had been there once before (look through my blog history; i think it was on the way back from Karabagh last summer), but it was very foggy last time and I couldn't see the view of the valley below.  The world's longest tramway leads to Datev from the other side of the valley, but we didnt use it because it was out of order, so we just drove there via bus instead.  We stayed overnight at a village, where we cooked khorovats  (barbecue) and ate it with the locals for dinner.

the fortress monastery of Datev

khorovats (barbecue)

sheep on the side of a hill near the city of Goris,

which we visited on the way back from Datev.

A cave near Goris

two weekends ago:

We visited the city/town of Dilijan, saw a museum there, and went to a potters shop.  I made a mug there which I am later going to sinter using one of the furnaces at the lab.  We also stopped by a pond, where we rented paddle boats.  

my friends Natalie and Alex

i forgot the name of this monastery

Because  I messed up while using the wheel and made

a hole in the side of the mug, I continued the rest of it

free-form, and thus it looks more like a sculpture than

pottery.  

this past weekend:
We rode bikes from Yerevan to the city of Ejmiatsin, which is kind of like the equivalent in the Armenian church to the Vatican, and we visited three of the churches there.  (since I didnt have my camera with me, I'm unapologetically posting the ones from the time I did this same trip last summer)

the vestuble of St.  Gayane's church

a painting of St. Hripsime in the church named after her.

my friends who were on the ejmiatsin trip last summer.  None of them were on this trip last weekend.

Now back to work on other stuff.  

Gyumri and Marmashen

This blog entry is kind of late, but I will post the one about this weekend... later this week.

Last summer, I and a few other volunteers lived in the 58th district of the city of Gyumri.  Most of us have gone back home, to the US, Argentina, etc.  There were only 3 of us remaining of our Gyumri group who were still in Birthright two weekends ago, when we revisited this city two weekends ago.

a market area

Our friend Shoghik (who was the coordinator of Birthright in Gyumri last summer) joined us to help give us the tour.   We saw some of the familiar parts of the city, such as the Yot Verk (Seven Wounds) Church, Vardanants Hraparak, etc.  However, there were some places in Gyumri that I had never seen before this trip there. For instance, there is one park in Gyumri where they have two caged lions, a male and a female, living with barely any space to move around inside their cages.  A very unfortunate lifestyle for these creatures.   We decided to take matters into our own hands.  No, we didnt take a hack saw and cut open the cage to free them (although I had suggested it).  Instead, we pasted posters all over the wall around the park (the words on there translate to "Is this life that I'm living?  shameful!")

inside the church of the Seven Wounds (Yot Verk)

Is this life that I'm living?  

one of the lions

After lunch we went to the nearby Marmashen monastery, and relaxed by the frozen-over river just past the monastery.  As is usual on birthright excursions, we threw snowballs at one another.   I also threw some large rocks into the river to see if they would break the ice.  The ice didn't crack, but, Asqanaz, one of our coordinators told me I shouldn't attempt to walk across because he still didn't think it would be safe for me to do so.

part of the ruins at Marmashen

the remaining church at Marmashen

the river (covered in ice and snow)

Even though there were three of us on the excursion who were in last summer's "Gyumretsi group", I was the only one who stayed behind to visit my former host family from last summer in the 58th district.  It was nice to see them again.  I also visited some of my former coworkers at GITC where I had been assigned a volunteer position last summer.  A careful reader who has read my blog entries from last summer will note my careful choice of words in the previous sentence.

On sunday morning,  I attended the church service at the church, and then headed towards the bus station, and then walked the rest of the way.  As much as it felt happy to be  "home" as I walked around Gyumri, the way towards the bus station to leave the town felt sorrowful as I passed through the market area where many things were sold:  fresh fruits and vegetables, souvenirs some appliances, a few bikes built for children, etc.  Finally, I reached the bus station and took the bus to Yerevan.  Don't get me wrong.  Yerevan is a nice city, but it doesn't feel like home to me like Gyumri does.  

The sun setting at the end of the 58th district.

Oh, and on another note, some of you might be wondering about my changed relationship status on facebook.  I had first met my now-girlfriend Kiana while I was back in the US, 4 months ago, which was only two months before I left for Armenia.  Prior to my departure, she and I had talked about the idea of dating, but I told her I'd rather wait until I get back to the states (partly because I didn't want to start off the relationship long distance and 9 time zones away from one another).  We have kept up with one another, talking to each other on skype twice every week, and it became apparent to me that a long distance relationship wouldn't be nearly as bad as I had imagined it would be.  A month ago, I mentioned this to her, and she said she wasn't ready to decide.  About a week ago, she and I were talking again, and she said, if she didn't take me up on my offer now, she would regret it later, and so we decided together that to make it official and public on facebook.  It will still be 2 months till I see her in person though.

lake Sevan.

Lake Sevan:

On Saturday, we went on an excursion to Lake Sevan.  Our first stop was Sevanavank, a monastery built on an island (now a peninsula, due to the draining of the lake in Soviet times in a failed attempt to increase farmable land.  Gosh, freaking idiots!).   While in Yerevan the snow has mostly melted away (hopefully no more snow in Yerevan until next summer), this is not the case throughout much of the rest of Armenia.  There are steps leading up the hill to get up to the monastery, which I have hiked up twice before (once on a previous excursion with Birthright, and the time before was with LCO).  However, you may have guessed why this was more difficult than before.  Yep, snow was covering the steps up to the monastery, making it more dangerous to climb up there.  I went inside briefly, lit a candle, prayed, and left the building.

the way up to Sevanavank

the view from the top of the monastery

 
While some of our other friends were throwing snowballs outside the monastery, my friend Arpine and I went past the monastery, through some areas which were in some places about 2 feet deep with snow to go to the end of the peninsula.  This was her first time taking that trail along the ridge, so I led the way since I had been there before.  On both sides of us was the lake, and if we were to slip, we would probably either die of the sudden break at the end of the fall, or freeze to death from the lake.  At the end of the peninsula is some kind of abandoned house where part of the roof is missing.  We then proceeded to climb onto the roof and take pictures from there, and then trudged back through the deep snow to meet back up with the rest of the group.

snowball fight outside Sevanavank

me on the roof of the building at the top of the peninsula

my friend Arpine also at the top of the peninsula.  

Later on the excursion, we visited the Noraduz cemetery, the Hayravank monastery (which also overlooks the lake) and a nearby hospital, and then had lunch at the house of a family that our coordinator Sevan (who has the same name as the lake)  had only 48 hours earlier asked if we could crash at their place and eat there.  After eating and plenty of drinking (in my case, juice), the family led us to start dancing inside of their dining room with only about two meters of space between the wall and the chairs at the table.  We later got on the bus and rode back to Yerevan, and (this is kind of a Birthright tradition) we were dancing in place in the aisle of the bus while it's moving on the highway.

Some khatchkars at Hayravank

the Noraduz cemetery

Traditional dancing of Armenia

On wednesday night, Birthright held a forum where we learned about the history of Armenian traditional dances, and then got to learn how to do some of these dance moves.  Unlike in America where people dance to have fun, celebrate, or to entertain others, the dancing in Armenia traditionally has very ritualistic and symbolic purposes to it.  There are dances for many types of occasions, some of which may sound unusual to one who is not brought up in that culture.  There are dances that are done for weddings, as well as ones for funerals, dances done by soldiers to prepare for battle, dances done after battle, as well as dances for the whole community to participate in.
Also, there are several taboos on who is allowed to dance certain dances.  Only soldiers are allowed to dance military dances; while at weddings, the guests who are divorced or widowed are not allowed to dance.  Only the "community" dances are everyone allowed to dance.

Also, according to the guy giving the lecture, there has been a historic correlation between dancing before battles, and victories at the battles.   The Roman and Greek empires declined when music and dance lost their meaning and turned towards entertainment purposes.  The soviet union introduced ballet into the Armenian repetoir to break the fighting spirit of the fighting dances.

Completely ignoring the taboos of the dances that he had just given us about who was allowed to dance what sorts of dances, the instructor taught us how to do a military dance, a wedding dance, and a community dance.  Let's see, I don't think there were any soldier among us, so I don't think any of us were supposed to be allowed to dance that dance, but he had us learn it anyways. I don't think there were any among us who are divorced or widowed in our group (this group consists of people who are mostly in our early to mid 20's), so nobody that I know of would have been excluded from that dance. ANd the community dance, of course, everyone was allowed to dance that anyways.

the move

Yesterday at work, my boss Suren told me that he and his family had agreed to let me move in with them, and that they had talked to birthright about this, and all they needed now was my approval.  So I said yes.  Internet at the house + allowed to borrow his son's guitar (I didnt bring my own) + I had met Suren's family before and they are nice.  And so, this morning I moved in to their house, located 15 km from where I was staying at before (I think this is how far it was; if I remember correctly, it's 100 dram per km via taxi).  Ok, yes, it's not close to anything, but I can hopefully carpool with Suren to/from work, and use a marshutka (very cheap mini-bus) to go to the birthright office and other places.  Or I could buy a bike, if I can find somewhere that sells bikes.  

Also, Gevork (Suren's son) told me that I should post pictures inside my blog, so I'm doing that right now.  

my new room

the view from the back porch

 On a clear day, you may be able to see mt Ararat more clearly than you can see it here.  (it is easier to see with the naked eye than with the camera today.  You may have to use a few filters on photoshop to make it more visible)

what I actually do at work: shovelling snow off the roof

Yesterday at work, we had a little meeting about "interrupts" and their usage in microprocessors.  During the meeting, there was an unintentional demonstration of an in-real-life interrupt: somebody came in and told us that the roof had started leaking water into one of the rooms where our important equipment was located.  So, we had to stop the meeting and cover the machinery with protective plastic sheets.  We had determined that this water was from the snow that was melting on the roof, so Suren, Mikayel, Gevork and I went up on the roof to shovel the snow off of there.  We took turns because there was only one rope (one person could be tied to each end of it), and two shovels.  Finally, Suren attached a sheet of metal under the roof to divert the flow of the water, preventing further leakage into the building.  He told me afterwards "the rope is just for decoration, it wouldnt have supported any of our weights".  Hopefully he was just joking about that.

at last, an excursion out of the city

Since I arrived in Yerevan, I hadn't left the city until this past weekend.  Mainly because the excursions had been cancelled two weekends in a row.  Even though it cost me about the equivalent of 10$ to go to three places I had been to thrice before (Khor Virap, where St. Gregory had been imprisoned (I'm not writing Gregory's story again, read my previous posts from last summer) ; Noravank "the monastery with the stairs"; and Areni village which is famous for its wine and for a cave wherein was found the oldest shoe ever discovered), I still considered it worth it to go on the excursion.  I had never seen the hills of Armenian country side so covered with snow.  Our friend Achod, who was staying in Karabagh, joined us for the excursion.  Throughout the excursion, we all threw snowballs at one another.

On Sunday night, I was invited to my boss Suren's house for dinner, and I met his family.  His son-in-law, Mikayel, I already knew, since he also worked with us at the lab.  I also met Suren's daughter, Anahid (who is married to Mikayel), his son Gevork, his grandson who is also named Gevork, his mother, his wife, and his son's girlfriend Armineh.  Hopefully I got the geneology all correct.  The older Gevork, Anahid, Armineh and I were all playing songs on the guitar together, jamming out to "knocking on heaven's door" and other songs.  

tour of the orphanage, etc.

in 1999, my aunt Pam and my uncle Charlie went to Armenia to adopt two twin girls who were only a few months old, named Karineh and Narineh, from an orphanage just outside of Yerevan.  Since they didnt know much Armenian, they got some help with their translations from a lady named Siranoush who worked for the adoption agency.  They have kept in contact with her since then.
.  
Now skip over to the present:  2012.  When I told my aunt and uncle that I was going to Armenia and staying in Yerevan, they told me that they wanted me to meet up with their friend Siranoush, and give her a gift.

This past sunday I met up with her, and she gave me a tour of the orphanage where my cousins were adopted from.  She told me that a lot had changed there since they were adopted.  (I took a few pictures that I will post on facebook at a later point in time.)  This particular orphanage was meant for kids 0-5 years old; once a child is above 5 years of age, he/she is moved to another orphanage elsewhere in Armenia.  Afterwards, we met up with her 15 year old son, Andranik, and the three of us went to dinner at The Club. I ordered a type of soup called manti, which contains small pieces of meat wrapped in dough.

Later on that evening, I went with some of my friends to a concert where my friend Alin from Argentina was singing and playing songs on the guitar in Spanish, Armenian and English.  I invited Siranoush and Andranik to come to the concert, but they wouldnt let Andranik come because he's only 15 years old and the concert was at a bar.

A typical day in Yerevan:

I get out of bed, and my host mother gives me bread and jam to eat for breakfast, as well as tea.  No cucumbers, no tomatoes; those things were plentiful last time I was in Armenia and served every meal.  I put on my inner jacket, my coat, my scarf, my gloves and my boots.  Ready to walk out the door.
The snow falls down, covering the ground to half a meter in height (and counting), except where some brave soul has shoveled it out of the way.  My jacket also gathers snow as I walk to the bus stop, and from where i get off the bus to my building at the institute. A crazy dog barks at me along the way, on the inside of the institute's gateway.  There is a heater inside my office, but it is not very powerful, and I have to keep my coat and scarf on inside.  Welcome to the winter of Armenia.
My boss, Suren, had assigned me to program a chip so that it makes numbers appear on an LED display.  This, being part of a bigger project that I'd be working on for the next 3 months.  I had prior experience with micro-controller programming, so this didn't seem like a hard task.  Suren and his colleagues seem to take an old-school approach to their programming (by using assembly language exclusively) however, with a simple google search, I was able to find the C compiler plugin for the IDE that they had been using, and Suren asked me how to do the same.
After work, I take the bus back to my neighborhood and walk to the birthright office for Armenian language lessons.  Again, getting covered with snow.  During lessons, I discover just how much I have forgotten since the last time I was in Armenia, and how my grammar has degraded.
After that, I get on my computer and, using the birthright office's internet, I Skype with my friend back in the states.  Then, I have dinner with a few of my fellow birthright volunteers and walk back home, walk up to the fourth floor, knock, and my host mother opens the door, and i get ready for bed.  The cycle continues…

The past few days

A lot has happened over the past few days:

Thursday:

Sue and I found the entrance to Platform 9 3/4 at Kings Cross station (it actually exists, see facebook pics).  After writing the Harry Potter books, Kings Cross station created a tribute to the HP series:  a solid wall with a sign that says "Platform 9 3/4" on it, with a luggage cart that is attached to it (to give the illusion that it is going through the wall.  

Friday:

I took the 5:40 AM chunnel train under the English Channel, to reach Paris, where Sue's sister, Ginny lives along with her husband Aram, their daughters Maral and Shushan, and their son Vahan.  (This is the same cousin Vahan whom I had not recognized on my first morning in Yerevan on my previous trip to Armenia).  I only spent one night in Paris (since I would be spending a whole week in Paris on the way back), but it was a fun visit, although it was unusually cold for Paris.  The city is not used to subfreezing temperatures.  Ginny ended up giving me one a scarf for me to keep and to bring with me to Yerevan, where it would only get colder.  We attended a concert of Anatolian music on a docked boat in the canal where Vahan works.  Vahan normally lives in a small bedroom inside the boat, however the night I was staying there, he stayed with us at his parents house, because the pipes inside the boat were frozen and he couldn't take a shower onboard the boat.

Saturday:

after lunch with the family, Ginny drove me to the airport to fly out to the airport.  Flew out to the moscow airport ...

Sunday 

... and from there to the Yerevan airport, arriving at my homestay at around 5:30 AM.  Slept almost all day on sunday (getting up only to eat).  Found out that the next day I would be moving to a different homestay, and failed to sleep most of the night.  

Monday:

orientation, paperwork, blah blah, blah.  Then had dinner with my friend Allegra at the tashir pizza downstairs from the birthright office.  afterwards, i brought my stuff to my new homestay, and then went to another volunteer's house to meet with the rest of the group for a film night.  

Tuesday = Today:

nothing really happening today.  Tomorrow I start work at the Yerevan Physics Institute.  

Got into W&M!, (and update on London

Ok, I had mentioned that I will post when I get into William and Mary, and today, they have sent me the acceptance letter via email.

Updates from London:
Since my last blog update, I have been to three museums (the Horniman museum, the British museum and science museum).  On Sunday, I to the church with Sue, and then afterwards played ping pong with a hayastantsi* guy named Tigran who is about the same age as me.  Two days ago, I went with Sue to her workplace, where she works as an anthropologist, researching the Armenian people.  Last nigth I ate take-out from a fish and chips store, which is basically like a fast food place except that they don't have seats in there and they only have carry out.  I'm going to post the pictures from my adventures in London on facebook soon.  As in before I arrive in Armenia.  I'll let you, the readers, keep me accountable to that.


*hayastantsi = Armenian person born in Armenia, as opposed to spyurkahay, which is what I am:  an Armenian of the diaspora.  

first two days in london

Day 0:  arrived at my cousin Sue's house in London at almost midnight.  Her  16 year old son Stepan was already asleep, as he had school the next day.  My other cousin, Maral, who is Sue's sister Ginny's daughter, was there at the house, but she was going to leave the next morning to return to Paris.  Day 1: slept until around 3:30 PM (due to jetlag), and nothing blogworthy happened.

Day 2 was when things became kind of exciting.

I went downtown with Sue and Stepan.  Stepan and I went to the London Dungeon, which is a sort of a combination between a haunted house and a history museum.  Basically, there are people in costumes telling you about the creepiest, bloodiest, and grossest things that happened in the history of London, but they would also try to scare you as well.  One of the actresses was teaching us about how she tortures people, and showing us the tools she uses for that.  Featured in this tour were the plague, some stuff about the 1666 London Fire, Bloody Mary, and of course, Jack the Ripper.  While being full of things that startle people, it was also very interesting from a historical perspective as well.  Props to Kiana for having suggested that I go there.

That evening, Sue and I went to a viewing of a short film.  I forget the name of the film, but it was about an Armenian oud player named Armenak who goes to Istanbul to search for a lost piece of his family history.  Initially he hates the city, for what it reminds him of in his family history (for what happened there to his grandfather in the genocide).  In the city, he finds the house which used to be his grandfather's oud shop, (his grandfather was a master oud-maker), and becomes friends with the Turkish woman and her daughter who live there.
After the film, we had a discussion panel about the film, and what it represents.  The audience consisted of both Armenians and Turks alike.  The director, and the lead actor were both there.  Sue was leading the discussion panel.  Many topics were brought up about relations between the Turkish and Armenian people.  The film, which was made by a mix of Armenian and Turkish people, required the crew, including the director himself, to come to terms with both sides of the issue at hand.  I learned some very interesting things from this.  First, all of the most respected Turkish scholars agree that the Genocide did take place.
Secondly, there was a lot I didn't know about the late Hrant Dink, an Armenian journalist who was a citizen of Turkey, who was an advocate of reconciliation of the Armenian and Turkish people, and was assassinated in 2007 by a nationalist.   What I didn't know was that while he advocated Turkish recognition of the genocide, he opposed the movements of the diaspora trying to make other countries such as the US and France recognizing the genocide.  His views on the foreign recognition of the genocide alienated him from other Armenians.  His reasoning resounds what Tip O'Neill said about how "All politics is local"*.  It's Turkey's responsibility to recognize what they had done.  Not America's.  Not the UK's.  Not France's**.  No, it is Turkey's responsibility.

*What Tip O'Neill meant to say was "All politics is loco".  just kidding
**Rant about the recent French legislation pending since it is 3:34 AM here and i need some sleep.  Tomorrow I'll probably post the rant about the french legislation as a comment to this entry.  

the blogging resumes/return to Armenia

When I returned from Armenia, I claimed that that would be my last blog entry.  However, I have decided to go back to Armenia again this spring semester.  I am currently in the Dulles Airport in DC, 1 hour exactly from departure, on my way to London, where I will be visiting my relatives for a week on the way to Armenia.  This time in Armenia, I will be there for a little over 3 months, (adding  the time in London on the way there, and the time in Paris on the way back, and a conference in NYC immediately after returning to the states, it totals to being gone for 4 months).  I am going to try to figure out a way to change the title of the blog to something more general than "Hayastan: summer 2011" to something more general like "my journeys across the world," except less cliché, while keeping the same URL on blogspot that I currently have.  I will post more at a later point in time.

What has happened since my last journey?
1)  I have applied to the college of William and Mary, and will find out first week of February if i get in.
2)  I continued my work at Jefferson Lab.
3)  I found out that my masters thesis requires more revisions than could be done prior to leaving for this trip, and therefore I will have to work on revisions while in Armenia, and then defend it when I get back.
4)  I became very good friends with a very nice young lady named Kiana, whom my aunt had introduced me to (or, to borrow the colloquialism, "hooked me up with".  lol.)
5)  I went to New York City on a mission trip last weekend to hand out food and clothes for the homeless.
6) J'ai appris un peu du français avec une livre que j'ai acheté de mon vasin à une vente de garage pour deux dollars.

#6 was a very good investment, and it will come in handy when I am à Paris.  Noctis Wolf, whom I haven't met in person in a little over a year, claims there is a conspiracy behind #6.  I will make mention on this blog as well as on facebook as soon as get into W&M.

And I am posting this right before I get on the plane.  

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?