Friday, April 30, 2010

Just a normal day...

I went to visit my host mother, Ruzan, at her store today. She works at a place that is for the most part a butcher shop, but they also sell other food items and until recently were also selling gold jewelry. I once and a while stop by her store as it is on the way to the aftogayan where I catch mashrutkas to Yerevan. I came in and sat down while her and she boss, Armen, were grinding meat. I offered to put on some coffee for the three of us. While I was waiting for the little plita to heat up our teeny tiny cups of coffee, fresh meat was delivered to the store. I've never been too excited about buying meat in this country as you may see from the above photo. It usually sits around all day like this, sometimes on a piece of cardboard. Then, when you order it they chop it up on a large wooden block with an axe. My uncle is a butcher and I know how cutting meat is an art to be perfected. But here, you have to be careful when you eat meat because there are always shards of bone embedded in the flesh. Also, they aren't too concerned with sanitizing like we would with raw meat in America. They just wipe up the surface with a wet towel (no soap or bleach) and resume cutting on the same surface all day long, day after day.

This is an electric plita. Every store you walk into will have one of these hidden somewhere so the shop keepers can refuel with coffee periodically throughout the day.

Our mismatched cups and saucers waiting to be filled with the most tasty slow-cooked Armenian coffee. Armen was telling me that his coffee is so much tastier because it is prepared over low heat very slowly. mmm hmmm.

Later in the evening I returned home and told the events of my day to my landlady, Heriknaz. Their home is just a few meters from my front door. Its nice to be so close to a family, and also very amusing. Heriknaz is from the village Getap and, like many Armenians, has only traveled to a few places within the country. She is a very simple minded woman, but is always curious about what crazy American things I am up to at all times. He has asked me before if, when I had a horse, did I milk it? And, if I knew how to count Armenian money. 700 dram, do you know what 70o dram is?

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Mersum em!

This is taken from the ridge next to my new house. Lately there have been some beautiful low laying clouds covering the mountains and it has been raining like crazy. The semi-desert scrub has suddenly come to life and the mountains around here are just stunning covered in green! Click on the image to see it bigger.

This is a half-abandoned factory near my house.

Mud-puddle dodging. A fine art in these parts.

My teeny tiny neighbor Heriknaz. She sits on the steps and watches her husband, Samvel, remodel the structure by my house. By the end of the summer, there will be three more rooms, just like mine, that will house university students. Always a construction project going on here...

Yeghegnadzor Media Center

Check out the new blog I created for the Yeghegnadzor Media Center that my counterpart and I will be opening soon: http://yeghmediacenter.wordpress.com/ . It is VERY basic right now, but as soon as we start lessons and get money to buy equipment, we'll be on the ground running very soon! It is written in Armenian, but there will be photos and videos to view as well. Enjoy!!

SunChild event at Tsitsernakaberd

SunChild had all the clubs from the regions gather at Tsitsernakaberd in Yerevan (genocide memorial and museum) this weekend to help recycle all the flowers that had been left there after the genocide remeberance day.

We plucked the petals off the flowers and laid them out on long strips of canvas in front of the memorial.

It was quite a beautiful and collective effort.

There were about 3-4 tons of flowers that had been placed there. Usually, every year the flowers are just thrown in the landfill. So SunChild suggested we have the children pluck off the petals and separate the plastic from the greens. We then collected all the stems and leaves and put them in a large compost pile. We were there all day and hardly even got half-way through the pile.


It was a great idea, but a huge effort!

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Genocide Memorial Day

Today, April 24th has been designated as the Armenian Genocide Memorial day. Last night, Jon Henni and I joined some students from the universities in Yeghegnadzor for a candle-lit march to the memorial up on a hill above the city.



The pastor said, Armenia may be small but our problems are large and we must all work together to solve them.