Brian looking at some sweet Armenian birds during our bird-watching field trip to Lake Sevan.


And Beth, doing the same.

Vinny and Beth are quite talented harmonica players.

Noravank, which is very close to Yeghegnadzor.

A beautifully carved door at Noravank.

Noravank. The steps that lead up to the room at the top are about a foot wide with no railing to hold on to. I climbed up there, can't say it was easy, or that I wasn't sacred, but I can say it was a great view from there.

This is a little boy who lives in a village called Rind that is very close to Yeghegnadzor. I'm not sure if you can tell but his cheeks are STUFFED full of chocolate, and he is reaching for another. His mother did nothing to stop him, this is pretty typical here! What a life!

This is at Paige's house, a fellow volunteer in Vayots Dzor marz. She lives in Vayk, which is about 20 minutes away from Yeghegnadzor.

Patti and Ben, both A-15s that lived in Vayots Dzor. Patti showed me all over Yegh on my site visit, but she has since finished her service and is living in America.

Some storks that can be seen all over this part of Armenia.

Katie's dad drives the big yellow bus that makes a loop from Karenis to Charentsavan.

Janet and Kaitie.

Janet and I taking a break in the gorge after we met our new host families. We had many such debriefing sessions (usually including a bottle of wine or a bottle of Katayk beer) in the gorge.

Rani and her new puppy Maz. We were glad that her family didn't decide to name him Rex, as there are about 6 dogs named Rex in Karenis.

My host sister, Emma picking cherries. Later that day I helped her to pit about 50 lbs of cherries to be dried later, my favorite!

One of the two kitties I attempted to save from the gorge, they later ran away. I named this one Dahoor, which means sad. You should have heard him whine!

Some lillies in my garden.

My host mother and her lovely flowers. This was taken from the window in my bedroom.

My first meeting with my new host mother, Ruzan.

Ben, David, Janet and me posing for our lovely family photo.

This is the source of a natural spring that later heads to Arzakan then to the Hrazdan river. We spent all day following a creek to find this place. It was impossibly hot that day, only later the weather QUICKLY changed and we had to race down the mountian to take shelter in the curch where we waited for over an hour for the storm to pass.

This is before te mad rush to the church. We took a rest on some rocks a little farther down the mountian to watch a storm clould move over the valley. We quickly realiezed it was changing its path and heading right for us!

Right before we found the spring.

An Armenian cutting grass on a hillside just above Arzakan.

Janet and Don in Teghenik. Yeah, I can read that sign, woot woot!

Janet, Don and some cow traffic in the tunnel we walked through on our trek through the gorge to Arzakan. This was was definitely more scenic, safe and quicker than taking the road, but it was longer than we thought! We estimated it was maybe 6 miles.

Karenis' 4th of July celebration

This, by the way, is the cutest little boy alive. The first encounter we had with this young lad was during a team building event we had in Karenis. He was riding his tricycle up and down the hill, yelling at us and even throwing rocks! After some regulating by some volunteers who could actually SPEAK Armenian, he relented. Every day after this incident the young chap would scream "BAREV DZEZ" (or hello) at us as we walked by his house.

Beth and some cute little girls.

Everyone in Karenis minus myself. Thats the way it goes!

Beth was pretty amusing with these guys.

Maybe the cutest kids ever created live in Karenis? What do you think?

I finally caught her, she really did not want to have her photo taken.

Katie, Rani and Beth playing ring-around-the-rosie with some kiddos.

This little boy was tormenting me all evening asking for my flag. I eventually gave in,a nd told hime he could have it as long as I could have his picture.


This was our attempt at teaching the kids how to play kickball. Well, it really didn't turn out so well, so we eventually played their version of dodgeball, called gorts-a-gorts. In this version one team stands in the middle and the other splits in two and forms a wall on either side and throws the ball at their opponents. If you’re hit by the ball you are out, but if you catch the ball you can bring back a teammate. After every one of us was quickly eliminated from the middle (it was Americans versus Armenians or 8 versus 40), it was our turn to throw the ball.

Making teams.

One of my language teachers, Mary. These teachers are amazing!

Sugar-hungry children begging for chocolate.

Beth trying to run away from sticky-handed children who couldn't get enough sugar. Beth kept yelling "mi rope, mi rope" (one minute, one minute) but to no avail. The only resort was to surrender and retreat.

Marshmallow roasting is a foreign concept here, they just wanted to burn stuff.

Our attempt at having the children make s'mores.

Again, sugar-crazed children.

Some of the prizes from our pinata.



The pinata was ripped open after no one succesfully cracked it open.

Some villagers trying their hand at our impenetrable pinata.





This young girl in the green shirt is apparently a gorts-a-gorts world champion. No matter where she was, seemed to be right where the ball was and she caught it with amazing agility. We didn’t stand a chance. After about 15 minutes our bodies and ego couldn’t take the beating so we surrendered.

The flags were quite popular with the children.

Here's my favorite little Karenis kiddo.

The kids were curiously very skilled at pin the tail on the esh (donkey)

Maybe because they practiced beforehand??

This is a fellow trainee, Brent, who is the most amazing limboer I have EVER met. He beat out even the smallest children!

Janet trying her hand at the limbo, she fell in the next frame. I felt like being nice and not posting that one.

Some of our fare for the evening. Homemade macaroni and cheese, potato salad, pasta salad, hamburgers, and a lovely mushroom and zuchinni tapenade.

Brian and Murazik.

The outrageous 8 kilos of meat we bought for hamburgers. They were maybe the largest burgers I have ever seen.

Some of the decorations that Janets mother sent us for the party.

Patriotic pies!
So, its nearly impossible to find any sort of pie pans in Armenia. I spent ALL day the day before our party baking because I could only find 3 small torte tins to use, and the large pie pan was donated by Liz my tech trainer.