Mid-Service and Life in Gyumri

This past week was significant as it marked the completion of half my Peace Corps service. We had a three-day conference at an Armenian sports resort, which we shared with the Armenian weight-lifting team (I was surprised at how short they were) and some wealthy families whose children (about 6 – 10 years old) were involved in competitive sports. (Crazy!) My team, the A-17s (17th group in Armenia), competed against the A-18s in kickball. We won, of course. The resort had a wonderful Olympic size swimming pool and I was in heaven as I kicked and pulled down the lanes. I was the only one with goggles and so was the envy of the other swimmers. The rooms were very nice. The food was really terrible. When I leave this country I never want to see another hot dog or processed meat in my life!

To add to my misery about processed meat that mainly comes from Russia, I was reading that when Australia culls its kangaroo herds and camel herds (that’s right) the Australians won’t eat the meat and so they send it to Russia for … processed meat! Now the European Union wants all meat products identified by source (Australia) and type (camel) so Russia most likely won’t be able to sell meat in Europe but they still will be able to in Armenia where there is almost no labeling on food products. I feel like a snob as I write this. I just want to know what I’m eating!

At the mid-service conference we had a language test (I did well), a physical exam (I’m in excellent health), and we got new water filters. The water filters are significant because there was a lot of discussion about water. My old one is really disgustingly dirty with lots of unidentifiable things in it. I now throw a capful of bleach in the water when I change it to keep the slime from growing. Ingesting bleach may kill me. Two of the volunteers were complaining about worms in their water filters. The water that comes out of my faucet is observably dirty. In spite of all this I have never heard stories of Armenians sick from the water.

After I moved into my new apartment, and spent too much time crowing about my water pump and access to water, my neighbor downstairs complained about the pump noise and cut the power cord to the pump. So my landlord moved the pump up to my kitchen where the noise and whine of the pump makes my teeth ache when I switch it on. Now I have water without the pump from 8 – 9 pm when the city turns it on, and I periodically have water with the pump when there is water “in the system.” I don’t really know what this last statement means. In Armenia 95% of those who study English at the university level are women. Armenian women know nothing about anything that has to do with “traditional” male fields, including household water pumps. So I need to find an English-speaking Armenian male who knows about water pumps. The task feels impossible. Right now I have a small tub full of soapy towels that I need to rinse out and hang before 8 pm tonight!

I have made many trips to the local hardware store with lists of things I need like two short screws, ten tiny screws, shelf paper, small piece of linoleum, paint, etc. Yesterday I needed two larger screws to hang a heavy mirror. (I am fortunate in that a friend sent me a selection of nails so I don’t have to deal with those.) Of course I did not study any of these words in language class so I need to study-up before I can go to the store. When I get there, the three men working there always jointly help me out as I realize that Armenian women never go to the hardware store and I’m an oddity. My Armenian amuses them. I know that “shelf paper” is not really made up of shelf and paper in Armenian.

Armenians never live alone. A male is not capable of taking care of himself. Some of our male volunteers don’t even have to do their own laundry because their Armenian host mothers know that they aren’t capable. (Just this last week one of our volunteers was commenting that she went over to her neighbor’s home to drop something off and the woman was spoon-feeding her two sons, eight and ten, because they “would not eat if she did not feed them.” If they were girls, she would let them go hungry.) It is very common to have three generations sharing a house. So every time I go to the store and ask for just two tomatoes, four potatoes, six carrots, etc., I have to explain that I live alone and can’t eat more. Then the sympathy starts: You live alone? Poor thing. (They don’t say this but I feel it.) So the two tomatoes, four small potatoes, and six carrots, which I bought yesterday for soup for 60 cents, left three women shaking their heads in concern for my singleness.

We received a group e-mail a few weeks ago about a used bus that a US government agency was giving away, did anyone want it? I immediately e-mailed back that I wanted it for the Shirak Regional Library, which serves five district libraries and 127 communities, as a book mobile. The library does not have a vehicle and they have to go by taxi to reach their regional branches. The PC told me that my idea for the bus was the best one they received. Someone at the Peace Corps suggested that I contact another NGO (Civilitas) which does library support about outfitting the bus, and then I found out that we have a new older volunteer with a masters in library science and lots of library experience. I e-mailed Civilitas which told me that the library had only received minimal funding because the director does not have a clear idea or plan about what he wants to improve. (This library is a miserable place and it serves thousands of people.) So I re-visited Gevorg, the library director, and told him about the bus. He was incredibly excited. Then I told him that I might be able to get additional help and funding for this project. He kissed and hugged me and ordered coffee. I talked about this project with the two volunteers remaining here and we decided that we would enroll the three new volunteers and make improving the library a group community project. I’m excited because this is a real need in this community.

So I’m in the fifth week of living in a fourth floor apartment. I go down and up at least three times a day and am getting stronger. I marvel at the three families on the fifth floor who all have small children to tote up and down. There are no buildings in Gyumri over five stories tall because there are no elevators or escalators and, under Soviet rules, buildings over five stories have to have elevators.

Gyumri has a lot of homeless dogs. During the day they are nearly invisible unless you go by the garbage collection spots where they go through all the garbage. At dusk they gather together and patrol the streets in packs. They don’t seem particularly threatening, but it is hard for me to relax around a pack of a dozen hungry dogs. Then we hear them barking and yelping, as if in pain, all night long. Some nights the cries are really disturbing. In Turkey all the dogs have tags in their ears. Woe to the dog who does not have one. I wish that Armenia would adopt that practice.
This picture was taken right outside my apartment door.  Women open up their family's bed covers once a year and wash the wool inside, then stuff it back in and re-sew the seams.  Right now the neighborhood is filled with scenes like this as the families get ready for winter.  I have contemplated opening my bed cover and washing the wool.  I continue to contemplate.
This is a typical apartment building in Yerevan.  Families own their own apartments and they make (or do not maintain) changes without regard to esthetics or value.  This building has vacant apartments on the top floor (probably the elevator does not work), at least one burned-out apartment, all different kinds of balconies, various painted facades, and various kinds of windows.  It is beyond ugly.
This is my local garbage spot.  The bins are emptied regularly but the area around them is not cleaned.  There were several cats and dogs in this garbage.  Note the dog on top.  Gyumri dogs can perform unbelievable athletic feats to get food. 

Berd and Taxis

Last week I visited another volunteer who lives in Berd, a small town (7,000 people) in northeast Armenia very near the Azerbaijan border.  Berd originally had 32,000 residents in the Soviet era when it was a center for diamond cutting, shoe and clothing manufacturing, and wine and cognac production.  Rebecca was an emergency room nurse for many years in Florida.  She was assigned to an NGO which helps children with disabilities, but when it turned out that they wanted her only to bring in grant money and to teach English (her native tongue is Chinese and she did not feel comfortable teaching English grammar), Rebecca began making the village rounds with a female doctor.  The doctor serves three clinics in neighboring villages.

Rebecca is leaving Armenia this month after two years.  Behind she will leave a medical lab that serves the three villages and a very close friend in the doctor who has relied on her for information and confirmation especially about heart and internal problems.  Armenians are very wary of their poor health care system and often patients only agreed to do what the doctor asked after they received assurances from Rebecca that the doctor was right.  We went to visit the lab, which is currently being constructed through grants Rebecca obtained.  The laboratory equipment has been paid for but is currently two weeks late in arriving.  The major improvement is that Rebecca got the mayor of the village to put in a water line to the clinic.  She threatened not to get the money otherwise.  (The clinic has existed for years without water. Can you imagine a doctor not being able to wash hands?  The outhouse was across the street.)  The clinic will only be able to do simple lab work but Rebecca says that even being able to do urinalysis will be a great help.  The next nearest lab is two hours away.

Berd is heavily forested and hilly, and it was very hot and humid.  It was a total change from dry, rocky, windy, cooler Gyumri.  Across the street from Rebecca’s apartment lived a crowing rooster and many chickens, two oinking pigs, and a barking dog that kept me up all night. 

We left Berd at 8:30 in a shared taxi to return to Yerevan for a meeting.  The taxi arrived a few minutes early, unheard of in Armenia.  Then we began our four-hour trip back to Yerevan on narrow switchback roads that would challenge even the hardiest seldom-carsick passengers.  Our journey was an experience in itself.

First, after a few minutes Rebecca realized that she had forgotten to turn off the water. She had no running water the day before; we had emptied all the buckets the day before and had not been able to wash that morning.  She had turned on the faucets hoping that we would get some water before leaving and then had forgotten to turn them off.  Her apartment would have been flooded when the water started flowing.  So we went back.

Next we stopped to drop off her garbage.  All garbage has to taken somewhere (or people just throw it in the streets or rivers.)

Next came a potty stop in the woods.  Then the driver made another stop to pick some yellow flowers which he said made wonderful tea. 

Then we stopped at a gas station.  This took 25 minutes.  I absolutely cannot understand why it takes so long to put benzene in a car.  Passengers cannot remain in the car, the trunk has to be emptied to access the tank, and the hose is about ¾ inch thick.  It looks more like the hose we use to pump a bicycle tire.  In the meantime the driver picked more flowers for us as we stood out in the hot sun.

Next we stopped for Armenia (same as Turkish, strong tiny cup) coffee at a small roadside stand and sat outside.  I have never seen a take-away coffee cup in Armenia.  Then the driver insisted that we take pictures by a waterfall.

Next we stopped at a statue of a deer because another passenger in our car wanted a picture of herself there. 

Lastly we drove off the road onto a winding dirt road through fields and stopped at a house where the driver bought fresh honey, which had to be laboriously ladled from a cylinder into a glass jar.  Then the hostess had to show us her beehives, which were so sweet because they are near an orchard of mulberry trees.  Miraculously we did arrive in Yerevan 4-1/2 hours later. 

All these stops are typical of taxi rides in Armenia.  Just the week before three of us were in a taxi from Gyumri to Yerevan when the driver took us in the opposite direction to pick up a friend and then took us in another direction to go with that friend to the bank.  After twenty minutes of waiting we hopped out of the cab and grabbed another one to take us back to where we could catch another taxi to Yerevan.  Just as we were shutting the doors to the second taxi, the first driver came out of the bank and started yelling at us.  Our second driver would not take off until we had settled the matter with the first driver.  We explained that we were going to be late for our meeting, but in Armenia everyone is late for meetings so they really could not understand our problem.