My Neighbor Viola

Viola at the front door to her apartment.

Viola and her fifteen year-old daughter Alice.

I live on the fourth floor of a Soviet era Armenian apartment building that was heavily damaged in a 1988 earthquake, and then renovated in 2002. From my living/sleeping space I look down on a similar three-story building where my neighbor Viola lives. The space that Viola and her youngest daughter Alice live in is approximately 20 feet square. Three-fourths of the space consists of a large room divided by cabinets lined up horizontally, which create two sleeping spaces and a small living area. From the outside you step into a small kitchen/eating area that has a very small bathroom on one end. Walling off the backend of her brother-in-law’s three-room apartment and then cutting an illegal entry door into the tufa stone wall created the apartment. The apartment is barely heated by a small electric space heater, as Viola cannot afford ($220) to run a gas line to her apartment.

Yesterday evening, after Viola spent four hours meditating with a close friend and her father, I went over to visit. Her fifteen year-old daughter Alice has been accepted into a program (FLEX), for high school students from former Soviet bloc countries, to study next year in the US. It’s an exciting time for Alice and her mother and we were discussing the possibilities, and the obstacles.

Viola was born in November 1962 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan into an Armenian family. In May 1966 an earthquake in Uzbekistan led the family to move to her grandparents home in Gyumri after one month of living in the yard outside their Uzbekistan home. Viola went to school in Gyumri, married at 23, and in December 1988 she was teaching school at 11:40 am when a devastating earthquake, which killed 25,000 people in Gyumri, shook the earth. She ran outside, watched a tall building collapse, and ran home to check on her one and a half year-old daughter who was with her husband. Her husband ran to check on her parents who had survived. Days later the bodies of her uncle and his family were found in the collapsed fourth flour of a six or seven story building. Initially bodies were laid out on a public square for identification and left there as there were no coffins. She described the horror and chaos of the situation. Because there was no gas or water the family made its way to Yerevan for two weeks and then returned to Tashkent for one year. The family then returned to Gyumri, lived in a domik (metal shipping container) for eighteen years heated by a wood stove, and moved into the apartment just over one year ago. She divorced her husband in 1988 after he was institutionalized (and still is) for mental problems.

In the meantime Viola earned a doctorate in philology (a type of linguistics centered on written texts, common degree in Armenia) in Russian and English. She has now been teaching for eighteen years and currently teaches at two universities in Gyumri.

Immediately after the earthquake, she prayed for God to help her, realized that she needed God everyday, and that began her spiritual journey; hence, the long weekly meditation sessions. Her spiritual master is an Indian (Sant Baljit Singh) who she met in Crimea (Ukraine) many years ago.

Viola says that her fellow teachers don’t like her, and while she rustles with some discomfort at that statement, in the end, it doesn’t seem to bother her. And this is precisely why I enjoy her so much. In a country where everyone worries about what others say, and everyone conforms, Viola goes against the grain. With her bleached blonde hair, progressive attitude about her daughter’s opportunity in America (few men would let their daughters go), vegetarianism, openness about discussing problems in Armenia, divorce (6.4% of women and 2.3% of men ages 50-59), religious views (93% of Armenians identify with the national Armenian Apostolic Church), un-Armenian name (her father named her after the flower) and not living in a multiple family situation, she is anything but typical. And in a society where women are obsessed with meticulously clean homes, Viola can’t be bothered to keep up.

Viola struggles to make ends meet, though she says that she doesn’t “pity anything in my life.” Her oldest daughter lives in Yerevan, where she is an under-employed university psychology graduate whose biggest concern is that she may have to move back to Gyumri. Her mother worries that her daughter can’t afford heat and was sick much of last winter. Viola has resigned herself to paying bribes to get a visa through in time for her daughter to leave for the US in August. Last week she paid a judge AMD6000 ($17), a significant portion of her monthly wages, to get paperwork related to her husband’s incompetency processed, after being told initially that it would take at least three months. Additional fees to the translator and courts are AMD24000. Both she and her daughter are struggling to learn how they will communicate by Internet once Alice is in the US. In Armenia, daily Internet access outside of Yerevan is rare (and prohibitively expensive.)

Alice’s self-assurance amazes me. At fifteen I could not have done what she is about to do. She currently goes to school when she feels like it, a common practice in Armenia where there are no penalties for absence. She wondered what would happen if she did not go to school everyday in the US; what if she didn’t feel like it? I told her that her host family and the school would have a problem with that. She told me that she heard that students didn’t “help” others (cheat) on tests. (This is the area that probably bothers PC TEFL teachers the most!) I confirmed that cheating was unacceptable. (I could see her mind spinning as she was trying to figure out how that could possibly be so.) And then she is mildly concerned about money, clothes, prom dresses, the possibility of being on a farm, not having access to a large city, not fitting into her host family, etc. She seems amazingly comfortable with her English, often cutting off her mother who tries to translate back to her in Russian, to let her know that she understands. Alice is fluently tri-lingual. I think that Alice will be a charming addition to any American host family, and they’ll be fortunate to have her.

Reporting My Work

As volunteers we have to report quarterly what we are doing. The following is from a report submitted in February 2011 which the PC recently asked if they could publish. In rereading it, I thought it was interesting, so I'm passing it on.

Early last year when my work was slow, I walked into the Shirak Regional Library, introduced myself to the director and asked if there was any way I could help. I was given a complete tour of the library, was introduced to much of the staff, and began a series of Monday afternoon visits over coffee. The library is over-staffed and underfunded by the Armenian Ministry of Culture. It has received very few new books since 1992. In addition the building is not heated and is in need of major repairs. The library needs a new building. The staff needs training in the use of basic programs like Word, Excel, Power Point, and effective use of the Internet. The library is the central library for Shirak Marz (281,000 people) and supports five district libraries, which in turn support 127 villages. The previous new library (open only one month) collapsed in the 1988 earthquake. This "temporary" library has existed since 1992. It was obvious that the library needed almost everything to meet the minimum requirements of a modern facility including new computers for users, heat, lighting, bookshelves, current books on science and technology, a community meeting space, and much more. The director really wanted a van to visit the district libraries for the purpose of training staff, delivering and rotating books, visiting blind and homebound users, etc. A notice came through the PC for the gift of a surplus US Government van. The library request was approved and it has been promised a van as soon as one becomes available through EUCOM HA. The library director asked if I could help with the public bathroom. A SPA Grant has been approved for the bathroom remodel.

Currently I am working on identifying a site for a new library. A woman with connections to a world historic preservation trust will work with me to get funding if the site involves the renovation of a historic building in the Kumairi Historic District of Gyumri. She will also help develop architectural plans for the library. An Armenian American in San Francisco is interested in helping fund a new library. (His original offer was $400,000.) The US Embassy will help if the library creates a center for civic engagement, and especially if the space will be available one evening a week. Civilitas will help if there is a viable proposal for upgrading the library. And several other people have offered their services in site identifications.

I am also working on a particularly promising project with a professor from ASUE-Gyumri who obtained a significant grant, mostly from the US Embassy in Turkey, for promoting cross-border tourism in Gyumri. Included in this project are tourism classes at the university, the development of brochures and maps for Gyumri, and identification of other specific tourism-related projects in Gyumri, such as a student guide service during the summer. Another goal is to contact guidebooks to update their information, setup a website, and work with the Armenian government tourism office to promote Gyumri. Students who are successful in this project will be able to study at the University of Florida and/or at a Turkish university in Izmir. Funds for this travel are included in the grant. In addition a sister city relationship is being established with a city in Florida.

Both these projects are challenging in that neither the library staff nor the students are prepared to go to the next level. In both cases I have had to step back and really help them to achieve our goals. For instance the library director has written a few grant proposals which had no focus or sustainability. It has been difficult to get him to refine his goals and narrow them so that we can achieve something. The students (3rd year college) have no idea how to make Power Point presentations or create brochures. They lack the imagination to just attack the project and it is necessary to give them concrete examples to even begin. I n the next few months I will be trying to have something concrete and sustainable come out of these challenges.

An important thing that I have learned is that, especially in the PC, we are responsible for our own success, so if our primary assignment is not working out it is possible to find something fulfilling to do by introducing yourself to your community. I have had many more opportunities. It has been nice to pick ones that feed my soul

Safety and Security

My favorite person in Armenia on our Peace Corps staff is our Safety and Security Officer. I have great confidence in what he would do to ensure my safety and in what he would do to address any situation I might get into. I have no doubt that if I needed him in the middle of the night, he would magically appear. My confidence is a little unrealistic, but it helps me sleep better. I also think that he has a very tough job. Peace Corps Volunteers have a penchant for getting into trouble.

Sexual assaults have been at the forefront of safety discussions here ever since a 60 Minutes program that suggested that the PC is lax in protecting volunteers against sexual assaults. I don’t know about other PC countries, though I suspect that many of the issues we face here are common in other countries. And many of the issues arise when volunteers do not make adjustments for cultural differences.

Armenia is a country where women marry young (22) to men five years older. The average age at first birth is 22. (All statistics from National Statistical Service of the Republic of Armenia.) Men have two years compulsory military service at 20, which delays their marriage age. When a girl marries she is expected to be a virgin. In Gyumri, because we have a Russian military base with 5,000 men, there are a lot of prostitutes. Many of those prostitutes are Russian. It is not unusual for an Armenian to think that a young attractive foreigner is a prostitute. While young unmarried Armenia girls often dress provocatively, in a way that would suggest to most Americans that they were “easy”, this is almost never the case. When women marry, they often change their dress and hairstyle to be less provocative at their husband’s request. In this country where there is a clear preference for males, men exert macho control over their wives and daughters.

We are supposed to be sensitive to the Armenian culture. This means that just because young Armenian girls dress like tarts, we should not, or we’ll be seen as easy. So the following are some situations we’ve had in-country over the last few years:

• More than one female volunteer has worn tight summer t-shirts (nipples showing), with her midriff exposed and then wonders why she gets unwanted attention. One of these volunteers reported an assault. (In these instances I don’t know why the PC doesn‘t tell the volunteer that her clothing is inappropriate. We are too politically correct. What is acceptable in the US is not always appropriate here.)
• Another volunteer, very pretty with blonde hair, was beaten with a broom by an old lady who was yelling “prostitute” at her.
• Another volunteer was “American” friendly with a man she worked with. He asked her out for coffee and then explained that he had “needs” that his wife was not satisfying, and he knew that she had “needs” that he could satisfy. It became very uncomfortable for her at her worksite. This is not an incident that you could “report” in Armenia.
• A volunteer was dating a young Armenian man; she told him that she was not a virgin, and he went ballistic, broadcasting the ”news” to the whole town to the point that she could not be effective at her site.
• A volunteer living with a host family was “grabbed” by the host father. The PC quickly moved her out of that house.
• There is a Facebook page for new volunteers and I noticed that someone said that you “could” wear shorts in this country. Yes, and you can also go naked. I have never seen Armenians wearing shorts in Gyumri. Also, girls do not play sports where you might see shorts.
• A volunteer went walking alone in the country, was approached by a herder, and was grabbed on the breasts. (Female volunteers are warned against hiking alone. Was this volunteer in any way responsible for what happened to her? I very seldom see young Armenian girls alone, even in this city. They are usually locked arm-in-arm with another girl.)
• A volunteer was out drinking with others, went home with an Armenian, and when she woke up in the morning “realized” that she had been assaulted.
• Another older very friendly volunteer was grabbed by a mentally disabled young man she had be-friended. The incident was reported to the police and the young man’s family, which brought great shame on the family and also made her life difficult. This is an isolated country where men often do not understand how to relate to foreign women. Their “insight” is gained through provocative Russian music videos.
• In this city a group of volunteers had a meal at a high official’s house, where we must have made 100 alcoholic toasts. Then we went to his restaurant. He sat next to a young attractive volunteer, and began fondling her. He did not speak English. One of the male volunteers told her to get up, say she was going to the bathroom, and then to walk out the door; we’d bring her things. We had just been at his house and had talked to his wife, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren. I am still amazed at the liberties he took in front of all of us.
• Two young women, who were hitchhiking, were driven off the road by the driver. They did get away with a good scare. I have never seen Armenian girls hitchhiking. We have been told not to hitchhike.
• A few male volunteers have “dated” Armenian girls. After just a few dates, the fathers want to know what the man’s intention is, and then the choice is marriage or cutting off the relationship. In Armenia arranged marriages are still common. It is very common for couples to marry after knowing each other only two months. I can’t help but think that this brief courtship period is related to the importance of the girl’s virginity on her wedding night.
• We have several wonderful gay volunteers, in a country that does not admit that homosexuality exits. Many volunteers are active on our GLBT (gay, lesbian, bi- and trans-sexual) committee. Volunteers cannot be “openly” gay in Armenia.
• In Gyumri we have a public swimming pool. I’ve been there twice, debating whether to swim. The pool is open to all, but I’ve only seen men swimming. Sunday afternoon the pool is open to women only. It has become obvious to me that it would not be appropriate to swim any time other than Sunday.
• A volunteer in a nearby city asked a few co-workers to a café for coffee. They would not meet her because women “do not go to cafes alone.” Until very recently that was the case in Gyumri. We now have two restaurants where women can go alone. Female PC Volunteers often go to cafes alone, or together. This situation and the following are the only ones I can immediately think of where female volunteers ignore this culture.
• I live alone. This is highly unusual situation in Armenia and leads to lots of discussion. (No I am not lonely. No I am not afraid.) Young women do not move out of their family homes until they marry, and then they move into their in-laws home. Multiple generations of families live together. For many volunteers, especially in towns, it can be uncomfortable to host opposite sex volunteers overnight.

I think that the PC here is very good about responding to sexual incidents. Often the real problem is that incidents arise because of volunteer stupidity, carelessness, or cultural sensitivity. Our Safety and Security Officer has tried to inform all of us of things we should be aware of, and much of the information has been anecdotal. In too many instances the volunteer could have avoided the situation.