Huh, I had a whole bunch to talk about when I sit down and wrote this, and now I am having a hard time coming up with anything. Wait for it…
I feel like I have already talked about my birthday, so we are going to skip that and move on. I went on an ‘excursion’ Sunday with all of the teachers from my school. It was huge. We put 17 people in a marshootney and drove around from 9:30 in the morning till 12:15 the next morning. It started out well enough. We first stopped at Hirpsime Church. That was interesting because I had never been before, and was pretty beautiful. They keep the body of Hirpsime there (in a tomb, of course) and you can go and visit it and leave flowers and stuff. It was a busy place. Then we made our way to Edjmiatsine. It was the same as the other few times that I have been, with one exception. They were handing out a type of communion that day. It looked like the Catholic communion, but all broken up into little bits and pieces. The ceremony was also very different. It was short and performed by a priest (I am assuming) and then after he leaves an alter boy like person stands at the front of the church and people walk up to receive it. There is no order to it though, and anyone can walk up and ask for it. Something else that was interesting was that it could only be put on the back of your hand, and not in your palm like the Catholic communion. I asked the server why (that’s right, in Armenian) and he said that it was because you work with the palms of your hands, so they are dirty, while the backs of your hands are clean. Now granted, he also answered me in Armenian, but I am pretty positive that was what he said.
After Edjmiatsine we walked to another church (I don’t remember the name) and here we crashed a wedding. Yea, you read it right, we crashed a wedding. Apparently it is not a big deal in Armenia though, because other people walked in right along with us. That got kind of awkward for me though, especially when we had to walk out as all the wedding guests were lining up outside the doors to through rice and flowers as the newly married couple walked out. It was also at this church that my migraine started. Granted, it is partly my fault because I did not eat much for breakfast, but the heat and the bumpy rides were also contributing. The next place we went to was Garni. I had been before and so knew the background about it being the only Hellenistic temple left in Armenia. It was nice to look around again, but the group picture taking got a little out of hand and that combined with my migraine made me a bit cranky.
After Garni, we drove to Gerhard and parked the marshootney around 6 pm. We, after much deliberation, picked our picnic spot and sat to eat. Now, this was the first time we had anything real to eat all day, and I was starving. The problem…all of the food had been sitting in the sweltering marshootney all day. I settled on eating a couple of slices of potato and one piece of chicken. The salads and other food I just could not bring myself to eat, knowing I would regret it later. After eating, we went into Gerhard and walked around for a bit. As always, Gerhard was amazing, but by the time we left around 9:30 my head was pounding again and I was very excited to get home and crawl into bed.
I fell asleep 10 minutes after we pulled away from Gerhard, despite the bumpy ride. Unfortunately for me I woke up a little less then an hour later to the action of the driver pulling the marshootney over, why?, because it had run out of gas. I almost cried. After waiting about 20 minutes, a big construction truck came and towed us to the gas station. This is not like filling up your tank in America though. When you fill up tanks in Armenia, everyone needs to get out of the car and wait outside. Well, it was cold…very cold. After about 20 minutes we all piled back in, and I finally walked up to my doorstep around 12: 15. My head hit my pillow and I was out…the next day of work when anybody was asked ‘how are you?’, their response varied from ‘very tired’, to ‘sore’, and ‘sick’.
Despite all of the mishaps, I am very glad that I went. It gave me a chance to get to know the teachers that I will be working with and it was my first big outing where I was the only English speaker. I feel like that day alone helped bump up my Armenian skills.
I should also mention that since Monday I have also been ‘teaching’ the Sunchild children everyday from 3 to 5:30ish. We have been making paper mache masks to get ready for the big festival that is coming up in October (pretty sure I already mentioned it) and thankfully, working with paper mache doesn’t require too much Armenian. I think that the kids have been enjoying it, and have discovered that children all around the world behave the same, no matter what language they speak.
Hopefully I will be getting some pictures up today (I am working on sizing them) and as usual, I miss you all and can’t wait to see you at Christmas. 103 days and counting…
Oh, and to all my family…thank you very much for all your birthday cards and presents. I loved the cards and the presents are already coming in handy! I miss and love you tons!
And as a final note, no work today! We have a meeting where all the volunteers in my area get together and talk safety stuff. Very exciting. Myself and another volunteer are going to cook lunch. You can bet we are making somthing without salt or ghee!
Brit F- Thank you for the birthday box! The fish bracelet is great! Reading the letters made me laugh out loud. I love it!
Lor- We need to get better at this game.
Sarah Z- lady, you best email me in the next few days...I am going to try and give you a call to
Aunt Mary- not sure what happened because the address was right, if it happens again I will talk to the PC
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