Friday morning I was escorted to the appropriate corner to wait for the marshutney to Berd. It was a good thing I was had company to, because it would have been a close call for me to read (in Armenian) the destinations of the passing marshutney as it flew by, in enough time for me to flag it down and pick me up.
I will be honest. The ride was pretty horrible. It took 2 1/2 hours, and 2 children got sick on the floor. It was a very, very twisty ride, as we were going up and down and around a whole lot of mountains. I did meet a nice Armenian boy though, we even had a conversation. It is a little on the shameful side here, but I am American and can get away with it a bit. OH, then I fell off of the marshutney as I was getting off. Made a great impression. The nice boy did catch me though, and then helped me to find a taxi.
When got to Artsvaberd in enough time to catch the last couple hours of the Green Camp that a few volunteers had been running for a week. It was great. The kids did a trash clean up, made masks for Halloween (which isn't celebrated here) and then spent a couple of hours playing games. It was a great time, even though it was freezing.
Friday night was spent just relaxing and hanging out at a PCVs house. It was interesting to see. She had no gas or running water, and had a squatty potty outhouse as a bathroom. She lived in one room of the house, and used a wood stove to heat it. The town had no paved roads, just dirt, which were slippery hills of mud since it had rained. It made me feel incredibly spoiled to be living where I am.
On Saturday we all just hung around relaxing for the first part of the day. It was great to spend time with other PCVs. Around 4 we all changed into our costume, and shortly after all sorts of people began arriving. It was amazing. I loved seeing everyone again, and considering we can't run to iParty, there were some great costumes. I went 80s. Also present were David Bowie, Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love, a dog show enthusiast and her groomer, a Bride-to-Be, and a couple of not so scary looking bank robbers. Halloween candy had been compiled, and the spider rings my mum sent were a big hit!
The next day we took a very squished, long, and bumpy bus ride to catch our respective marshutneys home. I went up to Noyembriyan with my friend David. I slept for the majority of the ride, and when we got there it was decided that we would go hiking. We ended up going over a couple of mountains to see an old monastary. It was a great hike, despite the large amounts of mud. We got to right below the monastary, and it was a pretty steep and rocky hike up. I sat out since I wasn't wearing boots and didn't want to leave Armenia with a snapped ankle. David went though, and we are going to try and go again, a little more prepared.
The hike had some amazing views, we could actually see Azerbaijan from the mountains. Oh, and we also found this great little horavats (BBQ) place/ picnic area in between the mountains. It was great, and we are going to try and plan a winter BBQ/camping trip there.
We got back to his house around dark, and made an amazing dinner. It was garlic stir fry on top of rice, and included the best ground hamburger I have ever had in Armenia. Between David, his host mom, and I, a 1/2 kilo of meat was polished off. In our defense, we had a pretty good hike, and did not eat much that day.
Also learned to play chess, again, that night. I am not very good at it, but held my own. Mostly because my moves were so random and made so little sense, that David had a hard time planning any strategy. He ranted for a solid 10 minutes about it, it was hilarious. It was an early night though, we were tired, and the next morning I was on my home to Dilijan for work.
The weeks are absolutly flying now that I am pretty busy every day. Only 51 days until I visit home, and there are tons of things going on before that. I am going to start teaching on the 15th (for real this time), and for the next few days someone from Yerevan is coming up to help my Sunchild group work on a video about water. It will be a great time. Money is pretty tight right now, but I am going to try and get more pictures up this week. Miss you all!
thanks Aunt Mary for the card!
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