Sore sore sore
Hello all! (this will probably be a long entry, be warned! :))
Greetings from Armenia, as usual. The last few days have been pretty good around here. Thursday and Friday I didn't have to go to work, so Pifer and I had a few adventures. Thursday we visited the Matenadaran - the museum of Armenian manuscripts - and went to Armenian lessons at Birthright. The Matenadaran was very interesting - Armenians have such a rich history in the area of illuminated manuscripts, writings, maps, etc. They're beautiful! For dinner a bunch of us went to New Beijing, a chinese restaurant not too far from our apartment. There's just one cook and he's Chinese, so dinner was actually very good! I didn't get sick, either, so I think this will be a place we visit again.
On Friday Pifer and I took a cab to the neighborhood in Yerevan called Nor (new) Sepastia to visit the Sepastia Educational Complex. The 2006 Hye Hop donation went to this school, and it was great to have the opportunity to visit it. We had a spectacular time with the teachers of the school and also with the kids. It's actually a really neat place - it obviously needs some help with the building maintenance and whatnot, but the facility is covered with artwork, has a lot of gardens, and the kids are so excited to be there.
Even though it's summer right now, there are still some preschool/kindergarten ("mangabardez") kids around. After having some watermelon, honeydew, and coffee, Digin Veronica and Gohar took us to a theater-type room and the kids sang and danced for us. Then they invited us to join them - Pifer's bum foot and all - and we Armenian danced around the room with the kids. Then, all of the sudden the lady at the piano started playing the CHICKEN DANCE. Yes, the chicken dance - you know exactly the one. So Pifer and I were laughing our heads off as we spun around the room with the kids and did the chicken dance - I think they were as surprised that we knew it as we were surprised that they did.
Digin Veronica, the woman who founded the school about 40 years ago, and her daugther Kohar showed us around the facility and then took us upstairs to see the computer room where our money will be put to use. Someone will be donating several computers to the school, so with our $3000 they will buy the chairs and tables, remodel and paint the room, and make other modifications to make the room ready for computers. It should all be done in September!
Pifer had to go back to town to teach an English class, much to their chagrin, so I stayed behind and ate lunch with the ladies. I must add at this point that none of the people we were with at this school spoke English, so Pifer and I made good use of our Armenian skills to communicate with them. I'm sure I sounded stupid at times, especially after Pifer left me to fend for myself, but we were able to talk about the Armenian club, my family, the earthquake, etc. It was such a wonderful day. We'll be going back later this summer before we go home because a few of the other UM kids here in Armenia want to see the school, too.
Friday evening we participated in a Birthright "Havak" and joined the NGO Makoor Yerevan (Clean Yerevan) to clean a park near the President's house. We were in the park for about an hour and did a darn good job getting all the trash out of there. Hopefully it made a difference and will stay clean for a while!
Yesterday, Saturday, we really had an adventure. Each weekend Birthright organizes trips around Armenia so we get the chance to see the country. Saturday about 30 of us went to the Northeast of Armenia to the Tavush region near the city of Dilijan. This area of the country is known as the Armenian Switzerland because of the beautiful green mountains and wonderful scenery. We started at Barz Lake and hiked for 3 hours to Goshavank monastery. We stopped about halfway through at the top of our climb (it was pretty far up) to eat our sandwiches (yay for sandwiches! how I miss them!). Then we hiked downhill for the rest of our trek and ended up walking through the village of Gosh to the monastery.
The hike itself was gorgeous - through fields of wildflowers, over creeks, beautiful mountain scenery, lots of mosquitos... Ok, maybe the mosquitos and bugs were pretty irritating since they didn't seem to respond as well to American bug repellant. Oh well. I have one huge mosquito bite and a scratch on my leg from some plant, but it's ok. Pifer made it the whole way on his poor foot. I think it was worth it for him, though, because at the top of the mountain we saw people harvesting wheat and right now he's studying the poetry of Varoujhan that has to do with that very activity!
Goshavank was a pretty incredible place. The monastery was built in the 11th and 12th century and has some wonderful examples of khatchkars (stone crosses). It looks and feels so incredibly old with so much history. I loved being there!
After Goshavank we went to another nearby monastery tucked in the mountains called Haghartsin. You can walk from a set of khatchkars along a path in the trees to the monastery, and it was very peaceful there. This is another old monastery, I think 11th/12th c. as well with several chapels on site. In St. Stephen's chapel where I lit some candles, it turns out that this is where the hymn Khoroot Khorin was written. The vicar of the Tavush region (I think he was a bishop) came into the bigger church with us to say a few prayers then talk to us about our role here in Armenia. He seemed very happy to meet with us and wish us well in our "journey of self-discovery" in Armenia. Apparently he was born in Beirut and hasn't been there since 1977. Ironically, he was set to visit Beirut for the first time since 1977 next week. Thus, he urged us to love our neighbors and live each day to the fullest by taking advantage of all the opportunities presented to us over the years.
By this time, we were all pretty tired. But, they took us next to a restaurant tucked into the mountains for dinner. It took probably about 2 hours for us to eat and the menu reminded me and Pifer of our Habitat meals in Yeghegnadzor quite a bit since we had lavash, greens, cheese, lebne, khorovadz... for dinner once again. Most everyone slept in the vans on the way back, and we finally rolled into Yerevan about 9:30pm. We trudged back to the apartment (I stopped to buy juice and fruit from the store - yum!) and fell into bed. 7 kilometers hiking up and down a mountain really takes it out of you!
This next week should be good. Hopefully things at work will pick up and I will be much busier than I have been. Depending on how much work the firm has for me, I may be picking up a second job this week which could potentially be interesting. We'll see how that goes. As for today, Sunday, I'm just taking it easy, and then Pifer and I will be visiting with Prof. Libaridian at 6! This should be a lot of fun - we've been looking forward to seeing him since we got here.
Miss you all! I'm looking forward to your updates from home. Love, Sara :)
Greetings from Armenia, as usual. The last few days have been pretty good around here. Thursday and Friday I didn't have to go to work, so Pifer and I had a few adventures. Thursday we visited the Matenadaran - the museum of Armenian manuscripts - and went to Armenian lessons at Birthright. The Matenadaran was very interesting - Armenians have such a rich history in the area of illuminated manuscripts, writings, maps, etc. They're beautiful! For dinner a bunch of us went to New Beijing, a chinese restaurant not too far from our apartment. There's just one cook and he's Chinese, so dinner was actually very good! I didn't get sick, either, so I think this will be a place we visit again.
On Friday Pifer and I took a cab to the neighborhood in Yerevan called Nor (new) Sepastia to visit the Sepastia Educational Complex. The 2006 Hye Hop donation went to this school, and it was great to have the opportunity to visit it. We had a spectacular time with the teachers of the school and also with the kids. It's actually a really neat place - it obviously needs some help with the building maintenance and whatnot, but the facility is covered with artwork, has a lot of gardens, and the kids are so excited to be there.
Even though it's summer right now, there are still some preschool/kindergarten ("mangabardez") kids around. After having some watermelon, honeydew, and coffee, Digin Veronica and Gohar took us to a theater-type room and the kids sang and danced for us. Then they invited us to join them - Pifer's bum foot and all - and we Armenian danced around the room with the kids. Then, all of the sudden the lady at the piano started playing the CHICKEN DANCE. Yes, the chicken dance - you know exactly the one. So Pifer and I were laughing our heads off as we spun around the room with the kids and did the chicken dance - I think they were as surprised that we knew it as we were surprised that they did.
Digin Veronica, the woman who founded the school about 40 years ago, and her daugther Kohar showed us around the facility and then took us upstairs to see the computer room where our money will be put to use. Someone will be donating several computers to the school, so with our $3000 they will buy the chairs and tables, remodel and paint the room, and make other modifications to make the room ready for computers. It should all be done in September!
Pifer had to go back to town to teach an English class, much to their chagrin, so I stayed behind and ate lunch with the ladies. I must add at this point that none of the people we were with at this school spoke English, so Pifer and I made good use of our Armenian skills to communicate with them. I'm sure I sounded stupid at times, especially after Pifer left me to fend for myself, but we were able to talk about the Armenian club, my family, the earthquake, etc. It was such a wonderful day. We'll be going back later this summer before we go home because a few of the other UM kids here in Armenia want to see the school, too.
Friday evening we participated in a Birthright "Havak" and joined the NGO Makoor Yerevan (Clean Yerevan) to clean a park near the President's house. We were in the park for about an hour and did a darn good job getting all the trash out of there. Hopefully it made a difference and will stay clean for a while!
Yesterday, Saturday, we really had an adventure. Each weekend Birthright organizes trips around Armenia so we get the chance to see the country. Saturday about 30 of us went to the Northeast of Armenia to the Tavush region near the city of Dilijan. This area of the country is known as the Armenian Switzerland because of the beautiful green mountains and wonderful scenery. We started at Barz Lake and hiked for 3 hours to Goshavank monastery. We stopped about halfway through at the top of our climb (it was pretty far up) to eat our sandwiches (yay for sandwiches! how I miss them!). Then we hiked downhill for the rest of our trek and ended up walking through the village of Gosh to the monastery.
The hike itself was gorgeous - through fields of wildflowers, over creeks, beautiful mountain scenery, lots of mosquitos... Ok, maybe the mosquitos and bugs were pretty irritating since they didn't seem to respond as well to American bug repellant. Oh well. I have one huge mosquito bite and a scratch on my leg from some plant, but it's ok. Pifer made it the whole way on his poor foot. I think it was worth it for him, though, because at the top of the mountain we saw people harvesting wheat and right now he's studying the poetry of Varoujhan that has to do with that very activity!
Goshavank was a pretty incredible place. The monastery was built in the 11th and 12th century and has some wonderful examples of khatchkars (stone crosses). It looks and feels so incredibly old with so much history. I loved being there!
After Goshavank we went to another nearby monastery tucked in the mountains called Haghartsin. You can walk from a set of khatchkars along a path in the trees to the monastery, and it was very peaceful there. This is another old monastery, I think 11th/12th c. as well with several chapels on site. In St. Stephen's chapel where I lit some candles, it turns out that this is where the hymn Khoroot Khorin was written. The vicar of the Tavush region (I think he was a bishop) came into the bigger church with us to say a few prayers then talk to us about our role here in Armenia. He seemed very happy to meet with us and wish us well in our "journey of self-discovery" in Armenia. Apparently he was born in Beirut and hasn't been there since 1977. Ironically, he was set to visit Beirut for the first time since 1977 next week. Thus, he urged us to love our neighbors and live each day to the fullest by taking advantage of all the opportunities presented to us over the years.
By this time, we were all pretty tired. But, they took us next to a restaurant tucked into the mountains for dinner. It took probably about 2 hours for us to eat and the menu reminded me and Pifer of our Habitat meals in Yeghegnadzor quite a bit since we had lavash, greens, cheese, lebne, khorovadz... for dinner once again. Most everyone slept in the vans on the way back, and we finally rolled into Yerevan about 9:30pm. We trudged back to the apartment (I stopped to buy juice and fruit from the store - yum!) and fell into bed. 7 kilometers hiking up and down a mountain really takes it out of you!
This next week should be good. Hopefully things at work will pick up and I will be much busier than I have been. Depending on how much work the firm has for me, I may be picking up a second job this week which could potentially be interesting. We'll see how that goes. As for today, Sunday, I'm just taking it easy, and then Pifer and I will be visiting with Prof. Libaridian at 6! This should be a lot of fun - we've been looking forward to seeing him since we got here.
Miss you all! I'm looking forward to your updates from home. Love, Sara :)