March 10, 2010
Armenia is an interesting when it comes to the holidays that they celebrate here. In January, we had Soldiers’ Day, which was a national holiday and so everyone was off. Last month, on Feb. 23, we celebrated Men’s Day, which was not a holiday. So to acknowledge it at school, we had our usual celebration of wine, candy and cakes at our longer break between classes. The school director also gave the three men on staff small gifts.
Luckily I’ve become familiar with how my counterpart runs her classes and we work very well together. Two weeks ago, she had to leave school in the morning due to a death in the family. Instead of cancelling the English classes for the day, I did them by myself. They actually went pretty well, mainly because the kids are used to me by now. With my limited vocabulary I was able to follow the lesson plans and get the main points across. I couldn’t do it all the time, but for one day it was fine.
In fact my speaking ability, while not stellar by any means, is getting better. I’m just a bit more confident now and not as hesitant to try. I can now call my hairdresser and make an appointment over the phone. The phone is hard because the line isn’t always clear, but I do my best. And I can order my own taxi, too. While these may seem like small things, with this language and my limited ability, they’re major steps.
The first week in March is Peace Corps Week. We were each encouraged to acknowledge this in some way at our sites. I decided, since I’m the first volunteer in my village, to have some of the other volunteers in the nearby town come up and speak about their jobs to the teachers and students. I invited an environmental educator and a business person. Unfortunately, at the last moment the environmental person couldn’t make it. However, I think it went very well. I had made a poster depicting the Peace Corps symbol and listed each of the sectors that Peace Corps works in. Andrea, the business volunteer, and I each spoke about our sectors and then about one of the other sectors as well. We also gave a general overview of what Peace Corps is all about, how long it’s been around and how long it’s been here in Armenia. We then opened it up for questions. The kids had some really good questions and overall were very attentive and well behaved. I had worn my Peace Corps pin all week and that drew a lot of attention and questions. The first day I think everyone in the school asked me about it. Next year is the 50th anniversary of Peace Corps, so we’ll plan something a bit bigger.
Last weekend we held a local spelling bee. Each of the schools around Kapan were invited to participate. A list of words for grades 7 through 11 were sent out in October and each school could send 2 per grade level. This was the first year that my school participated and we had 2 from both 8th and 9th grades. One of the 8th graders came in 4th, out of about 12. There will be a regional spelling bee next month, but only the top 2 from each grade go to that. Hopefully next year, we will do better. It’s good experience for the kids, to see how well some of their peers can spell. One of the volunteers,, Danya, from further south came up to help judge and she stayed with me for 2 nights. It was nice to spend time with her and I hope to visit her this spring and do some hiking down by her.
I will be taking an online course for the next 12 weeks. This is sponsored by the British Council, the educational arm of the British Embassy here. The course is for English as a foreign language teachers. I think it’s the first online course offered in Armenia. Since I have internet access at my school, I should be able to do most of the work there. If not, I’ll go down to Kapan and use the computers at Shannon’s office. My main interest in taking this course is to learn about new activities and tasks to use, as well as to interact with other English teachers I might not otherwise meet.
This past Monday, March 8, was International Woman’s Day, which is a national holiday here in Armenia. It was nice to have a 3 day weekend. On Tuesday we had our usual celebration at school: wine, cakes and pizza. They also celebrate Mother’s Day in May. Tuesday there was also a “party.” This is actually what they call their assemblies. This one was a competition of sorts between four sets of 2 students, a boy and girl in each pair. They had to recite a poem, do a dance number, make sentences out of scrambled words, make words out of a long Armenian word, have a fashion show (wearing clothes of the opposite sex), and make a salad. The fashion show was funny. Some of the boys had wigs on, heels, make-up, and earrings. They must have practiced walking in the heels because they did very well. The school director and two other teachers were the judges and a lot of the parents came to watch. I think this is one of the advantages of being in a small school. They can put on shows like this have most of the students participate.
The weather here has been constantly changing. Last week we had snow and cold weather. Over the weekend it was like Spring, with temperatures in the high 60s. In fact over the weekend, I really didn’t need to light my wood-burning stove. However, today it got cooler again and it feels like we might get more snow. I know I can’t complain, especially after reading about all the snow that some of you got this winter. However, your heating systems are a bit better than mine and so is the insulation in your houses, especially since there is no such thing as insulation here. But I know that the cold weather will soon be over and I made it through my first winter here. Things can only get better.