DAN & WHITS GENERAL STORE IN NORWICH VERMONT HELPS SCHOOL CHILDREN IN ARMENIA WITH PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEER

I am a Peace Corps volunteer in Hrazdan Armenia. I teach English to school children in grades three through eight at one of the local public schools, School # 14.  My home town is Norwich Vermont, where I shopped at Dan & Whits almost every day for one thing or another :-)  When I came to Armenia last August I brought with me three or four Dan & Whits reusable shopping bags thinking they might be useful.  In fact, I used them to carry around from classroom to classroom the white boards I purchased for the children to write sentences and do other exercises relating to our English classes.

The Armenian schools are not well funded. We have no electric lights and very little heat in the winter, so the children wear there coats, hats and mittens in the classroom all winter as do I. The blackboards have holes in them as do many of the walls. The only classroom materials the children have are their textbooks and a copy book (notebook to write in). They have nothing else. So, I purchased 13 whiteboards so each pair/table of children would have a board to write on.

Eventually the Dan & Whits reusable shopping bags began to wear out. So, I emailed Dan Fraser and asked him if he would send me more bags for carrying the whiteboards around school. The children actually argue over who will get to carry the bags.  A few weeks later about 20 Dan & Whits bags arrived via the Hay Post :-) So, now I carry and keep all of my school supplies in the Dan & Whits bags.

So, just wanted to say here thank you to Dan Fraser and Dan & Whits for helping the children of Armenia. Your thoughfulness and generosity is so appreciated.

Here are some pictures of the inside and outside of School # 4 in Hrazdan Armenia.

The outside of School # 14 built by the Soviets in the 1980s.  Yes, just one old Russian

car parked there during the school day. The teachers do not 

have cars. 

Inside of a typical classroom . . .

Also thank you to Nancy Osgood and The Norwich Public Library via Nancy for sending me children's books and magazines :-)

I love my friends and neighbors and Dan & Whits General Store in my home town - Norwich Vermont....

LEDJAN - LIFE IN AN ARMENIAN VILLAGE

Ledjan is the village of my LCF (Language Cultural Facilitator) Satanik Papyan. Satanik was my LCF during PST (pre-service training).  She was in her third trimester of her first pregnancy during our PST time and I was monitoring her blood pressure and fasting blood sugar during that time.  Since PST I have visited her and Abel, the baby, and husband Gorg three or four times since last November. This little family also has a small apartment in a soviet high rise in Vonadzor. I have posted other blogs about my visits there.  Now that it is warmer months we visit in Ledjan.

Ledjan is a tiny village in the mountains of northern Armenia just outside of the town/city of Steppanavan.  It is a lovely little village where life has remained the same since Soviet times.  The cows are taken to pasture every morning by one of the village. The old houses each have their own garden and most have livestock. There is one school in the village.  Heat is via old tin woodstoves and usually only one room is heated where the family congregates in the winter months. The bedrooms are not heated. Families have lived in this village for many generations. There are one or two marshutni per day that go in to Steppanavan where one can get a taxi or another marshutni to Vonadzor or Yerevan.

Village life is getting up early to milk the cow and farming all day. Each family is virtually self sustaining for food and subsistence. Most men do not have jobs and if they can they go to Russia for work/labor and the wife/mother takes care of the farm and the children by herself.

I will tell a story in pictures of life in Ledjan.

This is Satanik's mom and dad, Edward and Larissa.

They purchased this home about 30 years ago, 

It is the in the village of Ledjan, where Edward grew up.

The couple first lived with Edward's mother a few houses down 

the road.

Edward's mother, Satanik's grandmother and

Abel's great grandmother. She is in her early 80s. 

Armenian women age quickly due to their lack of

medical care and extreme hard labor in the village home.

Edward's brother, Abel's great uncle, who still lives

with his mother in the village.

Edward and his grandson Abel. Edward is a PhD

engineer with no work in Armenia. So, he is now a 

bee farmer.

Satanik, Abel, and Satanik's brother.

I bought Abel this jumpy chair.  He is also

this weekend getting his first solid food at 6 months old.

Me holding Abel . . . .

View of back yard bee farm and water tank.

Another view of bee hives.

Edward dressed and working with bees

and repairing old hives.

The old smoker thing Edward uses to quiet the 

bees while he is working with them.

The morning I arrived a sheep was slaughtered. This is

the horovats place where they barbecue the meat. This

morning we had the heart, lungs, liver and kidneys. Barbecuing

is called horovats in Armenian.  I could only eat the heart

and liver.... lungs and kidneys were not for me.

Shots of village vodka and salads are had with

the horovats as soon as the horovats is ready. We just

sit outside the horovats shed and eat on makeshift

benches and table.  Neighbors come over and few liters

vodka are consumed with the horovats.

Village road . . .

Village house . . .

Neighbors gardening . . .

Edward's tractor and wagon. . . .

Pig stall in barn . . .They also have a few cows...

Pasture. . . They still use

the very primitive scythe with long blade

and handle for cutting hay.

Marshutni to go in to Steppanavan and/or Yerevan.

Notice the pressurized gas tanks up top.

Back of marshutni...

View of the mountains from a high pasture.  These

must be crossed to get to Vonadzor and Yerevan.

CONTRA DANCING HAS COME TO ARMENIA !!!!

     Contra dancing has arrived in Armenia!!  Before I left for my Peace Corps Service I first called part of a dance at Maine Fiddle Camp, with Bill Olson as my teacher.  After that David Millstone took me under his wing and patiently taught me to be a dance caller. He let me call a few times at the big Northern Spy dances and then took me to many of his summer camp gigs in NH last summer. So, I started 'calling' dances for the children and Peace Corps Volunteers and their counterpart teachers here in Armenia.

     I had to purchase a mic and other sound equipment to make this happen. I brought with me some CDs I purchased at Maine Fiddle Camp of Dudley Laufman so I have recorded music. Sometimes I stand in the middle of a circle of dancers at the very beginning and play my fiddle while I am first teaching the calls. 

     Before I did the first dance I was Skyping and emailing David for advice and encouragement and coaching. I was so nervous before the first dance. I had never in my life called a whole dance - 7 or 8 dances. David helped me choose the dances and also sent me via email some music/recordings I needed. I couldn't have done it without him.
     Needless to say - I am now a very comfortable dance caller for mainly simple contra/barn type dances i.e. Gallopede, Virginia Reel, Snowball, Low Back Car and others. 
     This fall a national caller from Boston, Marcie, is coming to tour in Armenia so she will be coming to Hrazdan to call a dance with me and I will dance with the tour group in Yerevan.

School vacation week we danced every day at the Youth Center...

My site mate, Peace Corps volunteer Jim Daly helps me with the dancing and

the kids love him. He is

in Irishman by birth and loves to dance and hear

my fiddle play Irish jigs :-) He can dance a mean  Irish jig

to say the least . . . .

 

 

I have to have a translator, so my host sister Ruzan

fills that role for me . . .She is in the foreground here...

 

Me calling . . . after a few times the kids learn

the English calls - especially Do-Si-Do !!!

 

First dance at School 14 . . . . my school.

Had about 20 kids :-)

 

Dancing the Gallopede . . . .

 

A circle dance . . .

 

Vahe playing Armenian National instrument, the daduke

with me on fiddle. Even though he can speak no English, he

taught me an Armenian tune to play at the Tumanyan Day festivities

at school.

 

Air is held in the cheek while he plays, so he can breath and

play at the same time....

 

     Playing music and dancing with the children and volunteers is what keeps me going here in Armenia. These are the two things that give me real joy in my Peace Corps service.

 

 





HRAZDAN LADIES' BOOKCLUB

     Hrazdan Ladies' Bookclub had it's first meeting last Wednesday, April 8th.  When I moved into my new little studio apartment in Rykom/Hrazdan there was a request from Ruzan, my host sister that I start a ladies bookclub.  She asked that it be held each week at my apartment with candles and tea and coffee and sweets.  So, I have made it happen.

     We have six in our group.  Two of us, Ruzan and me are fluent in English and four are beginner intermediate to intermediate English speakers. So our members thus far are Ruzan, me, Gayane, Anya, Ani and Anahite.  We will probably add more members as time goes on. 

Reading Heidi. . . .

Check out my cute dishes :-)  I bought colorful

things for my apartment. Outside is so very bleak...I wanted

a cheerful place inside..

So, here we are:  Anya (Russian for Anna), Ani (Armenian for Anna),

Ruzan and Gayane. 

 

Anahite, Ruzan's mother on the right...She came late from

her work as a pharmacist. She works 7 days a week, 8-10 hours

a day for $120 a month....

     Our first book is a child's version of Heidi. I had bought four copies of this book while in Zurich Switzerland last month and make copies for everyone to have a copy. The full novel was one of my favorite books as a young girl.  Each group member reads a page and another member translates. But first, before we begin we reading, we have tea and sweets and talk about our lives . . . . just like my  basketball mothers' book club in Vermont :-)  I try to keep everyone speaking English, otherwise, I am left out of the conversation except for a familiar Armenian word here and there. 

     We had a lovely time last week. This week I will also ask simple questions about the book, hoping to elicit answers in English and in complete sentences.  We'll see :-)

     It is now December of 2015. Our club stopped in late spring when school let out for the summer and started up again when Ruzan returned from the new group of volunteers training in late November.  Here are pictures of our Christmas party when we started up again and then playing UNO and Bannanagrams for New Year's Club meeting in January 2016.

 

Reading How the Grinch Stole Christmas...

And more of The Grinch...

 

Having fun playing UNO December  2015

 

 



POETRY CONTEST IN HRAZDAN

     Each year Peace Corps sponsors a poetry contest for the students of Armenia. Poems are selected for recitation for grades seven through twelve.  Each of the  fourteen Marzes (counties) in Armenia is represented. Each school in that chooses to participate holds a contest and selects a winner from each grade to go to the regional contest, ours being held in Hrazdan. The winner for each grade from that contest will go to the national contest in Yerevan, this year on May 10th. The judges for the regional contest are often administrative staff from the Peace Corps office in Yerevan.
     We held our contest this year last Sunday. I had only one student from my school, Narine, an eighth grader go to the regional contest.  Guess what?  She won the regional contest out of about 10 eighth graders from other schools. YAY!!!! So, we will go to Yerevan for the national contest. 

This is me and Narine and Nellie. Nellie recited too.

 

Narine and Nellie after the contest.....

 

     This year I also introduced music to our regional contest. I played fiddle and one of my eighth grade students, Nellie, played back up guitar for me.

Nellie and me playing before the contest begins  . . . .



 I also had my second grade boys who I heard play at one of our Christmas programs play the Armenian drums. They were a major sensation at our contest.

Hayk and Navagh on the Armenian drums . . .

 

 We all played 1/2 hour before the contest started.

The musicians . . . ..



 I also played at another regional contest in Yerevan with Hannah, another Peace Corps volunteer who plays the flute.

Hannah and me playing at the Yerevan Regional Contest . . .



   So Hannah, Nellie and I will now have a band to play at the national contest in Yerevan... Trying to think of a good name for us. Will let you know when I think of it.  Also I will take our little drummer boys, Hayk and Navagh with us too.

One of the contestants reciting . . . .

 

Me and some of the contestants . . . I don't know them,

they just wanted their picture taken with an American....

Part of my job here :-)

 

All of the contestants at our contest in Hrazdan . . . .

 

SO, MORE TO COME FROM THE NATIONAL CONTEST

ON MAY 10TH !!!!!