My Fiddle in Armenia - A Peace Corps Journey

Monday, January 11, 2016

DANCING AT CHILDREN OF ARMENIA FUND SUMMER ENGLISH ACCESS CAMP

Each summer, the Children of Amenia Fund (a private foundation funded by Armenian diaspora from around the world) sponsors camps for high school students in Armenia who attend their after school English clubs during the school year for two years. I was invited to come and share about Americanb folk music and put on an American barn dance for the camp in Tsghkadzor. I brought four other volunteers to help me: Andrea Grant, Jim Daley, Brian Badgley and Susan Spano. We had two groups of approximately 50 students. The students loved learning these American dances...

Teaching American folk music...

And in particular, the role the fiddle plays in this music..

Teaching a dance...

Promenade in a circle...

Susan giving encouragement...

Andrea teaching promenade position...

Dancing La Bastringue...

Me calling a 'swing'....

Promenade...

Saturday, January 9, 2016

STORIES OF ZOYA AND HAYKOOSH

    Zoya and Haykoosh are two Armenian women... friends of mine. They are both about 55 years old. Zoya lives in Hrazdan and has a fruit and vegetable shack. She is a widow and has a grown daughter and 5 grandchildren. She lives in a high rise apartment in Hrazdan. She is very poor. She was orphaned at age 5 when her mother was run over with 9 other people at the same time on a street in Hrazdan. Her mother was working with some others sitting on the side of the road when they were all killed by a drunk driver. I believe she was then raised by an aunt with many other children. Her husband died maybe 15 years ago - heart attack or stroke. She survives by selling fruit and vegetables in the shack you see for very little money. She is here from about 9 a.m. to dark every day. In the coldest month - January, she goes to Yerevan to her daughter's house. The fruits and vegetables are obtained by going to Yerevan in the middle of the night on a cold bus/van with others like her to pick up the produce. I wanted to go with her one night and she said no it was much too cold for me and I could go with her in the spring when it got warmer.
     Zoya is warm and loving. Through a translator I told her the story of how I never lived with my mother either. We spoke of how difficult life can be without a mother. But her life is of course so much more difficult than mine.
     On US Christmas afternoon Zoya made me my Christmas dinner of potatoes and salt on the woodstove. It was very special for me. I love her. She is now in Yerevan for a month with her daughter where she can be warmer. Can't wait till she gets back and I can be in her shack with her again...

Potatoes and salt on the pech/woodstove...

These woodstoves are made only of tin and do

not hold a fire very long...

Zoya in her shack...

Zoya... she speaks Russian and Armenian..

Zoya's produce of pomegranates, something orange (I cannot identify),

grapefruit and cabbage and oranges..

Haykoosh I met on my walks through the village of Makravank. I met her on the road and she invited me to her house. Haykoosh is also alone... not a widow but abandoned with two children and now grandchildren. Haykoosh's husband went to work in Moscow as a lot of Armenian men do.. contruction or whatever and like many Armenian men, he just never returned. They find other women and abandon their Armenian wives. Haykoosh was left 20 years ago with two small children and a small farm (cows/chickens/large garden) to manage on her own. She had one other child, a daughter, who died as a young child with some kind of an infection. She raised these two children and managed the farm and garden by herself and works in the town hall.

She recently has had heart problems and was in the hospital. Now she has chest pain and fatigue... I think she is in congestive heart failure. Her son is now home from Moscow and does not work as none is to be found, but at least she is not alone. She still works now two days a week with chest pain. I think she will not live much longer. She has two young grandchildren by her daughter who lives close by in Hrazdan. I go to visit her about once a week. I went once right after her hospitalization for shortness of breath and a home health nurse was there giving her IV medication. The nurse used a huge bore needle and used the table vodka for antiseptic wipe before inserting the needle which was of course a reused needle and reused IV tubing etc etc. What can I say... I was appalled at all of this but of course said nothing.

Haykoosh's house has no hot water, the living room shown with the pech/woodstove is the only heated room in the house. She has running cold water in the kitchen and an outhouse.

Haykoosh and her granddaughter...

Pech and wood in the livingroom...

FOLK ART CENTER OF NEW ENGLAND ARMENIA TOUR VISITS MY SCHOOL IN HRAZDAN

Last May, a most wonderful dance caller, Marcie VanCleave, from the New England Folk Arts Center, based in Boston, brought a group of travelers from around the world to Armenia on a dance tour. They did international folk dancing each day and toured Armenia to experience and see traditional Armenian folk dancing. I met Marcie through my dance calling mentor, David Millstone.
Marcie agreed to come to my school to 'call' an American barn dance for the children. About 75 children attended and we danced in the school hallway. It was a wonderful time for all and the children got such an incredible cultural exchange as did Marcie watching the children do traditional Armenian dance in costume.

Before the dance started, Andrea Grant

(a PC volunteer who came to help me) and I taught

American children's songs in the classrooms...

More of me and Andrea... Wheels on

the Bus and other American tunes...

Armenian students doing traditional

dance for Marcie and co...

Marcie teaching Galopede...

Brian, another PC volunteer, my site mate

helping me teach dancing with the kids..

More traditional Armenian dance....

Group photo... Marcie in the back row...

Marcie teaching a dance....

I forget the name of this one...

Marcie doing her thing... She was so

wonderful with the children...

TEACHING AT YEREVAN STATE UNIVERSITY LEGAL ENGLISH TO LAW STUDENTS

It was my great pleasure to teach legal English at Yerevan State University for about six weeks.. Then my work there was halted as Peace Corps decided they did not want me working in the capital city. This was some of the most fulfilling work I have found in Armenia.
I was teaching second year law students and had books from Britain and the US for teaching. I had about 20 students. Law students in Armenia are only 18-22 years old as they come to law school directly out of high school unlike the US where one must have a baccalaureate degree before law school. A law degree here is a baccalaureate degree. My students and the Yerevan State were delighted to have a native English speaker and lawyer combined to teach English. I can teach here again only if I "extend" my service another year, which at the present time I don't feel inclined to do.

This is a side entrance to Yerevan State University (YSU)..

Entrance to the law building at YSU...

Looking into the library at YSU...

Khachkar in the library at YSU

Main entrance to YSU...

Further back view of main entrance at YSU

Me and some of my students....

Working in groups in the classroom....

Me and some of my students....

The classroom....

Group presentation...

The classroom divided into four

groups to each present a topic.. in English of course ;-)

MY FRIEND SUSAN'S PEACE CORP SITE - BEAUTIFUL ASHTARAK

My dear friend Susan Spano, a Peace Corps volunteer with me here in Armenia has her site in Ashtarak, about 20 miles north of Yerevan. Susan was previously a column writer for the New York Times, The Frugal Traveler. She has created a walking tour of her town of Ashtarak voice and map on a cell phone app. Last summer she took me on a tour of her lovely town. She travels now in the summer all over Armenia and eastern Turkey with a conglomerate of travel agencies in Armenia and Turkey working to have them collaborate their Armenian historical sites.