At the airport

So I am at the airport in Yerevan waiting for my flight to Moscow. Check-in was pretty easy. The airport in Yerevan is called Zvartnots, named after an ancient church. The airport is small, and being moderniized, and they have free wireless. My flight boards in about 25 minutes, next step, Moscow, then America.

Final Preparations

Well, I am making my final preparations for my trip home. Today I have been cleaning my apartment, packing, and gathering Armenian gifts. Yesterday I washed the clothes I plan to wear on my 18 hour trip. I hung them up to dry yesterday, expecting them to dry today. However today turned out to be very overcast, and very snowy. Maybe they will be dry by tonight. Today I also realized that I have forgotten how to use a washing machine because I have been handwashing my clothes for so long. One of the slightly comic realities of being a Peace Corp volunteer.

But anyways, everything looks in order for my flight. Will be in Yerevan tomorrow, waiting to get on that plane to America.

Winter weather

Although this winter is much milder than the last one, Armenia is still very cold for me espcially since I am a native Texan. The winter snow started dumping a couple weeks ago and now there is snow everywhere, and it will remain until March or April.

Almost done with this year

My third semester as being a teacher in School#1 in Jermuk, Armenia is almost over, and my time as a Peace Corp volunteers is winding down. I am proud of what I did this semester. I have taught many lessons about prevenative health, how to maintian being healthy, and have taught about the HIV/AIDS epidemic. I also did a lot of HIV/AIDS education in the capitol, Yerevan as well.

I have one more day left at school, then 4 more days before I leave for America. I am very excited to come and see everyone, and also because I know I worked hard and accomplished a lot this semester.

My other major innovation this semester

So in one of my previous posts I wrote about how teaching health to younger children through songs was an innovation that I think will improve my teaching in my next and last semester.

I have had a another inovation in my teaching thjis semester, that is the combined health and English lesson. As I have noted there is not a keen interest in health education at my school, or at least I have not been able to find that interest here. But for economic reasons there is a keen interest among some students for learning English. So I just teach English, but I teach health vocabulary and prevenative health concepts like the importance of drinking water and exercise.

This way my students get what they want and need, free English lessons from a native speaker, and I get to do what I want- teach prevanative health lessons that are very important.

Had a really good day yesterday

So yesterday I tried out a new strategy for teaching health and it worked out really well. I taught them a song about the importance of brushing your teeth. I think the reason this worked so well is that Armenian children enjoy singing,and Armenian teachers like to teach songs, and use song to control the kid's attention begins to slip. So I took an important and useful cultural practiced and used it to accomplish my goal of community health education. I was really proud of myself.

Since the teacher's are used to teaching to songs to the younger children they enjoyed teaching, and the content of the song led them to talk about the content, which was the importance of brushing your teeth everyday. So the teacher enjoyed co-teaching with me, they talk about health, and the kids had fun too. It was an all around winner.

And today they even sang the song without me being there! Sustainible too! It days like this that make me really happy to be a Peace Corp volunteer.

World AIDS Day is done

So, we finished up World AIDS Day 2008 in Armenia. I think it went great. I walked all over Yerevan handing out pamplets with the essential facts about HIV/AIDS, and has several great conversations about HIV/AIDS with people on the streets of Yerevan. All these conversations where in Armenian, and that combined with the walking made me very tired. But it was worth. The conversations we had were good, and I say alot of people intently reading the pamplets after we handed them out. I feel really good about what we did, and I feel like this is one of the best things we did.

I teamed up with my good friend Steve, and a groups of Armenain volunteers to hand out the pamplets. We had about 7 or 8 Peace Corp volunteers to canvass the city and a large group of Armenian volunteers that were rounded up by APEC, the NGO that we partnered with. The Armenian volunteers did great, we had a good time with them.

After handing our flyers all over the city, we did a showing of a movie called Transit which showed that HIV is spread through sexual intercourse, which I think was effective.

Overall, a good day to be a Peace Corp volunteers, I feel that we did a really good job in getting the facts out about HIV/AIDS, which in a region where people tend not to know all the facts about this pandemic, is very important.

College Football Drama

So this crazy system we have in college football has caused me, a Texas fan who bleeds burnt orange to have have hoped for OU victories two weeks in a row. Last week it happened, and amazingly Texas hopes for winding up in a national championship were reignited. This week we need a small victory over Ok State, just enough to keep the three way tie, but not enough to push OU ahead of Texas in the BCS rankings. Half time score- 21 to 13, OU in the lead. Keeping my fingers crossed.

In Yerevan

So tomorrow is World AIDS Day and today myself and other volunteers will be putting up posters and folding brochures to hand out to people, final preparations.

Tonight I will stay with some friends in the nearby city of Sevan, and then tomorrow will be back in for the big day.

Before I left for Yerevan on Friday, my counterpart at school mentioned working on a grant to help my school out with some new sports equipment, so I am really excited to take this project to the next step.

Will update after World AIDS Day.

Conference finished

Today we wrapped up our yearly All Volunteer conference. We had a great Thanksgiving dinner. I learned how to cut turkeys! The meal was excellant cooked by a team of Peace Corp volunteers who are excellant cooks. My small role was helping carve the delicious turkey.

Today I, and some other volunteers who are intersted in HIV/AIDS awarness, are going to hand out flyers for our World AIDS Day event which will actually be on World AIDS Day, Dec.1st.

Worlds AIDS Day progress

The last couple of days I have been in Yerevan working on getting ready for World AIDS Day in Armenia. Things are coming together with a few hitches. We got funding to rent one of the two movie theaters in the country to show a film about HIV/AIDS and to make and print a bunch of informative pamplets with the most important facts about HIV/AIDS, but the funding won't here for a couple more weeks. So we will probably delay our event. But the entire month of December is World AIDS Month so we still have plenty to of time to do our event.

Also volunteers all over Armenia are doing HIV/AIDS contests. I have one submission, which is less than I hoped for but one is better and than none. And I did do lessons to make sure that my students have accurate information about HIV AIDS, which is the most important part.

Sunday I will be going to Yerevan for our yearly ALL VOL conference. We will have a nice Thanksgiving meal and all the volunteers which will be great.

AIDS Lessons

This saterday I did a couple AIDS lessons at my school, and I was very impressed by my students. I went and spoke about the World AIDS Day writing contest for 10th and 11th grades. The 10 and 11th grades were very knowledgable about the basic, and most important, AIDS issues. They were aware that there is no cure and that AIDS is spread through body fluids, primarily via sexual intercourse and drug use. Now hopefully they will apply their knowledge and put together some great essays about HIV/AIDS/

Book Recomendation

I recently finished William Easterly's "White Man's Burden", an incsive critique of Western foreign aid and intervention. Easterly, for many years a World Bank economist, tears apart much of what he did as a working development economist. Easterly, now a professor of economics at NYU, uses his considerable economic acumen to pick apart the current state of foreign aid and the philosophy behind it.

"White Man's Burden" is buoyed by Easterly's extensive on the ground experience working in developing countries, as well as his already metioned economic expertise. I also found Easterly's writing style outstanding. I have enjoyed a lot of good nonfiction by journalists who have a knack for narrative and put that together with great research to write a great book. Michael Pollan is a prime example. But Easterly happens to be an economist with a knack for narrative. Devlopmental economics is not a topic that Easterly researched, or something that his publisher suggested because it is en vougue with the American public. He combines a lifetime of work in the feild of development economics with his great narrative voice. That is what made the book so outstanding for me. In Easterly we are lucky to have a great writer and erudite expert in one person.

I do not agree with everything Easterly argues or all of his conclusions. But the writing and thinking in this book are clear and convincing. If you disagree it will be at the least an entertaining and thought provoking read. If you do agree it will change how think about foreign aid. I was in the middle. And I recomend you find out where you stand for yourself.

what I am working on at school

Currently at school I am teaching health, english, and doing an AIDS writing contest. Generally I do English after school for the students who want to, and are willing to stay after school for more English practice. That way I generally get students who care and are well behaved and eager to learn. I call these English Clubs.

I do my health lessons in classrooms. In this way I get to reach all the students. I do these lesssons in Armenian, so I always have to do a lot of prep, but generally they go well. When I do health lessons in the classrooms I get to teach all the students, so the students are generally less behaved, but I get through it. My current health lesson is game about the nutriotional components of food that last time the students seemed to enjoy.

December is World AIDS Month and Dec.1 is World AIDS day, so I am doing an AIDS writing conatest and lessons to go along with it. The contest is for 10th and 11th grades, and hopefully I will get some good submissions.

Thats a brief summary of my work at school. It keeps me busy.

Vacation officially approved

Peace Corp officially approved my vacation so I will on American soil in about 5 weeks!

Winter is here

Winter has arrived. Yesterday we had our first snow. It was a very beautiful moment, and I called Lily so that we could share it. While the snow is beautiful, that also means that the weather is very cold. I am having difficulty typing this because my fingers are so cold. I wish I could type with gloves on, but that just doesn't work.But my body is warm. I have several layers of clothes on and nice big, thick wool coat. And plenty of wool socks to fortify my feet.

Some of the snow has melt away today but the higher mountains are covered and will stay that way till probably April or May. Mount Ararat, at 15,000 has permanent snow coverage. When I go into the capitol(Yerevan) I have a great view of Ararat if it is a clear day.

I expect Jermuk to be completely covered by snow by the time Thanksgiving rolls around, and for it to stay that way till April. Longs winters, but the snow is beautiful and I'll get through it.

Relaunching my blog

So it has been a while, but I am coming back to the blog. I was doing well until summer when my schedule got way off due to going to America and summer camps where I largly did not have internet access(the summer camps that is, as you know there is pleny of internet in America).

I will try to do at least a post a week, that is reasonable. I want to be a better writer and this is a cost effective way to do it.

I will for sure do another post this week.

Be back soon.

sorry its been so long

So its been a while since my last post. I got really busy in May. I survived my first year in the Armenian schools. Not that there is something dangerous about Armenian schools, which could be inferred from me using the verb survive. But it was a challenge, that is what I wanted to convey with the verb survive. I met all of the challenges. A major challenge was,and is, the language barrier. But I have worked hard on my Armenian and have seen it improve. Not any huge leaps, but bits and bits of improvements. I also met the challenges by teaching health and english. I have also done leadership mentoring and have started to do a bit of small business advising. And the summer is filled with opportunities as I have many summer camps to work. And I am also really excited to be able to go home for a couple of weeks. It will be a good summer with a good year put behind me.

felt like a RA today

For three years as a RA I put up hundreds of flyers about events I was doing in the residence hall. Today I posted several flyers in my school advertising a seminar a fellow Peace Corp Volunteer is doing along with her Armenian counterpart. They are going to come talk about education and work opportunities for girls in Armenia and abroad. After I put up the flyers all the girls seemed really excited about it. And unlike residence hall which have been saterated by flyers by RAs for many years, my school has not been and the flyers got a lot of attention. I am really excited about the seminar, hopefully we will have a good turnout. And it felt good to be a bit of a RA again today.

being Green without knowing it

In this essay

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/magazine/20wwln-lede-t.html?ex=1366516800&en=4c931d0a068a2a1a&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Michael Pollan argues the benefits of gardening. Currently I don't think a lot of Americans garden. But I know that most Armenians do, and by doing that they are helping the environment. My apartment building is surrounded by small, family gardens where they grow many food staples. I don't think most Armenians are thinking about their carbon footprint, but garden to support their families. I think we in the more developed, western countries have a lot to learn from other countries that not considered as developed, but maybe do less damage to the enviroment than we do, and are probably Green without knowing it. I hope to pick up some gardening skills from Armenian friends and take them back to America with me.

this weekend in Yerevan

So this weekend in the capitol I will attending a meeting with an HIV/AIDS NGO to talk about national strategy for education/awarness and then on sunday I have another meeting with fellow PCVs. Will try to update then.Will not be spending the night, will be in and out.

twitter

so last feb or so I got on twitter in an attempt to get news updates sent to my gmail via google talk. That didn't work out too well, but my cousin Robert sent me his twitter and I find that is really useful for small updates, so I have started twittering. I think I am www.twitter.com/bcal but not sure. I have also put my twitter feed on the blog, it should be directly to your right. So I will have this for longer posts where I try to be all philosophical and reflective and twitter for quicker updates. Enjoy!

lots of teaching

So this summer I am teaching about Iran, the UK, and the Ukraine. I have 45 minutes for each lesson, with topics such as Culture and history. How I will teach topics such as Iranian culture and British history in 45 minutes not sure, but it will happen somehow. . .

A typical day at school

I begin my days by waiting for an oversized van to come pick me up. Marshutnis, the russian word for these oversized vans, are a major form of public transit in Armenia. My neighborhood is home Jermuk's resort and factory workers, and the marshutni takes me,along with the workers, to my school near the resorts and bottling factories.

Usually I arrive at school between 9 and 10 a.m. depending on my wait, which is anywhere from zero to 35 or 40 minutes. When I get to school if I have a lesson prepared I am shuffled from classroom to classroom where I teach. I then teach, always with help of an Armenain teacher.

If I do not have a lesson or there are no time slots for me to teach in, I usually do a close listening session to one of the teacher, Armenian-English dictionary in hand and attempt to pick up some new words in their oral context. Learning words within their oral context is good way to learn, and an a vital part of immersion language learning.

I also work on future lessons, and help out at the school however I can. I talk to students alot, I am issued scores of Barev Dzes(Armenian for hello) everyday- and I always issue them back. I also learn lots of Armenian slang and youth speak during these times when I talk with students. This another important part of langauage immersion.After classes I work alot. I do lots of English tutoring with students at both local schools. I also help local college graduates with projects and to help them take their English to a higher level.

I usually finish around 4 or 5(someday later) and head back to little America, my apartment. After speaking Armenian all day I enjoy consuming a few chapter from a good history or novel. Then Economist and New Yorker also provide great english for enjoyment(Thanks so much to Uncle Ish for the Economist gift subscription and my parents for shipping them in every month!!).

This is not to say to that I don't enjoy Armenian. I love learning Armenian and am honored to have the chance to learn it. The Armenian language is ancient, rich, and beautiful. But everyone has a special attchement to the native language. My appreciation for English has grown, just as my appreciation for Armenian has grown.I think it will be a joy to have mastered two languages. I have not mastered Armenian yet, linguistic barriers remain-but I am confident that I will master it and those barriers will fall.

Although homesickness and linguistic make life a challenge, and at the same time joy, I have many opportunities to help at my school. My chief opportunity is to help these students to better their world and their future.Every typical day, even though it is typical is packed full of amazing opportunities. These opportunities are what makes me able to get up everyone and to go wait for that oversive van to come and pick me up for another typical day at school.

Armenian word of the week

This week's word is,

Vocheanch

One of the most used words in spoken Armenian, vocheanch literally means nothing. Vocheanch is used in many ways.When are Armenians ask each other Vons es(how are you?) a normal response is vocheanch meaning alright or ok. Also when Armenian thank each other they often respond with vocheanch. I am writing this post on a computer at a local and when I thank the owners for letting me use their internet they will probably respond with vocheanch which would probably translate as "don't worry about it", "oh its no problem", or most literally, "its nothing."

a working saterday in Yerevan

This morning I woke up at 6 am to call my parents and Lily in the evening. Then I hopped on the 8 am bus from Jermuk to Yerevan. Then today I met with the country and issue studies team for the International Outreach Camp. We had a nice productive meeting and we found some really great data about our issue, natural gas, and our the countries we will be teaching about, Britian, Ukraine, and Iran. Overall a productive day.

The rest of this week

The rest of my week will probably consist of working on my new nutrition lesson, working on the grant application, and then Saterday I am going to Yerevan to meeting 3 other PCVs(Peace Corp Volunteers) and our two Armenian counterparts for the International Outreach Camp we will be working in July. Should be a good week.I will also finish War and Peace, and do a bunch of practice LSAT problems.

Currently reading

So currently I am reading,

1776 by David McCullogh- A great narrative of America's first year of independance. I am about halfway through and am at the Battle of New York which happened in August 1776. Reading this makes me think that the Founder's generation was the greatest(this is to be explored more in a future post.)

On Writing Well by William Zinnser- A great guide to writing nonfiction. Hopefully this book will make these post more enjoyable. Want to get Shrunk and White's "Elements of Style", have heard that is a really good writing guide and was recommended by some of my Professors at UT.

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy- Only 15 pages left!! After about a thousand pages of narrative Tolstoy decides to slap a 35 page full blown philosophy of history which can be a bit slow, but is also fascinating.

Armenian word of the week

So I intend this to be a regular feature. The word for this week is,

hegthloak- this means well-behaved,good,intelligent and is usually applied to children. Often this word is said to children with the verd for remain(mnal) to say what we would tranlate as behave, but would literally say remain good! In my school one can often hear teachers saying hethloak mna! remain good! It can be difficult to render Armenian sounds into english letters so in the future I will try to find a way to put the word in Armenian characters so that you can actually see what the word looks in addition to the English transliteration.

Hayastani Yeranaka

Thats Armenian, for Armenian weather. Whiich is really nice right now. On April 10th when I woke up Jermuk was covered in snow. Being from Texas I despaired a little, but know spring is very much upon us. The last couple of days have been very nice, today a bit chilly, but overall the weather is very good. Armenia has cold winters and hot summers, and since Jermuk is up in the mountains we will have a very nice, temperate summer. But that also means harsh winters.I can't have it both ways though. The winter are very cold here, but I also find the snow to be very beautiful.

Currently

So the things that I am up to now are designing a new nutrition lesson, working on a grant for my school, creating lessons for IOC camp, tutoring english, and at home reading in studing for the LSAT.

For my new nutrition lesson what I want to do is give each student a card with a food item on one side and it's nutritional components on the other side, then tell them to form a nutrious meal. I will give them 20 minutes or so, then I will lead a discussion about what their nutritios meal looks like and how they could be better. I like this lesson because it gets the students thinking about nutrition and also gets them doing most of the talking.

This weekend I got the guide to the grant I am writing in Armenian, so that will help me communicate with my school what we need to do and to write for the grant.

Things are progressing, my year anniversery with Armenia is coming up soon, on June 1st.

Today I photographed the school's gym to put in a grant application. I'm reading a book called 1776 about America's first year of independence.