Driving in Armenia, a serious affair!

Today, in order to get ready for my exam on Saturday, I decided to ask a few questions to the instructor at my driving school:

'So, what's the alcohol limit in one's blood in Armenia?

- Oh, they won't ask you that at the exam...

- What is considered a safe distance between two cars? How should we calculate that?

- Well, there's nothing precise said on that, what seems safe should be good...

- Should we leave a given distance between a bicycle and our car when overtaking?

- Nothing is specified on that either.

- What is the distance between a danger sign and the actual danger?

- Between 150 and 300m outside cities, and between 50 and 100m in agglomerations.

- Thank you!'

Hah, don't you like that? Free to make your own rules!

From Armenia to...

So it's been almost 4 months I have been staying in Armenia without a real job. Since mid-April, I am doing all the stuff I couldn't do when I was studying and working; playing music and dancing more, meeting people, getting expert at random street encounters and market conversations, visiting locals' homes and having tea with them... It's been good, I've felt spoiled on the one hand, having the luxury to live like that, to be what one could call 'absolutely free' thanks for temporary financial independence and the absence of necessity to work, but I also felt blessed. Blessed to be able to realised things that I was longing to do for so long, blessed to have gone through so many learning experiences, blessed to have had time to create deep relationships and help some people around me. 

Since a few days, as the date of my driving exam is approaching and therewith the end of my need to stay here, I have started to make plans again. The plan for the next two months (=the order of the countries which I will visit) has already changed a few times, and the ideas for the months thereafter a few times as well. But I feel some direction, a desire to leave and to move on. I have the feeling that I have learned and seen and done what there was for me here, and I start to feel a bit stuck. Again, I feel spoiled to be able to just leave as I please, while most of the armenians are struggling here (oh.. except Dodi Gago! The rich oligarch with a castle on the way to Sevan ;)) and many are dreaming to emigrate. But I will take my chance, looking back at my time here with good memories and hope for the future of Armenia (Yes! that's sounds like a good end of speech!). Ok, I gotta say something stupid here... ah for once I'll keep talking seriously ;) Hey actually there's nothing else serious to say, let's call it a post and I am going to study armenian driving rules for my exam!

When rose water becomes waste water ;)

Yesterday was Vardavar, an armenian festivity during which people spend the day throwing water at each other. I woke up slowly in the crushing heat of our non-air conditioned house (we're too lazy to look for the air con's remote control...), had breakfast and turned on my phone at 1pm. I got a text from my friend saying 'Ready to fight!'. I put on my special outfit and ran out of the house with plastic bags and an empty water bottle. Vahe, Navid, Ali and I started walking down to the Opera.

The start was mild, some kids here and there, some teenagers threatening us with empty bottles... But then it started. The 'swan lake' and streets of the city center were filled with thousands of young people. Most of them were carrying buckets of water which they would throw randomely around (especially on girls huh), some of them were swimming in the lake (which water was plain disgusting! I got thrown in twice and drank the water once, good for my weak imune system haha). The challenge though, was to find more difficult targets; dry and bored/angry looking passers-by, old people, salespeople... We tried exploring the city a bit more for some more risky attacks. We got a dry pink shirt man, some dry tourists, taxi drivers (who often had a bottle in their car to counter attack). I guess the best part was when I was pushed twice into the fountain of republic square, which was guarded by police men and in which no one dared to enter. The water was clean and fresh, thank you!

Yesterday was also a horribly hot day in Yerevan, some 42 degrees or more, today as well... but no luck, Vardavar is only once a year (I got a boy to spray me with a hose in Nor Hatshen today though!). If you want some historical explanations of how this festivity came from old pagan traditions involving throwing rose water on people on the last sunday of July, check out the internet ;)

 

STAY TUNED!!!!

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In Armenia, the roads have many holes...There are gaz pipelines sticking out everywhere... And those sealed yellow counters... Cows are carried around in old soviet cars... In the street corners you smell the gaz leaking from the pipes... Until last week we had to walk 10 minutes to find a garbage bin (now there are all over our street)... The traffic-lights are not working every other day on one of the city's main avenues... We had to get electricity from our neighbours through a long cable for two days because the repairman just wouldn't come and fix ours...

But...

Girls walk in high heels, tights neat clothes, their hair is always perfect, and their fingers ALWAYS manicured :D

Chicks in the marshrutka

Today, as I was going to visit a church in a suburb of Yerevan, I took a marshrutka (crazy-old-minibus) from Barekamutsyun. The vehicule was full, which wouldn't have surprised me on any other day and time, but was kind of weird for a sunday early afternoon. Anyways, there was no place to sit, so I just prepared myself to stand in the 'full-marshrutka-position', half standing/bending my head down because the roof is too low. Then I noticed that a man was sitting on a corner with a box of baby goose (goose chicks, how are those called?), and he insisted that I take his place. Unable to refuse, I sat in the narrow corner and started holding the chicks box that was on my side. As I started talking, people got all excited about seeing a foreigner speaking armenian (gosh... you can't imagine how amazing it is! I am starting to enjoy all of this attention a bit too much, it will be hard to come back to a place where everybody is not praising me whenever I open my mouth) and started to ask me for my phone number. Along with some french/chinese missionaries that I met afterwards we are now counting on a barbecue (Khorovats) party for next Tuesday! That's how life goes in Armenia. It was wonderful to see how enthusiastic Khatchik, the chick box owner, was when he called me to invite me and my new friends, it's beautiful, and I am looking forward to meeting him and his family (I already got introduced to the mum on the phone...).

I filmed part of the trip... The old man sitting next to me is saying that next time he'll bring his cows to the marshrutka. That girl with the chick ended up going to the same church as me. When we got of the marshutka I told her and her mum, 'that was a crazy ride!', and they told me 'wherever the people of God are there is joy!'.

Tigranashen... the armenian village

My favourite armenian village is called Tigranashen. I went there randomly during a motorbike trip with a couch surfer I met at my friend's place. On the side of the road there was a baby horse (the one you can see on the picture), we passed it, and then I thought 'I'd like to see this little one closer and take some pictures!'. I asked Phillip to go back and enter the village. We approached the horses and took some pictures, and then a young man approached, I started speaking to him and he offered us to come to his house for coffee (the most common thing here, happy non western country ;)).

We quickly realised that the village and its surroundings (mountains and prairies) was of remarkable beauty (especially compared to many villages where trash is pilled up on all sides), people were kind, the views were beautiful, and it was clean. When we reached Baris' balcony, we saw a beautiful young woman, Tamara, and her mother, Anna. Baris and Tamara have to little girls who started calling me little sister (kuyrik) almost immediately. These people were wonderful, I can't say it enough, kind, genuine... and so were their friends. I soon understood, with tears in my eyes, that most of the people in this house and in this village (composed of 40 houses), were christians in the original sense of the term. My heart warms up when I remember how after a few minutes on this family's balcony, Tamara took me in her arms when I answered 'yes' to her question 'so do you also know Jesus?'. 

Tigranashen used to be a turkish village (inhabited by azeris.. but armenians don't like calling them like that because they say that they are first of all turks), but at the time of the war with azerbaijan (1988-1994), the azeris left and armenian immigrants from Azerbaijan and Karabagh settled. One of Tamara's friends with whom I talked, was born in Baku and had to emigrate to Armenia at the time of the war, when azeris were killing armenians on the streets and the armenians had to hide not to be found. We were talking about forgiveness, and she explained that she deeply wants to forgive the azeri people but still doubts whether she'd ever be able to talk to anyone from azerbaijan.

That day with Phillip, Tamara, and Baris we climbed the mountain in front of the village. From the top we could see Naxichevan, the azeri enclave, and Ararat (like in most places in Armenia!).

I returned to Tigranashen last week, and had another wonderful time. On my way back, our bags were filled with village cheese, and other armenian delicacies. I will surely go back...

 

 

Cheer up! Here's some lavash :)

The penthouse girls (the wonderful 4 inhabitants of the best penthouse in Yerevan), recently got some bad news. The owner, and neighbour (and former friend) paid us a visit in the night of April 3rdto announce:

'Girls, I sold your house, you need to move out!'

I got home to find three incredulous girls, wondering how on earth this could happen, and what we would do next. I was quite confident, saying 'pfff.. we have a contract!' and imagining that we'd just have to remind this to him and that he'll let us stay because some law would oblige him to. That's not how it went, there were heated discussions, mediated and assisted by some armenian colleagues, to get to a 'friendly' agreement, which wasn't friendly at all for us. We decided to contact the agency, who told us about all the lies that our landlord had told about us (having so many parties and being indecent, saying nothing about selling the house), and about our rights to get far more than was offered by our landlord. But again.. in a country like Armenia, what ought to be is different than what actually is. And except calling our landlord to tell him 'shame on you', they couldn't do much. 'This is Armenia, the laws don't matter here', tell this to 3 western european girls ;) There is much more to the story... but I won't bore you with the complete version.

The good thing is that we've spend a lot of funny times together since then. We've sat on the ground of our giant party shower to play music because of the awesome sound in there, eaten lavash on the metro, walked around the city wondering where and how we could build our own house somewhere... In the end, we got two options, which are rather good and on which we have to decide before we are officially kicked out!

 

A fancy birthday in mountain clothes

About two weeks ago, I had a pretty crazy armenian birthday experience. Ruzan invited me to her mother Siran's birthday dinner and mentioned that I had to look like a 'titis', which means that I was supposed to dress up according to armenian standards. However I completely forgot this detail and I imagined that we would just casually go out to the restaurant with Siran a couple of her friends. As I was hanging out with Joel, a peace corps volunteer, right before I was supposed to join the celebration, I asked him to join me. We got a present and found the restaurant; it was large and fancy, and mostly empty. When I said that I was coming for a birthday the waiter imediately knew who I was coming for and lead us to the second floor. There, we realised that not only we were 30 minutes late, but also that everybody (about 50 people) was dressed like for a wedding (I was dressed like every day and had an aweful face rash and Joel was wearing the usual peace corps volunteer mountain clothes). We had landed right in the middle of a fancy armenian birthday party totally underdressed, unprepared, sick for my part, and late!

Luckily, people's enthousiasm to see me and another foreigner intruding on this all armenian ground diverted the attention from our appearence, and all we could do was to laugh at ourselves and join the table. I always say that these kind of things are great for streching your self-confidence, maybe that's why I end up regularly in these kinds of situations! Joel made up for everything by making good conversation in armenian and later doing some crazy dance moves on the dance floor (which Siran happily followed ;)).

The party unfolded in an unusual way, if I compare some the average european birthday party (if there is any!). People would eat a little of the abundance of things that were placed on the table, interrupted by the toasts made by the toast master (the tamada) about subjects from grandmothers to friendship and armenians living abroad (I often get that one hehe!). And about every 10 minutes, the band would start playing VERY loud music (needless to try and follow your conversation at this moment) and most of the people would get up and start dancing. A particularly cute old couple really touched me, so I tried to catch them on my camera. Check out the movie! 

 

 

Good things are happening in this world :D

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I have been in Armenia for more than 5 months, and as the months have gone by, I have entered a kind of routine. I have become such a bureaucrat, like the ones I used to watch when I was a child wondering if one day I'd have to do the same. Every day I go to work at 9, I take my lunch break between 1 and 2, and I finish at a hard fought for 6 o'clock. Not that I chose to spend my days locked in an office, that's how life has to be sometimes. I enjoy it, but at times I feel like I am loosing my freedom, my inspiration, my willingness to think differently and take initiatives. It's scary how your circumstances condition the way you think and I feel compassion for all the people who cannot choose to live a different life.

Now, spring is coming, and I have never been so happy to see flowers on the trees and to bask in the sunchine (20 minutes a day on my way to and from work). I have also met great people, as this man called Mahmad, who is travelling the world on a bicycle, while planting trees and teaching in schools about protecting nature. He doesn't think more than a day in advance and forbids himself to make plans so that he can seize every opportunity that comes his way. He speaks to people, he helps them, and he learns from them. He is dark as chocolate as he spends his days outside. It made me realise how wide the gap between average bureaucrats like me and cool travellers is. When I meet travellers, I get a breath of fresh air, I almost feel like I could teleport myself by just touching them.They respire the world outside Armenia, diversity, experiences. I wish we could all be as free, but as Mahmad said, it's just a choice. Bah.

Anyways, in 2 and a half weeks (I am counting...) I am leaving my office. Not my job, but my office. I'd like to work (=writing grant proposals and advertising for our ecotourism company) from home, caffe, parks, when I want and how I want, and be able to travel the rest of the time, do more with my church, join some other projects, and learn how to drive (a car, not a mountain goat). That's the plan for now, and it's so uplifting to know that I will soon be free again, back to the world of free spirited travellers and following God's plans for my time here in Armenia :D And I want to ride bicycles too.

My original purpose for this post was to share with you a concept that I discovered by browsing the internet in search for new grants. This NGO called Seacology has taken up the mission to protect the endangered island ecosystems, as those are often overlooked by foundations and yet very important for the global terrestrial and marine biodiversity. Their approach is to ask the residents of the islands what their needs are (e.g. new water pipes, school restoration), complete the requested changes and reparations and ask for the community to protect their local environment in exchange. The requests for conservation are always clear and determined in time. This is a win-win situation, and must therefore work very efficiently. By now, 'Seacology has launched 171 island-based projects, saving 1,808,452 acres of marine ecosystems and 157,181 acres of incredibly precious terrestrial habitat. In return for establishing island marine and forest reserves, Seacology has helped islanders build 76 facilities such as schools, community centers, solar energy systems, and other critically-needed structures, and funded 26 programs providing scholarships, vital medical services and supplies for island communities' (www.nandoperettifound.org). I really liked the concept and I hope to see this happening in many places!

Stay cool, fresh, hype, fun, relaxed, happy, and positive!

Sick of pomegranates, here's some sulguni!

After 5 months of honey moon with Armenia, as every old couple, many of the little things I found so charming at the beginning started irritating me. Luckily though, I found a great cure to the armenian sickness!

That cure is called Tbilisiiii! Tbilisi is the capital of Georgia and is situated a 6 hours ride away from Yerevan. So when we are tired of seeing groups of 15 guys looking all the same and staring unscrupulously every time we walk by, when we can't stand hearing every day that Armenia is the best and that all the good, intellectual and beautiful things of the world come from Armenia, when we are sick of telling everyone that women don't loose their fertility by sitting on the ground, or when we just need a new visa, that's where we go!

There, guys have long hair, they are tall and beautiful (huh Toma? It took some time to convince you!), and they don't stare as much. There, instead of hearing that Armenia is the best, you hear that Georgia is the most by far the most awesome and most beautiful country of the Caucasus (and of the world of course!). Georgia is Europe, or so they say (on the city guide book there is actually written: 'Georgia: Europe started here'). In Georgia, you eat strange and heavy but delicious food (khinkali and khatchapuri), you meet way too many foreigners, and above all, you spend at least an hour a day in Macdonalds.

Georgia is indeed amazing. It has gorgeous landscapes, an explosive culture, and an exciting night scene. The georgians have great music, and know very well how to sing and dance. Tbilisi is a city filled with colourful old bildings and surrounded by mountains at the top of which churches and monasteries seem to be floating in the air. At night, the city becomes even more charming as its monuments are all enlightened. But as armenians say, 'do you know why Tbilisi is so beautiful? Because it was built by an armenian!'

Going from Armenia to Tbilisi is like going from Marseille to New York. It was hard to convince myself that living in Armenia has it's good sides too. Indeed, we don't have Macdonalds here... Things are indeed a little unfair. Georgians have cooler music, cooler guys, and a nicer architecture.

This makes me wonder why I am still living in a country with 97.5% armenians, two closed borders, 100% sovietic architecture and no Macdonalds. Well, everything has it's charm ;)