Who wants to visit me?

If one day you wake up and think, "what am I going to do next week?" remember that there is a land full of mystical monasteries perched on mountains and grey bears waiting for you! I have room (I just moved to a new flat), so just take your bicycle (sorry I have to promote this great means of transportation... if you fly I will prepare a field for you to plant trees so that you can compensate for your emissions ;)) and come over.

Deforestation in Indonesia, who is to blame?

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Indonesia holds a record. Most popular tourist destination? No. According to the Guiness book of Records, Indonesia is the country with the fastest rate of forest destruction on the planet. According to the book's entry, data from 2000-2005 shows that 51 square km of forest are cut down every day.

As a result, Indonesia has already lost about 72% of its original frontier forest cover (www.globalforestwatch.org). However, this forest is one of the most extensive and biologically diverse forest in the world, and it is a huge carbon stock.

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As Global Forest Watch explains: "Deforestation in Indonesia is largely the result of a corrupt political and economic system that regarded natural resources, especially forests, as a source revenue to be exploited for political ends and personal gain."

 

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An incredibly stricking movie has been made by a frenchman called Patrick Rouxel. It shows the end of the life of "Green" a female Orang Utang, and through her eyes, displays the destruction of indonesia's primitive forests. The movie can be downloaded on www.greenthefilm.com.

On this website, and that was the original purpose of my post, you can find a list of the involved, directly or indirectly (by buying the products of the converted forests, or by investing in the companies that are behind the deforestation) in the destruction of Indonesia's forests.

The list is very long, but here are just a few that I recognised.

Palm Oil production: Sinar Mas Group - Indonesia

Banks: BNP Paribas (France), Credit Agricole (France), Societe generale  (France), Rabobank (Netherlands), ING Bank (Netherlands), Fortis Bank  (Netherlands), HSBC (United Kingdom)

Brands: Leroy Merlin, Pizza Hut, Mc Cain, Unilever, HJ Heinz, Tesco, Marks and Spencer, Carrefour, Danone, Gillette...

For the full list check out http://www.greenthefilm.com/ and scroll down, down down... Once you know which of the products that you consume are linked to the reckless exploitation of Indonesia's forests, and the resulting loss of biodiversity and greenhouse gas emissions, you can decide what you will take of your next shopping list. This counts for me too...

Happy Planet: A good life is possible without costing the Earth

This morning, after having checked my emails and given some thought to the ecotourism and paper recycling projects that I am working on right now, I switched to reading some environmental news. I found something that I had heard of in my ecology classes, it is called the Happy Planet Index (www.happyplanetindex.org). This thing really captivated me. It consists of a study done by the NEF (New Economics Foundation), an organisation which motto is "economics as if people and the planet mattered". Currently, the world is moving forward into a path of increasing material growth, consumption and environmental degradation. And when this is not the case it is likely to be the ultimate goal.

Why do we pursue this development trend? There has to be a solid reason to pursue something, if it entails the destruction of our life supporting system. Is it happiness? And what if the current growth did not actually promote happiness? Would there be any excuse left for following the current growth-oriented development trend? In order to answer these questions, the NEF had to develop indices which reflect a country's population well-being and that country's environmental footprint. The results show that although the most wealthy countries are amongst the happy ones, there are countries with similar, if not higher satisfaction levels and life expectancy and far lower GDP's and environmental impacts.

Happy Planet Map

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Simply put, green indicates countries with a high rank and brown lowest ranks

Costa Rica is in fact the happiest country in the world, has an average life expectancy of almost 80 years, and an ecological footprint of less than a quarter that of the United States. The Netherlands, interestingly, appears to be the highest ranked western country. There, once more, happiness and longevity are not correlated with ecological footprint, as people live on average one year longer than the Americans, have similar levels of life satisfaction and about half of the US ecological footprint.

The conclusion is, a good and long life is possible without costing the Earth. The pursuit of GDP growth does not actually lead to increased happiness, and considering the fact that environmental degradation unavoidably affects people's lives, it ends up actually undermining people's lives. We have an example of a country which has achieved good lives with an almost sustainable footprint. This shows that aiming for happiness that does not cost the Earth is not an impossible goal, but actually a feasible one. I think that this is a positive incentive to change our paradigm. We need to redefine our goals and use indices to monitor our progress towards these new goals.

Between bronze age graves and homemade lavash

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Shortly after my arrival in Armenia, as I was running late for a meeting and getting lost in the streets of Yerevan, I asked directions to a girl who was waiting in an office. She was gorgeous, with long black hair and all done up. She told me that she also worked for NGO's, we exchanged phone numbers and I ran to my appointment.

Later that day, we met again under the sun on the Republic Square and we started talking. I discovered that Lusine was actually an archeologist, passionate about various causes, and that she was the same age as me. This was to be the beginning of a wonderful friendship!

Last week end, she invited me to join her on one of her excavation sites in Kotayk where I would watch how they dig into bronze age 5000 years old graves. I was really excited about this new adventure. We had to go very early, and wait there until it was warm enough for the two ladies to get out of the van and start working -we were the only girls in the group, the men started working as soon as we arrived to the site, but they judged that it was too cold for girls so we could stay inside until the un came out, sexism has it's good sides...

It was a real open air museum. There were skulls, bones, pottery jars, bracelets... It was amazing to see how those things were just lying there in the open, and that I could touch them unlike in museums. The men there were making jokes about the graves, putting the names of each others grandfathers on grave stones, or saying that they will use the old bones to make khash (an armenian soup). I could help digging, and even bring a bone home. Do something good today, adopt a bronze age skeleton!

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The nature around was beautiful, one of the best I have seen in Armenia. I walked (until they send three people to bring back the poor european girl lost in the wilderness) and reached a canyon, deep and barren... I also found the ruins of a 7th century church and a huge cross-stone. 

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Lunch time, there is even vodka and toasts in picnics!

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Lusine sitting in front of the canyon

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That evening, we took the train to Lusine's village. I got to meet a big part of her family as they were celebrating her mother's birthday. Again, people were extremely friendly, and the food was amazing! I loved the experience of having to use outdoors toilets (quite new for me...), petting the pigs in the morning, sleeping on a country-side style bed (more like a hamock) and tasting the grand-father's home made wine. I think the part of having to pee outside is harder in the winter though, but for my little week end trip it was exotic.

On sunday, we visiter Khor Virap, the monastery near the armenian-turkish border where Saint Grigor was imprisoned into a deep pit. We also went to the homes of Lusine's friend and family. I saw how they make the traditional lavash bread in the oven outside the house.

Nice breakfast!!! Fighting with the pomegranate for the status of national fruit, the apricot! Tziraaan...

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The little 'khoz', pig in armenian

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Baking lavash bread

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Is there any more beautiful thing to pose with than a big piece of lavash :)

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Week ends around little Armenia [second edition]

The sun is still shining in Hayastan! This week end, Abishek and I went to Karabakh (Artsakh for the armenians), an Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan, or a piece of Azerbaijan controlled by armenians (whichever is the correct political term). I almost cancelled this trip for fear of the canadian foreign ministry warnings, but following the counsel of some people who had actually visited the region I decided to go there anyways.

On my way,  I spent an interesting evening at an American peace corps volunteer's place near the border with Karabakh. Peace corps are volunteers from the US who are randomly assigned a location in a developing country with a mission for 2 years. The ones I met last Thursday ended up in little towns and villages of southern Armenia. Life is so different there, and I was curious to know how they get by every day, and how this experience must have influenced their way of seeing the world. I found out that they had, besides learning a lot of different things, got quite critical of the armenians and their way of thinking. We talked about some of the health-related superstitions that they hear every day, as the belief that one will die if he or she drinks water after exercising.

The next morning, Abishek and I took the marshrutka that would bring us to Shushi, the town where our karabakhian guest house was located. On the way, we met an old woman with whom I managed to have a little conversation. A very pretty young girl sitting at the front seemed quite curious and started smiling at us. She told us that she was 22, and then she explained that she had a three years old daughter! It is always surprising to realise how young the girls marry and have children in Armenia, and it seems to be even more so in the country side. Maybe, the prettier they are, the earlier they get married and have babies! Then, I started to feel old and thought to myself that it might be time to stop traveling and get married as well, sorry mummy!

In Shushi, after recovering from the nausea caused by all the mountains roads in the oh-so-comfortable marshrutka, our host's wife found us sitting by the side of the church. She walked by, called "philippina", and kept walking without turning back. Abishek and I were surprised, and followed her from a distance only because we realised that the only reason she could know my name was if she was indeed our host's wife. She led us through some narrow and wild paths until what seemed to be the edge of the village, and the edge it was, as we soon discovered that the house was actually located right next to a canyon! The house was great and we quickly felt comfortable.Their son Samuel led us to the depth of the canyon with one of the house's dogs, Obama. The walk was incredible, wild, liberating, and adventurous as we jumped under a magic waterfall!  

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After this walk, we were exhausted and wet and we decided that we deserved a lazy evening (the other reason why we stayed home is probably that there wouldn't have been much to do in a small town of Karabakh in the evening!). We enjoyed a nice dinner and some conversation with our hosts. The father, Saro, works in connection with the military for refugee issues. He was an interesting person and lead us on a long conversation about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. I lost track many times, but I still have all his drawings in my notebook to refresh my memory.

The next day, after visiting the gandzasar monastery, we started walking around in the little village of Vank looking for jingalovhats (no, it's not something that you put on your head!), the local food specialty. We didn't find jingalovhats, but three men with golden teeth in a jeep who offered us to come to their place to have tea and lunch. I don't think it crossed Abishek's mind to accept the invitation, but having heard that these kinds of invitations are common in rural Armenia, and feeling quite hungry (and safe thanks to the presence of a man by my side!) I said "alright, let's go!".

They drove us to the top of a hill, where we found a little home, with chickens running wild and no running water. The house was cute, and we were greeted by one of the men's wife and their little son. It would be hard to give a good description of this memorable lunch. After battling with the little Armenian I know to get to know each other we got to the essence of Armenian social life: meat and home made vodka. We spent about 2 hours in this little house, speaking a language between armenian, body talk and abidu boudiba. I had to fight to resist the successive shots that were poured into my glass, and soon got cramps in my cheeks from laughing too much. We ended up missing our marshrutka and having to take a taxi, but it was all worth the spontaneous decision to jump into a strangers' car...

 

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A serious talk with Obama, the dog.

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Week ends around little Armenia

The good thing in Armenia is that you can quickly go around the country! 10 days ago, Angela, Abishek and me went to lake Sevan, the favourite escape place of the Armenians. It is a lake situated at about 2,000m altitude and so it's still pretty cool in the summer, so cool that most people only start swimming there around 5pm when the water has heated up a little. Well, it's fall now and I wanted to go before it gets really cold (that's my excuse for all of of my excursions so far!). Angela was kind enough to offer her Armenian expertise, and along with a freshly arrived volunteer, Abishek, we embarked on an inter-regional marshrutka ride. As a marshrutka fan, this was my lucky day!

The landscape was, once again, barren. No trees, and not much of anything else actually. We slowly climbed the smooth slopes of the empty roads that would lead us to one of the largest high-altitude lakes in the world. I had some of my first advanced armenian conversation with the taxi driver that day, revolving around the fact that my grand mother is armenian and that I like strawberries and tomatoes...

At the lake, there was only a handful of tourists, and some happy Armenians who were there to celebrate a wedding. The weather was beautiful, which made the colour of the water come out as a nice dark blue...

 

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From church to village

This morning, I was invited to an all Armenian church service by Ruzan's family. I didn't understand much until a missionary from South America came in and started speaking about the importance of forgiveness, and especially about forgiving the Turks and the other neighbouring nations. I was stricken that he had dared to speak about this topic after just a few words of introduction. The reaction in the audience was mixed as he said that we should, as Jesus ordered, be at the feet of our enemies. But in the end, there seemed to be a striking realization that the feelings of resentment which are held in the common memory are useless in building the world that we hope for and must be replaced by compassion. He encouraged the Armenians to walk to the country's borders and let God lay the table for the long awaited settlement of peace. After this great experience, I was invited for lunch at Ruzan's lovely aunt's place, and after that we drove with her two sons to her mother-in-law's village. I sat on a suitcase in the car, and for once the thought of putting my seatbelt on did not cross my mind (I am progressing you see...). The view was beautiful. I really like the landscapes of the Ararat plateau, flat lands surrounded by high snowy mountains which absence of trees reveals the smooth details of their shapes. And again, mount Ararat was attracting all of the attention and making all the other summits look ridiculously small... 

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An old lady who I had a very deep conversation with in Armenian ;)

The village, which is called Abovian, has about 1000 inhabitants. The houses are divided by unpaved and bouncy streets, which made me understand why we took the four wheel drive to get there! Depending on the wind and the street, the fresh smell of nature alternates with the smell of chicken dung and what I guessed was nothing else than the villagers physiological waste. At first, I thought of how bad throwing waste water in the environment without treating it first must be, but then I thought of the impacts of our big industries and had to relativise this first thought.  

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I met, again, extremely friendly people. As I did my best to say a few words in Armenian, people were surprised and started laughing and complimenting me, which really motivated me to get more serious with my lessons!

My NGO!

Hello world!

Check out the pictures of my first weeks here: http://www.dropbox.com/gallery/8203599/1/Armenia%20October?h=3554ad

The Armenian-French-dutch-and other unknown -ch and -ans is back on her blog :) My armenian side is growing everyday, maybe to reach its full quarter by the end of my stay here. I already got told that I must be Armenian because I try to get my best out of a situation in a sneaky way. However, despite my brown hair people keep telling me that I don't look haya. I think I will survive that, and at least my nose looks small here compared to other people's noses ;)

Except all the roots feelings budding inside of me, I got the most awesome volunteering/internship opportunity! There is this NGO called Foundation for the Preservation of Wildlife and Cultural Assets (or sunchild Armenia) which I emailed and offered me to work for them during my stay here. This organisation has developed the first network of environmental education clubs in Armenia, the Sunchild eco-clubs. There, young people between 12 and 17 years old gather to discuss environmental issues and make movies guided by professionals. I have started writing subtitles for some of their movies which they want to present in francophone film festivals, and I was impressed to see the powerful messages that they manage to convey! One of the movies was about the issue of stray dogs in Yerevan, and about how they get shot in cruel ways (or used to, since they seemed to have got more civilised since this year). It made me cry in the middle of the office. Last sunday, there was a big painting day during which more than a 1000 kids gathered in a park to make paintings on environmental themes, which would be presented for a big contest involving diaspora Armenians as well as Armenians living here.

Hereunder are some pictures of the events of last week, and the cute office's garden. More to come soon on life in Armenia!

My co-volunteers, great armenian eco-fighters! They always wear green ;)
 

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The NGO for which I am volunteering! How much cooler could their name be!?

She won my price of the cutest and wildest painter of the painting day

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Our garden
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A beautiful armenian mum and her genius painter 8 years old son

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A little armenian from america feeling very nationalistic ;)
A cute girl at the painting day
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What is this huge mountain?

Despite being one of the highest mountains in the world (5,165m), and although it could boast no end for having Noah's arch buried in its eternal snow cover, Mount Ararat is a shy one. He was kind enough to show his face for a few minutes on my first day, letting me the chance to exclaim "What is this huge mountain over there!", and then quickly went back to his cloudy hiding place. So, here is one of my challenges for the coming months: taming Mount Ararat! It also happens that the icon of the Armenians is not even located in Armenia but is, since 1920, on the other side of the closed Turkish border. So, to add to my frustration, I will only be able to gaze at the giant from a distance. The trip from Ankara to Yerevan took about 5 days, through Trabzon, and the Georgian cities of Batumi and Tbilisi. I didn't expect to have to go through Georgia until I discovered that the Armenian/Turkish border was closed. Having heard a lot of good about Georgia, I was really glad to do this "little" detour. It gave me the chance to visit my former fellow student and dorm neighbour Shota, to test the limits of my stomach's expansion potential with some khinkali (the national food, steamed meat dumplings which name I can't even pronounce!), and to visit some of the main sights of Tbilisi. Sights of Georgia's high mountains and perched monasteries, as well as its delightful people and delicious food convinced me that Georgia is definitely worth more of my time!  

Khinkali for 2

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Tbilisi

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One of this trip's highlights is surely the old Russian trains. Finally, I upgraded from the turkish buses for these old sleeping cabins. This way of travelling proved to be much more enjoyable, exciting and mostly comfortable (though I still have to get used to the train's bouncing and swinging!). I almost missed my first night train, the one which would bring me from Batumi to Tbilisi. There, after having got the assistance of a group of old biology professors (who told me that I looked Georgian! A victory for me after having tried to look local during the last 2 months!) I got a bed in a sleeping cabin with Ali, an Iranian man I had just met, and a big Georgian bloke, Piter. We quickly understood that Piter was actually the head of Georgia's chamber of corruption. He spoke little english, but we managed to communicate with the little linguistic common ground that we had. Piter turned out to be very outgoing, bordering on totally nuts. First, he saw a moskito and screamed: "corruption!". Later, after having taken a few pictures and learnt the words "send me" and "call me" he started to shout those sentences over and over again, along with some "babyyyy" and "oh my Goood!". With Ali replying even louder, me laughing, and Piter seasoning it all with some Christmas and Beatles songs, the situation quickly got out of control. The next morning, a few seconds after waking up, I hear a loud "call meeee!". That's the story of how I had one of the most crazy nights of my trip, locked in a train with an Iranian man and one of Georgia's parliament members. His voice is still in my head as I write, it's following me everywhere, when I go to bed, when I walk in the street, when I have breakfast... Believe me it's hard!  

Ali and Peter

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The night train to Yerevan was a much more relaxing experience. I shared my cabin with Valentina, an old Russian lady who tried her best to teach me the calendar months in her native language. I was really excited to be finally on my way for my final destination, full of curiosity and enthusiasm at the idea of discovering Armenia and eventually settling somewhere for a while.  

Hasmik and me

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In Yerevan, I called one of the girls I had been in contact with, who jumped in the first taxi to come and pick me up. An incredibly lively and kind 19 years old girl showed up, offering to give me a little city tour before bringing me to her aunt's place.  

The modern and imposing buildings of republic square

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Hasmik and her family made my day, offering me my first traditional food, nice chats and a good night sleep! The next day, we were off for a fat breakfast at a children candy store (which cost us a little euro for 2!), shoe shopping, Armenian language books and some sightseeing. Later that day, I met Ruz, the other girl I had communicated with before arriving to Yerevan. She offered me to stay at her place and give me help to find an appartment and internship/volunteering opportunities. She is THE girl I needed to meet, she knows the cool people, the tricks, and is a beautiful and very easy going person. Now, I am sick, but Ruz and her lovely mother take good care of me. So I spend my day learning armenian, eating and looking for work and housing! Oh, and I also stood next to Ruz 13 years old cousin while he was hacking one of the cameras of the giraffe cage of a Japanese zoo. Much love to all!