Armenians have a saying for March, Գիժ մարտ (“geejzh mart”) which means Crazy March. It relates to how the weather can be unpredictable in early spring. Since arriving here, I have seen sun, rain, sleet and snow. My life has changed completely in just two weeks, I’ve moved in with my host family, have nineteen new friends and PST (pre-serving training) is ramping up. Crazy different, but crazy good.

In staging, we were asked to share one of the emotions we were feeling in anticipation of our service. One person in my cohort shared that everything has felt surreal. When you’re going through medical clearance setbacks and trying to get everything in order to leave, your post seems fictional. As an invitee, you’re split between two worlds. Your post, which you have no real understanding of yet and your life in America. You’re saying your goodbyes knowing that your life will be unrecognizable but you don’t know exactly how unrecognizable it will be. Medical clearance was so tedious for me that I didn’t believe I was going until the day I left. Even when I touched down in Yerevan, I was sure I would get a message from my PC nurse saying I had another task to do, or that they were reassigning me.

That surreal feeling became even more intense. Suddenly, the alphabet I had been studying over the last month was everywhere– in capital letters and different fonts and not read off by my language instructor– totally unintelligible (for now).

Not only did I realize I had a lot of work to do with learning the language, I realized that all the studying and researching I did about this country was close to useless. Everything is different here, it’s hard to articulate that change. Culture is intangible, you have to see and experience it to understand it. It’s hard to understand it without meeting the people who live it everyday.

My cohort started service at a hotel in the mountains for orientation, pre-pre-service-training. Coming from the midwest, seeing land at eye level blows my mind. I will never get tired of looking out the window and seeing mountains in the distance. Our hotel was amazing, and a great way to step into the culture. We all ate together, and took walks around our small village. We made friends with a stray dog that we called ընկեր (friend). He liked to go on morning runs with some of the guys.

While we were staying at the hotel for orientation, we took a trip to the Tonatsuyts Cultural Center. We got to watch how Lavash is made, sample some horovats, which is Armenian barbecue. We fumbled through some traditional dances, and met the sweetest տատիկ (grandma) of all time. She called me Merieko, which is a cute diminutive that means something like ‘little Mary’.

A big cultural difference that some Americans might find crazy about Armenia is personal space. It doesn’t really exist here, but not in a bad way. Armenians are extremely affectionate. They hug and kiss, throw their arms around each other and pinch each others cheeks. I’m someone who really likes their personal space, but that immediately went out the door when I met the tatik at the cultural center. She kissed me on both cheeks when I introduced myself and held my hand for most of the visit.

March has also been crazy because I am experiencing all the health issues that I promised others wouldn’t be a big deal. I am serving with mild intermittent asthma and a peanut allergy. Back home, my asthma only flares with cardio exercise. I’m a pretty active person, and it became less of a problem the more I exercised consistently. Here, I noticed a change in my breathing immediately. There’s pollution, pollen and smoke in the air this time of year in Armenia. The PCMO gave me a spacer and a Russian backup inhaler (the good stuff).

Armenia imports a lot of food from Russia, so their labels are written in Russian. My knowledge of Russian is limited, meaning I can read the Cyrillic alphabet but I don’t understand anything. I won’t forget the Russian word for peanuts though, it’s familiar to me.

While I’ve been going through some adjustments with my health and to the culture, overall March has been crazy good. This is all thanks to my host family. I have a host aunt, 2 host sisters, and a tatik. They are so welcoming and warm, I feel like I’m another one of their daughters. The past day I’ve been sick, and they are doing everything they can to help me feel better. They’ve put a space heater in my room, cooked me soup, took my temperature, and are insisting I use a hair dryer after I shower, because having wet hair will make me get sicker. I’ll talk about them in a later on because they deserve their own post.

Here’s some photos from my first two weeks here!

1. Meeting my host aunt and sister.
2. My host sister & I. She brought me my favorite kind of flowers, tulips!
3. My host sister and with the bracelet I made for her
4. A typical Armenian breakfast
5. The view from my bedroom. I live in a mid sized town with the four other YD volunteers
6. Me holding գատա (gata, a type of dessert) at the Tonatsuyts Cultural Center (courtesy of Nikolai)
7. լավաշ (Lavash) making, the national bread. It’s served with every meal. Lavash is only wheat and water, and it is made in a special underground oven.
8. An altar at my local church
9. A view from my training location
10. The walk to another volunteer’s home (where I subsequently got peanuted, those clouds are ominous I should have seen it coming)
11. Me and my friend, Cayden (courtesy of Gino)

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