Your mood and energy can shift unsettlingly fast in a place like this, and usually it’s got a lot to do with perception. Massive questions like “why am I here,” and “will I actually have a reasonably positive impact here,” and even more mundane (but still very important) ones like “will my host family serve me a heaping bowl of greasy, bland soup again for the 7th or 8th night in a row” can fill mind until you just feel tired. Another level got tacked onto that already mounting fatigue recently because my counterpart, the Armenian woman I teach English with every day, left very suddenly for a two week stint, leaving me to teach 20 classes a week, grades 3 through 12, on my own. I felt up for the challenge, happy that they trusted me enough to do it and daunted as hell be the task of teaching all of these kids using a language I’m still just learning (their English is still not nearly good enough for me to rely on that entirely).
So yeah, my counterpart had to leave to go take classes in preparation for some state mandated test, since she will be replacing comrade Mirzoyan as the school’s director next year. The lovely people giving these required classes gave her about two days notice when they were taking place, which meant I found out the day before she was leaving. I headed over to her house after school on the day I found out. She was already packing her bags and her hair had been newly soaked with a large quantity of red dye, which was starting to seep down onto her forehead a bit, which made her look, well, very funny. She brewed a pot of coffee, sat down across from me, and, in her obnoxiously unfailing calm tone, gave me two pieces of advice. “Teach them reading...[pauses to sip coffee]…and just have fun.” I decided I would take the latter portion of her advice in particular to heart.
That was it, no time for laying out what subject matter I would cover with the students for the next weeks. Without leaving me with even a modicum of a game plan she was gone. The upside became apparent to me pretty quickly. Two weeks of being able to teach English the way I think it should be taught. I could use the poorly written Armenian English textbooks as often or as little as I like, and I didn’t have to worry about another teacher doing stuff in the classroom that I wasn’t really a fan of for the time being. The chance to work on my own a bit sounded great…
The experience had its trying moments for sure, like the 12th grade taking the new teaching situation as a sign that they could pay even less attention than normal, or when all of the boys in my third grade grappled onto my arms one day as the end of class bell rang, jumping up and down and yelling “goodbye, goodbye, goodbye Mr. Tom” over and over and not allowing me to move an inch let alone attempt to leave the classroom (this was actually just more hilarious/ sort of cute than difficult).
Overall the experience went well and helped me get some more credibility at the school, which is always good. The hard days were, well, damn hard ones though, and by the end of the first week at it I was wiped, stressed out, sort of fuming… So I went for a walk. I had heard there was an old abandoned 17th century church about a 40-minute hike from the village, and the weather was gorgeous on this particular day, so I decided to find it. I headed up the winding, upward climbing road that runs through my village, past the cemetery which marks the village’s outer limit and continued through a path that runs between the village’s grape vineyards for some time. After this the path continued along the mountainside and I just continued to take it, not really sure if I was going the right way or not. Eventually, I ran into the paved road to Kuris, a mining town west of my village that lies high, high up and right on the border with Nakhidjevan, the Azerbaijani territory that, although cleanly separated from Azerbaijan by Armenia, is still somehow an Azerbaijani territory. I passed a few camping sites and eventually was stopped by a family eating khorovats on the side of the road.
They hailed me in the usual, extremely warm Armenian fashion. Already in a better mood from my hiking, I obliged when they asked me to come and sit with them. Realizing that I could speak decent Armenian, they started hitting me with dozens of questions about who I was and where I was from. I was introduced to the whole family: Henry, a man of about 35, his two brothers, his wife and son, and his mother. They told me that I should stay in this country and marry an Armenian woman (this is actually an extremely normal thing for Armenians to say to you). They also told me that I should eat lots of the walnuts they had out, because if you eat lots of walnuts you get married sooner (these sorts of superstitions, especially dealing with marriage and children, are also super common). They started piling fish and chicken onto my plate and asking me about America and about why I work here and also if I could tutor their daughter English. Answering their questions between mouthfuls, I was reminded of one of the things I love most about this country. The people are disarmingly kind and warm to strangers. It makes it that much easier to be a foreigner and also to connect with people.
After chatting with Henry and his family for a good hour, he told me he’d take me to the abandoned church I was looking for, which was just another few minutes up the road. Walking would have been fine, but Henry insisted we took what he called his “jeep,” which was really more like go-cart, could seat two people comfortably, had a crossbar running along the top of it and no ceiling, had to be push-started to run, and was painted an appropriate camo-green. Where this thing came from I have no idea, but I was happy to now be riding to my destination in style. We reached the church in less than two minutes (really, walking would have taken just about the same amount of time), and Henry showed me the entrance and, once inside, a secret passage that Armenian Christians used to use during wars and times of persecution. As he explained to me, the passage was no longer open, but used to run under the mountains and, if I understood correctly, the entire 40 minutes back to my village.
We took the jeep back to their picnic site, and I decided to say my goodbyes and head home. They told me that I was welcome to visit them in Kuris anytime, and that if I did, they would “show me a really good time.” I told them I’d take them up on it, and I really do intend to do so eventually.
I headed back home feeling worlds better. For whatever reason this family from Kuris had made me really happy to be in this country again.
No comments:
Post a Comment