Border to Border - Սահմանից Սահման

Living in a country smaller than the size of Maryland has its perks. Despite the predominately mountainous terrain that gives the country a wide range of climate zones and makes villages that should be only a stone's throw away from each other actually close to a day's travel away, Armenia is still relatively speaking a compact place. This also means that walking across the country, from one border to the other, is not a totally out of the question, insane prospect. And for three weeks this summer, myself and some fellow volunteers will be doing just that. 

Border to Border is a project started up by volunteers in Armenia last summer, and is now being continued for a second year running. Two teams of six volunteers, one from the Iranian border (that's my team) and one from the Georgian border will walk across Armenia for three weeks until we converge in the country's central town of Yeghegnadzor. Why, might you ask, are we doing this? Well, for some pretty good reasons as a matter of fact:

For these three weeks, we'll be walking for two very important causes in Armenia: children's health and environmental awareness. Lack of responsibility for one's health and for the local environment are two issues among Armenian youth (prevailing examples being garbage routinely dumped into local rivers and streams or the majority of young boys picking up smoking by age 15). And these issues we hope to address with a little leading by example, spreading of awareness, and teaching. Each team will stop in 9 to 10 Armenian towns and villages along the way to hold teaching sessions at local schools and cultural centers. Armenians from different organizations such as FYCA (Federation of Youth Clubs in Armenia) and YMCA of Armenia will be teaming up with us along the way as well, teaching with us and even walking with us at times as well. At the end of the journey, we hope to have taught in upwards of 18 communities, passed through/had contact with countless other villages along the way, hiked nearly 600 K, and given valuable lessons and lasting impressions to a whole lot of children. Wish us luck. It's on!

Oh yes, and we need donations too, so if you're in the position to do so, visit our donation portal here. Just few U.S. dollars go a long way in Armenia, trust me.

Shnorhavor – Շնորիավոր

In Armenia, folks like to Shnorhavor things.

 This word, shnorhavor, roughly translates to “congratulations,” but, as with a lot of cases when trying to succinctly translate something, it doesn’t do the word justice (I suppose this goes especially for translations between two languages as disparate as English and Armenian). You hear “shnorhavor” in Armenia in a lot of the situations where you would also here the English “congratulations,” like during weddings, or when you’ve just moved into a new place. You also hear it in some contexts where someone perhaps could give you a “congrats” in English, but it would ring a bit odd, like during birthdays (I don’t think people say “congratulations on your birthday,” all too often), when somebody in the village gets new windows, or when a grandchild gets new shoes. And then there are the situations where the translation seems to definitely be off, like the first day you wear a tie to work or when the first of a certain local mountain plant this season have grown and are ready to eat. It seems to mean much more than just a simple “congratulations,” is used often and creatively, and is always meant sincerely and to express good will (you don’t hear a lot of sarcasm around here, if any). A few of my favorite Shnorhavors I’ve experienced in country so far are as follows. 


Նոր Կացին Շնորիավոր - Nor Katsin Shnorhavor – Congrats on the new axe

 To stave off the cold during the brutal Armenian winter, I chopped a pretty substantial amount of wood toward the end of last year for my wood burning stove. I used my landlord’s old axe that I found in his storage area at first, but it didn’t last long. I’m no expert lumberjack, my form is probably laughable (at least to Armenians) and I take wild swings sometimes that dig into knotty portions of the wood that dull the blade and weaken the shaft. After a few days of using it, I had broken my landlord’s axe, split the shaft right in two. My neighbors tried helping me fix it, but it was bound to break again, so I started looking for something a little stronger/safer. I headed to Meghri, the nearest town, bought myself a new shaft and blade for a total of 4,000 dram. I was then told that I should bring the parts to a man named Hamlet, who lived in my village and apparently was the local master craftsmen of sorts. I brought the two parts to his house, and his daughter told me that in a few days he’d have it all fixed up and ready for me. About three days later, as I was getting ready to leave work at the school, I was called into the teacher’s lounge. There, resting in the middle of the room on a table usually dedicated to class textbooks, notebooks of lesson plans, and cups of coffee was a shinning new axe. My schools art teacher had written “TOM” in blue sharpie on the shaft, so that it was perfectly clear exactly who this tool of destruction belonged to. Hamlet had not simply attached the axe head to the shaft for me. The blade was razor sharp, and behind the axe head he had installed a small iron plate, reinforced with bolts, to make it super secure and more or less indestructible. Walking out of the school with this deadly thing, I was immediately swarmed by the 3rd, 4th and 5th grade boys hanging out in the playground. They gathered in a circle around me, jumped up and down, tried to come up to touch it, and gave me many a sincere “shnorhavor” on my new acquisition. In Armenian villages anyway, it’s not really looked down upon for teachers to walk out of schools with big, razor sharp axes.

Բոխի Շնորիավոր - Bokhi Shnorhavor – Congratulations to Bokhi (??) 

 The other day at work, my school’s principal, a white-haired, stout, severe but also mischievous kind of man, told me that I need not go to the third grade during the upcoming class period, because we had something important to do in his office. Per usual, he didn’t tell me what this was, but I obliged without any sort of complaint because, well, if the school head says I don’t have to teach next hour, then I’m not. I walked into his office to see the small table all set up with sausage, cheese, lavash, fruit, and a mysterious, green, limp, celery-looking vegetable on a platter in the center. “Tom, this is called Bokhi,” he explained to me. He said it was the first Bokhi of the spring, fresh from the mountains, and we had to celebrate a little. Two of the other male staff at the school, Karen and Aram, joined us, and we spent the next 45 minutes chowing down and sipping my director’s homemade vodka with many toasts of “Boki shnorhavor.”

 Փողկապ Շնորիավոր - Poghkap Shnorhavor – Congratulations on the tie 

 Last Friday, the American Ambassador to Armenia paid a visit to my school. I’ll have more on that whole ordeal in another post, but overall it went great. Among many other preparations for the visit, I decided I’d put on a tie for the occasion, which is the first time I’ve worn one at the school (despite the fact that for some reason I packed about 5 of my favorite ties when I left America last summer). One of my 7th grade students, a boy named Roler, said to me when I walked in, “Mr. Tom you are wearing a tie!” I responded in the affirmative. “Shnorhavor,” he said to me sincerely.

 Ձեր Տոնը Շնորիավոր - Dzer Tone Shnorhavor – Congratulations on your holiday 

 On pretty much any Armenian holiday, you’ll hear shnorhavoring going on all around the village. On Nor Tari (new year), everyone shnorhavor’s everyone, saying what would translate to “congrats on your holiday!” and then the response, “yours too!” On other holidays, people are shnorhavored who have a connection with the holiday, so for instance army veterans are shnorhavored on WWII victory day, which Armenian’s do in fact celebrate. One thing that’s confused me a bit though is that on just about every Armenian holiday, I’ve been told “your holiday shnorhavor” by my students, regardless of if I have a connection or not. I’ve of course been told “shnorhavor” on big holidays like Nor Tari, but I’ve also been told “congrats on your holiday” on holidays like Women’s Day, Armenian Army Day, and Russian Army Day, which is still celebrated widely since many Armenian men served in the Russian Army, and also sort of serves as an unofficial “Men’s Day,” here as well.

March 8th - Մարտի ութ

On March 8th, Armenia celebrates “International Women’s Day,” along with many other countries around the globe (I think some people observe it in the U.S. but I don’t remember ever hearing about it until I got here). Armenian takes the holiday seriously, and folks take off work and toast to the women in their lives. Here the day also sort of marks the focal point of March, which is “Women’s Month.” The day before the holiday arrived, excited third-graders at the school exclaimed “dzer ton shnorhavor” to me, which is a standard Armenian phrase said on special days that basically means “congratulations on your holiday.” Why they wanted to congratulate me on Women’s Day I’m not so sure, but either they weren’t thinking that hard or they thought it was funny. My students have also congratulated me on Teacher’s Day, Armenian Army Day, Russian Army Day, and just about every other holiday that has come, so I guess they just like saying it.

To commemorate the day and enjoy the time off, Arevik — a woman of 22 from the village, the school’s art teacher, and a good friend of mine — her three friends Hakob, Victoria and Satenik, and myself went for a hike in the mountains surrounding the village. Arevik and her crew showed up in front of my house in Hakob’s old Lada at about 11am, we drove out to a dirt road that led into the mountains slightly until reaching a steep valley, got out where the road ended, and began our quest. The goal of the hike was to find an old abandoned church (Armenian’s have a serious penchant for visiting the old, abandoned Christian churches of their ancestors). Only one of us, Hakob, had been to this particular old church before though, and he hadn’t been there since he was thirteen years old, so he was a bit fuzzy on the exact location somewhere in this vast space of rocky slopes, valleys, brambles and pine. Also in tow we had skewers, raw chicken, goat cheese, coffee, lavash, potatoes, pickled vegetables and a beat up Russian history book for starting a fire, so a traditional Armenian Khorovats (basically barbeque) was in order at some point in the day as well. I wasn’t at all aware at the time, but we wouldn’t be coming back down to the village until some 8 hours later.

 We set out from Hakob’s Lada and Victoria, or “Veek” as everyone was calling her, immediately started showing off her prowess in mountaineering, shooting up the slopes in incredibly fast spurts and then waiting for the rest of us patiently at intervals as we summited behind her at a more reasonable, out-of-shape person's pace. I tried my best to keep up, every now and then coming around a bend or getting over a boulder to see her sitting back propped up against a tree waiting for us to reach her so that she could continue. Before getting up to run ahead and disappear again, she a couple times paused to hand me some sort of herb that she had picked while waiting and told me to eat it. It was green, looked like grass and tasted sort of sour, but not bitter. I figured I could use whatever amount of energy it held inside and ate it up.

 As we reached the top of the first slope, Hakob, who had been staying behind with the other girls so far, now began showing off a bit too. He passed me up, disappeared as he started descending into the next valley, and what seemed like only 5 minutes later when I looked up I saw him already a kilometer or so out ahead and climbing up another slope. I was stunned by how fluidly a person could move through these mountains and also a bit put out that we still had to hike at least as far as he was. After catching up to Hakob and descending down into another valley, we came upon the stone foundation of an old barn. Maybe the church was nearby. People had lived here at some point anyway. Hakob seemed unsure. We followed a stream into a very shady and still partially snow-covered area for a little while longer before deciding that we’d have to eat before going on any further. We gathered wood and twigs, tore apart the old Russian history book and got a fire roaring. We skewered the meet, laid out the cheese and lavash, and got the khorovats roasting over the open coals. The potatoes were cooked simply by burying them under excess ash and hot coals, which I had never seen before but worked fine. Within a half hour we had a feast on our hands, and I sat amazed at Armenians’ ability to do a good khorovats literally anywhere. During the meal I felt great, not only because grubbing out after a long hike is really satisfying, but also because I was actually having a great time with Arev and her friends. I was understanding their Armenian almost perfectly, exchanging stories and jibes with them, and for one of the first times actually feeling connected with people my age in the country that are not just other Americans.

 After eating we decided to call it quits on the church hunt and just head back to the village. It would take awhile as it was. We cleaned up, burned our garbage (better than just throwing it in the creek, which actually is the more common method of picnic disposal here), and then put out our fire.

 Filled up on goat cheese, grilled chicken and potatoes, we took a steeper but more direct route back home. About halfway up, I looked back and spotted our elusive goal. Over one peak, across another valley and halfway up another lay a small, rectangular stone building that must have undoubtedly been the old abandoned church Hakob had been to when he was thirteen. I pointed it out to him and he confirmed it. Rather than let down, we were excited that we now knew where it was and could venture out to see it another time. It did make a very mysterious and almost taunting sight out there in the middle of nowhere, and we agreed make it out there soon.

 A few hours later we were back in the village and exhausted. I got a free meal at Larisa’s (Arevik’s mother) of borscht, bread and cheese, strolled home, at more food there, and then let my tired bones hit the bed. I was asleep in seconds.