July 18, 2003 7:19pm
Spitak Boarding School
On Wednesday morning (7/16) three of our Armenia staff, Tom, and I headed about two hours north of Yerevan to the town of Spitak, which was completely leveled in a monumental earthquake that directly struck the city in 1988. Many of the streets are named after the country responsible for their rebuilding. The steeply sloped roofs of Switzerland Street gave pretty obvious evidence of their origins. Showoffs. In Spitak we have an Internet access site at a boarding school. The weather was a bit cooler than the 106 degrees that Yerevan has been for the past week (and unfortunately we were unable to scrounge up time for the water park, which apparently has a zip line over a pool. Oh well, maybe next time).
The site is a pretty amazing place. They have 16 computers, two digital cameras, two scanners, and a digital recorder. The boarding school students have created several websites, host an online radio program, and teach classes to others. There’s even a seven-year old who teaches Linux. How’s that for annoyingly precocious? Sounds like someone needs to be taken down a notch.
The kids were very giggly and excited to see us and show us their skills. And Tom, Mkrtich (our Armenia country coordinator), and I were each interviewed for their Web radio broadcast. I was asked only two questions, neither of which I could answer satisfactorily: “How many Internet access sites does IREX run in Georgia? And, what’s the strangest place you’ve ever made whoopie? Oh wait, that wasn’t the second question. It was, are there any sites in Georgia similar to the one in Spitak? I gave an answer that pretty much said, “Beats the crap out of me.” Actually, with Tom’s assistance I said, “While there are children in Georgia who use our sites, there is nothing as dedicated as the Spitak site, and the exciting thing about this site is not merely how dedicated the site is to children, but how dedicated the children are to the site.” Isn’t that sweet. I felt like I was kissing babies and running for office.
While at the site, we were of course treated to great hospitality. A big spread with several unidentifiable but delicious deserts was laid out. Tom received a rug with the IREX logo weaved into it. I drank some Café Pele coffee for old time’s sake. And during our casual discussion I browsed the English III textbook printed in Moscow. I’m always interested to see English language textbooks written by non-native English speakers. This one was pretty good but I was a bit baffled by some of the songs that they had chosen to include in the back. I thought “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” and “Happy Birthday” were logical choices, but there were a couple others that caught my attention. My two favorites were “I Found a Cow” and “He Likes Chicken.” Who can forget the times, sitting on the front porch with a banjo and a washboard singing “I Found a Cow”? And I must confess that it still brings tears to my eyes whenever I hear an old Frank Sinatra rendition of “He Likes Chicken.” That song rings true on so many levels.
So the site is a great success and will hopefully look good for us when the US ambassador visits it next week. It’s always good publicity when an ambassador visits our USG-funded sites. Hopefully the children will take care of him. I’ll bet he doesn’t get a rug though.
Soviet Archaeology
Wandering around Tbilisi today I cut through a park that began as a concrete, downward flowing walkway into the trees. At the beginning of this were a jester-looking statue with a comedy mask and an iron archway in the shape of stage beams, with a statue of a young boy looking down as you walk through. Seemed like a good place for a stroll. The path continued down, down, down, much farther than I actually thought possible, the stone path meandering like something from Oz, up and down, around in serpentine switchbacks, walkways constructed in some kind of M. C. Escher design. Eventually the path led to a small, circular stage surrounded by stone-carved benches. And then the path broke up a little, but kept going.
Following random leads through denser trees, across Soviet playgrounds and weak streams, the path eventually led into something resembling a forest. This is a strange thing to find in the middle of a city of nearly 2 million people. I followed the dirt path further, past cairns of garbage and a few dirt roads that included barely begun foundations of buildings. At one point I passed an old train car that looked like it had served as a shelter a while ago. Most of this time I could look up on either side to see the omnipresent concrete Soviet architecture, but eventually the trees got denser and the path got narrower and resembled more of a hiking trail than anything else.
Eventually the trail opened up again onto a main road near the river and an amusement park, but before that, in the densest part, were several concrete blocks bearing rusted pipes about three feet in diameter that may still carry something. They were in rusty but reasonable shape and were completely overgrown. Somehow there was something very Indiana Jones about the whole thing. Like wandering through miles of forest to find mysterious remnants of a long-gone civilization. That’s of course ridiculous; these pipes were probably laid two years ago, but nonetheless I thought it was cool.
Upcoming Excitement
I have skipped many things for no particular reason--rowing on a man-made lake with staff, target practice with BB guns at an amusement park, and hundreds of photos worth of wandering through markets and neighborhoods. Maybe I will add something about it at another time. This journal is not very orderly I‘m afraid.
Tomorrow morning I have an appointment with Tenghiz, a realty agent. He’s a contact I received from fellow returned Peace Corps volunteer Brian Randall, who works for the Eurasia Foundation. Tenghiz called me this evening and we spoke for about three minutes. I told him what I am looking for, we agreed to meet at 10:30, he will call me at 9:30 with more information. If I didn’t know better I might not be sure if I’m meeting him for an apartment or to make a drop. Hopefully the meeting won’t require passwords or pink carnations.
Sunday I’m headed to the cave complexes of Vardzia, near the Turkish border, with Brian. It’s close to a five-hour drive but it’s supposed to be spectacular, as well it should be for five hours.
In about three weeks I’m headed to Baku, Azerbaijan, and then back down to Yerevan for a few days to meet with different people. This will be my first trip to Azerbaijan and Baku is reputedly beautiful with the wealth of oil companies operating in the Caspian. And apparently Tom Faustini, RPCV extraordinaire is working there as an expert on Chechnya. Quite a thought that. I may try to catch up with him. For anyone that doesn’t know Tom, well, he was stationed in northern Kazakhstan and would occasionally mix Yupi (Kool-Aid) into a bottle of vodka as a cocktail. He wore a red bandana and an Islanders T-shirt. He’s got strong opinions and interesting attitudes toward just about everything. He’s a good guy and someone you certainly don’t forget. If you’d like some interesting stories or details, well, just ask Cap or Ian.
Things here continue to come together quickly. Running in shorts in the morning here is not viewed as freakish (as it was in Kazakhstan, at least when I was there), so that’s good to hear. Also, I’ve been invited to play soccer with a diverse group of people on Tuesdays so that should be good for networking. That’s all for now, I’m off to meet some friends for a beer.
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