a month wiser (...or more confused...but i think it's sort of the same thing)

I have been away from the computer for my two weeks in Spitak, so this is my first chance back. Thanks for your comments and emails (and LETTERS- letters are GREAT. If you've written me and I've gotten your letter, I just dropped one in the mail back at ya.) Thanks also for your suggestions with Down Syndrome and encouraging words and practical advice etc!

So much has been going on around me and inside me, and suffice it to say that this has been a really incredible and crucial time, but there is no way I am going to be able to put it into words (especially on a blog! which I still fell strange about having! oh well). I am going to break this up into pieces, as usual. I love you and miss you and am thinking so often of you all.

Some Good Laughs:

The Sisters in Yerevan had literally very few spices, some Indian ones, Paprika, etc...I hoped to find Oregano and Basil or something, but to no avail. They did have a jar full of something yellow and grainy. It was labeled "Mustard Seed." Go figure.

A white light glimmered on the mountains and reflected through the valley that is Spitak. It was around 8 or 9pm. A huge thunder and lightning storm just subsided. Sr. Anne Frieda looked out the kitchen window (which opens to the most beautiful view of a little village and a mountain) and turned to me and said, "You know, we used to say that this light is so pretty that all of the ugly people should go outside, because even they will look good."

Apparently to "go somewhere" for the Sisters and "children" here, (they are really young adults, more on that later), has a very specific meaning. The day before yesterday, the four Indian Sisters here, and a Belgian and Latvian volunteer and I went on a trip driving all around to Old Armenian Apostolic monasteries and to have a picnic by a lake. (It was the feast of the assumption, and these Sisters take their feast days very seriously. For any GK Chesterton readers: it's the Catholic fasting and feasting paradigm). The Sisters stopped at one place and when we were outside two asked me, "do you want to go somewhere?".."Sure", I said, "where? show me"...They were laughing and confused. They didn't really explain but it took a second for me to realize that "to go somewhere" for the sisters means to go to the "toilet" and that I had just asked the Sisters to help be to find somewhere to go (if you know what I mean) in the nearby wilderness.

One of the girls here, who often throws fits and gets really wound up/set off by a number of different things, was crying hysterically, as usual. Sr. Domini turned to me and said, "Well, I didn' t start crying when she called me fat."


Where Am I and What am I Doing

I have little time to write, but I started with the funny things because I wanted to give a sense of the glorious little moments here..and of my interaction with the Sisters. The Sisters are really great, and though they have their community and their privacy, I've been included in a number of things (including the aforementioned picnic) that have allowed me to get to know them in a way that makes daily interactions/working together much more rich.

Spitak is so utterly opposite from Yerevan. I am literally in a village. It's called "Italian Villiage" because these little houses (trailers) were put up by the Italians after the terrible earthquake that destroyed this place in the late 80s. The village has nothing more than a couple of small shops (the size of a small bedroom) with everthing from sausage to stuffed animals. I am currently writing this email from the so called city center, which is actually a bus ride away into another small town. The trailers in this town are one room- a stove, sink, and four or five beds are all in the same room. They have a bathroom with a toilet (that you have to flush by pouring water into) and a sink. Water works occassionally. Electricity is usually steady, but there have been a couple of black outs. We get our milk from a neighboring cow and we have chickens and grow potatoes and cabbage, which is standard for SPitak. No one has a job because the combination of communism and the earthquake destroyed any kind of industry/economy. People live off of their own little gardens and remain in the poverty they came into at birth. Everyone has a dream of leaving- and many young people especially are fascinated by Americans.

I have done an array of different things here. My main job is to play with and work with the 20 "children" (16-28, with the exception of two older ladies). There are wonderful mountains around so we've gone on a lot of walks (some can walk well, some limp, some are in wheelchairs) through the town and near/up mountains. There is a kind of primordial beauty here- with the scenery, the "children", the Sisters. I can't explain it. I want to write more abt the kids, but there's little time now.

My daily schedule looks something like this: 7am mass, 8am bfast with volunteers and the priest who lives here, 9-11 go on a walk, 11-3 clean, cook, rest, eat, Holy hour, 3-7 play with the kids, 7 evening prayer, 7:30 dinner. That said, there have been quite a few variations in the schedule including: distributing flour/pasta/sugar to poor families, visiting the poor, going to an old person's home, dropping some village children off at summer camp.

I've also been blessed with so many fascinating conversations. All the volunteers and the Sisters speak English (some better than others...and I'm totally embarrassed by the way everyone caters to English and the fact that I am the only person who does not speak at least 3 languages). I've learned a lot more abt the effect that communism had on people here- and the fear that still remains for some people.

The Recollection Room

I am not yet in the volunteer house (which really, is living in a trailer like the poor) because there are ten Belgian young people here to work on rebuiding houses throughout the village, and a couple of them are piled into the volunteer house. I am in a room in the attic upstairs that the SIsters call the "recollection room" (it says that on my key). It's a room where volunteers and sisters can escape to have some time in quiet reflection. It's been good for me to have that space, and some time to think and pray and recollect. I still have no idea vocationally on many levels what is going on- even in terms of plans for next year. I am being broken down each day. I feel myself changing and it hurts, but it is good. I am becoming less myself and more myself at the same time.

Be Poor

The other day in prayer I felt like one thing I am being asked is to "be poor." This has stuck with me and has been my recent mantra. When I heard these words in my head, I thought at first that they meant a kind of material poverty. And while it does in encompass this, I think I am being asked to empty myself in be poor in a more wholistic way. Be poor with words, be poor with my time, with trying to control every day things and the future. The poor may not know where they are going to sleep, what they are going to eat, or how they are going to live tomorrow. The same is true for us, but we think we can control everything. I need to abandon this desire and to really live in the present and in the gifts that I'm given daily and moment by moment.

Anyway, enough of this! I am doing well and am happy despite difficult moments, especially of missing community. But I do trust that this is where I'm supposed to be for a time- I obtained a year residency here. We'll see what happens.

Love and Prayers!

Address:

Genevieve Jordan
Missionaries of Charity
Italian Village
1805 Spitak
Armenia

(if you sent a letter to a different postal code, no worries, it came- but this is the new one)

these Yerevan days

Thanks again for all of your emails and comments- it is so wonderful to hear from you.

I am currently at the American Embassy in Armenia, and am writing for what will probably be the last time for a little while. I leave the capital for Spitak on Friday.

I am doing well over all. I am going to write just a little bit under a couple of headings, as before.

Bread, bread, bread, BREAD!

What is food like in Armenia? Well, I'm not really sure exactly. The Sisters do not necessarily eat like your typical Armenians. A couple of Armenian foods we do eat often include this sour yogurt "matsoun" (I think) and BREAD ("hotz"). There were a couple of days when all I ate for breakfast and dinner was loads of bread. We often eat sliced tomatoes and bread or cheese and bread etc (basically everything + bread). I have never eaten so much bread in my life- it is very good, but, you know.

Armenians also seem European in taking tea/coffee after every meal. Some American volunteers donated chocolate chips and baking goods etc, and I made some good ol' chocolate chip cookies last night for the kids/sisters/workers/etc. Everyone calls them "biscuits". Some American also donated instant oatmeal, and one of the Sisters realized it was American and absolutely insists that I eat a packet for breakfast every morning (whether I want to or not). haha.



My Latest Challenge

So I hate to admit it, but for a couple of days, I was finding other work to do so as to avoid spending the day with the Down Syndrome kids. That sounds awful- I know it is, but regrettably, it's the truth. I can't explain how depressing their little play area is- they play there day after day after day. And the one worker just watches them, but can't really play with them. The thing about Down Syndrome kids is that they are naturally less social. They'll all go off and sit in their own corners alone. I tried to get them to play games etc with me for the first couple of days, but I grew kind of depressed and frustrated with the situation that I learned to avoid it.

For me, "Christ in His most distressing disguise," as Mother Teresa would say, is in the Down Syndrome kids. I realized my fault in avoiding them on Sunday, and decided on Sunday night that I would really try to spend the day with them on Monday. Well, I was humbled before I made this effort. Sr. Nelena pulled me aside early Monday morning and asked me to spend time with them; she didn't reprimand me as much as she pleaded for them. I was so frustrated with myself. I have made a greater effort since then, though I admit it is still very frustrating work. I long too much to see the fruits of my labor- and working with the Down Syndrome kids is difficult for me largely for that reason. I may not see any fruit, they may not respond, but they still really do need love like all persons and I am so selfish to avoid them because it doesn't leave me with any affirmation or sense of accomplishment!

Anyway, that's all for now. Thanks for everything- I love and miss you!