illustrations:
Christmas- http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2133687&l=0e26e&id=5621123
The Last few months- http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2148890&l=565db&id=5621123 http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2148892&l=e1a7e&id=5621123

Tonight marks four weeks since my return to the United States. Part of the reason I haven’t written is because I find it very difficult to figure out what is necessary to say and how to both accurately and adequately represent my last few weeks in Armenia and the plop back into America.

The best I can do is rattle off some scattered thoughts. Before I do so, I just want to thank you for meeting me here, amidst confused meanderings, for these months. Please do not undervalue the effect your prayers, comments, emails, letters (however lengthy or brief) had, and continue to have, on my life. THANK YOU.

During my last few weeks I got in deeper and deeper with the village children. We hung out daily- whether that meant sitting around in the evenings, playing "football", adventuring through versions of "capture the flag" or making a serious effort to clean up the mess of a village.

An American family sponsored a group of my little buddies from the poor village school to clean for football uniforms. The village is literally LITTERED with CRAP. It is EVERYWHERE. And since it is everywhere, it is no particular person’s mess and no particular person’s responsibility.

Because of a lack of jobs and purpose, men loiter for long hours and shoot the breeze between cigarettes. Anywhere they congregate puts them in full view of the inhuman mess. Nobody does anything about it except to generously bequeath their situation and mentality to those who come after them...but they’re probably just re-gifting.

During our project, some of the kids who cleaned for uniforms picked up one piece of trash every ten minutes and didn’t at all understand the sense of what we were doing. Heck, I even had one kid who decided the best trash-picker-upper would have the heaviest bag, so he proceeded to bypass trash for sizable rocks.

Their logic was convincing. They didn’t make the mess, so it wasn’t their problem. Any area we cleaned would soon be dirty again within a day or two because of an incessant wind with the bad habit of depositing plastic bags right where you had just cleaned. It was impossible to clean up everything and very difficult not to be daunted by the amount of time it took to finish five feet. It would take weeks and a few more than 11 schoolboys to make a tangible difference.

That said, a handful got something out of it. A group of kids who were not on the football team came and cleaned with us anyway (probably more for something to do than for anything else, but still). And a couple of boys kept coming to clean even when they had put in enough hours to earn their uniforms. They cleaned both with me and on their own time. One made a comment that they lived in a place for pigs. He asked me if America was like this. His expression and deepening commitment through all of this cannot be translated.

The day before I left, this same group of friends ditched school (I know, what a good influence) and pulled me out of the Sisters’ house for a "surprise." They were five boys between the ages of eleven and fourteen. I was directed to sit down and watch as they acted out Armenian skits (all rhymed), each said something about who God is, recited poems that they wrote and memorized for me and sang me songs. The boy who I was closest with of the group turned, almost in kind of a self-disbelief, and said, "I have tears in my eyes".

That night a couple of co-volunteers and I roasted s’mores (or the closest thing to it- the same generous American family helped get me some graham crackers and mallows) with this core group of village kids. After burning everything they could get their hands on, and when it looked like the party was nearly over, they changed their approach and brought the fire everywhere else- including to a candle in front of our trailer.

At this point one of the poorest boys in the whole village (in every sense) and who is made fun of daily by everyone because he smells and is always dirty etc- turned to me and said, "can we pray?…can we pray for your- airplane?" The others immediately joined in- "yeah yeah- for your good trip home?" All the kids gathered around the candle, made the sign of the cross and prayed the Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be (prayers they learned from the Sisters) for my safe trip home.

It was all I could do to say anything after that- especially goodbye.

The goodbye to the disabled young adults in the Sisters’ home was also difficult- but in a different way. They understand something more of goodbye, because everyone- all the volunteers and Sisters- eventually say it. In fact, I worried that by coming and going I was opening their deepest wound. It is infinitely better that people come and love them than that they are alone, but it’s just hard. For the moment, and perhaps for always, they are in the care of the very loving hands of volunteers and Sisters.

Before I sign off permanently, I want to correct the image of Armenia that I dared to offer in one of my first entries- an entry I wrote before I had even exited Yerevan. I think I described Armenia as a kind of poor, Mexican Europe.

That is absolutely wrong.

I filtered the little I saw of Armenia through the little I had seen of the world- and that’s what came out. That’s the kind of thing I did/do all the time- and one of the many flaws about the way I think and act that this experience helped to surface.

And after almost ten months, I’m still not sure what to say about Armenia. She’s ancient and Eastern. She survived soviet oppression, but remains stuck somewhere and hesitant to leave that place. Faith and Religion are her forgotten bedrock. She embraced me, and I’m not sure why or what I am supposed to take from long days nestled in her mountains, but I hope someday that I can do something to thank her, her sons and daughters and their Creator.

zanzarik

I'm not exactly sure that's what they are called...but I think it is- and I believe it translates to something like "snow flower" (and if it doesn't, then it should, because that's what it is).

At the first sign of spring, the young people in our home were after me to go with them to the mountains to excavate snow flowers. I don't use the term "excavate" lightly. At first I thought it was ridiculous that we seemed to bring a whole kitchen drawer of all kinds of knives and spoons to dig these things out, but once we started, I was glad we had them. These high tech tools were necessary because you really have to get the flowers out at the root- otherwise they wither (and leave a nice little stench) in a few days. But if you preserve the root- they start to grow. A local villager gave me a bundle of these flowers on March 8th for "Women's Day", a holiday remnant of Communism, and they continue to sprout in my home. (And if something grows in my home- besides the mushrooms behind my bed- that is a small miracle).

If you suspect that I'm on the brink of a (cheesy) analogy- you're absolutely right. It's really snow flower time around here. The winter is disappearing, and a lot of my struggle (at least with daily things) wanes with the winter. My toilet is totally unfrozen (YES!) and I think I should have running water (at least for an hour or two a day) within the next few weeks.

In retrospect, I'm happy that I struggled at this level because it allowed me to start to enter the typical Armenian's shoes and because it pushed me to really trust in God at a level I never had before. I begin to discover the snow flowers that have grown from beneath the ice. I just hope that I can continue to see this thing through to the end, and take the flowers out by their roots.

I should also add that I'm leaving earlier than I thought- April 26th- so I have four weeks left here. Please pray I live in the present moment in Italian village, in Spitak, Armenia, as long as I am here.

This is short and abstract- but I have an important date to play "football" (soccer) with the village kids at five, and I need to head back to meet them.

May the peace of Easter fill your heart.

Wow, it has been a while since I've updated this. It's been impossible to find time. Did I really say in my last entry that I am here to just "be"? Well, I had to eat my words soon thereafter. And since I'm on the topic of words, I should mention that the other day I started talking to a woman in my best Armenian and she responded to me (in Armenian), "Sorry, but I don't speak English."

Yep, I'm that good.

A musical, Mendoza kind of Christmas

It was strange to be away from home for Christmas- but it was also good. The Sisters take their Catholic feast days pretty seriously (I've never been so liturgical in all my life), and Christmas was no exception. Christmas eve the Sisters and children celebrate a midnight mass (except that it's at ten pm) followed by a feast of desserts and a dance party. It was GREAT. We were going until 1am. I was back at the Sisters' house by 6am Christmas day, however, to stuff turkeys. The superior figured because I was American, I must be a professional turkey maker. So while I have absolutely no turkey-experience, I was appointed head chef by default.

The two big thrills of the day, however, had nothing to do with my turkeys. Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business sent personalized gifts for each child from "Santa." Our 82-year old priest dressed up like Santa and handed out the presents to each person. IT WAS FANTASTIC. They usually each receive some variation of the same thing- but this year, they got gifts that really fit each of them. Many thanks to Mendoza College of Business, and all who collaborated to make this happen.

The second excitement of the day was the performance of the annual "Christmas drama." The superior dubbed me the head of this project. After getting to know the young people here for some months, I was pretty aware when we started planning this play that the kids couldn't memorize lines. But I also knew that they love music and that they don't realize how poor my guitar playing is...So, I took full advantage of these things and used some common Christmas songs and wrote a couple of easy ones and put together a Christmas Musical. The Annunciation was simplified to something as basic as: "Hail Hail Hail Mary/Do not be afraid/You will have baby Jesus/He will be the son of God" sung to a string of Ems and As etc.: but they remembered their songs (I was pumped) and it was a blast!

War with the day-to-day

By the time 7pm rolled around on Christmas, however, I was dead and starting to get sick. I had been yelling and singing all day. I was really really thirsty, and wanted a cup of cold water. But in that moment, it was absolutely impossible to get. You have to boil water to drink it, and we didn't have anything besides hot hot water. This is going to sound absolutely ridiculous (but it's a pretty accurate portrayal of where I'm at so I'm going to include it) but when I realized there was no possible way to obtain something as simple as a cup of non-boiling water, I had tears in my eyes (too bad I didn't collect and drink them- it would have been a good idea).

That's really been my life lately: war with the day-to-day. It's freezing and my home is as comfortable as a walk in freezer (ok, ok, fridge is probably more like it). A couple of weeks ago I noticed sheets of ice around my bed. I was keeping dirty clothes in a corner of the room, and when I went to wash them, I realized I couldn't pick some up because they had frozen to the floor (probably means I need to wash clothes more often- but it's not so easy to do). My pipes are totally frozen, so every day I bring a jug of water from the Sisters' house to my house (thank God their water works- it wasn't working last week and that meant it was "to the River"- which is what all the rest of the village is doing) and bring it home to use for boiling to wash clothes, bucket showers, and flushing my toilet...

Well, and speaking of flushing toilets, as of a week and a half ago my toilet stopped working. I tried all the local remedies (like dumping copious amounts of salt down the blessed thing) but all my solutions seem to leak out the base of the toilet and make my room/home smell like you-know-what. It's absolutely disgusting and has been the last straw in terms of my physical/mental/emotional health. For the last month I have a new health problem every day: I'll spare you details, but you name it, I've had it. I actually had a water parasite a couple of months ago, and we think it might be back (or at least some problem is back) so I am currently out of the Sisters' house right now to take a break and figure out what's going on inside me.

The other thing I didn't think about in coming here is how difficult it would be to eat nourishing food. The only vegetables the "shops" (there are two large-closet sized shops here) consistently have is cabbage (which I'm happy to have). There is an endless supply of potatoes, though, and that basically counts as a vegetable. I think part of my physical problem comes from the fact of having no nutrients inside me, except for whatever comes from potatoes and white flour.

The fight at this level of existence has been a taste of poverty. I never know what very essential thing will stop working tomorrow, and I have to depend on God utterly to be at peace with the situation. And God is good.

I can't really articulate the kind of spiritual and emotional struggle this has been- or my level of fatigue because of these tiny daily trails- but suffice it to say it's been real. I've also had a pretty challenging time with the mission here, but I think my inability to handle different situations stems from the struggle on this basic level. I feel stupid that these kinds of things have affected me the way they have- I thought I was a lot stronger than I really am. Nobody has died, I'm safe, and I'm the only person these things effect: but I really am at a breaking point despite my mental recognition that I'm not in any great peril. I think things are on the way back up- though I could still use some prayers.

Going to the dogs

I want to include is about the very real threat of, you guessed it: street dogs. I was warned during the summer to watch out for dogs in the winter because they are hungry and will attack. I hear/see them roam in packs around the village. I walk everywhere with a big stick. The other morning I was heading to the Sisters' house (I usually go before the sun's up) and was surrounded by aggressive, barking dogs. I ran back to my trailer, terrified. The funny thing about this is that everyone's scared, but nobody does anything to solve the problem. Last winter a Belgian volunteer was bitten, and reported the dog because he had bitten two other people. The police said there was nothing they could do about it because the one man who is authorized to shoot dogs had died. (After some time, they solved the problem, but it took a while).

Yup, that's Spitak. So is everyone just dying to come and visit???


Love and prayers- and lots of laughter.