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.