My last English class

All Adventures Must Come to an End

These last few weeks have been so busy! I am sad to say that they were my last weeks at my school. May 25^th was the student’s last bell which is an awesome tradition that I want to share with you but first I want to tell you how I chose to end the year with my students. I decided that just having a final test with my students and simply saying goodbye wouldn’t be enough. So I held a jeopardy like competition to find out who my best student is. I invited the parents of my students and also told them to bring some goodies because after the competition we would have a party to celebrate their accomplishments and I would bring a cake for them.

So if you recall, all year my 5^th grade class has been having a sticker book competition, where every time they do something great in class they get a sticker and the student with the most stickers would receive a special prize at the end of the year. So going into the end of the year competition I knew that my top students were really close in their race for stickers, each having about 50-55 stickers. So to make the  competition have more meaning I told my students that the winner of the competition would receive 10 stickers, meaning basically that whoever won, would also win the year long class competition.  To my Fifth grade class this was a huge deal.

The night before the competition my boyfriend brought me over the most beautiful surprise, a cake for my class with both the American flag and the Armenian flag, it was really so perfect and I couldn’t wait to show my students!!

The class party went perfectly; all the students had bells or sticks to hit their desk with when they knew an answer and they were all so eager to answer every question. It was great for the parents to be able to witness not only how awesome their children are and how far they have come in English, but also to see how classes can be fun and educational. I had so many parents tell me that every day their child talks about how fun English class is and they don’t understand why, so I wanted to share this with them. After two rounds, we had two winners and I couldn’t bear to take away the win from one of the girls so I gave them both the ten stickers, but in the end my little nune was the winner, the one with the most stickers, so she won the prize which ended up being a Hodge-podge of everything my parents have sent me for the past two years, stickers, candy, English books, a pair of gloves, markers and I have no idea what else. After the game we ate cake together and talked about the two years that we have spent together.

I can’t tell you how sad it made me to think that it would be the last time I walked into a classroom and saw their adorable little faces. The last time they would all rush up to me yelling Miss Alyssa , trying to tell me a something before the rest of the class got the opportunity. The last time that we would giggle about language mistakes that I make in Armenian, or they make in English together. I know teachers are not supposed to have favorites but really this class has been my rainbow on a cloudy day. They have always made me feel respected, but also loved. As an outsider in a small town, it’s sad to say they have been some of my only friends at times and in a way, I love them like they are my children. I have grown to know their personalities, their families, their goals and even their shortcomings. I can’t imagine not being in Armenia come next September to welcome them back to school. It really was a great way to spend my class with them but also a really hard day for me because it’s basically the end of my journey here. Sure I am not officially done with Peace Corps until August 3^rd, and I have some summer camps and such, but this is the end of what I came here to do, and though it feels amazing it is also very frightening and sad at the same time. Part of me is ready to go home, I miss my home and Americans so much, but a big part of me wants to stay here and is having trouble moving on… 

Dance Dance

So the last week has been super hectic!! Not only  have I been preparing for our last 3 weeks of school, which means final tests, review games and just cherishing my final moments in the classroom, but I have also helped to organize a dance camp at the Spitak YMCA where Peace Corps volunteers taught a choreographed hip hop dance... and by helped I mean a little something like this: Hey Peace Corps dance camp volunteers you should come to the YMCA in Spitak and do the camp PCDC: oh really when?? Me: Hey YMCA we want to do a camp when should we??  YMCA: this week would be best ME: Hey PCDC come on these dates, this is how you get to spitak.... =) oh yeah and also I cheered and pointed out where people needed help and provided an encouraging smile! Also I cooked dinner for the volunteers one night, and it was pretty much amazing.

So anyways the camp was three days long and mostly kids from the YMCA attended but I also had two of my students go. 4 PCV's pretty much did everything on their own, teaching dance moves, B boy styles and a routine. Each day was about 3 hours long and on the last day the kids preformed for the YMCA.
 Please follow this link to watch this amazing video that the Spitak YMCA prepared!!! You can catch a few glimpses of me on the sidelines!! =)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lhfg4NP3QRg&feature=share

Girls Leading Our World Camp

Hello Everyone!
I just got back from my close of service conference where I heard some alarming news. This year our GLOW camp, an amazing Peace Corps sponsored camp that teaches young women about career paths, leadership training, and gender development issues is in serious trouble due to lack of funding this year. If you remember last year I nominated three incredibly intelligent young women who attended this camp and came back with so many ideas that they have already put to action in Spitak. This program is really empowering for young Armenian women who often don't have many chances in an extremely male dominated culture. Among other things, Glow camp teaches AIDs education, in a country where aids is never discussed but raising in numbers... It teaches women how to protect themselves, how to ask their future husbands to be tested and how to talk to other about it.
Last year I discussed the impact that this camp had made on my students in this post

I have never solicited funding via my blog nor facebook, but I am making an exception this once because I truly believe in this camp, Armenian women and their futures... If you'd like to make a donation please please please, follow this link

Spring has sprung

I couldn't resist taking this picture of my 3rd grade boys yesterday in class! They just look so polished and grown up! It was also a sign that spring has finally begun. No more ugly winter clothes!!! The sad thing is it's my last spring in Armenia. Today I will head to my COS Conference which stands for close of service. Peace Corps is preparing us to leave the country and go back to our ordinary American lives... I can't even imagine what that will be like at this point.

I have about a month left to spend with my amazing students and then only summer remains before I come home. So one more round of Armenian Ice cream, lazy mornings, fresh amazing fruit and vegetables, a few summer camps, at least one more wedding, hopefully some last Armenian sightseeing trips and then I am out of here. Time goes by so faster that we can catch it and learn to cherish it.

Armenian/American love

So as I said in my previous post, yesterday I travelled to the tiny little village of Arteni, to go to a wedding. This was no ordinary wedding; this was the wedding of a Peace Corps volunteer to a Host Country National, or HCN as we say. Not just any HCN either, this was the wedding of my friend Scott to his counterpart Mary!! That is right; he married the person chose at random to be his lifeline in Armenia, kind of makes us question how much is really ever random!! No Peace Corps volunteer ever comes to country thinking that they will find the person that will find their true love. Most of us don’t even think we will find anyone to date while we are in an isolated part of the world. During training the doctors explain to us that no one ever thinks they will fall in love here and most take a vow of celibacy but that statistics show that in fact most of us will actually find some sort of love and that many of us will marry the person that we find. I can remember hearing this and laughing with my friends as we all said yeah right, and I believe my friend Scott was one of those people.
So that Scott fell in love with his counterpart is an unexpected course of events, unless you were around on the day that all the TEFL volunteers met their counterparts that is… On that day, Scott fell in love at first sight, and since that day there has never been anything else on his mind other than making Mary his wife. In November of 2010 we had a counterpart conference with all the English teachers and their colleagues. We were sitting around having some beers when Scott announced that he wanted to marry his Mary! At the time I thought he was absolutely out of his mind, at that time I had still not adjusted to the culture and couldn’t see how any American could have a serious relationship with a HCN… let’s just say my views have changed since then…
So as you can see the love story of Scott and Mary is one that is described with one word: DESTINY!! Really, I haven’t been this excited to witness a marriage in a long time and I was so glad to be able to take part in such a beautiful mixture of American and Armenian culture.
When I first arrived to Arteni with my boyfriend, neither of us really knew what to expect, as this wedding was neither Armenian nor American but instead a hybrid of the two. When we arrived we were greeted by a large number of Peace Corps volunteers who all came to support Scott, but what was most exciting was seeing his parents standing around anxiously not really knowing what to expect. I tried to imagine what they must be feeling, this being their first time in Armenia, not speaking the language and never having witnessed an Armenian wedding. I thought back to the first Armenian wedding that I attended almost two years ago, and remembered how confused I was but also how interesting it all was to me. I guess what made is so amazing to me, is that they were brought to Arteni of all places, a place that even my Armenian boyfriend commented about the poverty there. I can’t imagine what they thought seeing for the first time where their son has lived for the past two years and where their new daughter grew up. I also thought how amazingly lucky Scott is to have two parents that were willing to make such a long journey to share this day with their son. What’s more, they actively participated in every step of the way, from dancing with the Armenians (more of just clapping their hands), to placing the levash over the bride and grooms shoulders after the vows were said, to taking toasts with a group of Armenian men, when they really had no idea what was being said.
I have to say that I loved every moment of the wedding but my favorite part was when all the Peace Corps young women were invited in to watch the bride get dressed. An Armenian woman belted out a beautiful song about the brides dress and her wedding day as loud as she could, as this is usually the job of the groom’s family, but being that only Scott’s mother was there, and she doesn’t speak Armenian, and the rest of us girls don’t know the song, she went at it alone as the bride was tied into her dress and pearls were put around her neck and on her ears. Scott’s mom explained to us that the earrings had come from her mother in law, which made it so much more special, and a fantastic sweet blending of cultures. The Armenian woman, red in the face and no longer able to carry the weight of being the sole singer asked us to sing. We all looked around for a moment and then out of nowhere someone began singing Going to the chapel… I can’t tell you how beautiful and sweet it was… possibly all the more beautiful because we really have some girls who can sing. The Armenians sat around us staring and smiling and the end gave us a huge round of applause…
Really it was such a magical day, and because there was a huge amount of Americans who had no idea how to Armenian dance, I even had a great time dancing with my boyfriend, though mostly he laughed at us all. And for the first time, I tried, and learned to dance the traditional Armenian folk dance that I have seen at every single wedding but have always been afraid to take part. So congrats Scott and Mary, really I think that the two of you were destined to be together and wish you all the happiness in the world!!

Ode to Spitak

I spent most of my day yesterday driving throughout the Western most parts of Armenia with my boyfriend, traveling to a wedding in Arteni, a village so small and obscure most Armenians have never even heard of it. Over the course of 3 hours we saw many different small villages that we had never heard of before and of course we experienced Talin and Arteni first hand. I have to say, I am used to villages and small towns here but man did this experience open my eyes to how poor some parts of Armenia still are. It is very easy for me to live in Spitak which is a relatively big town and to forget what it used to be like living in Alapars where we had no running water and had to go to the stream to collect it a few buckets at a time. So anyways being in Arteni has made me appreciate my Spitak much more and I thought I'd share with you a video of my beautiful little spitak which I have grown to love and sometimes hate with love. By the way for you A-20ers, Spitak will become home to two or three of you in August!! I just hope you guys learn to love it as much as I do!!
And also I added a Sophie picture because really she is just so cute!