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For those of you who have requested a way to stay in touch with me while I'm in the Peace Corps, I've finally got my blog up and live, and even with a first post. I've got just about two weeks before I leave, so I figured it was high time I got it going.

Peace Out: A volunteer's life from the Armenian closet

When I get time I'll be updating it, and probably bump this thread on occasion to let people know I've updated. Feel free to leave comments on my blog or this thread. If you happen to leave a comment on my blog, please use a screen name that I'll recognize--preferably the one you use here.

That's awesome Chewey. You must be excited.

I'm gonna miss you, Chewey!

::emo::

Bookmarked AND RSSed!!! Godspeed, CD!

Got it in my feed reader.

I knew this day would come but I just... just... ;_;

MunchingZombie said
I knew this day would come but I just... just... ;_;

Don't you start on me! You'll make me e-weep too! ;_;

Dang. Can't you still post on RJ too?

Bumping my thread.

Just wanted to let anyone know I've got a new post. It's short, as internet access is slow and far between use.

www.cheweydelt.blogspot.com

It's alive!

Even that first post from Armenia was a thrill to read.

Keep us posted, Chewey! I look forward to your next entry.

what an adventure! it is very noble for you to dedicate 2 years of your life to a cause like this!

I wonder how gay friendly Armenia is? My suspicions are it is not. Hopefully Chewey_Delt will not have any issues (besides sexual frustration).

I have to commend him on doing something like that. I never would have gone to a place like Armenia at 24.

JB,

You're quite right, in that Armenia is not gay friendly at all. That being said, I'm also not publicly out to anyone but PC volunteers and staff (of whom, I'm out to all). That would significantly hinder my work.

Also, new blog post. I've actually included some detail in this one. Hopefully my next post will have pictures.

cheweydelt.blogspot.com

I read your blog Chewey_Delt and it was really interesting (and well-written). I went to Wikipedia to learn more about the Armenian language. Supposedly it has 38 letters and dates back to 405 AD.

Actually the living conditions don't seem as primitive as imagined. How is their drinking water though? When I hear stories of a washroom that consists of a hole then I think there is no sewer or septic system.

Best of luck learning the new language, hopefully you will not get homesick. We at RJ miss you though.

The letters thing is in a bit of flux. Technically there are only 38 letters, but that's only because the government is phasing out one letter (the letter "yev," which literally means "and" when used alone and is sometimes used in other words).

All volunteers are given a water filter that we're highly encouraged to use. There is no septic or sewage system, nor a water treatment system. So I just drink filtered water the entire time. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean I don't, on occasion, end up with GI issues, as we all do. Gross, but true.

Chewey_Delt saidThe letters thing is in a bit of flux. Technically there are only 38 letters, but that's only because the government is phasing out one letter (the letter "yev," which literally means "and" when used alone and is sometimes used in other words).

All volunteers are given a water filter that we're highly encouraged to use. There is no septic or sewage system, nor a water treatment system. So I just drink filtered water the entire time. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean I don't, on occasion, end up with GI issues, as we all do. Gross, but true.

That is gross. Stay safe, that is not a great way to maintain a certain weight!

New blog post. Check it y'all.

http://cheweydelt.blogspot.com/

Hi Chewy that was great the Blog. I know what you mean about the Cement floor and the Bucket shower job? I did that many years ago out in the country here as I stayed with a young guy and his family on the Farm? The outhouse loo I could not cope with as it was a hole in the floor and a wooden small shed with gaps in the wood? His sisters kids would come and peep while I was in there so I did not go to the loo for 3 days? In the end we left to stay in Antalya a real city and real loo's!

Good luck and hey I am across the border you know?

I loved the new blog entry, Chewey. Glad to hear the PST will be over soon.

Very interesting, Chewey. Thanks for taking the time to post.

TurkishDelight said

Good luck and hey I am across the border you know?

Well then I'll have to visit sometime. It's a damned shame that the border between Armenia and Turkey is closed, but I can get there through Georgia.

Well my month is made, Chewey_Delt has posted another blog from Armenia. Sounds like the job is going to be very interesting. If you don't appreciate kids Chewey_Delt you are in for a real treat with the challenged ones! I am sure you will do fine, you seem like a guy that wants to do the best he can.

After reading about the Armenian language I can understand your stress level. It looks kind of complicated!

Best of luck and keep bringing the blogs.

Jonathan

New blog post. Not really a happy post, but they weren't all going to be.

cheweydelt.blogspot.com

Thanks for the update Chewey, and sorry things are so crazy right now. I'm glad you ended the post on a somewhat hopeful note; things will get better.

CheweyEvery single day for about a week now I've just wanted to punch someone, or yell at them, or just scream at the top of my lungs.

IS there anywhere you can go to just scream at the top of your lungs? Hey, it might just help a little.

Hope things improve for you.

New blog post. Much happier than the last one.

http://cheweydelt.blogspot.com/

gha! I can't remember my blogger password. But I was going to leave a comment that praised you and wished you well and all that.

Good to hear that things are getting better Chewey. It sounds like you were getting pretty depressed there for a bit. Hopefully the situation back home is getting better as well.

Keep posting!

MunchingZombie saidgha! I can't remember my blogger password. But I was going to leave a comment that praised you and wished you well and all that.

Maybe that's best anyway, since if you used your blogger account I might not know it's you unless your tag is MZ on there as well. You should be able to post a comment without using your blogger account though.

Which reminds me, I'll remind everyone to please use your RJ tag, so I know who it is. Someone posted to one of my blogs (not sure from where, I update people across several sites) with their name and I wasn't sure who it was.

Hope everyone's having a great summer!

New blog post. Pre-service training is finally over--huzzah!

http://cheweydelt.blogspot.com/

New blog post. I know it's only been a day, but it's much easier for me to access the internet now (though, paradoxically, it's slower in this city, even though it's much larger than my training site--to many people sharing the connection in this cafe). I finally managed to get some pictures edited and uploaded, so take a look.

http://cheweydelt.blogspot.com/

Good pictures Chewey_Delt, reminds me of rural Ontario, lots of green. The washroom is almost identical to my brother's near his cabin in the woods!

Glad that you are now an official member of the Peace Corps, you worked hard for it. Your family must be very proud of you.

New post. More complaining. I know, there's an awful lot of it in my blog, but I use it to vent.

http://cheweydelt.blogspot.com/

Yes Chewey_Delt I can understand why you would be complaining about boredom. I found when I was kid spending the summer at our cottage (no TV, radio and before VCRs, DVDs, IPods, computers) that after about 10 days of thick fog I was starting to go stir crazy. After all comic books and reader's digests can only go so far! And monopoly can get boring after about 2 hours. I think it is one of those situations where you just have to be the stoic. Learning how to cope constructively with boredom is a much underrated skill in life.

I can understand the boredom, but fortunately for me as long as I'm out in nature I can leave technology behind and not go stir-crazy. Of course for me it's always a temporary situation, I'm sure if I were living like that day in and day out I'd go a bit crazy. Hang in there!

hey, hang in there

We miss you Chewey!!

Keep smiling if you can ?

New blog post, and a significantly more positive one than a number of my previous posts.

Peace Out

Great blog Chewey_Delt. It sounds like you would make a good teacher some day.

" I've had trouble understanding how any work gets done in this country "

This is in your blog. Can you expand on it? What's the problem with getting work done in Armenia?

Caslon7000 said" I've had trouble understanding how any work gets done in this country "

This is in your blog. Can you expand on it? What's the problem with getting work done in Armenia?

I say this because I feel a certain sentiment that pervades the culture here, that I think is best encapsulated in a single phrase that I commonly hear, "voch eench." It's essentially an expression of "oh well," except it's used in regards to almost anything.

Though it's one of my favorite phrases because of its ubiquity and usefulness, I feel like in many instances it's used as a capitulation. People have to leave the country to get money for their families? Voch eench. Our environment here is quickly being destroyed? Voch eench. We go to the polls to elect leaders, and then someone else gets the position anyway? Voch eench. It's a feel of helplessness and a sense that there's no reason to worry about problems, because they won't change anyway.

So I've found it difficult to understand how any organization can get something done when that sentiment is so pervasive. I think that what I'm finding is that it's not as pervasive as I've thought. It's certainly there and is a significant obstacle, but there are those who are taking matters into their own hands to improve this country, and because of that I can see an opening for a better future and a way to help.

You should reflect, Juanito, on the same sentiment that pervades gay people in the US.

It's about empowerment. And you, I imagine, are empowering them.

Chewey_Delt said

Caslon7000 said" I've had trouble understanding how any work gets done in this country "

This is in your blog. Can you expand on it? What's the problem with getting work done in Armenia?

I say this because I feel a certain sentiment that pervades the culture here, that I think is best encapsulated in a single phrase that I commonly here, "voch eench." It's essentially an expression of "oh well," except it's used in regards to almost anything.

Though it's one of my favorite phrases because of its ubiquity and usefulness, I feel like in many instances it's used as a capitulation. People have to leave the country to get money for their families? Voch eench. Our environment here is quickly being destroyed? Voch eench. We go to the polls to elect leaders, and then someone else gets the position anyway? Voch eench. It's a feel of helplessness and a sense that there's no reason to worry about problems, because they won't change anyway.

So I've found it difficult to understand how any organization can get something done when that sentiment is so pervasive. I think that what I'm finding is that it's not as pervasive as I've thought. It's certainly there and is a significant obstacle, but there are those who are taking matters into their own hands to improve this country, and because of that I can see an opening for a better future and a way to help.

ROFLMAO. Creepy. Because we have the very same expression: Bahala na (literally, 'I concede control') which is basically saying 'Whatever' or 'Oh well'. It varies, dialect to dialect but it is a universally present filipino sentiment. Also portrayed in another expression Ningas Cogon (Brushfire) to describe enterprises that start out enthusiastically then flag down quickly because of overwhelming odds with the predictable ending of a shrug and a Bahala na.

Sedative said

Chewey_Delt said

Caslon7000 said" I've had trouble understanding how any work gets done in this country "

This is in your blog. Can you expand on it? What's the problem with getting work done in Armenia?

I say this because I feel a certain sentiment that pervades the culture here, that I think is best encapsulated in a single phrase that I commonly here, "voch eench." It's essentially an expression of "oh well," except it's used in regards to almost anything.

Though it's one of my favorite phrases because of its ubiquity and usefulness, I feel like in many instances it's used as a capitulation. People have to leave the country to get money for their families? Voch eench. Our environment here is quickly being destroyed? Voch eench. We go to the polls to elect leaders, and then someone else gets the position anyway? Voch eench. It's a feel of helplessness and a sense that there's no reason to worry about problems, because they won't change anyway.

So I've found it difficult to understand how any organization can get something done when that sentiment is so pervasive. I think that what I'm finding is that it's not as pervasive as I've thought. It's certainly there and is a significant obstacle, but there are those who are taking matters into their own hands to improve this country, and because of that I can see an opening for a better future and a way to help.

ROFLMAO. Creepy. Because we have the very same expression: Bahala na (literally, 'I concede control') which is basically saying 'Whatever' or 'Oh well'. It varies, dialect to dialect but it is a universally present filipino sentiment. Also portrayed in another expression Ningas Cogon (Brushfire) to describe enterprises that start out enthusiastically then flag down quickly because of overwhelming odds with the predictable ending of a shrug and a Bahala na.

Sedative I'm glad you told me this, because I was actually going to email you and ask you just this question after your last comment on my blog. I was wondering if there was a similar phrase with a similar use, and apparently there is indeed. That's very interesting. I wonder how pervasive that is in developing countries. I imagine that it's not at all uncommon.

Le Tigre:

While perhaps in some sense that's true, it's not anywhere close to the level it is here. While not as bad as I had originally thought, the sentiment is incredibly pervasive here in a way that even the gay community could never match. There's a great deal of activism in the gay community and a sense among a broad swath of the community that things can and eventually will change. But here, the majority is of the "voch eench" mindset (on a tangent, I really hate transliterating; the words just don't look right when not in the Armenian alphabet). I actually thought the same thing myself, at first, realizing that I'd encountered this mindset in America (though I hadn't necessarily tagged it to the gay community), until I realized just how overwhelming it is.

That mind set could be a left over from the old Soviet Union days, in which people suffered from "learned helplessness" because of the central contraol economy and lack of reward for initiative.

The Russian mindset I find is also very fatalistic. I was fascinated to read that Russians do not wear seatbelts very often. They have a view of life that is bordering on a death wish. Very different from Western countries.

SurrealLife saidThat mind set could be a left over from the old Soviet Union days, in which people suffered from "learned helplessness" because of the central contraol economy and lack of reward for initiative.

The Russian mindset I find is also very fatalistic. I was fascinated to read that Russians do not wear seatbelts very often. They have a view of life that is bordering on a death wish. Very different from Western countries.

Without a doubt, it partly is. But the more I've thought about that in the past few months, the more I realize that it's not just that. There's certainly a collective memory of how good it was during the days of the Soviet Union. Though you could be arrested for any dissent, you were also guaranteed a certain amount of comfort in your life, and people remember that.

But the other problem, as I see it, is that it's just so hard for people to actually be successful. There aren't enough jobs, so going to university isn't necessarily bound to lead to a higher salary. The political atmosphere is imbued with a certain amount of corruption. The rule of law isn't enforced very well because the government doesn't have enough money. It's so hard to be successful at any venture, and there's so little infrastructure for long-term security, that many people don't think it pays to make the effort. And, unfortunately, for many it hasn't.

Chewey_Delt said

SurrealLife saidThat mind set could be a left over from the old Soviet Union days, in which people suffered from "learned helplessness" because of the central contraol economy and lack of reward for initiative.

The Russian mindset I find is also very fatalistic. I was fascinated to read that Russians do not wear seatbelts very often. They have a view of life that is bordering on a death wish. Very different from Western countries.

Without a doubt, it partly is. But the more I've thought about that in the past few months, the more I realize that it's not just that. There's certainly a collective memory of how good it was during the days of the Soviet Union. Though you could be arrested for any dissent, you were also guaranteed a certain amount of comfort in your life, and people remember that.

But the other problem, as I see it, is that it's just so hard for people to actually be successful. There aren't enough jobs, so going to university isn't necessarily bound to lead to a higher salary. The political atmosphere is imbued with a certain amount of corruption. The rule of law isn't enforced very well because the government doesn't have enough money. It's so hard to be successful at any venture, and there's so little infrastructure for long-term security, that many people don't think it pays to make the effort. And, unfortunately, for many it hasn't.

Reminds me of Woody Allen's joke in Annie Hall about life being divided into the horrible and the miserable, the horrible being the saddest cases (e.g., lepers, starving, etc.), the people you can't imagine how they even get through life. And the miserable? That's the rest of us.

So we should wake up every day and thank God for being so miserable.


Keep it up, Chewey!

Chewey_Delt saidNew blog post, and a significantly more positive one than a number of my previous posts.

Peace Out

Great post Chewey. Glad to hear things are coming together for you, and the table painting story was really cute. You're an inspiration.

New blog post. This one doesn't have a thing, for all intents and purposes, to do with what's going on in Armenia specifically. Just some memories that I felt like writing about.

Peace Out