I can’t believe I’ve been in Gyumri for only a little over a month! It feels like I’ve already been here a few months! Things are going swimmingly. My new host mom is super sweet and accommodating, plus she’s a very good cook! My room is nice and big, but it has a really high ceiling which makes it difficult to heat. I know I’ve already written more than once about how cold it is in Gyumri, but I really can’t talk about it enough. Most of the time when I’m outside, I feel like my fingers and toes are bordering on frostbite (and I’m wearing gloves and doubling up on socks!). The ground is almost constantly frozen – yes, frozen. Not like a slippery-ice frozen, but you can definitely tell that the ground is frozen because the dirt is very hard and solid from freezing. I’ve also taken to wearing leggings under my pants ever since my host family emphatically suggested I do so. Apparently, I need to protect my ovaries from freezing so I can have babies later.
So I’ve figured out I probably won’t be maintaining 2 blog posts per month like I originally said…I’m not even doing a lot of work for my school yet and I still have a hard time finding the time and energy to sit down and write a post. I’ll be striving for one post per month now #underachieving. Currently at school, I’m mostly just observing English classes and interacting with students before and after class. I occasionally act as a teacher’s aid, checking grammar exercises and reading through passages with the class. In January, after winter break, I think my students expect me to start teaching regularly…right now that’s the plan and I hope I’ll be able to start co-teaching and co-planning with my Armenian counterparts. I officially only have one English teacher counterpart at my school, but she only teaches 10th-12th grades. If I only worked with her, I would teach less than 10 hours per week, so I started working with the other English teacher at my school, too. Now, I also get to teach 6th-9th grades! I love working with the younger students, particularly the 6th and 7th graders. Their excitement for learning English is adorable and I can’t help but smile every time I walk into their class, with students cheering and screaming “HELLO!!” Once I start teaching, my schedule will definitely pick up. I think my school also expects me to start an English club after winter break, so we’ll see how that goes…if anyone has ANY ideas on club activities or how to make an English club interesting and sustainable, let me know. Please.
In general, my school has been fantastic! I really like my school director and vice principals, and the students and teachers are all great (the French teacher lets me break out my rusty French and practice with her!). There are many awesome aspects to my school, one being that 6th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grades have English more than twice a week! The 11th and 12th grades actually have English every day, except Saturday. Yes, my school is in session on Saturdays and all grades have class 6 days/week.
Yesterday, after their Saturday classes, the 7th graders held a Quiz-Bowl-like competition and invited all the teachers to come watch. The Saturday before, every grade decorated its classroom for the winter holidays and helped decorate the outside of the school. These extra little things make me really thankful for my school. On Thanksgiving, my main counterpart was aware of the holiday and 
organized a Thanksgiving tree. She explained the concept of Thanksgiving to the school and had students write (in English or Armenian) what they were thankful for on the leaves, which were then placed on the tree. My counterpart wanted to help me feel more at home and even brought a cake to school to celebrate Thanksgiving. My birthday was the following Tuesday, and my school definitely made it an unforgettable birthday. Throughout the day, my students gave me sweet little gifts and notes. Students ran up, kissed me on the cheek, and wished my happy birthday all day. To top things off, the first snow of the year was the same day and Armenians consider the first day of winter to be December 1, so my birthday coincided with the school’s end-of-autumn/beginning-of-winter celebration/performance. At the end of the celebration, I temporarily spaced out when one of the vice principals was giving a closing speech (I knew I wasn’t going to understand much of it). Next thing I know, my counterpart is nudging me and I look up to all the students staring at me and the vice principal motioning to me to join her in the middle of the gym. I joined her and she presented me with roses from the school director, then all the students started chanting “Happy birthday!” I was so touched and half-joked with my Peace Corps friends later that this was the most attention I will probably ever receive for my birthday in the workplace. Below, you can check out the video I made of the school’s celebration; it was very entertaining. Every single performance made me smile, and I’ve been told that there’s going to be another similar celebration for the last day of school before winter break and I’m stoked.
Besides the cold, Gyumri has been great! I live a 2-minute walk away from Renata, another A23 TEFL volunteer, so we see each other a lot. She and I have become regulars at Yaghli House, a café with really good wifi. We’re pretty sure the waiters are sick and tired of us because every time we go, we stay there way longer than other customers, even after we finish our food. But the wifi is SO FAST. I know, cafés and wifi don’t normally go with the Peace Corps image. But in its own right, Gyumri is definitely still developing. But it is developed enough to have cheddar and gouda cheese!! I made some bangin’ southern-style mac n’ cheese with cheddar and gouda for Gyumri Thanksgiving. All the volunteers in Shirak marz got together and celebrated on Friday since we had a regular work day on Thursday. After Gyumri Thanksgiving on Friday, a group of us went to Yerevan on Saturday for another PCV Thanksgiving get-together. For that, I made brown sugar bars with a pretzel crust and they were a hit! Originally, I wasn’t going to go to the Yerevan Thanksgiving, but then I found out there was a movie theater in Yerevan that showed The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2 in English! So I ended up being able to celebrate Thanksgiving twice and see the last Hunger Games movie (which was awesome btw).
Side story: When we went to Thanksgiving in Yerevan, we took the train there and back. On the way to Yerevan, we were invited up to the front of the train. We met the conductor and all the train workers and chatted with them for half of the trip. They were super nice and even served us coffee and gave us chocolate. It was pretty awesome. On our way back to Gyumri the next day, the train was chugging along like normal when, all of a sudden, the train stopped in the middle of nowhere. There was no train station, no train platform, nothing. All of a sudden, the train conductor we’d met the day before burst into our train car. He shouted, “Ari, ari (come, come)!!” and motioned for us to follow him. So we joined him at the front of the train for the rest of the trip, and this time, we got cookies.
Last weekend, I went to Yerevan again for our PCV holiday party. Renata and I made lemon bars for the party’s bake-off and we won!! Besides the holiday party, it hasn’t really felt like Christmastime over here, which is a bummer (I really miss Christmas music!). I actually have work on Christmas Day, but on the bright side, December 25 coincides with the last day of school before winter break, so that’s nice :) Armenian Christmas is January 6 (Epiphany), which is part of New Year’s celebration here. I’m really looking forward to New Year’s. New Year, or Nor Tari, is a huge deal in Armenia and celebrations last almost a whole week. My blog post in January will definitely be covering Nor Tari. Being that it is the holiday season (and birthday season for my family!), I’m really missing my people back in the US, but I’m wishing you all a wonderful holiday season from Armenia! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!
Ariane in Peace Corps Armenia 