The Road Taken

The Peace Corps road is full of unexpected twists and turns. Flexibility is rightfully spoken about throughout the application process, for this very reason. To say this is an emotional roller coaster is an understatement. Every time I sit down to record the most recent happenings in my yellow leather bound journal ( I'm a very important person, I have many leather bound books), I find myself overwhelmed trying to simply recall the last five or seven days. It seems whole months pass from one weekend to the next. A lot happens that needs noting and I struggle to remember it all.

And yet, one time, I received a response email that I'd completely forgotten about writing. I thought to myself, "Oh right, that was a few days ago." When I looked at the time stamp from my original email, it had been 12 freaking days before. Being in Peace Corps is sort of like being high all day, every day... not to say I know anything about that. I've read many studies. From my leather bound books. While smoking a cigar. But, ummmmm yeah -right- like I was saying; Studies have shown that the active chemical component of marijuana affects our sense of time. Users report feeling time either slowed down or sped up, and their short term memory is temporarily affected. This pretty much sums up my life. A good example of this 'stoned' (as the kids like to say) feeling is the last few days of my life here in Armenia.

Typically, by Wednesday of the school week I hate everyone and can't wait to pass my day off (Thursday) alone, farting in my room. (Clears throat). What I meant to say was, I love everyone all the time and go to school on my off day because I can't stand to be away from the children. Regardless, Thursday I get to have a late morning, which means I can stay up as late as 10 p.m. the night before! YOWZA!! In the day I will do some school and personal inventory, do my laundry, clean my room, etc. In the afternoon I have club for the Sr. High girls and my diamond in the rough comes for tutoring at the house around 5:30. Recently, I've been walking her home, as it's dusk by the time we are finished and this time I finally agreed to come inside. I met her grandparents and spent quality time with her mother and brother. We had some tea and fruit, talked about various topics and I left soon after. My student and her mother insisted they then walk ME home, as it was fully night by that time. It was a beautiful starry night, with a new crescent moon shinning; and also the first time I was out walking around after dark since being in Malishka.

Once home, I sat down to eat dinner by myself and enjoy a glass of wine. Siranush eventually came to join me, as she can not guiltlessly allow me to eat dinner alone. Everybody has started making their homemade wine, including my host dad. He realized I was in the drinking mood, so he joined us at the table and broke out the good stuff. His most recent batch was so strong, it tasted closer to hard liquor than wine. We had a grand old time and got to a new level of understanding and respect for one another (which often happens in non-party drinking situations). I was able to ask him important questions like, "What do you want for your daughters' lives?", and, "Can the cat PLEASE sleep in my bed with me?" By the time I retired to my sleeping quarters, I was shocked to discover that it was after midnight! How unlike me, on a weekday no less! I promptly turned on my DROID to look up phone numbers of people in America I would not normally call. I had just had the most enlightening and important conversation of my lifetime! Someone needed to know! I believe I called five different people, and after not a single pick-up, I then resorted to gmail. Fortunately, a friend was on and I demanded that he call me, I had important things to say. The next morning, I was surprised to learn the duration of our phone call was 40 minutes. In times like these I like to quote Vonnegut, "I have this disease late at night involving alcohol and the telephone."

Luckily, my Friday schedule is short and easy. After getting home and eating lunch I started to crash hard. I called my site-mate Lauren to tell her that I wasn't going to make it out to Shatin ( our other site-mate Elisabeth's village). I took a quick nap before my very first English club for the teachers. My host mother, Siranush, is also a teacher so she sat in and then pulled me out halfway through to see if I wanted to hop a ride to Yeghegnadzor (the midpoint between my village and Shatin) with her and Samvell. I still needed to run errands in Yeg, so I agreed. After going to the bank, I ran into another site-mate Ed who was on his way to meet up with the rest of Club Yeg (as we affectionately call our little family). After pizza, beers and some more procrastination - I decided on a whim to in fact head over to Shatin with the gang. We had a grand old night, farting, cuddling and being generally ridiculous. We talked of all the things we want to do together as a family unit: be better about our spending, cook together more often, go to a festival somewhere in Europe over the summer...

The next morning, as we started preparing to head back to Yeg, Trevor - the 4th member of Club Yeg dropped the bomb he'd held on to for the last 15 hours, that he was ET-ing. ET stands for Early Terminate, meaning you leave and never come back. To an extent it came as a great shock to us. Lauren and Elisabeth were much closer to Trevor than I was; yet, Trevor and I spent our summer together in language class. We had a lot of good laughs and are close in our own way. That morning, I got to play therapist while the girls cried and I asked Trevor level headed questions about his decision. Essentially, he feels his place is at home - that that is where his purpose and priorities lie. Later that morning, as the shock passed we decided to stay together that day. We had a big brunch with mimosas and all. I am sad to see him go, disappointed that our relationship won't have a chance to be whatever it may have been after being site-mates for two years. Yet, I'm grateful for all he did bring into my life, for facilitating the great relationship I now have with Lauren and Elisabeth, for always telling me how beautiful my voice is, for supporting me through the final stages of my break-up and always accepting my oddities and quirks without blinking an eye. He's one of the good ones, but we do what we must.

In the end; it is as it always was, as it always was going to be.