Yerevan --> Abu Dhabi --> New York --> Boston

Well my time in Armenia has come to an end so I think it’s time to tie up this edition of Little Hamlin’s Excellent Adventure.  My first week at home has been a busy one as I’m diving headfirst into the next chapter.  I spent less than 24 hours at home before heading north to Maine where I’ll be working on a boat as part of the Maine Coastal Mapping Initiative.  This is just a temporary gig through November, but it gives me a chance to stay busy, be on the water, and buy some time while I look for other jobs.  And doing all of this while living at Juniper Knoll lets me spend any of my extra time digesting my experiences in Armenia while staring out at the ocean, a pastime I never seem to tire of.

There’s typically not much to say about a plane ride home that occurs without significant delays or flight cancellations, which mine luckily did.  This alone is a lucky thing, but I found myself exceptionally lucky this time, and no, I didn’t get upgraded to First Class.  Instead I found myself at a window seat in the second to last row of the 777, so far back that when the plane angles up off the runway you hope it doesn’t leave you behind.  We flew north from Abu Dhabi over much of Iran, and I was struck by the vast emptiness of the country below.  I admired the copper mountains as I ate.  They seemed to go on forever.  Then, after opening my eyes from an attempted nap, I looked out the window to find the peaks of Mt. Ararat right out my window.  I saw Lake Sevan down below.  The large town at the south had to be Vardenis, one of the places I visited with AEN.  As we traveled north over the lake, there was Tsovagyugh, a village where I taught about renewable energy.  There were the small islands where I did a cleanup with Birthright, and there was the peninsula home to Sevan Monastery.  It felt like I was looking at my backyard.  These places had become so familiar that I had no problem spotting them from 36,000 ft.  A few moments later I could only see the blanket of clouds covering the mountains in the north, and my extra goodbye to Armenia was over.

After that, I did what everyone does on excruciatingly long flights: sleep, eat, watch a movie, repeat.  Every once in a while I took a look at the new, high-tech cockpit video feed that gave me the same view as the pilots, but I could never see anything but clouds.  As we neared JFK, while returning our seat backs and tray tables to the upright and locked positions with our seatbelt securely fastened, I took a glance out the window and saw something familiar.  It was the first clear view of land I had had since watching Armenia go by.  This time, right below was the long finger of Plum Island.  There were the distinct shapes of Little Neck and Great Neck jutting out into the water.  I followed Jeffery’s Neck Road down into the center of Ipswich, and although we were too high for me to discern it, I knew that right there was my house on the marsh.  From the air, Ipswich seemed so close to everything I had just left behind.  That’s something that made leaving Armenia a little easier.  Although it seems so far, so far that people don’t even know where I’ve been (Albania? Romania?), I know Armenia will always be only a plane ride away. 

So that’s the end of this chapter of Little Hamlin’s Excellent Adventure.  Stay tuned for more adventures to come.  We’ll see where this latest chapter, Seeking Employment in America, takes me.  But for now, as we say in Armenian, hajoghutyun!

Another Story From the Bathroom

My parents’ visit to Armenia came and went as fast as this year’s meager apricot season – here one day, gone the next.  But in the limited time we had together we still managed to see quite a bit.  In addition to a few days in Yerevan, we spent four days traveling around the southern part of Armenia and it was the first time I really just got to be a tourist in this country.  We explored some of my favorite medieval monasteries, saw 8,000 year old stone carved petroglyphs, and wandered the ruins of Armenia’s equivalent to Stonehenge.  For me, the trip provided some sense of closure to my stay in Armenia.  It reinforced the beauty of this country and everything it has to offer, from it’s people, history, and nature.  For my parents it was a chance to sit back, relax, and enjoy, as I had taken the travel agent role on this one, and their only responsibility was providing the credit card.  And for my mom, she got to feel like she was back in her grandmother’s kitchen.  I’d say the highlight of the week was having both my parents and my host family in the same room together.  Despite the language barrier between my two sets of parents, we still found a way to laugh and joke over dinner and make fun of Ali.

Now to the real topic of today’s blog.  Puke.  If there’s one thing I hate doing in life, it’s puking.  For as far back as I can remember, I can count on one hand the number of vomiting episodes I’ve had.  But, I can now add another to the count.  The other night I returned home from an evening enjoying one of Yerevan’s many outdoor cafes at which point I realized something wasn’t quite right.  Waves of nausea started hitting me as hard as the cloud of trash chute stench that engulfs you while walking in the stairwell of a Yerevan apartment building.  I worked hard to hold it at bay, but at 2 am I awoke in panic.  I ran to the bathroom just in time to start heaving.  Now I must acknowledge that it is quite a wondrous thing that the human body can defy the laws of gravity and forcefully shoot the contents of your stomach out back the way it came.  The human mind is as equally wondrous.  The mind can remember things, but it can also send you back to past moments in your life, in a way that’s much stronger than a simple memory.  As I knelt over the toilet sharing the floor with our bathroom’s one resident roach, eyes closed in denial about my current reality, my mind was back in the remote, coastal village of Shirazi, Kenya.  I was back to the site of my last vomiting adventure out behind my host family’s home, under the bright stars and coconut trees, hunched on all fours in the sand.  I felt the same calm and quiet I had felt that night, sitting outside for hours in the fresh air to escape the stuffiness of my room.  That place felt better than the stark white bathroom, so I let my mind stay there until the storm passed.

The puking was followed by a day of hard boiled egg burps (haven’t eaten an egg in a week) and yet another case of explosive diarrhea (unlike vomiting episodes I’d need way more than one hand to count significant explosions out the other end).  In the wise words of Eve Hamlin, “Poop is always funny.” But there is a point where poop is no longer funny.  As much as I’ve adjusted to life in Armenia, my digestive system never really seemed to catch up.  I’ve gotten used to a new culture, a new city, a new language, but my intestines have been very accepting of that.  Sure the likelihood of me picking up an occasional bug from food that spent a little too much time in the back of a truck in the heat of summer is probably greater than it is at home.  But I like to think that maybe this is my body’s way of saying it’s time to pack your bags and head home.  I’ll be doing so in two weeks, but not until a quick trip to Istanbul and some serious souvenir shopping back in Yerevan!  For your sake as much as mine, I hope the poop (and puke) stories are over for this adventure.

Also, if you haven’t already seen it, check out this article I wrote for the Armenian Weekly online magazine about our experience in Artsakh on the Janapar Trail!

Reports on a Long Walk

My friends and I have begrudgingly returned from our Artsakh adventure a week ahead of schedule.  It would have been hard to return to the hustle and bustle of the city after days of walking through forest and meadow, but the resentment was doubled due to our early return.  Although on the day to day Artsakh is a safe place for both residents and visitors, we were reminded of the harsh reality of a place that’s never truly found peace 20 years after war.  After a successful week and a half of hiking from the south, we were denied access to the northern region of Artsakh, which was closed to foreigners indefinitely.  We could only get so much information out of the officials at the checkpoint, but it’s fair to assume some sort of unrest on the border with Azerbaijan.  We returned to Yerevan knowing we had done all we could, understanding that there’s always that something you can’t control.

Our trip might not have ended the way we had in mind, but it might have been the most unique and fulfilling travel experience I’ve ever had.  There’s something about walking halfway across a country (even if it’s only the length of Massachusetts) that gives you a completely different perspective on a place.  From the hills we saw villages nestled below.  We marveled at the fact that the mountain we saw ahead of us for days was now at our back.  Sometimes we found ourselves in an old abandoned pre-Soviet village only accessible by foot, with stone buildings overgrown with vegetation.  To top it all off we spent each evening with a new family in a different village which really gave us the opportunity to get to know Artsakh.   (And maybe if we played our cards right we ended a sweaty day of hiking with a shower.  You can’t beat that!)

There were so many unique moments and experiences it’s hard to know how best to share them with you. This post doesn’t begin to tell the whole story, but I hope it at least gives you a good glimpse.  To start, we practically became Smurfs during our time on the trail.  The bright blue paint had a way of getting to the places you’d least expect (just like the green turf of Fauver Stadium I’m still finding in my socks a year and a half later).  Today I took off my glasses to find the undersides dotted with blue.  Although our painting strategy was in theory mess free (water bottle with sports cap, dispense onto brush, paint, repeat) it obviously didn’t turn out that simple.  We also quickly realized the importance of hiding our messy paint supplies before trying to invite ourselves into a stranger’s home to spend the night. 

I don’t think I’ve ever experienced such incredible hospitality and generosity as I did along the trail.  Because let’s be honest, if you took one look at our blue, dirty, sweaty bodies you’d want us as far from your home as possible.  But we got the exact opposite, and the time we spent with our host families were some of my favorite times along the trail.   We ate food straight from their gardens, we drank their homemade mulberry vodka, and we laughed and joked together.   One family even insisted on killing a sheep for us.  This was my birthday dinner reimagined – but why settle for just the chop when you can also enjoy the heart (seriously delicious!) and a bit of butt fat?!  Even though we only spent an evening with each family, the next morning it was often hard to say goodbye.  We exchanged hugs, email addresses, and forced them to accept our small payment which never matched their generosity.  Then we hit the trail for another day of pooping in the woods, sing-a-longs, sore feet, and decisions on whether to ford the river or caulk the wagon and float across.

Now that I’m back in Yerevan, I’ll be back at work for about the next three weeks, until the Hamlin parentals arrive for a week of adventures.  That’s when the real fun starts…

 And we're walking.

 East African pride in Artsakh. (I never go anywhere without a Kanga!)

Me and Rocky at the Zontiks (or umbrellas).  This photo does not do this incredible place justice.  You also should note that I am wearing my L.L. Bean backpack circa 2002 (aka The Beast) which continues to go wherever I go.  Meliora.

We didn't know it at the time, but this turned out to be one of our last moments on the Janapar Trail.  Not a bad way to say goodbye.  

A New Chapter

Before you think I’ve fallen off the blogosphere it’s time for a quick update.  Tomorrow I’ll be starting a new chapter of my Armenian adventure.  Three of my friends and I are heading off for three weeks of hiking in Artsakh (see last post to learn more about Artsakh).  About 8 years ago a Birthright alum developed a trail system which stretches from the north to south of the region.  Over our three weeks we’ll be hiking the extent of the trail, marking sections of it with paint, taking photos and extensive notes.  When we get back, we’ll be updating internet resources so as to make it easier for others to find information about the trail and plan their own trip.  AND our work will count for our volunteer work for the next three weeks! Score!  The other great thing about the trail is that every day’s hike starts and ends in a village.  That means we can walk all day, enjoy the hospitality of a local family, eat a great meal, sleep in a bed, and do it all over again the next day.  No need to carry a tent, sleeping bag, stove, or any of those other heavy things required for sleeping under the stars.

I’ll be traveling with three other friends, two Birthrighters and one alum.  There’s Roffi, Eagle Scout and encyclopedia of Armenian plants.  We’ve got Liz, Wilderness First Responder and expert tree planter.  And there’s Lexee, rock climber extraordinaire and resident goofball.  And myself. 

I’ll attempt to update once en route when we’ll have internet access.  And when I’m back in Yerevan be ready for some photos! Until then here’s a shot from a recent Birthright excursion at a glacial lake on Mt. Aragats, Armenia’s highest peak.  I was glad I had my Girl Scout hat on that morning and thought to bring my winter coat with me on a warm June day!

Weekend Adventures

I’m sorry for my blogging absence, it’s been a very busy last few weeks!  Two weekends ago I needed to renew my visa, which means leaving the country for neighboring Georgia.  Why must it be Georgia, you say?  Well, the borders with Turkey to the east and Azerbaijan to the west are both currently closed (more on that in a bit), and my American passport won’t help me get into neighboring Iran to the south.  So that leaves Georgia!  It just so happened to also be a four day weekend so my friends and I had a spontaneous adventure to the Black Sea and the city of Batumi.  (I’ve been four months without an ocean so the withdrawals were beginning.)  Here are a few of the highlights:

•  Of three nights away, two were spent in a moving vehicle (bus and train).  Everyone should at least take one overnight bus trip during their life.  It’s serious character building.

•  My mom taught me from a young age that free stuff is great.  This inspired us to sneak ourselves into a tourism conference at the Sheraton, Batumi.  The man dishing out coffee samples knew we were frauds so he made us pay, but we did manage to score some awesome free food samples. 

•  We scaled an old Roman fortress.

And I posed with the weapons.

•  I got my feet wet in a new body of water!

 •  We took part in the age old tradition of the Tbilisi sulfur baths.  This experience involved getting naked, soaking in the scalding hot water while enjoying the rotten egg aroma.  Then we got scrubbed down by an old Georgian woman.  My skin has never been so soft.

Then last weekend I went on a four day trip with Birthright to Nagorno-Karabakh, or Artsakh, as Armenia calls it.  If you plug Nagorno-Karabakh Republic into Google Maps you’ll be taken to the western part of Azerbaijan, but after years of war in the early ‘90s, Armenia now claims the territory as its own.  The war is the reason for the current border closures with Azerbaijan and Turkey.  At present, a ceasefire signed in 1994 rules the region, but all peace talks in the last 20 years have thus far failed.  Today both sides play the waiting game and it’s difficult to imagine them reaching a compromise in the near future.  I’ve had my own established opinions of the conflict, but it was an important experience to visit the region myself, interact with people who had fought in the war, see the destruction which took place, and walk in the trenches (literally).  I can’t say that my opinions have changed, but I feel I have a better idea of where Armenians’ motivations and views stem from, which feels good.  Here are some other highlights from the weekend:

•  Did you know?  Armenia is home to the world’s longest reversible aerial tramway.  Now there’s an important fact!  But really, this cable car is an incredible feat of engineering (thank you, Switzerland) which allows for year-round access to Tatev Monastery.  I’ve seen my fair share of monasteries in Armenia, but this was by far the most impressive!  Perched amongst the mountains it’s easy to think that when the monastery was originally established in the 9th century the builders felt closest to God at this location.

•  I almost lost my Red Sox hat.  Twice.  Both times I was reunited with this prized possession by my friend’s dad who had come along on the trip.  I had found peace in knowing that Red Sox Nation had made it to an unrecognized republic, but it certainly was good to get it back.

•  I almost had a panic attack on the shakiest shaky bridge ever!

•  I was short enough that I could stand up straight while walk through the trenches on the Armenian front line without the fear that an Azerbaijani sniper would see my head over the top.  I spied through a tiny crack past no man’s land to the other side.  (Birthright has a longstanding relationship with the military in Artsakh to allow us to visit the front lines.  Sorry, no pictures allowed.)

It’s certainly been an eventful last few weeks.  Last week I finished work at AUA because the semester is over and there are no longer students to tutor.  So now I’m splitting my time between AEN and another environmental organization, FPWC (Fund for the Protection of Wildlife and Cultural Assets).  They’ll be a test on these acronyms upon my return!

Contrary to what these pictures might show, I do have more than one pair of pants...

"What are you?"

“What are you?”  In reality, this is a really strange question, but in our melting pot of America we ask this of each other fairly often.  One might respond, “Well, I’m German, British, Norwegian, Irish, and I’m even 1/32 Native American!”  But what does that really mean?!  This is a question I’ve been struggling with recently.  As people, it seems like we have this innate need to categorize ourselves.  There’s something comfortable and convenient about sorting everyone into a box.  In terms of our DNA, the very core of our being, every human on this planet is 99.9% similar to the next (according to Wikipedia), but for some reason we always feel the need to go back to the safety of our boxes.  Now you’re probably wondering what has brought me to this philosophical question, especially on a Monday, and there are a few reasons, one of which I’ve been thinking about practically since I arrived, while the other reared its ugly head last week.

As a “Diasporan Armenian” living in Armenia, I’ve often asked myself what it really means to be Armenian.  When I get the “What are you?” question, one of my responses is “Armenian”.  I wouldn’t be here if I weren’t “Armenian”.  Someone decided that after examining both of my great-grandparents’ death certificates and finding the words, “Place of Birth: Armenia”, it was therefore my “Birthright” to visit this country on someone else’s dime.  But what does being Armenian really mean?  And is it really all that different from being anything else?  Is it about eating dolma?  Is it about speaking the language?  Is it about going to the Armenian Church?  Is it about living here?  On occasion I’ve been asked, “Well, how Armenian are you?” or “What part of you is Armenian?” as if the answer could be my big toe.  In these rare situations I feel judged for identifying in some way with my Armenian identity, despite the fact that I don’t look as Armenian as the next (however it is that an Armenian is supposed to look), I didn’t grow up in an Armenian community, or even go to Armenian summer camp.  I don’t think I’ll ever land on an answer to what it means to be Armenian, but maybe that’s okay.  I don’t want to have to stay in the box.

The second thing that’s got me thinking about cultural identity was last weeks' Genocide Remembrance Day.  On April 24, 1915, notable members of the Armenian community in Istanbul were banished from the city.  Many mark this day on which Armenian scholars and community leaders were deported to the deserts of Syria as the beginning of the systematic killing of approximately 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Turks.  So, every April 24^th hundreds of thousands of Armenians visit the Genocide memorial and lay flowers around the eternal flame in memory of their ancestors and loved ones, the victims of the Genocide.  It is a somber day of remembrance and reflection, but for me, there was an ugly side to this tradition.

On the eve of Remembrance Day, we joined a candlelit march to the memorial.  Prior to the event, a few people asked me with enthusiasm, “Are you ready to burn the flag?!”  To this I asked, “What flag?”  Silly me… We gathered with the huge crowd in the center of Yerevan in front of the Opera.  After a few speeches, the flag took center stage.  I opened my mouth practically to the floor in awe as I witnessed the Turkish colors go up in flame to the cheers of the crowd.  I’ve learned from the Navy man and the Boy Scouts of the family that a flag is sacred.  I have fond memories of retiring the colors before sunset with my grandfather at our family’s cottage in the summer.  He taught me the right way to fold the flag, and he insisted that it never stay up overnight.  So for me, watching the Turkish flag disintegrate to ashes while an enthusiastic, cheering crowd looked on, this was the ultimate act of hatred towards a country and everything it stands for – its government, its politics, and most importantly its people.  I have gathered during my time in Armenia that many Armenians have strong feelings against Turks.  I’ve heard people say they would never speak to a Turkish person in their life, and worse.  This stems from the Turkish government’s continual denial of the Genocide, but at a certain point 99 years later it begs the question, why?  Although the massacre of Armenians was motivated by religious differences, I’m under the impression that Armenians and Turks have much more in common than they acknowledge.  But again, we force ourselves to dwell on the differences, sorting each other into our little boxes.  Watching this flag burning was probably one of the most shocking things I’ve ever witnessed.  But what’s more distressing is to think that every day around our world, people are expressing their hatred towards others and fighting battles over differences.

To close this extensive rant, I want to share a story from my semester abroad in Kenya.  I think it’s part of the answer of what we can do to help get ourselves out of our boxes.  During the semester I had the opportunity to visit the home of Pete O’Neal, member of the Black Panther Party.  During the 1960s he was arrested for transporting a gun across state lines.  He sought exile in Algeria, and later settled near Arusha, Tanzania where he and his wife run an amazing community and education center.  He hasn’t stepped foot on American soil since.  If he returns, he’ll immediately be sent to jail.  He has no American passport, nor is he a registered citizen of Tanzania.  One of my classmates asked him which country he considered he belonged to, and Pete’s answer stuck with me.  He said, “I don’t consider myself a citizen of the US or Tanzania.  I’m a citizen of the world.” 

Under the Sea (in a landlocked country)

Well I’ve had one of my most unproductive days in a while, so I figured I’d try to redeem myself by at least writing a new blog entry.  Today was a holiday, essentially Armenia’s Day of the Dead.  On this day it is tradition that people visit the graves of their loved ones.  For me, it was nice to have the day off from work and participate in Boston’s annual Patriot’s Day tradition and watch the Boston Marathon.  (Thus my lack of productivity.)  I’ve got plenty to do these days as I now have four volunteer placements, but procrastination has its ways.  Four hours of marathon coverage later, here I am.  But it was time well spent.  Here I was in Yerevan texting finish line updates to my parents along the racecourse.  Our world certainly seems small sometimes in this digital age. 

Today I want to share a video I took last week on my walk home from language class one day.  It’s a classic snapshot of Yerevan.  One of the many signs of spring in the city (in addition to outdoor cafes popping up out of nowhere, flower stalls on every corner, and that fresh spring smell after an overnight rain) is the nightly fountain show in Republic Square.  (Think Disney World dancing fountain, but not quite the same level of Disney magic.)  Usually when I walk through the square on my way home from language class they’re playing classical music and the fountains are dancing and everybody gathers to watch the show.  On this particular evening Yerevan decided to up their Disney magic level with this musical selection. 

There’s something about walking through the central square of Yerevan circled by the country’s government buildings, while hearing a Disney classic on the loudspeakers.  You just never know when Armenia will surprise you next!