A Post about Food, Because Feelings are Hard

I haven't posted in awhile, but a lot has happened. It's been a hard couple of months, mostly due to things entirely out of my control. Part of the reason I haven't posted is I still feel as if I don't have perspective on it all, and I'm not really able to put the experience into words yet. So I've had a bit of writer's block.

While I'm still figuring out all the tough stuff, I figured - what the heck - mine as well post about something. Here is that something. I've already made a food post in this blog of mine, but the thing about growing up with two parents who really know how to cook is, you learn to love food.

With the exception of the fantastic, delicious, overwhelmingly-satisfying, can't-rave-enough-about, experience that is a khorovats table (see below), most of the food here goes back to the Soviet days of Armenia. Diets are often starch-heavy and oil-heavy, but usually served with a side of fresh cucumbers and tomatoes. 

A typical meal when I was still living with my host family often looked like this - 

Fresh baked bread, with skinny noodles and pasta, both fried in oil instead of boiled. Of course, my host family graciously offered to make other things if I didn't like their food, but I really didn't want to be a bother. Part of my job here is to live and learn the local culture, so that's what I did. Not to mention, it's not like fried pasta tastes bad, it just might not necessarily make your body feel all that great. To help with that, I started eating a lot of cucumbers and tomatoes and home-grown herbs (cilantro, tarragon, and basil being the most common). Fortunately, even in the winter, my family prepared to always have those things around. 

                       

After I moved into my own apartment though, the food situation changed. For about 6 months, I had virtually no control over what food I consumed. Armenians suffered through an era of undependable food supply and severe economic depression within my generation's lifetime. So many of the habits of cautious food spending, storage, and buying the cheapest, most sustaining food items are still around. Hence the starch consumption.

As I gained control over my food, I also gained the responsibility of shopping for food. I was suddenly overwhelmed with the possibility of controlling my diet again and wanting to make a ton of super delicious meals, while also realizing over half of the ingredients I would usually use were non-existent here. Basically, if you could easily make it in your own home or on a farm, there's a chance the stores will have it. For anything more processed or complex, you may be able to find it for 3 times the standard price in Yerevan. Maybe. 

This, and not being allowed to drive in-country which means walking a whole lot more, has all led to me losing about 40 pounds since my arrival in March. Every meal here has to be intentional. There is no quickly picking up a taco on the way to a meeting, or pulling some hamburgers out of the freezer, or microwaving some leftovers really quick. Shwarma is a fast food option from 11:00am until sunset, but it costs at least 5 times the cost of a complete meal made at home, for just one shwarma wrap. Needless to say, I limit my shwarma trips to a max of one per week.

If I am exhausted after a super long day, haven't had a chance to eat since my eggs for breakfast, and didn't get out of my last club until after dark, my quick options are more eggs, some rice, or plain pasta. My other options are eat the sherbert i made from scratch awhile back for dinner (look what I did!), or suck up the exhaustion and take the extra hour or two to actually cook a meal (and finish eating around 10pm).

I'm actually not bothered by this at all. I love it. I can't have complete lazy days. I'm always putting at the very least some active energy into meal prep for a couple hours even on the weekends. I don't snack or eat crap, because there aren't many snacks available, and most crap food is the stuff that's all super processed and therefore not available here. The biggest plus is I have learned how to get really creative with meal ideas and adaptations.

For example, the following items can be used to make a sloppy joe sauce when you have no access to BBQ sauce or yellow mustard. 

Obviously, not with the chips that are in the background. Chips are one of the only snack options here because Armenians are serious about their potatoes. Unfortunately, they're another unnecessary budget splurge, so it's another item on the "be conscientious and only use to treat yourself" list. Anyway, here's my fun version of sloppy joes. I swear, it taste's almost just like Mom's.

In the fall and during mild winters (like this one fortunately) lettuce, kale, spinach, and cabbage are in abundance, so I've gotten creative with salads. No pre-made salad dressing around, so a little red wine vinegar and oil mixed with spices usually does the trick. Omelettes have also become creative. Hot sauce and probably disturbingly over-processed cheese that made it here from America have become my comfort objects. Eggs do get boring eventually, so this morning's omelette included those things plus lettuce, cabbage, and "hot" peppers that are slightly more spicy than a bell pepper.

Also featured in my cooking creativity lessons is pumpkin pie from scratch. Hiccup and I (with an assist from some friends) had a bit of a photo shoot with this super cute pumpkin before it turned into a delicious masterpiece (with Skype help coming from my dad.) This has sadly lead to the discovery that many Armenians do not like pumpkin pie, but that's okay, because the other volunteers devoured it.

Other creations include Armenian fajitas (with lavash instead of tortillas)...

...pumpkin soup with a side of honey-cinnamon butternut squash, and old bread dried out in a frying pan for croutons...

...possibly my favorite personal cooking-first here, cinnamon baked apples...

...and thanks to a little sweet-and-sour seasoning packet from home, and the availability of pineapples, carrots, and onions, Sweet and Sour Chicken. Also featured is the beautiful Yule Table Lauren set up for the winter solstice.

All in all, this has been a great unintended diet plan. I control my portions because I try to make each dish last for a few meals. The amount of energy alone I put into finding all of the ingredients and making half of them up from scratch is quite the motivation to eat only when I'm actually hungry. Since everything takes so long to prepare anyway, I take a lot of pride in making the best dish I possibly can, so it's delicious too!

I haven't quite figured out how I'm feeling about a lot of other things right now, but I have found a new simple pleasure to enjoy. Creating food diversity here isn't always easy, and the challenge has become a way of art for me, even so much as to be an expressive outlet.

As the Armenians say: Անուշ լինի (anoush leenie)!
Which is literally something along the lines of, "Let it be sweet!" but more accurately it translates as, "Bon Appetit!"

There's a hole in our hearts.

Last week, us TEFL volunteers who got here in March had out first ever vacation. Myself and 5 other friends decided to get a BnB in Tbilisi, Georgia for the week and explore that beautiful city.

The week started out fantastic. While Armenia and Georgia are very similar in a lot of ways, they are also drastically different. Georgia has had a lot more opportunity for economic development than Armenia, and sadly, it shows. For vacation though, this meant comforts from home. I ate nothing but multiple Subway sandwiches for 36 hours. We had some drip coffee from Dunkin Donuts, and some frostys from Wendy's.

We also got to see a lot of beautiful architecture and some touristy sites in Georgia. The vacation started wonderfully, and then we got a phone call.

Wednesday morning we woke up to horrible news. The day before, one of the  volunteers in our group, Hanna Huntley, died in a car accident. Hanna was a Community and Youth Development volunteer. We all arrived together, trained together, laughed, cried, celebrated together.

I didn't know Hanna like I wanted to. I wasn't one of her closest friends, and we had just gotten to have some one-on-one conversations at our most recent training three weeks ago. I've found myself trying to justify my grief over this loss and worrying about how my grief might appear to others. That doesn't make it hurt any less though. That doesn't make this any easier to process.

Hanna was one of us. She was doing so much here. She was part of something important. I don't have the words for how it feels to have that cut short. I can't imagine what her family must be feeling, and all I can do is send every sympathetic and comforting thought I can muster in the universe to them.

Tuesday night, we had planned a large day of exploring Georgia. Wednesday morning, it just didn't seem possible. We sank into our comfy pjs and our couches, and we just sat. For awhile, none of us did anything. The 5 of us had a variety of emotions and reactions, but the one that was most prevalent was pure shock.

There's still so much of that shock. We made it back to Yerevan in time for the memorial service for Hanna on Saturday. I can't properly describe the light and creativity and warmth that was Hanna. I can't do it justice, and it just feels so wrong that the world has lost that. Hanna was undoubtedly a phenomenal volunteer. She was everything you would hope a PCV to be and more, and I believe she truly represented the best of America. The memorial service echoed that and the shared grief and vulnerability of all the PCVs, staff, and Armenians there was overwhelming.

Sunday I came back to my site, and many others went back to theirs. I didn't know how to do what came next. How do we just keep doing what we were doing when everything feels so incredibly futile and so much more important at the same time? I went back to work on Tuesday. Jumping back in felt overwhelming. The roller-coaster of emotions has been unreal, but we all made it through the week in one way or another.

For me, kids are fantastic in these moments with their innocence, naivety of the worst emotions, and simple joy. I've also found Armenians to have expressions of grief and an openness of pain and sorrow that I think I actually prefer to home. In America, we have sympathy and condolences, and of course those are appreciated to the utmost. Here, there are two phrases I've heard quite a bit. Ցավում եմ քեզ հետ․ (Tsavum em kez het.) Համբերություն․ (Hamberutyoon.) The first literally means, I hurt with you. It is the Armenian way of condolences and sympathy, but in my experience, it has been said with tears in the eyes of whoever said it. It is normal to show raw emotion here, even if that emotion is on behalf of someone else. If you need to cry, cry. No one will bug you, and it's okay.

The second word simply means "patience". I particularly have become attached to this phrase. How else does grief become more bearable? For all of the things we try to do and say to ease someone's pain in times of grief, usually the only effective thing is time. In recognition of that, Armenians simply remind us to have patience when we are grieving. This has particularly kept me going and been a constant reminder of my mental health mantra - "This is temporary."

For now, we are all just marching on. Many have reminded us that Hanna would want nothing more than for us to continue to give our best selves in our service to Peace Corps and Armenia. So that is the plan. Here's to you, Hanna. Your impact will live on through each and every one of us. Rest easy.