From the Hard Drive - Swear-in, Language and Culture (oh my!)

I, (state your name), do solemnly swear or affirm that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, domestic and foreign, that I take this obligation freely and without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge my duties in the Peace Corps by working with the people of (the host country) as partners in friendship and peace.

With those words, on Thursday morning (moved up from the afternoon because of our field trip), we were sworn in as Armenia’s first group of Peace Corps Response volunteers. I’ve taken that oath three times now and it always seems a little more Corps than Peace to me, but it’s also a moment of pride, as I make a commitment to represent the people of the United States and to help the people of Armenia. David Lillie gave a wonderful and moving speech (though, as in the Philippines, touched with the irony of the short amount of training we experienced leading up to that moment). The staff had dressed up for it and acted appropriately happy for us. We received pins with the Peace Corps logo, the Armenian flag and the American flag, and had some refreshments and handshakes and hugs.

The Armenian flag has horizontal stripes of red, blue and orange – I asked the AO what it stood for and she said she had been told the pink tuf stone, the sky (or Lake Sevan) and the apricots. I later had the chance to ask the Language Coordinator and she said the red was for the land, the passion of the people and the blood that was spilled, the blue was the sky and the orange was the sun.

Before getting sent off to our homestays we had a little language and culture on both Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon. As I mentioned, we have a tutoring allowance, and my homestay host speaks English very well, so the language wasn’t as critical for me as it was for the others, but falling at the end of the day both days, we didn’t get a lot. Still, I find that what we did get I have been using, so it’s already a good base – hello and thank you and some other common words. Before coming here I had been under the impression that language, alphabet and religion were what united the people, but now I am not so sure about religion (people don’t seem to be as devout as I thought they’d be; part of that might be the comparison to the countries in which I’ve previously served, where religion was so central to the culture, and part of it might be a vestige of the Soviet era, where religion existed but was outlawed - more on this as I find out more). So it’s language and alphabet that define the culture – and here, the Peace Corps language training includes learning the alphabet. It’s a unique one. So is the language – it’s on its own branch of the Indo-European tree. The street signs are in Armenian and English, and many other signs are in Armenian and Cyrillic, so I might pick up some Russian while I’m here, but it will definitely be helpful to be able to read.

Off to our homestays we went – accompanied by a driver and a staff member (and a huge water filter system, two space heaters, a fire extinguisher, a carbon monoxide/smoke detector, the medical kit and all the handbooks, in addition to my luggage). My homestay is in an apartment building near the hotel where we stayed (for safety and security reasons I’ll not get more specific), in a wonderful central location. My homestay sister (she prefers that to mother) had dinner prepared for me – a beet salad (I asked her what it was called in Armenian and she said vinaigrette – oh well; I still want to learn to make it!), some dumplings (I don’t know what those are called either), baklava, and some of Armenia’s famous cognac (one glass, not multiple toasts). She showed me to my room and left me alone to unpack and organize – and then I went to bed and slept (not the entire time), reappearing twelve hours later and finally somewhat more awake!