 
Armenia Information
Patricia (Butler) Babayan
Fisheries and Wildlife major, Michigan State University
Peace Corps volunteer in Berd, Armenia
10 August 2006
I can't say that I'm not ecstatic to be done with PST. Your classes [editors note: your classes = classes in the Michigan Tech Peace Corps Master's International Program] were way more effective than in-country training could ever be. I am meeting a lot of people (and getting their contact info!). Today was our last session, and although we had to sit through a grueling session of 'Language Learning Strategies', it was a short and happy day. The language is definitely tough, but I'm doing well and enjoying it. I can understand a lot and speak a little and every day gets better. On Monday, all 46 of us (we lost a few) will be transported by tour bus to Yerevan for the swearing in ceremony at the Mariott Hotel (although we'll actually be staying at the Hotel Hrazdan monday night). It will be televised on Armenian National Television, and we'll party with the current volunteers in country before heading to our permanent sites on Tuesday. Whew!
I'll be going to Berd for the next two years. I'll be the first EE volunteer, but there are 3 volunteers from last year living there: two TEFLs and a Community Business Development volunteer. My official job will be to teach environmental education in Berd School #1, which was established 135 years ago! I have a young woman whose name is Arevik as my counterpart. She is the geology teacher in the school and seems really enthusiastic. She's already participated in an eco camp organized by EEs in other regions several years ago and really wants to see improvement in the school. There are also a few running NGOs in the area that I may be able to hook up with in my "down time". CARD and the USDA work in the Tavush Marz (my region). There's a lot of grazing land improvement projects on going and in the making. I've got a good contact in the American University of Armenia who has got a GIS lab and is very knowledgeable about the Birds of Armenia project among many other things. Berd is in the northeast corner of Armenia, about 12km from the Azeri border. The name "BERD" actually means fortress. The fortress was founded in the 7th century and destroyed throughout the ensuing wars, but Armenians always came back to rebuild this city. It's a decent sized place with almost 9000 residents, plenty of stores, a music school, art school, history museum, state college, diamond-polishing factory, and a wine factory. I may have internet access, but usually the internet is down, and sometimes the phone lines are cut. There are plenty of mountains and forests in the area, but the roads are even worse than in Shahumyan. There is a centralized water supply, and I'll be living quite comfortably in a Bed and Breakfast. On my site visit, I already met two girls who were staying at the Inn and knew my friend Kate from Vanadzor. My new hosts are Garegin and Anya Sahinyan who are both retired, but work hard to run the Inn.
Tightrope walker.
Above Chinchin
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November 2006
I am in Yerevan again, this time for my Early Service Conference. I wish I had been able to let you know I was in town with internet access, but they kept us too busy! We had a language camp on sunday, administration details and technical sessions on monday, health and security and technical sessions on tuesday, and a development fair today. The development fair organized about 30 different NGOs and agencies in a career fair style to help us get to know some more resources around the country. It was really useful to get to know what some more options are.
Prior to this busy week, things have been going very well at site. Arevik (my counterpart) and I have been planning lessons for our environmental clubs, making posters for the school hall that help answer the question "What IS environmental education?", doing research on landfill designs for the Berd Community Union, and doing a LOT of reading and studying.
Environmental Education Group.
Last week's guests at the B&B were photographers from Yerevan. They came to Berd to continue a joint photography club for youth from both Berd and a neighboring village. They invited me to take part, and suggested that I support the photography club for the girls. And because they like to take beautiful pictures, I was also presented with the opportunity to tag along to Vagaravank, a monastery 30 minutes outside of Berd. The original monastery was built in the city of Van, which is now under the control of Azerbaijan. The architecture was copied and the monastery was rebuilt in the village of Vagaravan and is now partially in ruins.
Time is flying by in a blur. It's cold, but there's no snow in my town yet. Berd Community Union asked me to help them design a landfill for our region. I told them that I would help them find out the European or American Standards for landfill construction, but now I'm thinking of doing a community action plan and putting the problem solving into their hands. Trash is one of the biggest problems (deforestation and desertification being some others). It's everywhere. People throw it in the river but say that it's okay because the rivers take the trash to Azerbaijan. They throw it in the street, in mountain valleys, in fields, and in forests. My town actually has a trash collection system. There are dumpsters in strategic places, such as next to apartment buildings, and at residential intersections. However, the trash is not collected enough and there's no place to put it except a large trash field outside of town or in a mountain valley.
Berd.
December 2006
In early October I was invited to help harvest grapes. I crammed into a Soviet Jeep with 8 people, 3 buckets and a large water jug, and off we went up the mountain and down the other side. We reached the abandoned village of Verin Karmer, where 150 years ago, it proved to close to the contaminated river. Diseases and dysentary forced half of the residents to move upriver to Verin Karmer Achbyur, and the other half moved downriver to Nerkin Karmer Achbyur. About 15 years ago, Ray (short for Aryik) went back to the old VK, where his father maintains a tiny cabin, and planted rows of Muscot grapes. For the last few weeks of the growing season, Ray’s father spends nights at the cabin with a loaded rifle, to ward off grape thieves. At the end of the day, we had picked 2 to 3 tons of grapes, all loaded into wooden boxes in the back of a box truck, all destined to become some of the area’s best homemade wine. At midday, the women cooked a huge lunch over a portable gas stove, and we picnicked in the shade between two grape rows. The beverage, of course, was last year’s wine.
March 2007
Project Design and Management Workshop. The PDM workshop was a full 3-day course at Armenia’s premier ski resort, Tshakhadzor. The material was very basic, but very informative and especially useful to our Armenian counterparts. The agenda covered the basic steps of good project design, using practical project ideas carried through the entire process. It was an excellent opportunity for those who had dedicated counterparts working on solid project ideas. Unfortunately, many counterparts did not show up despite promises they would. I was lucky enough to know a local businessman who would greatly benefit from this workshop, and who was available to leave Berd for a week. It turned out well for both of us, and I can now work with other certified PDM participants to apply for SPA grant funds.
Landfill I am working with the Berd Community Union to provide information on landfill design. The director, Samvel Hovseppian, has been promised funding from both the UNDP and World Vision. The landfill will serve 12, 428 people from the town of Berd and three nearby villages: Tavous, Nerkin Karmer, and Aygepar. The city waste planner estimates 200-250 m3 of trash is generated each month by the 3,000 people being served by trash pickup. That leaves over 9,000 people generating an unknown amount of trash, which is burned or dumped in various holes, rivers and fields in and around the town. Samvel wants to work closely with the Ecology Department in the Marz government offices in Ijevan,. My role is to provide information on European landfill standards, as well as hold community workshops and discussions to educate the public on waste management practices. I am working with Arayik Babayan to translate the materials from English to Armenian. We have two chapters completed.
Earth Day Photo Contest. I am organizing a national photo contest that will be judged locally on Earth Day, and nationally in early May. In preparation for earth day, students in eco-clubs, NGO activities, and other groups will examine the values behind each contest category (trash pollution, beauty, deforestation, reforestation, etc), and submit entries. On earth day, a local authoritative figure, such as the mayor or police chief, will serve on panel of judges to choose the winners of each category and give an Earth Day speech on an environmental topic of interest. The winning photos will be sent to Yerevan to the national competition, and the remaining entries will be displayed in the city center, Post Office, Culture House, or other local public center of each participation location. In early May, the winners from the National Contest will be announced. I am working with Alyson Carr on finding national judges, a place in Yerevan to exhibit photos, and prizes.
June 2007
The funding promised from both the UNDP and World Vision is no longer available, due to financial difficulties within the donating organizations. I am continuing to translate this book with the help of my colleague in Verin Karmer. We have completed two more chapters of translation and expect to finish the guide this summer. I met the head of the UN World Food Programme’s Work For Food Project. Liana and I seriously discussed the possibility of creating a Food For Work program to provide labor improving the solid waste management in Berd.
The Famous Soran Park Clean-up . The Berd Community frequently uses a beautiful park set high in the circle of mountains that enclose the town. Residents use the soccer field, “nature trails”, restaurant, and large open areas to walk, play sports, barbeque, walk pets (and unfortunately, graze cows). As a result of these activities and lack of protection of the natural resources within the park, trees are frequently damaged, vegetation is destroyed, and trash accumulates in large quantities.
On Friday, April 20, three local schools and the state college removed an estimated 90% of the trash in the 20 hectare park. They were aided by the mayor’s support and donation of garbage laborers, the Berd Community Union’s support and donation of a garbage truck, and labor from members of the community, including 3 Peace Corps Volunteers.
My first step was to visit every school in Berd to invite the respective Directors to participate in the event. I combined this invitation with an invitation to participate in an Earth Day Photo Contest as well. I combined the invitations on purpose to give strength to the Earth Day Celebration as a two part commitment, knowing people would much rather take photos than pick up trash. I promised to come back in two weeks to collect photos for the competition. One week later, I phoned or visited every school again to remind them to have photos ready and to update each school on the new participants for the clean-up and to ask them which grades they would like to represent their school. At this time I also asked my school director to set up a meeting with the mayor to discuss our plans and ask for help. During our meeting with the mayor, we were granted his blessing, as well as the day’s labor of three municipal trash employees and their garbage truck. We set the exact time and date the truck would arrive at the park, and agreed that rain would cancel the event. After the meeting, I dropped in at the Berd Community Union and discussed my plans with the director, who is very interested in solid waste management. He too promised me the garbage truck, and requested a short write-up of my plans to describe what I had planned. I dropped off his write-up the next day, and updated him on plans for the photo contest. A week later, I went to every school a third time in two weeks to pick up entries and update participation. All but two schools assured me that they would be represented by at least one class accompanied by a teacher. April 20 arrived, and for extra insurance, I went to every school one last time to remind them of their 11:00am arrival in Soran. This last minute reminder secured the participation of two of the schools. One school had simply forgot, and the other had not planned on being represented at all until I showed up again asking if they wanted to participant. The overall theme up to the point of actually entering the park is persistence. A lot of the success of this project depended on the manpower to get the park clean, and the increase in environmental awareness for students and teachers. I didn’t have to persuade the students at all, I had classrooms fighting over who got to participate. It was the teachers and principals that needed encouragement and incentive to participate. The attention I gave those teachers and directors is what made this project successful. We could have figured out what to do with the trash if the trash truck hadn’t showed up, but if we had nobody to collect the trash in the first place, the project would have failed.
Instead, the clean-up was very successful. I had originally requested that every school arrive simultaneously in the park at 11:00 am. My school arrived at 10:30, so I put them to work. The fourth school arrived at 11:15, after I had already spent a half an hour showing the kids how and where to work. When the fourth school arrived, I was free to leave my group working to show the new arrivals where to work. Similarly, the second school arrived 20 minutes later, and the state college arrived 15 minutes after them. In hindsight, that schedule was much more relaxed than having to show everyone what to do at once in 4 different areas. Unfortunately, I didn’t plan this staggered schedule, and doubt that I could have if I wanted to! But it is a good idea, because it also prevented the schools from seeing each other for more than a few minutes and nothing got out of control. As a reward, I photographed each participating class and displayed a clean-up thank you display in the photo contest exhibition, showing each class, and before-and-after photos of the park.
The garbage truck arrived 2 hours late, but again, that revealed a better strategy than I had planned for. I had expected a shortage of garbage bags, so the garbage truck was going to be used as the major receptacle during the process. Because the truck was late, I asked the students and volunteers to start a few large piles of garbage in each area until the garbage truck arrived. The cleaners didn’t have to run so far, and later, when the truck arrived, it was able to more efficiently travel from area to area and use shovels to move the large piles of trash into the garbage truck.
Two photos of Soran Park.
Patricia at Soran Park.
25 September 2007 - Excerpts from the September Quarterly Report.
Green Camps. I was a small group counselor at the Green Camp in a small village called Dprabak. I arrived at the site a day early to help purchase food for 60 people for 5 days. The Armenians and their American counterparts met at school the next day and discussed roles and lessons. The camp started a day later and lasted 5 days. The curriculum was packed with mostly experiential learning activities which incorporates an introduction to a game or activity, the game or activity followed by a discussion, ultimately ending in a reflection of the activity. I was a large group counselor at the Green Camp in the city of Artik. It was also a weeklong event using the same curriculum.
Rocket Stove
Rocket stove construction was completed and the rocket stove has been tested. My colleague and I designed a hexagonal brick form and ordered it from a local woodworker. The clay was processed in a pool by mashing it with bare feet. Enough water was added to make a smooth, creamy consistency. When the clay and form were ready, the form was oiled and clay was tightly packed into the space. The clay was allowed to dry in the shade for a day until removed from the form and allowed to dry an additional 10 days in the shade. This was a slow process because only one hexagonal form existed. The bricks were fired in a large outdoor bread oven and left to cool slowly overnight. The bricks were removed from the oven and stacked on top of each other with the wood-ramp brick located second to bottom. Ash was packed between the bricks to ensure a snug fit, and a metal grate was positioned at the top to support cooking pots. Wood and paper were positioned inside the chamber and a fire was started. We added small pieces of firewood to the wood ramp as necessary and enjoyed cooking a recipe of fried carrot and onion rice pilaf.
Environmental Education
1. School #1. Eco Clubs will be organized this year with a new Armenian counterpart. She is the school organizer and has agreed to help me plan and teach 2 eco clubs per week. We will lean heavily on use of The Green Compass, a resource that will remain available to the school despite my departure next fall. This counterpart will also assist me in writing a grant for the purchase of 15 tables and 30 chairs for a new classroom that is to be used as the Environmental Education classroom through the next school year and beyond.
2. Community. I will work with the Berd Community Union to develop community workshops and school curriculum to address the issue of solid waste management. Reduction, re-use, and recycling will be introduced and emphasized in these workshops.
15 December 2007
Working on the research project, waste generation and recycling.
The MSW office donated the use of one of the city garages to sort in. On each sampling day, after the truck has collected garbage from the various pickup locations in Berd, the truck drivers bring the truck to the garage. I climb up into the truck, pick a spot at random, and start collecting everything in that location into potato sacks, going down 2 or 3 feet before choosing another location to collect from. This change in method saves money because I don’t have to hire a taxi to visit the landfill every sampling day. It also ensures a “clean” sample because all the garbage in the truck is collected the same day I remove it.
The 0.5 m3 sampling box is quite well made (too sturdy, in fact), so it is impossible to weigh the entire sample using the hanging scales. The box itself weighs around 25 kg.
Each constituent is sorted by hand into 10 labeled 10L buckets to measure the volume. As each bucket becomes full, it is weighed using the hanging scales, and then emptied into a nearby dumpster. The weights of the buckets are subtracted from the total weight of the samples, and all sample weights are added together for the total weight of each constituent. The total weights of all constituents are then added together to calculate the weight of the entire sample.
1 February 2008 - The Wedding Announcement !
Just received the box you sent- the edibles were delicious, and I can’t wait to read the book [Editors Note: Life and Fate by Vassily Grossman]. I showed it to my Armenian friend, and she can’t wait to read it either, but she wants to find it in Russian so that she can actually understand it. I get a little time to read, usually I can read about a chapter a day. I’m working on John Nichols’ The Milagro Beanfield War, recommended by another PCV who found it among the thousands of paperbacks at the PC office. That’s in addition to my work on the Principles and Procedures of Statistical Methods, of course.
The Washington, D.C. security clearance finally came through for Ray, so PC approved our marriage. We’re getting registered on the 14th of February, though by living together we are already married by local custom.
22 April 2008 - Excerpts from the quarterly report
Verin Karmer Aghbyur Secondary School. The students in Verin Karmer have demonstrated a strong desire and interest in the Ecology clubs. Approximately 40 students over-filled the class room on our first meeting. The one huge club has since been split into two eco-clubs meeting on adjacent days and consisting of approximately 20 kids from the 6th and 7th forms, and 20 kids from the 8th and 9th forms. The curriculum for the 8th/9th form is more advanced than the 6th/7th form club, though the general subject material is the same. For example, both clubs started with solid waste management and project design.
The Verin Karmer 10th and 11th graders participated in the PC Gender and Development Initiative’s “Women in Leadership” Poster and Essay contest. One of the students from Verin Karmer received an honorable mention.
Solid Waste Management Collaboration
I created a simple “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” brochure and Arayik Babayan translated it into Armenian. I presented this full-color brochure to the EAI, and offered to email the electronic file to anyone interested in changing it or using it in their communities. I also presented information about the Local Government Project Phase 3 (LPG3), and provided a list of the communities that will receive a new garbage truck and that already have MSW committees working their city hall. LPG3 would like to see Peace Corps Volunteers become links between the committees and the communities. Many Volunteers in the EAI were very interested in collaborating with Allen, other PCVs, and their City Halls to create a campaign to reduce improper disposal of garbage.
I am assisting another Volunteer in a small village with no landfill access on how to conduct a safe and effective river clean-up. We are currently working on solutions to disposing of the trash without it ending up further down the river or dumped over a cliff. He is currently looking for help from his City Hall and nearby organizations. I am contacting some of the larger organizations and NGOs in Yerevan for ideas.
End of April 2008
Attached is the Armenian version of the brochure. [ Editor's Note: Here is the English version.]Ray did a great job translating it. My Program Manager is a linguistics major and was very impressed by Ray's vocabulary. It's been well-received by everyone and I really hope it gets more exposure. My students had a blast making their own brochures, and I just got word that one of my students won second place in the National Earth Day Photo Contest!
Jason and I have our COS conference May 7 and 8, so we'll both be in Yerevan. I am dumbfounded that it's time to leave already. Wow. This has been the fastest two years of my life.
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