Armenia Information
Jason Rhoades
Music emphasis, Goddard College
Peace Corps Volunteer in Armenia
From an email on 29 July 2006
training is almost up here in Armenia. busy but not to bad. i will be moving to Hrazdan, a soviet industrial town of 50000 people in the center of the country up in the mountains, in two weeks to be doing environmental education and who knows what else. oh and Armenia is very beautiful and the people are terribly kind in general.
From an email on 18 August 2006
Everything is going very well here. I am going for long walks in the town and hikes in the mountians. The people are very kind. The language is coming slowly but it is coming. And I am enjoying having no real idea what I will be doing for the next two years.
9 September 2006
It is a sunny warm day here in Hrazdan with just a hint of fall on the breeze. I have been here for about a month. I have been going to a local school for the past week or so. All is pretty well so far and it will be much better still as soon as I just learn Armenian.
Training was held in Vanadzor, a city of about 100000 people in the north-central part of Armenia. The 49 new Peace Corps volunteers who are in my group (A14) were placed in 5 surrounding villages. Training consisted of four days of language training that was held in the villages and then two days of technical and core training. The language training was often dull and grueling but it went fine and it is done with. Core training included medical, safety and security, and cross cultural training. Core training also talked about the Peace Corps approach to development and PACA tools.
We had a guest speaker come from the American University of Armenia (AUA) to speak to us about the major environmental problems in Armenia. This was probably the most valuable training that we received. He outlined four main areas of environmental concern: water conservation, deforestation, pesticide use, and garbage and pollution.
The chief focus of his talk about water conservation was Lake Sevan but was applicable to many areas in the country. The Soviets played very fast and loose with the environment, water included. They drained lakes for farmland, created lakes for irrigation, and redirected rivers to suit their needs. The biggest of the Soviet’s plans was to drain Lake Sevan (which is, I think, the second highest lake of its size in the world) so that they could farm wheat on the lake’s fertile bed. They succeeded in dropping the water level of the lake about 18 m (?)which has had profound effects on the ecology of the area. At this lower level, the water now freezes every year and some islands that were located in the lake have become peninsulas. This has proved detrimental to bird species (especially gulls) that used the islands as safe breeding grounds. Fortunately, the Armenian government is currently raising the water level of the lake closer to its original level. This, however, is controversial because many people hold property right on the lakes current shoreline that will be lost when the lake level rises. Another problem in Lake Sevan has been the introduction of a non-native fish species (I apologize, the names of the fish involved escape me) that has greatly outcompeted the native fish and driven one to the point of extinction.
Another example of the Soviet’s disregard for the local ecosystems concerns Lake Gili. The lake supported 62 bird species. The Soviets redirected the Masrik River which fed Lake Gili and so the lake dried up. Now none of the original birds are present.
My site is Hrazdan, a town of about 50,000 (probabally much less) about half an hour north of Yerevan. The town is comprised of many smaller villages where people live in private houses and have gardens and raise livestock and three central areas where people live in large apartment buildings. The river Hrazdan flows through town and is partially dammed to form a lake that is used for irrigation. The town is surrounded by two mountain ranges and we are at the elevation of about Denver. There are some forests in the mountains to the west. The forests appear to be a mix of a scraggly (forgive the overly scientific jargon) oaks and pines. Most of the uncultivated or unforested land is very rocky and the soils appear to be very thin, dry, and poor supporting sparse grasses. There is garbage collection in the town, but it is infrequent and there is quite a lot of garbage in the streets which livestock and stray animals often get into.
18 December 2006
Right now I have six environmental/ English clubs after school. The classes are of about ten students each. I teach students in 5th through 10th grade. The classes include simple environmental lessons and games and discussions in both English and Armenian. By far, the most of my time is spent planning and teaching these clubs.
5 March 2007
I have been continuing my environmental/ English clubs at school. As my Armenian improves, slowly, I am making the lesions more advanced at focused on Armenia, Hrazdan, and things currently happening in nature. I have not started the hiking and camping club I planned or the Eco-club at the NGO yet due to weather. In general I feel that work in this area has been successful.
Hovik and I went to the “Project Design and Management Workshop” to talk about his reforestation idea. After much discussion I now understand that what he is most interested in is creating a dendro park in town (our town is in great need of green spaces) with different kinds of trees to be used as an educational center and a place for people to relax. I think this is a great idea but we have run into a few problems. First, Peace Corps does not like to give out SPA grants to individuals, preferring established organizations such as NGOs. By the time we got an NGO together and officially registered to start the project, I would be gone. Second, Peace Corps will not allow the grant money to be spent on any non-local goods so we could not use it to buy “non-native” trees as Hovik wished. This all means that the park that Hovik is envisioning will not happen. There is however a nice fenced in field next to the NGO in the center of town which could be turned into a nice park with local trees and plants and we could apply for the SPA grant in conjunction with the NGO. This is the way I would like to proceed but it is Hovik’s idea and I want him to leave the decision up to him. We have yet to meet since I learned of these obstacles so I don’t yet know how he will wish to proceed.
30 May 2007
My environmental/English clubs at school continue to go pretty well. Up until last week, when school closed for the summer, I had 3 clubs meeting weekly. It was my intention to start more clubs, but the end of the school year has forced me to delay that intention until the fall. The camping “club” is going well although it is quite informal and really just consists of me going for hikes with a few interested students now and again. I have yet to open an “eco-club” at the local “youth development” NGO because the NGO has yet to really get up and running again after closing for the winter. At this point, I am not sure if I will continue to plan to start a club there or if I will focus my efforts on school clubs instead.
The “dendro park” idea that I mentioned in the last report has pretty much fallen apart due to limitations concerning who may apply for Peace Corps grants and for what. Hovik (the man who had the idea for the dendro park), his friend Artysun, and I, however, have been talking about and conducting some small scale tree plantings which are going well so far.
I helped, minimally, but happily, with the creation of the first marked hiking trail in Armenia. The trail starts at a small lake, passes through mature beech forests, comes out into an alpine meadow with nice views, and then ducks into a small village and finishes at a church dating back to perhaps the 11th century. The whole hike is about 3 miles and is very pretty.
Photos from Armenia.
Jason
Jason, back row.
13 September 2007
Hard to believe that one year has passed in the time since I wrote my first report last September. So much has happened and yet it has flown so fast I look at the less than a year ahead and think that I am already running out of time! But all is very well here. Summer was beautiful and very busy with work. School is just starting up again and the mornings are getting cooler with a promise of fall.
Green-camps – every year Peace Corps volunteers put on five or so green camps throughout Armenia. They are day camps for forty kids from a chosen site and the surrounding villages. Peace Corps volunteers and Armenian counterparts run the camps. The kids spend the days playing different environmentally related games, going for hikes and trips and in general learning about the natural world, its importance, and what we can do to help/hurt our environment. It is a good program and the kids always seem to have a great deal of fun and walk away with a new perspective. I worked at two camps over the summer, one in the small village of Dprabak (located a little to the north east of Lake Sevan) and the other in the larger village of Sourenevan (located about an hour south of Yerevan). They were both great experiences and I am glad I got to participate in them.
Solar greenhouse project – Hallelujah! We have funding for the solar greenhouse and we have a location. I intend to go out to the site with Manuel (the man who will be building the greenhouse) this upcoming week to look over the area and set about on some concrete plans. Of course it still may all come to nothing, but it is a significant step closer. Also, I have another friend in town who is interested in the idea of building a solar greenhouse and I am planning on taking him up to a solar greenhouse that is currently under construction in Idjevan so he can see how it is going and talk to the owners there about costs and suppliers.
PDM Workshop – Last February, all of the peace corps volunteers in my year took part in a project design and management workshop (PDM) that taught basic project design and management such as assessing community needs, choosing a feasible project, creating a timetable, delegating responsibility, monitoring results and the like. This past June, Jenny, a peace corps volunteer who just left, two Armenians, Lucine and Kristine, and I presented and condensed version of the workshop for interested and active community members. We held the workshop at a local NGO and it went well. About 20 people attended, which is more than I expected and they all seemed engaged and interested. I am also pleased that we stressed the idea of coming up with and executing projects that do not require grant funding.
City Clean Up – In the middle of Hrazdan, there is a plaza with trees and broken benches and half working fountains. It is a place where many people come to talk and walk about in the cool of the day. It is also a place (like nearly all public spaces) where people do not hesitate to throw their garbage. So, a former volunteer, Ray, a local NGO, and I came up with a project that we hope may help change peoples attitudes to the space and also toward littering in public places in general. A hard attitude to change I know, but I think its worth a shot. So the idea is this: we have 20 volunteers at the NGO who have agreed to be a sort of grounds crew, keeping the area clean of garbage and cutting back the weeds for the next year. The mayor agreed to fix the benches and supply us with 30 garbage cans of the “European style” to be placed and high traffic spots along the plaza. We also hope to have a slogan on these garbage cans, something to the effect of “keep Hrazdan clean” or “keep our city clean” and to have the volunteers wearing shirts with the same slogan to increase visibility of the project. It is our hope, between seeing the area clean and nice for a long period of time, seeing people out working for a year to keep it nice, and having easily accessible garbage cans on hand, a person may think twice before throwing their candy wrapper on the ground and may, just may, put it in a garbage can.
15 December 2007
Land Rehabilitation Project: So the Forest for Future Generations NGO that I am involved with on this project says that the mayor of Tzakadzor has given them a piece of land at the edge of the forest to turn into a forest preserve/park. The hope of the NGO is to clean the area of garbage, do some tree plantings, and fix a little picnic area. This is all great. The problem is that they do not actually have the deed to the land from the mayor. The NGO does not think that this is a problem, but real estate in Tzakadzor is very valuable, and so I feel that having the deed to the land a necessary first step that must be set before we consider any further plans. I have been out to see the location and it could be great if they get the deed. For now though, winter is upon us, and so no tree planting or work can be done until April. I hope they get the deed soon and I would like to begin planning over the winter and looking for where to get the trees so that when the spring comes around, we are ready to go
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