Armenian Easter

Another interesting week. Work is still going well - I was able to connect the Women's Resource Center with an organization called Trust Law, a division of the Reuters Foundation providing press and legal resources for women's global human rights groups. A colleague of mine from London who works there offered to write a feature story on the Center, and also to connect them with the legal group. Fortuitous timing.

Life at home is still delicious and entertaining. Some food favorites of the week:

1. Eggs cooked in tomato and peppers and eaten from the pan with warm bread
2. Hot yogurt soup (which I'm sure has a proper name I'm unaware of), full of barley and cilantro
3. Slow cooked chicken gizzards over pasta
4. Soft baby walnuts preserved in syrup

I've also learned more about my family - Laura is a retired engineer and Lusine is a nurse in the cardiac unit of a local hospital. Laura's husband, who was an architect and designed many important sites including the Genocide Memorial, died twenty years ago. I'm amazed at how resourceful they are - especially Laura, who at 72, will frequently get pliers and hammers out to fix anything in the house that doesn't seem to be working. Laura told me how hard it was having four little children when her husband passed away and how much she misses her children (three of them seem to live outside the country - I know one of her sons has escaped to "Hollywood," as LA is commonly referred to here).

The day trip Saturday was to Ararat, as close to the mountain and the Turkish border as you can currently get. We saw Khor Virap ("deep pit"), a chapel and pilgrimage site where St. Gregory is said to have been imprisoned for 13 years. We actually climbed into the pit. Creepy, but the views were amazing.

We visited another monastary, had another delicious and enormous lunch in a village home, visited the vineyards and winery of Areni, and saw an ongoing excavation in a nearby cave which houses the oldest known winemaking operation and also the world's oldest shoe - about 5,500 years old, older than Stonehenge and the pyramids. We also saw the world's greatest mustache.

Saturday night I went to the Genocide Memorial Torch March, when thousands of people walk to the memorial site with candles, torches and flowers. It was memorable. Aside from seeing many of the older people visibly emotional, the younger Armenians take an active part in planning the event, and bring Armenian flags, sing patriotic songs, and so on.

Sunday was of course Easter. I spent the day helping Laura and Lusine cook and then eating with them. We had delicious fish cooked in butter and herbs, pilaf, greens, tabbouleh, and the traditional eggs with lavash (a sort of hard boiled egg sandwich rolled up in herbs). It was a nice day, sunny and warm, but also a little sad. Laura specifically set the table for six, so I kept waiting for guests to arrive; by the end of the day I realized that she might have set the table for her husband and children that aren't with her. She told me she very much wants to move to America and be closer to her sons and granddaughter - she is very afraid of ending up alone. But she said the money and green card are hard to come by.

In other interesting news, I learned a new Easter ritual. While Laura doesn't seem to keep Lent or attend church, she was adamant that for the 24 hours of Easter I could not use soap to bathe. I was sure I was misunderstanding her Armenian. But I had a friend translate, and indeed, apparently they don't use soap on the holiday. No idea why. But it presented a bit of a moral dilemma, as I hadn't showered in two days while the water was out, I had been hiking all day, and also was pretty dusty to begin with (rumor is that sand from the Arabian desert storms has actually been carried here in the atmosphere). I ended up compromising and sneaking just a small amount of shampoo into the bathroom but going without the soap. I figured Jesus would understand.