Patriarchal Society?

Though I have heard many say it, I am not so sure that Armenia is a full blown patriarchal society. I haven't lived here long enough though to give a good answer. Coupled with limited observation, I am working for a progressive organization where men and women are given equal creative voice and seemingly equal decision making power.

Yerevan is also much like European cities from its nightclubs to outdoor cafes. Women and men mingle freely and women dress and act much like their counterparts in Europe.

Some striking differences do exist:

Women who smoke in public spaces like in parks or the sidewalk are viewed as easy. If they are smoking at a party or in cafe no one cares.

At a dinner table, if men are present, women should keep their hands off the wine and alcohol, it is the man's job to fill glasses.

There are no laws on the book specific to domestic violence. Nor is there a culture to report these crimes or organizations to assist victims. Domestic violence is rampant in the US as well, but the stigma about a man hitting a woman is not prevalent here.

If anything it reminds me a bit of my time in India when on a train from Chennai to Mumbai. I sat with a group of middle aged engineers (all men). After finding out I worked for an NGO that focused on empowering women in city slums and rural areas they expressed their mostly positive views on micro credit then proceeded to lecture me on why Americans should stop trying to impose their views of domestic violence on other countries. Their point - domestic violence is a private matter between a husband and wife.

I agree that major problems occur when one culture imposes its views on another, but reject this "oh its a private matter" or its unnecessary to have extra protections. It reminds me of folks in the US who say hate crimes are unnecessary. It's a limited view that ignores the underlining social reasons for violence and partially excuses the perpetrator.

The sculpture photo is on the first level of Yerevan's Cascade - the lovely white stone steps leading up to the 50th memorial to Armenia being part of the Soviet Union.

Animated Docs

It's easy for me to romanticize fields - documentary making is no different, uncovering real life, shot by shot, revealing the hardships and beauty of life. You get the idea, it's all wonderful. But I am doing my best to burst the bubble by learning about the challenges of the business, how hard it is to garner interest let alone dollars through pitches.

Outside of the political research I am working on, I have been tasked with researching basics on successful animated documentaries for a long term project. Waltz with Bashir may be the most famous in this genre, but it is predated by the work of the artistic genius behind Waking Life, Bob Sabiston. In 2004, he made a 12 minute short, Grasshopper. I am years behind in understanding cutting edge technology, but Sabiston took what's known as rotoscoping to a new level with computers by placing animated sketches over the live action shot.

Our project is not based on rotoscoping, more classic animation, but I fell in love with Sabiston's Grasshopper. It's an interview with an older Kashmiri man discussing philosophy in Central Park.

Watch for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIu0NMDjtCI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzlwVLgp44s&feature=related

Clay Courts in Downtown Yerevan

Since running away from dogs, I am focused on finding new ways to be active in my new city. In a land where chess, wrestling, boxing and car racing reign supreme, I was overwhelmed with joy when I found clay courts this weekend right next to Yerevan State University. For $8 you get an hour of playing time. Not bad. I have never played on clay and am looking forward to it.

The discovery of these courts also brings to mind one of the few famous Armenian tennis players (there is also Argentinian, David Nalbandian). Little known fact outside of those who care to know Armenian facts, the great Andre Agassi is half Armenian. After doing a little research on him, I thought he was well deserving of a shout out.

He has a charter school in Las Vegas focused on underserved high school students.

http://www.agassifoundation.org/

With the US Open underway, he was recently acknowledged last week for these good deeds. His foundation has raised some $75 million. Also, please, when you have a minute google image Agassi, the pictures from earlier in his career display an absolutely impressive shock of hair.

Running with Dogs

So earlier this week, I decided to take a new running route. This time closer to Yerevan's sports complex that has a nice view of the city. It was about 8:30 in the morning when I met a group of four dogs. Yerevan has its share of street dogs. I usually stay clear of them, but these dogs started approaching me. I stopped and stood still with me hands at my sides (this is what I thought you were supposed to do) An old man appeared walking with more dogs (all of them street dogs) following him. One of the four dogs, the leader, started barking at me and then jumped up and bit my left butt cheek. Lovely experience as you can imagine. The old man had a stick and beat them off. And when I say old, he was a vigorous 80 years. One little dog, kept coming near me barking. I had obviously invaded their territory.

Anyway, I freaked out thinking I might have rabies. I ran back home and showered immediately. Then had the women in the office check me out, yes they got a look at my fine cheek. They could only see my irritated skin but no marks, no blood. Also, dogs with rabies rarely remain in a pack. No one thought I should go to the hospital, in fact they thought, that I would only be giving a doctor a peep show and paying him for it.

Nevertheless, paranoia go the best of me and I visited a doctor that the US Embassy has listed on its website. Not only was the doctor in his office, but it turned out, as head of the trauma unit, his office was a meeting place for other doctors. Six other doctors to be exact. The doc asked me to lie down on the couch and show me where I was bit, I ask him to ask the other doctors to leave (as you can imagine throwing up my skirt for one doctor is one thing, but six Armenian male doctors seemingly on a coffee break was another). He asked them to turn away and then examined me. As the women in my office thought, indeed, I was ok, the dog barely broke the first layer of skin, no shots were needed, but my office mates were wrong about having to pay, the visit was free of charge.

Alas, life in a new country. The incident has convinced me to get comprehensive health coverage in case of an emergency.

Lunch Culture: home cookin' meets ping pong

I have now been officially working in Armenia for two weeks. I have luckily landed in an office that takes a unique perspectiv on the midday break known as lunch. For those of you stuck behind the desk during your lunch time (basically everyone I know, unless they are in grad school), think about throwing an office coup to enforce the following:

Every day we break for lunch at 1pm. Our office manager happens to be a tremendously gifted cook who makes a meal for 10-20 people daily depending on whose in and out of the office. The meals are cooked in the office kitchen from 11-1pm. So far we have had stuffed peppers, eggplant, cabbages, baba ganoosh, beef strogenoff, different Lebanese-Armenian dishes, breads, cheese, and fresh salads are a mainstay. We usually eat for 30 minutes, where discussion of work is off limmits. If you do mention a work related topic, someone at the table immediatley screams that you will be "fined" or "beaten" -- interesting humor from the Caucasus.

After we clear the table we have 30 minutes of ping pong. Table tennis is a big deal here. Unfortunately my days of tennis playing have left me with the useless gut instinct to swing the paddle. Swinging renders the ball way over the table. I am slowly learning to use my wrist and talk trash in Armenian. It's surprisingly fun.

Vodka

When I was a freshman in college, in the dead of winter, three of my girlfriends and I, after one too many, thought it would be a great idea to paint Northwestern's "rock." The rock is painted almost every night in the university's south campus. We gathered up supplies, mostly white and green paint and rollers. We couldn't find actual paint brushes, but this did not hinder our efforts. In the freezing cold, we made our way down to the south campus in the wee hours of the morning. After using the rollers to cover the rock with white paint, we painted mostly with our fingers with green paint, "God Bless Vodka." It wasn't creative, but we weren't trying to be. It was a paying of respects of sorts, or maybe more like a collegiate ode to drinking.

I learned last night, that Armenians live this very ode specifically to vodka.

My tutor, Simon, is a studious middle aged professor of linguistics. After our second lesson last night, I learned to speak more like an Armenian two year old child -- "I eat" = "Yes utum em." After our lesson, Simon invited me to stay for dinner with a former student of his, his sister, and his sister's granddaughter. Despite having already had a light dinner, I have learned that it is rude to turn down hospitality - a common characteristic here. A delicious meal of small plates was presented, cucumber and tomato dill salad, breads, cheeses, pickled vegetables, and a bottle of vodka had made its way to the center of the table. I have never had vodka with dinner, but this is not unusual in Yerevan.

We were given shot glasses along with our water and Simon proceeded throughout the meal to toast. By dessert, we had killed the bottle of vodka, probably five shots or so each. The food helped suck up the clear liquor and saved us all from becoming too drunk.

The night was representative of the Armenian culture. Like in many cultures, the people here place a high premium on company, food, and drink. What differs though, is that folks here compared to the West (broadly speaking) seem to warm to guests faster by immediately treating strangers (such as myself) like family.

As for the picture on the right, I felt vodka photo might be too cheesy and unfortunately, I don't have in digital form of my college day shot of the dripping words blessing vodka. This picture is of yet another fruit filled Soviet car. I saw this car just as the guy was half way down the alley with his trunk and roof of watermelons.

"Turkey and Armenia to Establish Diplomatic Ties"

I promise to not talk too much about politics, but this morning, I read a slew of articles including the NY Times' "Turkey and Armenia to Establish Diplomatic Ties." BBC, WSJ, Washington Post and the AP and Reuters all have similar pieces.

This photo is courtesy of Al Jazeera English. The organization reported thoroughly on the Armenia/Turkey news today. I was interested in reading their spin. Most of the coverage is pretty accurate.

Turkey and Armenia in April agreed on a roadmap to normalization of relations and the past four months there has been no movement. Leading many to argue that Turkey did not prove itself an honest broker, instead the Turkey government hoped to derail President Obama's pledge to recognize the Armenian Genocide, with convincing diplomatic overtures. Now with the soccer match between Turkey and Armenia (in October) fast approaching, there seems to be some movement, but all remains to be seen.

Out of my time in Washington, I came to believe that Turkey should lift its illegal blockade on Armenia. Firstly, it's important for confidence building measures amongst the people - Armenians and Turkish people should speak and put a face behind the people. From an economic perspective, free market theory would point that it would help both countries if free trade were to become the norm.

I can't accurately report on the Armenian reaction. Mostly, folks in my office are not moved either way by the news. I don't think they trust the Turkish government. There is a sense also that Armenians may not yet be ready psychologically for the border to open. Armenians are an old people with an ancient language, but modern Armenian is not yet twenty years old. It has 3 million people, Turkey has 40 million people. I might be not be right, but it seems that some fear that Armenia may be swallowed up by Turkey. Folks in undeveloped eastern Turkey may pour into Armenia looking for jobs and ultimately Turkish goods will start to fill shops.

Symbolically, Mount Ararat, where Noah famously landed in the Bible, lies in modern day Turkey, but looms large over Yerevan. It's a constant reminder of Western Armenia and the land and lives lost in the first quarter of the twentieth century.

I will write more on the issue in the coming weeks, but from a purely practical standpoint, stripped of emotion, it is crazy that one has to go through Georgia to get to Turkey from Armenia -- the border should be opened. As for the unresolved historical issue such as Turkish recognition of the Genocide, this is not a precondition for the opening of the border, but it is something very real in the minds of Armenians living here in Yerevan, many of whom are decendents of genocide survivors.

Ok enough of the heavy.