So, the next 3 weeks or so I would be in Chambarack, relaxing from all the drama, travelling and chaos.

I started by trying to make myself a routine again. I did my reading class every Thursday or Wednesday with the 5th or 6th Graders and regularly made the text we are and will be using. Then I also started having my “ Emil und die Detektive “ Class again, Thursdays I helped Emma with her classes , which are used to prepare children from the higher grades (7-9th) for language diplomas from the Goethe institute or the PASCH initiative and their exams. There were also a few more spontaneous happenings where I had to jump in for a sports teacher for example. It was horrible haha. I went with the children to the sports hall and since the teacher was gone, the ball room/ office was closed but that didn’t stop them! since they were younger children they managed to sneak through the bars of the door and kick the balls through before coming back through them haha. But that was a mistake, I didnt really have a lot of control of the class and so the balls where flying throw the hall. hitting children everywhere, I got two balls against my head too haha. I was pretty unresponsive there and just kinda was  throwing hoops calmly while there where kids crying haha  But yeah , no one was seriously injured luckily ;). Below is a picture of the culprits caught „karmin“ handed. Them little monkeys haha.

Then interestingly, remember the kids who always used to call me out for Football? Well it seems like that stopping really was caused by the change of seasons wince the moment it got a bit warmer and sunnier, they where back on the field again and I played with them on a few occasions. The field was really littered though. The winds had blown all the plastic and garbage from the mountains down. The grown was also very wet and almost mud like due to the molten snow and so my shoes usually looked liked this after a good half an hour of playing with them:

A lovely sight isn’t it?

Otherwise , the new season was really starting to show it self. The mountains in the distance where almost always covered in snow and it chambarack turned white aswell on more than a few occasions:

Towards the end of my stay there for this year, and with the ever closer creeping holiday season I prepared a small lesson for 4th to 5th graders where we would spend a lesson or two singing a German christmas song and craft and cut out snowflakes out of Paper. I got the snowflake idea from my childhood in school and thought that it was a very efficient and easy task for the children. The song we sung was “ Lass und Froh und Munter sein“ A pretty catchy and well-known german song. Here are some pictures from that little weeklong “ workshop“ with the different 4th and 5th graders:

Well so yeah, now im in Yerevan ( my plane is at 5.am ( in around 12 hours) typing up this last blog post finally haha, i wont have to worry about writing this for like almost another month xD. Today I basically just went shopping for presents ( spent 30 euros) and figuring out how I will manage to sneak like 4 extra kilo onto the plane because my allowance is only 6Kg. I’ve been having weird feeling in my lower abdomen but im sure that will pass in the next few days. I’m already doing everything i can to help my body.

So wrapping up, the last three weeks where more of a „calm down phase“ and it was just a chill and standard time here in Chambarack and Armenia.

So I wish you all a lovely holiday, christmas and a great start into 2019!

Have some christmas spirit through the christmas decorations from the school in Chambarack!

See you next year <3

Andrej

Well now, let me tell you a bit about my experience in and my time after my „Zwischenseminar“ in Georgia !

After a short transit day in Tbilisi with the other Georgian volunteers we all met up on the next day to get transported to our Seminar location in a place called Saguramo , around 30 Minutes outside of Tbilisi.

Before the meeting up and all actually started , the people in the apartment got ready, packing all our stuffs and doing last-minute shopping. I bought some snacks and a Pomegranate vodka , distilled AND bottled in Armenia so i was looking forward to trying that haha .We all met up at the meeting location and not going to lie, I wasnt really feeling it at all haha. I just wanted to sleep. WE met our driver and the landlord of our place ,Dato, and we packed out stuff into he back of the van before we all squeezed everyone else onto the Bus. Me and Martin felt really tired and kinda nauseous because of the heat ( It was much warmer than expected in Georgia and us Armenians packed for a weather situation similar to Armenia ).

(Ugh im really not in the mood to write this but i have too hah)

Anyways, we arrived the place, and while we where driving we all kinda where disappointed and underwhelmed by what we saw driving by, but when we arrived at the place we where staying it was actually a very pretty establishment.! Sadly i do not have any pictures of the Place but if in the future i do get some, ill post em here xD. So we arrive and we get greeted by our Seminarleaders, Sarah and Nina , both pretty chill people and we get led to our rooms. ( two big sleeping halls, one for the men and one for the lady’s) and right after that lunch. It was funny since the first thing the guys did was make their beds while the girls where like “ we havent done shit“ haha.

But yeah there’s not a lot of talk about the seminar really, I havent told you guys  about the preparatory seminar, but i hated that shit kinda ( partly because I was sick) and this was also like meh. We started with a two-hour sessions in the morning after breakfast, had lunch, then some free time before having another session after 6 again untill dinner, and occasionally we had something after dinner. What was interesting though was the story of the place we where staying at and the history of the couple running it. So the couple is Dato and his wife ( a german nurse whose name ive forgotten) who moved there like a long time ago, probably in the 80s. There they started a kind of alternative fostercare thing, which over the years changed its name and meaning etc.. but it was always used for a good social cause. The children they took in normally stayed untill they where ready to be an adult and start their life on their own and yeah. While we where there, theystill had a guy( probably 20 isch, scary looking) who was with them since he was a child and a little girl called “ Perro„( or one of the other three names she had hah) wh was relatively new and who we all came to love very much. She was shy at first always hiding under tables and such but still listening to our seminar but as the week passed she opened up and starting chilling in the room and playing with us. Whats crazy though is that that kid was clever as hell. Like straight up, she could speak german, Georgian and russian fluently and the way and mannerism she used while she spoke wasnt that of a child. It was fascinating but kinda creepy at the same time.

But now what did we actually do during the seminars?

We talked about our past experiences, how we have adapted and fit into our place,e if we have fit in at all. Any interesting experiences we would have liked to share, any problems we would need help on. So as you understand it was basically about how it is being a volunteer now.

Surely that can’t be all?

Well contents wise that was the very broad basic  description. Aside from that we also had a day trip to Tbilisi which was guided by the volunteers in Georgia and we visited a small church, about 15 minutes from us away. Also we enjoyed the bomb ass food from the kitchen. It is probably under my top 3 places to eat since ive started my year haha.

So yeah, im behind on these posts, ive been working my ass off for them so cut me some slack on this one by accepting these photos from the Seminar week with descriptions where they are needed, Thank you in advance 😀   :

These were the 4 Main house animals, The cog was mainly at the other house while the cat kitten always used to chill with us. The Cow and the Sheep where in the barn with another donkey and a few chickens.

Below are some pictures from the actual seminar session. Participants which can be seen are  Elisa, Alexandra,Lisa,Elina, Josh, Martin,Clara,Rosa,Aljosha, KitKat (katharina) and Kira. Additionally there are also Nina,Sarah and Perro.

Next are just pictures from when we had some free time:

Then we have a few pictures from our excursions. First the ones to the little church:

Aaaand then the ones from our day trip to Tbilisi:

And to finish this long and visuals post off id like to end by telling you about our guest Mouse we had. On the first night, there was a mouse wrecking some havoc in the girls sleeping hall and there was a big fuss, they moved into the seminar and slept there and from the first night on, there was a slight paranoia of it.  Now and the following picture was taken in 2018 picturing the with hate fueled efforts of the mouse inquisition through an extermination squad:

Haha now I apologize for the text-less post, nevertheless i hope you at least enjoyed the pictures and I’ll see ya next time xD

Andrej

Alright so this little update  will be spanning about two weeks again.

Theres not a lot of Interesting things to document haha, just a lot of work and stress.

The first week started off with me finishing of and finalizing the work for my “ Deutsch im Museum “ Project ( Seen under the Project tab). Additionally I was also working on a new Project which will probably start Mid-January, more of that Project coming in the project tab later so watch out!. Beside that I have still been doing some work in School of course. I Have a small reading club with the 5th or 6th graders on Monday or tuesday. Its not very set into stone yet because we have to tell them each week in school like : “ Yo, yall are having a small book club in the 8th Period with Andrej“ so i will have to better my efforts there so they know it’s a regular thing. For the book club we ussualy use small children magazines  but since we don’t have 15 copies for each child , ive decided to take the matter into my own hands. Ill make a small A4 Page with a simple text and a few visualisations so that they also have a small picture as a reference with a small additonal slip of paper on which 3 or so VERY easy questions are printed. My first Edition of that was  Text about sea turtes seen here ( the future worksheets and class material will be in another tab under Projects 😉 ) :

(This is where i sleep in Yerevan by the way, lovely room isnt it 😉  )

What I also have done is , started a long-term school project which deals with processing the Book “ Emil  und die Detektive “ with a small handful of good and interested students so I can challenge them a bit more. More to that under the „Projects“ tab haha.

Now, on Wednesday I returned to Yerevan for the “ Deutsch im Museum “ project ( under the „Projects“ tab) but there was still an other matter which needed my attention. I needed to get the extended stay permit For Armenia since I would be here longer that 180 days at a time probably next year . So what I did after arriving in the outskirts of Yerevan was meet up with a Worker at the German embassy who was tasked with official translation our Passports, and thus I had to meet up with him to give him mine. While doing that I also killed another bird with the same stone and got the 3 Passport pictures which are required for the permit in a small shop around the corner. Those actions really exhausted me. I woke up early, walked 30 minutes to the meetup stop and then went to the Goethe-Centrum since no one of the other volunteers wouldnt be at the flat for another hour or so. At the Centrum I socialized a bit with the Lovely employees, they Even made me some Lunch which was very sweet and I layed in some of the bean bags for a while untill I had to leave to get to the Apartment. Once there I realized how exhausted I really was, I was shaking so I really just relaxed, ate and drank a lot of fluids to replenish my body.

( Then came the “ Deutsch im museum “ Project which I elaborated in the “ Projects „tab)

On one of the next 5 days I had to go to a Medical Centre to get  Medical approval for the permit, so that was a bit of extra stress but it had to  be done. There I realized that I have lost 4 Kilo since my 68kg around May-ish so I decided to get that and maybe more back so I really started to eat a lot more. During lunch at another cantine close the Goethe centum I ate huge portions of food and I started to spend more money on snacks and small foodbreaks at home. I Feel like I’m definitely progressing towards my goal though so I will see how well I did once I arrive in BErlin in DEcember.

Continuing my “ Deutsch im Museum“ Project has come to and end and after settling all the financial matters I am back in chambarack. The journey here was nicer than usual though. At the bus station i take the marschroutka from, always has the old dude who offers a private taxi for much much higher prices that a marschroutka and the last few times he always was like : You want a private taxi? But this time we had an actual conversation in Armenian like : How are you , etc.. so that was great xD and additionally to that, I was sitting to this curious old  lady in the marschroutka so we we traded a few questions and interesting words, in russian of course haha. But those two events really did up my mood and make my day haha. Here I worked a bit on my blog, had another two lessons, one yesterday (thursday) and one more “ Emil und die Detektive “ lecture lesson today ( Friday) at around 3pm. Otherwise ill have to clean up my room and pack up my things since im leaving tomorrow already again. Oh and where you ask? I will first of all be bringing some children from Chambarck to Gyumri for the “ Sayat Nova “ Project and after that I have my catch my Train at 00:30 to Tbilisi for the start of the Seminar on Monday.This is where I will be putting a small break. I’ll write more on sunday so I can recap the whole journey after ive actually had the experience.

Oh and what I forgot is that on saturday we had the reading out loud competition in the Geothe Centrum and my little desciples also appeared. Also though didnt win i still think they did absolutely well so i was really proud haha Below ia a picture with the organizers, judges and all the participants.

Alright, now since im in my little bed in Tblissi in the WG of the volunteers of Georgia , I can give you a slow and steady playback of the last tw days.

So the hard part of this week started on a cold saturday morning on the country side of Armenia. I woke up around 6:30 to be able to make myself a small warm cup of tea and a small breakfast before having to make a last check of my Items in my backpack. We were all set. I walked down the streets to the meeting point where the driver would pick me up with some of the students which I will bring over to gyumri. My breath was visible while I trotted down , occasionally being afraid for the dogs staring and barking at me furiously. At the meeting point we waited for 10 Minutes untill our driver arrived. While there was enough pace for all our bags there wasnt enough really for the children haha. Lucky me i guess for getting to sit in the front seat as the chaperone. What was really funny was that since the car windows were covered in Frost and ice, the plausible action would be scraping it completely off for the security of all sitting in the car but no, things are done in chambarack haha. He just rubbed out a patch of frost in front of the driver seat while the rest was still ice white and he drove us while looking through that hole for a good amount. Just a small thing which amused me haha. So we drove all the way to the Yerevan train station , got off and met up with Dana who was waiting there for all participants of the Sayat Nova Project. Soon after the smaller group from the ,in a previously written and mentioned post, Ayb school joined us and we boarded the train.

It was a pretty fun ride to be honest. I sat with th kids from chambarack we just had a conversation. We talked about many topics and they taught the words of colour in Armenian while we busted out UNO and played a few rounds. They also showed me some Armenian “ gangster“ music which was pretty amusing but yeah. Not even that bad to be honest. There was like an employee who would like give us dirty looks and always threaten us not to leave any crumbs or anything so that was funny to haha. But at the end I was still kinda bored and just wanted o get off he train so that was a relief in the end. We got out and BUM! the ice-cold air hit you, it was lovely at first but while the chaperones where greeting and welcoming each other and assigning each child a partner from the local school it became pretty freezing and we all happily started walking towards to school once all the organisational stuff was done and all the kids were gone.

I basically hung around the whole day, just checking out the school and a little of the town. I helped Dana with her planned „german city hunt“ around the town and with the FIlm shown in the evening. All in all a pretty normal day haha.

But at around 00:30 i had my night train to Tbilisi. So i lived my day up to that time to around 11:45 , where i left and walked to the train station, I didn’t want to come later after all. And 10 minutes later the train showed up and i was a bit nervous. I showed the train chaperone my ticket and he showed me my wagon. I got on the train and passed the compartments before finding mine and i opened the door to it. Luckily it was empty. The train itself was very antique and was equipped very well.  In each compartment, 4 people could sleep. Two on each side below and two on each side on top. Luckily, through out my 8 hour ride. Here is a very bad picture of the place haha: 

No one joined so I happily had the place to my self. I got settled in. Took of my shoes. Took my passport and ticket out of my backpack before putting it under my bunk and even a few minutes later. A guy was nice enough to bring me bed covers and such. So the train got into rolling and there isn’t much to say more. The only complaint i had been that the air was so hot and not really humid but like stuffy. When i tried to sleep i probably sweated all of my biological water out haha. I had like 3 Session of between 1 and 3 hours of sleep but i survived haha. At around hour 5 we stopped for the border control and the Armenian authorities checked me out and the Georgian ones checked me in. It was just like meh in the moment because i was just tired and exhausted. SO after a night of kinda restless sleeping and border control, I finally arrived in at Tbilisi main train station. From there i walked to the subway station near by and bought my self a subway card, which you could always recharge with money  ( a trip with the public transportation costs a 0.5 Lari) and went into the direction of the Goethe Insititut in Georgia. The Goethe institute there is like the headquarters for the Caucasus region and i had to deliver something from Dana to their administration so i dropped the package of there and got onto the subway again to finally go to the Apartment of the Volunteers in Tbilisi. Here also a small picture of the exterior of the building, the inner courtyard looks very good. They even have a small amphitheater thing haha ( sadly not visible on the picture):

The problem though was that , they had celebrated the birthday one one of them the night i arrived so i felt kinda bad for waking Julian who had only slept couple of hours. Nonetheless i ended up in their flat and had a really good morning cleaning their kitchen up and having a few good conversations and laughs with the Georgians. (really i did enjoy it haha, it sounds sarcastic as fuck). Me , Martin ( who was also staying there ) and Josh ( the guy whose birthday it was ) decided to spend the day by going into the city and went to visit the Georgian national gallery. There was a special exhibition about a specific kind of a italian church art and there where a hand full of really great paintings.

Some examples here :

After that we had a small walk through the main street up to a small hip restaurant since Josh really wanted us to taste the Siberian Pelmeni. We also ordered a surprisingly good tasting like green shake out of Tarragona. Mid-meal coincidentally the representative of the Kulturweit program who was supposed to visit us during the Seminar walked out and joined us , ordering the same. We talked a bit and got to know each other, but our little group decided to leave earlier since we’ve been in the city for a while and we just wanted to go home and sleep haha. And we luckily did , thanks to my efforts since he still wanted to get a DAMN coffee haha.

We came home and basically napped for a couple of hours before having a dinner with all the volunteers assembled at the apartment. After that we just basically went to sleep.

And that was basically the story of how i got to Georgia and how i spent my one day there before going off to the Seminar.

Soo my dear Readers I am back again! haha

Anyways  to continue the flow! After i parted from my fellow Volunteers , me and Aljosha hopped into the car , which the Geothe-centrum hired , which would bring us back to Yerevan. Twas a esimated 7 Hour drie… and the assumtion was correct haha. It was a very good drive though! We talked abit with the driver, who could speak only russian, and turns out he brought Camilla ( the volunteer working at the place we stayed ) there last year so that was a interesting fact. The day we left it was streaming rain and it ws the first time ive seen alot of rain so it was a mixture of like panic , because i thought that the drive would be much longer, and happyness beacuse i saw rain again. But we reached the border in around 3 Hours, passed both Immigrations witithout control and continued our drive. Not gonna lie but i must say that i felt kinda at home as soon as we crossed the border haha. The landscape had also chnaged completely! There was snow like crazy and it was snowing aswell , I was really suprisede how the little time outside the country had changed the weather so much. But! We drove on haha didnt really matter as we both know 😉 just wanted to be dramatic haha.

When we arrived around Yerevan the driver started talking how hes gonna treat himself to some good ass food and vodka with his pay so that was prettz cure, but we finallz arrived, got out , I payed him ( I would get the money back) and crossed the street to the Flat. When we entered , we where both pretty exhausted so we kind a just kept to ourselves and chilled since we did just complete a 7isch hour drive so that was the end of Friday.

Saturday started early. I got up at 8 to get a good breakfast and pack up my things into my backpack again and after some walking and a subway ride i arrived infront of the Goethe-Centrum at 9:45. There i packed my bag into the bag of the ordered sprinter which would bring me and the others onboard to Gymri. So to explain everything: There would be the opening of a new PASCH programm SChool and following that the “ Childrens University programm“ in the city of Gyumri. And i would be transported there in the Sprinter bus with Karen and some Parents of the children participating from the other Schools.

The moment i entered the bus is was just the Women talking loudly haha, like it was horrible ( I know it sounds kinda sexist but its what happened haha) Now but basicly i stayed quiet for most of the ride and enjoyed my peace and quiet with my headphones on. I should really make a playlist on here with the songs i enjoy, i have been told alot by people that my taste n music is very magnificent and unique ( which means good haha ). So we arrived at Gyumri at around 12 isch wich was on schedule and so me and Karen unpacked our gear ( mostly beamers and IT stuffs for the Project) . Now after that, we more important people starting collecting at the school aswell. Dana arrived with all the delegates from the other PASCH schools in Armenia. Finally the german Ambassador pulled up with his son and the Honourary Consulate also showed his face. We where firstgiven a small tour of the schools main building before gathering infront of the school where after a few speeches and after a count of three, the official “ PASCH School Plate “ was unveiled infront of the school. Here two pictures of the official ceremony xD :

After the Official opening of the new status of the school, all honoured guests where invited for a little celebratorz meal in a restaurant near bz while the rest of us… slaves ( haha ) had out lunch in the cafetaria. Me and karen woddled down there and i was surprised at how simple but how tasty and filling the food was. The school mensa served us a very simple sald with some grain and the mst amazing bean/ lentils hanburgers. I swar the first time i bit into them  i thought it was chicken haha. but well we ate alot of that and funnily, the teachers who stayed back thught that they  woudnt get any school lunch and thus they ordered forn TAshir pizza ( a Mc.donals kinda thing in armenia) and so after we all kinda stuffed out bellys, they walked into with a few boxes of ceasar salad and three big pizzas. Nonetheless, i can say that we didnt even scatch the tashit food haha.

So after that good Lunch, me and Karen turned ourselves to the task ofsettung upall the IT needed for the Childrens University wich would startin about an hour or so. We set up all the neccesarry beamers, laptops and speakers in the 6 rooms in no time and watched how the first day of The childrens university began,  WE basicly only hoboed around until it was done and then we dismantled everything again and put it into a secure room before walking with the whole teacher gang to the hotel we would be staying at. FIrst we got the information that me and Karen would be stazing in the familz room and all the teachers made a little joke of that but we lucilz had two seperate rooms in the familz option so that was nice.  I reallz needed to have some alone time after the wholestress, chaos and social time before, during and after the Seminar in Georgia. Now at the same I was also starting to think about a small incidient which happend during the Seminar. Perro brought in a small kotten which belonged to a friend of her who had lost it . Now that kitten had been on  the streets though for a couple of days. Keep that in mind with Georgia being a high risk countrz for Rabbies. And Rabies had a basiclz 100% mortalily rate in human. And i didnt want to die haha. So i started googleing about the disease and that was a bad decision beacuse i started interpreting things and i basicly fell into a small paranioa. I was also struggeling with the decision to go to a doctor in Yerevan or not. But anyways while that was happening in my head , we all packed our stuff again, dropped our luggae of at the reception and checked out before walaking to the shool again and and setting up everything for the CHildrens University.We sat around agin for half of the day untill it was over and transported all of the quipment to the Hotel where we would load it into the Sprinter when we would leave for the Capital. We would drive back in around 4 hours so me and Karen both visited different musuems, he the Deathmask museum and  the museum of natTown architecture and development while the aladies / a.k.a. the rest ) went and did something else. After thatwe both had a small sanck at a mensa typed restaurant and well after chilling for a bit more, loaded all our stuffs onto the bus and headed home.

I arrived at the apratment of the other volunteers after a few hours of drive and getting there and so yet again i was pretty exhausted , so i basically just went grocery shopping with the rest and took it easy the reast of the time. And well after that i just went and snoozed.

The day after was the day where i would have to decide to either go get some medical help or go back to Chambarack, and i decided for medical help. Soo i rang up the doctor who helped be get the OVIR ( a permit to stay longer in the country) and well made a small appointment with her. When i met with her , i noticed that she was actually the director of the Polyclinic so i was like a bit.. ashamed hah? But she took a look at the bite and listened to my story and said that even if it wasnt something serioes, that out of reasons of protocol, id still have to go to the Infections Hospital to get it checked out. So after a Taxi ride and some asking around and walndering through the building, ffounI finally found the doctor who i was looking for and waited my turn. She was a older Soviet doctor, while very strict she also cracked a few times and showed some interest and sympathy in what im doing here and etc.. And so after some telephone calls with superiors and probably the Hospital in Chamabarck tol be that i would just have to do some extra measures and go and get the rabies Re- and Post preventuin shots thre, since thats where i Live. Pretty cool woman haha.

Anyways so I get hom, pack my things and make my way to the Buststation where i get onto the bus for Chambarack. Two hours of listening to music and a bumpy road later, I arrive home and make my way to the hospital.

I didnt really think about it but the Hospital also has „Closing times“ so when i arrived there, every window was dark and i missed the closing time and i was like “ You gotta be kidding me “ since the case of rabies is a very time sensitive one and ive already almost waited a week. But i remembered that there was the ER entrace so i tried that and sure enough it was open and i approached two nurses and told them my story. The called down the doctor who was the on the night shift and he got all the medication and gave me the shot. I was very surprised when they got out the medication and i recognized it being also the only anti-rabies vaccine allowed in Germany, so i was very impressed haha, i expected them to have some soviet mysterious chemicals which lets me grow a third eye or something haha. I was also told that i would have to have follow up shots on the 6th,10th,18th DEcember and on the last one on the 3rd January.

Then I returned home , had a lovely reunion with my peeps and had a lovely Dinner before drifitng into a deep relaxing sleep.