The three week summer break start catch up

Soo… continuing from  the last sentence of mz lst post which read : My „Last “ day at „Work“. Id like to explain that a bit.  Now even though school is over and there are school holidays in the country. The Work in school is pretty far from being over haha, the teachers mostly still end up being a month or so longer in school to finish the years work or prepare the next year. And well, that aslo applies to me haha. So with the holidays, i still have work to do of course!

Sadly, my blogging motivation and prgress has definetly been lacking haha and wekk for the last three weeks i havnt really being doing anything for this site. But on the side i have been writing down small events/ occasions and notes for things i will write on here so you definetly will only be missing out minimally so you dont have to worry about anything hehe. But yeah, as i said, my blogging is currecntly taking a toll and Im pretty sure it wont recover but that doesnt mean ill stop. With the upcoming plans, the posts will cover a longer time span of a certain thing im doing. And seriosly , ive done some thinking why im so demotivated to write this. Partially i think its the weather. Its so fucking hot and humid and i dont really want to sit hous just typing away haha. There are many reasons i can think of but another one i think is just the amount od stress and travel I am having currently and will be in the future so yeah. Nevertheless, i just wanted to tell you if i go dark for amonth or so that in that case, im not just doing nothing haha. Im working mainly and on the side im trying to formulate, finish and polisch up my posts and blog as a whole ^^

Now i just want to apologiye for this post since its just one big chaos of events, and stuff so im not sure how well i will be able to document it all. Id also like to add that there will be alot and alot off pictures, so dont hate 😀 Now that you have been warned, enjoy the read.

Now so what have I been doing in school? I have mainly been planning the quite busy sommer plans ill be having with the Goethe Institut ( A post yall will be getting once that in in process/ has ended) , cleaning up my workspace and doing a few more organizational tasks,

  • – For the summer plans I started communications with the partys involved across the country and in georgie with whom i will be working closely together with. I made a financial plan and bla bla bla, youll get more of that in that specific post.
  • -Not only did i do orginasational things but I also had the chance to have a few lessons with the 3rd graders who have just started learning german. I used the A1 texts books and the proviced programm to have a´very simple, easy and laid back fun lessons. We did things like the “ ABC song “ or counting and working with numbers. And to be honest, those children are very fun and easy to work with. They are motivated enough to throw themselvs into the work and they are easy enogh to control becuase they are still youngg and have a bit of respect for me. But yeah, in the couple of dayswhere I had workshops with them, they really made me realize that “ This is what this year is work it“ Becuase i just listen to them singen happily and it kinds just .. makes me happy haha.
  • –  ALso in connection to the childreen and the newl beginners, I made sure that each child got a copy of the „digital“ learning material, the dvd and cs so they could also practise at home. To be honest, that task was a bit of a pain in the ass haha becuase the chidlren would forget their USb stick or forgot which one was theirs and yada yada. But after two days we had it all sorted out.
  • – Regarding my actual workplace,  I started stripping down and categoising the loose papers and materials lying around to put them into my fat Folder, ( which is probabaly around 7Kg by now ahha) But yeah my whoke desk and looks kind of despressiv and sad now. WEll not the desk really , i think it was more of my feelings becuase i realised that what ive worked on building upfor a year has come to an end . :/ Wack. The posters and programm information of my which ive hung up infront of the german room have also been taken down and rolled up for transport.
  • – One thing which is connected to work , which i made, is that I finished building my little „Oil painting box“ that I had planned for transporting wet painting during my travels. It took quite sometime and planning and after a few mistakes and some improvising, I managed to actually to make it work out quite well. Only using a hot glue gun and Pizzaboard cardboard, i would say that i did a pretty good job. Here is a picture of the end product :
  • So here are three views of it and yes it was made with Pizza delivery Boxes xD
  • Oh and during my time still at school they wher holding the final exams of the Students ( The armenian 9th and 13th garde exams are held in the holidays) So that was a big reason why the older kids from ym projects didnt have time to meet up and do things. ( Im trying to save my ass here haha) But here is a pic of the exam setup, quite interesting to be honest haha:
  • Now, to what i did besides my work! To be honest, I must say that i pretty much wasted the first three weeks which is kind of a shame. I had quite alot planned. Meeting with the kids and still watching the “ Emil and the Detektive“ Movie with the workshop participants hm but well time kind of just ran through my fingers haha. SO what did I do with t´my time? Well one good thing is that I did quite the number of Walks and little excursions with some students. Mostly to the two bigger hills/mountains behind our living complex. A few times with the little yard gang of mine to the one closer to home and once with Vagharshak and his friend Arthur to opposite one. I feel a bit stupid trying to explain this becuase Its horrible haha. The whole thing with cagharshak played out with him asking me if idlike to go and pick flowers with him one day, and well off course I said yes becuase im trying to establish a small personal herborium. So the final day came and we met up, bought a few snacks/drinks and headed up towards the other mountain. On the way there we walked over and along a few fields and hills and I must say that the view was quite spectacular. I definetly have that planned as a potential drawing/painting spot. The way wsnt that bad but the hardest part where the last 30% becuase it was just a steep rocky hill. And well after a good amount of huffing and puffing we collapsed on the side of the top. Now what was so special about that hill was that , according to vagharshak, the hidden side was completely covered in fields of big white flowers. And boy was he right. Once we crossed the edge, you ould see the pretty view of the entire back hillside being covered in them. It really was… calming and quite beatifull. We sat down and had those snacks we bought and talked about things like traveleling, other countries and pyramids  or “ ägytpische burgen“ as he called them haha quite cute. I also found out that Arthur made and sold his own bycicles , which wasa quite faschinating. After our small break we walked amoung the hill side and picked a god handfull. After having our littele collection we did a small photoshoot at the top, ofwhich i will of course post the pictures below and yeah, just had a pretty good time. Me and Vagho really bonded during that time. On the way back though, it started raining which wasnt that nice but we made it back in time.  We also discussed the „youth“ haha teaching me how to play „Blot“. A card  game which is simialr to „Scart“ or has a similar process/theorie. But that sadly never happened, though i would love to maybe learn it one day.

Here are a few pictures from that time:

David ethusiastically showing of my German-Armenian freindship Pin.

A walk we had one day through the park where there was a exhibition.

Pictures from the walk wth Vagho.

Me trying t be cool. But the picture is kinda dope.

Now on another time I met up with Vagho, went went for a quick walk in the centrum, enjoyed a ( well I did, vagho declined a few time) 3 Lajmajo before he showed me to his „IT / Programming class“ at the secondary school. I walked into a quite bland and broken room but what was in that room was crazy. They had some heaviý maschinery, pretty decent pc set ups, lots of cables and a 3d printer, which was efficiently working away during the moment of our arrival haha. I talked a bit with the teacher and then they already  started writing aprogramm for a robotor, his sensors and proccessor so that he would find his way/ explore a  labyrinth. I didnt stay for long enough though to see if the robot madeit or not because I was too tired and had another quick nap at home, but from what I heard, He made it quite well. Here are a few pictures from there aswell:

The 3rd Printer in the Corner. The shelf with the finished products was close by.

The Producton corner.

The teacher building up the robot with Vagho and the other dude.

Coding the Robot.

 

And since we are at the topic of walks , here is another picture of a quick picture I snapped with Gor, another very interesting 9th grader, while we had a quick walk through the city with some sunflower seeds. He showed me some back yards and gardens as we walked though the city, which was really gave me a rural/ small comunal feeling aswell.:

Gor and me on our little walk. Here we are making our way to drink some water.

Now on * i think( the first weeknd after the last school weekend, there was something alled the „Yerevan Art Fare“ Just 3 dazs of a art exhibition, talks and other things happened in Yerevan. On the sunday I went to the big exhibition at a expo &ehibition uilding very close to the apartment of the volunteers in Yerevan, just right up a side street of the Comitas Avenue. There where quite the interesting curators present at th event. Artists from sweden, Germanz, Iran , Spain and a few more and their art was definetlz quite interesting. Ill just let the pictures and their small descriptions do the talking so enjoz the „exhibition“ xD Pictures:

A pic of how the layout of the place was. Seen is the second floor.

And below are just a few pictures of art works 😀 Enjoy!

 

Now aside from the exhibition i went alone to on sunday, there was also a small „TedTalk“ isch event on Monday by a Spanish artists about the topic“ Art and Technology“ His artist group was called:     . And to be honets, i thought that the talk would be really boring but some thing he talked about and the projekts he did where quite fascinating. While there is enough time and space to explain everything, i just dont want to since im too lazy. Ill just throw out some topics and Ideas he mentioned and you can google their name if youd like too. So one Idea they tried doing where to find how much of an Impaact art has on people. Another quite interesting project they did was at the UN GA with all the leaders of the participating countrys where they presented a „Time MAschine“ Just check them out for your self hehe. The talk was really cool.

With the holidays and the finished „Oil box“ I definetlz had more time and motivation to start painting much more. I started going outside for two hours occasionallz to paint things, or quick 30 minute oils at home. Once , I even walked up the hill the forset behind our house to draw some nature and plants, oh but well, it wasnt such an enjoyable experience. I arrived in the forest, all cool , shady, peacfull and nice. And probabalz after twoo minutes, i notoced that I was going to get fucked by the mosquitos.and i was right. alreadz during just unpacking mz things thezwhere swirring around me like crayz and while ainting i probablz had to make erradic and strong movements so that the insects would flz away just to land on me a couple of moments later. Well I would saz that i had around 17 bites on one arm alone and around 35 in total on mz bodz. Marks where still present 2 weeks later, i dont know what kind of bull breed those things where haha. But yeah, what i dont go through for Art 😉 All the Art i will do over the summer will be available under the „Art“ section in the blog so no descriptions or pictures here. Go there and see for yourself!

Towards the end of the three first weeks, Vagharshak had his Birthday party. He had alreaz brought it up a month before but i was pretty sure that i woudn tbe able to come becuase of a Sommerplan element. That changed though and i was able, which really did make him happy. Now the day was friday and it was pissing outside. It was a week where it basicallz onlz rained and it was a strong strong rain. I had written him if we where gong to meet in to little basket where he had originally planned it out of a joke becuase of ther weather and he sad that we where going to have the „party“ at his place instead. Surprisingly, he wasstanding at my door 15 miutes later with sergey compeltely soaked. Naturally i was upset beucase i knew where he lived and didnt need him to pick me up , especially in this kind of weather. But well he was there so we all enjoyed running back through the rain to his place laughing with our umbrellas and even picking up a few other guests on his on the way. We entered his humble abode with around 9 oher friends of his and where greetde bz his family. I shortlz said hello, since they had just heard from the german and never seen me and after that we wherre ushered into the living room where th table was alreadz covered in drinks and appetizer.And well i wont go into too manz details, ill just mention things that stuck in my head. I of course got the only beer on the table becuase I was german.The kids always wanted to make me try armenian food becuase they thought i woudnt be able to eat it. They where wrong. Sergey asked me „Andrej, do you like lemons?“ and i was like „sure i do“ and he replied with “ why dont you eat a slice then“. I thought it was the usual thing where they would think i wont eat it becuase its too sour so i pick up a slice and bite the fruit clean of the outer yellow skin and look at him truimphantly and he goes “ It seems like i like lemons more than you“ , takes a slice and just eats it all haha. I laughed good with that one. Otherwise i tried to explain to them what a „bierchen“ is by using the armenian -ik form thus: Garre Jurik. They didnt really understand the concept i think haha. And I danced a bit with Vagharshak and some other boys. That day was the first time in the year where i gave into the requests to arm wreste me. I beat all of them haha. The whole thing was a pretty nice experience i would say and i definetly had some fun, I just have to remember to give vagharshak some birthday money aswell ^^.

The party!

Snapping a picture of Soghomon haha.

Oh and during the week the Haik, the direktor of the school calls me and asks me to bring in my passport to school. While im a bit confused im oretty sure i know what this is about so i jog over to school with my docuemnt adn go to his office. There he explains that tehe authorities want to deport me and thats why he has to send them the PAssport page with my valid immigrazion stampds so they know that Im still within my time to stay here. I offered to bring my reseddency card for him to scan but he was like „nah, fuck it, itl all be good anyways, this is just a formality“ and we left it at that. Lovely times haha.

The nexxt big thing which happend towards the end of the 3 weeks was the „Dirk Michaelis Koncert“ which Holga had organized. The whole reson whz it was that guz was because during the „deutsche itparade“ Holga had contacted each artist of the songs which where presented. Obviouslz some replied while others didnt and Dirk was so ethusiastic about the whole idea that Holga and him starting talking and planning a visit to armenia. And well this was his visit haha. I had been in Yerevan by then for a few days becuasse it was weekend or something and that was good forHolga becuase he asked the volunteers to cover the jobs like the bouncers, ticketcheckers, regiistration and all the other organizational things. So the day comes and we get a taxi to bring us to the concert hall since its quite far away. Good thing number one that day,the taxi driver had the hardest musik banging in the car and he cranked it up a bit more once he realiyed that we all liked it aswell. Those two sonfs where of course addded to the „Caucasian beats playlist“. Now we arrived about an hour earlz for the whole prep and we got to meet Dirk and his german side kick and just say hi for a bit before being assigned out positions.Martin and Florian would be the ticket checker while Elisa, Kira and I would be ahndleing entrz, ticket sale, money and registration. Soon enough the first people alreadz started to pour in. It was quite a crowd. Abround 300 hundred while seated by the slow start of the koncert. Now to why im mentioning this in the recap: The first time i heard his musik, it was already weird and since im not the biggest fan of german musik except for Hip hop, i immidiatly categorized it as wack and just weird. BUt boy was I wrong haha. The first few songs wherre more like meh, but as I concentrated on the lyrics, chords and overall performance i started jamming out to it. It was really beatiful. I was blown away by him , esecially becuase i had the lowest expectations someone could have going in hhaa.Towards the end he really had the whole crowd at their feet and the end act was a duet with him and the girl at the „Hit parade“ who sang his song. It was a really great evening haha. The german duduk player looked like he would press out his lungs though.But yeah, ive gotten the set list from Holga, so ill see if his songs are as good as they where live. If not i dont mind either, the best memories ar in ones mind ^^. Here are three pictures of that evening:

Martin looking as fine as ever.

The artist himelf on stage.

Oh and a small peak into the „Cash register“ haha which we where operating xD

After the concert I returned to Chmabrack for a few days for a final half week before coming back to Yerevan to start my meticoulous summerplan. What was important to mention about those few days was a particular little excursion i di with Emmi where Suren, Garush and Sipan joined. So the plan was actually to just walk across the city to the „Mountain with the Cross“ on it becuase it was basically covered in Thymian and the armeniaan just collect it from the natrure, dry it annd amke their own tea. It was quite a hot day and well to be hoest i didnt really want to go beucase i wasnt feeling my best mentally but they dragged me along haha. We walked down to the main street and on the way there the kids already stopped to gather some little round green fruits from a tree and eat it. It really astonished that like 30 percent of the flora here can just be eaten it haha. First „Trtenjuk“ and how this. Well we colleccted enough and followed the main road to the path wich lead uo the side of the mountain , which we then started climbing. Once we reached the top, the wind hit me in my face and BUM! I was just hit with the smell of Herbs, it was amazing.The whole mountain was lietreally overgrown with Thymian. Like you where stepping on it with every step. We first just chilled abit after out little „hike“ if zou could call it that, enjozed the scenery and talked/took pictures. Heres the view :

Now after that we got down onto our knees and got dirty. It took us about 25 minutes to fill plastic bags pretty welll with the herb and whol whole time Suren was nagging me about going over to Ttjur as a little side adventure. I asked him how far t was bbecuase according to my knowlege, it was two villages away (Which i find quite far) and he was like : no no, its close it all good. So we pack the packed bags into emmis backpack and head back down to the mainroad to follow it into the other direction to out new destination. While we head down it starts to rain a bit and i loose my footing a clouple of times , almost falling, while garush is beingg a gentle man and holds emmis hand to helop her down ( whcich we all teased him about. Oh the youth haha ) and the rain luckily ended just as we reach the bttom of the hill. Now we start walking alogg the road and now Suren is starting to suggest that we try and pitch a ride to ttjur because suddenly its „far away“ haha. That didnt wokr and we ended up walking 1 and a half hours to Ttujur. We did miss a good chance of saving 45 minutes of walking becuase Garushs dad drove by and missed us haha. But oh well, im alive aint i? We arrived at the natural spring and had our share of „Ttujur“ which quite remended me of KArlovivary. We walked up around th eboulder to the top where there was a monument and just layed and rested abit. After that we quickly stopped by the churhc which was located opposite od´f the spring andbought some cookies for the way back as a little stale „energizer“ haha. And luckily, just as we we passed the „ttjur“ village sign, garushed dad pulls up. I thinkwe where all so fuckign realieved. We hop in and his dad and I have a small conversation. He tells me that is children always talk about me and that they only want to meet and play with me, which i found very adorable. He was even nice enozgh to by us all an icecream as we entereded chambarack. He drove up to our yard, where we all split out ways after this exhghausting „little „detour haha. In the end we covered our 1.5 hour walk in 8 minutey . It was kind of sad and put things into perspetive haha. It even turns out that Emma specifically forbid Emmi to go t Ttujur since it was too late and she got a little lecture at home but i think that emma secretly found it a bit funny/interesting aswell. here are few pics of that:

On the way to Ttudjur.

 

 

The Ttudjur sign, fucking finally haha.

The actaul spring where you could drink the water. Its red becuase of th minerals and high iron percetage in the wwater

.A  picture of the close church where we also chilled just a bit before returning.

Oh and I fnally finished my armenian lessons on the day where i was supposed to leave for yerevan again. Me and Elen looked at the finishing piece, an essay that I wrote, and corrected it before letting me do a small „test“ to see how I stood with my armenian. I must say that writing this now and looking back, im very proud and kind of happy that i managed to elarn armenian at least kind of . The memories of my start, the alphabets and the exghasted mind are quite interesting and i think, how quickly time flies by. In janaury i coudnt even read a letter and now I can basically hold a conversation, write and understand surprisingly alot. She and Emma even gave me a little gift to take back to germany. A picture luisas mother took on the graduation day of the 9th hrasers in a frame and with a small message on the back. It really meant alot to me.

On the same day, i also said my goodbyes to the teachers and took pictures with them since it would be the last time where i would see most of them probably. We took a final big photo and Anoush came in to say bye. I must say it was a bit sad for me , i regret alot of things. Nit talking more with her, inetracting with the etachers more or like going with them on theri excursion to dilijan. It hits my soul. But me and anoush said that we will stay in contact and that we will! Of course a Picture with the direktor was made and well, i was given a bottle of wine from the teachers which was a nice gesture. I also managed to clean out most of my things on that day. It was sad to see my once so chaotic and messy and produuctive/healthy desk „life“ to see „extinct“ and bare. It made me a bit emotional to be honest haha but no tears had flown! Those come later haha.

And well so I left chambarck for the Summer! In yerevan I gradded MArtin to the Fit exams which to summarize, where pretty boring, tiring and chaotic but with the help of Danas clever plan and our attendacne ran smooth like clockwork. At home we had our last dinner together in the Wg with all 4 members there. We had a nice MEal and a Wine and to be honest, there wasnt such a sad vibe in the air. I also started inplementeing some „Netflix adn chill“ into the apartment more haha. Me and martin started going through „Servant of the people“ and „Black Mirror“ episodes where elisa would sometimes join. The evenign where filled with „Stadt land fluss, beleidigng, scheidungsgrund, marken“ and a few more categories gamess and there was even a evenening where we went out to the nely openend bar of the Embasyy club where we all payed a whopping 9 euros for a gin tonic. My wallet wanted to hang itself haha.

But yes, i would say that this would be a good summary of the last three weeks. Chaotic,Exhausting yet fun and hitting home. I hope you enjoyed the mindfuck of events and yeah as always, thank you for your patience and reading. Ill see you in the next one which brings back a bit of Nostalgia 😉