Yesterday...
I woke feeling like a small armenian squirrel was slowly dying in my lower intestines. I had gotten about 4 hours of sleep after a day long excursion in Lori. The trip was great but exhausting after a long week. Anyways, there were about 10 of staying at the crack den. Sleeping in a room with a bunch of girls takes me back to my Americorps days! Not much sleep to be had.
Unlike most sundays, yesterday we had a training day with Anoush in Yerevan. We all sat around a table on a woman's back porch for 8 hours! The squirrel in my stomach was not pleased. It was hot and I was tired and in pain. I made many many trips throughout the day to the small outhouse in the backyard. I was hoping for a clean toilet with soft toilet paper and nice soft bathmat. Instead I got a turkish toilet, meaning you squat over a hole in the ground, a broken flusher, lots of flies and a leaky faucet. Awesome! What a great place to spend an afternoon!
I was miserable. I should have just walked back to the crack den to rest, but I didn't want to come back to Yerevan another day to listen to the talk again,so I suffered through it. While everyone ate salads, fresh cherries from the tree in the backyard, and homemade dolma, I stuck to bread and mint tea. I really have not had a stomachache this bad in my life. Nothing would relieve the pressure and cramping until I threw up. That was the climax of the day!
Finally we left Yerevan at 8pm. I walked down the muddy path to my house with a bottle of water in one hand and a big box of club crackers in the other. Of course along the way, a couple of dogs decided to bark at me. So i dropped the crackers to pick up a chunk of cement. I was in a foul mood and wasn't about to let some horrible dog attack me. I think they saw the look in my eye, and scattered as they approached.
Mama Sveta took pity on me as she saw me hobbling to the apartment. She made me some delicious mint tea and had me lay on the couch during Armenian Idol.
Today I feel a lot better, just kind of weak. I'm sticking to bread and water today. I'm not pushing it!
Trotting around Armenia all day everyday is starting to catch up with me. I think this weekend I'm going to pass on the excusion to a cave and stick around Gyumri. Brian, a peace corps volunteer here, says the best place to be in Gyumri on Saturday is Robinsons. Robinsons is a tree house restaurant with great beer and food. Sounds perfect.
