As I was walking around Khor Virap (literally: "deep pit"), an excited but slightly skankily-dressed Armenian girl of perhaps 15 requested through my guide that she's like her picture taken with me. This is surely a sign of great things to come, but alas I fear this dream will dissipate along with the rest. The girl at the museum (they have lots of excess manpower hanging about everywhere) also excitedly confirmed how much Armenians love Indian culture, courtesy Soviet-era adoption of Bollywood as non-propaganda entertainment.
Finally, my (reasonably) cute guide Gayane, on the second of our two-day trip down south to Goris, had invited me and our driver for lunch to her grandma's house in the village of Shinuhayr, where she had grown up. The smart girl, god bless her, had called ahead to inform them I was vegetarian (note the tone of sarcasm). Anyway we were met by an old, sweet crone clad in black, slightly hunched with a headscarf - the matriarch. It was my guide's mom's mom. In the family were her uncle, his wife and two kids; and her aunt, whose husband "works in Russia" and whose 3 daughters were married and gone.
On the right of the dirt track (literally - some water and attempts at resurfacing with mud had created a quagmire) were a few 3-storeyed Soviet-era blocks of apartments reminiscent in style, color and decrepitude of any building in Chembur - or Marine Parade for that matter. The ancestral home was thankfully a one-storeyed house with slooping metal roof, with a large metal gate and a courtyard. We entered a very small square area on the left, turned left and were at a mid-sized room with a TV and hi-fi system at one end, windows on three sides (including the wall separating it from an interior room) and a table laid out with a feast: green peas (tasted canned, but by far my favorite course of the day), some reddish pickled sort of veggies, fried potatoes and onions (with a side of poultry), some other weird greens, boiled pumpkin, salad etc. I was offered a shot of mulberry vodka ("Home made - stronger but better!"), of which I finished half and finally realized why on my second day in Armenia I had felt a strange sensation that my brain had become unhinged and was floating about (I said"brain" not "mind") - I'd had a shot of pear brandy the first evening. Some raspberry juice (home made, what else). "Foreigners can't drink our vodka", the man of the house was translated saying.
The uncle was a big man, with a head the size of a football and body that may have been used in Star Wars as Jabba the Hut. His fingers were the size of my forearms. He was apparently quite the wit as he was saying things that caused everyone to squeal. Clearly many were at my expense. The boy turned out to be 17, although based on the size of *his* fingers and his monobrow I had guessed him to be 18-22; then I had to guess Gayane's and she turned out to be 26, a little older than I had said (but about where I truthfully thought it would be).
Gayane was given a large plastic bag of fruit, picked from their backyard one assumed. The aunt and the female cousin jumped into the car for a ride till the center of town. We dropped them off and began the long drive back to Yerevan.
Finally, my (reasonably) cute guide Gayane, on the second of our two-day trip down south to Goris, had invited me and our driver for lunch to her grandma's house in the village of Shinuhayr, where she had grown up. The smart girl, god bless her, had called ahead to inform them I was vegetarian (note the tone of sarcasm). Anyway we were met by an old, sweet crone clad in black, slightly hunched with a headscarf - the matriarch. It was my guide's mom's mom. In the family were her uncle, his wife and two kids; and her aunt, whose husband "works in Russia" and whose 3 daughters were married and gone.
On the right of the dirt track (literally - some water and attempts at resurfacing with mud had created a quagmire) were a few 3-storeyed Soviet-era blocks of apartments reminiscent in style, color and decrepitude of any building in Chembur - or Marine Parade for that matter. The ancestral home was thankfully a one-storeyed house with slooping metal roof, with a large metal gate and a courtyard. We entered a very small square area on the left, turned left and were at a mid-sized room with a TV and hi-fi system at one end, windows on three sides (including the wall separating it from an interior room) and a table laid out with a feast: green peas (tasted canned, but by far my favorite course of the day), some reddish pickled sort of veggies, fried potatoes and onions (with a side of poultry), some other weird greens, boiled pumpkin, salad etc. I was offered a shot of mulberry vodka ("Home made - stronger but better!"), of which I finished half and finally realized why on my second day in Armenia I had felt a strange sensation that my brain had become unhinged and was floating about (I said"brain" not "mind") - I'd had a shot of pear brandy the first evening. Some raspberry juice (home made, what else). "Foreigners can't drink our vodka", the man of the house was translated saying.
The uncle was a big man, with a head the size of a football and body that may have been used in Star Wars as Jabba the Hut. His fingers were the size of my forearms. He was apparently quite the wit as he was saying things that caused everyone to squeal. Clearly many were at my expense. The boy turned out to be 17, although based on the size of *his* fingers and his monobrow I had guessed him to be 18-22; then I had to guess Gayane's and she turned out to be 26, a little older than I had said (but about where I truthfully thought it would be).
Gayane was given a large plastic bag of fruit, picked from their backyard one assumed. The aunt and the female cousin jumped into the car for a ride till the center of town. We dropped them off and began the long drive back to Yerevan.
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