Pre Armenia

hi Lovlies,

Okay now that is out of the way (my preface) I can tell you what I am doing!!!!!

Since Holden I have dreamt of doing the Peace Corps. Then during my senior year of college I realized I wanted to go to Armenia. Armenia is where my father and his entire family is from. I actually know NOTHING about Armenia. Ok maybe not nothing. They have good coffee, water and wine and the majority of men are artists and would be considered "not so nice" to women from the perspective of U. S. culture. That's what I know.
The whole getting back to the roots thing has been really important to me for the past couple years for some reason. Extremely important. Being made up of two dying nations that are rising from the dead means something to me.

So I applied to the Peace Corps and got denied solely on the base that I am Armenian. Yes, yes that's right. They said my bias would get in the way of my service. ANGER.

So then applied for the Armenian Volunteer Corps. Basically the same thing except for one major difference. Since its funded by Armenia, a third world country, I do not get a stipend, insurance, etc. I am working on getting room and board. We'll see. But because I am unfortunately obsessed with this game of following my heart rather then my brain I decided to go despite the financial difficulty. This past year I worked two jobs to save money and now am leaving in two weeks.

I am kind of frieking out. I hope you don't mind if i share my fears. Because in this whole "Pre Armenia" stage that I am in right now, I am experiencing a LOT of fear. Some excitement but mostly fear and doubt. Yay.

Have you ever wanted something for so long and it lived in your mind that it became like a seperate entity? Because you wanted it for so long you became detached from it. Well this is what has happened to me and very soon this entity is going to become very real, very fast.

Something else I am scared about is theI don't know the language AT ALL situation. At all, at all. Some people are like, "well since you know Russian, that will help you learn Armenian." Yeah, but Armenian doesn't have ANYTHING to do with Russian. It is its own language, just like Hebrew and Latin for example. As most of you know expressing myself is important to me. I can't imagine not being seen or understood AND on a very basic level not being able to understand others and what is being said. How will I be of service to others when I don't know the language? ( I can just picture most of you smiling to yourselves right now thinking, "oh, she's gonna learn and it is going to be good." Yes! But it is still scary.)

Ummm another MAJOR fear, as in probably the biggest I have. So this summer I went back to Lithuania, where I was born for the first time with my mom. Yes, amazing, whole other story. We also went to Russia to see my uncle. See this is where I wish you could see my face. THE CARS, THE DRIVING, THE ROADS, THE FUMES!! AND THE DRIVERS! Dear G-d, may I survive this. I have a phobia of all that is capitolized right now. Seriously. I went and saw a hypnotherapist. Do you get what I am saying? My heart beat goes up even typing about it.
So yeah that is my main fear. I hate the speeding in pot-hole land with cliffs and fumes going up m nose, into my lungs and watering out my eyes. I really don't like that, I don't. I am seriously considering wearing a face mask. Oh--but I am actually not kidding.
Words of advice anyone? please?

So these are my main fears. Yes, there's the whole getting sold into prostitution thing but, mostly its about the fumes. So yeah. Thank you for reading. I will leave Sept,19 for about a year. I love you all.

Peace,
Viktoria