Nutella and Ice Cream 6/20/16

Vanadzor Armenia- a city where when you wake up, the first thing you see out your hotel window is men fishing in the lake below you. Breakfast consisted of Nutella, Nutella and more Nutella! A girl brought of jar of it for the entire trip but we didn’t even try to ration.

Our first day of work got off to a bit of a rocky start. WE weren’t exactly making the patient quotas we had set so after lunch we picked up the pace.

My job consisted of taking labels and sticking them on prescription paper, writing the name of the patient in Armenian and handing it to the doctor. Most of the cases were extreme diabetes and high blood pressure patients, which was expected. We also saw a breast exam that was thankfully negative and a ultrasound where we saw the four chambers of the heart, the brain, and we found out it was a girl. The ladies of the church we were working at were so caring. They brought us little snacks everyday includiing apricots, cherries, baked pastries, and chocolate candies.

We had dolma for dinner, but instead of grape leaves they were wrapped in cabbage leaves and no one really knew why. We all thought they were trying to Americanize the food for us, which I thought could be an accurate reason considering the chocolate hazelnut substance we brought to breakfast. Before we went to bed, we went on a walk down the street to a little corner store that apparently they go to every year. There was a boy there that plays the duduk and he apparently plays for us each time we come. When he saw the big crowd he ran in to grab his instrument, puffed out his cheeks, and played us two different songs. Then his friend walked by and said he could sing for us. The second he opened his mouth we were all amazed by his booming voice and vibrato sounds. Talent is everywhere in Armenia; you just need to know where to look for it.

We then all bought prepackaged ice cream. It was an ice cream bar but the cone was wrapped all the way around the ice cream. I had never seen that before and was in total awe of the frozen dessert I was eating. I honestly didn't expect Armenia to have this much ice cream. It's the go to dessert on every street corner, in every convenience store, and even in the people's houses. They even have a ripped off "Pinkberry" here and it's not even frozen yogurt! It's ice cream!