In a week or so, 60 years will have passed since US president John F. Kennedy signed the executive order 10924 creating the Peace Corps. The date was 1 March 1961. I’ve been thinking for a couple of weeks about how to recognize that very important anniversary while combining it with my personal blog here which focuses on travel.
After a lot of thought, I decided to share with you some comments about how the US Peace Corps has influenced my views on travel and how I perceive it a bit differently now. Although cut short, my experience serving in northern Armenia helped me “travel” in multiple senses of the word. It helped me explore and learn about a country I’ve come to love more than I ever could have imagined. And it helped me advance further down a road of personal maturity and understanding (and coming to accept) what I have to give to, and what I sometimes need from, the world.
All that said, I want to share with you one of the greatest gifts the Armenians gave a language nerd like me. And that would be the word in the title to this blog entry which transliterates as apres or apreq. It is the imperative of the verb “to live” and is used in Armenia as an expression of commendation or praise. When Armenians appreciate something you’ve done or approve of your actions, they literally tell you to “Live!”. Usage of this term is so common in Armenia that I never put much thought into its broader significance and the lessons or values it could teach people from other countries: that one of the greatest gifts we have in this world is life. If you think back on the 20th century history of Armenia – both at the time of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union – you realize that the Armenian people were always endangered by the ambitions of their larger neighbors or the commercial interests of other global powers. For those Armenians who lost family in the genocide of 1915 or other mass killings of Armenian populations or for families who lost sons and fathers in the wars in Artsakh, one of the most precious gifts a person has is “life” or “living”. This is a reality that most of us in Europe or the USA don’t give much thought. One of the most daring, audacious things we can do in our time on this planet is to live. Not just exist, but LIVE!
This is a point that was not lost on me the longer I stayed in Armenia and got to know the people there. I went to the Peace Corps because I wanted to learn about another culture; I had hoped that some of the skills and experience I had acquired in my professional life over 20+ years would be of some use or worth to local communities. To my surprise though, my Armenian colleagues and families taught me a small lesson of enormous value: I needed to learn to live. This meant celebrating all that life offers us from dusk till dawn: from making tahini sandwiches with my host sister Yeva and having my morning tea with her mom Zara, on to having a late evening snack with my second host dad Artur and watching bits of the TV news with him. I learned that actually living meant I needed to slow down to truly see and appreciate life. I needed to listen. I had to find value in opening up to strangers and appreciating their natural curiosity about the super tall, dark-haired man who wasn’t one of them, who wasn’t a Russian speaker, but who had somehow made his home for awhile in their bustling town.
I like to think that over time, all the progress that I made in learning how to live (how to heal myself) came from the repetition of that tiny, yet powerful, Armenian entreaty: ապրե՛ս. My Armenian friends and family constantly invited me to enjoy life, to take time to talk and share myself with them and their families, and to notice the small blessings that show up around us day in, day out. So, Armenia, thank you for helping me truly live and enjoy life: ձեզ էլ ապրե՛ք։
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