Myth of Arrival

  

[Armenian] is a rich language, and would amply repay anyone the trouble of learning it. — Lord Byron.

One of my odd claims to fame is that for about thirteen months I taught English conversation at the Lord Byron English School in Gyumri, Armenia (1995 - 96). The inside of the school was amazing. Remember, Gyumri was the city that was destroyed in that terrible 1988 earthquake. Everyone I knew (including myself) lived in little metal and concrete huts; sometimes eight to ten members of a family in one hut. There was no electricity. I hand pumped my water from a well in the neighborhood. So imagine my surprise on the first day of school upon entering and not only finding an institution that looked like it had been airlifted straight out of a Boston or London suburb but an entire library in English devoted to Lord Byron himself.

In a way, it had been. It was a gift from British government to help with reconstruction because of Byron's Armenian ties. What those were requires a little explanation for those who are not versed in Armenian history. Toward the end of his life Byron went into voluntary exile to Europe. He drifted about and one of his stomping grounds was the city of Venice, Italy. An article from Poets and Writers, Inc. explains further:

Few know that while living in Venice, Byron rowed out alone in his gondola every day to the monastery of St. Lazarus of the Armenians to spend hours poring over rare books in the library and conversing with the friendly Armenian fathers. The monastery, founded in 1789, is an authentic corner of the Eastern Church where the monks follow the rules of the Benedictine Order and celebrate mass in Armenian. Impressed by the unaffected devotion and intellectual accomplishments of the Armenian monks, Byron took up the study of the Armenian language, helped compile an Armenian grammar textbook, and translated two of St. Paul's epistles into English. The head of the monastery recorded him as being "a quick, sociable young man with burning eyes."

I love that description! Anyway, it soon turned out that my students had no idea who Lord Byron was. It became apparent one day when I told them I had once been in London, where "Mr. Byron" (as they called him) once lived. After class one boy came up to me and said, "you see Mr. Byron? you tell him he very nice man."

Byron, though, must have been more versed in learning Armenian than I because I never really mastered the tongue. Which is a pity because fragments of Armenian, or Hayeren as it is properly called, float around in my head all the time. I thought trying to learn Spanish would drive them away, but now I am simply mixing more languages up than ever.

My Peace Corps group (A3) arrived in Yerevan, the capital city, for a three month training in the summer of 1995. We stayed with host families and attempted to learn. Since everything was so foreign to me then things that might have raised an eyebrow before I took at face value at the time. One of my language teachers, let us call her Armanoush, in class one day out of frustration at my incredibly slow learning speed snapped at me, "I am sure if you had found yourself a girlfriend by this time you'd at least remember the parts of the body!" I do not even think the quip registered in my brain. Later, much later, a fellow volunteer reminded me about our exasperated instructor Armanoush. I think that's what started this poem. The whole idea of different approaches to learning. That and the fact that everyone needs to know certain words when they travel. Like the verb "to kiss" and the translation of the word erotic and maybe, "where is the toilet?" which in Armenian is, "vorter e zook'aran?"

It is all in the tongues, they say. But this
was not the way I wanted to learn. There
was so much they didn't teach us. To kiss
(verb) is "hamphure'l." They said, "an affair
always helps language skills." Perhaps. Take care,
then, of your homework. Shun dictionaries
that do not teach you body parts and their
lewd-slang words. Get yourself study-buddies.
Put in the hours. They say that the ease
of a language comes when it's pure rhythmic
on the tongue. Know then that the subtleties
just to say "sirata'rph," erotic
(adjective), are far beyond this patterned
tongue on tongue; it's something not taught but learned.

Oh yes, Mr. Byron? if you're out there? you very nice man.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 26th, 2006 at 10:53 am and is filed under Original Poetry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.