"Zen" is one of the most notoriously difficult to define words in the history of language, because the very act of doing so seems to take you further away from it. As a lover of coining new terms and definitions, I'll give it my best shot: Zen describes the ability to detach from mental constructs – or at least to...
For almost two years, the Kalavan Retreat Center has been Armenia's unofficial hub for international volunteers. We were one of the only Workaway hosts in this part of the world, and word spread quickly among travelers coming in from Georgia, Turkey, and Iran who were looking for a similar volunteer opportunity to what they found in those...
"It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime."
―Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason
In our first year of hosting international volunteers at the Kalavan Retreat Center, we've had a number of extremely positive and extremely negative experiences. It's been a very interesting social change for me, personally. Before this experiment began, I was largely socially isolated. Now, I have found myself in a position of social leadership...
What convinced me in 2018 to invest my time, money, and energy in Kalavan was the public media narrative being pushed by local politicians that it was a place intent on rapid cultural and economic development. That idea aligned closely with the values I'd been honing from my experiences traveling around the developing world since I was a...
There's an old 80s sitcom in America called Cheers. None of my Armenian friends seem to know it. It's set in a bar where a bunch of friends meet every episode, kind of like Central Perk from Friends. It has a very famous opening theme song, the chorus of which goes repeats the motif of going where...
Recently, we commissioned a new logo for the Kalavan Retreat Center. It includes a motif of mountains representing Mt. Ararat and Armenia's recognizable landscape and also a funny little squiggly doodle with a flower at the top.
Since winter, we've had about 30 international volunteers and guests stay at The Kalavan Retreat Center. Some were only here a few days, and others a few months. Some left and came back. Others are already planning return trips from abroad. As a result, we are currently constructing new accommodation in the form of an attached studio apartment...
In this candid interview, I share some of the motivations behind The Kalavan Retreat Center and what I have learned about cultural inhibitions in Armenia from the five years I've lived here.
Perhaps the most powerful motivator across all of Armenian society is fear of social ostracism. Here, nearly every individual perceives themselves as vulnerable if they lack the support of the collective.
