Monday thoughts (TGIM?)

 Monday "morning", nearly 12:30, and I actually started working today: i.e., I organized my day today more than I have of late. I have been sleeping better and feel more or less normal. Tomorrow will be a week since I first arrived here. I am watching out for Covid symptoms: given my experience with Air Covid France and knowing that symptoms usually appear about a week in. I have also eaten at people's houses and have been driven here and there, and, even though many wear masks when close to me (at least, in cars), we are all still in confined spaces, and I am a bit weary. Every so often I am smelling things to make sure I haven't lost my sense of smell :-)

That said, I am less worried about Covid than I was when I first arrived. Back in Canada, current rates are spiking and people are very worried. That was the case here a few months ago here, but now the bell curves I have seen on this website suggests fewer people are getting it here per capita than in Canada, where there are curfews and lockdowns currently in place. Not by much though, and of course this does not mean that I SHOULD be less worried. I don't know how effective information campaigns are around here. However, as I wrote yesterday, people seem to have more to worry about here, given their general social and economic outlook on life. And a recent war, especially.

Take leisure time for example, something we keep close to our chest where I come from: there IS no leisure time here for the vast majority of people, who need to practice subsistence farming just to eat in some cases. The tourism industry, which was just getting under way in this particular province a few years back (for example: wine country, agriculture bio-tours, archeological tours of sites such as in nearby Areni, where one of the best preserved and leather shoes in the world and a six millennia old winery were found a few years back...), these are all on hold because of Covid, and the economic effects trickle down to pretty much everybody as a result. So, people this year have not really earned a second income, which they could rely on and could desperately use. I've often heard, in the diaspora, in a bit of a disparaging way, that the pace of life is slower in Armenia: sure, if you spend your weekends making sure the chickens are fed and the fields are tilled and basically run after any economic possibility available to you and a bunch of other things, maybe you're not quite as productive as we are on a Monday-Friday 9-5 schedule, with breaks, and weekends... This is not the case for everyone, but it is for the average citizen here.

Add to that the ravages of the recent war, jacked up prices, people taking advantage of others, corruption, connections (that give more to some and less to many), possibly mafia ties (I have not seen any, I have just heard about this like so many others for decades now)... life is tough. Lucky are the folks who could have full-time jobs such as the staff at Syunik NGO: and even they, I have seen, leave work and have a host of other responsibilities to attend to. Many leave Armenia to find fortunes elsewhere, having no choice but to consider this beautiful country and homeland as a prison of sorts, with few economic opportunities, with tentative security, with no health care for all... Of COURSE most of the youth here dream of seeking their fortunes elsewhere, the future can seem bleak.

This is where the Armenian Diaspora can likely help most. We have the financial means to help. However, perhaps it would be best to invest in the future here: not just to throw money at the problem, but to actually make sound financial business ventures in Armenia. Say, establishing a mountain biking company here for tourism, making sure to actually turn a profit, so that we are personally interested in the outcome. Of course there are some, such as the Terjanians via their B&B network, who do this: perhaps it's not a huge money making project, but there needs to be SOME personal involvement, whether by making sure to make a profit or like the Terjanians by actually living here part of the year. And they are actively helping their neighbours and the general economy in the process.

OK, enough chatter: today I will be taken to a demonstration orchard by staff at Syunik NGO. I considered working from their office but decided instead to stay home and organize my week, write this blog, and attend to a few other things.

A brief note on my Sunday: it was a relaxing day, though for part of it I was taken to the lovely next-town-over of Aghavnadzor, where I, as we say here, broke bread (hats oudel - հաց ուտել) with family members of the Terjanian's immediate neighbours. It was a nice relaxing day spent with a beautiful family. If it wasn't for these one on one conversations, I wouldn't be able to learn as much about the country, and how people live. I will admit that this is very difficult to do during Covid times, so I am doing my best to be informed and to keep myself and those I meet safe. Of course, practically everything I had to eat and to drink at the table was produced not just locally, but on their very land! It may be a question of necessity rather than ideology, but for those who wish to embrace the concept, you can't really get much more local food than that...

Just before leaving for Aghavnadzor, two pics from the Terjanian house 
(I'm pretty sure that is the snowy peak of Mt. Ararat sneaking in the left hand corner)

Tigran, the owner of the house I visited, insisted I take these photos
as he proudly displayed his stores of food. 
Proud, and he should be: everything was delicious,
including the homemade wine, aged in their huge amphorae (karas)
which, I realize now, I really should have taken a picture of...

Including two huge bottles of oghi, for family consumption
(which I tried too). 53% alcohol...

To the left is the Terjanian's neighbour Gohar Martirosyan, who takes care of what I need at home. In the middle is Tigran Petrosyan (who teaches wrestling on the side), and his son Alik. Missing from the picture is his mom Haykuhi, Gohar's daughter (who did not want her picture taken!), their 6 year old son Tavit, who was climbing rocks and playing with a toy gun off in the distance), and the 87 year old mother who barely moved at all from her chair she sat in, in the other room. They have an 18 year old daughter Anahit who is studying in Yerevan. (Rent is expensive, and she could really use a laptop, I was told...) fortunately she is an excellent student and, as such, has the opportunity of her schooling paid for (անվճար)

Errata from yesterday: this is a magpie (կաչաղակ, thanks Antoine)

A delicious desert from the region called ant's nest (մրջիւնաբոյն)