You are most welcome Aram. It is Sheila and Antoine's humble house on the top of the mountain. Too bad, Ararat is hiding.... But he'll come back. Sirov
Apologies Antoine, of course it is Sheila's and your house, pardon the oversight on my part: it is amended. I look forward to being acquainted with Ararat soon! The surrounding mountains and valleys are gorgeous enough in the meantime
As I have previously written, I have not wanted to get too political on this blog, not least of which because I am no authority on the subject: I do not follow Armenian politics in any significant way, and were it not for recently having been in Armenia for a month, I would not have anything to say at all. But I was, and so I am following up on what just happened in Armenia yesterday (the dismissal of the head of the Armed Forces + protests) a bit more closely than I ordinarily would, and will offer my own colour commentary of what's been going on. Yesterday, the Armenian military demanded that Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan resign. As a result, the head of the armed forces Onik Gasparyan was accused of mounting a coup, and was promptly dismissed by the PM. There were demonstrations for and against this action: from what I read, equal numbers of people (about 20,000 each) descended in the streets: there were a few scuffles but it remained mostly non-violent. Not being there ...
Happy b-day to me!!! I turned 50 years old: to be more specific, I JUST turned 50 years old, i.e. at 11:10pm on January 10th.... what a wonderful birthday it is to know that people have donated close to $13,500 to my various fundraising efforts for this trip. I am humbled, and truly appreciative. I know that my contribution to Armenia will be a drop in the bucket: after all, what is it really to be living in the diaspora, to make, say, annually $75,000 CAD, when you know your brothers and sisters in Armenia make, on average, something like $3,000 CAD annually... What right do I have, as a Canadian, to make that much more? A rate of 1 : 25? Crazy math... am I 25 times more valuable than my Armenian counterpart? No, of course I am not. Yet the lottery of my birth allows me to claim that I, as a Canadian, can earn, say, $75,000 annually, and be completely comfortable with the wage discrepancy... Well, I am not, dear friends. A life in Canada should not be worth the life of 25 Armenians, f...
Today I met with the people I will work with over the next two weeks here in Yeghegnadzor. Syunik Development NGO (this is their Facebook page ) works on a multitude of projects to help better the lot of people in the region: and from what I heard today, I can tell you that they are punching far above their weight! Projects include social and community development, tourism development, agriculture production, and aid for regional youth. As if they didn't have enough on their plate, they plan on introducing engineering projects for the region ( Armath engineering laboratories ) and SMART kindergartens . Of course, more recently their focus has turned to issues related to Covid-19, and especially to helping war refugees and IDPs (internally displaced persons) settled in the region. They have an impressive list of international and diasporan partners that have helped fund their projects over the years. The $15,000 or so CAD (hopefully more by the time I leave here!) raised by...
You are most welcome Aram. It is Sheila and Antoine's humble house on the top of the mountain.
ReplyDeleteToo bad, Ararat is hiding.... But he'll come back.
Sirov
Apologies Antoine, of course it is Sheila's and your house, pardon the oversight on my part: it is amended.
DeleteI look forward to being acquainted with Ararat soon! The surrounding mountains and valleys are gorgeous enough in the meantime