 |
| Domiks along the river |
This morning we toured the domik villages in the inter-city of Vanadzor and along the river. There are hundreds. We met a woman named Noona who lived in her domik with her three boys Hachick (18) , Armen (20) and Artur(12) for 21 years. Their water source is down the block and they share an outhouse with the other families in the domik area. She was a wonderful person to meet - she earns her living in the market buying and selling vegetables, she was amazingly smart, resourceful, loving and courageous. Her husband and gone to Russia to work and send money but never returned - she found out later he had perished in 2001 of liver problems. She and two of her boys (one is in the Armenian army - required for all boys at age 18 for 2 years) will soon be moving into a Fuller Housing apartment.
 |
Tatavik and Noona
|
Shopping - for one hour. Meg went to town purchasing two pairs of shoes, a dress and a sweater - SHOES they're everywhere and most of them are BLACK! Even here, in Armenia, women have more than one pair of black shoes! The clothing is mostly black so you know who was very much at home needless to say I did not make any additions to my wardrobe... yet. Black is the dominate color of clothing, unless you're under age 8 - then you wear every color of the rainbow all at the same time - color color color. After about age 8 the landcape changes and ... black is the new black! We were successful in our bartering and had a ball.
After the domik tour and shopping -we participated in a special key and blessing ceremony - the tv stations were there - it was quite the scene. It was a big to do - The dedication and house blessing ceremony was to award the keys to 15 families. The homes were built in an area where a newly built community building has been constructed and has neighborhoods of houses built through the Fuller Housing project with partnership of the City of Vanadzor and ARDA. The homes are constructed with new technology of Lazarian World Homes (with styrofoam blocks). The Mayor of Vanadzor, the Arch Bishop, Steve Lazarian, Stan Lazarian, Ashot - President of Fuller Center for Housing Armenia and our own Cynthia Erickson - team leader all spoke of the importance of these projects. It's humbling to be a part of all of this.
 |
Certificate, keys and bible at ceremony
|
After the speeches, we toured the new homes, witnessed the blessings of the homes (each one was blessed by a priest), enjoyed local Armenian Brandy and fruit and chocolate with the families moving in.
 |
| Margahovit "Little Switzerland" |
We then boarded the van and headed out to tour the Armenian Tree Project in Margahovit, the third largest village in Armenia - located north of Vanadzor - they are planting millions of trees each year to re-build and sustain Armenia's forests. While the natural gas lines run to the villages, the prices are so high that villages often don't use it and resort to using wood to heat their homes in the winter. Wood is also one of the largest exports - demand is depleting the forests. Currently Armenia has less than 7% forestation. We walked through the nursery and looked at the native trees they are growing; Ash, oak, pine, wild apricot, wild apple, wild pear trees - all native trees to Armenia. Trees grow very slow especially in high altitude. They grow all their trees from seeds from their own trees - gathering them from the forests each year. They are building an education center and will be teaching local youth about forestry and hope to begin training and certification. We saw the Hrant Dink memorial forest - 16 hectares (32 acres) of newly planted trees.
 |
baby trees
|
Returning home, I was dropped at the Vanadzor art museum with Connie and we walked through a very delapidated but well cared for art museum. It was a mix of local artists work as well as some older work that was saved during the earthquake.
A day filled with blessings and keys - keys to the past and to the future.
