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| Naira and Vrez |
Wednesday afternoon we completed the concrete work and cleaned up early for the banquet that our family put on for us. They served lamb two ways, grilled - BBQ style and boiled. There were many people at the banquet besides our team and our immediate family - friends, neighbors and extended family members so it was a real celebration. After our meal, we posed for and took many photographs - group shots, family shots, team shots. We departed feeling great about our work, providing a home for this family that will completely change and impact the trajectory of this family's life - for generations to come. The house is being built to last - with the intention of being passed on from one generation to another.
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| Construction team with family and friends |
It will be given to one of the boys when he marries and has children and the tradition will carry on - this house is family path; family journey; tradition. The footprints we made in the foundation of the house while forming our bucket line, the laughter that echoed through the roofless structure and the empowerment, strength and humanitarism we grew through working together are now embedded in their home - Hoki - spirit, heart - very cool.
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| Naira, Vrez, Samson, Vahe, Vahan |
We boarded the van, and Artag and the middle brother (who's name has escaped me at the moment because we met him just once during our build - he is working on a bridge construction in a nearby valley so he wasn't around much) - they rode the van back to Vanadzor with us and Ross and Mitchell and Noona went out for coffee with them and spent the afternoon with them.
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The strength of our Fuller Housing Team!
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After cleaning up, packing up, we had a bit of spare time. Kathleen and I went to the marketplace and walked through the food market area in search of spices - we walked past booths of women selling cheeses, fresh fruits, vegetables, fish, crabs, something that looked like crayfish -probably were, coffee vendors - and we found the spice woman! We pointed, she scooped different spices onto a scale and then into a plastic baggie- they use a variety of pepper here in their dishes - one is a sweet red pepper.
The evening was spent celebrating our work with the Vanadzor Fuller Housing team: Melik, Tativik and Jivan. We had another banquet with many toasts. The team dined on rabbit, some sort of flattened beef, amazing roasted potatoes and a variety of salads and breads - for dessert: ice cream and Armenian coffees. We all received plaques to hang above our doors at home that say "Bless this House" in Armenian. Arriving back at the hotel, we tumbled into bed with sounds of cement mixers and celebration in our heads.
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| Tatavik |
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Our fancy banquet
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