A couple days ago I was lucky enough to attend a football match in the heart of Yerevan. The Armenian title holders, Alashkert were squaring off against a team from Andorra, Santa Coloma. Levon spent some time earlier that morning trying to get ahold of someone who could tell us how to get tickets. After waiting for call backs and fruitlessly searching for tickets online we received word that tickets would not be necessary. We could just walk right in. So right before game time Santiago, Katie, Lillie, Bethany and myself piled into a taxi for a trip to the stadium. There were police officers everywhere. I had a my green backpack with me and expected a search of some sort, at least a pat down or a once over with a wand. Especially considering how many policeman there were holding up the walls by leaning on them. However we were able to just stroll right through. No one seemed to give us a second look. We took some seats and watched ninety minutes of Armenia's home team playing quality soccer and Andorra's making a mockery of themselves. It seemed there wasn't a three minute stretch of the match when there wasn't an Andorran on the ground writhing in pain. After dominating play most of the game and skillfully dribbling in between downed Santa Coloma players, the Armenians came out on top.
This morning Santiago, Katie and Lillie all made their way out of Yerevan and back home. I left as well, heading to the second largest city in Armenia, Gyumri. The driver who typically would be recruited to take me from A to B could not make it this morning so he sent his son in his place. He looked to be in his thirties, still carrying a goofy schoolboy grin. The boyish manner matched with the black and white paisley shirt he wore might have made him look younger if it wasn't for the bald spot forming on the back of his head. Apart from appearances he was remarkably similar to his father. As soon as we pulled out music began to come through the speakers. It wasn't ABBA or various other 80's hits though. Rap began to thump in my chest. The car was filled with what almost sounded like what a Russian Geto Boys concert would be like. As we drove down the bumpy hills to Gyumri we tried to make conversation with each other as best we could. Him speaking Armenian an Russian. Me speaking English and English. After about an hour we pulled off at the same gas station his father had stopped at a year before on our trip to Gyumri.
As I walked around outside taking pictures he bought me the same coffee as his father had. It was comforting in a way. I had never met this man and I was going off on my own to a town where very few people would be able to communicate with me unaided by a translator and yet I had been exactly here before. Same gas station, almost the same driver, music blasting as we scurried through the Armenian countryside and the same coffee his dad would buy for me. The only thing missing were the cigarettes and jokes about sex workers told only with the hands.
Once we got to Gyumri, my driver dropped me off at a BandB. A small woman met us on the street and lead me inside. In typical Armenian fashion, food began to seemingly pour itself onto the table. It seemed every minute there would be a new dish or drink for me to enjoy. Gata (Armenian sweet bread) came out first. Followed by a large class of something that had consistency and taste of yogurt and some hazelnut wafer cookies. I had finished a piece of gata when Turkish coffee, chocolate and apricots all appeared before me. I looked up for a second and by the time my eyes were back on the table lavash (Armenian flat bread), cheeses, sliced tomatoes and cucumbers were all waiting for me! My host joined the table across from me. Pouring herself a Turkish coffee and breaking off a small piece of the mountain of chocolate sitting in front of me.
Not long into the shared silence I was expecting when there is a considerable language barrier, she pulled out her phone and began to type away at a translator. I did the same. Soon we were talking as naturally as two people can. Her talking into her phone in Russian and it relaying the message to me in English and myself typing a response into my phone in English and replying to her in Russian. I was blown away at how easy and almost innate this was. We were just sitting there, drinking coffee, having a conversation. She told me she had lived in Gyumri since she came to the city as a bride. Once here she picked up teaching math at a local school. She had been working the day when the earthquake struck in 1988. I asked her if it was scary. She said the ground rolled in waves like that of an ocean, all the glass exploded out of the windows in the school and the children were caught in the middle of all of it. "It feels like yesterday." she said. I imagine that events as colossal as that must always feel like only a few days ago. I told her that the effects of the earthquake are very much part of the reason I first came to Gyumri. I explained the work of Levon and his Tuff Armenia team. She listened but seemed skeptical that much change could truly happen at this point. Thirty plus years after the event. I asked her if she thought the local government did enough to help out after the city was rocked. She didn't need her translator for the answer. She chuckled, "нет" and mimed taking money from someone and putting it into her own pockets.