We woke up early on Thursday to get on the road quickly. It seemed no sooner was I out of bed that I was on the road to Gyumri. I sat in the front seat with our driver while Levon and Santiago dozed off in the back. He only spoke Armenian and I can only use English so there wasn't much conversation between the two of us on the two hour trip. This wasn't too bad though, I was mainly glued to my window watching the landscape pass by sporadically taking photos every time the car slowed down. I would shoot photos and he would drive a long, every 15 minutes or so taking a cigarette out of his pack and hold it to his lips while he tried to light it while hiding the flame from the wind rushing in our windows.
We soon got to Gyumri and began walking around. In 1988 a horrific earthquake struck the region and collapsed over 320 buildings, leaving a lot of families with no place to live. Levon and Santiago are working on a project called Tuff Armenia. Their goal is to eventually build or create a space for these people effected by the earthquake to live in. Thursday we spent the day walking around the neighborhoods of homes of the people and witnessed firsthand the destruction of not just the homes but the lives of the poor people who fell victim to the earthquake.
After the earthquake the government erected what is almost a shanty town in which they left the people to live while they built new homes for them. Twenty eight years later and the families are still waiting to have a safe place to live. Many of the "homes" the government have provided are little more than shipping containers with doors. Some were even old gas tanks that were cut and half and turned over to provide shelter. These shabbily made houses are sweltering in the summer and freezing in the winter. We met with one family who squeezes nine people (seven women and two kids) into a small house that had two beds in it. They said in the winter they burn everything just so they can survive. They showed us a closet of cardboard boxes, cloth, paper scraps, even shoes. All of which would be burned in the winter to provide some heat to them. It is not out of a want of comfort that they do this but necessity. We stopped in to visit several families and each one would present us with coffee, apricots, chocolates, whatever they had. These people live in the margin of society. It seems like most people are quite content to avert their eyes from the neighborhoods of metal homes rather than look into fixing it. Since 1988, a shack and some money are all these people have gotten to help them. The government states that if anyone does any work on the structures they provided to the families they become private residences and as such won't be eligible for assistance in finding a new place to live. After twenty eight years, how could you not perform maintenance? Still many were hesitant to. In many houses you could see through the roof where it rotted and rusted into dust. Holes were plugged with styrofoam for insulation. Mice come in the night and eat up the food the families have before scurrying out of the cracks in the foundations. Many don't even have toilets and showers cost 1000 dram. The family of nine said the government gives them 28,000 dram a year to live off of.
Levon and his team are trying to do what the government seems to be unable to, help. It was a very emotional time meeting the families. Conversation would give way to tears. Then anger would boil over and more than once the people would begin yelling about the corruption in the government. Many people had so many questions. "What can I do" "When will be able to live?" I could see the frustration in Levon's face because he did not have the answers they so desperately needed. But he's trying to find them. After we left each family he would turn to Santiago and myself and explain what the family had said, what they had been through, what they were in need of. He would go through each situation with us trying to contain his own anger at the situation.
The car ride back to Yerevan was quiet. Levon and Santiago let exhaustion take them in the back seat while I sat wordlessly in the front with our driver. After thirty or so minutes had passed we began a conversation of charades. Laughing and trying to mime jokes and observations to each other. More than once he would hit my leg, point out to something in the distance and pretend to take a picture. When a truck would let out a big black cloud of smoke we would hold our breath exaggeratedly as it whisped over the windshield. As we entered the city he would point out which of the women on the side of the road were prostitutes by repeatedly jamming his index finger in a little hold he made with his other hand. He would offer to pull over before chuckling heartily. After some time of this he pulled out a cigarette, held it between his lips then handed another to me. I am not a smoker but it felt rude of me to decline. We couldn't share a language so instead we shared laughs and smokes all the way back to the city.
When we returned Santiago and I went out for a beer while Levon did some work. We drank until Levon joined us and from there we left to take Santiago to work. Once we got to the architecture office where he interns. We didn't stay long before we grabbed the metro back into town. The metro system is Yerevan is very easy, even for those of us who can't speak Armenian. There is one line. You either go North-West or South-East. Each subway train has two cars and they move between a handful stations. The intriguing part of the Metro is that it is built in an old Soviet bomb shelter so it is deep in the earth. The escalator down to the subway platform is almost a minute long of slowly descending.
From there we headed to grab a quick dinner while we watched the symphony that plays over the loud speaker in the main city square while the fountain dances in perfect timing with the music. A show that is performed every night at 8pm. After a while Levon and I went off to a bar to drink and watch Portugal play Poland. We were joined by Hilda (Levon's sister) and one of Santiago's coworkers. We all would sit up in our seats any time Poland had possession and jeer when Ronaldo flashed across the screen. It was a bitter ending to our time at the bar. Levon went back to his house and I accompanied Santiago to another bar. From the street I could hear a murmur Armenian music playing and the crowd cheering together. As we walked down the steps the murmur became an exclamation as we were greeted by a swarming flurry of people dancing together to Armenian music. The atmosphere was infectious and it filled me with such joy to see these people (many of whom were from Europe, South America and the US) celebrating their culture. The girls would whirl and the men would perform choreographed dances. I did not know the moves but a couple of girls attempted to instruct me before they realized I was a lost cause in terms of Armenian dancing.
I left Santiago and headed back to Levon's. The streets were dark as I stumbled back. I was so worried I made a ruckus when I opened the door to be greet at 2am by Levon's sister and grandmother. I sat out on the porch for a while talking with Hilda before she retired and I waited for the sun to rise over Yerevan. I went to bed finally at 5:30 ending the longest day I've had in a while.
Here is a link to the Tuff Armenia Project. A team from UVA working to help these people in need by any means they can. You can donate to the cause or share it to bring some light to this issue that has been pushed into the shadows for too long.
http://armenia.eswb.org/