Paragliding in paradise

Ooops – another week has flown by without a blog post! I guess that’s fairly indicative of how things have been going lately. It feels as if I’ve been here so much longer than three weeks given how much has happened in that time. Between work, class, events with the program, and time with friends, it seems I’m hardly ever home or on my computer – which is a great improvement from the way I typically live! It’s funny thinking how much I’ve done here that I simply wouldn’t have done at home, like impromptu wine nights with friends, and karaoke on Mondays. I unfortunately had my first negative food experience Monday night though, so Tuesday I was pretty much out of commission. My biggest fear coming to Armenia was that I’d be getting sick all the time and not know what was causing it and then be too afraid to eat, but I’m so grateful that couldn’t be further from what’s happened. I’m slowly learning how to order food and make sure it doesn’t have ingredients that will make me sick, and how to explain to servers what I can and can’t have. My host family has been making yummy food, and I’ve found some delicious (and not so delicious) snacks. I’m dying to get back to America and whip up some gluten free lamachun though! I know my grandma left behind a lot of recipes, and it would be neat if I could learn to cook from those now and adapt them to meet my needs. I only wish I’d had her teach me when I was alive.

i dream of lamachun! but i do love this armenian salad 🙂

With each passing week, I feel myself becoming more attached to this culture and more committed to making it a central aspect of my life moving forward. I want to learn Armenian cooking, learn the songs we sang today on the bus ride home from our excursion, continue to practice speaking. It’s really amazing how much I feel I’ve already learned just being immersed in the language, even if it’s so hard for me to actually speak myself. I love going to language classes, and have entertained myself trying to learn the alphabet. It’s my goal while I’m here to practice Armenian calligraphy, at least as much as learning to draw all the letters in creative ways. On Wednesday, we celebrated the International Day of Dance by attending an event by the opera house and learning some traditional dances. Stumbling over ourselves, trying to move in circles on a slope, we all couldn’t stop laughing. Amazing how getting out of your comfort zone can be so rewarding, and so exhilarating. I’m usually so shy about things like dancing, but since getting here, I feel like I’ve been able to push myself out of my shell more, to seize every opportunity handed to me and try to enjoy it as much as I can. So far, I haven’t been disappointed. Each morning I wake up smiling thinking about the day before and the day ahead. It’s really such a joy to be learning so much about my heritage and how its expressed, how vibrant it can be, while connecting with other Armenians and diasporans.

flowers at Dzidneragapert after the weekend’s activities

a group of us with the petals we were helping to recycle

May 1 was Armenian Labor Day, so we had no work. A group of friends and I decided to go paragliding, as we’d discussed the idea and the weather was supposed to be perfect. Talk about breaking routine! We were picked up from Yerevan by the paragliding company in a little white matrushka bus and taken to the hostel where the company is based. From there, we drove up to Hatis Mountain to begin our adventure. When I say we drove up the mountain I mean we literally drove on it – there was no paved road, just some tired tracks and boulders. More boulders than any reasonable person would be comfortable driving over so nonchalantly, but somehow we survived. We knew we were in for a fun day since our drivers spoke only Russian, though our official tour guide spoke Armenian and English. This more or less set the tone for the day: lack of communication, abundance of laughs. We spent hours lounging around around the middle of the mountain, listening to music, watching each other take off, and admiring the other paragliders. By mid-afternoon there were so many chutes up in the air, it was so beautiful! I imagine that’s what Santa Fe or Cappadocia must look like with all the hot air balloons up in the air. Being back in the mountains felt like Colorado, and I found my soul more at rest than it’s been in a long while. Sitting there with good friends and good food and a beautiful view, I couldn’t imagine any better way to spend my time or memory to make.

and gretchka for Rachel

I imagined paragliding would be a lot more similar to parasailing and was surprised by how slow moving and relaxing the ride was. Whereas with parasailing you’re going fast and mostly straight, my paraglide ride was pretty much just a moseying descent to the bottom of the mountain. We weren’t able to catch a thermal to lift us back to our launching place, which ended up being an adventure unto itself. I spent a good hour at the base of the mountain with 3 Ukrainian guides, 3 Armenian EMTs, and a few other local men…and no cell phone to let my friends know where I was and that I was OK. Obviously when I got back up an hour later, there was a lot of explaining to do! After another hour we headed back to the base of the mountain as the last two guys prepared for their ride. Our driver loaded the 7 of us girls into the matrushka and took us to the bottom…and then got picked up. We couldn’t believe he just took off, leaving us with the bus and without an explanation. Oddly, being stranded like this added to the day’s fun and we had quite the dance party! Finally the last two gliders landed in the field behind us, and we commenced dancing in the street with them, some random Russians, and our guides. The ride back to Yerevan stayed just as jubilant, blasting music and singing with our crazy driver. It’s hard to reduce a twelve hour day into a paragraph like this, and I already fear forgetting all these crazy days.

flying!

wrapping up the chute after the last rides of the day

After Friday, for perhaps the fifth time since I’ve been here, I felt myself saying over and over “this was one of the best days ever,” and sincerely meaning it. The experiences I’ve had so far have truly been incredible, and I sound like a broken record with these same platitudes, but there aren’t words for days like these. Thanks to Facebook, I learned that May 1 marked a year since my last day of undergrad classes, even though it feels like a lifetime has gone by since then. Turning in my last final, I could never have imagined what I’d be doing now, and I especially couldn’t have imagined how I’d feel. I keep hearing Tim McGraw’s “Live Like You Were Dying” in my head and chuckling because in the last 365 days I have literally gone Rocky Mountain climbing and (essentially) sky diving. I’ve loved deeper, spoke sweeter, and perhaps more than anything, become more focused on living in the purest sense. People say to live like you’re dying all the time, but that isn’t really a way to live. Instead, I hope that I can continue to live in the moment, live for each day and try to savor the little things as much as the big ones. The last few weeks have been defined by laughing so hard my stomach hurts, by sunshine and learning, by gratitude and humility, by pride and connection, and accomplishments that can’t be measured on paper or even with words.

My first weekend here, my host sister made a comment about the girls I was having wine with and how they didn’t seem like people I’d hang out around, how they seemed so different than me. The way this program brings together diverse people into a unique, intense but fun experience is the most wonderful aspect of it for me. When I think about the group of people I spend my time with, I know there’s no way that we would be together in the US, or be able to do as much as we have. Our lives would be unlikely to cross, and maybe if this were high school, we’d all be in pretty different “groups.” None of that matters here though. It’s nothing short of serendipity that we all ended up together, that we could connect over things that matter and let the superficial be insignificant as it should be. I’m grateful to have people who are different but similar to me, who bring out my strengths while also challenging me to grow by pushing my boundaries personally, emotionally, and socially. I really didn’t expect that I’d have as much fun here as I have, and even if it’s sometimes hard feeling like I’m not totally “myself” or doing the things I usually do (like read a book a week), I know that it’s so much more important to say yes to life here, to say yes to friends and events and experiences as much as possible. Books will always be there, but this time is limited, and every second is a gift.

Marching On

The past few days have been the most incredible, emotionally intense, inspiring, though provoking, humbling, and empowering days of my life. I truly can’t say enough how blessed I feel to be in Armenia right now and able to participate in all of the commemorative events. 



Flowers at the eternal flame on Wednesday morning. When i was back on Friday night, the pile was taller than me!



Thursday night we gathered in Republic Square (or as we say in Armenian, hraparak) to watch the live stream of a historic ceremony at Etchmiadzin, the heart of the Armenian church. For the 100th anniversary of the genocide, the church canonized all the victims. I was so enchanted by the rituals of the ceremony, the incredible light as dusk set in, and then awed by the beautiful paintings unveiled. However, the part that gave me chills was the end, when there was a moment of silence followed by ringing bells, observed simultaneously in churches around the world. They showed St Peter’s basilica in the Vatican absolutely packed, with the pope presiding over the service. We could hear the bells of St Gregory’s in Yerevan as we listened and watched the ringing in Damascus, Moscow, Tehran, Buenos Aires, Jerusalem, New York, LA, Beirut, Toronto, Montreal, Madrid, even at Notre Dame in Paris. Seeing Armenian and non-Armenian churches unite in such a way was so moving and inspiring. We stood in near silence, equal parts grateful to be witnesses and grateful to know that all around the world there were people acting in solidarity with and support for us.

Following the ceremony was the much anticipated System of a Down concert. I don’t listen to them at all, but Armenians love them since they’re all of Armenian origin. Who can pass up a free show though? Especially one this significant, as it was the band’s first time in Armenia and entirely dedicated to getting recognition for the genocide. Somehow my friends and I managed to get very close to the front and had a blast despite the relentless downpour. Never in my life have I enjoyed getting caught in the rain so much! It was incredible to look around and see thousands of people packed into the hraparak like that, especially knowing that almost all of them were Armenian and many had come from around the world from this event. The band even played Sardarabad, an Armenian patriotic song, and everyone went completely wild. Armenia May only be a fraction of the size it once was, but in that crowd, I  felt that is it so much more alive, so much stronger, than ever before. I’ve said it so many times, but I came here wanting to find something in my Armenian-ness that wasn’t rooted in tragedy, and it’s such a blessing to be finding just that more and more each day.



rock on, Armenia



I woke up the next day with a smile on my face just thinking about how much fun I had with friends at this once in a lifetime type of concert. What’s more, it sparked me to really look at how far Armenia has come and what it means to be Armenian. I gained a much deeper understanding of the global network of our people, but also how close knitted the community is despite that. Between the canonization of the martyrs and the concert, there was a feeling that we were right in the center of history, that some day people would look back at this time and we’d be able to say “I was there. I watched and heard the bells ring simultaneously around the world, watched from Yerevan as the catholicos canonized the victims, was in the fifth row in the concert in Republic Square.” Just as I say “look how far we’ve come” now in reference to the genocide, I know that when I talk about this week in the future, when I talk about actually being present here, I know I’ll say the same with equal amounts of pride and awe about what will have happened since this day.



April 24 is the day officially dedicated to genocide remembrance, and this year, the centennial anniversary of the genocide’s start. I watched the ceremonies on TV with my host mom, even if I couldn’t understand any of it. Seeing world leaders present to pay their respects was definitely an awesome feeling. In the evening, we gathered at the office for a discussion led by a visiting genocide scholar before participating in the candlelight march to Dzidnernagapert, the genocide memorial with the eternal flame.

Where and how do I even begin to describe that march? It’s been two days and I still get emotional trying to put words to it. Once we got the the hraparak we all received candles and joined with a crowd bigger than any I’d ever seen in my life, let alone been in. Some people had torches, many had flags, and there was a big truck blasting music. We paraded up Mashtots, the central road I. Yerevan, to get an epic view of the Mayr Hayastan (Mother Armenia) statue above us. Between chants of “Hayastan!” and “djanachum” (recognize), my mind kept wandering to my grandma and how badly I wish she were alive to have seen this day. She would’ve loved to see the world looking at Armenia, and been thrilled to have a granddaughter back there now. We all had to think back to our ancestors who left a century ago, and how they’d feel to know that we were back in the place they had to leave. How could they have imagined that 100 years later their descendants would be in a free Armenia, marching with Armenians from around the world, demanding respect and recognition? It felt like an unspeakably huge blessing to participate in this event and learn at an emotional level what it means to be Armenian. We had to think of those who were taken from their homes at night on this same date, and how very different our own walk through the darkness was. They walked for weeks without rest or water or, most importantly, choice. We walked to remember and honor them, their journey, their suffering, and their strength.



Climbing up the final hill before the memorial, it struck me how much it means to me to be able to have this memory to tell my kids about some day. I’ll be so proud to tell them that pride and resilience are as much a part of their story as the genocide itself. I’ll be able to tell them that every year, Armenians from around the world join together to parade through the night of April 24, past all the most important landmarks in Yerevan to lay candles and flowers at the eternal flame of Dzidneragapert. That night brought home how unique and special it is to be part of this group, how no other group (in my view) has anything like this. I know no words could do it justice, but the crazy mix of emotions – sadness, wonder, pride, mourning, hope, humility, gratitude – will certainly be something I’ll continuously return to and process. Maybe I won’t ever be able to fully comprehend the significance of this week, or eloquently summarize my experiences, but it gives me so much joy to know that I’ll always be able to look back to April 24, 2015 as one of the most incredible experiences of my life. What an honor and privilege to be able to take part in all these things and to be able to call myself Armenian.



“I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.” 
 – William Saroyan

100 Ans de Memoire Concert

Last night, I went to the Opera House to watch a live screening of a concert held in Paris by the Armenian World Orchestra in honor of the victims of the genocide. Shown exclusively in Paris and Yerevan, but a message for the world, it included three pieces by Armenian composers, followed by Mozart’s requiem. The music was beautiful, and at times haunting. The third piece performed was a world premiere of a piece by Michel Petrossian, and while it was at times incredibly bizarre, the end had almost the entire audience in tears. It was a very experimental sounding contemporary piece, but at the end, the choir and some of the orchestra members began holding up signs with names of historic Armenian cities on them and ripping them in half. It only took seeing VAN being destroyed in front of me to know what was going on, to feel the symbolism like a punch in the stomach. ZMURNIA, SHUSHI, and ARAPGIR. The audience had been restless during much of the disjointed sounding piece, but went wild with applause after, with cameras flashing as soon as we saw the names of our historic cities.

Armenian geographical places renamed in Turkey

Throughout the concert, my mind kept wandering back to a feeling that’s been fairly common, if not unexpected, since being here. Mostly, I just can’t believe I didn’t know how much this culture has to offer. Symphonies by Khatchaturian and Komitas, music by Charles Aznavour, traditional folk songs, even musical instruments like the duduk, plus this language with its own awesome story… So much that I wish I’d always appreciated and now inspires me to make it a more central part of my life. I envy my friends here their second language, their familiarity with these things that I’m only now discovering or embracing. Armenia is so much more than the genocide – but the genocide took it from me in a way, a loss I’m only beginning to understand.

Unlike many others in my group, my family left Harput (now Elazığ) before the genocide officially began, although I know pogroms had already begun in the area. What followed in the years after has meant that I am left with answerless questions and a permanent state of liminality. Would I have family in Armenia today? Or Turkey? Would that make me Turkish? Or is Armenian-ness deeper than geographic location? What does it mean to be Armenian but from an Armenia that was erased? To be from a place that doesn’t exist any more? There’s a certain aching that comes with that kind of displacement, questions inscribed in the soul of each spyur’kahay (Diasporan Armenian) like me. With so much talk about the genocide, I’ve had to ask myself how it is relevant to me now, a hundred years later, and why its memory is something I need to talk about.

The French Ambassador welcoming us, and a really lousy picture of the stage

Sitting in the Opera House last night, I felt some answers begin to form in my mind. I don’t know if I had family who was affected by the violence, but I know that I have lost the culture and tradition and memory that is so integral to ethnic identity. The genocide means I’m a third generation refugee – that, in some sense, I can’t go home again. The genocide has overshadowed so much of Armenian history that it’s easy to lose awareness of the cultural achievements for some of us in the diaspora, because these things are talked about so much less frequently. The genocide means we only know our heritage through loss and sorrow – and are bound to that sorrow because it’s still so unresolved. I am so grateful to be American, but sad that I only learned one version of history in school, learned mostly of the accomplishments of one kind of people, that until recently I had a very ethnocentric, Western European world view and understanding of the great milestones in history. Sure I learned about dynasties in China and India, the Aztec and Maya, the Fertile Crescent, and trade throughout Africa, but I didn’t learn about Armenia, how Armenia was the first Christian nation, or how early the alphabet was developed, or that the first wine and shoe were both from here. 

I don’t want to only know the tragedy of my people, and don’t want the world to think only of the poor starving Armenians (or the Kardashians, for that matter). I wish they could see the rich history of achievement and accomplishment as well, or even instead. It’s easy to think only of the darkest times in a people’s history, but it’s an equal tragedy to let that darkness obscure the overwhelming good, or the strength of the people, the resilience and tenacity that characterize this nation. It feels criminal to me to reduce a nation to their darkest hour – to know only the worst – which is really what brought me here in the first place. I feel truly blessed to be here at this important juncture in history to observe the memorial activities, but to simultaneously learn about the other thousands of years of proud Armenian history that I am the seed of. 

performance across the street from my apartment of two Armenian scores for the genocide, plus a display of the original manuscripts

I love that music goes beyond language, but is instead capable of reaching the heart in such an intimate way, connecting people from all walks of life. I love being in a room where each of us is moved by the same sounds, and though we might internalize and interpret them in different ways, we are all in that moment together, united by it. Much as I feel an outsider in Armenia, through concerts like this, I feel this as my history too, that this tragedy fits somehow into my story, and that all of us of feel the wrong done to our people, but pride in who we are and who we have always been. I can go to historic sites and read texts, but perhaps because I was a musician for so much of my life, the emotional power of it is so much more evocative in me. Discussions are good for thinking and asking questions, but at least for me, music is always better for feeling.

statue in Paris dedicated to the composer Komitas and to all the victims of the Armenian Genocide

The Question

I often find myself in conversations that go like this:

Person: So, where are you from?
Me: I grew up outside Boston
Person: No, where are you from, originally?
Me: Massachusetts.
Person: But your family? What’s your background?
Me: Armenian.

I’m half Irish too – but I know this isn’t a good enough answer in this type of conversation. When someone asks where I’m from, they’re really asking where I’m from that isn’t Europe and how long has my family been in America. Until recently I took for granted the position of being Caucasian but not fitting so nicely into the bill of “white.” If I had a lighter complexion, I’m sure that when people asked where I was from, they really would only care about Boston, rather than my ethnicity. But since I look ‘exotic’ or ‘ethnic,’ my Armenian-ness has always been a big part of both my identity and my identification.

The concept of home is one I’ve wrestled with the past few years, as I’ve lived so many places and feel my heart is scattered across the world. Nashville, I suspect, will always feel like home to me, after the brief but wonderful period I had in school there. Of course, I’m a Boston girl through-and-through, and I’m forever attached to the ocean because of our summer house on the north shore. I spent 4 months in Arizona in 2010-2011, lived in 3 parts of Massachusetts, and did research for a summer in London. Then there’s the past 10 months that I’ve lived in Denver – the most settled I’ve been anywhere for a long time. And the amount of growth that occurred there, the love I felt for the places around me, surely, that must count for something? If home is where the heart is, then Colorado is where my soul wants to unwind at the end of the day.

So it seems like a leap to call Armenia my ‘homeland,’ as I’ve never been there before, and the culture has played an almost nonexistent role in my life to date. Armenia as my homeland is an idea I’ve wrestled with. It’s where my grandparents were from, but I’m American: born and raised. I speak only English, I celebrate Christian holidays in very Americanized ways, and have been told while abroad that I have a “nice American accent.” Undeniably though, I’m of Armenian heritage, and that means something to me, something I want to mean more. The more I hear about Armenian Genocide remembrance for the centennial anniversary, the more I feel compelled towards the present day. It isn’t that I don’t think the atrocities are important, but rather that I want to focus instead on the resilience of this little underdog nation that still exists. Even the Armenia of my grandparents no longer exists, a place I couldn’t claim roots in because the region was cleansed of its Armenian population and is now within the boundaries of Turkey.

People ask me all kinds of questions about Armenia that I find difficult to answer because Armenia is a crossroads, and always has been. Geographically speaking, it’s really a place where East and West collide; it’s an island of Christianity in a sea of Islam, a relatively stable country politically in the midst of tumultuous nations From what I know of Armenian food, it shares many features with traditional Middle Eastern food, which has always made me feel Middle Eastern in origin (I mean, Armenia does share borders with Turkey and Iran, and geographically used to extend into their present day boundaries) – yet Armenia is sometimes considered European, or sometimes referred to as being in Asia Minor. It has its own language and alphabet, its own church, and a very strong sense of ethnic pride.

What does it mean to be Armenian? has haunted me increasingly for the past year. What culture will I find there? What similarities to the West, what differences? And now it’s only a matter of days now until I can begin answering these questions in my own words!