Month: July 2016

YARP hello from Elise!!!

“Get ready girls! We’ll be leaving for the ATP soon!” That was my Mom. We were at the Best Western Paradise Hotel in Dilijan, in Armenia. And it really was a paradise hotel, let me tell you that. The Armenia Tree Project (ATP) is a foundation that plants trees in honor of people. Let’s say you give money for them to plant a tree in honor of ‘Stevie Parker’. The ATP would plant a tree and send you a certificate saying that there is now a tree planted for Stevie. Let’s say you want to plant a forest in honor of Stevie Parker for his birthday, you give more money and ATP plants a forest in honor of Stevie Parker. The Armenia Tree Project branch that we were visiting was in Margahovhit village, between Vanadzor and Dilijan. The ATP wasn’t far away from Dilijan, though we did buy some snacks and water for the ride.

The ATP building was beautiful. It serves as an ATP educational center and was  sponsored by Mrs. Ginny Ohanian, an Armenian from Boston, in honor of her husband Michael. The building was painted in various colors and cartoonic trees. There was a large garden in front of the building, and strange little yellow wood things with holes inside them. My mom (Mommy) led Isabelle and me inside the building. To my left, there was a wall sticker of dandelions, the puffy kind that you make wishes on, and butterflies. (Just a reminder that I was allergic to dandelions). To my right was a bookshelf holding not only books, but other things too, like sculptures and photos. There was a large picture of painted tree in front of the bookshelf, which made the shelves look like the branches of the painted tree. Behind the tree-bookshelf were two doors: one had a boy figure silhouetted and the other a girl. Of course, the bathrooms! There was also a staircase to the right of the tree bookshelf, leading upstairs. Here is the bookshelf below.

 

Our mom took us into a short hallway,  then asked a light brown haired woman in Armenian, “Are we interrupting, Alla?” She answered, “No, no. Come in. It’s lunch hour.” At the end of the short hallway was a large room, which I was guessing was the cafeteria. There were windows overlooking the mountains and the garden. Tables filled the room too. There were also three other things: a box with a picture of a bee on it, a tank with a turtle in it, and a tank with two goldfish in it. A black haired woman approached my mom and exclaimed, “Anna! It’s so good to see you again!” When she noticed us she said, “And who are these wonderful girls you brought with you?” I could tell it was our turn to speak. “I’m Elise, and she’s Isabelle.” Isabelle gave me a look as if she could speak for herself. I responded giving her a mischievous grin. The cook came out and placed two bowls of mushroom stew.

The black haired woman, her name was Arpine Matinyan, showed us around the room. She was the Principal of the Margahovit School. “Here we have a beehive.” She pointed at the box with the picture of a bee on it. “Look through that glass over there, do you see all those bees? Inside that box is where the bees make the honey, and also where the queen bee stays. She rarely comes out though.” There were dozens of bees buzzing inside the glass, coming into the box from outside, and going out of the box. The bees coming into the box had yellow beads of pollen stuck to their legs. It was a wonder! I had never seen the inside of a beehive before. Here is the picture of it.

 

And seeing all those bees was truly amazing. “Here we keep Tigran the turtle,” said Arpine. She was talking about the turtle I had seen earlier. It turned out the turtle is named after a boy who comes and takes care of him and loves him like a pet. We moved on to the fish. She didn’t explain much about them. Here is the picture of Tigran the Turtle.

We had now sat down to eat, and immediately, the conversation began. “How’s the school, Arpine?” My mom asked. “Is there anything I can do to help with the school?” Arpine responded, “Well the school gym floor could be better, and the school could use a smartboard.” A smartboard is a board that is connected to a computer and projects what’s on the computer screen onto the smartboard. Smartboard allows a teacher to show classroom full of kids what’s on her computer screen without the students crowding around her computer. Problem solved! But my mom on the other side, wanted to buy Kindles for the school instead, the reading kind without games, mind you. She argued that with Kindles, instead of buying a whole bookshelf of books and having trouble transporting them, Kindle lets one to buy a whole bookshelf of books, several more times as many as one could carry. A teacher can give each child a Kindle and have them read many books on it, instead of buying loads of books at a time. Plus, as my mom noted, Kindles save trees since books require cutting down of trees to be made, which is against ATP principles. Eventually, the smartboard idea won. Margahovit school will get the smartboard and ATP will get Kindles because many schoolchildren from the village visit ATP and can use the Kindles to read environmental materials.

A while later Alla Sahakyan, who is the education program manager at ATP, took us out to see the garden in front of the building. Don’t think it was a sunny day though, there was a slight drizzle which would turn into a downpour later on. First Alla showed us kinds of trees that ATP grew in the garden, and also other trees and plants that are in the Red Book. Alla also showed us  what the strange yellow thing with holes in it was. It was a “bug hotel”! There were holes in it so the bugs could get in, and it was painted yellow, since bugs are attracted to the color yellow. I had never seen anything like it, except in cartoons where there were literally bug hotels! It was surprising to know that things like this existed. Most people think that bugs are pesty little things that eat your plants, but these bugs eat the weeds and help the plants grow. I wonder if there are worm hotels, too. Here is the picture of the bug hotel.

Overall, the meaning of the ATP is to plant trees in Armenia, and what I think is amazing, is that ATP has already planted forests in Armenia.  Many trees have been cut down in the history of Armenia,  but the ATP helps plant them again. Going to the Armenia Tree Project was a wonderful experience, and I think everyone should pay a visit and learn the quality of trees on this planet. Without trees there would be no paper, no log cabins, no wooden bookshelves, no pencils, no firewood, you name it! Another wonderful thing about ATP is that there are many schools that contribute to the ATP, and students help plant trees too. You can go to sleep today, knowing there will be more trees in the world tomorrow.

Here is a link to Armenia Tree Project in case if you got inspired by this post and would like to donate to ATP and plant trees and forests in Armenia!

https://www.armeniatree.org/en/intro.asp

I just stood there, enjoying the sun send its rays from the tip of my nose, and dance down my legs to where my feet were kept secure in my aunt’s hand-me-downs that were now mine. I snapped back from my daze to make my eyes level with the mountains as a chorus of about five frogs sang their solos and finished by sending ripples across the water as if breaking glass. I pulled my chin downwards to throw the rock I was holding. I kept on staring at it soared through the air and then plummeted down with a satisfying “Ker-plump!”

Look closely to see a frog.

Elise, my mother, my aunt, (yes, the one who gave me the shoes I am wearing…), my uncle, my aunt and uncle’s ten-month-old son Yuri and I are all at Bjni village for three days. I guess you could call it a three-day vacation. While our family was in Bjni, we came to a stream to see a geyser of mineral water.  It wasn’t that much of a geyser because there was a pipe covering it as you can see in the image below.  Yes, I am also wondering why the rocks around the “geyser” are orange. Well, all you smart folks who think you know everything, it turns out the rocks are orange because there is iron in the water mixes with air and turns the rocks orange. That was just the simplified explanation.

 

 

“ԻԶԱԲԵԼ! Այստեղ արի! Ռզում ես կամուրջը անցնենք?” And of course, that sounded pretty interesting and exciting because, well, who doesn’t! Wait a minute, I never translated what my uncle Hovik asked! So he asked if I wanted to cross the bridge. Yes, there was a bridge crossing the water.  So, of course, after the wonderful show the terrified frogs gave us by jumping into the water as if on cue, we crossed the bridge. I don’t regret my choice, but it was a pretty wobbly bridge. And as if the bridge wasn’t wobbly enough,  Helen, my little sister (more like a monster), started jumping up and down trying to scare more frogs.

 

Something white caught my eye in the water. I took a closer look and I noticed it looked like a white frog lying on it’s back. I strained my eyes till they were literally bulging out of my head. Then I realized what it was. If you haven’t guessed already, it was a dead frog. Ya, it was only a DEAD FROG!!!!!! So I crossed the bridge like I intended and like I saw from the shoreline on the other side, all I found were uninviting prickly-thorny bushes. I wasn’t really surprised about my discovery because the stream ran across a mountain. The higher up you go, the fewer trees and more thorny bushes there are. If I walked upwards, maybe a few-hundred yards, I would probably reach the top of the mountain. I would’ve loved to climb the top of the mountain but there just wasn’t any time. It was getting dark. As Elise and I clambered down the mountain and ran to catch up with the others, the sun was going down. It was about time to leave. As it was getting late into the evening, I remembered that we hadn’t had dinner yet.

As the car drove away from the beautiful mountainside and zoomed toward where the little houses were clustered, a thought occurred to me: how would I write about this wonderful experience in the blog…

YARP hello from Elise! This Yarp post will be about the mountains in Bjni (Budge-nee). Unlike other posts, this one will be like a story.

The metal door clanked as I opened it. “Mama, I’ll be waiting for you outside!” I yelled into the house in Armenian. My mom and I were going on a stroll to the shop, as well as a hike in Bjni. A jingling of key startled me as I turned around to see what it was. My mom was locking the door to our Bjni house. She was wrapped in her favorite orange jacket, and blue jeans with sneakers. “So, are you ready to go?” She asked. “I was born ready! Let’s get going already!” I responded.

The old path to the shop was full of rocks, pebbles, cow/goat dung, and trash. There are even a few animal bones, not that it’s not a safe place to go. My mom and I carefully picked our way single file through the narrow path. As we walked, the sound and smell of goats disturbed my thoughts. We were walking past a farm on one side of the path, and a garden on the other. A dog barked somewhere near the town. A stray probably, I thought. Gushing water sounded overhead. I paused for a while to gaze at the mountains, wishing I could climb them. One mountain I especially wanted to climb, since it had a cave at the top. Who knows what could be in there?

Ducks waddled near another farm in the little town of Bjni. My mom and I were walking on the bordering land next to the river. As my mom and I crossed the bridge that led to the other side of the river, I peered over to look at the bottom of the clear, flowing river. “Careful,” my mom said, since the bridge had no railing. As I mention this, I am not trying to say that Bjni isn’t safe. Hardly any danger at all in fact. Any way, the river was filled with reeds. When we reached the other side, a car zoomed by. There aren’t many cars on the road in Bjni, but when there are, they are mostly old time cars.

“Isn’t Թագավորանիստ beautiful?” I asked my mom. Translated, that would mean, “Isn’t the Bjni Fortress beautiful?” The ruins of the ancient Fortress came into view. The Armenian flag at the top blew in the wind as my mom answered, “It really is.” A few cows passed by as the clouds uncovered the sun, silhouetting the mountains. Suddenly I understood the beauty of Bjni and why my mom wanted to come here so often. Just a glance at the rocky mountains with their jagged peaks, the cows climbing the grassy hills, the Bjni fortress, and the small cozy little one-roomed church, the best place for prayers.

   

YARP hello from Elise! I will be telling you about the new airline that started flying to Armenia, Qatar Airways. If you are flying to Armenia, and searching for an airline, I recommend Qatar Airways. Let me tell you why: What Qatar provides is good entertainment, comfort, and good food.

In terms of the entertainment, there was a screen in the seat in front of me. On the screen you could watch movies, play games, listen to music, see how far you are during your flight. There are also three cameras on the airplane, one on the tail in the back, one facing down, and one on the bottom facing the wheels. If you didn’t have a window seat, you could check the footage of the cameras outside, which will remind you how cozy and safe you are in the plane. It was especially fun to look at the one facing bottom during takeoff and when the plane is landing, because you could see the runway during takeoff and landing.

In terms of the comfort, Qatar airways provides blankets, pillows, sleep masks, and headphones, all of which can be very comforting at times. If you want to go to sleep, you could put the sleep mask on, adjust your pillow, and warm up under the blanket. If you listen to music when you go to sleep, you could plug the headphones into the screen in front of you, the armrest, or on a device you brought from home and listen to sweet calming music (if that’s your preference!).

Here comes my favorite: food. Some people think food on airplanes doesn’t taste good, and some think it tastes like heaven. On Qatar Airways, flight attendants list a verbal menu from which you can pick your food, and once you place your order you get it before you can say ‘Qatar’. Also, Qatar Airways provides quite a few drinks. There is coffee, tea, juice, and water. There might be more. Most of the foods come with a dessert too, like a small piece of cake, chocolate or ice-cream. You can also eat food you brought in a carry on, or you can buy gum before your flight. Gum can be helpful during takeoff and landing, because if you chew on something, there are fewer chances of getting your ears plugged.

The flight from Massachusetts to Armenia, via Doha, added up to around sixteen hours. After you arrive in Armenia you may start feeling sleepy during the day, and wide awake at night. That means you are jet lagged. Since Boston and Yerevan are both on opposite sides of the planet, when the sun is shining in Massachusetts, Armenia is facing the side of the world where the sun is not shining, therefore it is night. This means, when you are in Armenia, you may start feeling sleepy during the day. Eventually your body adjusts to the time in Armenia.

Overall, I think Qatar Airways is the best way to fly to Armenia.