Bjni “Geyser”, by Isabelle Ani Adourian (Summer 2016)

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…