Sunday Recap with SunChild Rebecca

Rebecca Kandilian
USA

Blog 8 already…only one more left. I don’t know how I feel about that so we’ll leave it at that.

Change of pace… Here is a list of 5 things I did this week to avoid getting lost in the little details and to focus on the ‘major’ events.

1. The beginning of the week…Off of the Green Bus
-Catch up on sleep and laundry
-Re-fill the bus with gifts, calendars, and supplies for the next trip

2. Meet with potential Sponsor for the Debetavan project
- A fairly positive meeting

3. Lots of text editing in between things…
- Getting pretty good/fast at this

4. Seminar on ‘Networking’ intended for the staff of Ministry of Nature Protection with a rep from Environmental Protection NGOs (i.e. me)
- Communication 101 all over again…
- Met lots of folks from the ministry of Nature Protection
- Got invited to their weekend Getaway out in nature as a NGO rep again

4.5. The Green Bus is being worked on and we cannot leave until next week so I can accept the invitation…

5. Off to Zigitar National Forest with the Ministry
- Surrounded by like minded and highly educated folks, the whole weekend was spent out in the woods, talking about wide array of things including what they each do in the ministry and answering their on-point questions
- Besides the billion mosquito bites, I would say this weekend will go down as one of the more memorable and interesting ones.

Sunday Recap With SunChild Rebecca

Rebecca Kandilian
USA

It has already been a couple of days since I’ve been back in Yerevan and I’m just starting to acclimatize to the life off the green bus. Life in some ways has become a bit uninteresting and slow as I’ve been accustomed to going to at least 2 villages a day, meeting a wide array of people and laughing a ton. At one point, my coworker Satenik and I laughed for three minutes non-stop—a result of identical sense of humor and tiredness. Heck, life is too short so why not laugh through it right? Easy thing to say now but there were plenty of days and instances on the bus where even the silliest and funniest occurrence would not have made any of us crack a smile. Having lived in Yerevan for a bit one might start to forget the absolute horrible conditions that almost the entire Armenia is in. I went, I saw and I have since not been able to sleep well.

I would now like to write a bit about a place that, in retrospect, left a mark on us--not in a good way I must say. Debetavan--The last village hugging the Georgian border. 20 kids and 3 teachers. No visitors for the past three years. Kids with just as much depth and understanding as any other kid but far from having the tools to receive the best possible education. After spending some time with the kids, we sat down with the teacher and had a little chat. I started to look away as I did not want to distort my ‘tough’ image. The kids had 40 year old bowling pins that they played with. The teacher had told them that those things are a part of a game and she would do an exercise where the kids close their eyes and imagine playing. Right then and there, my mind wanders off to a lot of kids back home that so often have so much yet complain about insignificant things like not having the right brand of shoes. Life is truly not fair. Then, I feel blessed and lucky to have lived in conditions better than those of the Debetavan kids. But, I still cant get over the fact that these kids are just as worthy of a decent education as any other.

To end on a good note, I hope to put a proposal together that will make the kindergarten more than a just a house with a bunch of kids. But, a place where children learn the first lessons about life, reading, writing and decision making. FPWC cannot do this without the help of other organizations or donors. I must now invite anyone and everyone interested in helping out in anyway to email me at Rebecca@sunchild.org.

I just started doing my laundry today and tonight I will stuff my backpack and hop on the green bus to go to the Lori region tomorrow morning. I leave without much expectation to safeguard myself from disappointments...

Sunday Recap With SunChild Rebecca

Rebecca Kandilian
USA

No more itching—Check!

Out of Yerevan and onto the Green Bus—No Check.

Punctuality—Negative Check!

Punctuality is next to Godliness to me. I genuinely get happy and almost euphoric, especially nowadays, when someone is on time. Prior to coming to Armenia, I knew that time was a bit of an issue as there are a lot of challenges-- It’s a developing country etc etc. But, I didn’t know it was an utter epidemic. For the past week, for all of my appointments, the 9 has been 11-12 and 12 2-3. Whereas my 9 is 8:50, my 12 is 11:50 and so on. I don’t mean to boast about myself. No, that is not my intention but why say 9 when you know, realistically, you can’t make it before 11? This train of lack of punctuality, among other things, has put me in a bit of a sour mood. I wish I didn’t care about it and I wish it didn’t affect me but I can’t help it. So, the million dollar question at work and out has been “what’s wrong with Reb?” What do I say? But, you always have this charming smile they follow. But, we all have our off days I say in my head. Ok, now that I have vented, I shall stop here with my rant and get onto the more exciting stuff.

This week, in between editing texts, I went to Tilijan (an hour and a half away from Yerevan). For all those who have some appreciation of the natural world, this is the place to visit. It’s almost like walking through a picture book of beautiful sceneries—very calm, quiet and green! There, I visited the local eco-club. Eco-clubs are established all over Armenia by SunChild and serve as a supplemental place where children and young adults gather to learn English, environmental issues, film making and journalism. These children take an oath to become the stewards of their country’s natural world and strive to raise awareness for nature protection in their communities. One of their yearly projects is the production of a short film that focuses on an environmental issue. So, when I went to Dilijan on Wednesday, the children and I went around town and got some footage for their short film on mud slides. Although I only knew one of the kids from that eco-club, we quickly become acquainted and spent the day hiking around, picking fruits and getting some footage for their film. These films are later screened at many international film festivals and one from another region (Garni/Goght region) was recently chosen as a finalist for the Panda Award at ScreenWild Festival in UK (very impressive).

Thanks for reading…once again, I hope to be on the Green Bus by the time I write next Sunday but I never know.

Sunday Recap with SunChild Rebecca - June 6, 2010

Rebecca Kandilian
USA

Don’t itch. Self-control Reb!!. Put some alcohol on it. Your blood is just way too sweet. And, the best line I’ve hear this past 24 hours, compliments of my host-mom, “you look like you have some sort of a skin disease.” Thanks host-mom--very kind. No, I don’t have a skin disease but yes it does look like I do as my entire body is covered with golf ball-sized red spots thanks to a slew of mosquitoes. I guess that’s what I get for feeling way too comfortable out in the wild and laying down on the grass with just my little short-igs.

In terms of work, after last week’s hustle and bustle of filming and all, this week has been the calm AFTER the storm. The office has been terribly quiet and calm. But, we can’t relax too much as this week is also the calm BEFORE another storm (i.e. another project). So, let me tell you all about it. It is called the “green bus” project where an environmentally friendly bus equipped with educational tools (e.g. books, films, SunChild staff etc) will travel all over Armenia and make stops at different regions to educate the children of the region about various environmental issues. I, along with a colleague, will do a brief overview of marine biology and water pollution. After spending 7 days in a region we will come back to Yerevan to reload the bus and head out to another region or that’s the plan anyway. Now, the bus was supposed to leave about a week ago but as I have come to learn—nothing is for certain here in Armenia. So, I hurry up and wait for the bus to be ready so that we can start on the project. Believe me when I say that I’m not at all fond of uncertainty. I find it a bit unsettling but especially here in Armenia it is an inevitable part of life. So, I must learn to live with it.

Despite being a more of a ‘relaxed’ week, I still have had quite a bit of work to do mostly editing some texts. Or, as the director says I am quite good at ‘Americanizing’ any and all sorts of texts. At the same time, I wanted to have a day off this week to explore so I worked long and hard this week and took Friday off to explore. Where to? Well, last week, I had made a promise to a couple of the kids from the neighboring regions to visit them and Friday seemed like a good day to visit Symbad-ig—a sweet little guy. So, off I went to ‘Yeghegna-dzor’ to spend the day with Symbad and his family. There, we went swimming in the nearby river. Then, to the lake to catch some fish, cleaned the fish, cooked it and ate while I was being eaten by those lovely mosquitoes. Above all however, I was surrounded with beauty of our nature, churches and lovely people—a good way to spend my Friday.

Thanks for reading…I hope to be in the Tavoush region and not nearly as itchy by the time I write my next blog next Sunday.

Oh and don’t forget to recycle!