This summer, feeling as though I would die from loneliness when home alone in Hrazdan, I took my fiddle, guitar, crayons, paper and story books out to the vacant areas outside of the old Russian high rise apartment buildings. I just showed up and the children started gathering. We met every evening at 6:00 p.m. It started with one child and ended up with sometimes thirty.
Outside of the high rises in the summer is like the old US projects (as we called them) in the 1950s. Children playing outside on summer evenings. Here, no-one worries about child abductions. Children are just outside playing. There are no organized neighborhood activities here. So, we sang, we danced the hokey pokey, Old MacDonald, I read stories, and the children colored pictures.
Coloring . . . At this point no place to sit or a table...
A young PC volunteer Andrea Grant was visiting
and she was great with the kids....
Andrea teaches the Hokey Pokey while I play the guitar.
Fine Artwork :-)
Time with the children...
And more....
I finally confiscated the table in the little park where
the old men smoke, drink and play cards. I persuaded them
to give me the table with much difficulty... Armenian
women do NOT tell Armenian men what to do.. But being
an American woman I did it and they left...but not happily..
My dear Armenian friend Gayane translates for me while
I read a story and then start an activity.. you can see the
men in the background waiting to get their table back :-)
When school started September first I ended the evening camp. However, the children still came knocking at my door, asking if we were going to sing and color.
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