About my life in Armenia, about being a mom and an activist, working for women's rights.
The challenges and benefits of raising a family in a post-soviet republic.
Finding a place, my place and calling it HOME.

7.5.11

The “boks” or the hospital of angry nurses


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Right after the birth and especially when it is a c-section, you need to spend some time in the intensive care unit that here, we call the “boks” in Russian, for me it sounded like the “box” and looked really like one. 
During my first birthing experience in Armenia at the Erebuni Hospital in 2005, that “boks” was awful. It was a big room with 10-12 beds. Instead of curtains, the windows were painted in brown so the sun doesn’t bother the patients. There was an old soviet era refrigerator in one corner which was making a horrific trembling sound every 5 minutes or so while water was dripping constantly from the faucet beside the door where I had to spend 10 long dreadful hours. When you just had surgery all these noises sound even worse.  To all this, add the moans of women in pain and their pleas for help, morphine, or something to drink. However, I was trying to concentrate on the idea of meeting my baby and trying to forget all the pain in and around me