My War diaries - October #ArtsakhStrong

On September 27, 2020 Azerbaijan has declared war on the civil population of Artsakh in the middle of a global pandemic. Since then,  the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh has been bombarded heavily, cities, hospitals, kindergartens, schools and civilian residences. Thousands are being killed including soldiers and civilians, more than 60 000 have been displaced from their homes, mostly women, children and elderly...

I kept a diary of these days, while I was engaged like many of us in Yerevan on providing humanitarian aid to the refugees and those affected by the conflict. 

I am reposting here my previous posts, so I remember...

October 1 - Day 5 of war: the worst part these days is to wake up to the suffocating uncertainty and fear each morning.

After managing a few hours of sleep, send a message to loved ones in NK, hold your breath and wait with anxiety for them to respond that they are ok.

Then quickly and hysterically go over the news feed or whatever info available(not much) to try figure out how worse the situation became in the few hours that you passed out, hoping that damages are scarce, not more than what your heart can handle.

Then try to breathe...

October 3 - Day 7 of war. I don’t know what to feel anymore, fear? Panic? Sadness? Anger? This morning I am thinking about the aftermath of all this. If we stay alive and sane, How are we going once more to deal with all the consequences that war leaves behind, losses, destruction, dismantled infrastructures, destroyed homes, orphaned children, widowed women, the hate, broken bodies, broken souls...

The already extremely sad entrance walls of schools will be filled once more of new fresh photos of fathers, uncles and brothers of kids, who were killed these days. And children will walk in their classrooms under the heavy gazes of these portraits remembering each and every day those who are no more with us.

those among us who survive this, will spend another lifetime cleaning up after all the mess that war will leave behind, pick up the pieces, try to restore and heal the souls... reconstructing the roads and houses would be the easiest part, it’s the rest that I am afraid of.

Many of you are writing asking how to help. If I don’t answer back, it is because honestly I don’t know how...but it helps a lot that you are asking and offering support.

Talk about what’s happening here among your circles. Donate to

Hayastan All Armenian Fund Հայաստան համահայկական հիմնադրամ

to ensure the humanitarian aid. Check on your friends, relatives here, talk to them if you can.

Yesterday, I was practicing with my kids what to do during an emergency air raid. It is so sad to see how children grow up so fast in these situations.

I wish I could predict the end of this war in the coffee cup, i wish it was as easy as that, I wish I had all the answers and appease everyone...but there is so little I can do and feeling so empty right now.

40+

I will be 40 this year, in a couple of months.

I am not usually someone who is concerned with the idea of getting old. I rarely think of myself as soon-to-be 40 year old. But oddly enough, these past weeks I have been thinking a lot about that.

 I was watching my body in the mirror the other day and suddenly it hit me. I was getting old. Like something I have never imagined would happen.

In Armenia, a woman over 40 has 2 options – in general- and I am not talking here about exceptions: 1- becomes a grandmother and devotes her life to her grandchildren, 2- if single and unemployed, she will have lots of difficulties finding her place in this society where being a mother and a wife is the most important status that a woman can achieve. 

vanished life

She served the best tea in Shushi. I always visited her during my stay there. It was a long process; at first she boiled the water in this old samovar, then prepared the concentrated tea in a small Chinese teapot with red magnolias design on it. Then she took out the beautiful set of blue teacups, gently kept in an old shoebox under her bed. And the final touch was the delicious raspberry jam prepared from freshly picked fruits of her garden that she presented in a very antique crystal jars.

Everything was so neat in her small one bedroom house and everything smelled of fresh lavender and mint. The old and broken windows were covered with hand sewed flowery curtains. The kitchen didn’t have running water and lacked basic necessities but she managed well and improvised a cooking area and a small container for washing the dishes with water, poured manually from another small metallic container fixed on the wall. The bedroom was very simple and dark. A large bed was placed on one corner covered with different kinds of covers, sheets and pillows all neatly folded. On the other side small carpets lied on the floor to cover the wholes of the wooden floor. But what impressed me most was the silence in this house and the inertia. It seemed to me that nobody really lived there.

But somebody did live there; her name is Laura, she is an Armenian refugee from Baku, Azerbaijan. She managed to flee the city, just before the war started. She left all her belongings there. The only thing she took with her was that old shoebox with the tea set and some of her official papers, a couple of family photos and the key of her apartment there.

Every time I visit her, I find her well dressed and groomed as if she is invited to a big party. In this cold, devastated and grey city of Shushi, her colorful make-up looks almost ridiculous. She tells me in a sad voice: “ I grew up in a big city, you know, I went to University there, had lots of friends, went to all this different parties and had a wonderful time” then she will add in a very sad voice, “but it will never be the same again, you know? After the war, a lot happened. My life changed completely. I don’t have most of my relatives, my friends are lost too, I feel so lonely”, then she sweeps off a tear, try to smile again.

Once I asked her, why she decided to bring the tea set? She smiled but this time her smile made me uncomfortable. “It was my wedding gift which did never occurred…he never came back, but I couldn’t leave it there, I just couldn’t”

After the tea ceremony, Laura washes everything very gently. She puts the teacups in the old shoebox and back in their place under the bed. These short scarce moments of happiness help her continue living a life she never chose.

Do we care?

Diguine(Mrs) Sissee was born in 1957, in the Yezidi-Kurdish village of Alagyaz in Armenia. As was the tradition in her culture, her future husband kidnapped her on her way to school, when she was 15 years old. He locked her one full day in his house to ruin her reputation (having spent a day in a stranger’s house without someone chaperoning her was enough to presume that she was no longer virgin and not suitable to get married to someone else),
Her wedding was followed by the traditional “apple throwing on the new bride” ceremony, where the bride stands in the middle of a circle of people and mainly the mother-in-law throws apples towards her head to test the new bride’s strength. If the young woman stays still and despite the injuries on her head does not fall or loose conscious, it means that she will be a good and strong wife and will bear healthy children’s. And so was Diguine Sisee, she didn’t move a bit, even though it was hurting like hell and her head was almost numb.
She didn’t even smile during her wedding; a good bride should show modesty and is not festive during her own wedding and stays as silent as possible. She didn’t want to cause any shame for her parents.

After the birth of her 3rd child, diguine Sisse did not want to get pregnant anymore, since the village life was becoming harsher; the Textile manufactory where she used to work was closed and the family’s economic situation was becoming more and more difficult. Diguine Sissee was the only breadwinner of the family and continued supporting everyone by working from her home, baking bread for the villagers while her husband wasted most of the money on alcohol.

With the passing years and two other unwanted pregnancies, diguine Sissee’s health worsened; at first she complained about hearth problems, high blood pressure which eventually affected her whole organism. For the past 10 years, diguine Sissee couldn’t visit any clinic; none were available in her village. After menopause, she was suffering from a prolapsed uterus, meaning her cervix was almost coming out of her vagina. Doing harsh physical work everyday continuously and bearing lots of weight for her regular tasks worsened her condition gradually. Her body was in pain, she couldn’t urinate normally and her heart was not feeling good. Every time she was putting aside some money to see a doctor, somebody would need it urgently; school tuition had to be paid, the electricity, child cold had to be treated with expensive antibiotics, birth of grand-children, etc.
…
When for the first time I set foot in the village of Alagyaz, it was to know more the place and meet a former volunteer who use to come to our Women’s Center.
Three weeks later we were back to conduct a sexual health and reproductive seminar for the young women in the village. Diguine Sissee was waiting for us in front of the school entrance and as soon as we finished the course, she approached us intimidated at first, with a forced smile on her face, hiding her pain. We couldn’t do much that day. We felt helpless. We only advised her to go to the hospital. But she already had done that. She told us that the hospital was a little far, she walked there one full day, and when she arrived, they told her she had to pay 1000 US for surgery. Which she did not have and that was 5 years ago. Now the pain was unbearable.
Anush, one of our trainers on sexual health was not ready to surrender. She inquired everywhere, even called the ministry of health and finally found out that diguine Sissee was eligible for free surgery (because of her social and health status). Overwhelmed by happiness, Anush took the 4 hours trip to the village to announce the good news and accompany diguine Sissee with all the necessary papers to the hospital.
…
Today, Diguine Sissee is no longer with us. Her heart surrendered in a very cold February afternoon. The doctor refused to operate a couple of months ago, stating that her health condition was very bad and she couldn’t survive a surgery, and that would have been possible only a couple of years ago…when they did ask her 1000 US for the surgery. How ironic!
Anush was devastated. She grew attached to the middle-aged woman for the past months.
When we heard the bad news, we looked at each other, couldn’t talk and were thinking …if we only met her a couple of years ago.

Women are still dying in the villages of Armenia (and in other villages) because of the lack of basic health services.
And what are we doing about it?

I don't want to get old in Armenia

Julietta is born in 1934, She is my downstair’s neighbor. When I moved to my new apartment 2 years ago, Julietta was cleaning the entrance and talking to everyone passing by. I smiled at her and went up to my apartment. From that day, she always chats with me when I leave the apartment and tells me that she went to the church and prayed for me and for my children(I think she says the same thing to everyone in the building).
Julietta lives alone in her one bedroom apartment. She spends her days on the stairs or in the pak , collecting things from garbage cans, papers and pieces of rags from the streets. I never understood what she was doing with all that stuff. But one day, as I was walking down the stairs, her door was open, so I peeked inside saying “hello”. The first thing that struck me was the smell, an unbelievable smell, a mix of urine, dirt and old things. It was horrible, I couldn't go inside, the entrance was blocked with all kinds of stuff, from old soviet refrigerator to thousands of different size and color nylon bags filled with things. The whole apartment was full to the ceiling with all kind of items: bottles filled with water, dresses, curtains, boxes, newspapers books, food containers, empty cans, nylon bags filled with garbage that she did not have time to open yet, broken toys, I even saw my old stuff, everything I threw for the past 8 months.
OMG, I thought, poor lady, what is she trying to do? There was no place in her house to sit or to lie, everywhere filled with filthy old stuff from other people’s garbage.
I thought she was alone with no family and since Armenia doesn’t have adequate support for elderly people and even less for elderly suffering from Alzheimer or other mental disabilities, the only thing to do was to survive in a way in this dumpster that she was immersing in day after day. I gave her some money to light a candle in church (her favorite activity) and run quickly upstairs because the smell was becoming unbearable.


Four days ago, I returned from Shushi and as I was taking my stuff up to my apartment with my whole family, I saw her sitting on the stairs with her door open and half of her things and collection outside on the stairs all the way up to my floor.
She was crying. The neighbor downstairs was renovating his apartment and needed to go inside her apartment to do the plumbing. Since they couldn’t enter, the door was stuck behind all her stuff; they helped her put part of her things outside.
For the past 5 days she is trying to organize her belongings (her garbage) and sleeping on the stairs to guard her things so nobody can steal them.

Julietta needs help. She doesn’t have water in her apartment, she doesn’t have money, she doesn’t shower and she is forgetting lots of stuff. She has a daughter and a son that she did not see for the past years even though she says the opposite. She has neighbors who are loosing patience since the smell coming from her and the apartment is awful .
For the past couple of days I am trying to think what to do to help her. Calling the police is out of question, since they don’t know how to treat people with dignity, specially people like her. Social services did not call back. She is not giving me her daughter’s number or her son’s, saying that they are busy with their families.
Today I covered my nose with a handkerchief and entered her apartment to open the windows to let the air enter. A group of cockroaches fled away instantly from the open window, even they couldn’t bear the smell and the mess.
Julietta is not alone, there are lots of elderly people like this in Armenia, some on the streets begging, and others lonely in their houses without any support or human touch.

We say we are a nation who respect the elders and takes care of them…in the meantime some of them are just waiting that death comes and spares them the unbearable shame they are left with.