GETTING TO THE HEART OF ARMENIA: CANADIAN YOUNG PEOPLE FIND A TRIP TO RESTORE AN OLD CHURCH BECOMES A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY
by LEVON SEVUNTS, Special to The Gazette
The Gazette (Montreal)
October 21, 2007 Sunday
Final Edition
"We’re just going to have to put our hearts into it, because it’s
not going to be a piece of cake, really not. We’ve got our work cut
out for us."
Carine Djihanian-Archambault seemed an unlikely construction foreman:
a nose-stud sparkling just above her left nostril, a T-shirt with
the sleeves cut off and the bottom tied in a knot on her trim waist,
her long slender legs more fit for the catwalk than hauling heavy
buckets of construction waste.
But the 20-year-old model and Concordia University student knew what
she was talking about as she stood in a dilapidated 19th century
Armenian church that reeked of mould and neglect.
Djihanian-Archambault, who’s doing a double major in arts and
communications, was a veteran of the 2005 Canadian Youth Mission to
Armenia (CYMA) and she had already renovated a church in a neighbouring
village.
Outside, a group of villagers dressed in their Sunday best took
shelter from the 40C heat in the shadow of walnut trees across the
street. Even storks had fled their nests on the tops of utility poles.
The inhabitants of the village of Gaï, nestled in the middle of Ararat
valley, about 20 kilometres west of Yerevan, Armenia’s capital,
watched with curiosity as a group of 45 excited Canadian teenagers
prepared for their first day of work in their ancestral homeland.
Djihanian-Archambault walked out of the church and a group of teenagers
followed her like ducklings.
"That’s mould in the wall," she said, pointing to white lines that
stretched all across the brown tufa stone wall around the church like
a cardiogram line.
"Do you see the gutters? They are cracked," she said. "That means
every time it rains, the water is going into the wall, which is
causing that! Mould!"
In the church the dampness had penetrated the thick layer of plaster,
turning it into a flaky grime.
The Sourb Nshan (Holy Sign) church was last renovated in 1974 by a
local couple. But since Armenia’s independence 16 years ago, Gaï –
once a prosperous village and a model Soviet collective farm – has
fallen on hard times. The villagers barely eke out a living growing
vegetables on their privatized plots of land. They had no money to
repave the main road or fix the church.
"We’re going to work from 9 until lunchtime," Djihanian-Archambault
said. "We’re going to stop for an hour and a half, two hours,
depending on how hot it is. And then we’re going to come back and,
depending on how much work we have, our resources and temperature,
we might be here until between five and seven."
The enormity of the task slowly sank in and the excited chatter of
the teenagers from across Canada sank to a whisper.
For most, this was their first trip to Armenia. As they stood in the
sweltering heat with the majestic view of the snow-capped Mount Ararat
in the background, the prospect of backbreaking work seemed to pale in
comparison with the adventure of discovering their ancestral homeland.
Just the day before, on the way from the airport to Gaï, they had
visited the fourth century cathedral at the Holy Sea of Etchmiadzin,
the Armenian equivalent of the Vatican and St. Peter’s Basilica.
Some were reduced to tears as they listened to the morning service,
lit candles and caressed the ancient stones of the cathedral built
in 303 by St. Gregory the Illuminator, the founder of the Armenian
Church, who saw in his vision Christ descend from heaven on that spot
(Etchmiadzin in ancient Armenian means "The Only Begotten Descended."
Every year for the past 14 years, the Armenian Diocese of Canada
has sent groups of young people to Armenia to work on humanitarian
missions. Past missions have rebuilt schools and kindergartens,
renovated ancient churches and worked with underprivileged children.
But for Bishop Bagrat Galstanian, the youthful and energetic head
of the Montreal-based diocese, these trips are more than just about
humanitarian work. As he chaperoned the CYMA group around the ancient
monastic complex, he said he hoped these missions can help build an
emotional and spiritual connection to the homeland and the Armenian
church to stop the process of assimilation in Canada.
The stakes are very high, he said. The multicultural reality of Canada
presents a very difficult challenge for the Armenian community. Unlike
the Middle East, where religious and cultural differences acted as
an additional barrier to assimilation, Canada’s openness – the very
thing that makes Canada such a welcoming place – makes it harder to
resist cultural assimilation.
Armenian leaders in Canada worry that, having survived the genocide
in Ottoman Turkey in 1915 and the ensuing dispersal, the Armenian
community in Canada, one of the most vibrant in the worldwide diaspora,
will simply lose its language and culture within couple of generations.
But such missions are also a huge gamble.
Armenia’s reality is very far from the romantic notion of homeland
these youths were brought up with. Most have known Armenia
only as this mythical country of their great-grandparents who survived
the genocide. In fact, Armenia that their ancestors fled is on the
other side of the border, in modern-day Turkey.
People speak a different dialect of Armenian. It’s a country that is
emerging after 70 years of Soviet rule, a devastating earthquake in
1988 and a costly but victorious war against Azerbaijan in 1991-1994.
In Gaï, volunteers were placed with host families. Living conditions
in the rundown village were a far cry from the comforts the volunteers
were used to in Canada: a hose from a ceiling
instead of the shower, in most cases an outhouse instead of a "real"
toilet.
Add to this a hot and dry climate and huge disparities between the
few who have made it rich in this new IMF-inspired capitalist system
and the majority who are struggling to get by.
Despite all these problems, the volunteers will come out of their
month-long stay with a better understanding of their roots, said
Talar Chichmanian, chairperson of CYMA and group leader of the mission.
Chichmanian, 34, a Montreal-based financial planner in her "real"
life, spoke about the impact the mission had on Canadian teenagers as
we sat for a chat in the courtyard of "Canada House," the mission’s
temporary headquarters and the mess hall in Gaï.
"I think that their hearts have been opened, wide-wide opened," she
said, her deep alto voice coarse from a cold and constant strain of
trying to outspeak 45 teenagers.
"And I think that they realize that, despite the fact that they live
in Canada, that they have grown up in Canada and they speak English –
and some of them don’t understand too much Armenian – that they own
this country. This is their land. This is their home."
Djihanian-Archambault said that in the beginning it was very difficult
adapting to the new environment but her first trip changed her.
"Honestly, I came here two years ago as a little teenager who just
wanted to get away from my family and rules," she said. "I came back
doing dishes and giving a helping hand any moment. It’s incredible what
a trip like this does; not only do you learn from your own culture,
but you grow up."
With her blond hair and Baltic blue eyes, Sossi Papazyan, 19, doesn’t
look very Armenian but she said she kissed the ground the first time
she landed in Armenia.
She said she owes her distinctly Scandinavian looks to her Swedish
mother. But it is the Armenian heritage that attracts her the most,
she said.
"To be honest, I don’t speak Swedish, I don’t know any of their
traditions, I’ve been raised 100 per cent Armenian," she said. "Ever
since I was a little kid my grandmother taught us how to cook the
Armenian foods and brought us to church every Sunday."
Having grown up in Vancouver, she was expecting Armenia to be a lot
more foreign.
"But it felt like I was coming home," she said. "The words cannot
really describe it. It’s like this inner peace that comes upon you."
What brought her back for another gruelling mission was the warmth
of its people, she said.
"They’ve opened their homes and hearts to us," she said. "They don’t
even know who we are, we’re strangers from a completely foreign
country, yet we walk down the street and five people are, like,
‘Come in, have coffee, have something to eat.’
"On the way to work you have to stop in five different places and
eat five different breakfasts. They have nothing, yet they try to
give you absolutely everything they have. It’s unbelievable."
Djihanian-Archambault admitted not every experience in Armenia has
been fun. Armenia’s patriarchal culture can feel oppressive for a
Western woman, she said.
The group went through a municipal pool and there were absolutely no
women there: not because they are not allowed, but because it’s not
well regarded, Djihanian-Archambault said.
"Every now then you come across a priest who is extremely stern and
backward and will tell you, ‘You have to marry an Armenian.’ And I’ll
look at them and tell, ‘Well, my mother is an ‘otar’ (foreigner),
how do you feel about that?
"And I tell them, ‘Even if I marry a half-Armenian, an ‘otar,’ the
point is to teach my kids Armenian, to teach them their culture,
where they come from and where their ancestors came from, and the
rich culture that they have."
However, Chichmanian said, every CYMA participant she talked to
was surprised about how much love they carry for their heritage in
their hearts.
"What they have taken away from this experience will never leave them,"
she said. "I think that the impact on their souls was tenfold.
It’s more than just a renovation project, it’s more than breaking
and pouring cement, and standing doors and windows.
"It truly is about the journey."
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