Tonight my contactor and I went to our truck driver�s house to discuss work and some minor repairs that need to be done to the dump truck.
My truck driver lives in a private 2 story house with part of the upstairs fixed up. He has a wife, 2 sons and a sister-in-law living with there.
The sister-in-law is 28 years old and widowed. Her husband was killed in battle on April 10th, 1994. Her 2 children live in Russia with relatives, as she was psychologically unfit to care for them after the death of her husband. She was also injured prior to his death when a bomb fell near their house. From 1994 until last year, or the year before, as a widow of a martyred solider, she is entitled to medical treatment each year in the sum of some $200, which paid for the medicine to control her condition and I guess was doing a fine job. Recently her entitlement was reduced to $100 and the treatment was changed to some new medicine, which cost less and is suppose to be more helpful. In the years following her husbands death, she never left the house. Now with the new medication, she goes out and wanders the streets, walking up to people she does not know and just laughs for no reason. I noticed her last Saturday walking back and forth in the parking lot of the main government building and in her arms she had her sweater bundled up, holding it in her arms and talking to it. I happened to bring the subject up to a friend of mine yesterday as to what I had seen and he said that she does that to compensate her being separated from her children, acting as if she is holding her baby (who I�m sure is now grown up and too big to hold that way). So my driver asked me if it would be difficult to find a sponsor to cure her? I asked what it would take and he said in Stepanagert they have an acupuncture clinic that they say can heal her once and for all for a total cost of 150,000 drams (about $260). He said that they were told to find a sponsor in America or some other place that could pay for it and they would heal her. I asked about any entitlement that she gets for being a widow of a martyred solider? He said that he knows she should be entitled to this, but after getting the runaround, this is what they were told to do. So tomorrow, I�m going to call my buddy the Minister of Social Services to see what we are going to do about this? If I don�t get the answer I�m looking for, I�ll give the President�s office a call and see if he is in need of another good deed (it�s an election year you know).
As we were talking, I could hear their youngest son in the other room doing his homework of reciting patriotic Armenian writings. I�m not sure whose writings they were, but I could hear all his energy going into it. I was listening to this little boy and thinking that in America our Armenian children that go to public school (and maybe even private school) are not enriched with such nationalistic materials. To me it was such a beautiful sound to hear and just one more reason for me to raise my family here.
When his youngest son finished, he joined us and I asked him the standard question of how old he was and what grade he is in school and so on. He is almost 8 years old and in the 1st grade (they start school when they are 7 years old). It turns out that his name is Avo, being named after our beloved Monte �Avo� Melkonian. Avo�s brother is named Antranig, who is 10 years old and in the 3rd grade. I asked him if he was baptized and his mother said yes, he was baptized on June 12th, 2000, on the 7th anniversary of Monte martyrdom. I turned to Avo and asked him who his godfather is? With a timid smile on his face, he said �you�. So now I�ve found two of the 7 children that were baptized that year (his brother Antranig was also baptized that year).
I�ll tell the godfather/baptism story some other time.
My truck driver lives in a private 2 story house with part of the upstairs fixed up. He has a wife, 2 sons and a sister-in-law living with there.
The sister-in-law is 28 years old and widowed. Her husband was killed in battle on April 10th, 1994. Her 2 children live in Russia with relatives, as she was psychologically unfit to care for them after the death of her husband. She was also injured prior to his death when a bomb fell near their house. From 1994 until last year, or the year before, as a widow of a martyred solider, she is entitled to medical treatment each year in the sum of some $200, which paid for the medicine to control her condition and I guess was doing a fine job. Recently her entitlement was reduced to $100 and the treatment was changed to some new medicine, which cost less and is suppose to be more helpful. In the years following her husbands death, she never left the house. Now with the new medication, she goes out and wanders the streets, walking up to people she does not know and just laughs for no reason. I noticed her last Saturday walking back and forth in the parking lot of the main government building and in her arms she had her sweater bundled up, holding it in her arms and talking to it. I happened to bring the subject up to a friend of mine yesterday as to what I had seen and he said that she does that to compensate her being separated from her children, acting as if she is holding her baby (who I�m sure is now grown up and too big to hold that way). So my driver asked me if it would be difficult to find a sponsor to cure her? I asked what it would take and he said in Stepanagert they have an acupuncture clinic that they say can heal her once and for all for a total cost of 150,000 drams (about $260). He said that they were told to find a sponsor in America or some other place that could pay for it and they would heal her. I asked about any entitlement that she gets for being a widow of a martyred solider? He said that he knows she should be entitled to this, but after getting the runaround, this is what they were told to do. So tomorrow, I�m going to call my buddy the Minister of Social Services to see what we are going to do about this? If I don�t get the answer I�m looking for, I�ll give the President�s office a call and see if he is in need of another good deed (it�s an election year you know).
As we were talking, I could hear their youngest son in the other room doing his homework of reciting patriotic Armenian writings. I�m not sure whose writings they were, but I could hear all his energy going into it. I was listening to this little boy and thinking that in America our Armenian children that go to public school (and maybe even private school) are not enriched with such nationalistic materials. To me it was such a beautiful sound to hear and just one more reason for me to raise my family here.
When his youngest son finished, he joined us and I asked him the standard question of how old he was and what grade he is in school and so on. He is almost 8 years old and in the 1st grade (they start school when they are 7 years old). It turns out that his name is Avo, being named after our beloved Monte �Avo� Melkonian. Avo�s brother is named Antranig, who is 10 years old and in the 3rd grade. I asked him if he was baptized and his mother said yes, he was baptized on June 12th, 2000, on the 7th anniversary of Monte martyrdom. I turned to Avo and asked him who his godfather is? With a timid smile on his face, he said �you�. So now I�ve found two of the 7 children that were baptized that year (his brother Antranig was also baptized that year).
I�ll tell the godfather/baptism story some other time.
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