Reflections after a trip to Armenia

August 1990
Cape Cod, MA.
2:00 A.M.

It is six weeks since I returned from my 5th trip to Armenia after the earthquake. I've been unable to write about the trip. The reason is now clear. The response to my previous writings has been overwhelming. Friends have been asking me - when ... when we will read about this last trip? The diaries have been kept, but somehow what I have written in them is not what I want to say. Tonight, unable to sleep, the sentences start forming in my head. It becomes clear that trying to sleep is futile. I am ready to write.

This afternoon George and I viewed a video I brought back from Armenia of Dr. Garen Koloyan's sports camp organized for a small group of children who survived the earthquake little over one year ago. The video showed a young boy about 10 years old, with no arms, at the summer camp learning to swim. Other children had no hands or no feet or only one leg. Some were missing both a leg and an arm. They were in a dynamic setting -learning to swim, sail, and learning how to smile again and have fun. The video went on to show these children at winter camp. Now their task set before them was even more difficult than learning to swim -- now they were learning to ski!

The truth is that for the last six weeks I have been trying to distance myself from the needs in Armenia. My tears have gone dry, my energy depleted. It is time, I thought, to reclaim. some semblance of "normal" life,so that every conversation, every phone call, and every waking minute is not about 'Armenia'. For the last six weeks I have been hoping , to put it simply, Armenia would just go away as if there had been no earthquake, no Karabagh, no friends, no commitments, no ties, no handicapped children, no babies!

But, it is not to be. While watching Dr. Koloyan's video my tears flowed again. But more than that, the commitment to continue the work was renewed. No matter how tired, we cannot walk away at this critical time. No matter how frustrated by the enormous difficulties encountered , we cannot fatigue. No matter how disillusioned we may become by the lack of cooperation here in the diaspora, we can not stop.

The symbolism of mutilated children struggling to overcome their handicaps is powerful. The symbolism of Dr. Koloyan's work is equally powerful: challenging the traditional attitudes, forging new approaches, working night and day, the joy of these children his only reward. This is the hope of a new Armenia, of a new era.