Recently I’ve been kept by the idea of going to a village and spending a week there. First thing which pushed me to that thinking was to have some rest which I still don’t manage to have after my classes, examination period and on top of all the course paper which I have to hand in September, but I’m still working on it.
After being to Drakhtik village I had my old recollections drove back and remembered the happy time I spent every summer in Ilan-Chalan village in Aparan. I was a 12-13 years old girl then but everyone would take me for a boy, that is because I was always with boys, running, climbing high trees, jumping from the garden fences when I was not allowed to go out, stealing fruit from a neighbor’s garden, standing a guard over my relative’s garden and riding my favorite horse called Kassandra.. And not to forget to mention one thing which I was always ashamed to tell to my classmates after the holidays, because I had a fear that they’d make fun out of it. Anyways, now I even feel like telling everyone that I was a shepherd girl for a while and along with other girls we would take the sheep to the fields and hills. Those were the most joyous years if I recollect now.
Having the village sight in front of my eyes for a moment I felt that I miss those years so much that now I’m only captured by the idea to spend some time at a village. This city life may kill you if you live there for a long time. Now I’m so tired of that raising ugly buildings, cafes instead of trees, traffic mess and noise, asphalt instead of grass that my only desire for the moment is to run away from this place which is becoming a hell now.
Those resting houses are not what I need as well because I also want to escape from the people from the capital who always think that they are somewhat privileged if they have money to have their rest at an expensive resting house in Jermuk, Tsakhkadzor or Dilidjan. This isn’t rest however, it is something to show off and by the time they come back they only count the amount of money they spent there and kind of boasting tell it worldwide. They, people who don’t forget to take to a resting place all their golden jewelry and put them on each on their turn, as a rule, never rest for resting. The only thing they care about is the image, only, the vainglory and idle vaunt. I want nothing which will remind me of the city life and those people.
If you are a foreigner and want to learn about a country’s real life, never stay in the capital or in a big city, go to a village and you’ll be given an ample opportunity to study that country in its real colors. Villagers are precisely those people who preserve the moral, culture, tradition in their invariants. You want to find a person presenting the face of the country, find them among the same villagers and not among the city-dwellers and in the city, where everything is so confusing, exasperating and not understandable.
The city is a cheap killer who acts so slowly and with an extreme caution, that the victim is not even aware of it. It is like a poison which goes into the blood so warily and hits the person when it is too late to take measures. But it kills not the person but the human.
It is not accidentally that I had this thoughts again. A friend’s sister invited me to her place. They live in Ararati Marz, Gyugh Darakert, it is not so far from Yerevan, 15-20 minutes by car. They are such good people, brilliant, open-hearted, hospitable. They work on the soil the whole day and it’s hard but they do it with love, and they still preserve those human features. As soon as we got there I started watching around and couldn’t restrain myself from gathering apples, raspberry and blackberry and eating on the spot. My fingers were all black though. Then I asked for a cellophane and started gathering verdure called ‘dandur’ which they pull out and throw though it is eatable, but many people don’t, however that is my favorite dish when prepared with garlic and vinegar, or garlic and matsoun. They don’t know what they lose. Yammii… But nothing will give the pleasure of pulling a tomato directly from the plant and eating it right there with village made lavash and cheese. In the end of the day, when it was night , the electricity was turned off and the remarkable day was concluded by the candle burning in the middle of the room and enlightening the cozy house and people around it telling different stories. And this completed the village-life canvas.
I want to call back those years, I want to work on the soil, I want to water the plants, gather the fruit, feed the animal. I wish it so much… Though I’m afraid that the city life has spoilt me in a way and I can’t do the things the way I used to. But the city still kills me with its everyday problems. I want to escape, but can I?
Probably people living in villages want to escape from that life and live in the city. Can they?
Life is funny. Or it is funny how it appeals to different people.
Don’t kill me, I’m your dweller, do you care? I do care, so I escape…
