I visited a blind school for children today upon recommendation from a friend. However when I called the Director for an appointment, I didn�t realise I had called the blind centre and not the school. Because of this misunderstanding, when I turned up at the school, I didn�t want to take up too much time of their time since my visit was unannounced and since at the same time, the Director of the blind centre was waiting for our meeting. What a mess, but the assistants at the school were very accommodating and took us around, glad to have visitors. Not all the kids are blind at the school but those that are, are assisted by fully-sighted children who come from vulnerable families where the parents are blind, just walking along the corridors for instance. We visited some classrooms, the English classroom, breakfast room and their playroom. What can I say about the condition of the school, also served as a boarding school? I came away with mixed feelings. Joy because the children at the school have others to talk to, play with, learn to read and write Armenian Braille, and I�m told have beautiful singing voices. Sad? Well even the condition of the hallway where the parquet floor was coming apart is dangerous enough for fully sighted people let alone blind ones. Since I didn�t spend much time there, I�ll go back and actually talk to some of the kids instead of just a quick hello! By the way for photos access the following link http://home.media.am/german_avakian/str05a.html

So my next visit was to the blind centre. The Director himself is blind and he explained how the centre has evolved from Soviet times, where the blind were respected and had jobs. During Soviet times the Centre used to have performances such as plays, concerts etc. now there�s not only no performances because of lack of finances, but the blind have no jobs either. The Centre is now mainly used for a get together for games of chess and dominoes. The chessboards are especially designed for the blind. When I explained my mistake as to how I stumbled across the Centre instead of the school he told me it was a �necessary incident�.