The girl with the million-dollar-smile

Yesterday I set out to visit Elada and her family together with C., my boyfriend and B., the Icelandic girl volunteering inYerevan. They live in a village between Massis and Echmiadzin. Elada's mom Rada had explained to us that the direct bus from Yerevan to their village leaves from somewhere near Tashir / GUM. Even after following her directions and asking around (which didn't help us much as everone gave us different directions), we were still unable to find the busstop. So we went over to the marshrutka-stop for Massis where we asked again. At the stop, a woman waiting for the marshrutka asked us where we were going. It turned out she was going to the same village and knew the people we were going to visit (well, after all we are talking about a village here where most likely everyone knows each other...;-) ). She explained that we should take the marshrutka to Massis and change there to the bus to Echmiadzin, which would be faster than the direct bus to the village anyway. So we followed her and about 45 minutes later we were at the village. The woman pointed us in the right direction and after asking around a bit more, two girls (who were sent out by Rada to meet us, as she told us later) brought us to Rada's house, on the edge of the village. Rada later told us, this house was not their own. They were borrowing it, so as not to have to live in their own tiny quarters in the dormitory (obshchezhitie in Russian) with the other refugees living in the village. As I wrote in my earlier post about this family, they are refugees from Baku. The house they now live in, is a big three room house, with hardly anything in it, apart from beds, a table and some chairs. No gas, no running water. The family has their own big garden in which they grow everything.

It turned out to be the birthday of Rada's eldest daughter, something Rada hadn't told us when she invited us last week. We had a wonderful time with Rada, Elada, Rada's other daughter and her son, Rada's youngest sister and mom. All day we were laughing, talking, dancing, eating, drinking, having fun. Elada was her usual optimistic, laughing, witty, intelligent self. When Elada laughs, the whole rooms lights up, she has such a wonderful, captivating smile. My boyfriend dubbed her the girl with the million-dollar-smile. The way this girls accepts her accident, the operation afterwards, the fact that she has to learn to walk again, wow! I know I wouldn't be able to take things the way she does. When we were talking about her accident (she slipped and fell down a hill during a school excursion), she said, with her wonderful laugh: "Oh you know, I just found a very fast way to go down the hill." With her optimism and strong will, I am convinced this girl will make something of her life. Elada really is something special.

Saying goodbye in the evening was very hard, especially for C. He is returning to Holland on Friday, but will spend the remaining days in Spitak so he won't see the family again. However, I am sure B., my boyfriend and I will be visiting them more often. Before we left, Rada insisted on giving us fruit and vegetables from her garden. We kept protesting, but it seemed the more we protested, the more Rada wanted to give us. So we left with two big bags filled with apples, pears, peaches, corn, parsley, tomatoes, cucumbers and green peppers fresh from the garden.

I just realized that, while writing this, all the time I had a big smile on my face.