Greetings from a rookie (b)logger

I’ve been meaning to sign on this log page since my husband Raffi (no, not K. nor N., but Doud.) moved to Armenia from Canada in 2004. I’m not a very eloquent writer, but I do feel that I need to voice my 2 cents on many of the adventures we have (and continue to) stumbled upon. I never felt compelled to log my experiences when living in other transitional and developing countries, so why start now? In reading the logs of so many of you in the past couple of years, I have felt a certain harmony that I could not feel with any other. In reading your stories, I would constantly nod or giggle on my own and pleasantly agree or disagree with your thoughts while living in this love/hate place we call Hayrenik.

We did not move here with the illusion of ‘helping’ this country or strengthening its social-economy. On the contrary, we felt that Armenia could help us in many ways. We knew that our new lifestyle here would not be easy but tell me of a place in this world where it would be (who wants to pay life-long mortgages just to have a relatively decent home in humdrum suburbia that you cannot even enjoy since you spend more time on the road in traffic?). One thing is for sure: here I don’t have to continuously struggle to remain Armenian or make endless efforts to explain and justify what my language/history/geography/ethno-background is to my non-Armenian colleagues.

Growing up in the Diaspora for me was like being imprisoned in the body of a Chinook salmon – an endangered species constantly migrating from one water to the next; swimming against strong currents facing many obstacles especially by menacing predators; then finally journeying back to the stream where it was born just to spawn.

I know that I’m still not in my ‘stream’, and no matter how ‘endangered’ this stream may be, we’ve made it our home and making the most of it.

My 2 cents…