First Days of Camp Askeran

The first few days of camp in Askeran could not have gone better. Well actually that’s a lie, it definitely could have.

First off it’s hot in Artsakh; like really hot. So hot that the water breaks often turn into water fights.

Second the Arstakh bar-bar is nearly impossible to understand and the kids just laugh when we don’t get it. For some reason they just expect us to understand that ‘oonts es’ means the same thing as ‘vonce es’, or that ‘lav le’ means the same as ‘lav eli’.

And thirdly, the kids are really cleaver and they often figure out ways around our rules to switch classrooms to be in the same color as their friends.

This all sounds like I’m complaining but I’m not. These past few days, in all honesty, have been the some of the greatest days in my life. I had often heard about the kids here, but I was able to see how smart these kids are, how nationalistic these kids are, and how open they are to learning more.

For example, today we suggested a song to sing that not all the kids knew; yet all of the kids, even the ones that didn’t know the song, were singing loud and proud. I was really able to see the love these kids have for the their country and what it stands for. I consider myself lucky that I am able to live and work with these kids for the next two weeks and experience the same things they experience on a daily basis.

I cannot wait to see what these kids will gain in the next two weeks and I really can’t wait to see what I will gain.

– Areni