BY MASHELLE KIRKMAN
I’m an English teacher and College Counselor at Rose and Alex Pilibos Armenian School, where I share a love of language and culture with my students. Seven years ago, I was allowed to travel with my junior class to Armenia. On that trip, I cried and bonded with my students in ways that I never thought possible, especially since I’m not Armenian. I even had the chance to see Artsakh. By the end of the trip, I was given an Armenian surname (Kirkmanian), and I felt like an honorary Armenian. This last month, I was allowed to make the same journey with my students, but it was vastly different this time.
Since my last visit, Yerevan has changed. It’s more advanced, and the growth has been tremendous, but you can feel the sadness surrounding the loss of Artsakh. On our third day, we traveled to Massis, where we partnered with the UCLA Fielding School to donate heaters and other supplies to Artsakh refugees. Seeing the living conditions that these families experience daily was both abysmal and eye-opening at the same time. Watching my students gather around the refugees, listen to their stories, share their tears, and promise to fight more continued to show me how important the region of Artsakh truly is to the Armenian community. I wish my students had the same chance to see Artsakh as I did seven years earlier.
The next day, we visited the military cemetery in Yerevan. Since my last visit, it has doubled in size. It was September 19th, the one-year anniversary of the Artsakh war, and there were television cameras and people everywhere. When we got off the buses, it was sprinkling, but as we started to tour the cemetery, it began to pour rain, but no one seemed to notice. When we rounded the corner to the new part of the cemetery, I was amazed at how many new graves had large portraits, Armenian flags, and flowers. The rain felt like the tears of the soldiers and their families in remembering this fateful day.
We also visited the Armenian Genocide Monument. Once we laid flowers near the eternal flame, the teachers and students shared memories and thoughts concerning the Genocide. Even though I’m not Armenian, this is where I connected with my students the most as I’m Native American, and my people also experienced a genocide two hundred years ago. I cried with my students, held their hands, prayed with them, hugged them, and felt the sadness pour forth from the monument. This trip was much more emotional than my last one, and it was only for the first several days.
From here, we journeyed north to Lake Sevan, Diligan, and Lori. The last time I visited, I didn’t get to see much of Lake Sevan because of a bad storm, so, this time, I made sure that I climbed the stairs near the church and took time to take in the beauty of the lake from all angles. This was the place that I looked forward to revisiting the most. Next came Diligan, where we roamed the city and saw how life was vastly different in the Northern regions of Armenia. We then journeyed to Lori, where our bus wound through the pine tree forests along the mountains and sat beside several rivers. This province is the most beautiful because it reminds me of growing up near Seattle, Washington. The fresh air, the sounds of the birds, the running water, and the serenity of the area all transported me back to when I was a little girl running through the forests of the Pacific Northwest. Lori will always be the most entrancing part of Armenia for me.
Back in Yerevan, to close out our journey, I was entranced by the culture of Armenia that I had experienced. The love of a country and history can be felt all around, from the welcoming music playing as we exited the airport to the perfect view of Mt. Ararat from Khor Virap, to the railway ride up the mountain in Tzakhkandor, to the raspberry jelly from the Fioletovo village, to the field of Armenian letters, to the lions of Sardarapat, and the gata handmade by a grandma sold at the gates of Gerhardt. I’m still an American, but now I’m no longer an “honorary” Armenian; I’m officially adopted.
