It’s 4h30 and I woke up with a cockroach walking over me. We were not supposed to still be in this room and that’s it, I’m not staying anymore. I can bear to know them around the bathroom and even smashing one before going to sleep but this too much intimacy for me. We’re sharing a room with no lights besides the main one, that seems more like calling factory workers to clock in than to invite to a good night of sleep , which brings me to my present position, on a chair near the door, using the hall light, trying not to wake up my roommate. Helas to paper and pen. I guess that’s how I’ll find out how this city looks like in early in the morning. Sunrise should be around 6h30 and will erase the silence of this early hour. It’s still possible to hear some cars passing by but we can call it silence when compared with the daily sound bites I was told there is a bakery around Republic Square and maybe that’s a good spot for early birds – bakery meaning a store where they sell bread and pastries, not a place where you eat toasts and coffee and milk and pasteis de nata. I always miss that about Portugal. Six years ago I was living in Madrid and whenever I got to Portugal that would be the first thing I’d do right after getting out of the bus, uma torrada e uma meia de leite.It’s in these small things we realize how we build borders.
Today is 6 months since my father died, tomorrow it will be one year since our lives changed for good, it was when the concept of irreversibility enter my life abruptly. This thought is deep rooted in my mind, all the other thoughts touch it and connect with it. On 26th August 2009 I was having my ID card done, officialising that my identity was about to be run over and rebuilt again. This is how I never take it from my wallet anytime I have to fulfil a form, I now exactly the date I should right down. There is a tea house in Porto that my father liked a lot, who wouldn’t, as it has the best pasteis de nata of the city. They’re not the common ones, they’re more similar to Lisbon’s pasteis de Belem, delicious. If you’re near Porto just look for Chicara, on Rua do Gondarem. You won’t regret having a tea with fancy old ladies, warm scones, and the pastries, of course. After his surgery, my father offered these pastries to the surgery team, nurses and doctors. He was a gentle person. I wouldn’t as I understood that they were doing their job, being paid and getting full social recognition. Knowing you’re good and efficient should be rewarding in itself. Pastries are for light minded afternoons. While he was sick my mother and me ate a lot of sweets. I never ate so much chocolate as last winter, winter makes me crave for chocolate and last winter I was having it all the time. Dark chocolate, tea, almonds cookies and cheese. It rained a lot, we were at home eating chocolate. In February we were pale and overweight. There is a cloud that blurs those times. Clouds are natural pain killers produced by the brain, always focused on the survival race. (Thought: physical clouds, drops-of-water clouds as a manifestation of god; clouds transform themselves in elephants and trees, harmless pieces of nature, you don’t find your pain in clouds, just dreams. I’m not preaching about almighty minds, I believe in a god with no brains).
Today I’ll be taking photos an event so I’ll need some Armenian coffees to keep my eyes open behind the camera. Strange things happen when you travel. I’m drinking coffee, no hands shacking effect – I stopped drinking coffee two years ago, as my hands would start trembling. I’m smoking menthol cigarettes. Some weeks ago I was feeling like drinking coke all the time – that must be the waking up ‘n refresh kick that Yerevan asks for. I started eating meat – but that was before coming here, so it doesn’t count for these mathematics. I like eating cucumber at breakfast – before I barely ate it. I drink salty yoghurt with pizza. There nothing strange about drinking milk with sardines (note: these metaphor is bases on true facts, for more information ask A. M. S., my brother). Strangeness is in the eyes of who strangeness sees. Things change. But I still don’t like cockroaches.

We spent a week in Ijevan. It was the first time I got out of the fortress of cars, noise and one million souls that is Yerevan to find a more authentic Hayastan. Ijevan is a town where old soviet buildings live side by side with cows and chicken. From the window of my room I could see the mountains all around – and still, a lot of garbage. The human presence is strong in this sense. Buildings are unfinished, pure concrete, but behind each door a family builds its own nest, with its television and coffee and candies. I lived with an Armenian family for a week, sharing their meals and watching the evening soap opera. Tomatoes, cucumbers, panir (cheese), bread. A lot of Armenian coffee, showering after 8h30, when water is available again. We’ve been hosted by Young Tavush, a local organization very committed with local development and youth participation. They wanted us to help in the creation of new strategies for volunteer management and we’re going back there in mid September for a seminar they’re organizing at that time. Local people assumed I was Armenian, nothing exotic about me. We ended up going to an excavation where they were studying an ancient wall that remained from an old settlement in the region. On Saturday we headed to Stepanavan, passing by Vadnazor to change marshutka. The last bit between this city and our destiny was the most impressive , as all of the sudden the landscape turned from dryness to a refreshing green. Stepanavan is even smaller than Ijevan. There we had our on arrival training for EVS volunteers. We met our colleagues from FYCA and some other few volunteers. After getting used to all the calmness and silence of this more rural Armenia we took a taxi back to Yerevan on Monday evening. Storm and lightening, rain and cold weather, a new face of Armenian weather. Arabic, Russian music, Celine Dion, Elton John and voila, ‘You touch my tralala, my dindingdong’ included the soundtrack of the trip back to the capital. Short after midnight, again the city in front of our eyes and a new month about to begin. It rained a bit today, a prayer for flourishing times.
(On prayers: see attachment)

(24th August 2010)