Our trip into Gavar

As I reflect back on my trip, my mind often goes back to an afternoon walk that Bob and I took into Gavar. Gavar is the small, low-income town where where the Habitat build site is located. We were working at an apartment building at the edge of town, up a hill, a fifteen minute walk outside the main area of the village.

During the build, our days were spent painting walls and sanding ceilings alongside the families that would be living in the homes. Every so often we would see the neighbor kids watching us from outside the fencing, before they would run back home. On Wednesday, Bob and I decided that we would take a walk into the town, to look at the conditions surrounding the new homes we were building and see the places where these kids lived.

One of the first things that we saw on the way into town was the school yard. Though the back windows of the school were broken and the building looked in disrepair, there were a dozen or so kids playing on the playground. One of the girls, older, just watched us as we went by. But the other children played in the yard, oblivious to our being there.

We soon realized that the older girl in the school yard was more the norm than the other children. The townspeople had no problem openly staring as we walked by. Men and women would stand on their balconies and watch us, these two strangers covered in white paint, walking down the road. When we waved, they always waved back -- but didn't stop looking. I would be remiss (and Bob would be disappointed!) if I didn't admit that our group feels that one of the reasons we garnered so much attention is that I happened to be a young, very tall, blonde girl walking down the street. Which apparently doesn't happen too often in that small town ... proven by the fact that there was one car with two twenty-something men in it that just so happened to drive by and honk at us three times.

As we walked to the main area of the town, we saw the homes, the apartments, crumbling and with broken windows. It looked as if most were without running water and it's uncertain if they had electricity. The paint had peeled and their certainly was no landscaping or frivolous additions. Not a place that you or I would ever want to live in - or even know how to cope with. But what struck us, as we walked amongst the poverty and broken-down homes, was that most every townsperson were incredibly well-dressed. They might not have been in the most expensive clothes - but they were nice clothes. Clean and pressed. The younger men and women were especially stylish. Though they had very little, they never let that take away their dignity. And it was striking.

There were other moments on the trip that I remember ... the group of men playing backgammon, looking like the old men who play chess on Venice Beach, one of whom had no legs. The very, very old shop keeper who came out and bowed to us and smiled. The little boy wearing the USC Trojans t-shirt that Bob stopped and did magic tricks for - while I desperately tried to figure out how to communicate to him that the school on his shirt was my alma mater. Which, of course, I never got through to him.

And then there was the part about the trip beyond the town that stays with me. Bob and I had a half an hour to talk and really get to know one another better. As we walked, we shared stories, talked politics and I, of course, received an earful of bad puns. Here we were, two Americans who don't speak the language of anyone around us, being stared at the town and discussing how one goes about making the world a better place. And I was thoroughly inspired and awed by him.

About a half an hour into our walk we decided to turn back, and return to the build.

The trip into Gavar was eye-opening. We were confronted by poverty and pride, smiles amongst the sadness and a blatant curiosit that any other time would have unnerved me. But there, as a stranger in their town, I could only feel thankful that they were so welcoming to our presence, instead of shying away from us. That they shared our smiles and we shared theirs.

When we returned to the build, it turned out that our adventure into the town had spread through the site. Apparently a couple of the town kids had run up to one of our volunteers, talking about these two odd people, obviously not Armenian, walking through town, covered in paint, dirty as could be, one of whom had two cameras around her neck.

Yep, that's us.