I have participated in many school projects this year but the most recent one was when I went to Bjni village in the Kotayk province of Armenia with my dance club. I had a lot of fun there with my friends. First, it was a pretty long bus ride but when we arrived, we changed into our Armenian traditional dance costumes and went down to the people and started dancing. Later we baked some Armenian thin flatbread -lavash and we painted eggs since it was Easter. Lavash is an integral part of Armenian cuisine and culture. Lavash for Armenians has a sacred meaning and symbolizes well-being, luck, abundance and prosperity. We also made some tea and ate some sweets before heading to the church to dance for the people of the village.
The people there were very kind and welcoming, they all had great vibes. They let us into their homes and treated us all like family.
After dancing at the church we went back to our place and everyone was pretty tired, so some people were still baking lavash, some were in the kitchen, others were dancing. I think the process of baking the Armenian bread is really interesting and I loved watching them do it, I didn’t try it myself because I wasn’t sure I would be able to do it but they basically put the dough on a big pillow thing and then put it down the tandoor (tonir).
After everyone got their energy back, we went up to another church and performed some dances for the people and on our way back a lot of people gathered around us and we all just started dancing again
and had a big audience. In a while we were all really tired and it was already late so we changed back to our clothes and walked around the village, we were making jokes and having fun and saw a lot of interesting things and met new awesome people and after all the walking and dancing we were exhausted so we decided to go back to the school and that was pretty much it from the trip.
My overall experience was great I loved learning more about my country and our culture, going to new places and meeting new people, thanks to one of my favorite teachers — Ms. Hayarpi I got to experience that.
I learned a lot of things and had a great day with all those lovely people, to the point that I didn’t want to come back home. It felt like I was taking a break from all the negativity in my life and just enjoying the little things in we get because that’s all that matters.
Here are some pictures we took 🙂
Վերգինե Խաչատրյան 