Painting Pyunic

As a participant of Birthright all volunteers must complete a community service involvement activity, for us this time around it was painting the walls of Pyunic-a center for disabled children. Pyunic is a massive space with mostly concrete walls, lots of dungeon-like rooms and lots of dirty stuff. In theory, it sounds like a good idea-painting walls to make the place prettier. But in practice it wasn't quite so great because the walls were so dirty that painting over them didn't really make a difference. 

At least we had fun doing it. Some of us (i.e., me) were covered in paint from head to toe while others were clean and pristine. At first I was really good, even Hrach praised my painting prowess. But after that first room I was done with it. It was just so bitterly cold in there that I cannot imagine how the kids spend hours there without heat. Maybe the kids get heat and we as workers didn't. One more thing I loved- so as we are painting, various men affiliated with the center felt the need to come in periodically and comment on our work: "Sirun axchik, ey es mase sents ara aveli lav ke lini (pretty girl, you should paint this portion like this)." After the fifth sirun axchik I really felt a desire to just hand him the roller and tell him to do it himself. This is a pattern I notice in Armenia, the women do the work and the men stand around, smoke, and comment periodically.

(Images from top: On the way to painting, nice and clean before the painting begins, Armen enjoying the flavor of the paint, Paulene seeing the size of the wall she has to paint, yours truly enjoying the painting, Melody smiling for the cameras, our group mid paint-Ani Melody Paulene Natasha Zara me Armen Mandy, the last room we had to paint yay!).