{"id":762,"date":"2012-07-05T13:01:33","date_gmt":"2012-07-05T13:01:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/haysanta.am\/?p=762"},"modified":"2018-07-05T13:03:29","modified_gmt":"2018-07-05T13:03:29","slug":"hey-davo-come-on-whole-our-lifes-a-freak-show-dont-cry-for-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/haysanta.am\/en\/hey-davo-come-on-whole-our-lifes-a-freak-show-dont-cry-for-it\/","title":{"rendered":"HEY, DAVO, COME ON! WHOLE OUR LIFE\u2019S A FREAK SHOW, DON\u2019T CRY FOR IT."},"content":{"rendered":"

http:\/\/www.168.am<\/a>
\nLusine STEPANYAN<\/strong>
\nAram is getting confused at the sight of the overcrowded truck body-like dwelling-wagon. He looks helpless trying to move and striking against the wooden wall of the wagon. He looks around trying to guess why the voices of these strangers echo. The 11 year-old boy has so strained his ears that cannot find the door of the wagon \u2013 something he has long struggled to learn.
\n\u2018Aram jan, don\u2019t be afraid, I have only come to visit you,\u2019 I am trying to calm the boy down. Yet, Aram\u2019s fear is flying in the air and penetrating into us as well.
\nWhile taking a photo of him I ask him to raise his head, but his mother says he cannot. Sometimes he wails of his headache and cannot keep his head high. I am trying to talk to him and tell him not to be afraid of me. It seems Aram begins to trust me, because the sound of my voice convinces him I will not do him any harm.
\n\u2018Most of all in my life I love tales,\u2019 he says. \u2018The more I grow the more I believe in them. I am not afraid when reading tales, because I live in different worlds then. I have hopes in those worlds and I feel strong. I wish I were born in a tale.\u2019
\nThe wagon seems to shake over Aram\u2019s parents. Just the way their house shook and got swallowed by the earth at Spitak quake of 1988. Later on this dwelling wagon, No 58 of Leninakan highway of Spitak town, was installed on the same place. After Aram\u2019s each word his father goes out to smoke and his mother is stroking his head wiping the tears from her eyes. Aram Ghazaryan also dreams of recognizing the light and seeing as the other people do. He recognizes people by their voices and little by little gets acquainted with the things surrounding him. The boy hates changes, because if something changes its place, he gets terribly confused and suffers from helplessness.
\nSveta, Aram\u2019s mother, informs the boy has been diagnosed to have glaucoma, and that is why he cannot see at all. \u2018It turned out he had it inherent. He grew and we realized the problem. We have taken him to various specialists, but they say it\u2019s incurable. We\u2019ll thank God if it doesn\u2019t get worse. His pressure goes high, it\u2019s an ordinary thing and he suffers from terrible headaches,\u2019 says Sveta, 31. She speaks with a tired voice and like an old woman.
\nAram\u2019s eye structure is unique. His eyes have no pupils and they look like white balls on the face. Sveta says the doctor prescribed \u201cTrusopt\u201d to balance the pressure, and that Aram must take it for all his life, otherwise\u2026 The mother takes out a cellophane bag of medicine and shows it.
\n\u2018It\u2019s very expensive. 7.000 drams ($ 18) each pack. We need two for one month. I must drip it in his eyes, to prevent the pressure. Since we had no money, Aram\u2019s grandma bought this on her pension. But this is the substitute. Can you see? I cannot buy the medicine for my child. It\u2019s like dying for me. I can neither relief his headaches nor buy him the medicine. It kills me.\u2019
\n\u201cTorsopt\u201d that the grandma bought for Aram is a cheaper substitute and doesn\u2019t help. The boy\u2019s suffering from headache and the darkness. The state-paid 10.000 drams ($ 26) monthly life pension isn\u2019t enough for 2 packs of medicine. During the whole conversation, the father, Serob Hovhannisyan, is going out and smoking heavily. I ask him to come in but, with an indifferent face, he doesn\u2019t even answer me. Sveta is going into details what tragedy it is for a parent to have a blind child and be unable to help him. Then she says that her husband, Serob, went mad two years ago. The man, 38, was diagnosed to have schizophrenia. \u2018I don\u2019t think there\u2019s a need to look for reasons. In Spitak there are many. Women are stronger, while man cannot stand sufferings. Now you saw Aram, and I know you\u2019re touched and will be thinking of him for a long time. Can you imagine what the parents can feel? Let alone the permanent fear that was left from the earthquake,\u2019 tells Sveta.
\nShe is waiting for her relatives to bring Serob\u2019s psychotropic medicaments. Their relatives undertook her husband\u2019s care, because Aram needs a permanent and daily care of his mother.
\n\u2018I don\u2019t know who to look after \u2013 my son or my husband. I asked our relatives to bring the medicaments for Serob. He must take them, to be calm, you know, otherwise it is impossible to pacify a mentally ill. He\u2019s a good guy, you know\u2026 Misfortune never comes alone\u2026\u2019
\nTheir neighbor Valya had asked me to visit Aram\u2019s family.
\n\u2018Once I saw the father holding his blind son\u2019s hand and standing in a queue for the few drams of a pension to buy the medicine. My heart broke. I cannot sleep at nights and am thinking of them all the time. My God, I say, how can I help these people\u2026,\u2019 she says.
\nSveta cannot work, because she has to take care of the diseased, thus they live with 26.000 dram ($ 67) allowance and 25.000 ($ 65) disability pension for two. They often prefer not to eat and buy the medicine to relief Aram\u2019s headaches. Sveta is not complaining at all, but one can feel she suffers deep in her heart. Aram, 6th grade, has five certificates of honor. He studies at Yerevan school No 14 for visually impaired. Though he is a high achiever, he hates the school. Why, I ask.
\n\u2018Because I am far from my mama and papa for months. They take me to Spitak from Yerevan and leave me there. I want to become a lawyer, but the feeling that my parents are not there\u2026 When they take me to Yerevan and leave me there I\u2019m afraid, because I know my parents are far. I don\u2019t know what town Spitak is, I don\u2019t know where Yerevan is, I just know my parents are far from me,\u2019 tears fall down from Aram\u2019s eyes that always gaze at the floor. He meets his parents only on New Year holidays and in summer.
\nSometimes Aram regrets he is known as a clever and cute student, because he prefers staying with his family.
\n\u2018There is no corresponding school in Spitak,\u2019 Sveta says. \u2018I have to take him to Yerevan. The school there is very good, the teachers, too. It\u2019s only about missing.\u2019
\nAram\u2019s 9 year-old brother Davit enters the wagon crying bitterly: \u2018There is a freak show from Yerevan. Everybody went there but me.\u2019 \u2018Calm down. Never mind. You can do without a circus,\u2019 the mother says. \u2018No, I can\u2019t. Everybody goes there but me,\u2019 Davit is crying still bitterer and is running out.
\n\u2018Hey, Davo, come on! Do you know what the freak show is? Whole our life\u2019s a freak show. There\u2019s nothing special about it,\u2019 calls him back Sveta. Aram seems to try hard and imagine what the freak show is and why his brother is crying for it.
\nTranslated by\u00a0Narine Aghabekyan<\/em><\/p>\n