Operation: Vartavar. Mission: Get them Tourists

 I haven’t been very good to you 19 lately. Call me the prodigal daughter. So, about a week ago there was a Christian holiday called Vartavar. This particular holiday is, how shall we say it, a nightmare for hydrophobic people (like people with rabies). The holiday is a remnant of a pagan celebration and is now considered apart of the Christian tradition. It celebrates the goddess of water, love, beauty and fertility, Astighik and Armenian people, on this day would offer her roses (the word ‘vart’ means rose in Armenian) and sprinkle water and release doves in the air. Well now, the doves are gone, the roses safely stay growing in the ground, and the sprinkling of water has turned into bands of children roaming the streets with buckets of water, ready to spring on unsuspecting people of all ages.

On the day of Vartavar, AAAInterns2009 had a scheduled trip to Water World (a water park fully equipped with slides and pools). Therefore, Natalie and I had to take the five-minute ‘children infested with buckets of water’ walk from our apartment to the middle of Republic Square to meet the rest of the group. Here is a play by play of our journey to Hraparak.

 

The girls, fully dressed in their swimsuit , shorts, sandals and backpacks were ready to take on the outdoors. Natalie expressed some concerns about the outdoor conditions.

 

Natalie: I don’t know about this, these kids are feisty. I am grabbing my water gun (Quickly whips out water gun).

 

Kathryn: Oh c’mon. I haven’t seen any kids outside our window and I have been seeing regular people on the street and they all look completely dry.

 

Natalie: I think it’s going to be bad.

 

The girls carefully walk down the stairs to their apartment. They know about the group of kids that hang out near their apartment, so they decide to take the long way to get to the street to avoid them. They enter Saryan Street. No children. Kathryn is pretty confident that there won’t be much of a problem, Natalie on the other hand is clutching onto her precious water gun. They make a left onto Mashtots. Spotted: Group of kids wielding buckets of water. They lack any interest in attacking us.

 

Natalie: I am so nervous right now.

 

Kathryn: They don’t want to get us at all. Look…

 

            Child # 1 slowly walks in front us, bucket in hand, looking towards the street. He quickly turns to the touristy looking girls and lets that water fly. It was an ambush. Child # 2, 3 and 4 dump the buckets from behind fully on our heads. Natalie retaliates with her own weapon of choice and Kathryn helplessly attempts to run away. They got away, but not without fully wet clothing walking on Amirian.

 

            Natalie: I KNEW it. I told YOU.

 

            Kathryn: You were right. That was brutal, those kids got us good. 

 

But it didn’t stop. A few blocks down Amirian another band of kids grabbed their buckets and let their water loose on the girls. The best part of this whole thing was that all the other adults on the street were completely dry. The kids knew exactly which people to mess with…and that was us.

 

 

With everything said and done; Natalie and I were owned by the children of Yerevan.