10-year-old Avetis was warned not to appear in front of the NA
10-year old Avetis and I were supposed to meet in Malatia-Sebatsia yesterday, where their house is located. I was invited to be told why they lived in candlelight for over a year. Avetis hasn’t been attending school for three months now.
“But I warn you not to be scared,” the boy’s mother was saying. Before yesterday’s meeting, I get a call from the boy’s mother, Mrs. Sharmakh, who asks to delay the meeting a little bit. She wrote a letter to the Speaker of the NA telling him what she told me. She said that her son didn’t go to school because he didn’t have clothes and shoes. She told him that she was unemployed, ill and destitute but they were deprived of welfare. Instead of submitting the letter to the mailbox of the NA Mrs. Sharmakh bumped into the Speaker of parliament and handed in the letter personally. And so yesterday instead of our meeting Avetis and his mother rushed to the parliament. In order to get there Avetis had to wear the shoes of his cousin.
“Hovik Abrahamyan said, ma’am I will help you this time but I advise you not to appear in front of the NA anymore. Then they sent us to the entrance where they receive citizens. Then we waited for a long time. The kid was cold and hungry,” tells Mrs. Sharmakh, who had to answer her phone from the NA every half hour and say that they were waiting for the accountant. They ended up waiting five hours. And the day was getting dark. After that the accountant handed 40,000 drams to the woman who waited 5 hours and told her not to come back again. Sharmakh Sargsyan lives at the address 20 Hovnatan st. with her four children and mentally sick husband. They live in a shack. After returning from the meeting with NA Speaker, Avetis was cold and crying. Then he gets into his dirty bed and mews like a cat, “mom, I’m cold. Please cover me.”
The mother quickly covers the son with cloths. She also puts all kinds of garbage and cloths into the furnace to warm up the house. “We waited so long that my son got cold. We were there since 10 in the morning. Then they told us to go home and come back on Friday. But they gave us the help at about 5 p.m. We got on the bus, then my son got sick and started to throw up. Then we got off. I took a cab with the money of Abrahamyan. Wait, let me get to the store to buy bread and sour cream so he eats,” tells Mrs. Sharmakh. I was waiting… Avetis notices the shoes that he borrowed from the cousin and asks his brother to return them. The brother gets the old and worn out shoes of Avetis to the bed and instead takes the shoes of the cousin back to him. Avetis’s eyes were very sad but pretty. I asked him why doesn’t he go to school.
“Can’t you see why?” he snaps. Then he silently tells that they lived in candlelight for a year and that their mentally sick father has gotten even angrier. Their father took the axe from the house and chased the power man demanding to turn the lights back on. Avetis wishes to go to school in order to get distracted from their daily inhuman lifestyle. But going to school with size 40 shoes is much tougher than staying at home with the mentally sick father.
“The children tease me a lot. And I don’t want to listen to them anymore. I go there sometimes but they all laugh at me. I don’t know where to hide,” tells the boy shivering but our conversation ends when the mother comes back with bread and sour cream. “The house looks like either a barn or a prison cell. There was no place where I could sit. So they had to ask for a chair from the neighbor.” Their house is a place where a person would go mad after living there a month. Avetis’s father went mad, who looked the door of his room in order nobody comes in. Soon Shamakh will go mad, who had to wait for hours in front of the NA gates in order to talk to Hovik Abrahamyan. But she was warned not to come back there anymore. Nshan, 17, might also go mad who had already lost the sight of one eye. But he continues to live without a medical treatment. He went to the market to ride a cart but then they brought him back home all weak and sick. He fainted. We called the ambulance. They gave him a shot.
The social service of Malatia-Sebastia also paid a visit to the house of Avetis. They visited after Mrs. Sharmagh wrote a letter for welfare. They said there is only one underage child in the house. Therefore they can’t give welfare. “We applied to many times that they promised to give us 16,000 every quarter. Perhaps they’ll do it for a year and stop doing it again,” says the mother of four, whose only household income is the handicap aid of 14,000 drams for the husband. “We owe so much for bread to stores.
The power is over 100,000. They notified us to pay by February 15 or they’d cut it. If they cut the power we wont survive. We’ll go crazy.” While the devastated woman speaks, the furious husband walks out the room and steps from one corner to another. Everybody is busy doing something in a place, which either looks like a barn or a prison cell.
By Lusine Stepanyan
