The parents decided to move because their children were starving and they could barely make ends meet. The reason that Knarik and Levon decided to move to the village is that they know that at least there is land, they can grow food, feed the children, but that didn’t help either. The children are starting to get defects by eating “greens” every day. The nine member family lives in horrible conditions. The family lives in a metal shack. The children don’t feel comfortable and they always bump into each other whenever they start running around.
Three-year old Ani’s feet are starting to become deformed; that is mainly due to her bad nutrition. Her vision is getting worse by the day. Her feet roll up and she has difficulty walking down the stairs.
The village doctor has examined Ani and told the parents that they have to take her to a hospital in Yerevan, but Knarik says that she and Levon don’t have enough money to go all the way to Yerevan to see a doctor. The doctor said that Ani’s legs are weak and crooked due to lack of calcium. But her mother says that Ani was born with straight legs. Knarik says that when Ani was a couple of months old, she always wanted to be breastfed. But since Knarik suffered from malnutrition and couldn’t breastfeed her child, Ani starting to see some defects.
Six of the children are female, and there is one boy. They are all minors. These children are much like Mowgli from Jungle Book; they move like savages. During our visit, they were playing around with their three month old brother, who was sleeping. The mother says:
“We are lucky to have two loafs of bread a day because my husband works at a bread factory. But it’s still not enough, so we buy more. We thank the Lord if we get to eat two times a day. Sometimes my children starve. When I see that they can’t go on much longer, I collect edible greens, cook them and give it to my children to eat without bread. My husband gets an 18,000 AMD (40 dollars) salary and we also receive a subsidy. But it takes a long time before we actually get the subsidy,” says Knarik. The smells in the house are disgusting because the whole family sleep, make dinner, do the laundry in the same room and, if possible, take showers…The children don’t have clothes to wear. Some of them are barefoot, while others walk around in ragged or torn clothes given to them by their friends and neighbors. I ask the mother:
“How were you able to have seven children in these conditions?”
She says:
“Well, at first I thought that children are God’s gifts. As life started to get harder for us, I wanted to abort each child that I was pregnant with, but we didn’t have the money. I couldn’t stop the pregnancy in time. I have gone to the doctor so many times, but every time the doctor told me that it was too late. He told me that I had to do a Caesarian, but I didn’t have enough money for that.”
One of the children, 8-year old Mariam, was born in the home because her parents didn’t have enough money to go to the hospital.
“We cut the umbilical cord and wrapped it. They didn’t give us a birth certificate for two years after her birth, but we got it somehow,” says Knarik.
I ask the children about what dreams they have. They say:
“Sausage, a toy dog, meat products, food, a big house…It doesn’t really matter to me where we live, as long as my mother is happy…”
This nine member family lives right next to the Minister of Territorial Management of Armenia Hovik Abrahamyan, who lives on an asphalted street. The neighboring shack is part of a land property. Due to the fact that the children get muddy after taking the road leading to the school, teachers dismiss them and don’t let them enter the classroom. The thing is that principal Anna Avagyan simply doesn’t let any child enter the school with muddy feet.
“The children tie plastic bags on their feet in the morning, but it’s obvious that they later fall apart. We have asked the rich and village chief, but they still haven’t asphalted the streets. We clean the dirty clothes and shoes every day, but they don’t make it in time. There have been times when the washed clothes haven’t dried soon in the winter and the children have worn wet clothes. Sometimes we were forced to not send them to school. But when they do go with muddy feet, they don’t let them in. We carry each child and take them to school so that their feet won’t get muddy.”
Knarik’s neighbors, who live on the same street, complain that as soon as the teachers see their children enter the school with muddy feet, they give the kids mops and make them clean the floor. Meanwhile, they charge 100 AMD monthly from each student to pay the custodian each month. The school principal Anna Avagyan forces the parents to pay 14,000 AMD to sew uniforms for the kids. Knarik doesn’t know what to do because that means that her children will have to go to school starving…
“I asked them if they could at least sew one of the uniforms for my child, but they didn’t listen. As for the rest, I have paid for their uniforms within four months,” says Mrs. Knarik.
The family’s metal shack has a basement and it is Mrs. Knarik’s dream to save up some money in order to turn that basement into a room, so that they can improve their hygiene a little. Otherwise, their house really looks like the right place for cholera. After all, the children will get sick from all that dirt…