Speaking to One Another - The International Raoul Wallenberg ...

just filming around myself with no purpose, thinking, maybe this is the mndrveni tree, this is it, perhaps,so I was filming like that... suddenly... I recall this from what I saw on the camera. Later, after I gotback home, when I watched it, I saw that I had filmed certain things... Because, I was overemotional, Ido not remember anything... (a small pause)... Well, so I remembered at one point that I needed to getsome water. It was all erased from my memory, except for the four points written by my son, everythingelse was erased from my memory. Absolutely. So, I remembered about “mndrveni” when I was just filmingwith no purpose, and now, the water. I had no vessel to fill with water. What shall I do? I thought,maybe I shall empty this milk, pour some water in one of the bottles; what shall they do? There was noone around. No one... Suddenly I saw that someone was coming. When he came, I told him “please bringsome container”. This one did not speak Armenian. I told him “bring a container so that I can fill it withwater”. He did not understand. How to say a “vessel” in their language? I could not remember a singleword. I don’t know how it happened; I remembered one word – “ghazan” [Turk. large cooking pot]. I toldhim, “I want a ghazan”. He understood the word “ghazan”... this person turned and went, I saw that hewas lame; he was limping when he walked... I thought, it will take too long before he goes and comesback... it’s a no go, this one is no go. Suddenly I remembered – that woman, she was Armenian, or spokeArmenian. I shall go there, get it from them. So I ran down, along the stream. I told them “sister, give mesome vessel, I am taking some water”. She went, found some vessel, brought it, there was some waterin it; she washed it and gave it to me... I asked “is this the same water?” ... I don’t know why I asked this...“Is this water from our large spring?” She said “No, this is water from some other spring”. I said, “No, Iwill go, fill it there”. I took this vessel, and ran there, filled it with water. I still keep it. It was a 2-3 literplastic bottle, I am still keeping it at home... No, I need to go to our house... then, the chance helped me...I don’t know, I am not that sentimental yet, nevertheless, the chance... it couldn’t be... in that village, sothat I decided that I need to go this way from the spring. There was even no road that way. There arewalls, some stone walls, so I went there, jumping over them... There was a person working somewhere.Everything else that I am telling, I am recalling this after watching what I filmed on the camera, becauseI was terribly overemotional then... I asked this person “which one is Toro’s house? Where is Toro’shouse?” This person turns to look at me ... “I am working”, he tells, “this is Toro’s house”... So, I turned...I am recalling everything else from the camera, because, indeed... only there I found out that tears maynot only flow, they may also splash and sprinkle. It is like that, indeed... that way (pauses for three seconds).Suddenly I said “well”, I said, “this demolished one?” He said “yes.” (pauses, long silence)... Ourhouse was demolished... there was a wall, about one meter high, only that was left. My father used totell that it was a double-story house. He was a young kid, when they left the village, I understood thatprobably this was a very steep place; they made it even with the first floor, then built the second floorover it. My father called it double-story. I was looking there, suddenly... I saw this in the film... He said“who are you? Where are you from?” I said ... well ... “I am the son of Hovhannes”, he tells “what is theson of Hovhannes doing here?” I said “well, my father died, I came here, and I need to take some waterand soil”. I told this calmly, like that. He said “Hovhannes has died?”, I said “yes”. We were talking in Armenian,in our dialect. But then someone else came from there, he said, this person wasn’t Armenian,he was Kurd. That is, he was working in our garden; he was working in our garden with the shovel in hishands, and he spoke Armenian... So, I needed to do the next step now, to take some soil. All these ves-161