Letter 13: The Lone Cyclist in the Snow
I am now back in Ottawa. It is a hot day; We have not been spared the heat wave, and I cannot help reminiscing about the coldest winter on record we spent in Armenia in 2002-2003. In December, one of our volunteers, Narineh Azizian, a young woman with a huge and golden heart, conceived the idea that we, volunteers, would do something to cheer-up the thousands of less-fortunate children in Armenia. After a few meetings the idea took shape and we immediately started working on preparing group trips to visit orphanages in even more unfortunate cities than Yerevan. We took "Dzemerr Babig" (Santaclaus) along, together with his beautiful helper "Dzuyn Anoush" (Snow-beauty, word-for-word translations from the Russian "Dyet Maroz" and "Snegourichka"). Being from Canada, I knew some of the risks involved in winter driving and warned our group of the dangers, we therefore made sure that we would check weather conditions before going. That Saturday morning,...