The Return to Our Homeland & Volunteerism in Armenia

By: Mary Kandaharian
Kandaharian88@ucla.edu

As a child, you count the days until your summer vacation, which usually consists of traveling, sleeping in, and sun-bathing. Once you become a college student, summer becomes less and less of a vacation. Conversely, it becomes a time when you take care of everything that you could not get to during the school year.

As June approached this year, I started thinking about what I could possibly do this summer that would combine the joy of childhood summers with a summer that a future pharmacy school’s admission’s counselor would approve of when reading my application. That is when my roommate and I came across this program called Birthright Armenia, which provided the opportunity to volunteer in our homeland in any given field. We decided to go ahead with the program, and without much knowledge, our imaginations of the trip began to run wild as we sat in the plane 30,000 feet high in the air traveling toward Armenia. The reality, we later discovered, was that we were in for something quite different than what we had originally expected.

Once I got there, I started working for a large pharmaceutical industry called Pharmatech. The standards in this warehouse were surprisingly better than most of the warehouses I have seen in America. I saw the process of making medicine from the bare elements to the packaging and administration of them.

It was also here where I met some of the most honest and hospitable people I have ever come across in my life. They taught me the ins and outs of living in Armenia. Working with these people brought to my attention all the political and socioeconomic issues present within the lives of Armenians residing in Armenia. Coming into the program, I knew I would learn a lot about the pharmaceutical industry, but the enlightening advice and “heart to heart” sessions that I would receive over a cup of Armenian coffee every morning in the inventory room was a very valuable bonus.

Besides volunteering, I met a group of 50 other Armenians from the Diaspora, who have also come out to Armenia in order to volunteer in their particular fields. I met some of the most diverse and interesting group of Armenians from all over the world. In our group, there were Armenians from London, Canada, New York, Detroit, and Hawaii. Some of the highlights of the trip were visiting different historical locations during the weekends.

This trip was not relaxing; we never got the chance to sleep in, there were no elevators, barely any paved roads, and air conditioning was a luxury owned by very few; but, I would not have traded it for anything. Experiencing all this with one of my closest friends made every single experience even sweeter. We got to realize each other’s weaknesses and strengths more in one month than we did after an entire year of living with each other. It made us appreciate all the unnoticed and overlooked luxuries in our life back home and forced us not to take anything for granted, even something as simple as running water.

It was truly a growing experience and it made me realize that when you look past the stereotypes and let go of your comfort zone, you can really allow yourself to connect with the different people surrounding you and get the most out of all your experiences. What seemed to be just a summer trip to Armenia for volunteering turned out to be a journey of self-discovery. If pharmacy schools’ admission’s counselors don’t approve of my choice of how I spent my summer, I think my inner child would have.