BBC News, UK
Sept 17 2004
Ray of light in family’s black life
By Ruben Mangasarian
For BBCRussian.com
I received many e-mails at my photo agency after my photo story
“Black Life” was published on the Karabakh Page of BBCRussian.com and
then on BBC News Online.
Ruben says baby Maria is the happiest in the family – because she
doesn’t understand anything
The photos related the story of an Armenian refugee family from
Azerbaijan living in desperate poverty in Bagratashen, near the
Armenian capital, Yerevan.
The conflict over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh – in
Azerbaijan but claimed by Armenians – displaced thousands of people
in 1988-1994.
“I don’t think in my life photos have ever moved me more,” wrote
Heidi Wallace from Los Angeles in California.
“The depth of this poor family’s plight is almost more than I can
bear.”
“I would go through the ends of the world to send them a care
package,” added Christina Flanary, also from the US.
I will never forget those overwhelming feelings. Thinking about
taking those pictures, I realised what was hitting so hard.
The mother Lida’s “black life” was like a real hell on Earth – not
the one for evil sinners.
Tough lives
The family was covered by a pall of smoke and soot from burning
plastic bags in their kitchen stove – they couldn’t afford normal
fuel.
Black life – one refugee family’s struggle against poverty
In pictures
Everything was black: the walls, curtains, clothes, the faces of
Lida’s children.
It seemed they had given up knowing any other life and kept only
their love for each other.
It was different in the summer. As the weather was warm the stove was
taken outside.
But life was, and is, still tough. They have almost no furniture –
just two beds, several chairs and a bench.
All the clothing is kept in big sacks.
The only electrical appliance in the house is a bulb. No fridge, no
radio, no TV and, what shocked me most, no toilet.
I didn’t have the courage to ask them how they survived without one.
New clothes
Jay, a BBC News Online reader from Britain, sent some money, so I
paid local authorities to build a toilet cabin for Lida’s family.
Lida cooks an omelette – she will not eat herself, but give it to the
children
Then I needed to get them into new clothes. I wanted them to wear
fresh shirts sent from Tokyo on their clean washed bodies.
I asked the children – have they ever had a bath or taken a shower?
They didn’t know what they were.
So I arranged for them to visit local communal baths. It was the
first time they had washed in something other than a small tub with
lukewarm water.
Lida is the only person who knows the outside world – she goes out to
earn some money.
The rest of the family don’t leave the house much – only to get water
from a tap nearby.
The children don’t know what friendship is, they still don’t go to
school, they cannot read or write.
Readers’ help
Yolande McLean, born in Canada, currently designs publications in
Tokyo, Japan. She wrote:
The family in their new clothes….
“When I saw Ruben Mangasarian’s photos of Lida and her family, I was
struck by the compassion behind them. I knew the family must have
endured circumstances as harsh as any I’d come across.
“And then I thought, in spite of the soot and smoke, what beautiful
kids! Armen had a shy, self-conscious smile; Mariam seemed pensive.
I showed the story to Jay in England and said ‘let’s do something.’ I
think he said, ‘Sure! Cool!'”
“Ruben asked me why we wanted to help a family living in an
unfamiliar country so far away. The simplest answer is, why not?” she
went on.
“The fact is, though, Armenia really doesn’t seem so far or so
strange. After you’ve travelled a while, borders, distances, and
differences are not formidable obstacles.”
Yolande said she felt Lida could use a friend. “I’m no refugee, but I
understood what it was like to be a stranger,” she said.
“I’m delighted to see Asya smiling and wearing her new cardigan, and
is that my velvet baseball cap on Armen?”
Colour in their lives
Jay Dykes, 38, from the UK, wrote:
“My friend in Tokyo, Yolande, alerted me to your haunting images that
depict the life of Lida and her children.
… kindly sent by readers Yolande [left] and Jay
“Words fail me… when I viewed your photos I was immediately moved
by them.
“I feel it was the strength of the pictures, the strength of my
friend’s words, and the strength that I could see in the eyes of the
whole family peering out of the darkness that made me want to do
something, anything, to try and help,” he added.
Yolande has sent from Tokyo two boxes with clothes and shoes, the
third one is on its way.
Jay sent some money. They were the first to spring into action to
help Lida’s family.
But the family still need help to bring some colour into their “black
life”.