Postcard from Yerevan
I was dining with a friend. She told me that three of her friends had been hit by a car at 3am crossing Tumanyan St last night. The road must have been deserted at that time, it has four lanes. But it happened.
She said the passenger in the Mercedes had died, no seat belt, thrown into the windscreen.
The three pedestrians will likely survive but have many broken bones and internal injuries
She was thoughtful.
Her phone rang; it was her friend, calling and upset because Travis was her friend too. In the early hours of this morning, they thought Travis would die. But she has learned that he will survive and is now being airlifted to the States but unlikely to return to Armenia.
She said that she realized again how fragile life is. I said “I think life is only a moment to moment thing, this very moment is all we have, this is all that is real, not the past moment, nor the moment to come, there is nothing more than this……… ever, how many times that repeats is in some ways meaningless. So death is just the end of these moments, nothing to worry about. ” She said that is beautiful. Inside this restaurant in the heart of Yerevan it was warm and the wine was good. Outside the rain was falling like Gods tears and in the street below the automatic wipers of a black BMW cleaned those tears off the windscreen in lazy efficient swipes.
April 2014
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About jocknoble
I have worked in thirty countries with most time spent in India, Kenya, Indonesia, USA , Australia and Armenia. My current role with World Vision International is as a Livelihoods Advisory based in Manila. Before this I spent 4 years based in Armenia leading an economic development learning hub for 10 countries across the Middle East and Eastern Europe. I spent 8 years with World Vision Australia where I founded and lead the Social Entrepreneurship and Economic Development Unit (SEED), a team of economic development specialists,to establish and support innovative initiatives in poor communities from Africa to the Asia Pacific, Senegal to Timor Leste..
I believe the reason people are poor is that they do not have enough money and our challenge is to help instill hope and a genuine sense of self-belief, starting with those of us who somehow work in development.
I was the founder and CEO of Diversity@work Australia Inc, a social enterprise developing innovative models, strategies and educational programs to strengthen companies through diversity and inclusion. I hold a Master of Entrepreneurship and Innovation and a Masters of Strategic Foresight from Swinburne University in Melbourne, post-graduate studies in Not for Profit Management at Georgetown University and Negotiation and Conflict Management at Latrobe University Melbourne. I was the Carey Medal winner for 2007 for exceptional and outstanding service to the community. So it goes
Published Books: 'Postcards - What am I doing here' (2016) which is a collection of my blogs along with selected photographs, and Stores from the Road - Ten stories for workers in international development (2016)
What am I doing here? 