Good Morning... From Yerevan

As the sun rose over Yerevan this morning as did I, but the truth is I didn't sleep very much at all! A mixture of adrenaline, pride and in my opinion success left my mind wandering throughout the night. Its 8am here and I'm sat in the lobby, no other YMCA participant is up yet and I have entered what myself and my good friend Andre from England refer to as ‘beast mode’ where I’m running on a few hours sleep but feeling inspired and ready for the day.

Last night we had our intercultural evening which included an ‘International tea party’ 14 nations presented themselves and their tea in a world café style marketplace with score cards for each other’s tea. The scores have been counted and will be revealed in in the next couple of hours!

The reason I'm writing all this is because myself and Rachel had the task of organising this evening and the participants. Having attended various intercultural evenings I know from experience these can often take a while and end late, I was determined that a late finish was not on the cards. Earlier in the week some participants had told me “they couldn't see it working” and in all honesty this (as some of you know) just fired me up more and made me more determined to succeed. You have to love the haters! ;)

Would you believe I sit here in this lobby telling you it went exactly to plan! That people had a wonderful evening and that we were finished on time! Some personal highlights for me were 

1.  The Finland change agents making excellent tea despite not doing it before 
2. Cyprus bringing 4 types of tea for people to try
3.     The explosion of colour and creativity in the market stalls
4.    The Russian YMCA team wearing their ‘old-school’ t-shirts
5.    The vast selection of treats, sweets, meats, breads and tea
6.     The pride of countries sharing with others

           

A special mention must go to Rachel for all her hard work and co-ordinating the raid on the Armenian arsenal of tea making equipment. Also a special mention of thanks to participants from Cyprus, Armenia and Holland who helped us clean up afterwards.The evening ended with everyone receiving a souvenir report from YMCA England which covers the work of the YMCA during the world wars and looks at how the YMCA provided tea to serving troops. A presentation was then made to the hosting countries (Armenia & Karabakh) who each received a miniature packed model of the YMCA tea vans.

In conclusion it was a wonderful evening and experience; once again the YMCA connected people by celebrating each other’s uniqueness but at the same time connecting people through a common activities and experiences. The pride and imagination that goes into some countries presentations are simply breathtaking and I find myself once again inspired and humbled by our movement and its people who in my opinion are our brand.