Ararat

Today morning I woke up at 7 a.m. to go for my everyday morning run. I was contemplating going for the run this morning since I was really tired from our "Welcome Dinner" hosted by the Assembly at Parvana Restaurant yesterday night. Finally I convinced myself that since I was already awake that I shouldn't break my habit of going for a run every morning. I started my run from the corner of Sayat Nova and Khanjian after drinking the ice cold water from the fountain and also washing my face with it. After that water hit my face I was completely awake and ready to go. My run was going great; the air was nice and cold, the streets were empty so that minimized any trouble crossing the streets, the birds were chirping, and best of all the sun was still rising.
The first destination of my run is Cascade. I had noticed I was a few minutes behind schedule so I had to pick up the pace going up Cascade. The entire time going up I wasn't paying any attention to any of the surroundings but rather just trying to get back on track and make up for the lost time in the beginning. As soon as I reached the top of Cascade I didn't even turn around to look at the city like I always do but rather said that I'll look at the amazing view when I get all the way at the top by the Monument. I kept running and running got up the final few steps by Monument and as soon as I turned around to look at the city I saw our beautiful city Yerevan with Mount Ararat showing more clearly than I have ever seen it before. There were no clouds in sight what so ever. The snow on top of Mt. Ararat was nice and clear, the city looked beautiful and I couldn't do anything else but spend an extra 20 minutes just staring at the beautiful scenery. Mt. Ararat looked as if it was standing behind our city protecting it from all troubles. It looked like a father standing behind his family protecting them from everything.
After a few minutes of just having my mind blanking out and enjoying the scenery I started thinking more in detail about Ararat and what Ararat means to me and all other Armenians all over the world. I looked at the soccer jersey I was wearing, Armenia National Soccer team's jersey, and remembered that Mt Ararat use to be part of the soccer teams logo. Whatever emblem that Armenia has, whether it is the National emblem, the soccer team's emblem, the emblem for our very own Armenian Assembly of America all have Mount Ararat as part of the emblem.
Mount Ararat has always been a part of our culture and it always will. On Saturday when we visited Stepanavan Youth Center we spend some time with a group of kids discussing the importance of preserving our environment and keeping our cities clean. Then the kids were assigned to take a piece of paper, draw a line down the middle splitting it into two parts, and draw a clean city on one side that doesn't have trash all of the place and is a healthy environment, and on the other side of the paper the kids had to draw a city that was messy and had trash all over the place. When I started looking at the kids drawings I realized that most of the kids had included Mount Ararat in their drawings. This really meant a lot for me and I realized how important Mount Ararat truly is for us Armenians.
Mount Ararat means so much for us Armenians, it is an important religious place since Noah's Ark landed on it. It has been part of our history for thousands of years and within the last century it has seen the cruelty the Armenian people went through during the years of the Armenian Genocide. But the Armenian people still dream and hope that one day Mount Ararat will once again be part of Armenia. This is why Armenians keep on fighting for this and one day our dream will become reality.