Small Town of Vicki Elmedjian

  My grandmother, Vicki Elmedjian is 66 years old and lives with her oldest son in Glendale, California.  Through the years, she has lost her mother, father, husband, and four of her siblings.  My grandmother has had many hardships in her life, but she still stands tall and strong with a smile on her face as if nothing can break her.  She tells me about the hard times she had in Bourjhamoud, Lebanon, where she grew up, and how she overcame her troubled life.  When my grandmother was two years old, she lost her mom to cancer.  Through the years, family of her own now, her family was all she had in her small town.  Bourjhamoud was a poor place, struggled for food and money, to raise her family but now after many years of living in America, she tells me her life has greatly improved and day-by-day she is thankful for everything she has in life. My grandmother today is very appreciative and proud for raising such wonderful children and grandchildren that are there for her whenever she needs them.

I was born in Bourjhamoud Lebanon on May 15, 1942. Bourjhamoud was a small town, where everyone knew each other and the houses were very close to one another. The population was between 10,000-20,000 people. The streets were very narrow, and the houses were small. There were buildings that were only two or three stories high. People would live in a one-bedroom apartment with seven to eight people and until now they live the same way. The two main types of religions were Christianity and Islam.

In our town, there was a man named Gaitsak (which means lightening) that everyone knew. At the time of the war, in the little streets of Bourjhamoud, he organized different groups for young Lebanese-Armenian men to protect their streets with their guns so nobody would attack the Armenians. At that time the Baghenstetsi (Palestinian) people came to fight with all the Lebanese people. Gaitsak was the leader of the Lebanese-Armenians, and that is how everyone knew of Gaitsak. There were some famous singers that came from Bourjhamoud, a couple of them were little boys with us, and now they are singers. One of them is Alex Harmandian and the other Paul Baghdadian and now they are in America, and they still sing and are famous. The newspapers in the town were known as Astak and Zartok.  During those times, there weren’t a lot of TVs, so we would read information from the newspapers and hear it on the radio, and the people would talk to each other about it.  As we would tell each other, the news would go out because it was a small place. News was heard of very quickly in our town. For entertainment dancing and singing groups would come from Armenia. We would hear news about it and we would go watch it. The kids in our town would sometimes put together little plays before a holiday and we would go watch it. We would celebrate our holidays by going to church. We would buy the children nice new clothes and take them to church. We would also go to the neighbor’s house and visit them. The people would all go to each other’s houses to wish them a Merry Christmas or Happy Easter. There was one tradition that we would celebrate that came from our great great grandparents. They would go outside and throw water on each other. From that day, the tradition is known as Vartivar, a day to throw water on each other. We were all neighbors with one another, Christians and Muslims. The Muslim people had their own holidays and celebrations and during the time of lent they would wake-up in the middle of the night and start playing drums to wake up the rest of the Muslim population and yell and scream in the streets telling everyone to wake up to eat. Our Christian children would be scared because of all the noise they were making.

In Bourjhamoud most of the population was poor because they just came from Turkey and they made small houses in Bourjhamoud and they would live in tube like houses. But there were a few rich people. The Armenians that were from Turkey, came to Lebanon or Syria. They were also poor. The people made their own houses and they had to live in them, but later everyone in Bourjhamoud started building bigger houses. We had a couple of schools. The education was not the best. Well now the schools have gotten much better and the education has improved, but in our time it was not good. We were too poor to afford a good education. One thing I can never forget is when in 1975 a war started and the people were very scared. All of our houses were destroyed and a bomb came on our house and completely destroyed it. It was a war against the Christians and Muslims. They would bomb all of our houses. We were very scared. We all got shocked because while we were at home, all of a sudden a bomb came on our house and broken glass and dirt was all around us. The lights went off and there was dust and smoke everywhere. We couldn’t see each other. We all got injured and I would never forget that. Until now the war isn’t over. Our house got destroyed. My husband and brother both died because of the war. The continuous war didn’t give people time to recover. The rich people got better, but those poor people that didn’t have houses stayed poor. That fright from the war will never leave me.. I would never want to go back there because we lived our worst and scariest days there and because we were so scared we left and came here for a better life.

Interviewed by Talin Elmedjian