Interview with my Grandfather - Khachik Paltadzhyan

As he gazes longingly onto the portrait of the Muslim God Allah, eighty six year old grandfather Khachik Paltadzhyan wonders what his life would be like if he had not moved from his hometown Marsa Alam, Egypt to California in order to support his children and future generations to come. Born July 17th, 1922 and raised in Marsa Alam with 200 other people, he speaks of the life he let go of long ago, on the night of March 18th, 2008. He sits and fidgets with his long dull fingers and his hazel green eyes twinkle with delight as he remembers more about memories of his childhood and the people who lived in it. He remembers the statue of Allah he would pray to, fishing trips he would take with his friends in the Red Sea, and his home that he built. The more his memory comes back to him, the more the story of this amazingly wonderful past lived in the sandy times of the ancient Egypt unfolds.

Marsa Alam Egypt is where I had many memories with the Egyptians. It was my hometown where I grew up and I had a very interesting life there.

There was actually one person in Marsa Alam that everyone knew and his name was Jurmal Ali. Jurmal was the young fisherman of the town that would catch the best fish of the town. The Red Sea was the main spot where old friends such as Jurmal and I would go to catch big fish that we would cook up all night and just eat. My rule in fishing was that if you were going to catch fish, you had to have at least one person with you to know that you caught the fish and didn’t claim another because we would actually have tournaments around Egypt on who could catch the biggest fish. I actually caught a 21 inch fish, which actually was my first prize ever that I won and I still have the medal. In those times we didn’t have town newspapers like we do now, so no, it wasn’t in the newspaper. Catching the fish was actually one of the big tournaments that we had around the town, so people knew about it. I remember back it was me, Jurmal, and Dupree, which started that tournament, and it was our love for fish which had got us to start it. It was one of the biggest cultural events in our town.

It was really hot there and usually we would be shirtless or we would go around with shorts. We were mostly always in the water. With our bare hands we would catch fish and it was actually one of the towns tricks to learn how to catch with your bare hands.
I took my wife on fishing trips and that’s where I actually asked her to get married with me so that’s a really good memory. She really loved it because I had a passion for catching fish and she did too and she loved the water as much as I did also. She’s the only one that’s been with me all the time, so I would never leave her.

I remember hiking with my wife in the mountains once one evening, and there was a vicious wolf. Stupidly, I threw a rock at it. This wolf began to run after us, and we had nowhere to run. First thing thinking was protecting my love, so I turned around, and I had caught it by the neck. In our time our town saying was, “Hit anything on the nose, and it shall flee.” Therefore while having it by the neck, I hit it once by the nose and it started to whine and ran away. Since I was in a shocking state, I didn’t realize that I was bitten by the wolf in the lower leg therefore limping back to the town with my wife to reach the town doctor, Dr. Shirakyan. That was the most painful and dangerous experience I had all my life. We now had made the town safer because we had put up warning signs about where to see wolves and what to do if there’s a wolf so that people don’t get bitten or get hurt.

There was a town market and I remember a place called Laped which we would always go to and it was actually one of the bet Egyptian foods that I ever ate. It was a very popular place for everyone and it would usually be packed. Since we had a small town it would be the number one place to go.

We had Americans coming back and forth to see to see the wonders of Egypt. We actually had Tomik, the towns tourist guide who would show them the mountains, the llama rides, the Red Seas, how to catch fish-basically everything. The fishing competition was a free competition to join and they would be able to join, but the tourists mainly came to see the beautiful culture and the houses we built.

Somewhere in Egypt there was a statue of the Muslim God Allah that we would gather around-different people of different towns-and just go worship it. We would learn information from our journey to the statue and we would bring it back to our town for others to learn about. It was mainly families who would go because we wanted everyone to come see the beautiful statue and I was really, really surprised because Dupree came with us and prayed to our God Allah, and I have never seen something like that from a Christian.

We stopped riding llamas because they were really weak and we got camels, so others influenced us and we chose camels. We would ride in packs and usually we would put the girls on the camels since not many people had camels at these times and the llamas were really weak, so we would put the girls on camels and the men would walk on feet to the statue.

There weren’t any wars and that was a really good thing, but there were a lot of conflicts. We had some Muslims and we had actually three Christians which one of who was Dupree. Dupree and I were very close when he came because he was the one who taught me English and I was the one who taught him how to speak Arabic. I actually kept learning English from him, he was the main guy that taught me so I thank him a lot. Since I was actually the main leader of our town, the people of our town couldn’t say anything and even though he was Christian, I didn’t care. He’s actually living in Egypt now, and I have to visit him in Marsa Alam in the summer. I am looking forward to that because I haven’t seen Dupree and my other friends and I haven’t gone fishing in a really long time. I am going to relive my childhood, at an old age too.

Interviewed by Alice Balyan