This morning, my colleague Gegham and I departed for the Hatsik School in Armavir despite the fact that it is International Women’s Day and a national holiday (schools are closed today and tomorrow.) Our construction crew is making solid progress renovating the school’s assembly hall and adjacent hallway.  We began our work on one building in Hatsik with our SERVICE Armenia crew of volunteers in 2013, and an agreement with COAF to renovate the other building on campus.  Both buildings are now in terrific shape and the students and staff are very excited about the addition of this assembly space.  The auditorium and hallway renovation is sponsored through a generous donation from the Ariyan family from New York, who visited the school as part of their family visit to Armenia (thank you!) The crew informed us that work should be completed in 45 days.

We returned to Yerevan and made a quick stop at our amazing tailor who is not only altering a few things for me, but is embroidering a seat cover for our Mobile Dental Clinic.  We dropped off new winter coats so he can add our Paros logo to them, and discussed adding the appropriate logos to staff scrubs for the Apelian Dental Clinic and the Mobile Dental Clinic.

Next stop was at the Ideal store.  Ideal is one of the largest suppliers of building materials and supplies in Armenia.  We purchase most of our tile, flooring, heating and bathroom fixtures from there because we have negotiated a very healthy discount on our purchases through their corporate offices.  And as an added bonus, they are only importing products from Russia, Iran and Europe.  So, our task at Ideal today was to purchase about 1,100 square feet of porcelain tiles for the kitchen and cafeteria at the Rind village school.  Mission accomplished.

Along the way, we were able to successfully set our appointments for our visit to Vanadzor tomorrow.

I ended the day back at my apartment with some soup and giving in to my jet lag.