Tamara Kabasakalian, her husband and two small children moved to Armenia from Canada five years ago. The family which has no relatives in Armenia, has been dreaming of returning to their historical homeland since 2000. The older generation of the family was born in Canada and visited Armenia only several times.
“I visited Armenia four times, first in 1989. Then I fell in love with Armenia. I arrived with my husband in 2001. Returning to Canada, I kept saying that that I will move to Armenia once. It was a dream and actually I had no idea that this day would come true. Then all our family visited two more times and baptized children here. The decision to move to Armenia was accepted quickly. In October, 2010 we made a decision and arrived in Yerevan in June, 2011. Our friends were surprised, relatives were saying that our dream came true,” Tamara said.
According to her, she and her husband had good jobs in Canada, a house, a car – everything that is necessary for welfare of the family with two children: “But we decided to tie the future of our children with Armenia.”
As 43- year-old Tamara claims, Armenia is safe, one can take children to theater every day. Everything is expensive in Canada and the Armenian theater comes there once in four or six months.
“Difficulties are everywhere and we decided to overcome them here. At first there were concerns connected with employment, integration, education of children, medical care. But now, when children ask, if we want to return to Canada, we give a negative answer unambiguously,” Tamara said.
In five years, the family had to overcome many difficulties and now Tamara speaks about them with a smile. According to her, difficulties hardened them.
“If we stayed in Canada, we would not gain such experience,” Tamara jokes.
Teacher by profession, Tamara deals with human rights protection, social services, education, and medical care, assistance for disabled and elderly people in Armenia. Tamara makes contribution to development of Armenia by means of training center where she teaches English and French by a new technique.
Asked what she would like to bring from Canada to Armenia, Tamara thought a little and then named two things: rule of law and desire to study.
Author: Aida Hovhannisyan
