The Worst Part is When They Leave

At Birthright we offer volunteers homestays where they get to live with a host family while they are in Armenia. While staying with another family might seem a bid daunting, volunteers often walk away from their time with their host families with tears in their eyes because host families, in true Armenian fashion, welcome volunteers as their own family members.

Host families not only offer a room and breakfast, but they become the place where volunteers can feel truly at home. For this reason, we recommend all of our volunteers stay with a host family and become ensconced with what life is like in Armenia.

Host mother’s like Anahit, who live in the city center have been opening their doors to volunteers for over a decade and have welcomed dozens of people from around the world. Anahit sees every volunteer as a member of the family whether they are young volunteers in their early 20s or seniors in their 70s, she treats them all the same.

To Anahit, it doesn’t matter if someone is Armenian or not, she welcomes them with the utmost love and courtesy. From listening to her talk about the volunteers she has hosted, it is clear that she is more than just a host mom, she is a friend, counselor, and caretaker to her volunteers taking care of them when they get sick. In all this she said about her guests “If you love them, they will love you. I love them with open hands, and we love to welcome them, and they will be a part of our family as much as they wish to be.“

Other host mothers like Margarita, who lives in the 3rd quarter of Yerevan, will sometimes go and sit in the room of her former volunteer the day and cry because she will have already missed them. Often her guests will come back and visit them and as she describes it, she will run to them and hug them as if her own son was coming back from war.

In her own experience, she will describe how volunteers have taught her about the world and have shown her how to appreciate different cultures that she hadn’t known so well in the past. In her 14 years as a host, she has hosted dozens of volunteers who have all come as guest, stayed as family, left in tears, and returned in joyous reunion.

The host families volunteers encounter are their families in Armenia. As a former volunteer myself who stayed with a host family who was every bit as warm and welcoming as Anahit and Margarita, I can say that it was by far the most precious aspect of my time in Birthright.

Jack Baghumian