JOURNAL HIGHLIGHTS: Roads I Have Traveled ... Excerpt # 5 Nagorno-Karabakh, 1998

by Dr. James W. Jackson

Founder, Project C.U.R.E.
Author, The Happiest Man in the World: Life Lessons from a Cultural Economist

(continued): Nagorno-Karabakh: August, 1998: The archbishop is a strong man whom I judged to be in his late fifties. His slightly graying beard somewhat hid a classic squared jaw and chiseled features. He stood with strength and dignity, but his soft eyes revealed his kindness and gentleness of spirit. He knew some English, but he spoke to us through an interpreter. 

Our meeting with the archbishop was so meaningful to me that I asked if I could have my photo taken with the archbishop and Baroness Cox. Along with Zori, they had fought an impossible war and were not defeated. “The war showed many miracles. As with the miracles in the Old Testament, victory was not just because of the people of Karabakh; it was because of the Lord.” To illustrate his point, he told me the account of a battle during the war that took place close by in a village referred to as “Under the Rock.”

A small group of thirty Karabakhi soldiers were dispatched to guard the village from a sneak attack. A battalion of at least three hundred Turkish and Azerbaijani soldiers surrounded the village and prepared for their offensive to completely destroy the village and all the men, women and children there. The day was completely clear and sunny. The group of Karabakhi soldiers realized they needed thirty minutes at least to get all the women and children out of the village before the deadly attack of the enemy. They prayed that God would somehow grant them the thirty minutes necessary. Out of nowhere in the sky came a bright-white vapor cloud. The fog was so dense that they couldn’t see in front of them. The cloud of fog passed between the villagers and the enemy and stopped for thirty minutes. When the women and children were safely out and away, the cloud passed on and evaporated.

In the ensuing battle, which lasted the rest of the day, only thirteen Karabakhi soldiers were killed. The Karabakhi soldiers had won. Over half of the Azerbaijani forces lay dead, and many more were wounded. “That was a miracle,” insisted the archbishop.

Tuesday, August 18

Our next stop was Stepanakert’s general hospital. The schedule was tight enough that we didn’t even have time for a lunch break. The thing I observed that both the children’s hospital and the general hospital need most is a total replacement of the buildings. Both hospitals had taken fifteen to twenty direct missile hits and a lot of mortar hits. The ceilings and walls still have not been repaired, and it isn’t unusual to find holes and bomb fragments in the wooden hallways.

Next, we rushed to assess the maternity hospital where Dr. Arthur Marutian and his administration staff welcomed us. The maternity hospital received quite a number of direct and indirect missile and mortar hits during the fighting. Quite frankly, the building isn’t worth trying to salvage. The outside walls are collapsing, and the inside of the building sustained structural damage. On our tour of the facilities, I discovered that the hospital has been completely without water for the past four days. I kept asking myself how they can run a hospital without regular access to fresh water and electricity.

Dr. Marutian responded very positively when I suggested that they think about altering the old Soviet style and philosophy of health care. As we walked down the dark corridors of the hospital, I told him about the many hundreds of hospitals I had visited throughout the old Soviet Union.

“I am very aware,” I told the doctor, “of the idea of total central control of the health-care system by the Soviet government. Their idea was to place each specialty in a separate hospital location. Then they could more easily control the movements and procedures of everyone, because no one had an opportunity to communicate with anyone else.” He nodded his head in agreement. “The hospitals I have visited so far in Stepanakert have all needed everything. I am guessing that the other ones we will be visiting also need everything. But Project C.U.R.E. can’t fully equip five or six separate hospitals here in the city. It would be my suggestion that you abandon separate hospitals and combine all the medical specialties in one new hospital building with separate departments for the specialties. By so doing, you here at the maternity hospital would have access to a fully equipped, modern operating room, radiology department, and diagnostics laboratory.”

To my surprise, Dr. Marutian really jumped at the idea and said there were others in Stepanakert who were in agreement about needing to dump the old Soviet system of medical care. To underscore the maternity hospital’s dire need for new equipment, the doctor took me into the main delivery room. There he walked to the metal delivery table and lifted up the pad that covered the tabletop. The entire end of the table where the delivery procedures took place was completely rusted out.

  “This is not just unsanitary with all this rust,” he said, “but if the end of the table drops off during one of my deliveries, we will all be in great trouble.”

I told Dr. Marutian that before we leave Karabakh, Dr. Anthony Peel, the surgeon from England, and I will be meeting with the prime minister and making recommendations for Stepanakert’s health-care system. I told Dr. Marutian that since he is one of the doctors who would be willing to break away from the old Soviet health system concepts, I would like to be able to call on him or at least use his name to support our recommendations. He smiled broadly and gave me a “thumbs up.” I knew that somehow we were going to hit a homerun!

Next Week: No Caravan to Yerevan, Lord let me fly by chopper. 

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

  

www.jameswjackson.com

 

Dr. James W. Jackson often describes himself as "The Happiest Man in the World." A successful businessman, award-winning author and humanitarian, Jackson is also a renowned Cultural Economist and international consultant, helping organizations and governments to apply sound economic principals to the transformation of culture so that everyone is "better off."

As the founder of Project C.U.R.E., Dr. Jackson traveled to more than one hundred fifty countries assessing healthcare facilities, meeting with government leaders and "delivering health and hope" in the form of medical supplies and equipment to the world's most needy people. Literally thousands of people are alive today as a direct result of the tireless efforts of Project C.U.R.E.'s staff, volunteers and Dr. Jackson. 

To contact Dr. Jackson, or to book him for an interview or speaking engagement: press@winstoncrown.com

JOURNAL HIGHLIGHTS: Roads I Have Traveled ... Excerpt # 4 Nagorno-Karabakh 1998

by Dr. James W. Jackson

Founder, Project C.U.R.E.
Author, The Happiest Man in the World: Life Lessons from a Cultural Economist

(continued): Nagorno-Karabakh: August, 1998: As we were being served dinner in the basement of the main government building, the four of us who had been assigned to stay at the bombed out downtown hotel began trying to figure out which of the dirty, tattered sofas in the lobby we would use as beds. As providence would have it a gentleman intervened and invited us to stay at a facility where there were latches and locks on the doors and running water in the sink, toilet, and shower. It was a miracle!

Sunday, August 16

At breakfast Lady Cox and Zori informed us that we would be going once again in the helicopter. As we shuddered and shook to a successful liftoff, our helicopter once again took us just barely over the tops of more burned and bombed-out villages. At one point the clouds parted, and I was able to get a spectacular view of Mount Ararat. As I sized up the mountain, I tried to imagine a puddle of water sixteen thousand feet deep, and the time Noah and his family must have had trying to make their way off the steep mountain with a menagerie of animals.

The Armenians built their churches in the most inaccessible places you could imagine. There is no such thing as a church “on the way.” They are all very much out of the way. But I suppose that’s why they are still in existence today. The cathedral at Gandzasar, known as the Hill of Treasure, now conducts services on a regular basis. During the war the Azerbaijanis tried desperately to destroy the church. They encircled the building and fired missiles and mortar shells at it. The monastery next door was blown up, but neither the bombs from the air nor the mortar shells nor the rockets could destroy the small cathedral. All the shots missed the church, except one missile that penetrated one meter inside the building but did not explode. The people all talked about the miracle God had performed in sparing the church. Zori told me that during Stalin’s reign, all the priests and bishops in all the Armenian churches were either killed or shipped off to Siberia to be worked to death.

Our helicopter had to dock about one and a quarter miles down the hill from the church. Dr. Scott and I decided to hike up to the church instead of waiting for a four-wheel-drive rig to take us. The priest and the people of Gandzasar had planned a spectacular feast in our honor. Two men led two young sheep through the ancient churchyard and back behind the monastery, where the sheep were butchered for our lunch. As some of the men cut the meat, others built the fires, and still others began stabbing the meat onto shish-kebab skewers. Mountain-village women prepared breads and salads and cooked vegetables to be placed on the nearly forty-foot-long table. By the time we were ready to eat, over fifty people sat down at the table.

 The generosity of the Armenian people is almost incomprehensible. They have nothing, and yet they will give you anything and everything they might have. The average Karabakhi makes only one thousand drams a month, and a loaf of bread costs one hundred drams. That equates to purchasing ten loaves of bread a month—and nothing else. Our interpreter, Irena, who speaks three languages and works for the health ministry, earns an income equivalent to twelve US dollars per month. She has to feed two teenagers as she tries to live on such a salary. Yet there is nothing she would not do for a guest or for someone she saw in need.

After the feast Zori had one more surprise for us. We all got back into the helicopter and flew a ways farther down the mountain close to the village of Vanenka. Rafee, the pilot, set the big, ugly, orange bird down about one hundred yards from the cottage of a mountain beekeeper. As we walked from the chopper to the house, I noticed hundreds of blackberry bushes just loaded with ripe berries. The lady of the cottage had set a very long table loaded with bread and bottled mineral water. Between the small house and where the table was set in a tree-lined opening, we had to cross a small creek.

 Set up alongside the creek was a beautiful antique samovar filled with boiling tea and a small burning log in the center chamber of the samovar keeping the liquid hot. I had no idea how old the samovar must have been, but it delighted me to see it in practical use out in the rugged mountains of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Before we were seated at the table, the bee farmer directed us to the area where he kept his beehives. He gently shooed the bees away and opened the top of the hive. Then he carefully tugged and pulled one of the thin sections from the hive where the bees had built their honeycomb. He repeated the process until he was certain he had retrieved enough honey for our dessert party.

Once seated, we were served piping hot tea, fresh bread, large platters of fresh honey still in the honeycomb, and generous helping of blackberries in thick, sweet juice. I don’t know what heaven is going to be like, but I think I will suggest to the Lord that he include in the venue something quite like that setting in the wooded mountains of Karabakh along the stream, with honeycomb, fresh bread, fresh berries, and hot tea.

Monday, August 17

The health minister suggested we perform the needs assessments at the children’s hospital and general hospital today, and the maternity hospital, military hospital, and psychiatric hospital tomorrow, and then drive out to the region near the front lines of the war on Wednesday to a town called Martakert. That way we will have been able to assess six of the institutions by the time we have our next meeting with the prime minister. Additionally, we set our final meeting with the minister of health for Wednesday at 5:00 p.m. to bring him a complete report on our findings and deliver our recommendations for the region’s health-care system.

On our way to the children’s hospital, I was watching the people of Stepanakert as they walked along the streets. For a two-block stretch, there were no people on the streets except women. I turned to the backseat where Irena, our interpreter, was riding and mentioned my observation that the streets were filled with only women and a few children.

“That’s because our men are all dead,” she replied. She then told us that her husband had been an antiaircraft gunner in the war. He survived being shot during the war but died a short time after the signing of the cease-fire as a result of some kind of head or brain injury. Now she has been left alone to raise her teenage son and daughter. “It is impossible to live on what we earn in Stepanakert. I earn the equivalent of twelve US dollars a month for many long hours. I have tried to find students who want to learn English, Russian, or American English. But the problem is that they don’t have any money either, so it is difficult for them to pay me.”

She then went on to add, “But I don’t have it as bad as many in Stepanakert. Nearly 80 percent of all the families here do not have a husband or father in the home. They are dead, and the wife now has to raise a much bigger family than mine, by herself, and also try to earn a living.”

For the rest of the drive to the hospital, all of us in the car just sat there stone silent.

Why, I thought, are we the first ones to come and help the people of Karabakh?

Next Week: Astonishing Miracles

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

  

www.jameswjackson.com

Dr. James W. Jackson often describes himself as "The Happiest Man in the World." A successful businessman, award-winning author and humanitarian, Jackson is also a renowned Cultural Economist and international consultant, helping organizations and governments to apply sound economic principals to the transformation of culture so that everyone is "better off."

As the founder of Project C.U.R.E., Dr. Jackson traveled to more than one hundred fifty countries assessing healthcare facilities, meeting with government leaders and "delivering health and hope" in the form of medical supplies and equipment to the world's most needy people. Literally thousands of people are alive today as a direct result of the tireless efforts of Project C.U.R.E.'s staff, volunteers and Dr. Jackson. 

To contact Dr. Jackson, or to book him for an interview or speaking engagement: press@winstoncrown.com

JOURNAL HIGHLIGHTS Roads I Have Traveled ... Excerpt # 3 Nagorno-Karabakh, 1998

by Dr. James W. Jackson

Founder, Project C.U.R.E.
Author, The Happiest Man in the World: Life Lessons from a Cultural Economist

(continued): Nagorno-Karabakh: August, 1998:Stepanakert was our destination. It is the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh and houses the country’s government buildings. The helicopter pilots gently set our ugly orange bird down in the midst of its own tornado and dust storm. When the chopper blades ceased rotating, a pilot named Uri opened the door, and we were allowed to crawl out. The air was hot and muggy, and there was no breeze at all after the helicopter’s windstorms died down. Vans were at the airport runway to meet us at Zori’s prearranged direction. I already perceived that Stepanakert is a lot different than Yerevan. There was something of bleak solemnity that permeated the spirit of the city. I could feel it. No one smiled. The expressions on people’s faces showed neither happiness nor pleasantness; rather, their facial muscles drooped, which had the effect of making their eyes look even sadder.

Our vans and taxis rendezvoused at the government buildings in the center of Stepanakert. The hotel in which four of us are scheduled to stay is only one block away from the main government building. I grabbed my luggage and went quickly with the others to get checked into our rooms and freshen up a bit before our scheduled 5:00 p.m. meeting with the minister of health.

The hotel had known its days of glory and splendor in the past, I was certain. But that must have been over a hundred years in the past. Since then, I don’t think any maintenance had been performed at all. In addition, the building had taken some direct hits during the bombings of the past few years. As we entered, I looked up to the ceiling of the lobby area and marveled at the half-destroyed remnants of crystal chandeliers hanging precariously from the ceiling. Most of the crystal pendants were missing, and the few that remained closely matched in color the tarnished brass of the fixture. I guess I should have just kept focusing on the broken chandeliers, but I made the mistake of looking around at where we were expected to stay. Most of the rooms were uninhabitable, with collapsed plaster ceilings or broken walls or doors. I recalled all the terrible places around the world where I had been expected to lay my head down and sleep, and at first I figured I would just take a deep breath and make the present situation work.

A pudgy, unkempt woman met us as we came in and handed us a couple of keys. She then accompanied us to our rooms on the third floor. On our way upstairs, I began to notice that the hotel wasn’t just old and war damaged; it was grossly filthy. At the door to one room, the unpleasant innkeeper communicated to us in Armenian that she expected three of us to stay there. But there were only two beds. We protested, but she countered by showing us that it was the only room in the hotel that had its own bathroom. We stepped in to have a look-see—we shouldn’t have. She lost her sales point. The bathroom was a terrible fright. The floor had been torn up and not repaired, so there were piles of dirt and broken concrete to sidestep. The mirror consisted of just a few broken chunks that still stuck to the wall. The sink was crusty, but we were to discover that this didn’t count for much, since there was no running water available on floors two and three. Obviously the toilet wasn’t of much use, since there was no running water. But they had tried to compensate for that by filling the dilapidated bathtub with some drain water they had carried up in a rusty bucket and dumped.

I made signs to the lady as if I were turning on and off a water spigot, and hand motions as if I were taking a shower. She cracked about a half smile and pointed back down the stairs. We all then communicated to her that we wanted to see the running water downstairs. After all, we were going to be here the major portion of a week! She pointed to her watch and indicated that there would be no water even downstairs until after 5:00 p.m. We insisted on seeing the shower room anyway. I will let your own imagination paint the picture of what we found there.

Thinking we had no other options, we put our suitcases in the rooms, and as we walked down the stairs and out the door to our meeting with the minister of health, Dr. Scott Stenquest, Dr. Anthony Peel, and I talked about perhaps using the old sofas in the lobby as beds.

Our meeting with the health minister, Dr. Aleksander Petrossian, really got our visit off on the right foot. There was an instant bonding between the two of us, and I knew I would be able to work with him in the future. I explained to him all about Project C.U.R.E., why we had come, and how the needs assessments would be conducted in his hospitals with his cooperation and blessing. I was then perhaps a little more stern with the health minister than I needed to be in explaining my expectations for getting the containers into the country and the distribution process. 

While I was laying down my points in no uncertain terms, I had a flashback of my presentation in a similar situation in Benin, West Africa, when my snippy, little Baptist missionary, who had never had a meeting with a government official higher than the local traffic cop, chided me and told me I had no right talking to a cabinet minister in that tone of voice. Pushing that picture aside, I kept up with the pressure. I was demanding written assurances of getting the medical goods into the country without customs hassles, levied taxes, or transportation delays. I also demanded the right to distribute the goods as we see fit based on the findings of our needs assessment and not based on political determinations. I joked with him just enough to keep him smiling and his head going up and down.

I asked the minister to give me wise counsel as to which hospitals we should visit and in what order. He agreed that by Monday morning at 9:00, he would have all the answers ready for me, and the hospitals notified of my arrival.

At 7:30 p.m., Zori Balayan ushered our delegation into the office of the prime minister of Nagorno-Karabakh, Zhirayr T. Poghosyan. Baroness Cox was extremely gracious in her introduction of Project C.U.R.E. to the prime minister. We only had time to greet Mr. Poghosyan with a few words, because he had pulled himself from another scheduled meeting to meet briefly with us and greet us. It is certainly helpful having Zori make sure we receive our requested appointments with any of the government officials.

Dinner was scheduled at 9:00 p.m. in the lower level of the government building. At dinner Zori told us that this is Lady Cox’s thirty-ninth trip to Nagorno-Karabakh. I have watched in amazement while we have been in Armenia and Karabakh at the recognition and reception the local people give to Baroness Cox. Everyone knows her, or at least who she is. To them she is almost a patron saint. She was there all during the war and held nothing back within her ability, giving aid and comfort during the people’s darkest hours. My respect for her has grown by the day. She really has a gift of love for the oppressed and particularly those of the persecuted Christian church. I am not surprised in the least that she has been given nearly every international humanitarian award for her spirit and her work.

Next Week: Mountain Top Banquet
 

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

  

www.jameswjackson.com  

Dr. James W. Jackson often describes himself as "The Happiest Man in the World." A successful businessman, award-winning author and humanitarian, Jackson is also a renowned Cultural Economist and international consultant, helping organizations and governments to apply sound economic principals to the transformation of culture so that everyone is "better off."

As the founder of Project C.U.R.E., Dr. Jackson traveled to more than one hundred fifty countries assessing healthcare facilities, meeting with government leaders and "delivering health and hope" in the form of medical supplies and equipment to the world's most needy people. Literally thousands of people are alive today as a direct result of the tireless efforts of Project C.U.R.E.'s staff, volunteers and Dr. Jackson. 

To contact Dr. Jackson, or to book him for an interview or speaking engagement: press@winstoncrown.com