Kidnap Coffee

Coming up at 11am – A warm and disorienting kitchen encounter in post-earthquake Armenia. Field recordings meet hospitality, humour, and the limits of translation in this story of an unexpected coffee break with two gardeners, Gina and Raja, in Gyumri.

The devastating earthquake on December 6th, 1988, destroyed the greatest part of the city of Gyumri in Armenia. With the Mush II District, a whole new living quarter was stomped out of the ground. Sturdy tenement buildings, a school, three supermarkets, a park with a varied fountain, a football arena, playing grounds and small garden patches, either in the yards or bordering on the overgrown meadows. 

When stopping by one of those gardens, Gabi Schaffner was spoken to and afterwards ‘kidnapped’ by two ladies (best friends and gardeners) and taken into the kitchen to drink coffee. English is overestimated as lingua franca once you travel east. Gabi felt discombobulated and difficult. Her translator-app worked for Russian only… which created much fun for Gina and Raja. Gabi chose to submit this ‘situation piece’ because its squeaky ambiguities are so well known to any field recordist or traveller. There is still much to learn.