Joe Manganiello Takes Pilgrimage To Armenia

Armenia is super familiar to me my mother brought figs home from the grocery store when I was a kid my mother used to cut me up pomegranates and there's people on the street making pomegranate juice um the lamin the sojic the food um it's all very familiar I've also loved seeing all the religious sides because you know my great-grandmother during her escape from Harper she had an orthodox Bible that she would read cover to cover and she you know used words like cresu and to see all of those words come to life here in this land kids start to make sense and all line up that's probably been the I mean it's just been a pretty amazing trip it's been like coming here and understanding why they are the way that they are now I have answers for all these things that were just questions before so there was a huge rainstorm when we were coming back from Lori we were trying to beat the storm back but I really wanted to see the the monastery at sahim we were staying ahead of the rain and what turned out to be flooding and we made it up to the top of the mountain and when we were exploring the monastery there there is a room with one of the chambers had an icon of the Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus and I have two two photos of my great-grandmother after surviving the genocide and after getting out of the relocation camp with my baby grandmother and it was the same exact pose in the icon as it was her holy the baby so that felt like a sign when I planted the tree at the memorial this thought came into my mind when someone stranded on a an island you you write a message of help and you put it into a bottle and you throw it into the ocean and then someday maybe somebody gets that letter and comes back it was like my great-grandmother's surviving and that was the message that then I received and then 109 years later I'm I'm back so the thought that that that plaque will always be there the tree will always be there She'll always be there um and and my mother feels the same way she feels like I I showed up here to bring them back home also you know my grandmother's name is sirari Ari is the you know the Sun or you know love son and so the eternity symbol that sun seeing that everywhere felt like my grandmother was all over this trip going to mcaren carpets and seeing the dragons on the carpet and realizing that my mother had been here years before brought me home a dragon carpet and I didn't know it was from them so seeing that there was um was amazing it just felt like the trip was already pre-ordained you know and even when I gave um a speech this past December at the co-op event in New York City one of the things that I talked about was the fact that because the diaspora exists because people like my great-grandmother survived Armenians are now all over the world so no matter what's what ever was done or ever is done to our meion they'll always always be there they'll always have a place and so um the idea of Eternity the that that that symbol of Eternity I understand what that means and that's to so in honor of my great-grandmother my grandmother their survival long enough to have my mother who then had me so I got a The Eternity on my arm I love hearing the stories especially today seeing the little boy who wouldn't talk couldn't talk and then within 2 years he's laughing we're having fun we're talking talking and just seeing the light come on in this little boy and then understanding that there are so many other children that are also being helped and then there are so many children on a weit list because the parents are now realizing that that they don't just have to hide a child with a disability or some sort of traumatic effect that is hindering their ability to learn to to see you know a village in a community realize that children can be helped you know I mean I'm I'm watching this thing take effect and and actually make a change so there are children in those Villages who are great storytellers great artists you know I'm an artist and what I got was the sense that there are these creative wonderful minds they're like flowers that just need water so it seemed to me like the smart Center was there to water these these children who haven't been watered yet and so I'm watching the Petals of these flowers unfold I just love the fact that coaf had removed any sort of excuse whatsoever and and and and given the kids the tools that they need need to to excel to have access to get out and see the world and understand that there is a world out there and then in the hopes that those kids will then come back and then help build the infrastructure here uh in their Villages the president of Armenia comes from a village like that um I know that he's a big fan of what Coop does so um for me to see that up close and actually talk to these bright funny funloving you know kids who um are being taught not just to be quiet and cover their feelings but to to let them out in these exciting ways it meant a lot to me um you you can go to a charity event and until you actually see it firsthand you just don't quite understand exactly where that money is going and where that effort is going and um I mean it's Chang in the country from the inside out it's beautiful