#faos insecure about his family as per

[faofinn]

9. Home Remedy

@sicktember

Fao hated being ill. He'd picked this up from God knows where, probably big lectures, long days and cold, exhausting rugby training in the rain. Regardless of where this illness had come from, it was horrid. Pounding headache, cold sweats, a cough that Fao couldn't shift. He sounded awful, his voice on its way out too, and he didn't have the energy for much other than staying curled under his duvet sleeping. He'd even missed lectures, which he never did, but he couldn't summon the energy to walk to campus. He could barely summon the energy to get up to make tea. 

He was woken from his doze by his phone ringing on the table beside him. Groaning, he reached for it to see who was calling him. Sheila. She’d been fussing since she’d found out he was ill. 

“Mum?” He rasped, his voice really suffering now. 

“Oh, Fao. You sound dreadful, sweetheart.” Sheila said softly.

“Mm. Feel it too.” He replied.

“Did you have lectures today?”

“Yeah. Didn’t go in.”

“It’s for the best. Do you want us to come up? Fred can get time off.”

“No, no. ‘m ‘kay.”

“Are you sure, sweetheart?”

“I’ll probably go back to uni tomorrow.” He mumbled. “Don’t want you wasting your time.”

"Don't be silly. It's not a waste of time." She sighed. "I wish you were down here."

“I’m fine.”

"You sound it." She winced as he started coughing again. "Why don't you get some rest? Call me later?"

“Yeah. I will. Love you.” He said roughly. 

Sheila hung up after a few more insistences for him to rest up and look after himself. He really sounded awful, and as soon as Fred got in, told him so. Sheila worried about everything and everyone, it was just who she was, but Fred's phonecall to Fao later in the day made him worry.

He made his mind up quickly enough, putting in leave at the University and sending the homework out instead. The trains were simple enough, and he was on his way to Fao's by teatime.

He hailed a taxi from the station, aware Fao would be asleep, and wanting to let him rest as long as he could. Only outside the door did he knock, and, on second thoughts, rang his mobile.

Fao had finally managed to sleep after tossing and turning for hours, when his phone rang. Again. No doubt it was Sheila fussing, Fred having told her he sounded bad. Of course he sounded bad, he was sick. He’d get better with rest. So long as they stopped fucking calling him.  

Rolling over, he saw it was Fred calling, and groaned. 

“Yeah?” He asked, coughing as he rolled back onto his back. “M tryin’ to sleep.”

"Can you come unlock the front door?"

Fao frowned. “Why?”

"Because it's bloody cold out here."

“What?”

"Just come let me in, will you?"

Confused, Fao forced himself out of bed and to the front door, dragging a hand through his hair. He opened the door, frowning at the figure that greeted him on the other side. 

“Fred?”

"Sorry it's so late. It was the first train I could get."

“But? Why are you…? Is everyone okay?”

"Everyone except you." He said. "You sounded so rough on the phone earlier.'

“I’ve got a cold. I’m fine.”

He hummed. "Still, I'm here now. Are you going back to bed?"

“Mm. It’s the middle of the night.” Fao grumbled. “Are you stayin’?”

"Not quite the middle. I can get a hotel room."

“Feels like it.” He said, shivering. “You can stay ‘ere.”

"Come on, back to bed." He murmured, shepherding him through. "You need your rest."

“I was tryin’ to rest.” He protested. 

"I know, I'm sorry."

Fao paused, and then turned to face his adoptive father. He wrapped his arms around him, sighing. “Thank you.”

Fred squeezed him back. "You're welcome, kiddo."

“You gonna stay here?” He asked, his voice muffled.

"Yeah, someone's gotta look after you."

“Mm. ‘m an adult. Can look after myself.” He grumbled, but it held no heat. He finally let go and slunk off to bed, curling up under the duvet again. 

Fred let him go, heading to the kitchen. He figured he might as well get a start on the cooking, so Fao would have something for the next day.

When Fao woke the next morning, he still felt awful. As soon as he sat up he was wracked by a coughing fit that he couldn’t stop, and with a frustrated grumble he managed to force down some water. He wanted a cigarette, but he’d never manage with the way his chest was, and instead he padded into the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea. 

Determined, Fred had been up a few hours before Fao stirred, finishing off the day's food and packing plenty more for the freezer. He glanced up as Fao walked in, giving him a small smile.

"Morning."

Fao cleared his throat. “Mornin’.” He said, his voice close to a hoarse whisper. 

"Kettle hasn't long boiled."

Fao hummed, reaching for his favourite mug. “Mum send you?” 

"No, she wanted to come up though."

“‘kay.”

"Couldn't get time off with Finn, and you know what he's like."

Fao shrugged, trying to save his voice as he made his tea. 

"I'll make you breakfast, go sit down."

“Not hungry.” He rasped, turning away to cough again, gripping the kitchen counter. 

"You need something."

Fao didn’t have the energy to argue, and he certainly didn’t have the voice to either. Instead he shuffled to the sofa, curling up under a blanket with his tea. 

Fred watched him go, shaking his head. He returned to the stove, and started on Fao's breakfast, some scrambled eggs and orange juice. Once finished, he headed through to the living room, passing Fao's breakfast before sitting next to him - the soup was pretty much finished. 

Fao took it, though he still wasn't really hungry. He picked at it, finishing the orange juice, and then curled into Fred with a sniff and a sigh. 

"Oh, son. You just feel rotten, eh?" He wrapped his arm around Fao. "I've made lunch and tea, and I've frozen a few weeks worth for you, too. Just some soup for today, an old recipe my mum used to make. Meant to fix anything, she said. Hopefully it helps with your cold."

Everyone knew Fred's soup was the best, and Fao hummed happily. “Thank you.” He rasped, his voice cracking. 

"You're welcome, kid. We'll sort you out."

He dozed off against Fred, content and still exhausted. It was easy to feel safe with him around. 

They stayed like that for a while, comfortable and relaxed, until Fao stirred just after lunch time. His voice had completely crapped out on him by then, a scratchy whispery mess, but Fred didn’t seem to mind. Instead, he offered Fao another cup of tea, with honey and lemon, and a steaming bowl of chicken soup.

It was perfect. Warm and filling and so so soothing. It eased Fao’s sore throat, stopped his cough just for a while. Fred’s mum clearly had been right - it could fix everything. Alongside a couple of cold meds, Fao was feeling better by late afternoon, though his voice was still gone. At least his head wasn’t pounding so much, he wasn’t constantly coughing and making his chest sore. He might be a medical student, but there was nothing like a home remedy to make you feel better. 

It was more than just the soup, too. The fact that Fred had travelled up to see him, spend time with him, cooked him a family recipe just to make him feel better. Fao knew he was lucky to have such a good adoptive family, but even then he sometimes doubted his place with them. 

There was no denying that he was part of the family today. 

He curled up back on the sofa with Fred’s arm around him, and the TV on playing some daft old movie that Fred decided was the best film ever made. Fao didn’t mind, it was easy enough to fall asleep to. He was just enjoying feeling loved. 

#sicktember 2022 #sicktember day 9 #whump prompt #whump writing #whump #Home remedy #faolan blackwood #fred daniels #sheila daniels #cold #lost voice #sickfic #coughing #faos insecure about his family as per #fred being a soft shite #fred's sheila is showing tbh #i love this damn family

[armeniaitn]

Postcards: As Soviet seed blights Armenian farms, reform promises growth

New Post has been published on https://armenia.in-the.news/economy/postcards-as-soviet-seed-blights-armenian-farms-reform-promises-growth-51236-20-08-2020/

Postcards: As Soviet seed blights Armenian farms, reform promises growth

21 August 2020

UMBERTO BACCHI and NVARD HOVHANNISYAN

Yerevan, Armenia/Milan, Italy Thomson Reuters Foundation

Gayane Azatyan has grown veg for 20 years – a prosperous enough venture despite the bad seed that was planted by the Soviet system and has blighted Armenia all her working life.

The 43-year-old makes a living growing broccoli, lettuce and other vegetables in the northern Armenian village of Jrashen.

Her farm covers 8.5 hectares – roughly a dozen football pitches and a sizable area by local standards.

Only the land is not contiguous, but made up of several small plots scattered across the village, some of which she owns and the rest she rents from near-neighbours.

“It is a problem,” she said by phone. “We spend a lot of time and resources to take our workers from one land plot to another. It would be very good to have one big land plot.”

A child stands at the door of a house in Aragatsavan, some 80 kilometres north-west of Yerevan, on the Armenian side of the Armenian Turkish border, on 1st November 2009. PICTURE: Reuters/David Mdzinarishvili/File photo.

Excessive land fragmentation, a legacy of switching at speed from communism to a private-property system, has long hindered agricultural development in Armenia – where about half of all arable land lies abandoned, according to the government.

So now the authorities plan to reform the setup, do away with the communist legacy, modernise the Armenian economy and shore up food security in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Fragmentation of lands makes agricultural activities unfavourable and economically unprofitable. The land reform will be an important step for unlocking growth in the agricultural sector.”

– Arman Khojoyan, Armenia’s deputy economy minister.

“Fragmentation of lands makes agricultural activities unfavourable and economically unprofitable,” the country’s deputy economy minister, Arman Khojoyan, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a phone interview.

“The land reform will be an important step for unlocking growth in the agricultural sector.”

After Armenia became independent in 1991, state-owned farmland was split into small parcels and distributed in equal amounts – through a lottery – to an array of locals.

While the process was fair and buoyed food production at a time where the centralised system was in freefall, it also laid the groundwork for today’s problems, said Morten Hartvigsen, a land tenure officer at the United Nations food agency, the Food and Agriculture Organization.

Most Armenian food comes from the 320,000 or so family farms that dot the fertile land in the southern Caucasus, according to the FAO, which is helping the government craft the reforms.

About 60 per cent of these are less than one hectare in size and 89 per cent are smaller than three hectares, it said.

By contrast, the average farm in England is 86 hectares, making for greater efficiency and higher yields. 

Smallholders in Armenia are often unable to afford the sort of modern machinery and systems that would help them prosper.

In 2016, almost 40 per cent of food produced in Armenia was eaten by the people who grew it, according to official data, killing off hopes of a vibrant free market in the former Soviet state.

This fuels a vicious circle of emigration and land abandonment, compounded by low and loosely enforced land taxes, according to the FAO.

“It doesn’t cost [owners] anything to have this land,” said Hartvigsen. “So, you get a job in Moscow for some seasonal work, for example, you move there and just leave the land, abandoned.”

The government wants to send a reform package to parliament by the end of the year, aiming to bring fallow land to life by banding small plots together and marketing them as one unit.

“Currently [investors] have to deal with too many small land holders and most of them have some paperwork issue,” said Khojoyan, the deputy minister.

Armenia’s land agency would act as an intermediary, seeking out the owners of abandoned parcels and encouraging them to put the plots on a database of available land that the agency would then combine and lease to farmers, he said.

Owners who want to take part would receive a small rent as incentive, he said, while government plans to raise taxes on abandoned lots have been shelved.

The agency might also buy parcels and lease them out, and run an exchange system so owners can swap plots, Khojoyan added.

The target is to get 25 per cent of the abandoned land working within five years, boosting a sector that makes up a quarter of the country’s economic output, said the deputy minister.

“Coronavirus has doubtlessly stressed the need for reform,” he said, noting how the pandemic had revealed the true extent of food insecurity and unemployment in his landlocked country.

Border closures due to COVID-19 grounded the tens of thousands of Armenians who usually travel abroad for seasonal jobs, and the reform could help them find work at home, he said.

“Land reforms can be a stimulus to engage in agriculture and land cultivation,” he said.

To succeed, though, Armenia badly needs better roads and irrigation networks, according to the Agricultural Alliance of Armenia, an umbrella group of farming organisations.

“Before implementing these changes, the government should think about solving the irrigation problem. If it is solved, no inch of plot will remain unused.”

– Aram Kirakosyan, a 60-year-old who grows apricot and grapes in the Ararat region.

“The main reason for not cultivating the land is the absence of irrigation water,” the group said in a statement, noting that about 75 per cent of abandoned agricultural land had no irrigation.

Farmers agreed.

“Before implementing these changes, the government should think about solving the irrigation problem. If it is solved, no inch of plot will remain unused,” said Aram Kirakosyan, a 60-year-old who grows apricot and grapes in the Ararat region.

Others, like Azatyan, worry she might be charged more to farm the land post-reform.

“I’m afraid the price for the rent will increase,” she said, explaining she only paid a symbolic price to fellow villagers.

Khojoyan said irrigation projects would run in parallel with the reform.

Market forces would determine rents, he said, though government may initially set lower rates as an incentive to Armenians to weed out the old Soviet legacy.

“The government doesn’t want to make money,” he said.

View the discussion thread.

Read original article here.

#Armenia #Armenians #Caucasus #Covid-19 #Yerevan #Economy

[armeniaitn]

Postcards: As Soviet seed blights Armenian farms, reform promises growth

New Post has been published on https://armenia.in-the.news/economy/postcards-as-soviet-seed-blights-armenian-farms-reform-promises-growth-52458-20-08-2020/

Postcards: As Soviet seed blights Armenian farms, reform promises growth

21 August 2020

UMBERTO BACCHI and NVARD HOVHANNISYAN

Yerevan, Armenia/Milan, Italy Thomson Reuters Foundation

Gayane Azatyan has grown veg for 20 years – a prosperous enough venture despite the bad seed that was planted by the Soviet system and has blighted Armenia all her working life.

The 43-year-old makes a living growing broccoli, lettuce and other vegetables in the northern Armenian village of Jrashen.

Her farm covers 8.5 hectares – roughly a dozen football pitches and a sizable area by local standards.

Only the land is not contiguous, but made up of several small plots scattered across the village, some of which she owns and the rest she rents from near-neighbours.

“It is a problem,” she said by phone. “We spend a lot of time and resources to take our workers from one land plot to another. It would be very good to have one big land plot.”

A child stands at the door of a house in Aragatsavan, some 80 kilometres north-west of Yerevan, on the Armenian side of the Armenian Turkish border, on 1st November 2009. PICTURE: Reuters/David Mdzinarishvili/File photo.

Excessive land fragmentation, a legacy of switching at speed from communism to a private-property system, has long hindered agricultural development in Armenia – where about half of all arable land lies abandoned, according to the government.

So now the authorities plan to reform the setup, do away with the communist legacy, modernise the Armenian economy and shore up food security in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Fragmentation of lands makes agricultural activities unfavourable and economically unprofitable. The land reform will be an important step for unlocking growth in the agricultural sector.”

– Arman Khojoyan, Armenia’s deputy economy minister.

“Fragmentation of lands makes agricultural activities unfavourable and economically unprofitable,” the country’s deputy economy minister, Arman Khojoyan, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a phone interview.

“The land reform will be an important step for unlocking growth in the agricultural sector.”

After Armenia became independent in 1991, state-owned farmland was split into small parcels and distributed in equal amounts – through a lottery – to an array of locals.

While the process was fair and buoyed food production at a time where the centralised system was in freefall, it also laid the groundwork for today’s problems, said Morten Hartvigsen, a land tenure officer at the United Nations food agency, the Food and Agriculture Organization.

Most Armenian food comes from the 320,000 or so family farms that dot the fertile land in the southern Caucasus, according to the FAO, which is helping the government craft the reforms.

About 60 per cent of these are less than one hectare in size and 89 per cent are smaller than three hectares, it said.

By contrast, the average farm in England is 86 hectares, making for greater efficiency and higher yields. 

Smallholders in Armenia are often unable to afford the sort of modern machinery and systems that would help them prosper.

In 2016, almost 40 per cent of food produced in Armenia was eaten by the people who grew it, according to official data, killing off hopes of a vibrant free market in the former Soviet state.

This fuels a vicious circle of emigration and land abandonment, compounded by low and loosely enforced land taxes, according to the FAO.

“It doesn’t cost [owners] anything to have this land,” said Hartvigsen. “So, you get a job in Moscow for some seasonal work, for example, you move there and just leave the land, abandoned.”

The government wants to send a reform package to parliament by the end of the year, aiming to bring fallow land to life by banding small plots together and marketing them as one unit.

“Currently [investors] have to deal with too many small land holders and most of them have some paperwork issue,” said Khojoyan, the deputy minister.

Armenia’s land agency would act as an intermediary, seeking out the owners of abandoned parcels and encouraging them to put the plots on a database of available land that the agency would then combine and lease to farmers, he said.

Owners who want to take part would receive a small rent as incentive, he said, while government plans to raise taxes on abandoned lots have been shelved.

The agency might also buy parcels and lease them out, and run an exchange system so owners can swap plots, Khojoyan added.

The target is to get 25 per cent of the abandoned land working within five years, boosting a sector that makes up a quarter of the country’s economic output, said the deputy minister.

“Coronavirus has doubtlessly stressed the need for reform,” he said, noting how the pandemic had revealed the true extent of food insecurity and unemployment in his landlocked country.

Border closures due to COVID-19 grounded the tens of thousands of Armenians who usually travel abroad for seasonal jobs, and the reform could help them find work at home, he said.

“Land reforms can be a stimulus to engage in agriculture and land cultivation,” he said.

To succeed, though, Armenia badly needs better roads and irrigation networks, according to the Agricultural Alliance of Armenia, an umbrella group of farming organisations.

“Before implementing these changes, the government should think about solving the irrigation problem. If it is solved, no inch of plot will remain unused.”

– Aram Kirakosyan, a 60-year-old who grows apricot and grapes in the Ararat region.

“The main reason for not cultivating the land is the absence of irrigation water,” the group said in a statement, noting that about 75 per cent of abandoned agricultural land had no irrigation.

Farmers agreed.

“Before implementing these changes, the government should think about solving the irrigation problem. If it is solved, no inch of plot will remain unused,” said Aram Kirakosyan, a 60-year-old who grows apricot and grapes in the Ararat region.

Others, like Azatyan, worry she might be charged more to farm the land post-reform.

“I’m afraid the price for the rent will increase,” she said, explaining she only paid a symbolic price to fellow villagers.

Khojoyan said irrigation projects would run in parallel with the reform.

Market forces would determine rents, he said, though government may initially set lower rates as an incentive to Armenians to weed out the old Soviet legacy.

“The government doesn’t want to make money,” he said.

View the discussion thread.

Read original article here.

#Armenia #Armenians #Caucasus #Covid-19 #Yerevan #Economy