A trip to the zoo?

Early this afternoon, Grampa George started talking about bears. At first, we didn't really understand what was going on, but after substantial pantomime and not a few misunderstandings, we figured out that he wanted to take us to see some bears. A few more pantomimes and some of my very best broken Armenian assured us that the bears were in cages and not very far away, and so we agreed, figuring we were going to some kind of zoo...

I guess we weren't all that far off, as long as your definition of 'zoo' is somewhat flexible. About a 10 minute drive from our house is an abandoned bus depot. In once small corner of the parking lot, there is a cage. In that cage, there were two bears.

It seems that the man who owns them (and possibly the bus depot?) breeds them and sells the cubs to zoos... or at least we think that's what happens. It's really hard to tell without adequate language skills. It was also a little hard to concentrate on what we being said while attempting to keep a friendly smile on my face- the cage was very small, and I don't think they bears are ever allowed out of it. Realistically, they're a good source of income for this man- which is important in a country where the unemployment rate is is close to 20%- but their living conditions were really distressing to me.

After watching the bears for a little bit, we were walked through the cavernous interior of  the  bus depots large warehouse. It looked like it might have once been a mechanic shop to service the large vehicles. On the other side, we found the man in question also had a deer. The deer had a larger pen than the bears, and had both indoor and outdoor space (it, at least, didn't have to walk around on concrete all day), but it still looked as if this animal wasn't meant to be kept as it was. 

I think the lesson to be learned here is not to go to zoos in developing countries. I want to simultaneously acknowledge that these animals helped put food on this man's plate, and that that's important, but also disagree completely with the conditions through which they suffer. Being torn in different directions like this is very uncomfortable. I don't have any solutions to offer. 

We smiled, took photos, piled back into the car, and drove home. I hope we played the appreciative tourist well enough. Certainly, our host family expected this of us. There are such different conceptions of animals here than at home- and perhaps rightly so. Annually, we Americans spend more on our pets than we do on foreign aid- a figure which is crazy no matter how you look at it. But still, looking at these animals, I think that there must be some middle ground between Paris Hilton's doggy palace and its like and the way that animals like the ones we saw today live.