If a member of the Armenian parliament ever visited the village of Nerkin Shorzha, he or she would get an earful from the women in this rural community we met clustered round a table sipping coffee.

We sure did.

Marietta wouldn’t be at a loss for words for any MP who took the trouble to get to Nerkin Shorzha.

"Life for we village folk is no picnic. But no one gives us any credit, especially city folk They come and buy our fresh milk for pennies. What can we do? We need the money," Marietta complains.

She and her friends have come to the village from the town of Vardenis to graze cows up in the hills. Everyday they milk the cows and make cheese and butter. But they complain that they can’t sell the produce at normal prices. They say that they have to travel all the way to Yerevan to get a decent price.

"Who is able to travel all the way to Yerevan. So we’re forced to sell what we have cheaply to the diary companies," Marietta adds.

Despite the fact that the women have a long list of complaints, Marietta has a smile on her face when she tells me that she gets the others to work so they don’t go out walking in the village wearing raggedy clothes.

Marietta has four kids and seven grandchildren. Her husband works in a nearby mine. She says that one of her grandkids, now going to kindergarten, helps out with the chores in the fields.

Despite the hard work, she says that the villagers celebrate New Years in style.

"We’ll slaughter one of the cows or a pig. Our holiday table has to be plentiful. What would guests say if it wasn’t?" Marietta asks.

The women say that other than cultivating the land and raising livestock, there is no other work for them in the village. She points to an in-law of hers, a woman of thirty, who plants crops and raises animals.

We met another group of women in the street who were showing one another something on a cell phone.

It seemed a bit incongruous that these village women were so adept at working the menu of a cell phone using a sensor pad.

They seconded what Marietta had told us about life in the village.