I haven�t logged since my first year anniversary April 18, so much has happened since. I�m suddenly involved with a few side projects, which I�m thoroughly enjoying.

A quick update on what I�ve been doing for the past couple of weeks. As Raffi K. mentioned Hans was very interesting indeed and since he was staying with my next door neighbour I invited him to a few gatherings and showed him around the city. He was very impressed with the cleanliness of the city centre in comparison to other countries.

April 24th was amazing. In the group I walked with this year, we had an American, a Brit and a Belgian all interested in experiencing this event.

Last week I bought a car! A Niva, 4 wheel drive, which I have no idea on how to drive. Firstly the shift stick is on the wrong side and secondly I�ll have to drive on the wrong side of the road! The process was a killer. It took the seller, the driver and myself all day to get through the process of registering the car in my name and obtaining new number plates. I�m so glad it�s all over.

Last Saturday night I was invited to attend a Spring Ball function at Armenia Hotel. Let�s hope Spring is coming because really it�s about time it started getting warmer.

That�s all the news for now, I�m sure I�ve forgotten to mention some things but tonight I�ll be teaching my English class followed by a meeting at the Foreign Ministry and lastly followed by dinner with Ara from Martuni who�s in town for a couple of days.

I haven�t logged since my first year anniversary April 18, so much has happened since. I�m suddenly involved with a few side projects, which I�m thoroughly enjoying.

A quick update on what I�ve been doing for the past couple of weeks. As Raffi K. mentioned Hans was very interesting indeed and since he was staying with my next door neighbour I invited him to a few gatherings and showed him around the city. He was very impressed with the cleanliness of the city centre in comparison to other countries.

April 24th was amazing. In the group I walked with this year, we had an American, a Brit and a Belgian all interested in experiencing this event.

Last week I bought a car! A Niva, 4 wheel drive, which I have no idea on how to drive. Firstly the shift stick is on the wrong side and secondly I�ll have to drive on the wrong side of the road! The process was a killer. It took the seller, the driver and myself all day to get through the process of registering the car in my name and obtaining new number plates. I�m so glad it�s all over.

Last Saturday night I was invited to attend a Spring Ball function at Armenia Hotel. Let�s hope Spring is coming because really it�s about time it started getting warmer.

That�s all the news for now, I�m sure I�ve forgotten to mention some things but tonight I�ll be teaching my English class followed by a meeting at the Foreign Ministry and lastly followed by dinner with Ara from Martuni who�s in town for a couple of days.

Life has seemed pretty unlogworthy this past week, but maybe it is just the rain rain rain. The sun has only come out for part of two days this week and it is just depressing. I was looking at pictures of April 24ths past and seeing pictures of T-shirts everywhere. Oh well... let me tell you all what I have been up to.

This past week I met a really interesting guy from Belgium named Hans, who is tavelling for a full year. The notches in his belt for countries visited is very impressive and he *really* soaks them in as much as possible. Culture, people, sites. So discussions with him were quite rewarding and his analysis of Armenia quite interesting. He stayed with an Armenian lady in her home for $5 a night rather than in a hotel. This sort of tourism is a growing phenomenon and quite popular already in many parts of the world. Armenia is a perfect place for it, if we could just make things a *bit* easier on the tourists. The visa situation is not bad, but could be better. The transportation needs to be easier to figure out. The homestay/hostel concepts need to be better developed and advertised. Those little things could make a huge difference. A few other things like bike/camping equipment rentals, developed treks, etc would be fantastic too. Anyways, since tourism here is one of my major concerns, I am going on about it a bit. So Hans is on his way out of Armenia now, he is in the north (Dilijan and Alaverdi) from where he will head to Georgia. I hope to meet up with him in the north for a couple more days, but I just hope the weather is nice if I do!

Last night I went to a coctail party at the Tufenkian Hotel for a friend that is leaving. It was really nice, with the hotel looking fantastic (even if it is in the middle of nowhere). The weather was kind to us and the patio party was great. I met some interesting people who I don't usually run into much, so it made for some good conversation.

I know that one other logger bought a car and is holding out on you about what that experience was like ;-)

There are finally no longer any clouds in the sky.... just in time for the April 24th commemorations. This is the third year I am going (you are read our logs from April 24th in the backlogs) and decided to go later in the evening so I can get a good shot of the massive pile of flowers aroud the eternal flames. If I get one I will share it with you...

Last friday there was a horrible peice in the National Review denying the Armenian Genocide. I wrote a letter to the editor and it seem like you all should go on their site, read that article and write to the editor too. Let them realize they cannot get away with this. They have not printed a retraction or even any letter yet, and that is just not right.

Yet another friend has moved to Armenia. Welcome, Alex! This is getting quite exciting because now we are really starting to stand out in the streets. It seems like I see a Diasporan everywhere I turn. Are we really growing an actual population? I speak with a few friends on the internet now and then and they all complain of their American lifestyles (especially those from Los Angeles) and they even hint at coming. My friend Shant is here for a 2 month work opportunity but talks about extending his stay everytime we speak. The Armenia bug (that is what we like to call this need to be here) is everstrong and still infecting those who come here even for one trip. I am still riding that wave and the surfing is good. I have my apartment set up and am volunteering for a great cause and it just feels good to live through seasons and live in an environment where advertising has not killed every independent thought brain cell that you possess. This seems harsh, I know but I cannot tell you how good it feels to be in a country where you can see a kid on the street and get on your knees and kiss and hug that kid and give him or her candy and not get sued by the parent or screamed at.

There are negative things about living in Armenia. It is a new country and a developing country and we don't have everything down yet. There are still many laws to be made, many laws to be followed and many polic officers to fire, but all in all we are one nation who helps eachother and works together for a better future.

I used to say that I am much happier living in Armenia rather than being stuck for hours on the 405 Freeway in Los Angeles. It was a bit too idealistic of me to think that way, and I realized that the first time I was stuck for hours paying my telephone bill here in Yerevan. Each place has its good and bad, but Armenia has so many positives that you tend to overlook the negatives and you even get around some of them. You take a walkman or friend to wait in line with you, but even if you don't have either... the open human interaction allowance you have here in Armenia is all you need to keep you entertained while you wait.

This week I know of 3 new American-Armenians who have moved to Armenia. 2 from LA and yet one more Bostonian... Perfect timing as far as the weather goes. The weather is much warmer, even though it is rainy these days. I can take the rain though, if it means an emerald-green springtime and good food crops this year. I have also met a non-Armenian tourist from Belgium who was here last year for three days and decided to come back for a month to explore it better. Talking to him and seeing Armenia through his eyes is a lot of fun. He likes it here a lot, and since he has been travelling solid for one year now, I can certainly respect his opinion. I guess that is all going on just these days.

raffi is right...there have been quite a few power outages in the past few days. I had some workers coming in in the evening and the second they came to plug in the drill, there was a power outage. After a few cups of coffee (cooked with gas) and mastering the rubik's cube they left and the work was left undone. They promised to return at 9:00 am to finish the job. Of course a few minutes after they left the power was put back on and i contemplated running as fast as i could to see if i could catch up with their jhiguli.
they returned at 9:00 am and the power was once again out. luckily they had brought an accumulator with them and were able to finish their project despite my lack of electricity. ahhh

i have been doing some volunteer work recently at Orran (www.orran.am) and the kids are amazing. i have also been training for a new job which i promise to post about soon. it feels amazing to be productive again after a long spell of being unemployed. this morning i took the metro to the office for training and it felt great to be up with the morning peope all on their way to work. the metro itself was fun as it reminded me of new york
it f

Well I had a nice post all ready to add when there was a power outage an hour ago, and I lost it ;-( There have been a few in the past few days, which is disturbing, because overall, they are not so common. I decided to call information, get the phone number for the power company and actually complain :-) They did not sound used to getting calls like that, and when I had one of them actually explaining to me WHY the power was out again, someone in the office must have asked him why he was doing that, or who was calling, because he said there was a spiruka-hay on the phone ;-))) Which brings me to one of the topics I wrote about and lost this morning... the spiurk-hayastan conference in late May. I went to a planning meeting yesterday at the foreign ministry and must say, it seems like it will be really good. Come a couple of days before the conference, there will be some great events introducing you to what is going on here. From being able to spend the day with a diasporan living here, to going on tours of businesses here and NGO's, as well as other events aside from the actual conference. If you have not signed up yet, hurry up, I think you are running out of time.... go to www.armeniadiaspora.com for that.

Today is my first year anniversary. Yes I have been in Hayastan exactly one year. Like Raffi K. I also think back to my remond days, which I somehow survived. I also think back to the winter that I spent in Yerevan, which I also somehow survived, in fact I�m quite proud of myself, considering it was my very first winter cold wise.

I also only have 3 months remaining in the AVC Program, which will end in July. We�ll see what happens after that.

Last night I attended a lecture on Western Policies in the Caucasus at AUA. The lecturer was Mr. Tom de Waal who has worked on a book about the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict and the southern Caucasus, entitled "Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War". The lecture itself was interesting however the Q & A session, in my opinion, was a waste of time.

Tonight I will be attending a meeting for the Diaspora Conference followed by a concert at Artbridge, which is a bookstore caf�. Gor will be playing with his friend Aaron. This is the first live music performance to be held at Artbridge and I�m looking forward to it.

On April 20th, one year ago (almost) the first log was posted! You can go back and read about my remodeling if you miss those days ;-) I must say I am quite happy with how the log has turned out. What a wealth of stories about life in the homeland. Not much has changed in my life since that time I guess. Hopefully today I will come to an agreement for a month or two of consulting. That will keep me busy for a while. I must say this problem of not being able to find a long term job with good pay is one of the most serious out here. The thing is that most of the jobs are for aid organizations which only have one or two Americans hired on, running the program. There are just not enough private companies operating out here yet that are willing to pay more for perfect English and a western education acculturization. This is one of the countless reasons this country needs tons of investment, large and small...

These past few days I have been trying to concentrate on adding a massive amount of material to cilicia.com and it has been overwhelming. I am trying to add 230 articles about the Armenian genocide which were published while it was happening, and hope to get it all online before April 24th. It is such a big undertaking though I don't know if I will be able to pull it off. This will be an increase of 33% in the number of pages, and the first 620 took me 6 years to add!! Meanwhile I have another massive project, adding over 300 genocide survivor accounts, which I had also hoped to complete by April 24th, but am ready to give up... it will have to wait even longer. They have already been translated and all typed up already. In any event, once again I doubt that any of the text will be edited before posting. The articles have a lot of typos and the survivor accounts are translations which need a really good once over and I haven't got the patience for it now. If anyone wants to help with either of those two projects, just let me know. Otherwise I am going to post as is, and let people get out of it what they can for now.

I finally made it to the tail end of the chat, which was well attended and fun. I guess this one will be considered the introductory chat ("hello, where are you?", "do you know Jojo", etc), and future chats will have a discussion agenda... first one that comes to mind is what readers think of making the big move to Armenia themselves, plus what the online Armenian community means to them. I feel quite bad for missing the beginning, but I actually had gone all the way over to the other end of town to utilize a very fast connection, which just wouldn't allow us into the chat room. I thought it was because the chat room was too full, so I didn't begin to suspect until I headed back home to try the connection here that it was a proxy server issue at the office. So anyways, the slow connection at home finally let me on and it was nice to see so many people still chatting.

At this stage we (me, Raffi and Zabel) are unable to access the chat room from our location. If anyone knows of another chat room contact Ara. It's now 9.40pm

It was a discovery weekend. Friday night a few of us went to a Thai restaurant on Proshian Street that had good quality food. It�s a little more expensive than the usual eateries I go to but it was fresh and not oily at all. Saturday night I finally made it to �Monte Cristo�s� as I�d heard so much about that place and to my surprise the place was absolutely packed with young �trendy� teenagers dancing away.

And the best part of the weekend, this morning I went to a middle eastern place on Koriun street, which is owned by Armenians from Syria and I had foul and kenefe with cheese, it was really delicious, the way mum makes it. So I believe I might become a regular there considering the price is really cheap and in fact I�m having falafel etc from that place again tonight.

LOGGER CHAT SUNDAY

A reminder that the chat is Sunday night at 9:30pm Yerevan time, 9:30am LA time.To join the chat just go to
http://www.cilicia.com/chatnow_warmenian.html and enter a nickname...

Yesterday was the most beautiful, amazing weather we have had all year. So much for the weather forecast ;-) It was t-shirt weather and I took advantage of that at an outdoor cafe. Today is cloudy again, but it can't last forever!

My windowsill is looking fantastic with all the seeds I planted sprouting. The one I am most excited about is Park's Candy Lily, whose flowers I have included on the right (the picture is from their catalog! mine have only sprouted, they have not bloomed yet). It is an extremely rare plant, bred by Park Seed Company and introduced to the market only a few years ago. I grew some in California, and now I am sure these are the first ones to hit Armenia. In addition to the Candy Lily I have got Oregano and Chives sprouting (which they don't have here) and some Scarlet Runner Beans. I can't wait to taste all of those.

This week we went to Kino Nairi, the newly re-opened movie theatre to watch American Pie 2 in English. It looked quite nice and they have turned it into a hangout which was PACKED!

D. and his cousin K. went to the consulate to get visa for Karapagh visit. None of them speaks Armenian, the lady at the consulate does speak English. She asks: 'Where would you like to visit?' D. says Sushi, K. tries to Step� but could not pronounce it clearly. The lady does not understand Sushi and Stp� and starts firing names among which Aghdam, Kubatli�. They keep repeating yeah, yeah, yeah� Well she says you're not permitted to go to those cities. A couple of hours later the driver goes with them and translates, he also says, 'it's not up to them, we'll go where I drive' and gets visas for them.
K. was perplexed, if those places are not part of the tourist zone why bring them up?

On a serious note, occupied territories are not open to foreigners. As an American or foreigner, if you are planning to start a tea factory or some other factory in Titzmairee, or Agdam forget it. Try your luck in Shushi and Stepanagerd

I am in a similiar boat Ara. I was happy to give up a lot of the modern "conveniences" that seem to end up taking over your life, but after almost three years without anything but internet, I caved in last month and got a TV with cable, plus an answering machine. It feels decadent, but I am really enjoying it I must say. I am not watching excessive TV, and much of what I do watch is the discovery channel, which I really love. In Armenia the discovery channel shows primarily nature shows and great documentaries, not like in America where I rarely caught anything of the sort on. Same with MTV. It always has music on, never weird/stupid shows. I admit I also try to catch Simpsons and Seinfeld, but otherwise I am very well behaved. I will hold out against the cell phone as much as possible, I really hate them and will only get one if forced to by a job. Last Christmas time I had to resort to using a cellphone for the first time in my life because I was not staying in the same place for more than a couple of weeks at a time, and I couldn't stand it. I wonder if I could just cut myself off completely, from everything. I may have a chance to try and see this year.

For those wondering how many hits cilicia.com gets a year, it is over 3 million. I just got the tools to check the traffic properly. This page gets over 150 a day, but I suspect these numbers will grow as more people find us...

Not too much else going on. I want to play a game of Settlers, which I have been hearing about for months now. Maybe this weekend which is supposed to have rainy, bad weather...

You may hear on the news today about the Armenian Monk shot in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, apparently by the Israeli's. In January 2000 I was there at the church and met all the Armenian clergy there... they were so kind and generous with us. I pray that whoever he was that he turns out ok. I don't know how Israel expects this will end suicide bombings... these new incursions into the West Bank can only inflame.

What a mess.

Talking to my neighbour this morning about this and that (she�s been trying to catch me for the past few days as I�ve hardly been home), she stops mid sentence and calls out �Hans, ari�. It turns out that she has a Belgian staying with her for 3 weeks and wanted to introduce me to him. He speaks a little English and Russian so he gets by communicating with my neighbour in Russian.

We get talking and he tells me that he previously came to Armenia for 3 days via Georgia and since he wanted to explore further he has returned for a longer period. This weekend he�ll be going to Karabagh for a few days and of course the biggest problem is transportation within Armenia and Karabagh. I will meet up with him again to give him some ideas re hiring a taxi with other passengers which ultimately works out to cost as much as a bus ride, accommodation etc. Good to see the flow of foreigners coming through Armenia and Karabagh. Hans also mentioned that he was very impressed with the Tourism Information Centre (previously the Aussie guy who stayed with my neighbour had said the same thing), and said that tourists can go there read materials, watch videos etc.

CHAT WITH THE SPIURK LOGGERS!!!

The chat will be on this Sunday, April 14th at 9:30pm Yerevan time, which is 9:30am LA time, so you should be be able to figure out your local time based on that. (Armenia is +4h GMT)

To join the chat just go to http://www.cilicia.com/chatnow_warmenian.html and enter a nickname... we will see you there!

�How do you like Armenia?
(me) I love it.
It's a good place, isn't it?
We're at Hayasdan hanrakhanut (mall) shopping clothes for D. Hard to believe, but it's a hayasdantzi who's got praise for the country. (The usual question being: 'what forced you to move to Armenia")
Turns out, he has lived in Kiev for 7 years and then chosen Yerevan to return to for living.

D. is looking for a sweater. A half-Armenian from SF who doesn't have the Armenian looks, and does not know the language, but has crossed the ocean for the first time to (shop in Armenia J?) and discover his roots.

Being an Armenian? Foremost, a matter of choice.

Last week I met up with the president of �Ani Tour� agency and I thought that readers would be interested in learning a little about the agency by visiting their site at www.anitour.nt.am. Their aim is to not only organize tours to Western Armenia and Cilicia but also tours within Armenia and Karabagh. They offer various options one can choose from depending on the number of days selected. Nice bunch of people.

It also looks like I may be volunteering some time for the upcoming Diaspora Conference. I have already attended 2 meetings re this and we will be meeting once a week for brainstorming sessions and preparation stuff. There is a lot to be done prior to the 26th May and the more bodies the better. The members have quite a few interesting ideas and I�m glad I�m involved in the preparatory stage.

I have just updated the clickable map of Armenia... it is great! More than a dozen sites have been added to the map and the names of the towns have been added as well. That has been on my todo list forever.

Today I am going to mail a copy of Tom Samuelian's translation of Surp Grigor Narekatsi to a friend of mine in the USA. It is a book of prayer and lamentations and a masterful work of art. If you know anyone - Armenian or otherwise - who takes Christianity seriously, you no longer have to worry about what to get them for their birthday, Christmas, or just for the heck of it. I really think this is great literature which has the potential to at the least reach hundreds of thousands of Americans. The whole book will be online before the end of the year in preparation for 2003, which is the 1000th anniversary of the death of Surp Grigor Narekatsi. I will let you know when that is online so everyone can check it out.

"Congratulations on your April the 7th, " I am getting good at this. Yesterday I used it twice. April 7th being motherhood and beauty day. Even women and girls congratulate each other. Armenia is the only country, that I know of, that celebrates Mother's/women's day for a whole month from March the 8th to April the 7th.

On this happy occasion we invaded S. & K.'s house, gave flowers to S. and (in exchange) borrowed videos. One of the two/or three things we miss, English movies (the first being our families, dah). Unlike North America, in Armenia you don't need a cable subscription for watching good movies. There's a free TV channel, Cinemax, that shows Hollywood and Russian movies but only in Russian. English movies are dabbed; and when it's good dabbing (Arnold and Sandra speaking only Russian) we turn it off, but when it's very bad dabbing we watch it (we hear Arnold saying 'Sandra' in English and translator's voice repeating it in Russian 'Sandra'). It's hilarious and frustrating. The best movies are the ones that have English subtitles (for deaf).

I just received a red tulip from Gor, not because I�m special but because it was beauty day yesterday 7th April (I�m not beautiful either) and since it was Sunday yesterday, he presented all the women in the office with a red tulip! Ok have to go and teach my English class now.

I made it to Karabagh on the weekend and as always the journey was breathtaking. The journey was an adventure itself just as I had mentioned in my previous log. Car issues, weather issues and stomach issues yes we had all of the above but still made it (the car had electrical problems, it rained, hailed even snowed on the way and well stomach issues, you know�)

Because the trip was so brief we only had time to spend in Stepanakert. I love that place it is so clean, so green, the people are so nice; it�s like they have pride in what they own. Come to think of it we went for a walk in the evening around the city and even the back streets were spotless and of course the weather was great, nice and mild and it felt like spring. Sunday morning we even managed to visit the local market prior to our departure, as I just had to bring back some jingali bread and one for the road. By the way, did not meet Ara, sorry Ara, our schedule was all over the place.

So if anyone is a fan of Habitat for Humanity, they are having some sort of international home building here soon, for like a week or two. I forget the details, but you can get them from mcandan@mindspring.com if you are interested. If your odar friends are interested in these sort of things, bring them along, or send them by themselves!

COMMENTS!!!!!!!

After months of trying to work it out, I have been able to finally add comment capability to the logs. Now all you opinionated readers can share your thoughts with us even easier. You can see where it says No Comments, or 2 Comments, depending on the number of replies. Have fun with this. I look forward to reading your responses.

I believe the time zone disparity is due to the adoption of daylight savings time last Sunday in Armenia, one week before it is adopted in the US. It should be fine starting tomorrow.

SPIURK LOG CHAT NEXT SUNDAY!!!!!!

On Sunday, April 14 (so technically Sunday after next) we will have a big chat of all the loggers. Everyone is welcome to join in. All the details will be announced soon, but I wanted to warn you. One week later the log will be a year old, but due to April 24 events which are often on the Sunday before of after Genocide Memorial Day, we will have it on the 13th. It will be the first time many of the loggers will "meet" each other, and we will be happy to have guests and answer questions at the same time too.

It looks like I may be going to Karabagh this weekend with Gohar who works with Family Care (providing nothing goes wrong like weather/car issues/ stomach issues etc). Ara if you go to Stepanakert this weekend for whatever reason, let�s try and meet at Family Care office or at the school.

hi all. this is when one of us loggers asks the readers for HELP! at the yerevan zoo we have a sick ostrich. i have been writing a few wildlife vet. internet sites but really have gotten no response. so if you are a vet or just play one on tv, or just know one, can you write me and tell me how to cure our little friend at the zoo. she is a 7 month old ostrich that we brought to yerevan from georgia (the country). she has a problem standing up. once she is up she is fine. she shows no other sick signs and has a normal appetite and a normal pooping pattern... we just have to give her a push up everytime she wants to stand. any clues?

tonight i went to the opening of a jazz festival here in yerevan. it was nice. there were many familiar faces and the opera is finally a bit warmer than it was this winter. speaking of the weather i pray for a nice sunny spring day often but have not gotten one in a while.

today i went to the market to buy some sujukh (a delicious walnut and grapefruit juice fruit roll type thing) and the guy who sold it to me was absolutely hilarious. he was pushy at first, so pushy that he got me to try a piece. then after that he told me that his sujukh is the best in armenia, tagavorakan sujukh, ha ha ha. then after ten minutes of haggling i bought a kilo for 3,000 dram (under 6 dollars)... i have it next to me and am nibbling on one of our most delicious delicasies here in armenia. you have to try sujukh... it is phenominal. but if you come and want sujukh you must go to the pak shuga, and buy it from the first seller you see (his booth is right at the entrance)... but make sure it is the takavoragan kind.

Yesterday evening there was a big old truck parked outside of our building selling computers for $200-250. It was the first time I saw such a thing, and they seemed to be doing pretty decent business. (Both times we walked by, about 45 minutes apart, they had just sold one).

The weather has just remained kind of chilly all week, so I have spent much of it reading in bed. I have a lot of work to do on my website, and actually got a little of it done, but not too much. It is just no fun sitting in front of the computer for long since the living room is not being heated. In any case, if you find it interesting, I added a bunch of text about the town of Agulis in Nakhichevan. It is worth going to the Agulis pages just to see the pictures. We lost a lot when Nakhicheven was given to Azerbaijan. I have not edited the text on these pages yet, I just had them translated and left it at that. But you will get the idea just fine.

A couple of days ago I planted some more of the seeds I brought with me... oregano and chives. I have never seen chives sold here, and oregano only recently in a pulverized dry form. It will be nice to have a fresh patch of them to draw from. Spagetti sauce and baked potatoes will be better than ever.

Now that I actually have a TV, I have been loosely following the events in Palestine, and I just can't help thinking what an evil man Ariel Sharon is. I mean, I knew he was evil before, when he started this whole intifata with his visit to the Dome of the Rock, but now he is costing so many more lives with his belligerence. Who does he think he is fooling? Why doesn't the US stop backing him? We all know why, but it is just so wrong. And I am not just talking for Palestinians, but for Israelis as well. Attacking the Palestinians in the fashion causes suicide bombers, NOT visa versa. Israel is a country, a government, it has the responsibility to stop attacking first, and then allow the suicide bombers to stop. They are not controlled by one person (in my opinion) and cannot be told to just stop by Arafat. The fact that they keep invading Palestinian towns convinces me that Sharon doesn't WANT peace, and for this reason, many Israelis and Palestinians continue to die daily. How very sad. And the only power that can possibly stop it I think, is the US, if it threatens to change its allegiances. The Arab world has offered Israel a very good peace deal I think, and it has completely ignored it. Instead it launches attacks all over Palestine. Come on, how is this vicious cycle going to end? I was in Jerusalem in January 2000 and it had recovered pretty well from the previous cycle of violence... but still the Armenians were leaving the Armenian Quarter and the middle east in general. The tensions were just constantly high and again, the Armenian community was loosing its critical mass to stay.

Wow, I haven�t logged in almost a week! I hope everyone had a nice Easter. Ok so last Sunday (Palm Sunday) I attended church service at Sourp Katoghige and rather than blessing palm leaves, they were blessing willow branches. Thursday night I again went to Katoghige for �Khavaroum� Maundy Thursday, which was an experience for me, whereby 12 white candles are lit for 12 disciples and a black candle (unlit) for Judas. Then over the weekend, out in the regions I visited 2 more vanks and returned to Katoghige on Easter Sunday to light candles for family and friends and those in need. I have my English class tonight followed by 2 meetings, full day!