Yesterday was an amazing day for me in Yerevan. My day started at 6 am. I went to the LCO office to do some work. I met with the person I will be working with. Then A friend from France passed by the office. He is a 70 year old active man who was at the LCO campaign in 2001. Then I was invited to take part in Makour Yerevan. This is a local initiative to clean up the city and then help with the reforestation of the city with other organizations like the Armenia Tree Project and the Tufenkian Foundation. I spent the day with about 400 Yerevantsis who were not bitching and complaining about how their country was a bad place or how dirty it was and so on. They had actually taken some time to do something positive to improve their community. It was a great feeling to be part of this event. Then I took a taxi. The driver started asking me where I was from and what the H- - - was I doing in this God forsaken country that is dirty and where politicians lie and bla bla bla. I had decided to ignore him. After 10 minutes though I couldn’t resist but telling him “de kna Russastan!” he seemed offended by my comment but then continued for a few more minutes until I told him that I have changed my mind to where I was going and for him to drop me off at the next corner. So, as you see, there are more people doing something good for their community then those by standards who wait for something good to happen to them.
After that, I had diner with an ex-pat friend and his brother from Syria. They are students here. The day ended with a rock concert. The guy in the band, Sevag, is an LCO member from Iran. He and his sister have decided to study in Armenia. They live here with their Mother.
I am writing this from a Sam’s house. A ex-pat from Beirut. We are preparing to go to the NEW “Hin Yerevan” restaurant. I had been to the old building and was very impressed. I will let you know if they will impress me as well. Other ex-pats will join us like Stepan from Cyprus, Sevag from Lebanon and maybe Alex from the USA. Talk about a cosmopolitan city.