A delayed log, but still worthy. Last weekend, the Assembly of Turkish American Associations (ATAA) had a conference in Washington, DC. Of course, some of us found this to be a perfect opportunity to protest! We took to the streets my friends. Last Friday night, we stood across the street from the Turkish Embassy where an event was being held. It was dark, wet and cold, but we toughed it out, and boy was it worth the pain. Throughout the night, there were Turks passing in and out of the gates, confronted with this:

I have never seen such an embarrassing display of behavior on the Turks' behalf. I had a video camera and I recommend everyone watch Yergir on Monday night in Armenia to catch the coverage on it. There was one woman pretending to strip dance (obviously mocking us), pleanty of middle fingers thrown our way, lots of yelling that I couldn't hear over our own, and then there was some nut who decided to drive up to the Embassy in his white SUV, get out of the driver's seat (facing us) and dance "Turkish" dances at us... dude, he was CRAZY. He did that for about a minute until our friends, the secret service, escorted him back to his car. Unfortunately I couldn't take photos from across the street because of bad lighting, but at least I got the video footage.

Anyway, a very successful event if you ask me. Now for future events, Armenian Network is having a Christmas party at the Embassy Saturday night, and for post-holidays, the Zulal A Cappella Folk Trio is coming to Washington, DC to perform at the Kennedy Center. Following the performance will be a reception at Soorp Khatch Church featuring a photo exhibit by your's truly. I have a lot of framing to do. Eep!

Otherwise, there are a lot of people coming and going in DC. Our Government Affairs Director is going back to Canada, one of our interns left, another one just arrived, another one will be arriving in January, another might be arriving in January, people are leaving for the holidays, coming home for the holidays. In some ways, December can be festive, but sad as well. I will miss some people more than I expected. And thus, the reality of the Armenian community dispersed across the world is the agony of distance.