Hospitality & Light Bulbs
Armenians are very hospitable. I hear this constantly by so many of us, yet I find it hard to believe especially when it comes to respect for each other outside our homes, especially if you're living in Yerevan.
Someone struggling with holding a lot of groceries; an elder trying to cross the street; someone falling because of a pothole; a fellow logger's foot being stepped on and starting to bleed with the man who caused it seeing the aftermath and simply walking away, etc.
A couple of days ago I saw a man, maybe in his 60's, lying down, at the bottom of the steps leading up to the small Grand Candy shop beside the Mashtots Market. Beside him was a confused young boy, along with half a dozen people around them doing absolutely nothing. I was with a relative at the time walking over to the Market. Our curiosity, like most Armenians, led us to walk over to see what had happened. The man had taken a fall and was in great pain. I give props to the guy in his 20's who was trying to lift him up, but pulling an 80kg elder's one arm doesn't do much help. I went behind the man and lift him up from his back.
I'm sure most of you have noticed how attractive our retail stores are starting to look, right? Especially with elegant marble steps at the entrances, which are so easy to walk on in the winter, or like the steps at this Grand Candy store, which with one step curves 90 degrees. (I don't think I've seen such staircases anywhere else in the world.)
After we lifted up the man, and he relaxed a bit, my relative and I went inside the store to report to the supervisor what had happened to one of their own customers outside. I was glad to finally meet a supervisor who talked to us in a civilized manner without being offended, but the response of, "Yes, I know, we need to do something about that one step, it has happened to a lot of people, even us," was a disappointing, but typical, response. I noticed most of the employees were young females who were wearing high heels.
Anyway, a funny thing that happened yesterday ...
My relative lives in a building on a street which the President uses to go to work and back home everyday. A street you would think would be smoothly paved, and always lit for security reasons. For the past couple of months the one section of the street where my relative's building is has been completely dark. The few street lights on that section have not been working. Very dangerous, considering one time a man walked up to my relative and asked for her purse or she would get hit. Luckily my relative responded, "What? Hit me? I will show you who's going to get hit," and started abusing the guy with her purse till he ran off.
Anyway, long story short, we went to City Hall yesterday to report the street lighting situation. What response did we get? We'll take care of it, it's just that we have no light bulbs left right now.
Someone struggling with holding a lot of groceries; an elder trying to cross the street; someone falling because of a pothole; a fellow logger's foot being stepped on and starting to bleed with the man who caused it seeing the aftermath and simply walking away, etc.
A couple of days ago I saw a man, maybe in his 60's, lying down, at the bottom of the steps leading up to the small Grand Candy shop beside the Mashtots Market. Beside him was a confused young boy, along with half a dozen people around them doing absolutely nothing. I was with a relative at the time walking over to the Market. Our curiosity, like most Armenians, led us to walk over to see what had happened. The man had taken a fall and was in great pain. I give props to the guy in his 20's who was trying to lift him up, but pulling an 80kg elder's one arm doesn't do much help. I went behind the man and lift him up from his back.
I'm sure most of you have noticed how attractive our retail stores are starting to look, right? Especially with elegant marble steps at the entrances, which are so easy to walk on in the winter, or like the steps at this Grand Candy store, which with one step curves 90 degrees. (I don't think I've seen such staircases anywhere else in the world.)
After we lifted up the man, and he relaxed a bit, my relative and I went inside the store to report to the supervisor what had happened to one of their own customers outside. I was glad to finally meet a supervisor who talked to us in a civilized manner without being offended, but the response of, "Yes, I know, we need to do something about that one step, it has happened to a lot of people, even us," was a disappointing, but typical, response. I noticed most of the employees were young females who were wearing high heels.
Anyway, a funny thing that happened yesterday ...
My relative lives in a building on a street which the President uses to go to work and back home everyday. A street you would think would be smoothly paved, and always lit for security reasons. For the past couple of months the one section of the street where my relative's building is has been completely dark. The few street lights on that section have not been working. Very dangerous, considering one time a man walked up to my relative and asked for her purse or she would get hit. Luckily my relative responded, "What? Hit me? I will show you who's going to get hit," and started abusing the guy with her purse till he ran off.
Anyway, long story short, we went to City Hall yesterday to report the street lighting situation. What response did we get? We'll take care of it, it's just that we have no light bulbs left right now.
posted by Der Hova at 4:44 PM
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