Today around lunchtime I was on our balcony, which looks down on the entrance to the restaurant of the hotel next door. A group of guests was gathering near the entrance. Among the guests was a priest. When they started walking inside I noticed something interesting. Near the entrance a woman was standing holding a bucket with water and a towel. Before entering the restaurant every member of this group (relatives? friends?) would wash their hands with the water from the bucket. It clearly was some kind of ritual connected to the reason they were gathering and I figure they must have been gathereing for some kind of meal (as it was a restaurant). Does anyone of you readers have an idea what this was about? Is today (the 18th of June) a special day or is this a ritual connected to the celebration or marking of some life event, like a baptism or a memorial gathering for a deceased or something like that? I attended a baptism and the celebrational meal afterward once, but there was no hand-washing involved there. I am very curious about this, so if any of you can help me out....

On Friday I attended an interesting lecture at the Caucasus Research Resource Center by Richard Giragosian, a Washington based analyst, about current developments in the region, the role Armenia plays in them and the importance for Armenia of the (changing) US-policy towards Turkey, Azerbaijan and to a lesser extent Iran.

I have a job interview tonight at 19:00. What is this?!?!?!?!? A job interview at seven on a Saturday evening.............

As for our cat, she is doing okay, but her stituation turned out to be more serious than we initially thought and there were some complications after the operation. A few times we were at the point of putting her to sleep, because there was no progress, but everytime we were thinking about that, she took a big step forward (starting to walk, starting to eat on her own, etc.), as if she wanted to tell us we were wrong. I think we are past the point of considering putting her to sleep now, given some time she'll be fine. I hope.

I have a new temporary job: I am a cat nurse now. In a freak accident, our pregnant cat fell from our kitchen window on the fourth floor. Usually, when cats fall, they are able to manoeuver themselves in such a way that they land on their feet and they are fine. However, I can tell you, when a pregnant cat falls, she most probably is not going to be fine! Due to the extra weight she carried and the fact that this made her balance different (the most weight now obviously was in her lower body part), she couldn't manoeuver herself in the right position for a safe landing. I won't go into the details, but she is going to be fine, though obviously, she lost her kittens. She had an operation two days ago and is recovering nicely from that. The operation was performed in our kitchen!
Because my boyfriend can't take time off from work and at the moment I don't have too much to do, I am the one staying at home and taking care of her. This gives me time to catch up on writing emails, reading and things like that. A few days ago one of the bloggers on www.blogrel.com (great site for news about Armenia!) posted the link to a USAID report evaluating the ways and the usefulness of support in the development and strengthening of political parties in Armenia. I read the report yesterday, and found it quite interesting. Some interesting points were made. The report can be downloaded from http://www.usa.am/assistance/docs/polassistance.pdf.

By the way, today CNN showed an interview with a 101-year old Armenian woman who survived the genocide and is now living in Jerusalem. In the report, the word genocide was used, although only in expressions like "what the Armenians call genocide". However, in their April 24 coverage, as far as I noticed, CNN was careful not to mention the word genocide at all. They even called Tsitsernakaberd a war memorial (I kid you not!), though whether that was avoidance-behavior or plain lack of research, I don't know.