Wednesday, October 23, 2002

This log is being posted late as my great internet connection has been disrupted by the weather.

On the 21st of October, from I don�t know where, we suddenly had the worst weather I have ever seen in Martuni.

Was it a tornado? I�m not sure. I�ve never seen winds so strong.

Not just that, but rain and hail came down in such large amounts that the combination of wind and water had the strength to topple over one of the large walls that enclose my front yard.

On my porch, which is on the second floor, water had filled up. I figured the drain hole must be clogged so I took off my pants and went out in my underwear and bare feet to unclog it. The strangest thing, it was raining all around me, but not on me. I reached down to find the drain hole, but could not locate it. The water was really cold, so I went back inside and no sooner than I did that, the rain started to pour down on the water I was standing in. I thought the whole thing to be kind of strange, but didn�t figure out until after talking to some friends that we had been visited by a tornado and then only figured that I must have been at that moment standing in the center of it.

The power was cut for almost 24 hours and there were power lines down in our neighborhood.

After the storm had passed, I went out to check the damage to my house. The only thing besides the wall was a piece of tin from my roof, which my contactor quickly repaired.

The government sent out a surveying team on the 22nd to check damage to our neighborhood and my wall was added to the list. I�m told it should be repaired using money from an emergency fund. I�m glad to hear that such funding is available and if it comes or not, the wall is going to be replaced tomorrow if the weather is good.

So my internet connection is down, due to extra noise in the phone line (this started after the tornado). I called this morning to the phone center and they told me they would take care of it.

By 6 PM the problem was not resolved and when I called, they told me they fixed it. I told them it had not changed and they told me if it is not working, then how am I talking to them on that line? I told them the line works, but the extra noise prevents my internet connection from working. I�ve made a few more calls and there is still noise in the line. What a pain.

At 9 PM I talked to Nona the engineer at ArabTel (that�s what we all call the phone company now), who told me that they checked the line and it was not normal. She said that tomorrow morning they will work on the line and resolve the problem. I sure hope so.

Tonight on the news, the President talked about how all the different government offices are not working well and people are now writing to him as their only hope.

I�m glad he recognizes that there is a problem and I guess he is overwhelmed with so much work that he does not have time to see me. That list I must have been put on must be really long.

None the less, if the problem is that all the different government offices are not working well (which was part of my problem) and he was the president for the last 5 years, this means that he too is not working well since things got to this point.

Sounds to me like Mr. President needs to change his methods of running our country, but the big question is if he is capable of making such changes? I highly doubt it, but I�ll give him the benefit of the doubt and see what changes he is going to make in the next couple of weeks.

I have a prediction to make. There is a change being made in the tax office here in Martuni. The head of that office has been removed and was told he will be transferred to Stepanagert to work in a special department. I predict that the husband of the head of the finance department here in Martuni will be appointed to that post. If my prediction is correct, then I can accurately report on which day and time a bribe was paid to someone working in the President�s office and by who. If my prediction becomes reality, then I can help the President better understand why he had to get on T.V. and announce that his government is not working well.

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