Thursday, July 24, 2003

Today I was stuck at home writing for the first half of the day and the second half was going to be spent cleaning my house, as for the next week I will be devoting my time to oversee the summer day-care program that our friends at the St. John's Armenian church in San Francisco are sponsoring.

At 2:30 PM I got a call from my accountant telling me to come over to eat lunch with her father and the workers doing some remodeling on her house. I was to busy and told her it was not necessary. She insisted and I told her the soonest I could come would be in a half-hour.

As I left the house, my neighbor called me over to give me a bottle of strawberry preserves that a little old lady from the next street over had left for me the night before when I was not home.

When I got to my accountant�s house, lunch was over, but my share was kept warm and her father made me a salad and her mother we to the store to get me a cold beer.

During my lunch, her father talked with me of the old days here in Martuni and made sure I ate more than my stomach could hold.

I got a call to go to Stepanagert to meet with someone, but since this is one of my logs that is not to talk about the dark side of life here, I will not tell you anything about this subject.

I finished my lunch and headed to Stepanagert at 4 PM.

As I entered Aghdam, I was waved down by a friend who is from Martuni and is working for the summer in Aghdam, growing watermelons.

I stopped the car after passing him and as I backed up the car, he picked up a large watermelon and started to run towards my car.

He opened the passenger's door, greeted me with the standard hello and placed the watermelon on the front seat, thanked me for my friendship and sent me on my way.

I got to Stepanagert and before going to my meeting, I went to a couple of butchers and purchased 16 kilos of beef bones for my dogs.

Then I went off to my meeting and after the meeting, I went to the Hayarpetyan/Thomasyan house for dinner, where I gave to them the watermelon I was gifted earlier in the day.

As we waited for dinner to be cooked, my friend (the one that the cops interrogated 2 Monday's ago) and I went to a toy store to purchase some kick-balls and a couple of checker sets for the summer day-care program.

On our way back to his house, we drove passed the Mayor's office and coming from the President's building (the Mayor's, President�s and Prime Minister's building are next to each other) was a friend of mine who works at the President�s press office. I stopped the car to say hello and after him asking me if I got married yet and me telling him no, but he can be sure he will get an invitation and he telling me that at my wedding he would like to say a few good words about me, he invited my friend and I for dinner at his house. I apologized and told him that we were expected to dinner and it would have to be another time.

We returned to my friend's house and had a great meal and conversation. After watermelon and a cup of tea, I headed back to Martuni, where I stopped off at the stone factory to drop of half the beef bones for one of my dogs.

I know this log must have sounded boring to some of you, but for the most part, my personal life here is filled with these kinds of stories. For that reason I like my life here and have no plans on trading this great life for life in some foreign country. The only thing I feel needs to be changed around here is the system so everyone enjoys life here as much as me and that�s what we are attempting to do now.

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