Sunday, September 14, 2003

I forgot to pray tonight so there would be no rain, but unfortunately, my mind was on other things and well, it rained and we canceled the festival tonight. The good news is that if the sun is out tomorrow morning, we will have the second day of the festival in Shushi and in the case of rain, it will be held at the cultural palace in Stepanagert.

So why didn't I have time for praying so it would not rain as I did yesterday? Well I was dealing with my car and for the second time this year, I got bad gasoline, which caused my car not to start today, so I had to take a taxi to Stepanagert.

I guess the taxi raid was meant to be, as we got pulled over by the traffic police for no reason at all and the cop who knows me and saw me sitting in the back of the taxi, took a bribe of 500 dram right in front of my eyes. I could not believe what I was witnessing.

After my driver got back in the car, the cop opens my door and asks me, "Ara jan, how are you?"

I snapped at him and asked him if he was not embarrassed for taking a bribe in front of me? He said that he didn't understand and I told him he would soon understand, tell the driver to drive on, as I pulled the door closed and out of his hand.

So come Monday morning or if I have time tomorrow, I'll call the chief of the traffic police to tell him to remove officer #1478 from the force, or else I will write and sign a complaint to the minister of internal affairs and insist that they press criminal charges against said officer.

So I got to Shushi and just before we thought the festival would start, the rain beat us to it. Not to say it was coming down hard, but it was not like last nights weather and it was also I would guess about 10 degrees colder.

We planted some trees, that were provided by the Armenian Tree Project.

At 9 PM, we decided that the rain was not going to stop and made an announcement to the waiting crowd that tonight's performance is canceled and then all the organizers and some guest sat at the table intended for the President and drank toasts to each other and talked about some very political issues. I was kind of shocked at the way the toasts were going, as they seemed more like political debates, rather than toasts. Later on I made a comment about how I had never seen anything like this and was told that they have seen worse, but it was probably toned down because I was there. I could not understand, as in Martuni if someone is saying a toast, one does not turn someone's toast into a political argument. I say this, as I've sat at tables with people who thought I was a native and it never was like this. I guess maybe the people of Shushi are like this and for that it gives me great comfort that I picked Martuni as my home, where people have manors and a certain respect for each other where they at least don't belittle the person saying a toast.

For the most part, the rest of the evening was uneventful and all I know right now is my work tomorrow is cut out for me, with me having to deal with draining out all the gasoline from my car and then at very least calling the gas station owner to let him know that I had a problem with his gas so he can look into it if he wants.

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