death to Free Riding fleas!

It's my turn. Here's the blog entry that shares some sentiments on the concept of time in Armenia, it's different. This theme appears at least once in every western volunteer or expat's memoirs, usually towards the beginning, as this slowing of affairs (whatever they may be) gives one quite a jolt. Por ejemplo, some months ago in a seminar dedicated to business cultures around the world, every nonArmenian presenter made some irritating reference to this phenomena. Irritating to me, and i'm sure others, because not only was it a pain to transition through, but i also had to sit and listen to approximately 20 minutes of a verbal montage dedicated to its existence. If one fails to deliberately put in the mental effort of adjustment to the new time-space continuum, they will fall and fall hard. Ask the guy tending his crops if this time generalization applies to him - i'm thinkin' yes. That's right, even the Armenian farmer's almanac will make room for the difference in time utilization...i think.

Over the past fourteen months, i've passively attempted a Holmes-ian (tangent: i'm always excited to Armenize word. It makes me feel closer to fluency, despite the lack of an actual connection. For those set in blank-face mode, -ian at the end of a last name, more times than most means the person is Armenian) check into this phenomena. Hypothesis: mountain air plus latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates creates a gap in the ether, causing a defect to a cross between Mayan and Babylonian calendars, which results in lag of at least 15 minutes for most things scheduled in Armenia. TRUE-ish! Either that or the flagrant dismissal of crosswalks and signals by most pedestrians makes traffic that much more delayed as well as arrival times. It's like the hour of back up on your local highway (IH 35!) caused by a guy changing his tire a centimeter over the shoulder line creating a countless amount of rubber-neckers. (pardon the American references - i know some of you are now completely confused)

There ARE exceptions. It must also be said that i feel no less productive because of this. Actually, i feel incredibly fine tuned in that my American self has found a happy and efficient medium between each culture. I am, and will remain, a hybrid.

The entirety of this post, simply to let you in on an image that has been on a loop in my mind that throws me into a muffled chuckle. I saw a twenty-something walking with a freshly opened, chilled and sweaty red bull in his hand on a warm spring day - yesterday. The image: his power drinking of the liquified fast forward button, him zipping cartoon style to his destination, huffing and puffing upon arrival only to sit and wait for at least 15 minutes for others to begin when they do.

All i'm saying is that i would have loved to been witness to the marketing portion of the meeting between Red Bull and Republic of Armenia reps: Why Armenian life needs this product.

Viva!