Re-wind

We are sitting at a cafe near the Opera building - it's one of our last days, August 2009...
Some of us are leaving soon, some are staying a while longer but I have that feeling - the one you get in your stomach before something is over.....
Recap
Hranush Hakobyan - the newly crowned Minister of the Diaspora, the Iron Lady. Staff shakes and pales when walking into her office, major ties with the diaspora, has held leadership positions in politics since Soviet times. Maybe we need someone like her in politics....
The Minister of Economy - nice guy, may really try to do something for the rural areas of Armenia to boost the economy, the question remains if he will hit some sort of a "political wall" with all these good intentions...
The Catholicos (leader of christian Armenians) - didn't have time to meet us in Etchmiadzin, very busy man, visits parishes in the US that have never been visited by the Catholicos before, plans to build a summer mansion for himself in the center of Yerevan, taught one of our program participants how to drink vodka shots from chilli peppers, considers himself a "neighborhood dude", needs to take a communication/speech class.....

Jon Huntsman - a Utah resident, non-armenian "odar", has a construction company in Armenia, which we visited. Head of the branch in Armenia a British bloke who has a crush on our (ex) program director Arpi Vartanian. Super sweet guy - loved the brit humor.

An Armenian Harvard MBA graduate (shall remain Mr. Unnamed) - owner of an Armenian construction company which builds "elitar" buildings all around Yerevan.
*
We all pile in into Mr. Unnamed's office and he explains how they build their buildings in perfect English and "oh by the way I got my MBA from Harvard". He shows us a plan of a new building that they are building and we get into our van to follow his Lexus SUV to the construction site.
The car makes a turn, goes down a hill and there it is: the construction site, right across from the apartment high rise in which I spend all of my childhood. I'm not sure how to describe my reaction....
Me: Mr. Unnamed did you know that on this spot there was always a huge puddle the size of a small lake which cars couldn't get through after it rained.
Mr. Unnamed: Yes, we've drained it and it shouldn't be of concern.... (I wonder...)
Me: You are blocking my buildings view of Mount Ararat.
Mr. Unnamed: Well you should come and buy an apartment here in our building and get
a view on the mountain...
Me: Maybe I will... (or maybe I won't since you are charging crazy amounts of money that a US student and certainly not many Armenian citizens can afford).
*
A suivre....