Two days ago, as usual, I took a public mini-bus to reach our apartment in the outskirts of Yerevan. While I was struggling hard not to be knocked down, I started to feel something rather different than just spine and neck pains, which one constantly experiences when using public transport in Armenia. I started to feel an extreme warmth in my stomach and I was totally shocked and couldn't understand the odd feeling.
Meanwhile I was listening to a woman who was sat next to me. She was telling a story from her childhood to a little boy with curly black hair. He was not really keen on listening, because he was playing with his water gun, hopelessly searching for the remaining few drops of water. The childhood story was about Yerevan and how she, as a little girl of about 6 old, was lost in the city center.
Generally people do not make conversations on public transport with strangers because it interrupts the uncomfortable silence and creates a strange mood of intimacy, which I would say is completely inappropriate.
The other woman who was sitting behind them, with her artificially blond daughter, started to laugh hysterically (that’s the cause of previously mentioned distracted silence). To calm her mother down the girl started to tell another story from her own childhood, the topic was same but this time it was about being lost in her hometown of Kirovakan.
I was listening to both stories, because I was bored and forgot my headphones at home, and I was still trying to hold myself still to not fall over. The questionable warmth in my stomach was getting stronger and started to burn furiously.
After the long chat the elderly women and the little boy’s grandmother found out that they are neighbors and live in same part of our district. This, I should say, was not a surprise for anyone in that bus. Yerevan, and also Armenia, is very small and in fact the world itself too; finding something in common is a totally normal thing. So they invited each other over for a cup of coffee and for another chat.
As we were getting nearer to our district the bus started to empty and I finally found a vacant seat. After some 15 minutes of torture, taking a seat is a small everyday joy, that everyone, no matter what age, experiences in Yerevan’s public transport. So after collapsing into my seat I started to analyse the strange warmth in my stomach. At that same moment I heard the cute snoring of a child who was calmly sleeping in his mothers arms. She, by the way, had that smoothly wild Armenian beauty, which to my very sorrow is nowadays hidden under 50 layers of make-up and artificially blonde hair. I was secretly admiring the sophisticated simplicity of that couple, full of love, emotion and Armenian-ness. I couldn't hold my smile as I watched the little boy snoring so sweetly.
Suddenly my thoughts and smile were interrupted by a harsh masculine voice. The driver rudely cursed someone, maybe another driver or one of the passengers. The warmth in my stomach started to burn so furiously and I could have sworn it turned into fire. But I was happy that I was disturbed from my daydreaming, because my stop was nearing.
When I finally got off the bus, as usual the wind started the very familiar dance with my hair. The fire in my stomach reached my throat and I was surprised to find myself in unstoppable tears (I am still convinced that it was not caused by wind). After the first two drops of tears, I eventually understood what the burning inside my stomach for the brief 25 minutes of my life was caused by.
I understood that I am madly and insanely in love with my city, country and even people.
I am in love with conservative stupidity and newly revolutionized insanity.
I am in love with that talkative chitchatting women, with the curly boy, even with the artificially blond girl and, I am crazy to say that, but I am even in love with rude, harsh, unpleasant bus driver.
And I wrote this awfully long story (I think I am always laconic) to state, that I can’t imagine myself without all of these culturally strange things, which most of my foreign friends do not understand or accept.
