Outside Eye: A non-Armenian's view

[MosJan]

Outside Eye: A non-Armenian's view

of life in his adopted home

In the gray of morning I am at Zvartnots Airport. Lack of sleep adds a veil of sluggishness to the already gauzy drape of confusion behind which I spend much of my time in Armenia.

 

Around me is the noise of anticipation, of over packed expectations and the sure current of anxiety stirred among a people unaccustomed to the rigors of promptness.

 

Everybody has luggage the size of small condominiums. Mine is no exception to the bulk of bags no doubt burdened by travelers willing to become delivery persons to the known and unknown of the Inaccessible Outside.

 

I've got 30 pounds of luggage. Only five pounds belongs to me. The rest is an amalgamation of stuff, gathered, willingly, from people who learned of my travel and took it as an opportunity for free and reliable freight haul. It is as sure a part of travel from Armenia as bad airline food and the imposition of long legs accordianed into short seating space and cheap perfume too feely applied and cigarette smoke in places forbidden by the less tolerant world.

 

I'm carrying a jacket, two pairs of jeans, a sweater, two t-shirts, underwear, socks. Those are mine.

 

The rest: Six letters and four large envelopes of unknown documents. Two books. A 10-pound bag of textiles. Eight small jewelry boxes. A pack of photographs. And a videotape given me at a café by a woman I'd never met who wants a producer in Glendale to see a performance by her dance troupe. The load might also have included a neighbor's gift of a quart jar of stewed tomatoes, but I had to draw the line somewhere.

 

My load and I have reached a security point where a woman sits at a tiny metal table wrapped in fur and hugging herself against the cold.

 

She says things I don't understand, but assume to be related to my destination, my intentions, and my adherence to rules and regulations of international flight as determined by the imprudence of panic implemented when hysteria blew up common sense last September 11.

 

She is saying things and I am nodding and all seems like it has seemed every other time I've done this.

 

I hear two words I understand. "Los Angeles?" says she. "Aiyo," I say.

 

"Du zangey, im inker?" is what I think I hear. So I nod, agreeing - or so I think -- to call her friend in Los Angeles.

 

She says some more things. I nod. And the next thing I know, she has handed me the Armenian National Luggage, a plastic bag, inside which I find an apparatus apparently used for hanging a ceiling fan or a lamp.

 

I'm not sure what's so special about this device that makes it necessary to export from Yerevan to Glendale, but it is now my responsibility - by the contract of nodding - to deliver it to some guy named Gurgo in the 818 telephone area code.

 

It is pointed on the end and barely fits into my backpack and I'm imagining its perceived potential as an implement of in-flight terrorism.

 

Still: None of this is of great concern in the sleep-deprived morning, until I reach a crucial next stage of travel where an earnest attendant fulfills her requirements as an interrogator of potential evil doers.

 

"Have any unknown persons asked you to carry anything aboard?" she asks.

 

Well. It is a long list. From the dance instructor in the café, to the security agent in this very airport with her Gurgo-bound device that could double as a jousting rod, hauling items for the unacquainted of Armenia is less like trafficking and more like playing post office.

 

So I lie: "No."

 

On the other end, I deliver. But the luggage doesn't get lighter.

 

At this moment I am three days away from leaving North America and 10 pounds of luggage heavier than when I arrived.

 

The letters and textiles and videotape have been replaced with medicine and different books and letters of response. And four boxes of specialized flossing devices for an expatriate with impeccable oral hygiene.

 

So far, no one has asked me to include electronic hardware. But there's still time.

 

Time, still, to practice lying to security personnel who might not understand the unspoken bond between willing ambassadors and a country isolated.

John Hughes