What a difference a chicken makes ...

Friday, March 19th 2010
Yerevan, Armenia

OK ... so I had a meeting with the Deputy Minister of Agriculture (Salvan Galustyian) - an old Soviet Style bureaucrat. I was seated at one end of a long table. He was seated on the other end. My colleagues from The Forest State Monitoring Center were on the sides. The World Bank people didn't show up.

The meeting started with a long-winded introduction by His Excellency Galustyian. He thanked me for being a principled person and described a bunch of positive things he had heard about me. He pontificated a bit about the role of the government, the importance of the trees, the heritage of the Armenian Christian church and as he was sliding into a lecture about global warming my client (another old Soviet Style bureaucrat) whispered something into his ear - at which point all hell broke loose. The Deputy Minister starting screaming at everyone at the table - while waving his hand for me to stay seated. He yelled for his body guard and there was a muffled exchange of something and the body guard ran out of the room.

Within seconds a woman appeared with a tray full of cookies and odd looking crackers and began nervously serving tea. She slid a tray of cookies in my direction and a tray of what looked like crackers in the other direction. I dove into the cookies as politely as possible - trying hard not to leave a speed-boat spray of cookie crumbs all over the place. Galustyian and the rest of the Forest Monitoring Center people were suddenly relaxed and eating tea and the cracker-bread things. Again, I was trying to act like the sudden food was an unnecessary courtesy - while devouring it. (not easy) Everyone was chuckling and munching ... and my translator began telling me that Galustyian was talking talking about the need to treat consultants well ... (hmmm) I kept munching on the cookies.

Then about 3 minutes later (I swear to God, no longer) the body guard appeared with a huge plastic bag full of chicken kabobs, lavash bread, yogurt, cheeses, loads of herbs and greens etc. Everyone got up and started passing the food around. I was served an enormous plate. His Excellency pounded his fist on the table and said he wanted to propose a toast with vodka but it wasn't there yet and commanded us to eat. We ate.

A few minutes later His Excellency pulled out a bottle of vodka and shot glasses from his desk and passed them around the table. I managed to look up from my food and prepare myself for what I was sure would be a long-winded toast. His Excellency said, [bad translation alert] "...Miss Wood, I just heard you have not eaten a meal in four days because our office has not wire transfered money to you ... I am so sorry ... please eat ... and I have just given my man money which he will accidentally loose at your apartment ... which, if you are interested in returning to me when you receive the wire transfer you can do ... but let me explain that one of the reasons we are so screwed-up about paying the consultants the World Bank gives us is that they force us to have procurement 'teams' review everything - for transparency purposes I guess ... but what happens is these teams have no idea what they are supposed to do without the approval of the World Bank and the World Bank never calls us unless we make a mistake ... so the teams do nothing ... which, as you know, is part of the Armenia problem ... ... and with the departure of man who was managing your contract the rest of the procurement team has 'absolutely' no idea what to do ... so again, they are doing nothing ... but please Miss Wood, you should never go without food and I promise you this issue will be taken care of by Monday - Tuesday at the very latest ..."

To which, my grumbly client muttered, "...For Gods Sakes Galustiyan, Miss Wood isn't asking for a favor we owe her money ... she doesn't need a lecture about food, when will the wire transfer happen?" Galustiyan got up from his chair and left the room ... my client followed him. We all continued eating. About 30 seconds later my client came in chuckling ... and said, "...Galustiyan is in the procurement office waving a chicken leg at the team and telling them how unprofessional they are ..."

Galustiyan came back in the room and looked at his watch and told us we had to leave because he had a meeting. I shoved another piece of chicken in my mouth, shook his hand and we all left. Outside we all doubled-over laughing. We started off in our separate directions ... when Galustiyans' body guard came running after me with a 20,000 dram note (about $50 dollars) He shoved it in my hand and ran back in the office.

So I spent the rest of the day at a little cafe devouring yummy soup and reading a book. Now I feel focused and ready to work again. Funny how food really does fuel the brain.