Venting

There is a development program in Armenia called "Armenia 2020", where young people are called to visualize how our country will look in the year 2020 and work together toward making it better. I even posted some quotes from those essays way back when. But this is not about them. This post is about how I want to see Armenia in 2020 - or sooner, if possible. Also about some things I don't want to see - starting tomorrow, if possible!

To start with, in my Armenia 2020 no one will throw trash anywhere except into special receptacles. There will be no trash piles along the roads and highways, on the streets and in the alleys, or out in the wilderness where some jerks happened to have a picnic! There will be recycling programs, maybe even special receptacles for different kinds of recyclables. But most important of all - people will realize how bad garbage looks strewn all over the place and will learn to respect themselves and others by keeping their city/countryside/country clean!

Next, there will be traffic regulations, and they will actually be observed. The cars will stay in the assigned lanes, stop behind the lines at the intersections, signal their intentions and not honk needlessly. They will respect the pedestrians by not threatening to run them over all the time and will be in turn respected by the pedestrians who will cross the streets at the assigned crossings. The street lights will no longer be hiding behind the overgrown trees, but will be prominently displayed and visible from far away. The pedestrians will have the right of way and will not abuse it! There even will be no cars parked on the sidewalk, blocking the way.

The stores and small businesses will want your business. Every employee in every store will want your business. There are many ways of achieving this, and I won't go there. All I know is, they will be happy to see people coming in. They will smile and greet you, listen attentively to your questions and requests, and try to help. They will be ready and willing to get that last can from the top shelf or those elusive raspberry-filled cookies from behind the chocolate-filled ones. They will not be annoyed if you ask too many questions or are not sure what you want. They will be so willing to keep your business, they will make no fuss about taking back items you want to return for whatever reason!

To be continued...