The Army

Tonight is the farewell dinner for a local friend here who will ship out to the army on Saturday for his one year service. While the location of this mandatory service can be negotiated through family connections and bribes, it seems that the actual service is pretty much a given for every young Azeri male. Yet someone else I met, having just returned from reporting for service earlier in the week, said that he was discharged because he was too skinny (or too short relative to his weight, the language barrier was in full effect). Anyway, I don't really know where I am going with this posting...I am kind of lethargic this week, thus boring blog postings!