PART ONE
Dear Mom, Jan 16
Just last night we got a call from Mike McDowell in Madison to tell us
all about the Packer's victory over the 49ers. If anybody taped that
game, please mail us a copy. Also, Mike said he would tape the Super
Bowl and mail it to us; please, nobody tell us who wins! We want to
have a Super Bowl party here and do not want to know the score
beforehand! It was really weird - Mike was online when we were talking
to him when he got an e-mail. It was the e-mail that I had just written
than afternoon and given to Dixie to send. It was strange to hear him
read to me the beginning of an e-mail I had just read from the other
side of the world.
Now, Mike, don't get a swollen head or nothing about the following
comments. Mike has called the us the most out of all the people back
home (only because he earns too much money and there is only so much
black clothes one can buy) and has been a really steady contact to the
world back home. He has relayed messages, found out information for us,
created this wonderful sounding web page and other things. We really
didn't expect this from him (not that we thought he was a bad guy
beforehand) and are extremely grateful. So let's hear three cheers for
Mike!
OK, enough sucking up. How many jars of peanut butter will that get
us, Mike?
So on the 30th of January, we went to Kapchigai with Alison Leo (Kaz4)
and her local boyfriend's brother. She is still dating the brother of
the host family she lived with during training.
Oh, yeah, we got packages from Mike McDowell and from Roawn Jacobson
(Hershey bars and, no surprise here, popcorn!), Joan's friend from South
Carolina whose wedding we road tripped down to before we got engaged.
That road trip was were we hashed a lot of details about marriage and
relationships, even though we hadn't even seriously considered married
at that point. It was a great trip that I will always remember.
The taxi fare from Almaty to Kap has gone up to 200 from 150 tenge!
The drivers claim gas prices have gone up - grrrr . . . .
It was really strange to walk around Kap covered with snow. It was
even weirder to be cold after all our memories of extreme heat. All I
remember are sand and heat; the contrast was both shocking and pleasant.
The doorbell buzz brought Larissa to the door along with a barking Grom
- 'Thunder' in Russian. We also saw 'Fee-ma,' the cat, who has changed
from a small, black cat to a huge, black cat. She looks like a seal . .
..
It was like coming home (sorry, Moms); it was so relaxing to hang out
with them: eating, laughing and telling stories around the kitchen
table. It was the best therapy we could have asked for to deal with the
stresses and strains of the past four months in KO. 'Lounge' would be
the verb of the visit.
When we had called from KO to the host family and told them that we
wanted to come for the New Year, they were very happy. With my poor
Russian skills and the bad connection, it was hard to communicate the
details. What made it very clearly was when Larissa bellowed quite
forcefully into the phone "Richard . . . Joan . . . Kapchigai . . . Dom
('home' in Russian)."
Larissa cooked like crazy that day and the next in preparation for New
Year's Eve dinner. They do not celebrate X-mas here much but go crazy
for the first of January. We talked over dinner that night about life
and found that we had been wrong in thinking that Vlodia had found work.
I either must have misunderstood Larissa on the phone or misheard the
news from the PC office staff. Their car, an Audi, had been sold at the
bazaar. Vlodia had been a taxi driver before it broke down. Vlodia had
been doing some temporary jobs for friends and such but was still
looking for regular work.
Anton, the older son, was studying at the Sport Institute (to be a gym
teacher, I guess) but was more interested in his new girlfriend, an
older woman (20's? - he is 17 or 18) who is a medical student which
sounds good in America but doesn't mean diddly here. One the drivers at
the PC office was late for work one day and was asked why. He said that
he was sorry he was late but had been held up in brain surgery. Brain
surgery! Some research revealed that he was a brain surgeon on the
side, but the PC job paid so much more money, even for a driver.
And that brings up some information that I wanted to share about
medical care. I'm sure you all remember about Paul's and my little run
in with health care here. Well, during IST, a man from USIS (United
States Information Service - they provide grant money, books, materials,
training, etc.) who had been Peace Corps in Africa and India [when was
PC in India?] and other organizations around the world, came to speak to
us about stuff. He is very knowledgeable about Kaz and fielded many
questions. Some how he got on to the medical system and told us some
really fascinating stuff. It seems that it is near impossible to find a
general practitioner here, a doctor that can examine you, make a
preliminary diagnosis and then recommend you to a specialist. The
is/was great honor in being a 'specialist' in a specific field, and
there are hospitals devoted to them, not to general care. There are eye
hospitals, kidney hospitals, etc that only deal with those problems.
The way it works here is that you go to a specialist who says, "Nope,
you don't have this." Then to another specialist and so on until you
get to one who recognizes what is wrong with you and is able to treat
it. He called it "process of elimination" diagnosis. What do you think
of that, Michelle?
Back to Anton - There is even talk of marriage which doesn't please V
and L as this is his first girlfriend and they are concerned about his
future and want him to finish his studies and get a job. Don't all
parents?
Dinner on New Year's Eve was a huge spread of food in which fish played
a major role: beet salad with fish, liver salad (ugh-o-rah-ma!), corn
salad, chicken, potatoes, and of course, vodka! It was just V, L, Joan,
me, and Daniel (host brother, younger - Anton was in Almaty) until some
friends came by for 'ghos-tee' ('guesting' in Russian - we call it
'ghosting'), people we knew from training, Margarita and her hubby,
Igor, who got beat up by some thugs doing training which put the fear of
God in us. Anton got beat this fall out near the discotec 'battlecage'
by 15 guys in a really fair fight. He was in the hospital for awhile.
As the New Year rolled in, glasses of champagne were filled and the
room was filled with cheers. Soon after, we went outside on the street
in front of the building to watch the fireworks and launch a few
ourselves. It is a tradition to fire off bottlerockets and Roman
candles for New Year's. For the week or so before, kids were constantly
setting off firecrackers in the street. The little 'ba-boosh-kas' with
the TV trays full of snacks on street corners all had little plastic
bags full of red firecrackers for 15 tenge a pop.
The fireworks were launched from all over: the street, balconies,
roofs, etc. It looked like a war zone with buildings spouting fire and
balls of light arching across the sky. In some cases, the balls of
light bounced off buildings and ricocheted off of roofs as some of the
pyrotechnics were military flares that were either bought or stolen from
the nearby army base. Lots of parachute flares drifting down; it felt
like some sort of frozen no-man land during WWI.
After that, we headed to a friend's apartment for more food and vodka,
all of which lasted until two or so in the morning. We headed home and
partied even more, although by this time I was done and was sprawled out
on the sofa. . . . [Joan drank too much for her.] . . . The next day was
Joan's worst hangover ever! I was so proud of her. She spent most of
the day in bed moaning and groaning until the evening when she felt good
enough to join us on a 'ghosting' trip to Anglina Nam's. Angelina works
for the Almaty PC office and was a language co-ordinator during
training. She lives in Almaty during the week and comes home on
weekends to be with her family. She is Korean and made some really good
food for Joe, Sun, Joan, and me. We had some really good conversations
about teaching, culture, etc, even though Sun went off on his usual
"America bad, capitalism bad' rant which usually kills all rational
discussion.
Friday was a total lounge day for us with eating, watching TV, and
reading. Joe came over, and we went for a long, brisk walk in the cold
sunshine. We walked out to the lake which was frozen over and out on to
the ice. Talk about a flat, white surface! We took some pictures, but
I don't know if they will capture the scope of it. The horizon and the
snow blended into one except for where the mountains behind Almaty stood
up.
Speaking of mountains - one thing I could use from home would be some
good backpacking/camping food. I can't buy the kind of dehydrated stuff
that you can get at home, and we are planning a five to six day hike
from Medeo to Lake Issykul in Kyrgystan in the summer which will require
lightweight food. For you Madison folks, the Mifflin Street Co-op has
some good things to offer: dehydrated refried beans, humus, soups, etc,
that can be bought in bulk so it is a lot cheaper than most commercial
stuff. If anybody wants to include some camping food like that in
packages, it would be really appreciated.
Saturday we headed back to Almaty to see all the PCVs who were coming
in for IST. Larissa left early in the morning to go ice fishing with
some friends. The night before, we sat in the kitchen talking, and Joan
helped Larissa untangle the fishing line from her ice fishing poles.
Although cobbled together from bits and pieces, they looked just like
the ice fishing gear I've seen in Madison. Clarance Olson, the Scout
Master of the Boy Scout Troop where I was Assistant Scout Master, took
us ice fishing - a strange, cold but interesting experience.
The PCVs all stayed at the Hotel Kazhol, down 'Si-fu-li-na' street from the PC
office. If you have a map of Almaty, the PC office is at the corner of Zhevshenko
and Seefulina. Compared to PDI (Pedagogical Development Institute) where we stayed
our first few days in Kaz, it was luxurious with our own bathrooms, running hot
water, carpets, furniture, and other perks. It is only 900 tenge for a two-person
room which is very cheap for Almaty. The school were IST took place was just across
the street. The map the PC gave us showed the building right on the corner, but in
fact, the hotel was in the middle of the block behind some apartment buildings and
even looked like an apartment building from the distance.
When we arrived, there were a bunch of Kaz5 in the lobby, and there were lots of
shouts, hugs and kisses for everybody as we had not seen each other in four months.
The staff was a bit shocked at first by all the gringos but quickly got used to us
and became quite friendly and helpful as the week went on. Maybe people did not
recognize me as I have grown somewhat of a beard as the winter progressed.
After checking in, we all gathered in Keith Mellnick's room which was more like an
apartment with a living room with sofa, armchairs, large fridge, and TV, a bedroom
with double beds, and a bathtub that had to be about six feet long - lovely. This
room became the official hangout/party room for our IST. At any given time you
could find people there talking and catching on each other. You could even get the
key from the front desk and let yourself in when the actual occupants were out and
about. Poor Keith didn't get a lot of sleep in his own room and would often crash in
other rooms. Like in Fiji, some the group ahead of us, Kaz4, were in town for
various reasons and mooched bed or floor space off of our group as well as lunch at
the school, all of which I plan to do to Kaz6. I hope to make the web page address
available to Kaz6 so they can read the letters and see some pictures and hopefully
get an idea of what it is like and what they may want to bring. I hope it doesn't
scare them off.
A bunch of us decided to go to Capo's for dinner, an American style place run by an
American that serves OK American food at expensive prices. It is popular to many
PCVs, but I had not eaten there during training because I was rarely in Almaty and
the prices turned me off. Although they do have a luncheon buffet of all-you-can-eat
pizza and salad bar for 600 tenge which is a good deal if you are only going to eat
once in the day or are just about to get on the train for a two-day trip. I was not
really interested in going, but Joan and a bunch of her lady friends from the women's
group wanted to go. I tagged along with Keith and Ken Workman, two of the funniest
men in the universe. Ken is in Karaganda, and Keith is in Agadir, just south of
Karaganda. One popular joke that Ken made was about all the new countries with
'-stan' on the end: Turkmenistan, Kyrgystan, etc. He said that he was going to
secede Karaganda and call it 'Workmanistan.' I guess you had to be there . . .
So as I, Keith and Ken were sitting there looking at the menu and the prices, we had
an attack of the 'cheapies' and said that we were out of there. The ladies stayed to
bond and all, so we slid back down the hill, stopped at a 'kulyunaria' to get some
food and at a kiosk to grab some beers and hung out with all the guys back at the
hotel. That's how most evenings were spent, just hanging out with friends: playing
poker (I didn't lose too much over the week - I think), playing chess, and just
sharing stories. It was wonderful. It also made me realize that the same people
that annoyed me during training still annoy me now but there is no need to go into
details.
I had been talking up the hiking trip up into the mountains to everybody and had
gathered some gullible recruits for the morning. I had wanted to find some sleds and
even at one point considered 'borrowing' a section of linoleum from the fifth floor
hallway. "Hey, not many people walk in that part - it's not being used!" However I
did score some heavy gauge plastic sheeting which ended up working rather well,
although our 'ends' took quite a beating from the lack of padding.
So on Sunday morning, Joan, I, Joe, Keith, Kelly McCormick, and her boyfriend, Naobi
(don't ask about his name), who was visiting her - he is a Canadian studying in
England, headed up the mountain to retrace our path from the week before with Sergay.
The weather was not very good: overcast and slightly rainy down in the city which
turned to fairly heavy snow up in the mountains. We slogged our way up the slopes to
find that all the beautiful views were smothered in fog and cloud. The alpine meadow
at the top was a blizzard like situation with near horizontal snow blowing in our
faces. We didn't lollygag there at all.
Once we got down to the tree line and sorted out the sliding materials, however, it
was perfect. The trail was beat down and slick enough to be very slippery, and we
quickly set off down the trail at high speeds. The trail is not one continuous sled
run - there are sections that you have to walk because they are flat or even uphill -
but there was more than enough downhill. With whoops and screams, we careened
around banked corners with snow flying in our faces. Some corners were too tight,
and we often shot off the path and ended up in a tangle of limbs, beaming faces
covered in snow. I don't think I have ever had more fun in the snow. It is
absolutely incredible!
The first person was often a little slower as they plowed through the fresh snow, but
that was good because the first person often didn't know what was around the next
corner and speed could be quite dangerous. Some of the bobsled runs had trees
growing in them or dangerously near them. There is one run which has actually been
carved into a long, half-tube that must be three feet deep that is insane. It is
very steep and fast but fairly straight. At one place, a thicket of trees had grown
up that could snag an uncontrolled arm or leg and spin you out of control - we all
missed it. Further down the tube, a thick branch had grown across the tube, and you
had to lie down flat on your back to not get your block knocked off.
I could go on and on about it, but the description will not do it justice. Some
pictures were taken on the two sledding trips (we went a week later with a different
group), and I will try to get copies to show you.
I also know that there are probably a lot of heads shaking and muttered comments
about Rich and sleds being a bad combination. Well, you are totally right. About
halfway down the trail, I went first and was sliding down a relatively steep but open
section. The problem with that is without the banks on either side of you, it is
easy to slip off the trail, especially if the trail is slanted to the side like this
section was. So as I near the bottom at speed, I started to go off the trail to the
left, leading with my left hip and thigh. I ran smack into a three-inch diameter
tree, slamming my thigh into the tree exactly where I broke it in New Zealand.
Needless to say, the pain was tremendous. The rest of the group was yelling for me
to get out of the way from the top of the trail as I lay there. I really was quite
worried that I had broken it as the pain was really quite horrible and began to plan
on how they were going to get me down the mountain to help (I had brought a sleeping
bag and poncho in my backpack for emergencies. Some of the other PCVs call me a
worrywart and Boy Scout geek, but I have read too many Reader's Digest and outdoor
magazine articles about people getting in bad situations out in the woods and
mountains without the right gear. It is easy to die if you get in trouble,
especially in the winter. I came close that one time and never want to risk it
again).
Finally realizing what had happened, they all came sliding and running down the trail
like the Keystone Cops with some of them running into to me - ouch! Eventually the
pain subsided, and I could stand. Actually it really didn't feel to bad, so I said,
"Let's keep going!" - I just made sure that I led with my left side this time and
avoided any extreme situations.
As I described before, the train led to a road that led down through the dachas to
the bus stop where we changed out of our wet and icy clothes. By this time, my leg
was starting to hurt quite a bit and it was difficult to walk. I eventually
developed what Dawn, the PCMO, called 'quite an impressive hematoma' or blood bruise
from knee to hip. I got a good baseball size lump on my thigh and some of the best
purple and black bruising I have ever seen - cool! I kept dropping my pants and
showing anyone who was even remotely interested. I wish Marilyn could have seen it.
The trail had been fairly hard with no fresh snow for padding. While this made for
fast sledding, it also created some really sore fannies. Our butts were smarting by
the time we finished. The last couple good runs found us trying to ride on cheeks or
lower backs. Oh, that reminds me. I took a picture a day or two after Paul's
accident of all of our feet/ankles jumbled together. It should be a great photo. I
think that roll of film went home with Ian Miller who will mail you the developed
negatives when he gets back to Pennsylvania on medical leave.
The first few days of IST were a bit difficult as I couldn't walk very well, and I
missed out on all the dancing excursions. Even now, two weeks later, there is still
a visibly noticeable lump on my leg and some pain. Aren't you proud of me, mommy?
So, now we are up to IST, whew . . . IST was good in that we got to see each other
and share our experiences. Unfortunately it was not organized well and there was a
lot of miscommunication that created a lot of ill will and resentment among the PCVs
who demonstrated those feelings by not coming to sessions or not participating in
sessions or by generally being pains in the asses. I personally was embarrassed by
the lack of respect the PCVs showed to staff and the lack of professional behavior.
I know that we are just volunteers and a lot of the PCVs don't see this as a career
move but at least act like adults and don't be rude.
The major problem was that we were told that afternoon sessions would be optional.
There were two morning sessions separated by a tea break and two afternoon sessions.
Sometimes the session after lunch was filled with a required thingy, and sometimes
both afternoon sessions were free. During these times, they wanted us to schedule
meetings with our APCDs (Assistant Peace Corps Directors) based on whether we were
TEFL, Business, or Environment/Health, medical interviews and other stuff, which was
fine. The major problem was that the memo we received; the very last sentence said
that there were seven free, afternoon blocks scheduled during the week and that we
only had to sign up for one. What Anna, the woman in charge of training, forget to
add to the very last sentence of the memo was ' . . . every day.' This meant that
the afternoons with only one free block were not really free.
Our group still has its dander up about training and all the problems with scheduling
and bureaucracy from the main office that pissed us off, so we were ready for these
kind of shenanigans and quick to respond in a hostile fashion. It is too bad,
because many people skipped sessions that were really useful and informational.
Ekaterina, our TEFL APCD, asked me to facilitate a TEFL session on Tuesday morning
where we would share teaching ideas, tips, activities, etc. Only about eight of the
35 odd TEFL PCVs showed up - losers. The group that came had a great time sharing
information, and I am going to type up the content of our meeting into a packet form
to be shared with all the TEFL people. I got a bunch of new ideas that I am really
excited to use in the classroom. I am also excited to create an honors class at the
institute of students from both the first and second year, a class of students who
really want to learn English, a class where I can choose who is in the class or not.
I don't think I can change the schedule or the system right in the middle of the year
but can make a start and will definitely make some changes for the next year.
I'm trying to think of anything exciting or interesting that happened during the IST
sessions but cannot. We had sessions on grant writing, project development
management, medical, administration, resource centers, teachers associations, the
U.S. Ambassador, etc.
The highlights of the week were Wednesday and Thursday nights. A tradition of IST is
for people from the Embassy to host small groups of PCVs over for dinner. Some PCVs
went to homes were it was just a normal American family with normal food; some went
to palatial homes with servants and a Hummer in the driveway. Many of the embassy
staff are way spoilt by the perks of the government service. From what I
understand, they can ship 7000 pounds for free every year - there's your tax dollars
at work. One guy having a house built and is literally having everything shipped
from the Home Depot in the States.
Joan, I, Willie, Brendan, and Chris Brooks signed up to have dinner with Barbara
Babcock who actually works for a French firm in Almaty but had heard about this PCV
hosting through the expat newsletter. She had returned that morning from America via
Moscow on a trip that took four days due to canceled and delayed flights. She was a
real trooper to have done all she did for us on the same day as arriving. She had
worked for the SOROS foundation in eastern Europe but had been displeased by the
petty politics and the manager and left. She has a bachelor's and master's in
Russian. I am now motivated to study Russian now.
It was heaven. We arrived in her nice, western style flat to find cheese and
crackers, delicious pistachio nuts in the shell and cases upon cases of Grolsch beer
with those cool pop off tops. We stood around the appetizers and sucked 'em down
while she finished cooking. We had fettucini alfredo with salmon and capers, basil
pesto pasta, marinated artichoke hearts and asparagus salad, and tuna and corn salad.
There was more food, but it all lost in the memories of gluttony. For dessert, we
had an exquisite ice cream cake which we bought, freshly brewed Starbuck1s coffee,
and Bailey's Irish Cream - two big bottles in fact. You really don't appreciate
food, good food, until you eat the same old boring stuff for months on end. I really
did hurt myself.
We stayed up talking, eating and drinking until two in the morning when we walked
home, an activity that we needed to help digest that monstrous meal. We compared
food stories with the other groups, and while some of them may have had better
settings and stuff, our food won hands down.
We invited her to go on our sledding trip the following weekend, and she accepted but
had to decline that morning due to a busy schedule. She gave us her number and told
us to call her whenever we are in town. It is always nice to have a well-equipped
expat friend in the capital who will feed you big food. In Suva, the capital of
Fiji, I made friends with a British embassy employee who would always invite us over
for dinner or let us stay at her house. She also made far too much money and liked
to spend it.
The next night was a pizza party at Capo's on Peace Corps tab. They told us to come
early as the pizza would go fast - it wasn't all-you-could-eat, but I managed to eat
all I could. Some of the PCVs came late and definitely did not get all they could
eat! It wasn't bad but definitely not the best pizza I've had. It was a little
runny and the crust was undercooked. Many of the PCVs rave about it and always go
there when they are in town, but I think that I would rather eat at a Turkish or
Indian restaurant and save my money.
Speaking of pizza, this is a restaurant on Golgaya called Idea Italia which is
basically fast food Italian. I think it is a chain somewhere, maybe Italy, because
they are way to slick and organized to be a one-time shot in Almaty. They have pasta
primarily (duh) but also do a very good pizza loaded with toppings for only 550
tenge. It is big enough to stuff three people which makes one of the best deals in
town. It is strange to be in a foreign country and occasionally run into a really
western place like that. There are some supermarkets in Almaty - InterFoods and the
Tomato (don't ask) - that are scarily modern. I feel very uncomfortable going in
there; give me Mifflin Street Co-op anytime!
IST kind of ended with a whimper as people trickled away back to site. You'd look up
and somebody else had taken off for the train station. However, enough people were
left to go on yet another trip! We found a hardware store - a joke of a store, don't
get excited - and bought some linoleum to cut up into squares to sled on. It was
very slippery.
With stern orders from Joan to not injure myself again - she declined to go on this
trip - we headed back up into the mountains. This time is was me, Joe, Ken, Scott
Laughenburg from Portage, Wisconsin, Willie Richardson, and Joel Gullickson
struggling up the slopes. We had been late to the bus stop and had not found Sergay
who was to have met us there. Halfway up the hill, we ran into him coming down. He
had been the bus stop and thinking that he had missed us, took off to catch up with
us. When he reached the alpine meadow at top speed, he realized that there was no
way us slow pokes could have gotten that far ahead of him, so he came back down to
find us on the way up. The weather was beautiful, and the views crystalline. The
sky was so blue and the snow so white that I expect to see huge humans towering over
the mountains, playing Frisbee and spiking volleyballs and then jamming a tap into a
huge, cold keg of beer, ahhhh . . .
Well, this sledding trip was both better and worse than the first one. Joe ran into
the same tree as I did with shoulder and was very sore the next day. The linoleum
was very slick but ripped and tore into shreds far too easily. By the end we were
trying to slide on little piece - what a hoot! The weather was beautiful. There was
too much fresh powdery snow; it slowed us down on the trail by plowing up in front
of us like a big snow wave. The trail was nowhere as slippery or fast as the last
time. However the powder was waist deep and made for such fun. We were all properly
equipped and snow protected so plunging head first into the snow was no problem. At
the start of the trail, Scott had paused to admire the breathtaking few. I came up
quickly on his side at a slow run and took him out in a perfect tackle, picking him
up and coming down on him in a huge, pillowy drift. It was so comfortable.
We went down the trail head first many times as that spread our weight out on the
snow and made it easier to slide. So there I was, hurtling down the trail, my mouth
open as I yelled out my fear when I didn't make a turn and went face first into a
bank of snow, filling my mouth and eyes with snow. My arms were trapped under my
body, and I couldn't breath. It was a little scary until I managed to wiggle free
and spit out the snow.
The was another run that dumped us off to the side in a huge drift of powder where we
all ended up stranded like turtles on backs, unable to turn over and get our footing.
It was absolutely fantastic! I hope to go there when I am in Almaty between flights
to Lenningorsk for the teacher training conference.
The road down through the dachas was packed down ice, so we were able to sit on our
fragments of linoleum and shoot down to the bus stop. I tried to take a ride
standing up, in a rather stupid imitation of surfing and took a forward plunge,
cracking the side of my head off my shoulder as my elbow of my bent arm slammed into
the ground - I'm so smart I amazed myself. We were sledding in Madison out at Elver
Park (for you Mad City readers out there) on that big, crazy, open hill, and I made
it all the way down standing up on a flying saucer sled! How's that for success and
stupidity all wrapped up into one?
That night, Saturday, most of the PCVs that were left, about 12 or so, went to this
great Turkish restaurant near Hotel Kazakstan. I got an Arabian dish of meat and
tomatoes cooked with spices on a big, iron plate that was brought sizzling to the
table - heavenly! I appreciate good food so much more now. Most of the sledders
went along on this food trip, and by the time we made it back to the hotel, we were
exhausted and collapsed into bed.
The day we were scheduled to catch the train at 3:30 in the afternoon to arrive in KO
at two or so the next. We putzed around with some friends and got some chow - that's
when we discovered the Idea Italia restaurant.
We arrived at the train station via taxi with almost too much for us to carry.
Vlodia and Larissa had given us three 'bahn-kas' (big glass jars): one with pickles,
one with apricot jam and one with that heavenly raspberry jam we described from the
dacha trip - in fact all the vegetables are from the grandparent's dacha. Those plus
all the materials and books we got from training and visits to resource
organizations and stuff we bought and just gathered in general just about killed us.
So we fought our way to the train through the crowds, dodging the shady characters
who wanted to sell us tickets to Moscow and more than likely steal our stuff - no
bitterness, nope. We located our 'vagon,' #8, only to have the dragon of a conductor
demand to see our tickets. With a scornful wave of her hand, she stated that they
were not our tickets and turned away. She claimed that our names were not on the
tickets, which was true - Vlad from the PC office had bought them for us a few days
ago without our passports (I guess they tend to charge 'foreigner' rates when they
see a US passports even though it is illegal. Apparently it is an ongoing fight the
PC has with the railway system here). I don't know if this woman wanted a bribe or
just was in a pissy mood, but all our complaints and comments about Vlad buying
these tickets fell on deaf ears. I appealed to sense of something and said, listen,
"We don't understand your system. They bought us these tickets. They said they were
good. We just want to go home. Look, here are the tickets; there are the spaces;
what is the problem?" This did no good, and I got quite angry and started yelling in
quite an excellent Soviet style, I am proud to say. As good as it felt, it didn't
do any good, so we stormed back to the hotel in a taxi and beefed about it to
everybody. Maybe she saw a way to get a bribe or to sell our spots to someone else
after we had gone or was just an officious prick. Who knows?
PC was sympathetic and gave us per diem for a hotel room and food and got us tickets
with our names on them. They usually just give PCVs tickets with no names and there
in usually no problem. Another thing happened when we got on the train the next day,
not a problem, just annoying. We were in a line of people getting on the train. All
the people in front of the train were just getting on with no problems and no
questions. So when we were about to get on the train, the conductor geek, who had
been standing there the whole time just watching people, stops us and asks to see our
tickets! He was lucky that I really wanted to go home because I was really tempted
to rip in to him and ask him why he had to see our tickets and nobody else's. And
then when we were in the 'koo-pay' (compartment) and he came around to get tickets
and keep track of where everybody was, he asked to see our passports and poured over
them in detail, examining our visa stickers and stuff. These people drive you crazy
sometimes. This little pissant conductor was acting all important and looking for
some way to scam/bribe money off of us. I don't care how impoverished their economy
is; stop freakin' bothering me! No tension, no stress, everything's fine here
officer .. . .
continued later. Rich