Moving on out
A few weeks ago, I woke up at 2AM to the sound of rushing
water. I drowsily opened my bedroom window, expecting to witness a monsoon.
Nothing. I followed the sound to my living room, where a fountain of scalding
hot water was spraying from a radiator. Directly onto my laptop. I ran into the spray and rescued my laptop. I
then gathered up my cats, locked them into the bedroom and called my landlord.
My Russian is not great, but I do know the words ‘hot’ and ‘water.’ (Because of
the lack of such an amenity in my house on many occasions). I had NO IDEA what
to do next. I called a teacher friend who I know is handy. He didn’t know what
to do, but offered to come over. Luckily, before my friend had left his nice
warm house, my landlord arrived. He turned some big valves and came in to
inspect the damage. It was pretty extensive.
I spent one day without heat or water, and two days mopping
and cleaning up a disgusting mess. There was water in between the layers of
linoleum even after all of the mopping.
The flood happened in the early hours of a Friday. Saturday
I had lunch with some of my teacher friends. One friend said, “I guess you’ll
be moving now.” My first reaction was, ‘Oh no, that’s too much hassle.” But then I thought about it, and I thought
about all of the struggles to get my landlord to fix things, and the leaking
roof, and broken washing machine, and the sodden linoleum… By the end of lunch,
I had decided to move!
On Monday, I heard about a house that another teacher had inspected and rejected because of a noisy dog next door. I looked at the house
and loved it. I decided to trade a houseful of damp and leaks for a barking
dog.
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Wednesday I asked my housekeeper to help with the packing. When I arrived
home from work Wednesday, she had packed up the entire house. She even took
down the shower curtain and the rod I had bought! Thursday I handed over 6
months rent, and got the keys to my new home.
Two days later I moved! I had arranged with a friend to help
me transport the cats first, so that I could lock them into a bedroom and know
that they would be safe throughout the move. Oliver and Xena co-operated with
this plan, but Sammy decided this would be a good time to hide. Consequently
she missed the first transport, and she was forced to sit in her cage and
complain while the big stuff was moved. I had hired the uncle (Ilkhom) of a
school staff member to help me move the few bits of furniture I own and my
boxes and paintings. He turned up with a rickety old truck with a canvas back.
Along with him was a helper (whose name I never did learn). While Ilkhom stood
chatting with a neighbour, helper-guy did all the lifting and packing of the
truck. When we arrived at the new house, my landlady’s family was there to
greet me. We formed a very efficient line and my possessions were stuffed into
the little house in no time. It only took 8 days from the time of the flood to
my installment in my lovely new home!
There have been two problems with the otherwise smooth and
easy move. In a country like Uzbekistan that has restrictions on communication
and media, you don’t just make a call and join the rest of the world online. My
landlords have been struggling for two weeks to get a telephone activated to my
new house, and then I can have internet. In the meantime, I have been making do
with a portable modem, a ‘dongle,’ borrowed from my school.
In order to activate the dongle, I had to buy a sim card,
and purchase an internet ‘package.’ Because I’m a foreigner, I had to visit the
head office of Ucell, the state telephone company. This is a very impressive
office, decorated in purple and white (Ucell’s colours). It is a quiet,
official-looking place, staffed by very serious men and women wearing purple
skirts (women) and purple ties (men) seated at banks of computers. I was waved
to one of these staff members by the security guard at the door. I explained
what I needed. Copies were made of my
passport, my visa, and my official police registration. I was sent to another
window to pay about $8. Then back to my original seat. And I was all set.
Throughout this entire transaction, I was the only customer in the huge, hushed
office.
The other problem has been more emotional and much more
difficult to solve. Since December, I have been looking after a family of feral
cats (mother and two kittens) at my old house. I had paid my rent on the old
house for an additional two weeks after my move, so every night after school, I
went to the old house to check on my feral friends, and then went home to my
new house. One week after the move, a fellow teacher and his wife came to help
me capture the ferals. It was a VERY traumatic experience. Both Kseniya and I
ended up bloodied and bruised, but we managed to capture one kitten, who took
up residence in the entrance to my new home. I continued to make the trek to my
old house every evening, in hopes of capturing the second kitten. Night after
night, I sat beside the cat carrier, waiting for the kitten to venture inside
to eat the food I had put there. With just two nights left before I had to hand
over the keys, I had success. Now I have two very wild kittens in my entrance
way, waiting for their trip to the vet to be sterilized and vaccinated.
Unfortunately, they may be too wild to be socialized as pets, so I might have
to release them back into the streets. I had hoped to catch the mother and have
her sterilized as well, but that plan just didn’t have a chance. This has been
a really frustrating and depressing experience for me. I want to help every
animal I see, and I have been forced to accept that that just isn’t going to
happen.
My new neighbourhood
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| I'm at the edge of an area known as the 'red zone,' which means that it has been slated for redevelopment. The people can lose their home at a moment's notice, so very little money is put into remodelling. The outside of homes and apartment buildings in Tashent can be very deceiving, however. Often beautiful homes can be found behind pretty rough-looking exteriors. |
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| the local bar |
