Drama...

21:30 25 August 2008

I just finished up my second instance of working with coal. As more and more people are worried about electricity and its lack, people are stocking up on coal to heat in the winter. This has caused the price to sky-rocket to a (Kyrygyz) expensive of about $70 per ton (I assume metric ton- but I am not sure what the conversion between that and English ton is, I assume it’s a lot though). Our neighbor, who also has a volunteer, just bought 6 (Metric?) tons of the stuff today, and being a strapping young lad, I was asked to help with its portage into storage (haha rhymes). This was more than I shoveled before, but there were also two other people (the volunteer and some random dude) so it went pretty fast. A few hours and a few pounds of coal dust in the lungs later, we had nearly finished and my host Babushka comes barging in demanding that I return home that instant. This was the beginning of what would prove to be one of the most frustrating and dramatic times in country.

I had had some volunteers over recently to watch Garden State, and we were using my laptop but decided to hook it up to the speakers of the computer my family owns. Apparently, somehow the monitor plug got knocked slightly ajar and was slightly unconnected. When my host brother tried to use the computer, it was missing the red signal and was all green and blue. So this made my mother upset and caused her to storm over and start yelling at me incomprehensibly to fix the computer and accusing my volunteer friends of breaking it intentionally . This monologue was filled with plenty of “понимаешь?”s-“ Do you understand?”s to which I replied an assertive “no!”. I reasoned with her in Russian and basically said “Look at me! I’m really dirty, let me finish, take a banya, and then I will fix it”. Finally she relented and I finished up the last of the task.

For those of you who don’t know, a banya is the traditional way of cleaning yourself, especial in the harsh winters. It pretty much consists of a low-ceilinged sauna with large tubs, one of cold water, and one of vociferously boiling water. There are also smaller pans and scoops for the tubs of water. The general idea is pretty simple, you sweat a lot, and then you scrub, and then you rinse, then you sit around for a while and repeat about seven times. I had only taken one before today (our house has a solar shower but not banya) and this was seriously hot. They were using the coal they had just bought to heat it (usually, trash is the main fuel) and the thing was cranking to the point that the other volunteer’s shampoo bottle melted and is now malformed. I didn’t realize quite how boiling the water was and scalded my self nicely with splashed water when I tried to get a scoop to mix. Nevertheless, the combination of sweating a lot, scrubbing a lot, and dousing myself in warm water did a pretty good job of getting the coal off of me.

Regardless, the other volunteer’s family was insistent that I banya, but their father was in there so I was sitting around waiting to take one for probably twenty minutes or so. I was getting frustrated because I knew how upset my host mother was and just wanted to get clean and get home. My repeated pleas to be let home to shower were shot down, and finally I was able to take the banya. The family tried to insist that I eat dinner with them, but I was firmer this time and ended up (perhaps culturally inappropriate, but necessarily) just leaving. As I got home (mind you- dressed only in my towel) my host mother tried to usher me into the computer room but I insisted on dressing first.

As soon as I saw the situation, I quickly fixed the aforementioned plug and my mother was relieved. She was seriously concerned that one of the volunteers had maliciously broken the mystical thing in her house known as a computer. Then she lectured me on not working for other families, despite the fact that she has asked the other volunteer to help out at our house on a different occasion (her explanation for this was that he was a lazy worker and that therefore, my work was more valuable). This was about my breaking point, after about a solid hour of being yelled at in rapid fire Russian and I finally yelled back, which mind you in my family is completely culturally appropriate. I said something along the lines of “Please! I am not a baby and I can think for myself! I can work when I want to and for whom I want!” The baby comment amused her enough that everyone calmed down and my stress level was left to slowly reside. Oh well, I suppose all’s well that ends well.