My Week, July 30-August 5, 2006 - - Part Two

My Week, July 30-August 5, 2006
Part Two

Thursday didn’t end when I got back into the flat. I sorted out all of the stuff I had been carrying around all day. First things first, you know! I pulled out the tatting thread, rewound my little cheap yellow Wal-Mart (I think) plastic tatting shuttle with the pretty pink and green variegated thread and started tatting a bookmark. Since this is my first project, it has been rather interesting to find out how many ways I can not tat correctly. I am really good at making picots in different sizes. I’m very good at tangling the thread. I am even better at joining two rounds at a picot – twisting them this way and that. Actually – my chains are wonderful – why can’t all of tatting consist of straight chains? I could chain chains to hang on Christmas trees! I could chain very long chains, gather them together in the middle and hang them as curtains (that would be a life-time of work). Sigh. But, I’m getting better at it – it just takes time. Kind of like Russian, only funner. Ha!

As I sat there tatting someone rang the door bell. I peeped out the peep hole and saw two young guys standing there. My first thought was that maybe the boxes Mom shipped to us a couple months ago had arrived – but one of the guys didn’t have a shirt on, so I quickly doubted that. “Kto etot?” I asked in a grumpy, authoritative, intimidating kind of voice. (Who is it?) And the answer was, “Eenternet Kabul” Oh! The internet cable guy(s)! I quickly unlocked the door, opened it and stepped halfway out. The guy on the left was a neighbor from the next podyezhd over. He was kind of frowning at me – a normal kind of look actually. The other guy, the one without a shirt, was standing there grinning, with a dirty looking long thin white cable looped several times over his shoulder.

We had met the neighbor guy by accident the night before as we were walking home from the supermarket. He came out of his podyezhd doorway as we walked up. Dressed in a pair of shorts and flip-flops (no shirt), he stopped us and asked a question. I thought he wanted a light because he held up an unlit cigarette (we get asked for a light often – either that, or for the time). I shook my head, but Mel asked him to repeat the question. Ah – he wanted to know if we were the ones who wanted internet cable installed! Mel said yes, and he said the guy was coming the next day to install his – which flat did we live in? Mel pointed to our balcony – almost above our head at that point, and said he would not be home tomorrow, come on Friday instead.

I love the way people pay attention to time instructions – NOT. (Another example of this was a phone call I got a few weeks ago. The young man wanted to talk with Mel. I said Mel was gone, but call again in about 20 minutes and he should be home. The young man said, ok, I’ll call in 10 minutes. I said, NO – call in TWENTY minutes, and he said ok. He called back in 10 minutes. Now ten and twenty are very different in Russian – neither one of us was mixed up. He just got it into his head that 10 was the number, he didn’t care what I said…sigh.) Anyway, this was the next night, not Friday night, that the cable guy was standing in front of our doorway. Finally. After months and months of waiting – here he was, in the flesh, a real live cable guy. I had started thinking maybe they were just a figment of my imagination after trying to get cable for 5 months…. Anyway, this young man was ready to come in and install our internet cable. I was alone. I told him that my husband was not home and that I was not sure what they had talked about before, so please come back tomorrow about 10 o’clock in the morning. He agreed (and I wondered if he’d show back up again at all). I asked the neighbor what his name is (Vitalik) and then the cable guy (Sasha). They turned and went back down the stairs, I closed the door, locked it and forgot about it. Mel had been home for 3 or 4 hours before I remembered that the cable guy might, just possibly actually come the next day to install our internet cable. Maybe.

Friday morning dawned clear, sunny and very hot. Ten o’clock came and went and I thought, oh well – I blew it, I should have let him in last night… But about 10:30 the door bell rang and there he was! Sasha! Mel let him in, we chatted a bit – mostly not understanding a thing the other person said. He got a little frustrated, but went to work. Long story shorter – he got the cable connection down off the roof, drilled a hole through the balcony door frame and then spread that cable he’d been carrying the night before all over the livingroom. He worked at it. He tried to get my computer connected. He tried to get Mel’s connected. He worked at it some more. He got frustrated trying to figure out our computer programs, firewalls, virus protectors, and all of the English he was not used to dealing with. Most people here buy a computer that has one or two programs on it, not a super duper racing machine that has all the extras and is smart enough to do installations by itself, etc. He (along with everyone else who has ever tried to mess with out computers) was trying to do it all by himself rather than let the computer do it. Finally, in complete frustration, he told me he was leaving. He pulled out a cigarette packet, put his shirt back on and left. Cable all over the livingroom, installation half completed.

One hour went by. Two hours went by. The doorbell rang and Mel went to let Sasha back in. But no, this was not Sasha! This was another guy – and he was delivering our boxes! Yahoooooo! Christmas in August had arrived! We had packed everything into the boxes, we knew what it all would be – mostly. Mom and Dad had shipped just 4 boxes because that is all the money we could spare at that time, so we wondered which ones we would get and what would be in them. It was fun … books we had bought in the States, parmesan cheese, picante sauce, craft items for me, clothes and shoes we had decided to ship rather than pack in a suitcase and a few gifts we had bought for people here. Finally we had it all unpacked and scattered around the room, most of it put away. Mel left to go pick up the translated copies of our passports.

The doorbell rang and it was Olya, arrived for the craft class that would start in half an hour. A few minutes later, the doorbell rang again and it was Sasha, come back to try again after a three hour lunch break. I was just glad he had returned at all! Time for the craft class came and Mel still had not returned. I gave the keys to the office to Olya and told her I’d come down as soon as Mel got back or Sasha left again. Half an hour later, Mel returned and I went down for the class.

The class is a lot of fun. Right now we are working on patchwork pillow tops. All of this is new for each one of us. The two gals who came are classmates of Olya’s at the pedagogical university here in town – studying and learning English. We went over several of the terms used in the patchwork (needle, pin, thread, square, etc.) and had a lot of laughs together. We are trying to build relationships that will grow and develop over time. Hopefully, some of these young women will eventually come to know Christ as their Savior. Mel called and said – Please send Olya back up here! I need a translator! So, she went back upstairs for about 20 minutes.

After the class, Olya came home with me. Her Sergei was busy helping someone else and was coming to get her when he finished (two hours later). Mel made dinner for us – omelettes with picante sauce, hashbrown potatoes and coffee. After dinner, Mel and I went to our computers and tried to use the internet cable connection.

Sigh. We have two different addresses. He has internet cable – mine does not work. Mel asked Olya to call Sasha and find out how to get mine to work – but he had turned off his mobile phone.

So, here we are, Saturday evening. I did another load of laundry today, tatted another twisted ring that is somehow joined to a previously made ring, but not correctly. I have updated my blog – via our regular modem and phone line. Mel can use his internet cable connection – sometimes. Sometimes it does not work. I cannot use mine at all – although the little computers in the toolbar assure me that it is working. Maybe we can get hold of Sasha on Monday. Maybe, possibly.

I have hope!!!

Life is good.