Culture Shock

In case you think that culture shock never hits those of us who have lived here long enough, fear not.  Last week I definitely hit a new pinnacle of culture shock.  However, I am thankful for the way I dealt with it.  I think I only had a true meltdown once.  This is going to be one of the longer emails because I think it is a funny story (or stories) and it gives you a feel for daily life here.  The short of it is my car was impounded, it took three days to get it back, I had to clean my stairwell and my apartment, and my electricity was turned off all in the same 24 hour period.  I guess the plus is that I now know how to deal with a ticket if I ever get one and I had fun joking with some of our staff.

On Wednesday night we were driving back from Shymkent and I was pulled over by the cops.  I was a little surprised, because I didn't think I had done anything wrong.  When I asked what I had done he said he didn't know but used the word arrest and sent me to two other police officers.  I later found out the word arrest basically means that there is an outstanding ticket.  After at least 15 minutes of talking with the officers, I realized that one of our previous drivers (who only lasted 10 days with our company) had received a ticket while driving the car I was driving.  As a result, his ticket came up in relationship to the license plate and they informed me that the only thing they could do was impound the car.  So, we drove (with the police officer in the car) to the parking lot for impounded vehicles.  One of our security guards came and picked us up (with the wheelchairs we had brought from Shymkent).

The next morning I was in my office talking to my Kazakh dad about the situation.  While we were talking a man called and informed Aben that they were at my apartment ready to begin work on my electricity.  We are in the process of changing the electricity over from that of an individual to that of a company.  This process includes changing the meter  As a result, we had to run a new line that goes straight to my apartment instead of being shared with the rest of the complex.  I knew this would take place, but none of us knew they were coming that day.  So, someone needed to be at my apartment while they worked.  However, I needed to be dealing with the police related to the car.  I found out at this time that there was a chance I wouldn't have electricity starting Thursday morning through the weekend.

Well, on that note I went with Mukhan to deal with the police.  We went to the office and they said we needed to pay the ticket.  We learned that there is a law that as a company, you are responsible for any tickets that drivers receive while working for you.  As a result, companies are supposed to hold the salary or a cell phone or something until the employee leaving brings a document from the police saying they have no outstanding tickets.  So, we went to pay the ticket at the main Kazakhstan bank branch, as they told us to do.  That bank, being the main branch, said they don't take payments and sent us to a smaller branch.  The smaller branch then sent us to the post office.  Now I know that when you pay a ticket you can pay at the post office.  We then took the document back to the office in order to get a document that stated that we had paid and were free to get our car back.  However, the computer was not working so he told us to come back at 4pm.  At four we went back to his office and it still wasn't working.  He had us wait downstairs while he went to the store to pick up the computer.  However, it wasn't ready. He finally had someone else make the document on their computer.  He told us to take it to the road police station, room 13.  So, we went there and they informed us that we would have to come back the next afternoon.

Meanwhile, the electricity was being worked on at my apartment.  After I got done with the original payment, I went to the apartment to babysit the workmen.  I got there right as they turned the electricity off.  The man in charge of the project decided to visit and ask me a million questions, when all I wanted to do was be productive.  They finished the work for the day around 2pm.  The man in charge had to go get some signatures and other things and depending on how long it would take him, I might not have had electricity until after the weekend.  So, I boxed up the things in my freezer and sent them with Aben.  He reminded me that I needed to clean up the stairwell and my entryway.  This was the only time all week that I almost lost it.  My apartment was finally clean (two days before) after all the remodeling this summer.  However, the electricity people drilled through walls and left all their trash and everything else (including the smell of smoke) in my apartment.  They also drilled through the outside wall in the stairwell, leaving a huge mess.  I went out and started cleaning the stairwell while internally talking to myself and whining about how many other things I had to do and how my apartment would never be clean.  It was definitely one of those times when I realized I was letting my pride surface and I needed to just get over it.  It helped a little when I thought about doing it to be a good neighbor, but only a little.   I went to bed at 9pm since I was tired and there is not much to do if you have no electricity.

The next morning I arrived at the office and waited until the afternoon.  In the afternoon, we went to the police office.  We got there around 3pm (usually lunch is from 1-2pm) and the doors were closed with a crowd of people outside who had been there since morning.  We waited for about 20 minutes until a police officer drove by and informed us that the office was not opening today and that we should come back the next morning (Saturday).  I had to then return to my apartment, where they were going to connect my electricity to the new meter.  The electricity came back on and I was able to enjoy a restful night, knowing that I was supposed to go back to the police station at 9am the next morning and all I needed was to show them the document and it would be done.

We arrived at the police station the next morning and I was thrilled to see the door open.  We went to window 13 (although there were two windows with this number ... one in which the person knew what we needed ... but this isn't the window we first went to).  We got in line and he informed us we needed a stamp.  Well, we ended up having to get a signature, a stamp from a different office and two other stamps from other windows at the police station before we received the document giving us permission to pick up the car.  The funny thing is that everyone else in line with us was also going through the same process.  So, we all followed each other from window to window and then back to the line at window line to find out what we were missing.  Three hours later (yes three hours) we had the document allowing us to pick up the car.

Thankfully, during all of this time (other than the cleaning) I was able to laugh about the situation.  I had fun spending time with Mukhan and Azamat the first few days.  Aben and I got to talk about how getting angry at the police officers wasn't going to help anything.  We laughed with the other people going through the process.  I also enjoyed watching people look at me like I had four heads, since I was the only woman in the room most of the time.  It all ended with some fun memories and laughter, the car back, and electricity at the apartment.  We also learned a new law about drivers.  The time also helped me begin a new habit that I plan to keep up of walking too and from the office.  So, it wasn't all bad, but it was definitely a trying week.