I put in another full eight hours at the embassy yesterday, staying until the job was finished. I now have a new nickname among the boys in the warehouse, The Engineer. Now those of you who know me can continue reading after the bouts of laughter have stopped, but for the rest of you, let it be known that I’m just not that handy. However, in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king. I simply made three or four subtle suggestions regarding the way they off-loaded merchandise, the way they were arranging things on the shelves, and a few hints on how to rotate the stock. For instance, they don’t have to move all the cat litter so that the oldest is in the front since there is no expiration date on cat litter. To their credit, no one really knew what cat litter was; they thought it might be cat food. But then again yesterday I was working with an all-Russian crew and none of them spoke English and I’m assuming none of them had cats, so perhaps I should be more charitable.
I learned a whole lot more Russian yesterday than I do at our weekly lessons. At first the boss man, who was entering the data into the computer and who speaks excellent English, was confirming numbers in both English, for me, and Russian for the rest. When I switched to Russian numbers, he happily just did everything in Russian and I got to really practice all my numbers. I’m really good at 12, 24, 48, and 144 since those were the most frequently used numbers as we counted the box contents. It was a great deal of fun working with these guys and I was the only volunteer that showed up so they really appreciated the help. They have one Russian intern who is working there who really doesn’t get it and at the end of the day when we had finished everything, the boss came to me and said, “ If I had two of you we could have done this in one day.” Then looking at the intern – who didn’t understand English - he said to me, “And if I had two of him, we would be done in a week.” This really cracked up the boss and we were both laughing a lot. He had a lot of what he called anecdotes - which were really jokes - and he would tell them to me first in English and then translate them to the crew in Russian. At the end of our time, after all the hand shakes and goodbyes, he told me that I had moved to the top of the list of all shoppers in the commissary and I was to feel free to walk into the warehouse anytime I wanted and ask him for anything I needed. If it was there, he would price it and give it to me, which really is a big deal.
I was even more exhausted after yesterday’s work since it involved a lot more lifting and stacking on shelves so when six rolled around and we turned out the lights, I accepted the invitation of the manager to have a beer in the new bar, Uncle Sam’s. They just spent a whole lot of money renovating the bar and it really looks wonderful. The bartender, who was also helping us unload the other day, got me a small draft beer and asked about the day’s progress. He was impressed that we had finished the entire shipment. The bar is an oasis of relatively cheap drinks compared to any of the Russian bars. At happy hour a small beer, .33 liters, is only 60 rubles ($2) and a big beer, .5 liters is 120 rubles ($4). You do the math! When I asked why you would get .16 liters more by getting two small beers for the price of one large one, he just shook his head and told me he didn’t do the pricing. I got home at about six forty-five, extremely tired and all I wanted to do was to sit down with a tall scotch and get into a warm bed with a cool woman. Cindy, the cool woman in question, had to attend three AAS parties, all of which were in our complex. She came home for a bit and we talked while I built a drink for myself and then she had to take off again. I made myself an egg and bacon sandwich and when Cindy returned we each had a nightcap and headed to bed. We slept for ten hours!
Today, we took a nice walk in the morning snow and got some fresh bread and an apricot pastry and came home for a long breakfast. We both caught up on emails and other work and then we took another walk to the embassy for some shopping. The boss man was outside smoking and I introduced him to Cindy and he told us to go in and he would be there soon. One of the Filipino workers, Nikko, was also there and I introduced Cindy and he was happy to meet her and see me again. I showed Cindy the warehouse and she was mightily impressed. The boss man came back and said that they would have most everything on the shelves by Wednesday and I should come back that morning for some early shopping so as to insure I would be able to have whatever I wanted before it was shelved.
We ran into a woman at the embassy who I met two days ago and who Cindy has known for a while. She has had lots to do with the school and paid a tribute to Cindy, saying that they wanted her so much they even allowed me to come to Russia! Actually, she said they never bring just one person, it has to be a working couple, but for Cindy they made a huge exception. I was very proud!
Happy Weekend, Cindy and Wm.
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