Water Card

Cards are crucial to life here. Water, electricity, and cooking gas all have cards. You take the card somewhere, add money to the card, bring the card home, and put it in the meter which adds so much water, gas or electricity to your available supply. I hadn’t put any money on my water card since I arrived. I stepped in the shower this morning. Before I have even grabbed the soap, the water shut off. I had used all my available water. Time to make a quick run to the water place. At least it happened this week since there is a big holiday next week.

 

 

Road Repairs

I saw some people yesterday repairing the road. I can’t even to begin to describe what they were doing. It involved a lot of people and little machinery. My favorite part though was the guy with a sprinkler can full of tar. At one point, I saw him go over to a tank where he poured out the old tar and replaced it with new.

 

Birthday

I thought I was going to an English Corner at the Medical University with 2 other native English speakers. That is what I thought. As we got to the university, the friend who invited us called, we were going to one of her friend’s birthday party. Cool, birthday parties are fun. Later, she told us that we were her birthday present to her friend. First time, I have ever been able to say that I was a guy’s birthday present.

 

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Time

My teacher today described morning as the time before 2 pm, and afternoon as the time after 2 pm. It was all I could do not to laugh out loud. I realize in some ways this makes sense in a place where the sun rises at 7:30 am and sets at 8:45 pm, but I am still amazed at the ability to arbitrarily reassign when morning and afternoon are.

Horse

I may not have been able to eat the chicken’s foot, but today, I ate horse. It wasn’t bad. The fat was a little chewy, but it was pretty good.

Classmates

My classmates are a reminder of how little Americans know of languages. Many of them are only in their teens, and they can speak Russian, the home country’s language, Turkish, English, and the language we are studying. They not speak them well, but how many Americans know more than a handful of words in 5 languages by the time they are 18.

Chicken's Foot

I tried to eat a chicken’s foot yesterday. I really tried, but I just couldn’t get past the skin. It felt so rubbery and gross.