November 19, 2011
Agreed to meet Elisabeth to go shopping at the Green Market at 10:00am. When I go to her place, she was almost in tears because her flat has an old metal door with a three-prong lock that would not align properly and she had spent almost fifteen minutes trying to close it. After showing me her apartment, a spacious place with lots of furniture, albeit too old, and facing a busy commercial street, I also tried to lock her door and failed as well. She called someone related to the landlady and was told to keep trying, that she wasn’t putting the whole weight of her body against the door. She was also reprimanded at that time for leaving her trash out on the landing. Elisabeth reiterated her belief that the Tajik people are degenerates and only out to make money from the foreigners stupid enough to rent flats from them.
We proceeded to the second hand store where she had gotten a pretty good coat the day before, but I was unsuccessful in securing a similar one. All the coats seemed suitable for tall, big people and she mentioned that someone told her the clothing was coming from Germany. We then went to the market where I bought the ingredients to make plov on Sunday and along the way found a place baking flat bread and was able to buy a piping hot one to take home and have with my leftover soup. At the last minute, I remembered I was short on glasses and took a detour to the house wares section where I found the most beautiful cobalt blue heavy glasses and a whole set of six on top of that for just 16 somonis.
Beautiful view of the plaza on a foggy morning
Elisabeth wanted to join a group of ex-pats in their search for Christmas ornaments and gifts that could be sent home. I made my way home and watched TV, mostly the news about the capture of Qaddafi’s son. I marinated the beef and set the garbanzo beans to soak overnight. I hope everybody that promised to contribute to the luncheon shows up on time tomorrow.
Got a call from Elisabeth who wanted to know where she could burn her hair as she had been saving the strands in her sink, I saw it and wondered what the heck was going on, as she didn't want other people to get hold of it and perhaps use it to perform black magic on her as people did in Indonesia. I told her there was no place for the burning of hair and that her fears were unfounded as the people of Haiti believed the same thing, but it had no effect. She still didn't want to throw her hair in the trash and was reluctant to believe that the old pipes in this city can't handle bundles of hair being flushed down the toilet.
Peter showed up without calling to tell me his credit card, an only means of getting access to his money in the States, had been cancelled and he had no money to add to his cell phone. I myself was somehow low on cash having spent almost $800.00 on the purchase of the students' textbooks, and only had 100.00 somonis to spare. He'll be calling his bank tomorrow morning to lean what the problem is.
Declined the invitation to attend a housewarming party at Nona's flat since it started at 8:00pm and I figured it'd be mostly young people doing a lot of drinking.
Got a call from Elisabeth who wanted to know where she could burn her hair as she had been saving the strands in her sink, I saw it and wondered what the heck was going on, as she didn't want other people to get hold of it and perhaps use it to perform black magic on her as people did in Indonesia. I told her there was no place for the burning of hair and that her fears were unfounded as the people of Haiti believed the same thing, but it had no effect. She still didn't want to throw her hair in the trash and was reluctant to believe that the old pipes in this city can't handle bundles of hair being flushed down the toilet.
Peter showed up without calling to tell me his credit card, an only means of getting access to his money in the States, had been cancelled and he had no money to add to his cell phone. I myself was somehow low on cash having spent almost $800.00 on the purchase of the students' textbooks, and only had 100.00 somonis to spare. He'll be calling his bank tomorrow morning to lean what the problem is.
Declined the invitation to attend a housewarming party at Nona's flat since it started at 8:00pm and I figured it'd be mostly young people doing a lot of drinking.
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