January 24, 2012

I woke up with the worst headache ever and felt as if my throat had been scoured with a piece of sandpaper. Worst of all, I had nothing to drink in the house, and not even a lemon to make my favorite tea. I dawdled for a while, but finally bit the bullet, got dressed warmly and decided to go to the supermarket. I tried to make my way through the alleyway so as to dispose of my trash, but the kids had fashioned toboggans out of any discarded piece of cardboard and plastic and had turned the path into one slick surface. With nothing to hang on to, I quickly turned around hoping none of the kids would collide with me on the way down.

The main road had been sanded and it was no trouble getting to the store. I exchanged some money and stopped at the stationery store to buy some supplies for the presentation on Saturday. Jamila, my first floor neighbor, had finished the Pamiri socks I had ordered from her and asked me to please tutor her older son in English. Elbek is 17, but of course, looks about 12, and just came from Uzbekistan last year. He doesn’t speak Tajik, but Russian, and at least has a decent vocabulary although he can’t spell the words he knows. I told her I could only do this on my spare time and with lots of flexibility. I had an extra Headway textbook and CD and gave it to him as he does have a computer to listen to it.

Caroline emailed me to say her landlady had decided to evict all three of them from the apartment after Hillary, one of the Fulbrighters she’s sharing the apartment with, had an argument with the owner about repairing the toilet and the heating unit. Since Caroline doesn’t speak Russian, she doesn’t know the tenor of the conversation and only hopes she can hang around for a little while longer and not have to move a third time in four months. She’s asked me to allow her to crash in my living room until she can sort things out.