March 12, 2012

It had apparently snowed throughout the night for the tree branches were laden with heavy snow. It was Monday, so it seemed like destiny that it has to snow on Mondays. I wonder how the President feels today having declared on February 29 as the end of the winter season. I had to find a pair of leggings and an undershirt, stuff I had put away just a week ago thinking spring was here to stay. The snow that continued to fall was the wet, slushy kind that sticks to your coat, hat and gloves, soaks your boots down to your socks and makes you feel miserable.

I first went to exchange some money at the supermarket nearby, almost tripping on their darn polished granite steps and then continued to walk to the teachers’ training center where we had a round of “Kim’s Game” where even the women couldn’t name any of the common kitchen utensils I had brought in. Zhulejo informed me that next Monday, the group will be celebrating Nav Ruz and will love to have me included. I’ll try to bring in something as well. Sanifa asked me at the end of the session not to give up on them. I took a shared taxi to the PedInst to avoid the crowded trolley.

 As I was approaching the PedInst, Ilana recognized me and stopped to say hello. She said she’s pretty busy at the American Corner and not to refer any more students as her classes cannot accept any more of them. Quite a few of the students in the teacher’s group were absent today. Nigora came in to let me know she wasn’t feeling well either and was planning on going to the doctor again. I had my bowl of soup and was setting up for the professional development class, when one of the male teachers came in for advice. He has applied for a vacant position at the same language institute where Pariso teaches and needs to give a demonstration lesson next Saturday. He has no idea what to do in order to hook the students and keep the lesson interesting or even a topic in mind that he’d like to show them. He wants for me to give him a lesson plan. I offered to give him a template, but doubt that will be the end of it.

I had the usual problem with some teachers popping in to sign the attendance sheet and then leaving to take care of other obligations. The dean didn’t show up and Nigora didn’t come back either. When I got home, there was a heavy odor of burned plastic and I found out, to my dismay and frustration, that the electric strip where I plug my laptop and printer had burned and melted. The wall unit was out along with the TV set, DVD player and satellite box. I didn’t even have lights in the room. I knew I couldn’t call my landlady for all I could see her doing is ordering me out of the apartment, and with 6-8 inches of snow on the ground, I can’t risk it.

I called Elbek for his class and then asked him to contact his uncle who might know of an electrician capable of unplugging the strip and maybe replacing the outlet. I’m not even sure that doing just that would be sufficient to restore power to the rest of the appliances. I had to beat a retreat to my bedroom where heat and power supply were still available.