So, I've been sending Russian birthday cards home to my family for their birthdays, just as a fun way of letting them know I'm thinking of them. Well, I ran into problems when i tried to get cards for my dad and my boyfriend's dad. After hours of searching, I still had only found girly, flowery, and glittery cards! Finally, I found two somewhat manly looking cards. In disgust I wondered to myself, "Do only women receive birthday cards in this country?!" After a particular incident, I knew the answer...
It all began when our washing machine decided to quite working and flood our bathroom (what is it with us and water problems?! We've had four "masters" (plumbers) over here fixing things since we moved in!) So we called our liason, and he called our landlord who called a master to come fix our washing machine.
Familiar early morning weekend scene: I'm up and about doing various things, Rachel is talking on skype. Ding dong! I ask Rachel if she's expecting anyone. No. Jessica? No, she's not either. Hmmm...I tiptoe to the door and sneak a peek through our little peek hole. A relatively young Kazakh man. He does not look familiar. So, of course I'm not going to open the door! Instead I kind of listen until it sounds like he has given up and is leaving. After telling Rachel what happened, she suggests we call our liason and tell him what happened. So I call...only to find out that that was the man who was sent to fix our washing machine! I couldn't believe it! So our liason called him and explained the situation and he returned to our apartment.
After letting him in, he of course, being a proper Central Asian, took off his shoes at the door. I showed him our washing machine and once again using charades with occasional Russian words thrown in, tried to communicate what was wrong with it. While he was working, I tried to stick somewhat close by while still going about my business. After a little while he called for me and kept asking for something in Russian. Well, whatever he was saying was not in my vocabulary just yet because I didn't recognize any of the words he was saying. Finally, he led me over to our shoe rack by our door and picked up Rachel's bright blue, glitter flip-flops with flowers on them. Suddenly it dawned on me that he was asking to wear them! In a bit of a daze I said, "Da," and watched as he put them on and returned to our bathroom. Yes, I could see now that the floor of our bathroom was covered with water again, but out of all the normal black and brown shoes on our rack, he chose THOSE?! And they fit him, too!
It was not until after he left, however, that I began to make connections and draw conclusions. Plumber with tools in a pink Mary Kay bag...master wearing bright blue, glittery, flowery flip-flops...lack of birthday cards without glitter and flowers...Aha! It is not that men here in Kazakhstan don't receive birthday cards, the fact is that they either like or don't mind getting glittery and flowery ones! Apparently the men in Kazakhstan do not follow American male stereotypes. When I ran my observation by my local friends, my conclusion was confirmed. 1 mystery solved!
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1 comment:
^_^ That was a good story tell another one! ^_~ I see you're having some fun experiences.
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