Last night my colleague from Bishkek turned up with the old colour printer which had been whisked to Bishkek for repair. Had I known he was definitely coming I might have skipped going in on Friday knowing we would work today, but unfortunately I got his message just as I was leaving So rather than rest last night we chatted, very intensely with two guests, one of whom he knew, a nice Kyrgyz woman, a doctor and benefactor, about the history of Kyrgyzstan and the significance of Manas the great Kyrgyz poet and how the Kyrgyz had fared under the Soviets. Then today we had more intense chat over breakfast, this time about education, my colleague and I disagree over some resources, so I was shattered even before we headed to work as speaking (and I did the least in this erudite, knowledgeable but contrasting group) is very painful. We chatted so long my colleague started getting edgy about us getting all our work done, he was especially keen to get me to sign my contract. He was having to translate it for me. It seemed to mainly consist of health and safety regulations, so that might be useful. The original English agreement had been sorted out prior to coming out here, but understandably the organisation also needs it confirmed in Russian.
Then it was onto trying to work out how to set up the printer in Russian and make sure the odds and even pages were set up correctly, pages turned in the right direction etc, to print the works off. (We have subscribed to a web page which has levelled readers to increase the range of books the children have access to in English and wanted to run through the procedure with the naff printer, ready for when we get it back and can do a proper run) That accomplished we tried to find and print just one page for me for Monday, (all the computers had been moved around and tidied up so it was not where I expected but luckily the computer teacher was in and helped me find my stuff) and failed totally. So we headed back to the Ashu for the three course lunch that guests get, where the conversation between the two men turned really intense over Islam, Stalin, and the World Trade Center (even I got heated over that) so much so that WW3 seemed imminent. So churned up we headed back to work, got my stuff sorted and my stressed colleague headed back to Bishkek with the printer to get it properly repaired so fast that he forgot to drop off all the goodies he had for me (books and paper). He rang while I was resting to say that these were in a bus heading back to me, but they are not here so far. I have faith that the informal post system here will however come good at some point and the items will appear.
This suddenly reminds me of when I worked in Hertford Regional College we had a system that logged in all mail as it arrived. We had a little man, who literally walked between the buildings bringing this mail to everyone, and dealing with all the internal movement of documents (this is before the days of mass emails in the box), then he would drive to the college's other site there and then do the post going out. So in theory a very efficient system, yet never a day went past, when an email would come out, saying has anyone seen a ream of paper, it was delivered etc, but has not arrived at its destination, or a computer has come to the college, but never been seen since. So heaven knows what was happening to it. But perhaps it had been given to a complete stranger on a bus with instructions to get it to its destination.
Two bits of worrying news in terms of friendship support for me. One the dog has definitely disappeared - just when I have found a nice source of food for it and two the art teacher might not be coming back. He was the only person, other than the head, with whom I could converse a bit at the school and we had conversations about art and teaching, both at work and at the Ashu, and we always made each other laugh, so while it was limited it was vital. Anyway we will see, hopefully they too might turn up.
I felt so ill by the time my colleague left, I crawled into bed and have been happily resting and reading ever since. The internet has been down most of the day. However, I know it is often a bit better after 10 which is why I have been able to post this. I know it is only a cold, but it has totally knocked me out for over a week and is still bad so hope that I can just rest tomorrow as the kids will need masses of energy on Monday.
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