Paying Rent - Tuesday, 5 November 2009

Paying Rent - Tuesday, 5 November 2009

Alex was better Tuesday. Thank goodness.

The principal called me into his office during the day to tell me that the electrician would be at my place to fix the lights at 6 and the landlady would be there at 7 pm to collect the rent. He figured it would be best if he were there, too, at 7, since he was the one paying rent, and he could ask the landlady about getting my windows fixed.

As I have previously mentioned, the light in my bathroom (shower room, not the toilet room) went out and I've been taking showers in the dark, aided by a pink flashlight from the States and the hallway light. Well, there are two hallway lights and one has been out since I arrived. I tried replacing it with an extra bulb I found in a cupboard, to no avail. I also tried a bulb borrowed from Christie. I replaced the bathroom one with a found bulb, again in vain, and this time the bulb was stuck tight and I could not get it loose. The ceiling is rather high, and standing on a stool trying to untwist a stuck light bulb is not very safe. The principal had offered to try and help, but as he is my height, I volunteered Eric, the tall Filipino teacher. Eric was all too happy to help, but when I'm not in my bathroom, I'm not thinking about the light, and so we never got around to arranging his coming over.

Then, on Saturday, there was a spark! from the other hallway light and the electricity went off. It was a rather bright day, so it was a few minutes before I realized that more than just the hall light had gone. Oh... not good. I called the Filipino teachers, to see if their electricity was also out, or if it was just me, but they were not home. Holding my breath, I opened the thing that looked like the fuse box and flipped some switches.

"I'm a miracle-worker!" I shouted as the electricity came back on. However, the hallway light was still out. I replaced the bulb with one that Christie had given me. Still out.

I had suspected that it wasn't the bulbs, it was a circuit or something, and so on Monday I told the principal about the problem.

Tuesday, we had no food in our kitchen (a common problem) and I knew that if we had to be home at 6 for the electrician and then 7 for the landlady--and any one of them or both could be late--then we might not make it to get food. I didn't even have crackers to tide me over. So I planned to sneak out at 5 to make it to the supermarket before 6. I probably didn't have to sneak out; I bet if I had just said something, I would have been allowed to go.

At 4:50 I suddenly wondered how on earth I was going to get both Sophia and me ready for the cold outdoors, get to the supermarket and back to our apartment by 6 pm. Sophia was contentedly helping Christie make fake money in her classroom. I asked her, do you want to go with me or wait and go home with Christie? She chose Christie, who said that due to the immense amount of mud, she would be taking the bus and had no problem with taking Sophia. Yay!

I ignored the mud problem. I had worn a short skirt and tall boots because of the mud, and I raced home on foot. The bus could potentially be faster; however, Bus 14 often stops and makes you wait and change buses on the short ride home. Not worth the risk of being stuck on a bus when I'm in a hurry.

I realized that running in mud is not exactly feasible, at least if you don't want to be brown all over. Mud splashes. I was happy when I finally reached a sidewalk and speed-walked most of the way to Anvar, the supermarket.

There, I quickly did my shopping and was able to make it home by 5:45. Pretty good timing, I should say.

Christie dropped Sophia off at 6 and the electrician arrived at the same time. He was a young Russian who spoke no English and appeared to be cross-eyed, and he quickly discovered my problem: the light bulbs. I was a bit incredulous--I had tried the bulbs in my cupboard as well as the ones Christie had given me. The electrician left to go to a store and quickly came back (Sophia was amazed at how fast he was). He had new light bulbs, he replaced the lights, and voila! everything worked. What....? I couldn't get him to understand that I was confused as to why Christie's new light bulbs hadn't worked. He kept telling me to throw away the old ones. Oh well. At least I have light.

I thanked him and let him out.

The landlady and her daughter came at 7, and I called the principal who then arrived. Before he arrived, the landlady explored the apartment. She asked how the washing machine was working. Fine, I answered. She commented (and her daughter translated) that she had paid 2000 Tenge for the specialist to fix it, when all it was was the child lock.

Well, I wanted to say, you did send over your daughter, who spent quite some time with the manual and the washing machine, and she couldn't figure it out, so how on earth could I have figured it out? Sophia and I had never touched the machine until the day I had tried to use it.

She seemed displeased to see some light bulbs out--the ceiling lights in the bedrooms and kitchen hold several lights, and in each room only one bulb is working. Again, not my fault. Currently, there are more working lights than there were when I arrived.

The principal arrived with the rent money and they asked about a utilities bill. Well, I had received one the week I arrived, for the month of September, which I had been holding onto until I could give to her. There was quite a bit of discussion about it, even the principal seemed convinced that it was the bill for October. I was quite proud of my limited Russian when I could point out to him where it said "September." So the landlady sat down on the rug--she can't be unhappy that she has nowhere to sit, since she didn't think I needed any additional furniture--and she started doing a bunch of calculations. The principal checked the electricity meter that's in the hallway; her daughter checked the water meter in the bathroom. And soon I had a total--I have to pay utilities, phone, etc. I pay the landlady (cash, of course) and she pays the bills for me. Which suits me just fine!

Because I'm curious about these matters, I asked a ton of questions and wrote down everything. In case you're curious, here are the totals for a month in a 1-bedroom (if you count Sophia's room as a living room) apartment in Astana in October.

My electricity totaled 1056 T, about $7. I had used 165 kilowatts, at 6.4 T per kilowatt (about 4 cents a kilowatt). My water bill totaled 507, about $3.38. I had used about 12 somethings--the principal was surprised I didn't know the term. It's not squared, it's whatever you call it when the exponent is 3. That's not a unit of measurement, but whatever, that's how they measure the water. It costs 42.2 T (about 28 cents) per exponent 3 (whatever). The water heater cost 458 T (about $3.05). The Domofone--the phone-like thing that people call me on when they want into the apartment building--costs 200 T a month (about $1.33). The telephone costs 500 T a month ($3.33) and the cable TV costs 940 T a month (about $6.27--mind you, there's not a lot of decent stations, even for people who understand Russian). The maintenance bill--a monthly fee for the service of people like the electrician and the guy who fixed my water heater--is 2128 T (about $14.19). The garbage fee is 279 T (about $1.86). My total bill was 6258 T (about $41.72) which isn't too bad for utilities, phone, TV, etc. I can't complain.

They left and then Eric came over to use my Internet. The IT guy had just sold him his old computer, and Eric was so excited to have a computer and to be able to use the Internet. I was jealous of his keyboard--it was like the keyboards at school, with Latin and Russian characters on the keys. However, he was unable to connect, so I whipped out my teacher-contact list that I had received my first week, and we called the IT guy, who was unable to help from a distance. So I lent Eric my computer and he happily chatted (IM or something similar) with friends and family for about an hour. He told me that his mom was very happy to hear from him. I was very happy to help.

So another good day, and one more day to go before the student holiday!