First: Packages. Valerie's parents had mailed her a package when she was still in Uzbekistan, waiting for her letter of invitation. They wrote the school's strange-sounding address in English and took it to the local post office. The package arrived before she did.
So, I excitedly told my mom that same address and that using the post office works. Mom then mailed me one a package a week for three weeks.
I told her to stop after 3 weeks and no packages. (Valerie's had taken 10 days!) 4 weeks passed and no package. I learned from Valerie that around the time that I had arrived, her mother mailed her another package, and this one had yet to arrive. So that arrived-in-10-days was a fluke.
So now, on 18 November, a full 6 weeks since my mother mailed the first package, I was sitting in the teachers' lounge when an assistant handed a note to another assistant (who spoke better English) to give to me. It was a slip explaining that I had a package awaiting me in some place in Astana. Somehow the librarian had had the slip, and she had given it to the assistant. I was happy to learn that a package had made it Astana, I was unhappy to learn that it was who-knows-where and had to be picked up.
I went to see the secretary, who told me that the principal knew about it and that Valerie's had arrived too. He would make she we were driven to this place.
Good.
Then: The secretary came to see me. With her was a short middle-aged Kazakh man. He was carrying a box.
"This is your driver," she said; "he has your package."
So... Now the foreign teachers have a driver ("chauffeur", if you will) and he was sent to pick up the packages.
Most of our students have drivers, and all of us had been told during the interview process that we would be picked up by the school bus. Christie was content to walk, at least not when it was absolutely freezing (below minus 10) or extremely muddy or icy; I was content to walk, and was equally content to pay the bus fare (because Sophia was not content to walk). The Filipinos were not content to walk. It was freezing cold (the Philippines, of course, are even warmer than South Carolina). They also could not afford the bus far--60 Tenge, or 40 cents, each way. Valerie was not content to walk--it was too cold, plus she had been promised a driver.
So... I had never raised the issue. My previous school certainly had not provided transportation for its teachers! Of course, we were all local. But still. 40 cents per bus ride equals $3 tops a week. So much less than what I had been paying for gas. (Sophia rides free, although I suspect that if I admitted that she were 7, I might have to pay. Every now and then they ask me how old she is, when I answer, "Six" they nod and move on. I haven't answered "Seven" yet, and she knows that when she's on the bus, she's six.)
We have seen many colleagues riding the bus--even the vice principal. I can't see why we should be treated any more special than him. And no one's a local, everyone is new to Astana, if not Kazakhstan. (The v.p. is Turkish, so he's foreign too. He even has a story about being arrested for being outside without his passport! After a couple hours in jail he managed to bribe his way out.)
So I was surprised that we had a driver. Sophia, of course, was happy.
We then learned that he only has a small car and so we must work out whom he picks up when. The head English teacher, a Turkish guy, worked it out for us in the end--he would pick up the Filipinos first, at 8:15, and then come back and pick up Valerie, Christie, Sophia, and me at 8:30. He would pick Christie and me in front of our apartment (Christie is close) and Valerie in front of the pharmacy by her building. We got the later time because of Sophia--having a kid means it takes longer to get ready. I couldn't complain! Although there are 5 Filipinos in one apartment, with one bathroom, and so that means it takes them longer to get ready, too.
I later learned that the guys still had to walk; there wasn't room for them in the car.
The first day that he was to pick us up, I was in disbelief. At 8:10 am I was not yelling at Sophia to hurry up so we could catch the bus. I was saying, "Oh, we have time." This was great.
There still were kinks to work out. He couldn't pick up Valerie and Christie, Sophia, and me at the same time. And the short drive to Valerie's stop from our place requires a U-turn onto a street that is super-busy during rush hour, so it takes 5 minutes or longer. We finally worked out that I would text Valerie as soon as he picked us up.
One morning, I was pleased that Sophia and I were out early (this was before we had worked out to text Valerie, and I knew that I was the reason she had waited in the cold a couple days in a row, so I really wanted to be on time!) Christie had texted that she would be walking, and when the driver asked, "Ann?" I just assumed he had confused Christie with one of the Filipino teachers and said that no, she was not coming. She we headed off.
Then he received a phone call, which he passed onto me. It was Ann, still in her apartment with the other 2 Filipino teachers. They had been running late that morning! Oops! Their running late coincided with my running early. We worked out that, since we were near Valerie's stop and Valerie was early as usual, we would go to school first and then he would come back for the others. They ended up just-on-time, which really is late (by the time you get inside the school and put your things away).
The Filipinos had originally told him 8:10. One day they were "on time"--8-15--and we ended up being late. I think traffic gets worse the closer to 9:00 you get, and so those extra five minutes at the beginning really added up, and we were dropped off with only a few minutes before 9:00.
That Saturday we had to work, and when he dropped us off, we think we said, "Zavtra"--tomorrow. Well, Christie and I waited quite a while Saturday morning and he never showed up. She texted Eric--we didn't know that the boys weren't using the driver--who texted back that he was still inside the apartment. We assumed this meant that the driver hadn't come, and so we walked. Sophia was in a good mood and was willing to walk.
Goodness! We had gotten so used to having a driver that I hadn't put on my snow-boots. I was wearing nice heels and thin tights. Sure, I almost never wear those tights in South Carolina because it's too warm. But here I was freezing.
We arrived late, and I taught 1st period while still wearing my coat.
When I explained to my students (grade 5) why I was late, they could empathize. Another student said her driver had been late that day, also.
We later learned that the other teachers, in their extremely broken Russian, had managed to get the point across to the driver that they needed to be picked up on Saturday. We hadn't stressed, and so he hadn't come for us. Oh well.
It's nice to have a driver. And I'm sure he doesn't cost the school much. He likes us, and he's given us candy. But it really makes me feel set apart from the locals. I belong more to the class of the students than the class of my co-workers.
But it's really nice not to have to put on so many warm clothes in the morning! Being picked up from the front door is great!
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