In which we offer a virtual tour of our Central Asian estate.
Owen's adapted to his uprooting far better than his parents have.
Despite a dogged resistance to napping yesterday, fussiness was kept to a minimum and a full night's sleep was had by all. It was Dad's turn to get up with the baby. Even though we only had a couple of whines, both of which were remedied by a pat on the belly and a replacement of the plug, I didn't sleep so well.
I kept having dreams of kids in trouble. Go figure.
This morning, though, we ramped up the noise a bit and saw our first real tears. Young Owen wasn't... er, feeling too well. Five diapers later, though, and all was right with the world again. It looks as though we'll be able to save the fruit juice and pureed pears for another day.
Robin has absolutely forbidden me to share more than that.
You'll see from the pictures at left, we had a few more firsts as well. There was our first viewing of Baby Einstein. Mom and Dad joined the legion of adults who are asking themselves, "Why didn't I think of this? I could've been a millionaire!"
There was also the first bath. This was attended with some trepidation on the parts of both the Master and his Puppets. I'm not sure the former had ever been actually submerged before and I'm positive the latter have never had to contend with such a slippery, squirmy little eel.
Upon drying, however, the Young Master was dubbed "Sister Mary Owen of Kazakhstan" and went to bed with only fifteen minutes or so of complaint. Mom and Dad celebrated with a special anniversary supper of Ramen noodles, two glasses of Kazakh wine and a list of all the places we want to go eat at after we return home.
Not pictured was our first dance. Mom contends that our boy prefers ABBA's Greatest Hits. Dad is quite sure that it's Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers' album, appropriately titled Americano. Truthfully, I'm not sure that Owen cares much about the music either way. I think he just likes watching his new parents flop gracelessly around the empty living room.
Speaking of the living room, it dawns on us that we've never shown our friends at home around our Kazakh abode. Since we're fairly well rooted here for the next several weeks, how about a tour?
The pictures below are in order:
A. The cottage from outside (we occupy the right half)
B. Our kitchen (immediately to the left upon entry). The clothes washer is next to the oven.
C. The drying rack in the kitchen (per request)
D. The living room
E. The dining room (immediately opposite the living room)
F. The television room upstairs (we've yet to use it)
G. The bathroom and
H. Our bedroom.
From what we understand, this place is only about two years old and, we suspect the source of some pretty significant wealth for our landlady, Gulmira. She can make about $3,000 in six weeks with two couples staying here. The whole place probably cost around $15,000 to buy. That said, it's a great deal by American standards. We're paying about $50 per night to stay here. The price includes a stock of fruit, soda, bottled water, juice and chips; and Lyuba, the housekeeper.
Every day, Lyuba washes all of the towels (whether we've used them or not) and vacuums all of the floors (whether we've walked on them or not). She'll wash all of the baby items for free and our clothes she'll wash at a rate of about 250 tenge ($1.92) per load. As I've mentioned, Lyuba also babysits at about twice the rate of a load of laundry.
All of the laundry must air dry. Virtually no one in Kokshetau has a clothes dryer (certainly no one has a dishwasher!) and even in the sub-zero weather, you can see people hanging their clothes on the public lines outdoors or off of their balconies. (Notice the picture at left.) Interestingly, Oleg tells us that the colder it is, the faster the clothes will dry. Inna says, typically, it takes three days to dry a load of laundry in the winter. We're fortuntate in that the cottage has much more space than a normal family's home so we can dry our clothes indoors.
The air drying makes things pretty stiff (no Bounce, no fabric softener), so everything gets ironed. And I mean everything. Yes, Lyuba neatly presses both Owen's burp rags and his daddy's under things.
The cottage is also state-of-the-art in that it has its own water heater. Robin and I can enjoy hot showers or hot baths every single day. Everyone else is dependent on the city government who decides when to turn on the heat. If you want a bath on a cold water day, you can boil some water on the stove.
Although we live in the center of town, the cottage seems to be in a comparably well-to-do neighborhood. It is interesting to see the number of expensive cars parked outside. The Peace Corps boys tell us that expensive cars are the sign of high ranking government officials.
Walls here are thin. We can hear the neighbors' t.v. and they can hear babies crying. They've pounded on our walls. We've thought about pounding on theirs but, to date, haven't worked up the courage. They had a party a few nights ago with singing and some drunken sot honking a tune on the horn of his car. We don't know how to say "SHUT UP!" in Russian, yet.
You would assume that, besides sound, the thin walls would allow the cold in. Surprisingly, the cottage stays quite warm; warmer, in fact, than our house in Kansas City. Still, we see ice forming on the bolts that hold the windows in place (see picture at left) and anything left on the windowsills-- namely Robin's contact solution-- gets very cold.
We were thrilled one day to discover that all of the ice on the windows had melted and were eagerly bundling up to go for a walk in the finally warmer weather. It was an enormous disappointment when we discovered that industrious Lyuba had melted it all by hand the day before and, in fact, it was one of the coldest days ever!
The only other thing of note in the cottage is its absolute lack of decoration. Indeed, we've noticed that throughout Kazakhstan people seem to rarely hang pictures and the walls tend to be a bland, uniform white. I suppose that, with limited wealth, people don't spend their money on art. That certainly seems to be Inna's father's experience, anyway. Still, the lack of decoration kind of contributes to the stir-craziness of being here.
We've had to substitute the light fixtures for eye candy. The people here tend to enjoy a funky, retro-seventies look here. A couple of samples are supplied.
If anyone would like us to bring them a little Russian architecture to spice up their doms (houses), just let us know.
