In which Owen goes undercover as a musician.
We were all on missions today. For Owen, it was mastery of the Kazakh people. He began his conquest with the babysitter.
Through the Sisters, we arranged to have one of the nurses from the local babyhouse come to the apartment and babysit Owen. The second she got there he had her running around the apartment in the airplane maneuver, bouncing balls and making cute sayings in Russian. So it came as no surprise when we returned to the apartment later and heard, "No eat. No sleep."
In short, he played her like a fiddle.
Being in Almaty has been an interesting change from Kokshetau. We can now take Owen out and about with us because it is far more common for Americans to be in the city. We still can't tell anyone that we've adopted him, however. Yesterday, for example, he had to be undercover as an Missourian.
The woman at the museum gift shop asked us where in America we were from. We gave our standard spiel of "Kansas City! Right in the middle!" It comes complete with a pantomime representing the United States and a little poke in the center of the gesture to indicate Kansas City.
No one ever gets it.
"Your son is from Kansas City, too," she asked. We gave her the American lie. You know what I mean. It's when you smile and say, "Mmmmmm." Ranks right up there with neither confirming nor denying.
Despite our ability to go out and about with a baby, however, Robin and I had some serious souvenir shopping to do and we knew the Puppet Master would soon revert to the Crab King if we drug him along for the whole endeavor; hence, the babysitter.
Meanwhile, we also went undercover: As rich people.
First, however, we visited the Sisters. Today's activity on the GET US HOME agenda was filling out all of the immigration applications. Today we applied to the U.S. Embassy for citizenship and acknowledged to the Kazakh embassy our understanding that Owen will have dual citizenship until age 18. Short, sweet and done in a few minutes.
After that, it was a quick trip to get visa photos for Owen. He was starving and tired at this point, so you can imagine how good they look. We'll probably have to prove to customs that we aren't importing a howler monkey.
With those tasks complete, it was home for a quick bite, some rest, and plans laid for a shopping skirmish.
Kazakhstan is known for its carpets and that was item one on our list to buy. Reliable Vitali took us to the Museum of Art and introduced us to the proprietor of the carpet shop inside. You can see an out-of-focus picture of him and Robin outside the museum. (As a note, you'll be able to spot the Donn taken pictures from the Robin taken pictures. The former are consistently out of focus. The latter are consistently brilliant.)
Needless to say, if we thought we were shelling out our American gold before, we were wrong. That was just coppers, my friends. The bullion went out in bulk today. Not a bad trade, however. We walked out with three one-of-a-kind carpets and several bags full of unique souvenirs. We let the mantra of "we'll never be here again" guide our spending.
In a break from posing as millionaires, Robin, Vitali and I took a quick tour of the Zenkov cathedral. You can see pictures at left. The cathedral is undergoing renovations, but it is still a magnificent edifice. The outside bursts with color and the walls inside are lined with spectacular Russian icons to the saints and the Holy Family. There was an amazing Madonna and Child done in pearls and gold laminate everywhere.
While there we were also treated to a prayer. The church is very small inside. There are no pews and no altar. Instead, the parishioners light incense lamps and line up in aisles around lecterns. A man stood at one of these and chanted a prayer in Russian. The acoustics made it echo along the walls. That and the fog lined trees outside gave the whole experience a quiet, haunted feel.
Leaving the church, Robin and I went to praise all things spoken in English. Namely, we went to expat hang-out, Mad Murphy's. This is an incredibly incongruous Irish pub in the middle of town. It has heavenly menus written in English; a charming, if ironic Scottish host; and the long sought, much missed CHEESEBURGERS.
You can see a picture of Robin and I sitting at the bar. Chris, the Scottish host/manager took it for us. He was an interesting chap who'd lived in Amsterdam before being recruited by the local Guinness distributor to open this pub in Kazakhstan. While we were there, he breathed fire for his customers ("Set the front of me shirt ablaze the first time I did that!") and chatted us up about what brought us to town.
We didn't blow our cover, of course. "Just visiting," we told him. "We have a friend in the Peace Corps," is our latest line. Not exactly a lie. He invited us back this Friday to hear him and his friend from New Zealand play cover songs from James Taylor and Jimmy Buffet. Oh, so tempting! No dice, though.
We have a mission.
