When living in a country where you don’t understand the language, you need to accept the fact that there are going to be many questions that will go unanswered. You have a choice. You can get all frustrated, pack your bags and leave, or you can try to see some humor in it. I thought about this one bright day in late October as I walked along the canal and then, on the spur of the moment, decided to venture into a side street I had not yet explored. After one turn and another, I found myself walking along a dirt path closely paralleling one of the myriad irrigational ditches that run through the city. And there I encountered a site previously unseen. A door to nowhere.
This was not some abandoned door, discarded because it was past its prime. Quite the opposite. Richly ornate with wrought iron of intricate design it represented a beautiful piece of workmanship. But the location was puzzling. It stood there, all by itself, facing the narrow ditch. I tried to open it, but it was locked. There was no obstruction on either side of it, so I could easily walk around were I so inclined. Which I was not, because circling it would take me right into the dirty ditch water. What was the purpose of this door? I looked around for some clue, maybe a telephone number, that would explain it as free advertising for, perhaps, an iron smith, or else part of an Escape Room that awaited elsewhere, but I found nothing. To this day I have no explanation which, in a way, is very liberating, letting my imagination run wild. Maybe the door was intended as a sign of a future location of an oversized house for a mistress of a local politician. Maybe he got caught in a corruption scandal, thus the construction never passed the stage of an entrance door. ‘Maybe’ has lots of potential for an idle mind that likes to amuse itself.
Uzbek people pay a lot of attention to doors, which can be traced back to the historical Arabic and Persian influence with their love of ornate designs. There is a house I pass regularly on my way downtown. To call it a ‘fixer-upper’ would be very kind. It’s a wreck of a house where one wall is almost gone, exposing a yard overrun by weeds. Recently, as I was passing it, I had to take a second look. Had I taken a wrong turn and missed my landmark ruin? I was staring at a beautiful new door, its wrought iron and ornamental brass still shiny, that would put any fancy home to shame. It looked a bit ridiculous with walls on both sides of it that had not been repaired yet. But it served its purpose, signaling to the world “This is no longer an abandoned building. This place has ambitions.”
The door to our current bank is quite imposing. The bank is located in what, judging by its look, could have been an important government building in the past. The brick walls are massive, the façade is well-maintained, but the rooms inside seem too small for their current purpose, much better suited for a few bored government workers than a throng of bank customers. I always feel a bit claustrophobic there and remember fondly our previous local bank, the first bank our school had asked us to use. It was no miracle of modern banking technologies and services, but it was head and shoulders above our current bank.
Our banking situation has not always been this complicated. Our first contract stipulated that we would be paid in dollars and the money was deposited directly into our home country accounts. This happy arrangement lasted only one year. It was far too convenient to let it stay that way. In our second year the Agency that oversees the Presidential Schools project decided to save money and changed our contracts. Now we get clobbered by unfavorable exchange rates because we are paid in the local currency called ‘s’oms’. One hundred US dollars fetches roughly one million s’oms. Yes, one million - the number with six zeroes. At the beginning of our stay, I found it very difficult to keep track of all those zeroes and there were many instances where I exclaimed in horror, “You can’t be serious. You didn’t pay $50 for this?” only to be reminded that it was actually only $5. The switch to the local currency also meant that we had to change local banks.
The only thing that makes up for the discomfort of small spaces of our current bank is the kick I get from withdrawing the s’oms from one small room only to take them physically to the next where they get exchanged to dollars. “Please, take a picture of this,” I asked Dave the first time as I feigned to collapse under the huge stack of all those millions of s’oms.
A full year passed without me touching the VISA card issued by our first bank. When I finally decided to check my balance the card was, of course, no longer working. I prepared myself for another adventure.
Uzbek banks open for the afternoon, after a nice lunch break, at two o’clock. I arrived five minutes past two hoping I would be the first one there. My hopes were dashed when a pleasant young woman took me to the room where, presumably, my problem would be solved. Five people were already waiting there. So I sat down and waited with them. Fifteen minutes later I got my chance to explain my issues to a portly teller named Umida, with a broad, friendly face. I told her that my card no longer worked, and that I would like to know what my balance was, withdraw it and close the account. Umida looked genuinely surprised. She kept fidgeting with her scarf and chewing her lower lip. It seemed no one had requested such an outlandish thing in the past. Finally, she offered to issue a new card, which I could then use to withdraw whatever was left in my account and leave the account open. I almost went for it, but then she added another option. “We could get money out and close the account.”
“Yes, I would like that.” I said agreeably. After all, that was why I was there. And at that point I was driven by morbid curiosity. How long would it take to accomplish this simple task? All our communication was in a mix of her limited English and my pidgin Russian. I wondered how well we really understood each other. And so the interminable paperwork began. After I had completed several rounds of my favorite word game on my phone, Umida returned and began to explain what I understood was a process that included scanning many documents including my passport and residency paper. I understood that then she would send all of it to the Tashkent head office for approval, and then I would get my money. Apparently, it could not be done at the local level. At that point I started to question if it was worth the effort.
“Can you please tell me my balance?” I remembered vaguely that, when we had opened the account, we were asked to keep a minimum balance there. Maybe twenty dollars? I wondered. It turned out to be disappointing five. “Maybe I will just leave it the way it is,” I suggested to Umida.
“No, no. We can do. I start papers. We can do.” Umida seemed determined to take this to the end.
“So can I come back next week?”
“No, no, you sit here. It will be only thirty minutes. You have time now? Yes?” I already invested almost an hour in this adventure. It seemed as if she now knew what she was doing. “Ok, I will stay.”
An hour and half into my adventure I honestly believed that I would succeed. I was already visualizing a five-dollar bill on the wall of my room, nicely framed, with some motivational slogan along the lines of ‘Perseverance Will Get You Anywhere.’ I could almost taste the victory. Alas, it was not to be. Umida returned to her desk and got back on the phone with someone; presumably someone at the Head Office in Tashkent. When she finished, she came back. “You will have to go to the tax office to get your number and then come here and we will finish.” That’s what I understood between her English and my Russian. “You have gotta be kidding me,” I said, disbelievingly, knowing she didn’t really understand. But at that point I could not help myself. I needed to get it out. “You tell me that I have to go somewhere else and then come back? I just wasted two hours here.” I laughed bitterly. She nodded slowly probably understanding only ‘two hours.’ I repeated really slowly in Russian, just to clarify I was not missing something. “I have to go somewhere else?”
Umida nodded. “Yes, it’s in Nukus.” She smiled, as if the Nukus location made it all ok.
I switched back to English just to release my frustration. “Forget it!” I took the card and indicated cutting it with scissors. “Thank you. You did try to help. It’s ok. I will cut.” She shrugged her shoulders and smiled again.
“Thank you for trying. Goodbye.” And I meant it. Despite my frustration, I appreciated that Umida had tried to help. She could have said right at the beginning that the five-dollar deposit was non-refundable and I would have been none the wiser. But that is just not the way things works here. I made sure that I closed the exit door very gently behind me. It was an ordinary unpretentious door, and I hoped that my gesture delivered the message that I harbored no resentment towards it.