Lost Phone!
It was the middle of January on Friday afternoon that we received a grim-sounding message. “Please, come to the Assembly Hall for an Emergency meeting.” All the students had already departed for their homes for the weekend, and the school was eerily quiet. And cold. We had been experiencing cold days that week, but what the Director shared with us still caught us by surprise. The message was dire. A cold snap was expected, with the temperature dropping to -25°C, and the city was not prepared for it. Apparently, according to the official announcement, ‘an industrial accident on one of the natural gas fields in a neighboring country’ was the cause of the natural gas production disruption. Restrictions of all kinds would be imposed everywhere, including power outages. We had experienced power saving measures even before this cold snap, however. Nukus had been saving electricity, which translated into most streets being without any street lights after nine pm, since the winter started. The explanation we’d heard from our local friends was that selling and exporting gas was more lucrative than subsidizing their own utilities, which made more sense. One of the immediate consequences was that, effective immediately, we would be going into online teaching mode because we could not chance having the students in the dormitory during the cold snap with power disruptions imminent. The meeting closed on a cheerful note with a promise that, as a precaution, we were all going to receive an extra duvet 😂.
And thus, it had begun! The long lines at gas stations were not affecting us, people without cars, directly, but we certainly felt it every time we paid the higher taxi fares. There were frequent power outages, during which I always prayed to all the gods I could remember that it would not turn into a long one. Our entire heating system depends on electricity which is generated by natural gas. What would happen should we lose it for an extended time during the cold snap? I could always pretend that I was camping in the Arctic, wrapped up in my extra duvet, I tried to reason. Some people do that for fun. Sadly, they are not my kind of people. My kind tends to frolic in some warm sea.
During the previous winter, when we had a couple of blackouts, they were always very short. Back then, I reasoned that our proximity to the university spared us. Surely, they would prioritize the power to this area, making sure their future taxpayers remain unfrozen, I always told myself. Of course, this theory went out the window when all the students, including the university, were asked to study from home.
Some restaurants in Nukus closed because the gas pressure was too low to cook. We realized how serious the situation was when we noticed how the repertoire of our favorite Neo Café shrank. Any dish needing extensive cooking became ‘unavailable this evening,’ leaving mostly only grilled meats on the menu.
The insane bureaucracy and lack of trust became apparent again during the online teaching. Even though supposedly the whole country was in power-saving mode, when one would reasonably expect the heat consumption in the school would be substantially reduced, every morning began by the heating system turned on full blast in every classroom to heat it for one person. Unbelievably, the local teachers were expected to come to school to teach online in their empty, needlessly heated classrooms.
One positive (to us!) aspect of online teaching was that the scheduled parent/teacher meetings had been delayed. Unfortunately, as soon as the students returned to their classrooms, the parents were asked to come.
I don’t particularly enjoy sitting next to my co-teacher, who must translate every word of mine because almost no parent speaks English. During this overt PR exercise the international teachers sit there looking pretty, feeling useless, since the co-teachers are perfectly capable of telling the parents about their child’s progress even without having to translate our input. But we are the living, breathing, occasionally coughing, proof that this is a special school that has foreign educators.
The silver lining of this PR event was that I met people who had helped to shape our students into their present form. Sitting there, and watching all these people invested in their child’s progress, I couldn’t help but reflect on how different it was from North America. For one thing, many people had enough gold in their mouth to warrant the rental of a safety deposit box. These were the older people, mostly grandparents. But we had younger ones coming in as well, enquiring about the progress of their brothers, sisters, and nephews. That’s when the parents could not attend and had made some other arrangements. At the end of the evening, I discovered, to my surprise, that every student had someone interested in their education. I was amused and pleased at how realistic the parents were. I was prepared to deliver the standard ‘sandwich’ template so popular in management courses. Say something nice first, then proceed to the real beef, and close with something positive. Except that here I honestly don’t have much ‘beef’ to dispense. There are no disciplinary problems that I could address without fearing to be beaten up verbally by the parent like in some North American schools these days. Dave had one student lagging behind a bit academically, and he started with the euphemism expected in the N.A. culture, “Oybek would do better if he put more effort into his work.” The mother swiftly responded, “You mean he is lazy. Yes, I agree.” And then she proceeded with a sentence practically forgotten in North America. “You need to be stricter with him. He needs to work harder.”
All in all, the evening was interesting but tiring as well. Throughout it I sustained myself by looking forward to the next day. The meeting was on Friday, so the parents could take their children home for the weekend. Ours is a residential school and some of our students come from places several hours away from Nukus. My plan for Saturday was to check out a new café that had opened not too far from our school. Mary had given me a positive review of their French fries which, to her, is the benchmark of any eatery. I, personally, go by the quality of their cappuccinos. I could not wait to find out if maybe a decent coffee place had opened closer to our school than my usual downtown hangout.
When, on Saturday afternoon I pushed the heavily tinted glass door and entered, I was immediately taken aback by how much smaller the place was compared to its cousin situated downtown. Both cafés carry the same name, so presumably they have the same owner and offer the same quality. But one should never assume.
There were only two tables by the window, and they were both occupied. Further from the window was a table with four young women and, across from them, was another table for four but with only a young woman and her child. I made myself at home by the wall, ordered and began playing my favorite word game on my phone. A few minutes passed when I noticed the little munchkin separated from her mother and standing across from me with her chin almost resting on my table looking at me intently. I winked at her and went back to my game. It is very common here that children and old people don’t have any qualms about staring at me with curiosity. I am not that interesting looking but, when you don’t have other foreigners to compare, you would not know.
When the cake arrived, I was pleased to note that it came from the same source as its downtown cousins, and was tasty. Unfortunately, the cappuccino was a disappointment, produced by a much smaller and lower quality machine than the one downtown. I sipped on it, pondering why the ownership was trying to save money in the wrong place, when I noticed that the table by the window had become vacant. I do prefer having a window view, so I immediately took my cup of mediocre java and the plate with the cake, walked over, and placed it on the vacant table, thus staking my claim. I had to go back and forth a couple of more times to get all my stuff, which doubles in winter time, but then finally settled down and began to admire the view. The café is situated across a museum with a beautiful mosaic rotunda roof that I appreciate every time I walk by it.
Maybe I should send a pic of the pretty museum to my friend who had gone back to the States earlier that month, crossed my mind. She would appreciate the Uzbek memory. Spurred by that thought, I reached for my phone, which I expected to be on the table. It was not. I began searching, but it was nowhere to be found. Double checking my bag, the pockets of my coat and around the table yielded nothing! I went to my old table and searched there. I even looked on the floor around. The phone was gone. It crossed my mind that Karma was playing a nasty trick on me. On the way to the café to enjoy my cappuccino and cake, a middle-aged man, who did not look like a beggar, approached me and asked for five thousand s’om, which is about half a dollar. Even though understanding very well what he wanted, I played my ‘I don’t understand’ card and moved on. My heart of stone only softens for animal shelters or people with obvious disabilities. The man had all four limbs and they were not covered in fur. In my book, of which I am the sole author, he did not qualify for my hard-earned money. But now I wondered. What if Karma really did not like my choice?
By then the young women noticed my searching but did not say anything. The woman with a child had left, and a scary thought occurred to me. What if the little girl took the unguarded phone as a toy while I was busy moving my stuff? Not for a second did it cross my mind that someone had taken it intentionally. This is one nice thing about Uzbekistan. It is one of the safest places I have visited as far as property and personal safety goes. This might be a nice, albeit unintended, relic of Uzbekistan’s difficult past under the previous despotic regime of President Karimov, and then even earlier as a part of the Soviet Union. Back then the constant presence of police and harsh punishments ensured, if not public happiness, at least general safety. This mentality just might have carried over to the present. But a child taking something without realizing its value is a different matter. I got up and went to the counter. My Russian, spurred by desperation, surprised me. Even without my translator app which was, of course, on my phone, I managed to say, “My phone was here five minutes in the past. Now it is not. I am believing a child,” I pointed to the empty table, “has it now and plays on it. I am hoping the mother comes and brings it here again.”
The server gave me a prolonged reply, from which I caught something about a security camera. I nodded, hoping I understood correctly that they might be able to see the footage of what had transpired. My hope did not last long. The server conversed with her colleague and then told me the camera was not working. So much for that idea, I thought bitterly. While searching and dealing with the young server, I put on a brave front. But inside I was all churned up. Everything, including all my contacts, was on that phone. “Can you tell me your phone number? I will call,” the young server sounded very sympathetic. To this reasonable suggestion I had to admit embarrassingly that I did not know my own number. “Maybe search again?” the server prompted. I shrugged despondently and went back and searched again even though at that point it was very clear the phone was truly gone. After that last search I settled down to my, by then, cold cappuccino and stared gloomily at the domed museum, no longer seeing its beauty but thinking about how I was going to replace all the information on my phone. The sound of the theme song from Harry Potter brought me back to the present. Like one of Pavlov’s dogs, reacting to the sound of a bell, I jumped and started frantically looking for the source of the sound. That was unmistakably my ringtone. The four women now also joined in the search. The game was afoot! One of the women who sat with her back to the table that had earlier been taken by the mother with her child claimed the prize. The phone lay on the back of her chair where the child must have dropped it. Never had I been happier to answer Dave’s call than that afternoon.
I was very careful when I discovered the loss of my phone and, while searching for it, to refrain from any language that my grandma would not approve of. It was just as well. It turned out that the four young women were seniors at the local university, soon to become teachers of English. After my emotional reunion with my phone they were only too happy to start chatting.
While talking, they also explained why the campus, even though it was early February, still looked very quiet. They were in their senior year, and they were the only ones allowed back. The lower years were still studying online. When I expressed my surprise because the temperature was not as low anymore, they speculated that it might be because of the transportation disruptions caused by the shortages of fuel.
I would have saved myself some agony if I had my number memorized. But that would have been far too sensible of me. I still don’t remember my own phone number. With all the passwords and birthdays, it is just too much for my tired brain. But I did make one adjustment. Now I carry in every bag and every piece of outer clothing a small piece of paper with a few phone numbers that could be handy if I and my phone should ever find ourselves separated from each other again.