Power Outage (Again!)
One of the more frustrating aspects of being an international teacher with almost no grasp of the local language is not that sometimes we are not sure if people laugh with us or at us. No, that is not the case. It is the feeling that we often experience of being out of the loop. We are the last people to learn just about anything. Most news trickles down to us via our local co-teachers or social media, or even our students.
In the middle of January all staff, and to our delight even the Internationals, were told that the school would go online for one week since Omicron had finally found small, out of the way Uzbekistan. It doesn’t matter where the news come from, the computer screen, smart phone or the TV, provided it’s not from the Fox news. The experts agreed that Omicron’s symptoms were milder, but the virus more contagious than Delta. I tend to believe it. The wider world is reflected in the microcosmos of our small school. Whereas during the second year of the pandemic, when the virus was very serious for older people and most of the world went to lockdowns and strict rules on gatherings, we had very few cases and lead a relatively normal life., With Omicron affecting younger people and kids who are mostly unvaccinated, however, the Uzbek government decided that all educational institutions would go online. No matter how our Admin protested that our school with its dormitory arrangement was special, and we could remain safely ensconced in our own little bubble, the Ministry of Education would have none of it.
After the allotted one week had passed, the local teachers had a Zoom meeting, during which they learned that the government ordered all schools to go online for a whole month. But we, the Internationals, were not told a thing. No official announcement ever came to us, giving us a good reason to recycle the old joke, “They treat us like mushrooms, keeping us in the dark, and feeding us BS.”
Luckily, except for the schools’ closure, there were no noticeable changes to our daily lives. All the shops and restaurants stayed open, and people walked about their business as usual. True, they were supposed to wear masks, but very few did. Only some, like me, who see the benefit of wearing a mask in wintertime. I didn’t mind at all. In fact, I was very happy about the mask mandate. The mask kept my face warm, and I didn’t feel like a complete freak the way I had used to, pre-pandemic, when I was the only person wearing a ski mask in April. I simply don’t like being cold. If I were a guy, I would grow a beard come November and shave it in May. As it is, I start wearing ski pants around Thanksgiving, losing them for Easter.
Teaching online has its advantages. Using a wireless set of earphones, I can move around while teaching, make myself a cup of coffee when I feel my energy waning, sip on it with pleasure and no one ever knows. The same goes for my students, judging from the sounds that accidentally escape from their end. Did I just hear someone slurping soup? After all, it’s just about lunch time. Still, I am extremely careful when online and doing something I shouldn’t be doing, such as making myself a cup of Java. Unlike a friend of mine who, during a ZOOM staff meeting, carelessly left her mic on and muttered the famous words to herself, “God this is boring!” only to be hushed by a chorus of voices, saying “Ms. Gunar, YOUR MIKE IS ON!”
Online teaching becomes problematic when technology betrays you. A blackout would certainly qualify. Occasionally we experienced very short power outages, no longer than half hour, so I was unprepared for the mother of them all.
When the power goes off, at the beginning you think, oh well, so we’ll get a bit of time off from the screen. After one hour without being able to make a cup of coffee, it starts dawning on you that that is the least of your problems since, without power, there is no running water. I only had one set of utensils: one knife, one fork and one spoon. I had been known to use both ends of the utensil, say a spoon. I’d stir my coffee with one end and use the clean end to scoop up some jam from a jar to spread it on my toast. I call it being practical. One hour into a blackout with both ends of all three of my utensils used, I had to admit it was time to start using whatever amount of water sat in the bowl left out since breakfast. In hour two, I began putting down the toilet seat and appreciating all the wet wipes I accumulated. The Nukus shopkeepers sometimes don’t have enough small denominations of money to return your change. They still want you to leave happy so, instead of the change, they give you either a box of matches or a packet of wet wipes. More than once I wondered how they would react if, when presented with a bill, I included some wet wipes or matches as part of my payment. On that morning, though, I started seeing the pile of wet wipes sitting in my cupboard in new more appreciative light. When the third hour without power rolled in and I felt the temperature dropping I started taking stock of all my clothing. How many layers COULD I put on and still fit under the blanket?
Dave, with his Tech savvy that includes paying his phone bill on time, unlike me, had access to the news on his phone. It was not good. The area affected by the blackout stretched much further than just our small Nukus, crossing into the border region of Kazakhstan. Strange things went through your mind. Kazakhstan had experienced some civil unrest recently, could there be any connection?
You start wondering whether the planes to Tashkent are still leaving. Does the airport guidance system depend on the grid electricity? Wouldn’t they have generators? Do they still have some tickets available? Strange thoughts start running through your head. Like the fact that without power we are going to freeze here. As the minutes dragged on, turning to hours, Tashkent sounded better and better.
You start taking inventory of your cabinets. What is edible? What’s going to happen if the blackout goes on? Do they send out the National Guard with some supplies? When will the looting start? And when there’s nothing left to eat you start wondering who gets eaten first. There are no students, so it would have to be a staff member. This is a young school with young staff. I felt fairly certain that being one of the oldest people here put me in a good position. I mean, if given the choice, would you rather have a tender steak or a tough one? After four hours the power came on for 30 seconds; a brief sputter and it was gone again.
After five hours of serious caffeine withdrawal, depressed and cold, I decided to go for a walk. Maybe coming back from the sub-zero stroll would make the room feel warmer.
Before leaving, I double checked that the small floor heater and a double burner top stove were turned off. A sure way to lose your job is to burn the school down. I had almost succeeded a few weeks prior to this last power outage. At that time, we lost power in the middle of me frying an egg with some old bread for a stray dog that befriended me. The university started building a new dormitory that is facing our school. Every time I ended up strolling around the school the dog that I named Construction Dog (never My Dog - because that would make it too personal), walked with me, so I usually had something for her, unfortunately only re-enforcing her belief that good things happen to dogs that stick around me. At that time, since I could not finish cooking, I decided to go for a short walk. I never turned the burner itself off. What a surprise, when I got back. The power had returned while I was enjoying my walk, the egg finished cooking and so did the bread. The already brown bread turned black, and I considered myself lucky that it did not trigger a fire alarm. Since that episode I started leaving myself a note in my shoe reminding me to double check that all possible sources of fire are turned off.
For my I-need-to-warm up walk I headed to my usual stomping grounds – the nearby University campus. The school closures included universities, turning the campus into a ghost town. Where I would normally hear young voices shouting from the soccer field, I only heard crows. What a difference from even just ten days earlier when the campus was bustling with people.
Walking my usual path, an odor one usually associates with visiting a pet store hit me. I looked around and noticed that the ground was covered with bird droppings. It was like walking in a giant aviary that has never been cleaned – I had reached the crows area. Last winter, on my last count, there were about thirty crow nests. Through the bare branches I noticed some new real estate development. The crows had been busy. If the new nests had been houses, they’d still be dripping with fresh paint. Come Spring, the area will get scraped and the crud will end up in the irrigation ditch running along the path. But it was still too early for that effort.
The parking lot was empty and I decided, on the spur of the moment, to cut through it. Emerging on the other side of it positioned me right by the Faculty of Chemistry. It was the eerie quiet that made me think of a cute encounter I had on this side of the campus on another quiet day.
Back then, it was a sunny June afternoon and, with all the students having already departed for the summer, the campus was empty. I walked past the Faculty of Chemistry and, as always when following that route, I glanced with appreciation at the mosaic fronting the building that depicts a group of some giants of science. After I left them behind, still clutching their beakers and flasks, my route took me along the path with flowery hedges. And that’s when I came across a gorgeous looking hibiscus. I paused to admire its beauty and, because I believe in taking in the world with all my senses, I touched one of the stems to bring it closer to my nose. In a flash I heard a voice. I didn’t understand the words, but the tone was clearly reprimanding me. An old guy appeared seemingly out of nowhere and was, without doubt, telling me not to break off any part of the hibiscus.
“Oh no! I just want to smell it,” I pointed to the blossom and my nose to make sure the connection, despite my horrible Russian, was made. The guy smiled revealing three gold teeth. He realized I was a foreigner, and his admonishing tone became friendly. The inevitable, “and where are you from?” followed. When I told him that I was a teacher from Canada he brightened up even more and insisted on practicing his English.
“Canada – good”. “Yes, it is,” I agreed, and he continued enthusiastically, “Brezhnev – good.” I nodded.
“Putin good – good.” I hesitated, but nodded again, starting to feel like one of those stuffed toy bobble-head dogs people used to keep in the back of their car, that would nod its head as the car moved.
“Stalin bad – fascist.” After he finished delivering his world view, he smiled again, turned and left disappearing as abruptly as he appeared merely three minutes earlier. I stood there stunned for a second by this brief encounter. Did I dream the whole thing?
The walk took me about forty minutes, and I approached our school with high hopes. Maybe the power had come back. One glance at a small corner store opposite the school and I felt my hope vanishing. The window of the store was still dark, the door still closed. I waved at the security guard and entered the school grounds.
The part of the school that houses all of the international teachers is called the ‘hotel wing’ because the rooms resemble a modest hotel style studio that a teacher could conceivably afford on her salary while travelling. There are five rooms on our floor. Since my Afrikaans colleague left after the 1st semester, only four rooms are occupied. Dave and I loved the fact we each had our own space. If we shared accommodation, no matter how spacious, it would not make much sense to ask, “So, whose place are we dining at today?” Or, if I don’t want to see anyone, including Dave, I can say “You can’t visit today, because I haven’t dusted yet.”
The other two rooms belonged to colleagues who had decided to rent apartments in the downtown area. They are young and probably felt that escaping school rules by having their own place was money well spent. Most of the time they used their school rooms only on workdays and sometimes not even then. That all changed when the school switched to online mode. There was no reason for them to deliver their riveting classes from the school. I liked having the floor entirely to ourselves. If we were better looking and so inclined, we could run around naked in our ‘hotel’ hall. I don’t know if I ever would run around with my bum exposed, since there was a camera mounted in the corner but, on weekends, I didn’t have any qualms about making those few steps between our two rooms in my PJs to get whatever I needed from Dave’s fridge. The entire hall was our private domain.
I was dragging my feet upstairs when I heard the door to Dave’s room open.
“Hey, I saw you from the window. The power’s finally back,” Dave sounded cheerful.
“Great! When?”
“Just a few minutes after you left.” Our rooms heating system does not kick in automatically after the power returns. It has to be turned on manually. I must have sounded disheartened when I asked, “You wouldn’t have happened to turn the heat on in my room?”
“Cheer up. Of course, I did. I knew that if I didn’t, you would move into my room while your room is getting warm,” he laughed. He was right, that’s exactly what I would have done, but it still made him a prince.