Expat Life

It is inevitable, whenever a group of expatriates get together, no matter how hard they try, that the conversation does not focus on their woes about living in their host country – communication difficulties due to language barriers, bad service in shops and restaurants, the major differences between how things are done back home and how their done where they currently live, the weather, the food, most importantly the situation at work, which is why they are here, and every other possible inconvenience they may have encountered.

Everyone has an interesting anecdote to tell with vivid descriptive details which keep the gathering lively as the drinks are flowing, glasses and jugs are repeatedly clinked at every new round, toasts are made to new resolutions and the new buzzword for the week is voiced in unison and laughter to share this very special inside joke. Those outside the circle need an explanation for this new phrase which they would add to their personal dictionary and may or may never use. Everyone is having a good time laughing at someone else’s sorrows and for a few hours we all forget that these same situations had us fuming, screaming, cursing, threatening to kill whoever was at the source of the trouble. For the duration of the get-together, as in confession, our sorrows, anger, anxiety, frustration and overall tension are washed away with the drinks and the revelations until we go back to our routines.

The mood was festive at “Torro Grill” in Pervaya Dubrovskaya Street where we had all met to celebrate the birthdays of two colleagues – Mike and Laura, secondary and primary teacher respectively. Several tables had been put together for us at a non-smoking back room to form an L-shape in order to accommodate about twenty people. As is usually the case, people sitting together just hold conversations in their little group till a roar of laughter has everyone else with an enquiring look facing the direction it came from hoping to be made privy to the cause of such hilarity. The story is repeated loudly to be shared with all at the insistence of those who feel left out and finally everyone joins in the merrymaking.

Except for a few people in the group, all the rest were new staff who had been in Moscow for barely a month. Most were still experiencing cultural shock, but doing their best to settle in. One had actually just arrived two days earlier and not settled in yet. It was our first big social group meeting and a great opportunity for all, as we hardly said more than a few words of greetings to one another when we met in the hallways on our way to class. We would all finally have the opportunity to unload what had been bothering us.

Work, however minimally mentioned, was bound to be discussed. There was a story about the general director telling teachers who had gone to request to be paid, to manage their money better.  “How insulting is that!” I exclaimed. “And what did you say back to him?” I asked. The teacher in question said she informed him they had not been paid, therefore there was nothing to be managed or mismanaged. The fact that he only responded with a blank stare sparked a whole range of opinions about him, voiced out freely in his absence. There were stories about this same general director’s lack of understanding of curriculum-based issues, and suggestions offered about how to deal with it, or harsh criticism about these shortcomings.  I was part of the latter. In the course of these discussions, a gentleman who had been dining at another table approached ours. He had heard American accents and wanted to make sure we were all registered to vote. He offered explanations on how to get our absentee ballots, how to mail it and the whole procedure. He was very friendly and I'm hoping to meet him at the party he said he would be throwing. His interruption was welcome as it steered us away from the topic of work on to other subjects for a while.

The waitress could not look more irritated when she had to take our order. You would think we had crashed at her house and demanded she cook for us. I ordered an ostrich burger on the menu to be adventurous, only to be rebuked that this particular restaurant didn’t serve this meal, although no one had taken the trouble to remove it from the menu. I finally ordered grilled salmon, which was served burned on one side, and steak fries. I haven’t been disciplined about my resolution to stay away from white carbs and thoroughly enjoyed them, and even had another serving. It was a special occasion, after all. The orders took long enough to arrive to irritate most people by the time it finally did.

While we waited, different people shared their horror stories. There was one about the teacher who had arrived at 3 am and was taken into a sparsely-furnished apartment with only a bed, mattress and a couch. She had to sleep in her coat and go to work the next morning, practically a few hours later, without a shower since there were no towels, soap or shower gel to use. She had assumed she would be in a hotel for a few days which would give her time to prepare for her new living arrangements. What a rude awakening! By the end of her first week, she was off sick for two days from the lack of rest, jet lag and difficulty adjusting at such speed, basically from shock.

Then there was the one that had us all in stitches. It was about paying utility bills and Murphy’s Law. The first few months I lived in Moscow, I was lucky enough to have someone take care of it for me, and even then I found it complicated. It was complicated enough that I didn’t want to hear the intricacies of it anymore after it had been explained to me the first time. I just wanted to be told how much I owed and to fork out the money. The bill is sent to you but the amount to be paid is not clear. Ildar, a math teacher at our school, helped me take care of it. He would come to my house once a month when the bill arrived, and would spend no less than half an hour on this task. I always found it baffling. I have since moved to another place where it is included in my rent so I have been spared this torture.

The first time he came, he asked me for a device I still haven’t found a name for. When he asked me for it, his words were “do you have that thing for the bathroom?” The thing for the bathroom could be anyone’s guess. He then said that there was supposed to be something that you used to open something in the bathroom, in exactly these words. I remembered that when I first moved into the apartment, I found a plastic, orange, plunger-looking device with a handle where you would fit your knuckles. Not knowing what it was, I moved it aside carefully as I arranged my toiletries. Fortunately, I remembered exactly where it had placed it and brought it to him asking if that was what he was looking for. His face lit up as he realized his visit had not been in vain.

I handed it over to him and he headed to the bathroom where he proceeded to remove a tile from the wall. I looked at him, bemused, as he proceeded to detach the tile under which the water meter miraculously appeared. I chose not to ask how he knew which tile to detach since all along, that tile did not look detachable to me. With a flashlight, he read and noted the reading, carefully putting the tile back. He then went to the electricity meter and repeated the procedure. After that he sat at my kitchen table fiddling with numbers for about fifteen minutes. I had to ask what was taking so long. He explained to me that there were different rates for different times of day which had to be computed accordingly, then added and finally determining the total amount to be paid. Being winter, there were heater bills, snowplowing bills, the building janitorial bills, elevator maintenance bills, all in the one bill. I left him to it and when he was done he conveyed the message to me. He told me how much I owed and then offered to pay for it which was very kind of him. However, he also said he need an equivalent of about ten dollars because you were charged money for paying bills. I chose not to argue although I didn’t understand the concept. I handed over the money and silently wondered about this policy of being charged money to pay a bill.

    

This year however, the number of international teachers has increased dramatically and the poor man is unable to handle all these matters in addition to his teaching job, so he has explained the procedure to the teachers to do it themselves. Mike, who had his first bill-paying experience exactly the day he turned forty regaled us with his nightmare. He narrated his grief about trying to pay his utility bills in full detail – the amount of time invested in calculating the different items, his several attempts at trying to pay the bill online, which he’d be shown how to do in order to save him the inconvenience of going to the bank, queuing and needing to speak Russian to complete the transaction.

After numerous attempts in vain to pay it online, he asked a Russian-speaking colleague for help. Lexi, who is Russian and knows the procedure, was also unable to carry out the transaction online. The only option left was to physically go to the bank to deal with it. Mike found out to his horror that, not only had his landlord chosen the only utilities company which did not accept online payment, as the system required a ten-digit code for the transaction and this company lacked this code, but that he would have to go to the bank every month for this transaction. The worst part was that when he handed the receipt and money over for the bill, after standing in line for more than half an hour, he was directed to another window where he had to pay some money to be given a receipt which would then enable him to pay the bill. And to add insult to injury, he was dealing with this lengthy, complicated situation when he was ill, running a temperature, feeling like he was at death’s door and couldn’t speak any Russian.

   

Eventually, the bill did get paid and he went home to bed trying not to anticipate the same ordeal month after month so long as he lived in the same apartment in Moscow. That called for some hilarity as glasses and jugs were noisily clinked and his heroism in bill-paying in Russia was toasted to. By the time his story ended, our meals had arrived and the conversation changed to the quality and taste of the food as people compared notes on what they’d been served and how it differed or not to what is was like back home. The arrival of the meal and its consequent enjoyment seemed to bring a close to the complaint session, as almost everyone had managed to release their bottled-up frustrations by then. It was washed down with more drinks, and shortly afterwards we were all ready to leave.

Most people, I presumed, would have a lazy Sunday in preparation for the coming week of new experiences, in a new job, in a new country. I, however, had planned a trip to the Monastery in Petchatniki, the neighborhood where I first lived when arrived in Moscow. On my first visit there, it was closed, so I couldn't get in. I was hoping that since it was Sunday this time, it would be open for mass. I would go in to take the opportunity to light a few candles and be thankful. A colleague chose to join me when I mentioned it.