Some Things Never Change

Well, Russia is still Russia. Two days ago we noticed that there were crews digging in the long drive right behind our building. We looked at each other and thought, well, there goes either the gas or the water for a while. We were right. When we got home last night from our first day of training at the office we had no gas in the building, which means no stove or oven and no hot water. Fortunately, I’d made a pot of soup the night before so we were able to heat that up in the microwave for dinner. We filled all the pots with water and left them out overnight so they would be room temperature by the next day. That way this morning we would be able to bathe with cool water instead of ice cold. We have a small electric teapot so we are going to heat up some water in that and add it to the room temperature water to warm it up. We still have leftover soup for tonight so we are good. As Phil says, flexibility is the key to air power. We have no idea how long we will be without gas, but that’s just how it goes.

Sister Luna spent yesterday touching on most of the office duties I will need to perform. At the end of the day she just smiled and asked if I had learned anything since she had jumped around so much (things to do just kept popping up like normal) and she hadn’t been able to do anything in depth. I smiled back and said it all went into my brain and then drained back out my ears. She laughed. What a job this is! I am so glad she will be here until the end of June. I could not do this without her instruction. She is an amazingly organized and competent woman. If she doesn’t do her job correctly, everyone would literally be up a creek without a paddle; all the missionaries would end up being deported in short order, and that is only one of her many responsibilities. When she first got to Russia, there was no one to tell her what she needed to do since the former office couple had already returned home. She said she started by just reading every piece of paper in the secretary’s files and stuff on the computer and figuring out what she had to do that way, which included dealing with the US Consulate. Dealing with the Consulate sounds easier than it was. It may be the official organ of the US here, but the Consulate is run and staffed by Russians working in Russia, so there is a Russian layer of red tape on top of the US red tape. The thought of going down there alone unnerves me.

We are having trouble getting money to pay our rent by using our credit card here --they will only let us pull a small amount of money out each day—the US banks are automatically skeptical of large amounts being withdrawn in Russia using US cards. That is logical and safe, but Phil thought he had that arranged before he left and he has called the US multiple times to try to get our card to work properly here. Hope that gets fixed soon.

. . .

When we got home tonight, we noticed that a couple of the large pits the gas company work crews had dug out back were now filled in. A good sign. They had also severed the old gas connection to the building that runs through back entrance wall and had connected up a new pipe (but it’s not connected to the main line yet. They were still out there in one of the pits tonight). They did this in a purely Russian manner. They cut the old pipe off and instead of using the access hole in the wall that was already there, it appears they wanted a new hole but didn’t bother to nicely “cut” one; instead they jack-hammered a new hole through the wall about waist high, leaving a jagged, gaping hole with brick and plaster rubble everywhere—it looks like a flying projectile went through there. The sad part is that the guys who had been remodeling our building had just finished putting down new tile in that entrance and had freshly painted the walls two days before. Oh well. But maybe the gas will get turned back on in the next day or two.