Fun fact: Our school serves dinner rolls to the kids for dessert. They are rather sweet and the kids love them.
So, Tuesday I get back to school after the Moscow trip and head to the accounting office with my calculator to pick up my pay envelope. Hmmmm, I come up quite a bit short. When I point this out, the ladies say that’s what they were told by the boss and he is on vacation till the 10th. I tell them I will be back then. Later that afternoon, as I’m sitting in the room with my hand in a batch of home-made play dough that I’m mixing up, in comes one of the ladies and says that they called the boss at his vacation spot and asked for clarification. I should come and sign for the rest of my pay. I tell her I’m not coming down now with my hand full of blue play dough, I’ll be down later. Okay. I hop on down with my trusty calculator when I’m finished, pick up the rest of my money and calculate. I’m still $6 short. Oh, they say. We deducted 500 rubles for your meals. You did WHAT? You didn’t do that in September, why would you do that now. And I’m supposed to be apply to eat at school for free. Nope, they’re not buying it.
I go home that afternoon and get out my contract. There it is in black and white that I’m supposed to be able to eat at school for free (especially since kindergarten teachers are required to eat with the children). Wednesday I go back to the accounting office armed with my trusty calculator AND my contract and get my 500 rubles back. Don’t mess with my pay stub, people.
We had a pirate party at school on Wednesday where the kids got to dress up and yesterday I hid a “buried treasure” in the classroom. They had fun doing that. This coming week we’re still going to talking about jungle animals so we’re going to make binoculars out of toilet paper rolls to be able to “see” them better in the distance.
Today was another bureaucratic journey to the tax office and the police station this morning. The guy from school went with us to translate and fill out forms. There were Sonia, Matthew and me at the tax office and Emma joined us later at the police station. This was, without a doubt the most modern-looking Russian office I have been in so far.
Everyone who works in Russia must have a tax number. The big boss needs it to pay our taxes. Also, It qualifies a person to collect a pension from the Russian government later. That would be a hoot. If it means working 40 quarters like in the States, forget it.
Immediately after the tax office, we walked over to the police station. We all marched into one little office where they took our passports and migration papers separately and recorded the, in a book and on the computer. Don’t ask me why. I don’t even know why we had to appear personally. But it kept me out of class for the morning.
We were gone from 8:30 tp 11:30. Between waiting in government offices and traffic here, you probably lose three years of your life.
But that wasn’t the end of our exciting day. Before we can go to our physical next week, we had to have chest X-rays to show that we don’t have TB. So, at 5:30 we all hike over to the clinic where I had my blood work done to control for my med dosage a few weeks ago. Sonia and I got to go first, which meant we both were told to go into this sort of locker room together and strip to the waist. No separate cabinets, no privacy, just strip. It didn’t take 5 minutes for the both of us.
On the way out of the clinic we stopped at the pharmacy counter to buy the specimen bottles we will need to fill up and take with us on Wednesday. Oh, joy. They make teachers go through all this, which is fine, but the food servers don’t have to wear gloves and they give food that one kid doesn’t finish to another kid. That seems sort of counterproductive.
Now I’m just relaxing and looking forward to the weekend. Tomorrow night we’re headed for a baseball game and Sunday I’d love to see the movie “Mathilda”, about the czar who had the affair with the ballet dancer. I’m hoping I’ll find it somewhere with English subtitles.
Two interesting little asides. I bought what I thought was cherry jelly and it turned out to be red currant. It’s absolutely delicious.
The other thing is, the boss’s three-year-old son is in my class. The family was on vacation in Turkey for a week. At the breakfast buffet the kid must have gone up to the waiter and said, “Excuse me. Juice, please.” So it seems total immersion in a language does pay off. The kid was certainly not afraid to use his English.
I’ll fill you in tomorrow and shopping, basketball and other adventures.
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