Be still, my beating heart! I’ve caught the ear of someone in the Tatarstan government! Now I’ll be able to lay out all my ideas for bicycle projects in Kazan.
But let’s start with Monday. I met Dmitry for coffe again at Coffee Bean cafe. This guy knows a tremendous amount about the architecture in Kazan and also knows who gets away without paying taxes. Of course, it mostly the rich people who could afford to pay the taxes.
Then came Tuesday. Sonia and I had to go to the immigration office with Linar in the morning because Linar was sure we had to extend our immigration cards even though our visas had already been extended. I had asked Ravil about it since, being from Uzbekistan, he faces the same situation. He said it wasn’t true. His immigration cards often expire but as long as the visa has the right dates, everything is cool. Linar and Sonia were of another opinion, so off we trundled Tuesday morning to the immigration office across town. We were a little early, which was a good thing. We were third in line and by the time the doors were unlocked, there were about 20 people behind us. We were the first ones in the office responsible for us. Linar explained the situation, the guy looked at our papers and said.....it doesn’t matter what date is one the immigration form as long as the date on the visa is correct!! So we got a taxi back to school and life went on as usual.
But the absolute BEST thing about Tuesday was this. A couple of my dads hold high positions in the government. One family in particular is very supportive of my bike ideas. The wife came in that morning with a phone number and told me to call Mrs. Fishman that evening. She wanted to hear my proposals. Now, I’ve been hearing about the legendary Mrs. Fishman for two years. She’s responsible for the parks in Kazan and created a lovely bike trail with a pump track in the newest park in Kazan not far from me. You BET I’ll call Mrs. Fishman. Her English was great. She referred me directly to a guy in the Ministry of Transportation who is responsible for bike lanes and amenities. You BET I’ll call Mr. Kadyrov.
So I get Mr. Kadyrov on the phone, we talk a little bit (His English is also excellent!) and then he says, “Don’t I know you?” I replied that, if he was the man who gave a talk about bicycle infrastructure in Kazan to the Rotary Club a few months ago, then yes, he knew me. Yup, one and the same guy. So he wants to meet up with me tomorrow or Saturday. It’s going to be a very short notice thing, depending on when he has time. This is amazing. How many other countries take the time to listen to what their immigrants say? America, take notice. Everyone’s a foreigner somewhere and we’re not all bad people! It took me a long to fall asleep after that because I kept making notes about what I wanted to talk to him about.
Wednesday was table tennis day. It was Paul, Marat, Ravil and me. I’m still not smoking anybody, but I certainly have improved. I work on my backhand serve last night.
Today in school I asked the science teacher upstairs to help us with a science experiment we tried that failed. We had taken sugar and baking soda and put it on sand that had been saturated with lighter fluid. Then we tried to light it to make a carbon snake. The only problem was, when we tried to light it last week with simple matches, we couldn’t maintain a flame. She came out with a damned propane torch! That did the trick. Of course the kids loved it. They got to wear safety goggles and set stuff on fire. It couldn’t have worked out better.
Coming home from school this evening, I ran into Jenn at our little store. We decided to walk to McDonald’s for some ice cream after supper. It was a nice walk on a pleasant evening. But it also showed me that I have to get some sort of ice pack for my foot because, after I’ve been on my feet all day, the ankle that I injured in Almetyevsk is still very sore at night. I have a pack of ice cubes on it now.
No comments:
Post a Comment