New apartment and grocery shopping

Dear friends,

This missive finds me newly installed in my apartment on a busy intersection in Almaty that hosts many fast-moving and noisy cars. It will take some getting used to the intermittent beeping and whoosh. But offsetting that inconvenience is the wonderful view of the city that my sixth-floor apartment affords. The elevator seems more reliable than others I’ve been in. But just in case, and of course for reasons concerning health, I’m committed to walking up and down, except when laden with groceries (concerning which, please see below).

The apartment is an absolute delight. I watched the sun set last night from my living room and rise this morning from my kitchen. The balcony stretches around the building so I can see to the south the Zailiysky Alatau mountains, a spur of the Tian Shan mountains, which boast peaks of almost 25,000 ft. They appear close enough to touch. The owner of my apartment is a young man, perhaps 28 or so, who has kept it in excellent condition. Wood herringbone floors, new throw rugs, and even some Krups appliances will make my stay very pleasant. I’m told that when the Soviet system broke up, all the apartments, which had been state owned, were simply given to the occupants. They now rent them out at outrageous prices and move farther out of town, where rent is more reasonable.

There is the matter of shopping now that I am out of the hotel. I feel safe in saying that in any other country one visits, except for perhaps in Canada, there are choices for goods and foodstuffs that cannot possibly be made on logic but rather faith that it will cook up into something edible and not land one in the hospital. Such was my situation last night when I visited the neighborhood grocery store that is bigger than a mini-mart but half of which is devoted to selling and even serving liquor. A man stood at the ready behind a special counter for eager, thirsty beer drinkers who may want to imbibe while choosing from the array of cookies, meats, cheeses, and yogurts.

Back to the making blind choices part. It brought back memories of my visit to a friend in Paris when I was about 30 years old. I didn’t want to buy lunch at an expensive restaurant, so I went to a market, secure in the knowledge that my years of French would win me a full tummy. While in the market, I spied a counter with ready-made vegetables, much as we have delis in our markets, and thought the beets looked inviting. The saleswoman asked me brusquely how much I wanted. It turned out that French was not my problem but knowing the metric system was. The price was per kilo, but, hey, I’m an American. What do I know from kilos? I felt rushed and embarrassed to be one of those stupid Americans who only solidify the European stereotype of us. Although I didn’t know how much to order, I thought a half kilo sounded like a reasonable amount. So, under pressure not to hold up the line, I squeaked out “un demi kilo, s’il vous plait,” and in a flash she’d dished up quite lot of beets, which I now know was over a pound. I took my purchase back to the apartment, where my friend asked me if I’d intended to buy enough beets for all the French Foreign Legion. As we teachers like to say, this was a teachable moment. I have never looked at beets, nor the metric system, the same way again.

At the store last night, however, my knowledge of the metric system did not help me make decisions about goods that were labeled only in Russian (and some in Kazakh). This would account for my purchase of 100 grams of salt, which I took to be sugar. (That’s about the same amount as a plastic bag of confectioner’s sugar.) I now have enough salt to soak all the cucumbers in Almaty and surrounding environs in brine for the entire year, perhaps longer. I can only hope the salt doesn’t cake into a brick before I get around to my canning.

I managed to buy eggs, bread, and butter (although there were several kinds and I couldn’t decipher the differences among them). From these goods, I was to make my very first dinner in Kz land, which I did accomplish. The bread is not bad at all but the packaging suffers a bit. It comes wrapped in the thinnest plastic known to man and is tied in a knot. It looks as if my Aunt Minnie made it in her kitchen that morning, and perhaps she did. It was cheap, though. A loaf cost about 40 cents, while butter (about as big as a cake of soap or 200 grams) cost a little over a dollar, and the cheese (it was yellow and free of mold, so I bought it, again taking a leap of faith) was about $4.00. So the staples seem to be somewhat tolerable in cost, although digestibility still undetermined. Four little cartons of Dannon’s Activia cost about $2.50. Then came the Big Kahuna – washing machine detergent. It seemed wise to choose from among the products based on cost, since I couldn’t detect whether I would be paying for advertising and slick packaging of one over the other. So, my purchase, which purportedly does 30 loads, cost a bit over $6. Ten eggs (they come in packs of 10, obviously a slam at our American notion of dozen), cost about a $1.25. Not bad. Being unable to verify the quality and provenance of any these goods? Priceless.

I have not used the washing machine yet. It is modeled on the German marks that allow you to use a cycle called “cook wash,” which gives you the opportunity to set the water temp at an astonishing 90 C (something over 200 degrees!) But in case the water temperature doesn’t dispatch the germs and grime, the sheer battering the clothes take in the hour and a half cycle surely will. Clean clothes? You bet. Colorless and threadbare? De rigueur. I think I may stick to soaking stuff overnight if I want to be able to recognize (and wear) it again in its clean state.

My job starts next week (Aug. 18) and we have orientation starting today. I’ll give you a front-row seat as the vagaries and nuances of Kazakh culture and KIMEP unfurl. Thanks for listening.