Riding the Clown Car to Nowhere

I'm plunged in blackness, in the other room the UPS beeps once, twice, then goes silent as it kicks in. I stand still with the large red pot in one hand, the other sliding around inside checking to see if there are any bumps indicating food still stuck. Nothing gives itself away, so I make a half turn to the left where I know the stove is. In the shadows, I see enough to put the pot on the back burner so it can drip dry til morning. 

Minutes later, after I've carefully brushed my teeth with the electric toothbrush that has been blinking yellow on the charge indicator for the last week, I head to the bedroom. My husband is sound asleep, remarkably after napping most of the early evening. I rearrange my pillows, slip my sleep mask under the bottom one, kill a couple of obnoxious little flies so they won't distract me later into thinking they are mosquitoes, and turn on the bedside table light. Then the room goes blank. 

I stand, waiting, not so patiently as I did 7 times ago when the electricity blinked off and back on after its requisite 20+ second interval. I used to count the seconds. It gave me reassurance, somehow, knowing that the generator was set to kick in after 20 seconds. If it didn't, and if after a minute or so we were still waiting for the fridge to hum again, then we knew there was something wrong and H, the maintenance guy, would be on his way to check what had happened. 

Lucky you are to live in this wonderful environment at ______. Far from everything. An unsolicited WhatsApp message had come through the day before, when one of the adjuncts had messaged me asking for the course evaluation link. If he had taken the time to read the email I had sent out, he would have noticed that I had specifically said I was sending it on behalf of the research director and that any questions were to be directed to him. But of course he hadn't, and when I opened up his profile picture I nodded mentally. He's the stupid one, I said to myself, remembering a previous function he had been at, strutting about importantly whilst only showing how ridiculous he really was. 

Why did he feel the need to tell me this? I wondered. And anyhow, he and all his fellow citizens were the ones who had created the problems I now had to live with everyday. Even if I had more reliable electricity, I still didn't have all the privileges I was sure they had, with all their connections. 

After the light returned, I change my mind and turn off the bedside lamp. My husband is safely in dreamland while I have a lot on my mind and it is time to write. The mental itch needs to be scratched just about as bad as the incessantly itchy small red bumps that line my feet and arms. Spring has brought its inevitable hatching of miniature monsters that feed on my flesh, leaving spots of itch behind that refuse to be calmed with aloe. If hell is not a place lined with fire, it will most definitely be a place where mosquitoes, fleas, mites and all the insects in their finest glory will bite and bite you in a room filled with smooth edges. There will be no place to alleviate even the slightest of itches, your teeth will be filed soft, and your hands will be wrapped in soft gloves. 

But I digress. The whole purpose of this blog is to stick in time today's moment of cretinous behavior. It started when we hurried in to Aoun to do our weekly fruit and veg shop. Picking up an orange shopping trolley, we browsed the mayonnaise section. I was overjoyed to find a somewhat affordable squeeze bottle branded "vegan mayo" and looking quite promising. I grabbed a regular one also, in case the vegan one turned out to be more like salad dressing, and put both in the trolley. We pushed it towards the escalator.

I just need mosquito spray, I told my husband, so he dutifully parked the cart around the corner. We rode up to the 2nd floor, found the mosquito spray, he tested it out, checked the price, and then down we went. To where our shopping trolley was, or so we thought. In the 3 minutes it had taken us to go up, get what we needed, and return, the trolley had mysteriously disappeared. My husband hurried around, checking other people's trolleys to see if they had accidentally taken ours. But it was to no avail. I resigned myself to picking up the items again, he went to get another trolley, and we re-parked it by the door to the fruit and veg section. 

When we came back to where our trolley was patiently waiting for us, dropping in our weekly allotment that we had just paid far too much for, I looked at the fish ice chest that was just beside us. There, on top, was a vegan mayo and a regular mayo. Our original mayo that we had chosen. 

So someone came along, decided they needed our cart, took our things out, and off they went, I mused out loud. I can't believe how stupid they are! We finished our shop and as we exited, I thought, I'm going to blog about this later. 

They tell you, when you go as a missionary, that you should never criticize the host culture as it will come across as if you are superior to them. Well, they are wrong. When it comes to common decency and acting like a human, then there are no cultural norms. There is a clear right or wrong and taking someone else's trolley because you are too freakin' lazy to go and pick up your own trolley is wrong. One of the challenges I faced in that store, and face on a regular basis, is the attitude that most people have of entitlement. They feel they are owed everything. 

I see it every day. From people who push past you in line so they can be first, to drivers who cut you off when you are trying to make a turn, to beggars demanding you give them something when you pass them on the street. I hear it in the unspoken words that pass above us, hovering thick in the air, as glances shout that I should give up my meagre pittance of a salary to fund their lavish lifestyles. 

It's past midnight and it's quiet now. I guess the blinking on and off, switching between generator and city power, has ended for now. I'm not sure if I will be able to sleep as insomnia has been laughing at my weary attempts to escape into nothingness for some time now. My arms and feet are still itching with no relief in sight. My mind goes over and over how much we spent on food today—with just a few small plastic bags to show for it. We don't buy ahead anymore but our weekly shop has soared, matching the country's mad hyperinflation. I will need to adjust the budget once more, but then again, why bother when next month it will go up yet again? 

Usually I can wrap up a blogpost neatly with a circular reference to the beginning of the post, or with some meaningful reflection. Tonight, I cannot. I simply have to say, this madness has got to stop, and soon, or it shall take me with it. For good. 

Of Strings and Other Things

It's 6:08 pm. I'm sitting on the sofa, under my pink fleece blanket with the hearts on it, looking out the window. I just spent the last 4 hours preparing one of my classes, I made baked potato wedges and hummus for breakfast, I soaked the dishrack and cutting board in bleach to clean them, and I did 3 loads of laundry, but I feel like I did nothing today. I'm thankful tomorrow is a day off. I don't think I would have the energy to face the world yet. I'm trying to get up my courage to go grocery shopping; there are lines for bread again and I don't know if gas stations have started selling gas or are still closed. 

Some days I switch my brain off and pretend all this chaos doesn't exist. I go to the grocery store and put down a third of my monthly salary, in cash, for a few bags of fruits and veggies, some bread and cheese, and a tray of eggs. Grocery stores started requiring 50% cash if you wanted to pay your bill with a bank debit card, so there's another nail in the coffin of hell. 

Other days, I barely make it through the day without crying; the tears leak out when nobody is around. I sit in the toilet stall in the public restroom, door closed, praying nobody comes in so they won't notice my abnormally long time in the stall as I simply sit there and cry. I calculate and recalculate how much it will take to fill the gas tank; go around the house turning off lights; wash dishes in cold water so we don't use the water heater; and count the days until the next paycheck for wont of something to do. 

My husband and I try to hunt down bargains—going to the bulk store in the poorer part of town—and the cashier doesn't even make eye contact with us as he barks out that he doesn't have sacks of rice to sell. My husband tries to tell him we saw the sacks in the back, but the man refuses to listen. My husband leans in, forcing the man to look at him, as he asks, "How much would it be if you had the sack of rice?" and the man looks away again, in a rude tone of voice reiterating his previous statement and throwing in a, "Go across the street to the Indian store and see if they have any." We leave, vowing never to return. 

As we walk back to the car, we dodge 5 people begging for money in a span of a few meters. An old woman, her head wrapped in bandages, clutching a thin plastic bag with a couple of boxes of medications, holds out her hand. A young mother with a grubby sleeping baby on her lap (is the baby drugged?) pleads with us to give something, anything. A young thin teenager goes from store to store and accosts us as we pass, a single pack of gum in his hand as he tries to sell it for a couple of thousand lira. Not enough to buy a small bag of bread. There are more. Everywhere we turn they are there, desperation in their voice, hardened faces, pleas in a language we don't understand, though one woman, when my husband tells her we do not understand, immediately switches to "money, money" so apparently she knows at least one word in English. 

I berate myself for wearing a long dress as I step over piles of garbage discarded on the sidewalk. No, I am not walking through a dumpster area; I am walking on the public sidewalk but I must dodge discarded used tissues, diapers, rotting food, and animal fecal matter all over the place as I try to reach my destination. I cannot look up; I must keep my gaze fixed on where I place my feet next as I hold my dress high enough to avoid skimming over the refuse. 

People will tell me I have much to be grateful for, which I do, and that I am one of the lucky privileged ones, which I am, and therefore I should not be feeling this way or experiencing these emotions. We do our part to help those in worse situations than ourselves. We keep food bags in our car to hand out to anyone who asks; chocolate bars to give to little beggar children; and cash to tip the baggers at the grocery store even if we only buy enough to fill one bag or two. The difference is, I didn't ask for this and I didn't grow up in this. Perhaps they have lived in crisis mode for so long that they function this way, but I haven't. Right now, in this stage of my life, it is the hardest I have ever lived. Even harder than those first years in California when my parents separated and my mom was figuring out how to provide for her 3 kids as a single-parent. At least then if we went to the grocery store we could buy bread, when we went to the gas station there was gas, and ATMs never ran out of cash.  

My husband comes home and eagerly shows me what he learned at his kermanche lesson. He can play the first line of Amazing Grace and his face lights up with excitement as his fingers move up and down, the horsehair bow teasing out the melody from hesitant strings. "Live in the moment," he always tells me and maybe today, in this moment, he is right. Maybe, in the midst of all we cannot control, this we can. We can decide to have a little joy, share a little laughter, eat some seeds, and shut the world out for a little while longer until we must brave it once again.