Evicted in Tajikistan

Was I complaining about an uneventful routine? The tides have changed, believe me! Right now I have so much to report that I have a backlog of at least five evening filling blog entries. Family trip to the east. Horse festival in Murghab. Roof of the World Festival in Khorog, Multimedia workshop at the University of Central Asia and... oh yeah, we got evicted! Und das kam so:

After 10 days of dust and mongolia type lunar landscapes (*insert blog entry #2 & 3) the entire Paley clan (Dominique, Isabelle, Matthieu, Iluka and myself) finally returned, dirty, yet happy, to their respective apartments in the heart of Khorog. Little did we know that unpacking and finally taking that much-needed shower was not on the agenda – our landlady had decided that we need to leave. Now. Immediately. No, not next week, no, not after tomorrow, no, not tomorrow morning. After 3 hours of pleading and discussions, her gracious deadline was 8pm that same day.

Sounds like there is something missing? Well, yeah, of course, it's a looong story... let me think how to put this in a few words: A] our landlady was a lying, evil person and B] cultural differences and maybe a tad bit of overreaction from our side did the rest. Despite us having one of the more luxurious apartments in town (eg. working toilet flush, no broken windows) we had dared to complain. The shower was spraying water everywhere, but on your bodyparts, the toilet door would not close, the kitchen chairs had broken into several pieces when we first had sat on them (Iluka, not Matthieu!) and door handles would regularly end up in our hands. "No problem", exclaimed the landlady when we moved in 3 months ago. "I will send someone tomorrow".

One month later...

The landlady comes to collect the rent. We take the occasion to point out that nothing had been fixed yet. Suddenly, we find ourselves in front of a fluttering, screaming wild animal. We gather from the bits of understandable sound bites that it must be terribly difficult, if not impossible to find a handyman in Khorog. "Fine.", we try to calm her down. "Just keep on trying. And maybe next time don't say you'll send someone tomorrow..."

One week later. 7am.

A knock at the door. Matthieu opens and a guy with a plastic bag full of tools storms into the flat. He identifies himself as the 'ustad', the master, and inspects toilet door and shower. He'll be back at 9am, he says and leaves his tools behind. We never saw him again.

Three weeks later...

The landlady comes to collect the rent. Since she never (except on the day she kicked us out) shows up on the agreed time, a few days pass where we miss each other or the rent money is with Tanja (who's at work), when evil bitch suddenly shows up and vice versa. When she starts accusing us of not wanting to pay, we dare to mention the repair works. By now we sense that it's difficult to have a normal, common sense discussion with her. Eventually we manage to get her her money.

Around July 15th (Tanja is alone at home and possibly in a bad mood?)

The landlady comes to collect the rent. Tanja is prepared: "Here is half the rent. You will get the other half when the stuff is repaired." A fight breaks out (details omitted due to their sensitive nature). The outcome: 3 homeless foreigners + child, looking for affordable place to live. Prefer not to share Russian apartment with family of 8. Will accept broken shower.