Monday, 29 March 2010 12:22
I’ve spent the morning sorting and packing for our trip; now I’m just waiting for Tim to get back from the post office, where he’s wrangling with an officious official over the right to have a friend pick up our mail and packages while we’re gone. I wanted to use this time to write a blog entry, but really what is there to say that I haven’t beaten to death before this? You already know we’re going to
This is really a story about cultural differences more than anything. Last week, the zipper on Tim’s leather jacket broke and it was clear to me that the whole thing needed to be taken out and replaced, something far beyond my meager skills with a needle and thread. In
The first thing I did then, was to call my friend Alla, who often does mending or alterations for us. No, Alla said, she didn’t have the right kind of sewing machine, but she was fairly sure there might be a little leather repair kiosk behind the grocery store on the corner of the street where you turn left for church…. Or maybe not. Maybe that was just leather shoe repair. She couldn’t say exactly. So…strike one.
Next, I remembered that our former teammate Joy W. had left me with a whole list of phone numbers, one of which—I was sure of it—was a leather and fur tailor. Tim called this man, Sergei Vasilievich by name, who moaned and howled and cried down the phone line and generally had Tim to know that he was far, far too sick to work and no, he didn’t know of anyone else in this line of work, please stop bothering him, good-bye. Strike two.
Tim then recalled that Ira, one of his former language helpers, used to be a designer and seamstress for a fashion magazine. He called her, and she said that although she herself didn’t have the right machine for the job, she was fairly certain her friend Albina did. She graciously called Albina herself, as a sort of introduction, and before we knew it, Albina showed up at our house, examined the jacket, pronounced the problem curable, and whisked it off home to work her magic on it. Two days later, she brought the jacket back in perfect repair, and for all that charged us only 500 rubles ($15.) And that is how you get a zipper fixed in
And now Tim is back, having lost the battle at the post office, but ever confident of winning the war. It sounds like we’re going to have to go in search of a notary public to stamp our permission slip so someone can collect our mail for us. I’m sure that someone we know knows of someone else who might know someone who can get the job done.
