A Small Fortune

Just when you think you have a handle on things around here, something goes completely off the rails. Bacha, who was our cook for the first month, had a rotten experience recently. And while we felt really bad about what happened, the way it played out was so completely turned around from what we would have expected, we also had a good laugh about it. Here’s the story: We have been paying Habiba for food and lodging in 10 day increments, roughly. It was time for us to give her the next installment, and she wasn’t planning to come to the apartment until later in the evening. So she told Bruce to give part of the money, about $400, to Bacha so she could go shopping. He did, and we went off to the orphanage. When we saw Bacha later that day, she seemed like something was wrong. Now, Bacha doesn’t speak a word of English, so there wasn’t much to go on, granted. That evening, she was also subdued. Habiba said she wasn’t feeling well, and had a headache. We suggested she go home.

Then the story came out. Habiba told us that earlier in the day Bacha had gone to the hospital for something. She works there as a nurse, so it wasn’t clear if she had gone as a patient or for work. At any rate, at some point she needed to go to another floor, and left her purse sitting where she had started out. I am sure you can guess the next part- when she went to change money later in the day, two of the four $100 bills were missing from her wallet. This seems like a lot for most people, but this is a substantial amount of money for Kazakhstan, where a 2 bedroom flat will run you $20,000 and a days work might yield $10 if you have a decent job. It represented nearly 3 weeks of work at the wage Habiba was paying her to cook for us. She was devastated, and we were devastated for her. It was what transpired next we couldn’t have guessed though.

After discovering the money missing, Bacha did what anyone would do. Anyone Kazakh that is. She went to the fortune-teller. More on her later. Me, I would have picked the police station. Apparently that never came up, despite the fact that Habiba’s husband is a police officer. The fortune-teller tells her “The money was stolen by one woman at the hospital, and although she feels guilty, she won’t give it back.” We could have told her that for free. This was relayed to me with a totally straight face, so falling on the floor laughing was not an option, despite being my first instinct. There was no question that what she was told was taken with great seriousness, and that they believed there to be deep insight behind the words. It was right up there with the rockets changing the weather. And not whistling indoors, as you will never have money if you do (Jaden is particularly disturbed by this idea, since he just learned to whistle and wants to do it regularly). Or not drinking a cold drink or you will have a sore throat.

Superstition runs deep here, despite the years of Soviet pragmatism. Or perhaps because of it. Jaden and I have been discussing survival strategies of plants and animals a lot lately. Humans put into inhuman situations are faced with the same scenario: develop a survival strategy or perish. The Kazakhs did just that, integrating their folk beliefs and rituals into the everyday, as their religion, culture and language were stripped from them. And although the Russians have pulled out of direct political supervision of the country, their influence is still felt. Many people of Kazakh ethnicity have married people of Russian descent. The result is that Kazakh is no longer spoken in many homes. Islam is making a comeback here, and most people identify as either Muslim or atheist. Just don’t ask them to give up their vodka. The clan units, which were comprised of very extended families are disintegrating, the members no longer being rely on each other as the once could, in a post-Soviet every-man-for-himself survivalist culture.

The reactions seem to me to be two sides of a similar coin. On the one, you focus on the small, the controllable. Don’t drink cold drinks. Don’t whistle inside. On the other side you focus on the mystical, the things that cannot be controlled. People wear amulets to protect them and hang up talisman’s to ward off the evil eye. I was told to put one on Jaden because Kazakh people fear beautiful children, and might put an evil eye on him. It was the fortune-teller who told me this, mind you. Feng-Shui is very in vogue here. And people’s business is kept on the down-low. You don’t talk about your business, you keep a low profile. Every question has 3 different answers, nothing is as it seems. They still refer to the Kazakh version of the FBI as the KGB, despite the fact that the KGB has not been a fixture here for over 15 years. It is akin to a child who has been mistreated and has learned to look over their shoulder and protect themselves, and continues long after the need has passed.

Bacha went to Almaty to escort a child who is being adopted, and who’s parents are picking her up there after the paperwork is all finished. In her absence our new cook is none other than the fortune-teller. Who also happens to be the vice-principal of the largest school in Arkalyk. Her school is 1st –11th grades and has over 1100 children and 70 teachers. And the director of a very big summer camp near Astana. She employs several of Habiba’s friends and family at the summer camp. She took a week off of work to be our cook. Habiba says she simply wants the chance to work with Americans. Zoula is a big personality, full of fun and laughing constantly, a great spark in our days. She analyzed our birthday’s one day with the Enneagram. After looking at Jaden’s and with the help of the dictionary she announced he is an “energy vampire.” I was laughing for days. 15 minutes with Jaden will tell you that. She has a son Jaden’s age, and has taken to Jaden. She calls out to him constantly, and he will hang out and talk to her, although her English is very limited.

The other night Jaden and I went to Zoula’s apartment so Jaden could play with her son, Batik. While there, she asked if I wanted my fortune told. I would never pass up such an offer. She whips out a plastic page protector for a 3-ring binder, filled with scraps of paper from books, cards, coins and the like. From this came a deck of Special Fortune-Telling Cards and she asked me to cut them. Then she laid them out and looked for images that fit together between the cards. This she repeated 3 times. After which she carefully consulted the cardboard strip that the cards had come in and wrote a list of words in Russian. The next step necessitated the dictionary, and lots of muttering and thumbing. When she finished, she proudly presented me with a list of words: Road, walk, disappointment, regain sight, happiness, wealth, and money. Naturally, I felt most enlightened by this list.

To get a better read on things, she needed a blue pen and my palm. Zoula traced my lifeline carefully, bending my hand this way and that to make sure of accuracy. There were two triangular shaped areas on my lifeline that she informed me were ‘operations’, the biggest will be when I am 65 she says. I know you are all relieved to learn I will survive the operation, and live to be 86 years old. I know I was. Not so thrilled about the surgeries though. I am going to start looking into alternatives as soon as I get home. Feeling that there was still territory unexplored, she told me to throw the I-Ching coins. Or the 3 10-cent Tenge pieces, in this case. She counted carefully, and consulted some pages she had ripped out of a book with the descriptions of the results. At this point it became necessary to call Galina, who was our first translator, as you may remember. She asked Galina to translate, and proceeded to read her the words from the page. I had images of her buying a “Tell the Future and Amaze Your Friends!!” booklet in a dime store.

Apart from the translator, it was like a goofy evening you might have spent with a friend back in high-school. Without the beer. In the end, it turns out the coins say “everything will turn out alright.” According to Habiba, Zoula is ‘never wrong’. Of course, Habiba called Bacha in Almaty the other day to ask her to ‘throw the peach pits’ to see what will happen with our family, as she is nervous about Tuma’s mother. Apparently this is Bacha’s method of foreseeing the future. And she just so happened to have her peach pits with her in Almaty. Habiba said she has done it for ‘more than 10 families’ and is very accurate. She also says everything will be OK. So it must be true. We go to court on Monday, to face the judge and her decision about whether we will be allowed to adopt the child formerly known as ‘Tuma’ (for more on Tuma and his new name, see Jaden’s post at http://www.kazbrother.blogspot.com/). I hope the Fortune Teller’s arts are as magical as everyone here believes them to be. We will let you know on Monday night. Cross your fingers for us!

"You expect me to answer to WHAT?!?!"