Wet, wild, and...sticky?

It's been a wet week in Dushanbe with more rain and snow. This kind of weather tends to bring out the 'interesting' side of my commute. One morning, it was raining fairly heavily and I was walking down the street to catch a numbered cab to the gym at the embassy. I need to explain this a little better.

I have to walk to the intersection of the main road (Rudaki) and the road to the embassy (Somoni) to catch a ride. The problem is that police officers (remember, they're looking for bribes, not ensuring orderly traffic), like to hang out near this corner to catch unsuspecting drivers. Because of that, I usually have to walk down a ways past the cops to catch a cab. Usually, if I see police officers, I'll walk on the sidewalk until I'm past them, but there are trees between the street and the sidewalk that prevent me from catching a taxi from the sidewalk. So, since it was raining, and I didn't see a cop, I was walking down the street hoping to catch a cab (they are few and far between early in the morning).

Suddenly, a cop stepped out and told me that I had to walk on the sidewalk. Knowing that was ridiculous, but not thinking it was worth the argument, I complied. No sooner did I start walking, than I saw a cab with the right number on it go by. I missed it. And another one didn't come until about 15 minutes later. 15 minutes of standing in the rain later. 15 MINUTES OF WATCHING OTHER PEOPLE WALK DOWN THE STREET PAST THE COP AND HE DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING TO THEM ABOUT WALKING ON THE SIDEWALK LATER! Not that I was surprised, but that didn't make me any less furious or stop me from cursing the cop ten ways to Timbuktu while I waited. On the bright side, by the time I got to the embassy, I was still angry enough to have a very good workout.

Today, my cab experience was more of a wild ride. No cops in sight and I got a cab right away. But this one turned out to be an old soviet-era car with tiny windows, which were almost opaque with fog because the heat wasn't working. It also smelled heavily of gasoline and I'm almost sure that my seat wasn't fastened to anything. Not my seatbelt, my seat. Nonetheless, one of the good things about going to the gym in the morning is that there isn't a lot of traffic to collide with so it's still fairly safe.

At work, we're finishing up another one of our bi-annual auctions, where we try to save the government some money by selling things we would otherwise throw away. One of the big problems is that the locals like to bid for items, but often don't have the means to pay for them. We think that sometimes, they bid on something they think they can sell and then try to find someone to buy it from them before they'll come and get it. Today, we got one of the most interesting responses I've ever heard of. One of the bidders actually offered to pay us in honey. Apparently, the bid was for over $300 and a liter of honey (a little less than a quart), goes for about 30 somoni, or a little more than $6. So while the offer is tempting, I don't think the embassy has use for more than 10 gallons of honey. But still, points for creativity.

For now, just glad tomorrow is Friday...