Taxi Cab Confessions: Ex-con Driver

Well, the beautiful spring weather didn't hold up that long and by St. Patrick's Day, we had snow again. Lucky for me, Stephanie was prepared to brighten the holiday with a meal of corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, and Irish soda bread, all homemade. She even made some raspberry jam from scratch with some of the berries we had in the freezer from last summer. Combined with some cold cider from our consumables and some company, we had a great St. Patrick's Day.

My other St. Paddy's Day surprise was my ride home in the numbered cab. I got in and tried to buckle my seat belt. The driver, as usual, told me not to worry about it. I, as usual, replied that I wasn't worried about him, it was all the other crazy drivers out there. It's my standard response. This time, however, the driver was right. The seat belt was broken, so it wouldn't have done me any good anyway.

Well, that launched a whole conversation, which began with the driver telling me that he just go out of jail. Not the best opener, but since I was in the car with him, I decided to go along with it. It actually turned out to be a very interesting conversation. The driver spent five years in prison for 'money issues' which could be a lot of things. I'm under no impression that everyone in jail here is a hardened criminal. He talked a lot about conditions in jail, which were about as horrible as I would have imagined. No heat, barely a place to sleep, and no food - your family has to bring food to feed you.

Before he went to prison, he was a soccer coach, but now he has a hard time finding work, hence the taxi gig. It's hard enough for people to find work (half the working population is employed as migrant laborers in Russia), and that's without a criminal record. We had a good discussion and it's experiences like that that make me kind of glad for our car debacle.

On Friday after work, there was a happy hour at the Marine House. We stayed long enough to see our first solar-powered light come on after sunset. It's just the test case for now, but we have a number of them that will be put up around the compound in the coming months. I'm pretty excited about seeing this project come to fruition since I had a big hand in putting it together.

Saturday kicked off our extra long weekend for Navruz. Stephanie and I went to try a new Iranian restaurant. It seemed a little shady at first, but the food was delicious - especially the shashlik, which was some of the best I've had here. We got out and about a bit more today and tried a Chinese restaurant that we hadn't been to before. They had some very good dim sum-style dumplings and there were plenty of leftovers to bring home. The weather has turned pleasant again and we're hoping to see some Navruz celebrations tomorrow and Buzkashi on Tuesday. If our plans work out, there will be plenty of pictures.