Taxi Incidents.

written January 27, 2009

Incident Number 1:

I went to Shymkent this past weekend (the locals call it the Texas of Kazakhstan) for my friend Joe's birthday. On a taxi on my way back to Merke on Sunday night, I was drifting in and out of sleep. At one point the driver nudged my legs, waking me up. He was trying to open the glove compartment. He pulled a can of air freshener out of the glove compartment. He sprayed it in his lap and then liberally throughout the front of the taxi. As he was spraying, he smiled sheepishly and apologized. I was literally choking on the air freshener fumes but also partly as a result of trying to stifle my laughter.

My taxi driver farted. :)

Sometimes I think I'm thirteen.

when I told my friend Joe about the incident, he mentioned that he probably could have just rolled down the window and accomplished the same result, which I hadn't even considered at the time. But I think that the fact that he had a can of air freshener on hand for such and incident was entertaining.

Incident Number 2:

Yesterday, the weather was particularly cold in Merke. The kind of cold where your whole face just freezes and your eyes hurt from the cold. Because I'm a wuss, I decided to take a taxi home from school instead of walking (it only costs 40 tenge - less than 40 US Cents). As the taxi pulled over to the side of the road, I opened the back door forcing the woman who was sitting there to have to slide over. I was about to apologize for making her move, when the woman made eye contact with me and loudly exclaimed (in English), "I've been hoping to meet you! Let's speak in English". I soon learned that she was an English teacher at another school in Merke, and had obviously heard about the new American living in Merke.

It's a very bizarre experience to climb into a cab and have the stranger in the back seat know all about you. I hadn't even spoken yet (which almost always gives away my foreigner status) and I can usually slide by as Russian if I don't open my mouth. But this woman knew instantly (having never met me or seen me before) that I was "Merke's American".