Weekend with the Police Part 2
Part 2 The ending They point me to a store and tell me to go buy my water. Ok. I can handle that. There is a store in the middle of a mud slop. The only regret I will have is not having my camera. Now, you may be thinking why did I leave you hanging like that only to leave this little tag as the ender to the story. Never, there is still more… Now we have had rain and snow, on and off pretty consistently for the past, oh, I don't know, three months. So everything is pretty much wet. The only parts that aren't mud, are the parts that have frozen from the snow, ice, and cold weather we have had following the rain. Keep this in mind too. I am ordered back into the backseat of the Lada, where Drunk man, who doesn't have his documents, sits on one side, Officer #2 in the middle and me on the other side. Officer # 2 is not a small man, by any stretch of the imagination. He was probably about 6'3" and weighed in around 240. Needless to say from my early descriptions of Lada's, and all things Lada like in this country, there isn't really a whole lot of room for many people in the back seats of a Lada, especially when they are the size of this officer and me. But, we fit and drive down the alley. I realize that the alley is a storage container type area, similar to those in the States, only with more mud. We get through the second third of the alley only to discover that some fool has parked his car in the middle of the alley. Decision time: What do you do? There is a car on one side, EVERYTHING is mud, a metal pole on the other side. Do you A) try to find the driver? B) Try to drive around somewhere else? Or C) Try to squeeze through, risking hitting the car, the pole and getting stuck? Survey says… We cops, first A, then C. Enter officer # 3. This young fellow must have been on some kind of ride along program because he couldn't have been more than 16 or 17 years old. But he is sent to first try and find the driver of the car. As he searches, the BMIL (Big Man in Lada) tries to make the loudspeaker work, to no avail. Finally he gives up, well they both give up, and the decision is reached to drive through the slop and in between the two obstacles and try to make it through. Now I will give them all A's for effort. There was plenty of room to fit, had it not been for the mud. First try is a no go, and the driver almost gets stuck on the first try. He backed up and gave it a second go. This time, he is only making the mudpit sloppier, as the driver comes running up to move the car. The car is moved, but the damage is done. The Lada is buried on one side, almost to the floorboards, in mud. Once again I am ordered out of the car. I don't know why, but I figured since I was there, I might as well help push. Between the driver, the young officer and half the help of the other officer (he really was working harder to keep the drunk gentleman in the Lada, then he was at pushing) we get the Lada unstuck, and back on the road to the Soho club. Upon arrival, the senior officer steps from the car, and escorts me to the front door, where the owner happens to be standing. Police Officer: "Kazakh Male greeting" Asaloumahalakum (pron). Owner: Owalekumassalaum. PO: Is he with his friends inside? O: Yes there are American's inside. PO: (to me) you may go. I walk inside the door, to discover the hatcheck lady wants to refuse to let me take my hard earned water into the building. HCL: You cannot take that. Me: Yes, I must. HCL: It is not allowed. PO: (Who has followed me in the door) He shall pass without problems (rough translation). So I walk in with my water, and sit down to the ice cream that I had ordered before leaving, which had taken so to be delivered that it had just arrived before I did. Commentary from the Gallery… Angela: (Nice PCV) Wow, it sure took a long time to get that water. Me: Boy do I have a story for you all…If you want, you can go back to the top and read it all again… So the moral of the story is: You can be plastered out of you mind in Uralsk, Kazakhstan, drinking from open bottles in the middle of the street, as long as you have 1) identification and 2) a coat. Maybe the moral should be Drink Beer, Vodka, or Mineral water. If you are thirsty, and don't want any of these options, deal with it.
