Monday, November 2, 2009

Marching Towards Winter on October 30...Also, It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere...

So now my apartment has now been thoroughly winterized. On Wednesday morning, two of the cleaners from the library trooped into my apartment at 930am to winterize the windows. The process is like this: wash the windows, clean the sills and between the double pains (is it pains or panes...?) of glass (all the windows and doors are in two layers), stuff magazine pages, news paper bits and saw dust between the two window pains (apparently this keeps it warm and stops the windows from frosting over/fogging) and then apply duct or scotch tape liberally to the edges of the windows. It's quite a process. However, I wasn't really around for this whole affair, because as soon as the ladies came in and assessed my apartment they turned to me and started demanding (in Mongolian, neither of them spoke English), flicking their throats with their fingers, beer and American food. So with a heavy sigh, I ran down to the bank then bought beer and mac and cheese stuff. I figured it's a nice gesture to thank them. I've realized that everyone here has very distinct roles (women do the window winterizing but when it came to nailing up my felt on the door, they explained that only men can do that- not a women's job!). So since they wouldn't let me help with the window winterizing, I'd be more in the way than anything, my role was to feed and water, so that's what I did. So now my windows are winterized and my counterpart and the library director came over yesterday and nailed the felt up over my bedroom door so that the heat stays in and concentrated and today my cleaner friends rolled in, waking me up with some seriously violent door knocking, with a rug (thank god they only wanted tea and coffee this time around). I think I just might survive the winter now that I have all the accountramonts. My heat is still sporadic and the hot water has decided to turn off completely but my space heater and I get along just fine (I have a feeling that soon I'm going to love that little heater more than I've loved anything ever before). Also, school has been canceled across the whole country for the second week in a row due to swine flu. Luckily my health seems to have gotten better recently without having to work, as I've been sleeping more, so I feel just fine!

1 comment:

Linda Davick said...

I love reading about your adventures.

p.s. But once your windows have been "winterized," can you no longer see through them?