Special Delivery

This story begins with first knowing how territorial Tom and I are about our laptops and that we keep buying clothes we didn’t pack but managed to bring two laptops so we could each use one. Tom and I are both Mac people but he’s been working on a firm loaner PC and I’ve been using the MacBook.

On day 2 here, after settling in we were ready to sign in using the telephone line when we realized that Apple has done away with its internal telephone modem and the Mac needs to use an external modem. What did Apple think – that dial-up is a thing of the past? I hated that I screwed up like that, but nonetheless it was over looked. So in hindsight it was good that we had two computers and when Tom has not been using it I was able to blog and email.

When Tom decided that he would work out of an office in Almaty, leaving this Sunday -- I almost panicked to think I wouldn’t be able to go online for a whole three weeks. I should mention that he did offer to switch with me because where he is going he will have high speed and I could work from his PC, but as you all know I am a snob about my Mac so we needed to find the Apple USB modem, which could be bought in any BestBuy in America for forty bucks. Tom did what he does and phoned one of his contacts in Almaty who found the one store there that had the modem. Of course, cash and carry only, which then made delivery an issue (KazPost could have gotten it to Arkalyk in three weeks).

So here’s how you get precious cargo from Almaty to Arkalyk in 2007: follow the bouncing ball: We asked Khabiba, who informed us that Aunt Baccha has a son who goes to school in Almaty who occasionally helps in these circumstances. We gave Baccha the money for the modem, plus money for the conductors of the trains between Almaty and Arkalyk. She deposited the money into her bank account and transferred it to him in Almaty, which he would use to make the purchase and send it along. He was going to give it to the conductor of the train from Almaty to Astana, who would give it to the conductor of the Astana-Arkalyk train for delivery here. Instead of doing that, he found a passenger on the train going the whole distance and paid her slightly less than the conductors’ fees for her assistance and it was on its way. Four days later Khabiba was scheduled to be at the Arkalyk station at 7:30 am for the train’s arrival and find this woman and retrieve my Mac modem. Anyway the hand-off did not happen as planned, but luckily Khabiba knew this woman and knew she would be at the stall she owned in the market when it opened at 10am and found her there. Of course, the woman wanted a little extra money “for some chocolate” which made up for the discount from the conductors’ fees but believe me, for this small plastic box she could have all the chocolate she wanted. So the story goes – I now have my external modem and will happily be working from my Apple Mac book – Yahoo! here I come.
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