.oh, Canada

I usually don't blog this much, but since I'm currently living in the capital and am basically surrounded by Internet constantly, might as well. Particularly when I have the brand of randomly awesome times that I had yesterday.

I was at the Peace Corps office when I ran into a Volunteer who was having mondo counterpart and site problems and was pretty down in the dumps. And by "down in the dumps," I mean, "pretty much going to Early Terminate." Part of this whole experience is being everybody else's damage control team. People have done it for me a number of times, when I was set to nuclear meltdown and other Volunteers have plyed me with entertainment, kindness, and the occasional day of substance abuse. When I'm in the position to do it for somebody else, I leap on it.

I ditched on some plans with other friends for lunch to take my woeful friend back to the apartment I'm staying at, after buying some cheeseburgers and chocolate and coffee for lunch and then having her partake in the shower facilities. Especially for Volunteers who live in the village, a chance to take a long, hot shower is the equal to going to a souped-up spa in the States and ordering the special without having to worry about cost. It's a big deal, and being properly clean without having to use buckets can be a great boost to the spirits.

Thus revitalized, my friend went back to Peace Corps to charge headfirst into more meetings about her situation, and I walked over to join my friends who I had ditched on lunch plans with.

That's when we met the Canadians.

We were at a place called Metro Pub, which is not an unusual place to meet foreigners. In fact, it's gotten rather dangerous to go there in certain respects, particularly at night. Lots of people who've walked out of there without taking a taxi have gotten followed and beaten up and robbed. It's not so notorious during the day, but it is pretty expensive, so I've only gone there maybe once or twice during the past six months or so, and never at night. Most of the time, I was living in the village anyway, which gave me a default curfew of 7pm, unless I wanted to fork out a ridiculous amount of cash for a taxi. Which I didn't.

When I walked in my two friends were playing cards at the table with these two other guys. They promptly ordered me a beer and invited me to sit down. Turns out they were playing poker - high stakes poker. 1000 som buy-in, which is about thirty bucks. In comparison, when Volunteers play poker with each other, it's usually a 50 som buy-in. Maybe 100 if it's near the beginning of the month and we've all just gotten paid. Yeah.

But the Canadians were doing all the buying. I wasn't going to play, not with that kind of a buy-in - I enjoy a spot of gambling every now and again, but not with nearly a fourth of my monthly salary. They rolled their eyes, threw a 1000 som note into the pile, and raked some chips at me.

So we played. I also met the head of the golf course in Bishkek, the owner of Metro Pub, and various other bigwig-types around town. The company was good, the beer constantly flowing. At the end of the game, I had made about 4000 som. That's like, 100 dollars. That's like, my entire monthly salary. And I didn't even have to do the buy-in. And they paid for our drinks.

As we were nearabouts falling over ourselves with gratitude, one of the guys says, "Well, next time it comes up say something nice about Canadians, eh?"

So, here it is. I LOVE CANADIANS. CANADA IS AMAZING. CANADA HAS PRETTY DECENT HOCKEY BUT I'M FROM DETROIT SO DETROIT IS STILL BETTER THAN THE CANADIAN TEAMS. SORRY. BUT CANADIANS ARE STILL EFFING COOL. PARTICULARLY WHEN THEY'RE IN KYRGYZSTAN AND FEELING GENEROUS.

Duty thus filled to my gracious partner Canada, we get back to the business of being homeless. And being motherfucking LOADED at the same time. Life is good.