Day 45

Fighting over the milkshake

Running battles in Kazakhstan

In light of recent events in Ukraine, this may be too provocative a title. I want to reflect on other battles occurring around the world. This time it’s against the elements in Astana and keeping a family intact.

A number of text messages flooded the phone this morning, all talking (we presume) about change in weather. Getting all the children kitted up then having to wait 20 minutes for the taxi to arrive didn’t help their moods. We headed out to the Yamaha store, not knowing if it still existed. I suppose we could have emailed or dared to phone. Nevertheless, the wind had picked up and was driving the dry snow across the cityscape. Not sufficient for whiteout, but we had to walk the kids backwards to the taxi. I don’t know why drivers insist on doing so, but if a car in front is waiting for a car in front to move before it does, why does our taxi driver insist on beeping? Moreover, with conditions as severe as they were, why drive at high speed? Thankfully the store was open, though once again we had to walk the children backwards into the store through rapidly moving drifts. There were a beautiful array of shining saxophones, dazzling drums and kinky keyboards. Okay, not quite kinky.

After trying to keep the children under wraps, preventing them from smashing the drums or each other, we try and predict how long before we need to call for a cab. Waiting outside is simply not an option. But keeping children inside when they are fed up, tired and starting to snipe at each other, when the store staff are watching your every move, doesn’t feel like an option either. Thankfully Mad Max, our previous taxi driver, was straight back to move us on to the next destination.

One crazy ride beyond the thunderdome and we’re viewing guitars and DVDs at the Mega store, accompanied by a KFC. Spent the time trying to reason with Kyria that water should be pronounced water and not war'ha. I think she gets it from her mother who recently was disgusted by the frozen chips I had got from the supermarket only to realize after extensive sniffing of each chip that the mayonnaise had some form of weird herb. Anyway, I’m not sure why, but our children’s sound levels have increased. Not sure if it was due to a barometric pressure change or the guy who decided not to offer his services in selling guitars, but play his electric at ridiculous volumes. Then we had to wait for a third taxi. We had the children ready to go, but more delays. This time trying to find the taxi proved challenging. I had run around the busy car park trying to find the right number plate and noticed the wind had picked up and the temperature had dropped. From minus 5 to minus 25. I eventually found the taxi, 10 minutes late, and brought the family out. 30 seconds in high wind and low temperature reduced Rebekah to tears. Thankfully the taxi driver tried to help by carrying the shopping, open the doors for the kids to get in and then dump the bags on top of Ali.

Getting everyone back indoors at Riverside to warm up, one is left with the sense that for a Saturday it had taken a lot of energy to ensure the kids were warm, protected, fed, safe, that we were in the right places with enough resources to battle the elements. I somewhat forgot this as I still had to pick up some water, so had stepped out quickly to find 20 litres. But hadn’t got my complete cold gear on. Walking out felt like my face was being slowly sliced. There is no denying it that the weather here can be brutal. One cannot afford any slip ups, even for a brief moment. We survived the day, but the battle against the weather in Astana continues.

Ray