It was 10 pm, it was 10 degrees, and my girlfriend and I were locked out of our apartment building—barred by a closed door and a set of buttons, four of which required pressing in some unknown sequence.“We’ll systematically try combinations,” I told her. “There are only eight buttons—it’s just a matter of time before this works.”
Bijani suggested we go to the Emergency Services Department next door and ask for help; I started pressing buttons. Ultimately, I couldn’t keep track of the combinations I tried, so we went to a restaurant, hoping some longtime resident would open the door meanwhile. 20 minutes later, we returned. I pressed more buttons.
Eventually, my fingers froze up and we walked over to the Rescue Station. I found the words for ‘lock’ and ‘building’ in my Mongolian phrase book and after some pointing and smiling, two uniformed men very kindly agreed to accompany us.
Rescue… Men
Our new friends walked purposefully to our apartment and got out their flashlights where they looked the door over. They began trying combinations.
Neither one wore a jacket, but they stood there pressing buttons, and when that didn’t work, they walked around to nearby buildings, asking people if they knew how to get into our wing of the complex. A little after 11:00 they went back to the station, returning minutes later with three guys in orange jumpsuits. The six of us (Bijani had gone back to the Police station) shone our flashlights on the door. After a lengthy discussion, the newcomers started trying combinations, systematically.
When this tactic failed, we all started pulling on the door really hard, and finally we hit on an idea with some promise. One of the officers ran to the station, quickly rejoining us a hammer. As the rest pulled, he wedged it into the latch and with a pop, pried it open.
I went upstairs, comforted by the heat and the impression that guys everywhere are all the same. Bijani suggested we buy our rescuers some vodka, but they were on duty. I ran to the grocery store below our apartment and bought them a cake.
B-lighted
This event was the week’s highpoint. Later on we were briefly fired and my visa, which showed no potential for an extension, was set to expire. I felt bad for myself and, for the first time since I tricked her into coming here, I felt bad for Bijani for the following reasons.
A) I’d become a miserable cheapskate
B) Fun is a 14-hour workday, for me
C) She’d be alone here when I got deported
Then again, nobody is perfect. I set about looking for a loophole in the visa regulations. My original plan was to overstay my visa and go into hiding, but Bijani pointed out that the odds in favor of disappearing in a three-million person country are not great. Plan B, a train-trip to China, fell through when I couldn’t get a Chinese visa in time, so I booked a last-minute flight to Korea.
One of the advantages of living in a small country like Mongolia is that airfare barely costs more if you buy it the day of a flight. One of the disadvantages is that all the local currency you bring with you hoping to exchange it at Seoul International airport becomes worthless the minute you leave Mongolia. No one would touch it.
Redeemption
After two days in Korea, I flew back to Chinggis Khan International and received another three months on my tourist visa. Of course, this whole expedition was costly, but then, it turns out, I’m only a cheapskate when it comes to going out to dinner.
In order for us to stay and to pay for my expensive mistakes, we’ve both had to get second jobs as teachers, which hasn’t made things easier. And then we still face our share of problems at the paper and in day to day life.But then, I tell myself, living in a foreign country, on your own for the first time, isn’t really any different than camping. Nothing goes the way you expect; there’s always work to be done and you constantly have to improvise and make do, but then, that’s the fun. Most days, I believe this, and in the end, I like it. Every so often, however, it requires some convincing .
