Momtaz

I bought an electric heater for the apartment that I didn’t end up living in. On it is written “Super Electric Momtaz.” I wasn’t exactly sure what a momtaz was, but I figured if it kept me warm, it was ok by me. Since then I've moved to a nice apartment (heats itself! magic!) but have joined the team of "PCV's for free housing." Here's the deal--most peace corps countries provide housing fo the volunteers. For example, in Zambia, the village receiving a volunteer builds a home for them to use. Here, not only do they not give us homes, but we frequently get kicked out of where we are staying for one or more of the following reasons.

1) KNB put enough pressure on landlord, including asking for pictures of her children, so she kicks you out herself.

2) KNB comes late at night to try themselves to scare you by asking questions and "checking" documents.

3) Someone who is in line for a government apartment knows you are living in one (not allowed, it should only be the assigned family, but they build new houses and keep the old as their kids' future place--actual private apartments are expensive and hard to find.) and they call whoever they can to get you out so they can move up on the list.

4) Peace Corps itself tacks some strange qualification onto the ones you already have, making your apartment unacceptable.

So I'm not in the old apartment. Now I am going to pay more than my stipend to live in one of PC's reported 3 "safe" blocks in my city of 100,000 people. Now I'm not only a volunteer--I'm paying Turkmenistan out of pocket to let me work. At least I still have my momtaz and a lock on my door to hide from all the frustration