Whilst lying facedown on the floor I did wonder how I managed up in this position. This was not a philosophical reflection but rather amazement due to my limited knowledge of Russian and in particular the phrase “lie facefirst down on the floor”. I knew at the time that of course everything would eventually get resolved and that it was only a matter of time before one of the local Russian speakers came and sorted the whole thing out and yet at the same time the whole thing still left me rather uncomfortable (you try lying on your stomach after having a gun pointed at your face.)
I had popped into the school earlier that night so that I could print of the material I needed for my lesson the next morning. I had tried to arrange this visit for earlier in the evening. However after several unsuccessful phone calls to a fellow teacher, I defaulted to another teacher and managed to acquire a key and a pass code to type in. After punching in the code for the first time the buzzing noise continued with the occasional flashing of one the lights. I knew I had been unsuccessful with my first attempt, yet unretired I typed in the code again and the noise stopped. “Success! I’m in!” were two such foolish thoughts that crossed my mind whilst I choose to ignore the continuing flashing lights on the panel.
After a little while I heard the alarm box [from the next room] reinitiate its buzzing noise and my stomach instantly sunk! I obviously hadn’t entered the code correctly in the first instant, hadn’t completed the process or some other silly mistake. I once again proceeded to type on the keypad the same code I had been given before and yet this time it just would not accept what I was pressing.
I started to experiment and ended up pressing the * key as well which resulted in the buzzing stopping and this time no lights being on the display….Surely this meant that I had dotted the I’s and crossed the T’s necessary to avoid a visit from the local security force.
As it turned out I hadn’t. I would love to tell you what I did wrong but it appears that actually the pass code I was given just didn’t work. As little as 10 minutes later (barely enough time for me to get the television to the doorway) I heard the soft jingle of the door as it swung open. As I came round the corner to see who had entered at this time (suspecting the strong possibility of private security forces being there) I saw a gun held aloft and pointed towards me.
I can honestly say I have never had such a terrifying experience as seeing a man wearing camouflage clothing, speaking in Russian, pointing a gun at me and barking instructions that I just didn’t understand.
As such I put my hands against the wall [well that’s what they all have to do in America] and then the security person assisted my understanding of his instructions by helping me to comply with positioning myself on the floor. Of course not one to be deprived of an opportunity to speak Russian I preceded to try and explain that I worked there, has planning a lesson, that I had the code [which wasn’t the correct one, but I didn’t know that] and tried to understand what words came my way. [not knowing the word for typed in/entered/other such word for inputting an alarm code] I wasn’t very successful in my attempts. And so waited on the floor until the ever helpful Oleg arrived and I was released to carry on my mischief lesson planning.
No comments:
Post a Comment