So you wait

We are in a small dark hostel room. It doesn’t look at all as a hostel. Is a dark room inside a kind of Arabic chaotic backyard where different families live. The family with more  power or presence rent this room with 12 beds.  We are here just for one reason, the woman of the family has some contacts in the port which is located 70 Km from Baku.  Don’t get me wrong, is a nice place, is like leaving with a family, where the grandma wake you up every morning, because she wants to make sure we are good boys sleeping in our beds and not doing a mess. The doors are always open, we don’t have a key, it’s a complete trust. Sometimes other travelers, weird people (are we too?) spend one or two night to later disappear. As for example this two Iranians with a refugee’s letters doing questions about Europe, and also this Hungarian guy that tried to catch and retain all he could with his eyes. Where did they go? I do not know.

We been here almost for a week. Some days we believe we will leave to Kazakhstan, so some days we wake up and we rapidly pack our things. And then we wait and wait.  I feel like Capitan Benjamin L. Willard waiting for a mission. What do you do when have to be ready to run? You cannot go far, someone might call. Sometimes the telephone rings (first time 10 am in the day) and I look and wait for the woman’s face responses. I try to understand her Azerbaijani words. The language accentuation sounds beautiful, like if the sentences would finish with Chinese accentuation. Our pulse rise. We know that if we have a yes we have to run. She will book the tickets but we have to go pick them up. Later go back to the hostel, fold the bikes, take a taxi and jump down the road to what seems so far an imaginary port. Sometimes the raised excitation and the pure believe that today is going to be the day turns the answer in a complete frustration.

So you wait, so we wait.

And we kill the time. It might be another call between 1 and 3 pm.

I start by doing exercises in our small balcony. Sometimes the neighbor always ready with an smile when I say something to her in Russian walks over me while I do push ups. Later I study Russian. Pedr writes and listens to music. And when we are fed up we walk around.  We go to this small restaurant where we have good food for about 2 Euros. The owner know us, and always come to talk with us. Politics, politics, politics. What do you say in a country where is one say? “I do not speak politics in the table, your wife cooks really good” “is not my wife” “yes she is” “chai” “pashalusta”.  Now he get to know I speak German. “check” “vier manat bitte”. Sometimes when I am pissed about the wait and the country history, I go to this other cafeteria, where the coffee costs as much as the previous meal. Crazy countries. “Sir, do you want a 10 ticket card, last coffee will be for free” “no thanks I leave tomorrow”… I would be so dam close to a free coffee right now.

And no incoming call at afternoon

And then you wait, and then we wait.

And at night we go further away in the streets.

And at night its seems that we been here for eons. And we go for a drink and we know everybody in the bars. “Hey do you wanna come to an exposition tomorrow?” “No, we leave tomorrow” “I would like to do an interview about your trip” “ok we have to do it tonite, I leave tomorrow” “tomorrow we play in this other bar” “I would love to hear you playing the piano but I leave tomorrow”

And at the of the night, sometimes at the begging of the morning you have to come back, and almost in tears you have to say goodbye, because the clock is about the reset, the grandma will wake me up and at 10 the Capitan will call.

And then you wait, and then we wait.