28 August 2011 I am too tired to write well so I write numbers.
- Jacket 55 som, trousers 38, shirt 22. A full set 120, with the tie 125. The stalls in front of me wanted 160.
- Sold in 2 weeks: 540 sets, 1,500 shirts.
- Mothers who said "I will come back" and did not: 140.
- Mothers who came back and asked to exchange for a size bigger: 71.
- Hours I slept: I do not know.
Thanks to everyone who bought and everyone who did not. I know your children are growing. So are the prices. 2 August 2011 It is done. 600 sets (jacket and trousers or skirt), 1,800 white shirts (3 each), 400 ties for the little boys. Two lorries, Almaz and his cousin. Almaz called me from the Kazakh side at 10 in the morning: "Kunduz-apa, there are 31 trucks in front of me with uniforms." So I was not the only one with the same idea. Mairam told me: you are not a genius, you are a Talas woman.
31 hours at the border. I went with the lorries this time, in the cab, with the Turkish singer. At night we all got out and a boy from the next lorry played a komuz. Nobody in the line slept, nobody was angry. If you want to see the best of the people go to a border at night.
 Lorries in the line at Khorgos, 2 a.m. The komuz boy is in the shadow.10 June 2011 A problem nobody tells you: children have sizes. I have a tape at the stall and a list from Bakai's friend in the school (age, height, how much they eat). 6 years: 116 cm. 10 years: 140. 15 years: very tall or very small, it is a lottery.
My niece Nurzat, 19, is helping with the lists. She sits with the tape on her shoulder like a tailor and says "stand up, stand up" to every little boy who passes the stall. The boys now run away.
 The size list and the tape. Please do not ask the price yet.14 May 2011 Everyone in the bazaar is talking about the directive: from the new school year all children in Talas and Nurzhan wear navy blue uniforms with a white shirt. All. Ten thousand, twenty thousand, maybe a hundred thousand children.
The Soviet uniform factory died in 1996. The old tailors in Talas make maybe 200 sets a month. Every mother will want a set for a good price in August.
Mairam asked me: do you think this is a good business? I said: I think I bought my ticket yesterday. 5 February 2011 Good. I wrote on my hand and I listened. This year I went in the second week of February, after the Spring Festival, and the market was fresh with new goods. I got the best price for the hats of the whole of my career. A woman with eyebrows like Mongolian horses.
The bus: 26 hours. The border: 3 hours. My knees: 0 comment. |