This morning, we were at it again. Purchasing parts and installing a satellite radio receiver, this time at a foster home in another part of Almaty. That meant more driving. A lot more. Nurlan is considered a very cautious driver. Rudi praised his driving skills on several occasions, sometimes by comparison to Janysh who, though very responsible, is "a younger driver". Yet even riding along with a good driver in Almaty is an experience. It's a little bit like riding a hummingbird through an acid rainstorm. Personally, I find it delightful, as a lover of chaos (because it provides the most interesting subject matter), a lover of thrill and adventure (and roller coasters), and a lover of assertive driving. Few would find it as delightful as I do, however. Were my mother to ride along with the cautious Nurlan, it wouldn't be 5 minutes before Nurlan would have to change course and head for the hospital to tend to her cardiac arrest. At one point, we were traveling along a side street and needed to cross to the other side of a major thoroughfare with three lanes in each direction and two trolley rails in the center, which people drive on anyway, because 6 lanes is not nearly enough. (If I was driving here, I would do the same–braving death via trolley collision seems favorable compared to braving psychosis-laced boredom via gridlock.) There would never ever in many hundreds of millions of years have ever been enough of a gap in traffic for us ever to have crossed all 6 lanes and two trolley rails, ever. So Nurlan just dropped his right-hand drive 1989 Subaru station wagon into first gear and headed out into the fray. It was very much like frogger. You remember frogger, right? It was an old computer game in which you control a frog in the attempt to jump across a busy street dodging cars, and then across a river on swiftly traveling logs, eventually reaching your final destination in a cave on the other side of the river which may or may not contain an alligator. We drove out into the traffic, advancing lane-by-lane. The perpendicular traffic would have to stop for us and we would cause further back-up in whichever lane we were blocking, until we were able to pull forward into the next row of cars. And drivers only stop out of necessity, not out of courtesy. So the next row of cars would keep moving until Nurlan pulled the front end of the Subaru into their path. The entire process took at least 10 minutes. Safely on the other side, we hopped our frog into its cave (because of course frogs live in caves), and parked the car. This cave was occupied by an electronics store rather than an alligator. We purchased parts as we had yesterday, but for less money, and this time without anyone yelling at me to put the camera away.
My camera is not the only camera in town, either. A couple of years ago, they installed traffic cameras everywhere around the city. These aren't just red light cameras. These cameras can catch you doing anything, red lights, speeding, not following the lines, running stops, etc… and then they mail you a ticket. That kind of sneaky government micro-penalizing would cause an absolute uproar in the USA. There are fines for every little misdemeanor, and as Janysh found out on the drive to Almaty, if you aren't fined, you're forced to 'volunteer' a bribe. When you're stopped by the police, it seems that bribery is still an accepted, and even recommended form of payment. Money talks. In Kazakhstan, the abbreviation for a law enforcement officer, MAI, is the same word that refers to a dog who chases cars. But because of the traffic cameras, the cops themselves are no longer the enemies, according to Rudi. People now have the impersonal cameras to worry about, and less cause to be angry with the cops themselves. Despite the fact that people seem to have vilified the cameras, it's interesting to hear tell of their effects. According to Rudi and Nurlan, the cameras have "really organized the traffic and made the streets much more orderly." "Really?" I think to myself, "It used to be worse than this?" Even with cameras that penalize for speeding, running stops, and disregarding lines, everywhere I look, I see nothing but speeding, running stops, and complete disregard for any type of painted line. I admit it is more organized than in Bishkek, but it's still complete chaos, and since the city is so much larger than Bishkek, the traffic is many times more prevalent. So although it might be more carefully regulated, it feels much more chaotic to me. My need to complain about traffic in LA grows weaker and weaker every time I experience traffic in other countries. Los Angeles is a golden land where sitting in traffic is like a day at the spa compared to what many experience worldwide.
Incredulous though I might be about the traffic being better than it once was, I completely understand the effect cameras have. I'm regularly on both sides of the issue. Of course people are always wary of my camera, even when it's switched off or hanging from my shoulder, but I've learned to be wary of other lenses as well. Since I'm frequently misbehaving in government buildings and private businesses where there are security cameras everywhere, I have learned to fear being caught on camera too. Ironic. The photographer fears the camera because he's using a camera. Still, I often wonder why others are afraid of mine. Obviously, when I'm trying to sidestep the rules, I'm on edge. I'm doing something I'm allegedly not supposed to be doing (although there are not always posted rules). But if you don't have anything to be worried about, why are you so concerned with my camera? As it was at the border crossing a couple of days ago, it's often difficult to tell who's more afraid of being caught on camera - me, or them. We live in an era when cameras signify exposed secrets. So here in a city where traffic cameras are the law, there is a culture of heightened awareness of the presence of any camera at all. They're trained to find the camera in any chaotic situation. We walked into a bank earlier, and even though I kept the lens cap on and the camera switched off the entire time inside, there was still a guard who was pacing and hovering near me looking very perturbed. Even dummy security cameras that aren't hooked up to any recording device are imposing enough of a threat to cause people to behave. It's no wonder when I walked into the tech shop yesterday, the manager shouted at me immediately. He's probably been ticketed by the traffic cameras 17 different times, and now he's predisposed to hate anything with a lens. So he warned me sternly many times even though I wasn't obviously taking any pictures or video. Of course I was taking video - I just wasn't obviously taking video. And I know he didn't know I was taking video, because the guy hollered at me the moment I stepped into the store with the camera hanging from my neck, neither eye peering through any viewfinder, and both hands free. The camera was rolling, but I wasn't paying any attention to it. There's no way he could have known, and he still hollered at me, and then followed me around for several minutes reiterating to me several times that pictures are not allowed. Sorry pal, you give me trouble, I take your picture. That's the arrangement. I took down the name and address of the store so I can mail him a copy with a note informing him that he is now under investigation by the KGB. If money talks, then cameras scream.
Psalm 119 has always been really interesting to me. The longest chapter in the Bible is about the law. And not only is it about the law, but it's entirely about how much the psalmist LOVES the law. In American vernacular, the entire chapter is tantamount to someone saying over and over, "Thanks so much for giving me rules to follow so I don't do dumb stuff. Rules rule!" This attitude baffles me because no one thinks rules rule. Some of us relish our freedom and impulsiveness way too much to have such reverence for rules, and even among those cautious folks who don't cling doggedly to an impetuous way of life, few people really appreciate being told what to do. Yet this chapter–longer than any other–reads like a love song to the California Vehicle Code. This is a notion that I've often reflected upon. I'm well aware of the deficiency that exists within my own heart in resistance to the rules I know are meant for my own good. In an imperfect world, I've developed a distrust for them, because I understand my own abilities and intentions (for the most part), and I believe that because I'm capable and well meaning, I know better than those trying to regulate my behavior. Even though most of my transgressions are not regarding ethical issues, I know that there are still reasons for following regulations which I disregard because I know they're made primarily for those who seek to disregard regulations for reasons which are truly unethical. I know that in large part, this is the wrong perspective. Psalm 119 has pointed a lens straight at me, and the harsh light of truth reveals my shortcomings. The psalmist demonstrates that he loves the rules not because he loves being told what to do, but because he loves the right way of living they represent, and the heart of a Ruler who desires that right way of living for each of His subjects. So many of us go through life doing the right thing, not because we value what's right, but because we're worried about being caught doing what we shouldn't do. Nurlan is a good driver not because he's constantly worried about being caught on camera, but because he wants to be safe in a chaotic environment. There are still risks involved–no one would be able to drive here at all without developing driving habits that would be considered insane on US roads–but the risks are dampened by an intention towards safety. What I'm still learning, and what I anticipate will take a lifetime to learn, is how to shift thinking away from concern for being caught toward concern for actually doing wrong, and eventually away from even a concern for doing wrong toward a simple desire to just do right. Taking a camera into a government building is often a good reminder. The sooner we can learn to see the Ruler not as someone to avoid upsetting but rather as someone worth pleasing, the sooner righteousness will flow naturally.
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