To Help or Not to Help?

I would rather be getting ready for bed right now but there are a couple things that have come up first.  Initially it was an incident which I will shortly relate to you and next is the need to blog about it while the details are still fresh.  It's Monday night so I had to do the dishes before I left the Dean's so Kevin went on ahead of me back to our apartment.  When I had finished washing I began to make my own way back home to our hole in the wall.  I was about halfway home when I noticed a car was stuck, apparently it's wheel had dropped down into a pot hole or drain of some kind and it couldn't get out.  Most of the time a good push and the car is free again and on it's way.  It happens semi-frequently around here with the condition of the roads as they are and I figured the least I could do was help them for a few minutes.  When I went over and started to lift and push I realized that the hole was bigger than I thought it was going to be.  In the middle it was actually a man-hole but the sides sloped outward giving it around a four foot diameter.  On one side the hole was closely bordered by the sidewalk which the front part of the frame was actually resting on since the wheel had dropped into the hole.  When I first saw it I thought the driver had just been trying to make the turn a little too tightly and didn't know the hole was there but I found out later that that wasn't the case.  When I first went up to help there was one man at the wheel and the driver was helping push.  Pretty soon another man came along.  His home was actually the hole that the car was stuck in and I think we were disturbing him with the tire squealing.  Because the right front wheel was spinning freely all the power was being diverted to it and the car wouldn't budge.  Pretty soon the man that was helping at the wheel had to go leaving me with the driver and the man whose home we were invading.  There was no way we could lift the car out of the hole without some sort of device.  I looked around hoping to find a board or a rock I could jam between the wheel and the sidewalk to give it a little traction but nothing worked.  I didn't just want to walk away and leave the guy but I was getting close to that point.  Finally I found a piece of broken granite tile that I thought would fit.  I went back to the car and turned the wheel all the way to the right to see if I could jam the piece in there.  As I was turning the car on and getting the wheel in the position I wanted I noticed a couple other guys showed up.  Maybe with the extra help we could finally get it done.  As I jammed the broken tile under the wheel the two other guys who had just showed up were standing by.  I stood back from the wheel and at that point things got interesting.  The two guys that had come along were young and clean looking.  They were speaking in Mongolian so I didn't understand most of what they were saying but I did understand when they turned to me and asked for my passport.  I said I had mine but asked why he wanted it.  He and his partner the pulled out their wallets with badges and identification cards.  They weren't there to help, they were Mongolian National Police.  If it was just one guy with a cheesy looking card I wouldn't have showed them passport but there were two of them and their IDs were not cheesy looking.  These guys were the real deal.  I explained to them that I wasn't drunk or even driving in the car with the man but was on my way home when I stopped to give help.  I wasn't needed there anymore and I knew it wouldn't be wise to leave without permission.  I showed the men my passport and answered their questions.  Yes, I'm an American.  Yes, I'm studying at Bridge College.  And so on.  During the whole thing they called a couple more officers over.  Apparently the stuck driver had gotten stuck because he was driving under the influence.  When everything checked out they gave me permission to leave.  I was tempted to take pictures but decided against it in the end.  I guess one has got to be careful who he helps.  So now after being stopped on the way home, needing to blog about it, and getting distracted talking to Kevin I'm finally ready to get ready for bed.

John