Teachers complain after they were paid in chickens

That last week before pay day can be pretty tough — but at least you know you’ll be getting something in your bank account at the end of it. For a group of teachers in Uzbekistan, that wasn’t the case. They complained after they were paid with chickens instead of cash — and not only that, the chickens weren’t even at market rate. Authorities in Nukus, in the autonomous Karakalpakstan Republic near the border with Turkmenistan, gave staff freshly hatched chicks as they had run out of money, Radio Ozodlik reports. One angry teacher told the channel: “Last year they paid us with potatoes, carrots and pumpkins. This year they are forcing us to take newborn chickens instead of our wages. If we need chickens we can buy them from a market at a much cheaper rate.”