The Ghosts of Centuries Past

Of all the places I’ve been in my life, nothing moves my spirit like Samarkand and the Registan. It’s a magical, mystical place for me. It is easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of tourists in baseball caps turned backward, European tongues competing for attention in the madrassas , and the honking of horns as cars jockey for space. But for me, Samarkand takes me back and, like a baseball pitcher blocking out all the external incursions into his psyche, I can block out all that periphery and feel the ancient caravans and the ambiance that goes along with it. The modern bazaars and food markets, help because there is a cacophony of noise as there would be in the olden days, not French nor German nor English…just Uzbek, Takik and Russian..all tongues literally foreign to my ear and my brain. The clothes are modern fabrics but are still traditional and feel ancient with their colors and brilliant displays of patterns. And so, I can envision fires burning at nighttime with tents pitched while camels loll lazily tethered to some restriction to their movements…I can smell the air with all the good and bad odors which emanate from a place where thousands of humans and have congregated. In my mind, there is mystery and intrigue at every corner and danger is not very far away….I was not a reader in my youth, and so I don’t know exactly from where these images came to me. I like to say, I remember them because I was here before, but maybe that’s just my wild imagination again…But for me, it’s not important where the genesis of these feelings began in my brain, all I know is that when I was here two years ago, I felt it, didn’t get enough time here then, and it was the one “Place/thing” I wanted to see again on this trip that is so filled with people. Since we were on a tour two years ago I didn’t have control of my time…hurry up to go here, only to jump quickly back on the bus and head for the next spot…I so wanted to just linger at the Registan..to be the giant sponge and just soak it all up…to sit and watch. Well, this time, that is exactly what I did…several trips back to the Registan, sometimes with our friends, sometimes just Carol and I…sometimes in the morning light, sometimes after dark when artificial lights lit the towering gateways, but still cast a wonderful aura over the entire huge square… Groups of elderly ladies in colorful dresses and head scarves and fabulous faces filled with lines from years of hard work and difficult lives plod their way through the square as if on some personal hadj, not to Mecca, but to their glorious past…I love these old faces. They never fail to smile and show their kind, generous natures…They are never scornful of us for intruding upon “their” place, they always seem delighted to share it with us…..Young moderns in boutique clothes….school kids in their uniforms….old men with their beards and long tunics…and the ever present tourists like myself give the Registan an air that is totally unique to my mind…I love it here. We didn’t do a whole bunch of other things in Samarkand…we spent most of our times with our three flatmate friends, Zulfiya, Madina, and Yulduz, but that was time well spent and it was an opportunity to see all the little quirks of personalities which give people the real character. I’ve chatted with them for so long on facebook that it was nice to see them as people and not just words on the page. Samarkand is a busy, bustling place…an early morning walk was full of honking horns, billowing bursts of diesel exhaust belching into the air as school kids walked by with their white shirts and black skirts or pants. Women swept the sidewalks with short brooms of some kind of thatch about 2-3 feet in length which force them to bend over to clean the leaves which have fallen during the night. The city is very clean and women swept even where I couldn’t see any reason for them to do so. Madi and Zuzu wanted to show us their institute and when we went to Madi’s where she works on her masters degree in Spanish, Carol was absolutely besieged by students who wanted to speak with a real Spanish speaker…She was surrounded by delighted students eager to get their sentences heard. They hung on every word and didn’t want her to leave. Madi and Zuzu have been facebook friends for over a year, so I had some knowledge of them, but their third “flatmate,” Yulduz, was an absolute delight…when we got to the flat, she was just leaving, but prepared tea for us before she departed…wearing the traditional long tunic with matching pants and a head scarf, she seemed to be a conservative young Muslim woman…getting to know her, I found a wonderfully, sweet, intelligent woman who is full of life and energy and still remains true to her very devout Muslim faith…she can laugh, joke, and poke fun at life and her surroundings…she opened up more as our time together progressed, and the serenity of her face was so calming to watch….she lives in a village about an hour away from Samarkand…has a 5 year old son who lives with her mother while she works on her Korean Masters degree. Her husband works in Russia to support the family and so she must be strong to keep everything in balance and still progress towards her goals in life. I admired her strength, courage, and gentility. She is a fine young woman who remains true to herself, her family, and her faith. Taxi rides continue to be an adrenalin rush as we race across town…they are cheap, fast, (very) and convenient…you never have to wait for more than a few seconds before one shows up…stand by the side of the road and a yellow taxi, (official) or white (the color of choice of almost all cars) unofficial taxi will roll up flashing its lights to let you know it is available…move your hand out from your body, and they will swerve across several lanes of traffic to beat the others just behind them all vying for that fare…We rarely paid more than $2 for any taxi ride across any of the cities. One amusing occasion was when we were picked up by a man who, in his broken English told us that he was an ex-policeman of 20 years, we chatted about America….he has relatives there, and in the end refused any payment for the trip across town. When people ask us where we are from and we tell them “America,” they all grin and so very often say: “Ah….America….I have family there….New York…..Brooklyn.” It must be a very Uzbek place because we now know of hundreds of families who live there from all over Uzbekistgan. In a move towards the west, there is a new law which mandates that English is to be the official 2nd language of the country…replacing Russian…English teachers are to be paid more than other teachers, and all teachers are being required to speak English….it is a sign of how far the country is moving from its Soviet past to a more western pattern… Language patterns are very diverse…Samarkand and Bukhara are Tajik cities…They were once part of Tajikistan, but soviet map makers and policy makers being what they were, carved up Tajikistan and made part of it Uzbek territory…The “Stan” part of all these names means “land of,” so Uzbekistan is the land of Uzbeks, Kyrygzstan is the land of the Kyrygz…etc…well, definitions of territory mean nothing to the people…here in Samarkand and in Bukhara, the signs are in Uzbek, people speak Tajik, and people at home often speak Russian….One friend Speaks Russian to her Father, Tajik to her mother, and English to her friends…when her father speaks to her mother, he speaks in Russian…when she answers, she speaks Tajik….my friend didn’t even speak Uzbek until she began school…such is the nation. So, I was able to achieve my goals in Samarkand…combining time at the registan while getting to know Zulfiya, Madina, and Yulduz…to Quote my favorite wordsmiths, Yogi Berra and George Bush…. “Déjà vu all over again,” and “Mission Accomplished”

out of order letter

this letter is out of order...I just realized that it never got sent following our return from Zarafshon...it should be before the Fergana letter. But i was in a cyber black hole for a while and things just get confused...Oh well, such are the vagaries of travel and intermittent internet connections. Our return to Tashkent was a long one…we arose at four a.m. so that we could leave the house at five for our desert crossing to Navoi and the train back to the capital…Although the train didn’t leave until 10:00 and the trans-Kyzylkum was a two and a half hour journey, Sisi and Ashraf strongly suggested that we give ourselves lots of leeway. There are no sure bets in the crossing and if we were to have some mishap, blown tire, overheating, etc. we could be derailed, literally and figuratively. As we sped across the seemingly unchanging desert, I had time alone with my thoughts, just as when I walked the Camino, the opportunity to reflect on my days in Zarafshon without distractions. As I wrote to my cousin Bill, who spent years working in the Sinai with Palestinians and understands better than anyone else what I see and feel, “I'm often embarrassed/ashamed/disconcerted by the time it takes me to kick back into a "this is real life," mentality when I have spent my time in places like Tashkent sitting in my four star hotel with wi-fi at my finger tips. But I am never sorry once I am able to walk across that bridge from my fantasy world to the real world in which people exist. I continually find that throughout the world I am treated better by people who have less than I am by the people who seemingly have more...In fact, the people with less have more honesty, are more giving of spirit and have a willingness to share what little they possess of the "things" of the world.” It has been a common thread throughout the world…not governed by politics nor geographic region nor religion…If I/we could only understand that the “Things” are only things, we would have a richer, fuller life and our world would be the better for the transition. It’s hard for me to admit that “poor” people are far richer than I. But all went well on our trans-Kyzylkum (I love that word) jaunt, and, as such, we had a couple of hours to spin our wheels at the train station and had an interesting with a young woman whose family has lived in Zarafshon generations, works in London, and speaks no Uzbek….The Russian presence in the “republics” is still very strong. The 6 hour ride back to Tashkent was uneventful and upon our arrival, we said our grateful thanks to Sisi for inviting us to her home. It was the type of experience that we really wanted to have this time in Uzbekistan, and she and her family were delightful, gracious and very hospitable…It couldn’t have been more enjoyable…everybody involved went out of their way to ensure that our visit was perfect. It is difficult to use superlatives about our following day, because it sounds silly in my mind when I say the next day was very special, because they have all been special….how do you say that things get specialer and specialer and the people be more and more memorable without denigrating the earlier events and people…this trip has been everything I had hoped it to be…my friends are even more delightful in person than they have been in cyber connections…Carol is having a great time and everybody loves “granny.”…the personal connections we have had has made her understand why all these kids are so special to me….with that being said….the following day was very special to us both. Two very good friends, Dilafruz and Feruza, who affectionately call me “bobojon,” and “dodajon,” grandfather in Uzbek, met us and took us to the museum of Applied Arts because they knew that “bovijon,” grandmother worked with fiber..Dili said that they would pick us up at the hotel because the museum was a little difficult to find…sure enough, the taxi driver headed in the direction she gave him, and then seemed lost…He asked a person where it was exactly and was told to continue on…after a while, it didn’t seem right to him, so he asked again and was told we had gone too far, so we reversed directions, after asking directions again, we reversed directions, and each time we shortened our reversal..After four such changes in directions we found the side street that led to the museum. In the end, even the taxi driver found the situation amusing. After all of that, the museum was all that Dili had promised it would be. It was very interesting and Carol thoroughly enjoyed seeing all the fabric which came down through the ages and history of this land. We then headed, dare I say it, to a very special event. Feruza’s father is a very famous artist in Uzbekistan and has held exhibitions in many parts of the world, including the big apple itself. His work is amazing. His historical portrayals of Amir Temur (Tamerlane, to the west) are epic in size and scope, yet hit his individual portraits are exquisite. He is extremely fond of horses and Carol has always told me that depicting horses is very difficult. Yet Aliser captures them perfectly…You just feel the movement of horse and rider in action or simply standing still. I was totally agog with wonder and that is an understatement as he brought out picture after picture for us to see…He was so generous with his time and spirit…I will post his website at the bottom of this letter for you to see if you so choose…It will be worth the time to see his work. Right now he is preparing for an exhibition in Ankara, Turkey, and he has some unfinished work, and that was particularly interesting to see his approach…He explained his process and it was fascinating to get a glimpse of how he sees the world and how he tries to capture that on canvas. Simply an amazing man. Feruza and Dili have been great friends, and just another example of how facebook has enriched my life through contacts with worlds that would otherwise be hidden to me. Another visit to a school, this one to Shakhlo’s mothers school made me feel like Ghandi getting off the train in India…I’m such an insignificant being, yet I’m made to feel so very important when we visit…We speak to students…Carol is more than willing to have me take the forefront and most of the questions are directed to me…however, when one question was asked and I was saying how Carol reacted to a situation, one female student interrupted and said: “Let her speak for herself.” It was a great moment, and one in which we all took great pleasure. And Carol did answer for herself. After an hour of such banter, which has been very well received by students and appreciated by teachers we took our leave and headed for the next encounter of the day…one interesting fact that really struck us was when we were leaving one “Lyceum,” high school, three English teachers told us it was very special because it was the first time any of them had spoken to a native English speaker. Amazing. Off for lunch with Guli, one of the sweet ladies of this or any other world…She is also one of my sad friends…very intelligent and hard working, her family has gone to Germany where her father is a doctor…he could attain residency because of his medical skills, but Guli was left behind in the care of her grandmother in far off Urgench a very provincial and traditional town in the western part of Uzbekistan…She has come to Tashkent for her university work which she has now finished. She desperately misses her parents and she has a little five year old brother whom she has never seen. She has tried several times to get a visa to visit them in Berlin, but has been denied each time…she is 20 years old, single and beautiful…all adding up to making the Germans believe that she simply wants to come and get married…They give her no reason for the denial, but that is how she interprets the situation… Her grandmother wants her to return to Urgench and she will arrange a marriage for her, but this is not for Guli. She wants to find her own way in the world….But she lives by herself and feels very much alone in the world. She feels things very deeply and the tears well up in her eyes when she speaks of coping with her difficulty…her latest, and maybe last, hope is that she will be accepted into a university in Berlin and be able to receive a visa to study there…she feels confident about being accepted but is very fearful that another visa rejection will simply break her spirit and heart…It is so hard for me to see such struggles in a wonderful young lady who is such a good friend….these are real people living real lives that we’ve come to meet, not just cyber entities existing on my laptop. Dinner at Shah’s house topped off the day…another insight to family life…the buildings where so many friends live seem so drab on the outside, but inside each family has created their own little world that is beautiful and comfortable…small, by our western standards, these people do not see it that way…they are rightfully proud of their homes….their furnishings and accoutrements of life belie the exteriors of the buildings….Shah’s mom, whose school we had visited earlier that day, again put out a spread that was fit for royalty…food was everywhere on the table and we ate till we could not eat any more, and then the main dish, Palov, came out…we were so stuffed…Shah’s father who imports and exports tires to western Europe is a jovial man of great warmth and he exudes joy from every pore of his body…Out came the vodka, of course, and although I tried to decline, he poured two glasses and gave me one…we toasted each other and I slammed mine home. However, he did not drink his, and I wondered if I had committed some social faux pas by drinking too soon…his glass remained untouched until it was explained that he stopped drinking six years earlier…therefore, I had to finish his as well… Malika, Shah’s best friend and giggle-mate came to dinner, of course. These two are rarely separated and as dinner got later and later with all the food, conversation, piano playing, Mali’s mom called numerous times…we finally begged off the evening and food at 10:30 that night so we could be driven back home and Mali’s mother could relax…the girls had lyceum the next morning and we hoped that her mom would not be too upset over the lateness of the evening. We finished off our second stay in Tashkent with another visit to another school…this one a college as opposed to a Lyceum…same age of kids, but in this case many of the students were vocationally trained whereas in a Lyceum, they are all trained for university entry…the college had programs in cooking and sewing amongst others….most of the students in Shah and Mali’s lyceum were girls because it was a school specializing in foreign languages, and the college was mostly boys, the most popular course for training being cooking. The remainder of the day was spent with a family very different from any that we had visited…Nasiba’s mother wears the romol, or head scarf when visitors are in the home, and the hajib – think of a divers head piece covering head, neck and hair line, but made of fine silk, leaving the face exposed…her earrings and jewelry and make-up gave her a very striking appearance and her eyes twinkled all the time…Nasi was held up at language class, and so we communicated in a limited manner until her brother showed up. He is a very gifted architect with limited training and has worked for a firm designing mosques, businesses and homes, all of which have been built already…an incredible one for a Tashkent soccer player was mind boggling in its conception. But he wants to get a university degree so he can understand the mathematics and physics of construction…very interesting, and then sweet Nasi came home with her ever present smile and gentle nature…we talked and chatted for the afternoon and, of course, mom insisted on fixing dinner which was whipped up in an hour, a grape leaf dish that was delicious and filling. The hospitality and conviviality of home life is heartwarming and wonderful to see. Now we’re off to Fergana and Andijon…places we’ve never been unlike most of the cities on our agenda…who knows what lies ahead, but the promise of wondrous times tweaks our imagination, and I have no doubt that it will be rewarding and gratifying. Stay tuned, Carol and Jim http://alikulov-alisher.narod.ru/indexen.htm

The Fly on the wall

There is a certain advantage to being an observer to life rather than a participant…You can sit back, watch, make your snarky, sarcastic, cynical statements about people’ s lives and the concomitant silliness therein…but it is a hollow observation because it never gets below the surface…I scratch the surface and make judgments based on the veneer , conveniently ignoring that there are so many different layers beneath which give the surface the color and texture that we observe…what we see on the surface has its own truth, but is rarely the real truth, the reality of the totality. In the past, my letters have been of the observer…. Blowing into town for a few days, pontificating as if I had some knowledge of reality and truth and my understanding had some insigh tand getting out of Dodge …and so, now I come to Uzbekistan…not to observe, but to participate…be be involved with people’s lives and it is a very disconcerting place to be, for as much as I am having an incredible trip, I am struggling as to how to describe it because some really good and true spirits are involved here…people who have opened up their lives to me with a graciousness and honesty that is astounding to me, who often plays it so close to the vest with people….My words are no longer just for readers back home wanting to know what crazy things Carol and Jim are up to this time, but they are read by the people who have given of themselves honestly and forthrightly, and they don’t deserve to be treated as some academic dissertation of life in distant, remote places of the world. Carol has always been an extra voice in my head, letting me know when she thinks I have stepped over the line…She can offer suggestions that I won’t take from anybody else. I’ve been asked many times over the years to put these letters into book form, and I have steadfastly refused because my line has been: “I write these for myself…I share them with others, but they are really for me to remember what I see and do.” I’ve felt that if I published, I would be wounded by criticism and my ego would suffer if it was not well received and therefore, it would change how and what I wrote…but by writing for myself, I can say what I wish and the rest of the world be damned…If they don’t like it, well, screw them, don’t read it. But the world is not June Cleaver in but “burbs” with three kids and a dog…it is gritty, harsh, incomplete and often uncomfortable. The people I meet here on this trip are not abstract people eking out a life, they are living entities and I care a great deal about them…I love these kids…they bring me joy, insight, and introspection about my life and to the planet we all share. So the words I use have real impact and I’m struggling how to explain, to be truthful l and still be true to them. Since these letters go out to over a hundred people and are further forwarded many times over to people I don’t even know exist in the world, I feel an obligation to my lovely friends to be kind and gentle as well as being honest…It is a balance that I have been struggling with since the first letter….The kids read these words; they are proud of their country and their parents and their homes….my words have an impact that I am not used to them having, and I’m not comfortable with my new, self-imposed limitations. Nothing more to say really than this…I just have been stewing about this for some days now, and I needed to let it out….I talk to about it Carol and my daughter, but this is my real vent. Carol calls this my “soul searching” letter…maybe it is…I’m still looking for answers to life.

35th anniversary dinner and original wedding photo

We spent our 35th wedding anniversary in a relaxed way….lazy morning, and then walking around independence square, with it monuments and large park area, where so many people congregate, just watching and soaking up the scene. We invited two of our granddaughters, Shakhlo and Malika to join us for our dinner and went to a nice restaurant to top off the evening. These two 17 year olds, who I call the giggle mates, are so full of life and joy that it is just so much fun to be around them….Our university students, as noted above, are under a lot of stress, and while that is true to a degree with the lyceum students, they still have time to simply enjoy being alive. Like me, they find so many things to laugh at….everything is funny, including themselves….we enjoy them so much….the girls ordered our food for us and we laughed our way through dinner on a variety of topics…they had flowers for Carol and gifts for each of us as anniversary presents….we’ve spent more time with them on this trip than any others, due both to logistical and logical reasons…Shah’s brother has been our designated driver chauffeuring us around all the time, and they just make the time because it is as important to them as it is to us. We have had dinner at Shah’s home, visited her mother’s school, their lyceum, went to bazaars together and topped it all off with our anniversary dinner. We are Granny and Grandpa, and they really do feel like our granddaughters. Since we were back in Tashkent a day earlier than expected, we arranged a hurried dinner with Guli, our friend whose family lives in Germany upon our return…so many of my facebook friends are university students and this is exam time for them…very serious stuff for Uzbek students….there is a log jam of people looking to enter universities and unlike American kids who can fart around for four years of high school and then attend Junior college, or work for years until they decide to get their act together, Uzbek kids are under constant pressure for good marks beginning at age 13 when they enter lyceum or college, as their high schools are called. The pressure to succeed is enormous because this is their only path to success…there are no entry level jobs for promising young people who then have the opportunity to work their way up through the system….My son-in-law Rich graduated from University with a music degree and took a job with Autodesk working in the warehouse, worked his way up and is now a project manager pulling down a six figure salary. These sorts of opportunities just don’t exist here…so many of my friends wanted to see us, but it was simply impossible they because spend enormous amounts of time preparing for these critical exams. First things first. I have friends who have spent two years of time and large amounts of the family largesse paying for extra lessons to pass exams to enter university…families put so many things on hold to help their children achieve success….I have enormous respect for these people who know that their education is truly their only key to success….even in marriage, without university training, future prospects are limited for girls because the males’ families will view the potential match in large part based upon the girls education. There continues to be a wide gulf between Uzbek society. The few haves, and the many have nots….The middle class is growing particularly in the cities, but the villages and distant towns continue to show the disparity of society. As in the Soviet Union, the break-up of the bloc meant a vacuum was created and the opportunists and “in-crowd” of the system were more than happy to fill the breach…there was little change for the vast majority of the society which continued as if there was no change…and in fact, there was no difference for them.…the provinces are traditional and storied in their historical ways of conduct, whereas Tashkent, a three million plus population center of business and government, is upscale and modern in almost every sense. Females have many more opportunities for success in the work force than in the provinces and much more freedom to exercise their individuality. Guli, who as mentioned above, is alone in Tashkent and has become a thoroughly modern Millie. She grew up in Urgench off in the hinterlands, and grandma who still lives there wants her to return to her roots and get married, naturally in the traditional way of families making the match….It would be disaster for her to do so, negating all that she has become and made of herself. Arranged marriages are still common practice. Most of my young female friends here who are married met their husbands through the process called “Sovche.” The two sets of parents get together and propose that their children meet and see if a match can be made. Sometimes it is dictated by the parents, but that, as I understand is getting less common. Usually, parents want good matches, but let the young couple decide if it is a good match or not. One such friend had several parents of young men approach her parents but she rejected them all…finally, one was interesting and they met a few times and decided that it would, indeed, be a good match and were married some months later. Another 21 year old friend’s father worked with her future husband’s father, and they decided to make the possible match. The future in-laws came calling with their son to meet the daughter. While the parents sat and talked and drank tea, the young couple took the traditional walk together as they met for the first time. The usual practice is for the couple to be gone about 15 minutes, but these two were gone an hour….upon their return, the parents were furious with them, but as she said, it was love at first sight, and they didn’t want to part. They subsequently talked by phone, texted each other, met occasionally and were married a year later. They now have a 5 year old son and are very happy together. Even when the couple meet in University or other such fertile watering holes where young people congregate, the parents will still meet and decide. I asked one friend who is gaga over a guy and hopes to marry him what she will do if the parents do not agree…she said then she could not marry him. Such are the bonds of family tradition and loyalty in this Central Asian nation. Whether the marriage is arranged by sovchi or by the couple falling in love, the life of the bride is pretty much the same for all classes of society. Following the marriage, the wife will go to live in the home of her husband. Once ensconced in the home, she really is second banana….she basically becomes the family servant, cooking, cleaning, shopping, and as a new bride told me, don’t forget washing clothes for the family…all under the watchful and, usually, very critical eye of the mother-in-law.. When I think of all the mother-in-law jokes at home, this situation would simply be intolerable in the U.S. But here, it seems to be a given and is accepted practice…when asked at the school we visited about the differences in how young people view life in America, I talked about how young people live together in their own apartment/home but in Uzbekistan as I understood the process, the new wives would live in the new husbands homes, and they all nodded in agreement without any sense of injustice, fear, or uncertainty. It’s just how things work here. Some of the time it works out well, however, and I don’t want to simply paint a black picture for the new brides..one girl told us it was a blessing, because her mother-in-law would get up with the baby in the middle of the night allowing her to get a little extra sleep before heading to university classes the next morning. But, as you might suspect, there are many tales citing the servant position of the new daughter-in-law. We’ve heard many tales where the son is the be all-end all in their mother’s eyes, and even though the match was agreed to, there is a jealousy that the mother has been replaced, and hence, the new wife never measures up..it is a theme in many Uzbek movies as well. Still, the society is being pulled in two directions…parents and grandparents who try to keep things as they have been and where they feel most comfortable, young people are connected to the world and ideas of love and marriage and the differences between how the things are done, particularly in the west, are making a marked change in how these young people view their own society…I wonder how much stress that puts on the entire fabric of society, and it will be interesting to watch. One drastic change that I believe will make a huge impact is the push to English in this society…the new law mandates that English is to be the second language beginning in 1st grade replacing Russian…One school we visited has a new rule where all teachers must be English speakers, and a young girl where we had dinner last night with a family said that she wants to be an English teachers are going to be paid more than other teachers…. They’re even showing cartoons now with English subtitles. these changes will pull the society even more into the western concept of how things like love and marriage are dealt with in the society, in my opinion…There is a clamor amongst young people for information about the west. Tourists from France, Germany, and the rest of Europe are flocking to Uzbekistan…It is no further from Paris to Tashkent as it is from NYC to San Francisco…a six hour flight and a three hour time change. Uzbekistan continues to fascinate me…my young friends are as modern and erudite as anywhere and their bright, happy, optimistic, and enthusiastic nature is a joy to see.

Into the Valley

We traveled to the lush area of Uzbekistan The Fergana Valley to see one of the last Silk factories in the world where the process started by worms becomes the most precious fabric in the ancient world, a process so treasured that the ancient Chinese kept it secret for centuries, and, as legend has it, the cocoons were smuggled out in the beehive hairdo of a woman. Nowadays modern factories literally spin out miles of the stuff in high speed centers. But in a town in Uzbekistan, women still toil over hot vats and make the spun silk one thread at a time. The end product is used for a special process which takes place in only two places, Italy and Uzbekistan where it is done in the traditional way…silk velvet weaving…Carol has been interested in seeing this since our last visit to Uzbekistan two years ago, and it turned out that I had some facebook friends from the area, so we doubled up on our motives and made a quick journey five hours drive from Tashkent. The entire Fergana “valley” is not like any valley we have known…it is a wide swath of arable land between two mountain chains, the Pamirs and the Tian Shan….this wide alluvial fan extends literally hundreds of miles long and wide enough to not be able to see from side to side…It is the San Joaquin Valley of Uzbekistan, providing the majority of fruit and produce for the entire country. Because of the fertility of the land, it has become the most densely populated area in all of Central Asia, with cities over 100,000 population dotting the area…It is also a very hot one climatically speaking….no problem growing tomatoes here, sweet, wonderful tomatoes like we haven’t had since we moved from California. We arrived in Fergana, the city, and immediately headed for Andijon where I have three friends studying in universities….two in medical school, and another studying languages. Andijon was a center of Islamic activity a decade or so ago, and so as we traveled east, the police and military presence was noticeable, but not oppressive as it was in the Uighur area of China…stops for passport checks, armed soldiers guarding entrances and exits to tunnels, and security checks made us realize that the Uzbek government maintains a very visible presence for all to see. Andijon and Fergana both are experiencing a building boom and workers are seen everywhere constructing in brick, the building material of choice out of necessity. Wood is used for ceiling joists and rafters but we saw no houses made of wood…Maybe in the forested areas of the mountains it might be, but basically, the entire country appears to be brick and block construction. Long rows of small houses dot the drive. All looking alike, same design, same color, same floor plan. Felt like a long line of row houses we might see at home…but still quite a change from the standard 9 story rectangular apartment flats which have no distinguishing features from the outside. The entire region is such a contrast from the upscale, fashionable, and modern Tashkent….Here in the valley traditional Uzbek and Islamic culture are far more prevalent…a sizeable proportion of the women wear the head scarf and quite a few do not venture out of doors without the hijab….The streets are a cacophony of noise since the streets are narrower than the broad avenues of Tashkent. Our taxi driver who was called by the hotel nodded his head when he was told which part of Andijon, an hour away, we wanted to be taken…I assumed that he knew exactly what he was doing. However, upon arriving in the city, he asked someone on the street how to get there, was pointed in the right direction, then stopped to ask further directions…this continued for 6-7 times until we reached our appointed spot…no doubt, the potential of a $50 round trip fare he was earning for the trip would totally make his day, and he wasn’t going to miss out on that puppy. It felt like how I get from points A to B…Get pointed in the right direction, confirm with another person as soon as the first person is out of view, and continue reconfirming, each time adding a new piece of information to the map that is developing in my head..Hard to blame him for doing the same. Sardorxon, my facebook friend, was there by the side of the street as we arrived and he took us to meet Gulira’no and Dildora who were waiting for us….we walked around the bustling streets of the old city, visited a museum which overlooked the city, and up a long street filled with iron workers…I’m always amazed at the similarities of the world…In so many cities, in so many varied countries of the world, we see the same thing…It may be fabric, glassware, or souvenir shops…but dozens upon dozens of people selling exactly the same things, seemingly undistinguishable to my eye, at least, from all the others. I always ask myself the same question. “How do they make a living when everybody does the same thing in the same place?” Amongst the row of shops selling hoes and shovels and other implements, we stopped to see a blacksmith working in an open air forge, and with Sardorxon working as interpreter, we talked about blacksmithing in the old west and how it is a dying art only practiced at showcase events now. The blacksmith and I exchanged ages, we’re both 72, and agreed to meet at his shop when we are 100…something to which I can look forward…they’ll have to wheel me around the broken, rutted streets, but, hey, I’m in. The whole area seemed very much like Kashgar, that western outpost in China which is, shall we say, definitely not a “Chinese” area…more of the old “semi-autonomous” regions the Chinese are so fond of creating. Andijon seemed a long way from Tashkent in many ways more than physical distance. In contrast to the narrow alleys and winding streets of the old city, there is a long broad avenue which was built from scratch called Uzbekistan Street. Islam Karimov, the president in permanence, it seems, came to dedicate the street, but given the past troubles, it was a ceremony not open to the public lest some “unpleasantness,” as the Chinese euphemistically call , might give the wrong impression…the street is lined on both sides by upscale shops which, while filled with goods and products, had few visitors while we were there…In contrast, the narrow streets working their way out from the bazaar like spokes on a wheel were filled with humanity all looking for the that perfect loaf of bread amongst the dozens of bread sellers. The old city was alive with humanity and life, whereas Uzbekistan Street had a very sterile, antiseptic feel to it. I’ll take the old city, thank you very much. The five of us had a pleasant afternoon, and then we walked back where our cabbie was dutifully waiting as he had promised to be…not giving him his cab fare before returning to Fergana certainly added to the incentive of his stay…I don’t mean to imply that he would not have been there, but money is never exchanged before the end of the transaction here….or as Carol heard once, “trust in Allah, but tie up your camel.” The following day we headed for Margilon, about 15 minutes north of Fergana. We got directions from a different hotel, ours was no help, on how to take a taxi to the place where the shared taxis ply the short run between the two cities of 100,000 people. The woman at the hotel wanted to know why we just didn’t take a taxi, period, it was quicker and easier….I told her we wanted the shared taxi, and she said, “Ah, the cheapest way.” I told her that money wasn’t the issue, the difference in the two is $2 per person as opposed to $0.50, but that we always like to see how local people do things, not how the tourists do them. She was very pleased at that and was more than happy to help. It was suggested instead of the shared taxi, we take the local bus…even cheaper, $0.40, and was filled with the sights, sounds, and smells of real people living real lives…two middle aged women replete in traditional dress and gold teeth kept looking at us and smiling and through hand signals and good old iphone photos stored on my phone we passed the time “talking” about our families and lives…it’s always amazing to me how much communication can take place when people work at it. My friend “Sandra,” (actually Shahnoza, but she likes Sandra Bullock) provided me with a local phone and telephone number, which has been invaluable to us in making connections here. A quick phone call to the Ikat workshop allowed the directors to give directions to the taxi driver, which are, simply speaking, everywhere, on where we were headed. . I expected the “village” of Margilon to be just that, a sleepy little hamlet where life continued as it has for untold centuries. Instead, I found the same bustling energy that imbues the entire valley with its life… We visited the Ikat fabric workshop. Carol knows a woman who has worked with them for years and we got the name of the directors who greeted us with warmth and generosity of spirit…we were going there anyway, but the personal touch was wonderful…lunch was offered and a tour of all the processes, the weaving, the block printing, the dying of colors all explained in detail….fascinating stuff even to a non-fiber schlep like myself. Carol was totally into it. Girls who have finished lyceum are learning the skill of the weaving and there is always a waiting list for those wanting to learn…A master weaver from Iran, Persia, they still say here, who has one of the kindest faces on this planet, explained how it all worked. We were then taken to where the specialized velvet weaving is done in private homes on ancient looms which look like they were built by people who lost several pages of the instruction manual. A young, shy girl of 18 explained how she wanted to help her family’s finances and that is why she is learning from her aunt who is a master weaver…life is hard here and any skill which brings in money is a major asset. At the silk factory itself, large bags containing thousands of cocoons filled the room with 6 large work stations of vats and wheels…two ladies worked the large vat of hot water which loosened the fibers of silk…the one lady spun the large wheel pulling the silver threads onto the bobbin while the other fished around the vat with a stick, raising several cocoons from the water, taking several threads and letting them be gathered into the twist of the other fibers to create the desired thickness of the yarn they were working on….she put the fibers between her fingers as they spun towards the bobbin, and has such a fine touch that she could tell whether she needed to add more individual fibers to reach that desired thickness….what a magical ability to be able to tell such fine differences. Between 25-30 individual fibers make up what we call silk thread…they are that fine. Upon our return to the hotel we were greeted by a “Our manager wants to speak with you.” He informed me that they did not have a room for us the following night…I told him that we had reserved and paid for a room for the three nights. His response was, “we don’t have a room for you tomorrow.” I told him that the registration card they had given us when we checked in showed three nights. He replied, “we don’t have a room for you tomorrow.” This conversation was going nowhere…He then told us that he understood that we had friends in Fergana and that we should go stay with them..and that they would be happy to give us a discount on the room that we were not going to use. They also said that they were willing to violate the law which says we can’t stay in private homes and state on the registration card that we stayed there all three nights. So, as I understood the concept, we would not have to pay for the entire cost of the room that we were not going to use and that we should stay with friends who did not invite us to stay and he would lie to make everything legal despite the fact that it wasn’t. I love travel….LOL. It was a scramble to rearrange everything to return a day earlier to Tashkent than planned…driver and car had to be rescheduled and our hotel in Tashkent had to rebook the reservation to make the extra night…Our driver was supposed to arrive at 8:00 but by nine had not arrived, so I called my sleepy-voiced Tashkent travel agent on a Sunday morning and she made it all work…but 9:45 we were on our way back to our home base, the Uzbekistan Hotel in Tashkent…the desk clerk with whom I have a good, bantering relationship after our many visits here, said there was no reservation, but he made it all work…we joked about Carol being “Plus 1.” On our arrival the first time, he pulled the reservation for the night and said: “Mr. Jim Owens for tonight, plus 1.” I thought he was referring to the number of nights we were staying and I said: “No, Plus 3.” He looked very confused and discombobulated , until he realized I was talking about the number of nights. “Oh, no, the Plus 1 refers to the number of people in your party.”…He thought at first that I had three wives…so when we checked in on our return, he looked at Carol and said: “Hello, Plus 1.” It’s been our running joke. The Uzbekistan Hotel is getting a little long in the tooth, but it’s home to us in Tashkent and we are always very comfortable here, physically and emotionally. So today, plus one and I are back in Tashkent celebrating our 35th wedding anniversary, and I’m happy to say that I don’t want, nor need, “Plus 2.”

Rules of the game

Auto transportation in Central Asia continues to be an E ticket ride….a non-stop thrill a minute ride that is definitely an adrenalin rush. In Almaty, taxi drivers are masters of time management. The traffic lights have timing devices which let you see exactly how many seconds before the light will turn red or green. Drivers are able to spot a red light two blocks ahead, judge their speed and speed up or slow down accordingly to hit the light in the nanosecond that it turns green…more than once I looked left and right hoping that there wasn’t an equally daring driver coming perpendicular to us also judging whether he could make it through before ours turned green….this is all done as speeds in the middle of town that I would not dare attempt except on interstate highways. In Tashkent, taxi drivers may be licensed or not. If you stand by the side of the road, multiple cars will slow down to offer lifts….they have expert time-management skills and time is money to them so they zip, bob and weave, swerve, and dart in and out of traffic to get to the necessary destination in time to beat some other unmarked car to the next fare.. General lane controls are a mathematical equation…number of white lines multiplied by a factor of two…two line – four lanes, three lines- six lanes…and these are minimal numbers….if there is space between cars, it is like a vacuum in nature. We learn in school that nature abhors a vacuum, and so it is best to fill it. The general rule seems to be the larger the vehicle, the smaller the space needed….it’s all physics, but I was never good at math and science, so I don’t understand how they know how to judge it, but they do. Horns are important signaling devices and a code exists which all drivers understand. One honk at a traffic light means that the light will change in two seconds, why aren’t you moving? In moving traffic it means I’m here and coming through..this is answered by a corresponding one honk…two honks – I said I’m coming through, why are you not giving me room..this is answered by two longer honks meaning “screw you, I’m here and not moving over.” When all else fails it is best to roll down windows and shout each other. Eye contact in such cases is necessary lest the words lose their impact. Thankfully, the cars have seen all this before and can continue in a straight line. It is best to drive centering your car on the white line…this shows dominance and forces other drivers to adjust with the aforementioned horns communicating with each other In Almaty, drivers were mindful of pedestrians, and if you stood at a crossing, they would stop and allow you to pass. It was quite calming to know that you could cross in safety. In Tashkent, however, pedestrians are totally on their own. Blocks are extremely long and broad avenues of 6-8 lanes are not at all uncommon. Traffic whizzes by at rates approximating 50 mph and it is very disturbing to my old eyes to see little boys and girls no older than my grandson Alex standing in the middle of the street in their white shirts and black pants/skirts with cars zipping by them in both directions as they wait for a break in the traffic where they can bolt for the safety of the sidewalk. Even if you are in a crosswalk it is not a place where you relax and cross in safety…cars continue and there is a mental calculation made by drivers…speed+trajectory+ distance=close encounters of a very scary kind. The worst thing you can do in such crossings is to change your walking speed…all these calculations are made and locked in. If you speed up or slow down, it overloads the system and real danger disaster is imminent. Whether by law or by common practice, drivers have the right of way…and they have no hesitation to exercise this. My friends continue to be very mindful of us when we cross the street. Driving in the desert has its own rules. Without lane markers the only rule seems to be “I own the road, and I will exercise my right to my domain. There is generosity in this, sort of a noblese oblige..rarely do you force oncoming traffic to have all four wheels in the desert…Two wheels on pavement shows that you are willing to share your road with lessers. This is all done at speeds between 80-90 mph since the speedometer doesn’t vary much between 130-140 kph…side mirrors are very fond of each other and get up close and personal with each other, but since this is a Muslim country, touching is not allowed. Seat belts are an annoyance and should never be used. They restrict your ability to reach in the back seat for items deemed required for the trip, therefore they are disabled and non functional. Air conditioning means rolling down all windows and checking the condition of the air…the condition is always hot. In fairness to my above sarcasm, I have not seen a single accident or fender bender although we did experience a near disaster which haunted me for a full day. In Zarafshon, Sitora’s father stopped to let a woman who was leaving the central market to cross the street. She carried a baby in one arm, groceries in the other arm and a little six year old, or so, boy walked beside her…as they passed in front of our stopped vehicle, the boy darted from mom and headed to the side of the road just as a taxi came by with customary speed, read way too fast, and came within inches of hitting the boy…Screeching of tires, terrified screams from mom, and an “Oh my god,” from foreigners simultaneously filled the air…the taxi driver, naturally, screamed at the mother that this was not a pedestrian crossing, failing to note that there were not any pedestrian crossings within a 5 mile radius…I couldn’t help seeing my grandson, Alex, and I was left shaken for the remainder of the day.

Into the desert

Out of the hotel at 7:30 in the morning to get our train to visit Sitora’s family in Zarafshan, a dusty city in the middle of the Qizilqim dessert….our train ride of 6 hours was comfortable and speedy…trains in Uzb are quite good, and they are building a high speed rail network that will make traveling the distances much easier…From Tashkent to Samarkand takes four hours by regular train, but with the fast train, only two hours. We had a 6 person compartment in the 1st class rail car and the three of us were joined by an aloof businessman type and a young man who as the trip progressed made us aware in circumstances that his English was quite good…He apologized for having to get past us to go outside the compartment for example….Carol asked him near the end of the trip where he learned his English and he said that he had been an exchange student in Minnesota….that opened more conversation than just the short bursts of “excuse me,”. “I’m sorry,” etc….He said that he was from Bukhara and I noted that he was about the same age of the people we are heading to see later in the trip, so I started a litany of names to see if he knew any of them…Bukhara is a city of 300,000 so was unlikely, but there are doors in life that if you don’t open to see what is behind them you never know what you might find…after three: “Do you know,” names, on the fourth name Zulfiya, he said: “Yes, she is my cousin.”…I had several photos of “Zuzu,” as I call her, and so I showed him photos, and he smiled and said, yes that was her…one photo was of Zuzu with her mother, and he confirmed that the lady was the sister of his father…I had tried unsuccessfully to phone Zuzu when the train passed through Samarkand, but “Jim,” as he goes by with English speakers had her phone number stored in his phone and he called her and played a little game with her as to with whom he was traveling on the train…He then gave me the phone and she was so thrilled to hear my voice that she giggled through the conversation…we will stay with her in Samarkand in just over a week and now we had an extra connection….the two Jims decided that we needed to continue our conversation in Bukhara when we arrive, so we will have lunch together one day while we are there..you don’t open these doors in life, just to shut them without exploring all aspects possible. After reaching Navoi, pronounced Nav-o-ee, we took a taxi to find a taxi which would take us to Zarafshan….it was a high speed race across the dessert at speeds that averaged 75 mph, hitting 90 whenever road conditions permitted. The driver had a friend who rode shotgun and so the three of us Carol, Sisi, and I were crammed into the back seat of a small car as we tore across the territory…there was absolutely nothing in between the two cities separated by 120 miles of desolation, save one small shop where water and munchies were sold at a police checkpoint where people are forced to stop. As we sped across the dessert, I couldn’t help wondering: “Why does anybody live here?” Well, the answer is corporate wealth..Zarafshan is a mining area, phosphates and other minerals are torn from the earth in huge open pit mines, but the biggy is the gold mining operation…one of the largest gold mines in the world…Although developed by the Soviets in the 1960’s, it is now a joint U.S./Uzbek venture, another example how corporate eyes around the world lit up when the Soviet system of “republics,” came to an end in the early 90’s. When corporations open up operations in poor areas of the world, people will flock to the jobs created by those opportunities. It is a hot, dusty place in the middle of the desert and has no earthly reason to exist, except for the fact that there is wealth to be pulled from the earth. When I was posting photos on facebook, Sitora was sitting beside me and I commented on a photo that it was a dusty place, she asked me not to say that about her home town….here I get on shaky ground…how do I explain as forthrightly as possible what I’m seeing and experiencing and still not offend sensibilities of those involved…it is a difficult balance at all times, but particularly when I have come to meet people and be in their homes…do I become politically correct or do I really tell my view of the world? Got to think about this a little more because there are homes and families to visit. Sitora’s father, Ashraf, drove us around town to show us the “sights,” and it was certainly nothing to write home about…literally. All the time I’m thinking, as Sitora had said, that it was a really boring place to live, and I was saying to myself, “Okay, but this is like thousands of other places in the world that aren’t Las Vegas….just places where people scratch out a life…but then that all changed with a little bit of heaven as we went to the uncle’s Dacha…although it is in town, it still is a lovely little spot of earth…shaded from the hot sun by a grape arbor with spots for berries, vegetables, fruit trees and about an acre in total planted area….It was paradise and made me realize that we know so little about what we don’t see and it is easy to make decisions based on limited information that are totally wrong in reality. The two uncles naturally brought out the vodka and I drank more than I have since…well, since the last time I was in Uzbekistan…I’m a lightweight on the drinking scene and had to beg off and limit my consumption…you can’t say no, but you can shorten the glass…they let me pour my own glass so I was glad for that….there is such a fine line between being a good guest and being impolite…they expect me to drink with them. I felt like the in-laws in “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.” Lots of good conversation about culture and society and it was a great afternoon. Learned that Ashraf and Sitora’s mother, Zamira, had not met before the wedding day. They both came from traditional families…She was picked out by Sitora’s grandfather before he died as the future bride for his son…it’s worked, and they have been very happy. Ashraf is the last of 11 children, born when his mother was 51…it’s amazing that the father died first and not the mother. When you visit an Uzbek home you become the king and queen….we joked about this with the family as they refused to allow us to do anything, pay for anything, or lift a finger in any way to help and assist in even simple tasks….I always love to have my haircut during my travels…wandering around and finding a simple barber shop, preferably on the street is a joy and a wonderful experience that is always sort of a “Wonder what this will be like.” Ashraf took me to a fancier barber shop than I would have preferred, but again, the king does not decide these things. I want Carol to take a photo of my haircut, and motioned to her to come with us, but Ashraf motioned for them to stay in the car…I said I wanted her to photograph, but he insisted and so Carol and Sitora sat dutifully in the back seat in the heat until we returned…in the end, it was a good haircut, but I was not allowed to pay the 3,000 som $1,25 cents for the haircut…the barber, a boy of 16-18 was very nervous and careful…the other barbers in the shop cut 2-3 heads of hair while he worked on mine…clippers buzzed as he cut along the sides, looked at it from all angles and recut…as far as I could see in the mirror and feel on my head, he may have gotten one or two hairs…but he had to be perfect…Ashraf told me that the barber said: “I’m not washing my hands for a long time, I just cut an American’s hair.” Such are the perks when you are the king. Ashraf knows everybody. He is a gregarious, warm-hearted man even considering he was an ex-red army officer….his gruff exterior belies his gentle nature that works its way out when he doesn’t have to be “on.” Going for a walk is an exercise in patience as he stops to talk with everybody, and a drive across town is punctuated by calls to people on the street as we pass by. Zamira is a really sweet, soft-spoken and very, very shy lady…she rarely goes out of the house because she hates conversations…..when she speaks she speaks softly and with just a few words, but when seeing photos of our life in an album we always carry with us, the warmth just flows out…at 58, she still has her good looks, but does nothing to promote them…no make-up, no fancy clothes…At dinner time, she and the oldest daughter, Dilia, ate in the kitchen while Ashraf, Sitora, the king and queen ate at a small table in the living room…only on our last night did we all eat together. Their flat is in a Soviet style block house that gives rise to the expression that Bella, our hosts in Moscow gave us: “The soviets gave everything for the body, but nothing for the soul.”…but inside, Zamira and Ashraf have created a nice comfortable home. Five rooms including the kitchen made up home for the family, four girls and the parents….the bathroom is broken up into two rooms..one with the toilet, very small but clean and utilitarian, the other with a tub, no sink…hands are washed in the tub by a faucet which extends over the bathtub and a shower nozzle hangs above… The kitchen again is small, but utilitarian..washing machine on one side and a small stove to cook on…Carol looked at the amount of cupboard space and just shook her head….but this really works for the family…as Americans we look at this and wonder how we could cope, but also walk away with the feeling that we are so object, gadget, kitchen convenience-oriented that it makes us feel very over-indulgent of ourselves…the world does not work like this…the world does with so much less, and yet leads happy, fulfilling lives. Uzbeks who don’t have residency in Tashkent cannot live in Tashkent for more than six months at a time…They must register and when the six months is up, they have to re-apply for permission to stay another six months…this is done to keep the population from deserting the provinces and creating an impossible situation in Tashkent by being overrun with provincials who lack skills. There is a definite pecking order in Uzbekistan as to who you are based on where you come from…Students in Tashkent, for example, do not have to go pick in the cotton fields like the students in the provinces have to do, and I have some female face book friends who have not had to pick cotton because somebody know somebody who can make a phone call to somebody else. Money is exchanged, credit is registered in collective brains for future use, or simple: “We take care of each other,” methods of operations are not uncommon here…it is very frustrating to my young friends who have not grown up in the Soviet system and are looking for a new way of doing things…we will see. We finished off our visit with a desert picnic..driving out of town and into the void…you don’t have to go very far…the town is simply situated in the middle of the Kyzylkum so head any direction out of the town and you are in the middle of it…firewood was gathered from scrambling around looking for dried pieces of sage brush, and a little fire on which to cook our shashkik, (kebabs)…Ashraf, as always, wanted to do something special for us…Uzbeks are like that. Our time in Zarafashon was a treat…not the touristy, glitzy cities like Tashkent, nor the ancient calls to times past as in Samarkand…just a real place where real people live real lives….lives which have as much value as any others in the fascinating world…I want to see it all.

Tashkent phase 1

We said our goodbyes to Nadira that last night in Almaty and we left with the knowledge that she added to our lives immensely by her spirit and her giving nature…I can’t even imagine how we would feel about Almaty if she had not taken the time to explain Kazakh culture. I hope to see her on our return, but nothing is certain in life, and, as I told her when we said goodbye, I would be delighted if she was still in Almaty when we returned, but if not, we had our moment and that’s all you can expect in life….I’ll always have our time together in my heart. She is a very special young lady. The flight to Tashkent was a piece of cake…just over an hour and we were down…passing over the continuous mountain ranges that are Central Asia, we were met by two of my “granddaughters,” who had a car ready for us to get to the hotel…we went to lunch and visited a couple of museums and changed a ton, almost literally, of money…at 2,750 on the private market..$400 brought a 1,100,000 som…Carol had to totally line her purse with 1,000 individual notes of 1,000 soms per bill.…the thousand note is the biggest they have in Uzb, so you feel like diamond Jim Brady peeling off thousand som notes to pay for a meal….65 of them took care of a delicious meal for the four of us…it took almost as much time to count the bills out as it did to eat the meal. Munis who met us at the airport was one of the two people who I actually knew in Uzbekistan from our previous trip, and was the fountain from which many of my facebook friends sprang….all the others came through our facebook connection…as did the other girl Zarina….facebook gets knocked a lot for its triviality: “I’m going to the bathroom now, I’ll post a photo later,” sort of thing, but it has been my connection to the world…I think I have “friends” in 17 countries with whom I correspond, and this trip is intended to replace photos with real faces. Munis is my “take charge” granddaughter…she has a straight forward approach to life and doesn’t let things get in the way…but she has a heart of gold and is soft and warm inside, once you get past the “let’s do business,” exterior that she has…Zarina, I always called my “sweet granddaughter,” because there is a softness to her smile that comes from inside her…She gets hurt easily and has a difficult time in Tashkent because her mother, who is really the center of her life, is in Bukhara, a seven hour train ride away…I’ve talked with her so many times over the past two years, it was a delight to see her smile and soft voice. Our first museum stop was sort of a “Hello Uzbekistan” moment as we had not been there for more than 20 minutes when a family wanted to know if they could have their photo taken with us. After our days of seeming indifference in Kazakstan, it was our wake-up call…It’s not that they don’t get foreigners in Uzbekistan, it’s just that they really enjoy them and want to make them part of their lives in some small token.. Our check-in to the hotel was another example of Uzbek awareness…I saw the concierge who had helped us immensely two years ago, and I went up to say: “You won’t remember me, but we were here two years ago and you really helped me and I just want to thank you again.” He replied: “I remember you, you were with the Australian group.” Wow…all the thousands upon thousands of guests who have come through the hotel and he remembered me…It felt like coming home in a manner of speaking…of course, it could be said, with a mug like this, it’s not easy to forget. We had dinner with two more granddaughters…. Which was a repeat of the afternoon, faces replacing photos and the opportunity to have real conversations and see smiles rather than just words on the page….The next morning was a delight…most of my friends are university students, but a few are still in “Lyceum,” the Uzbek equivalent to high school…Two of my favorites “friends”, Malika and Shahklo, are about as sweet as they can be…full of life, energy and laughter….optimistic and enthusiastic, they wanted us to visit their school, so they picked us up at the hotel and we visited their English class…They attend a “World Language” lyceum, and it was interesting to us that most of the students at this school were girls…In Mali and Shah’s class of 30 students, there were only 5 boys. It seems that language development for career purposes is something that girls are more interested in…They told us that now that the Soviet system has ended, English has replaced Russian as the language of choice to study. The girls look like they are 13-14, and their teacher looks about 18, but, in fact, the students are 17 and the teacher is 24, We answered questions for an hour and thoroughly enjoyed the school atmosphere once again. Questions ranged from the well-thought out ones about differences in society to the trivial: “What time do you go to bed.” But the class was very orderly and you could tell that the students wer highly motivated…Mali and Shah’s language skills are very good, and what all these kids need is simply practice. Shah told me that her teacher told her that her English has improved greatly since we have been talking with frequency. Mali and Shah were excused from school for the day to show us around Tashkent. It is interesting that school attendance seems to be a somewhat relaxed discipline….students wander in late without incidence or notice…Mali is always late, for example, she loves her sleep in the mornings, and there doesn’t seem to be any consequences, and she missed several days a couple of weeks ago as her family prepared for the wedding of a friend – very different from what I’m used to. Bazaars, lunch, museums and a lot of laughter represented the rest of the afternoon…One of Mali’s friend is a gifted musician, Abulqasim, whose father is the director of the Tashkent symphony, and he wanted to play his original compositions for us. The hotel had a piano so he played some of his music. Hotel guests in the lobby responded with applause and we were very pleased that we had the opportunity to visit with him…He has a sweet, kind nature. His sister plays the oboe, and another sister, the flute, so they can make quite a trio…he also plays the cello, and he wanted to go get his cello to continue, but we had more people to meet so we begged off for the moment. It would be nice if we get the opportunity later on in our trip to hear some more. That evening I spoke at the “English Club,” part of the Youth Initiatives center. The topic given to me to speak on was “Secrets of Success.”….I had to laugh when they gave me the topic before we came…thank goodness I was 12,000 miles away or they would have heard a loud guffaw since I, who have stumbled, fumbled, and mumbled my way through 72 years of living, am one of the least qualified people I know to tell people how to be successful in life. But I agreed to speak and was happy to do so, since it gave my friends who arranged the meeting much credit…there were about 30 young adults there, and basically I told them that they didn’t need some old man from the west to come to Central Asia and tell how they should live their lives…they already knew the secrets to success, the difficult part was how to take them from concepts and put them into action. I spoke for about 20 minutes about various aspects of my life and the things I had learned from making so many mistakes along the way. It was supposed to be an hour session, but the questions and follow-up lasted another hour since they were totally engaged in the moment. Barno, one of the sweet ladies of the world had set this meeting up, and I was very happy to do this for her, and, as Gomer would say,” Surprise, surprise, surprise,”….it went over quite well and was received enthusiastically. Each day has been filled with visiting homes, being served enormous meals always with the admonition: “Eat, eat, eat,” and they place platter after platter on the table….Uzbeks love to host and are generous in spirit as well as at their table, but if we continue like this we’re goinzAaag to have to buy an extra seat between us for the flight home…the balance between being polite and taking care of our bodies is a fine one…a line we have not quite mastered just yet. I worried that Carol might feel left out because these kids are all my friends and she doesn’t know them, but they all love their “granny,” and she has taken them to her heart with joy, and it’s been a really fun trip. Next stop is Zarafshon, the gold mining town in the middle of that good old Kyzylkum dessert which we passed through two years ago. We’re staying with a family there for three nights before returning to Tashkent. So, we continue our adventures and each day provides its own rewards, excitement and fulfillment…we are living large and life is good. Hope all is well with the home front and points north, west, east, and south. Jim and Carol.

Nadira - My eyes in Almaty

Time in Almaty continues to be a quest to discover truth from fiction…understanding the things I see around me and making some sense of it in terms of the culture which I am observing…again, I am forced to realize that my glimpse of life here is but a fleeting one and I am just looking at the surface image without any real knowledge of whether what I see is simply the reality of that particular street corner on which I sit, or some overall insight into Kazakh society. Luckily, I have a good guide to help me navigate these questions…Nadira Berdali came to me by accident/chance/karma or kismet…take your pick…at any rate this young woman who has a world class smile and spirit to match has been a font of information. I had written to several people on Facebook to try to make contact with people there before we left. Nadira was the only one to respond, and if I send out a thousand requests, her's would be the best one from whom to receive a reply. I learned so much from her, and she allowed me to see Almaty in ways that would otherwise been mis-interpreted or just otherwise lost...and she did it with charm, grace and a bright spirit that was enhanced by her continual wonderful smile. For example. we have been keenly aware of our own insignificance as we walk down the street and it is as if we were not even there…Unlike Uzbeks, who are eager to make eye contact and where you can almost get tired of smiling and greeting people…here in Almaty, no heads turn, no smiles are reflected, no greetings offered…Nadira, and her friend, Aidana, explained that part of it is because Kazaks are very used to foreigners…there is a very large foreign footprint here in Almaty, the old capital of Kazakhstan. In fact, when Nadira took us to the Art Museum, one section portrays modern life and there is a huge display of Chevron’s influence and impact here…shortly after independence in 1991, western companies clamored to get a foothold in the oil rich nation…but who ever said that Oil and politics didn’t mix. So Kazakhs are used to seeing non-Central Asians and don’t take notice…but they also acknowledged that it is part of the national character…It’s not that they are a dour people…there is much joy in the street…people laugh and have animated conversations amongst themselves, but they are indifferent to what they don’t know…They look straight ahead in unwavering fashion if they walk by themselves, taking no notice of foreigners or other locals…On the occasion where they do look at you, as soon as you return the look, they quickly look away as if they have violated some code. This indifference borders on rudeness/hostility in many cases where you try to get a smile from one of them and they just glare back at you as our hotel clerk does…no political correctness here. In fairness, in most cases where we have needed help, Kazakhs have been very helpful and friendly, but you must almost block their pathway, or interrupt conversations to get their attention because they won’t stop to see what you need unless almost forced to do so…so there are some cultural factors working here that we aren’t tuned in to. Public affection amongst young people has also been a real surprise. My young Uzbek friends would never think of private affection with someone who is not their husband, here couples snuggle on park benches, walk down the street holding hands, and grab a quick hug while waiting for the traffic light to change…This has a lot to do with the fact that Islam is less a part of everyday life here in Almaty…very few head scarves are worn by women, no calls to prayer float across the air and we saw only one mosque in all our traipsing across the city. Kazakhstan is so huge a country, that, Nadira said we would gain a different feel in other parts of the country…Much like the US, it is difficult to make generalizations because of regional lore….I would hate to have US culture judged In its entirety by Selma, Alabama. Kazakhstan was the last of the Soviet “Republics” to gain independence…and like Uzbekistan, the President under Soviet rule, has been able to maintain his hold on power in the 22 years since independence…unfortunately, our contacts here will not permit any kind of political discussion. I’m very hopeful that it will be different in Uzbekistan when we get there..We have been invited into many homes, will stay in several and I am hopeful to gain some insight to political life, post Soviet style. As we continue to observe life in Almaty, the only gauge we have is to compare and contrast with what we know in Uzbekistan. In Uzbekistan, long hair on the girls is a source of pride, but here in Kazakhstan, long hair is more of an anomaly. Most have it shoulder length or slightly longer where they can put it into the ever-present single pony tail. Neither Nadira nor Aidana has hair long enough to configure in that way. It is more difficult to care for shorter hair Nadira says, and both girls felt that they were more fashionable with the shorter hair….contrasting views of the various impacts of fashion over tradition. Shows how little I know…I just assumed that longer hair was more difficult…the older I get, the more I realize how little I know about women…which will come as no surprise to the women in my life. Almaty is the cultural, educational, and university center of Kazakhstan, whereas Astana is the political capital…It was deemed so following independence when they moved the capital to the center of the country, a la Brasilia. They have created some spectacular architecture in Astana to give the capital some gravitas that it didn’t possess before. Another contrast between the two countries is that the Uzbek girls constantly feel that men get many more privileges than the females..guys can travel abroad but females can’t. Girls are expected to marry before the age of 21 in most cases, but guys can wait till later, guys can choose their careers, but females have acceptable careers that are deemed proper. Here in Kazakhstan, girls are not put under any kind of pressure to marry young…Nadira is 25 and thinks she will wait until she is 30 before marrying without any parental pressure to do so, something unheard of in Uzbekistan…she feels parental support to follow her dreams and figure them out for herself. She plans on studying abroad with the moral and emotional support of her parents to do so. I have no doubt she will be successful in whatever she attempts. Kids in Uzbekistan constantly complain about having to grease the palms of individuals in power positions to get what they should be entitled to by ability and talent…Neither Nadira nor Aidana felt that this is a big problem here in Kazakhstan. They acknowledged that there is some graft and corruption, but that it was not nearly as bad as that portrayed by their Uzbek counterparts. I have some Uzbek friends who were not forced to work in the cotton fields because dad knew somebody who knew somebody and money was exchanged for some avoidance of working in the fields, for example. And so, as our very limited time in Kazakhstan ends, I’m feeling that I leave with a very narrow view of life here for the people, but also with the knowledge that of all the Kazakhs there were to meet, I found the perfect one to give me positive view of the people and I know that Nadira’s spirit, laughter and smile will stay with me always…Kazakhstan is Nadira.

Central Asia, revisited

We returned home from our trip retracing the ancient silk road two years ago with a desire to learn more about Central Asia. We met two young Uzbek ladies on that trip who became facebook friends, and over past two years, those contacts have grown to over 70 “friends”, and a desire to really get to know these young people whose lives were helping to shape our views of Central Asia in general, and of Uzbekistan, in particular. Planning for a trip like this was very different..The last trip, by necessity, was done through a silk road specialty travel agency…this trip would be entirely free lance…and the bureaucratic red tape required to navigate the myriad roadblocks of ex-Soviet republics became an ongoing challenge…For example, we have been invited to stay in many homes, but it is required that we have hotel reservations in order to receive the “letter of support,” which is necessary to receive an Uzbek visa…We have to register at the hotel, but we don’t have to stay there…so, in reality, as long as we are paying for these hotels, it is okay, now we can go stay with our friends… Undaunted, but frustrated, by continuing red tape, we finally received our passports back from the Kazak and Uzbek embassies four days prior to leaving…Most of our journey will be in Uzbekistan, but given the opportunity to see another “Stan” on our journey, we flew into Almaty, Kazakhstan and will spend a few days here recovering from our 30 plus hour journey and also to see a little something of a culture which we thought would be similar to that of the Uzbeks….first impressions seem more to draw into focus the differences rather than the similarities. But this is a good opportunity to recharge the batteries and refresh the spirit before the social whirl of trying to see all the people who have invited us to their homes, celebrate their birthdays, attend their weddings, visit their universities and lyceums (high schools) and a myriad other activities which have been planned for our visit there. So we hit the streets yesterday upon our arrival and were immediately struck by several differences between the Kazakhs and Uzbeks…Uzbeks look “central” Asian. Being at the crossroads of East and West on the silk road, the cultural contact and the inevitable genetic mixing that took place with that contact, Uzbeks have a wonderful blend of the two. Kazakhs look as if the Asian influences are more dominant than the western traits. Geographically, the country is further east and was not influenced nearly as much by western influences…They seem closer to Mongolians in their facial features… Kazakhs are much more standoffish than Uzbeks….In Uzbekistan you could not walk down the street or sit in a restaurant without being greeted warmly with words or smile…Here in Almaty, you are almost invisible…nobody takes notice of your presence…walk down the street and everybody looks straight ahead and seems not to even notice your presence. Hotel personnel, restaurant patrons and staff ignore you and continue on as if you weren’t even there….Eye contact is non-existent. This is not bad, it was almost embarrassing how much attention was paid to us while were in Uzb., but it certainly is a marked change. Very few Moslem scarves on the women and very limited traditional clothing worn by the women....In all the cities we visited in Uzbekistan, traditional clothing was as much the norm as western clothing…A restaurant waitress in Khiva was smartly dressed in her work uniform, but when we saw her later in the streets, it was in traditional clothing that she was dressed…It was not an anomaly, but much more typical of how women portrayed themselves in public. Here in Almaty, it is much more common to see women in sweat pants than in traditional dress….At first glance, it would seem that Kazakhs are more impoverished than Uzbeks, but, in fact, the opposite is true…Kazakhstan economy is literally fueled by Petro dollars, whereas, Uzbeks struggle much more financially from the ancient soviet-style heavy industry left in deplorable conditions when the Russians got out of Dodge. If I make a comment on the facebook page of an Uzbek, I get “friend” requests from individuals…I sent out facebook messages to about 10 individuals in Almaty to find out something about their city that the guidebooks didn’t talk about and only one responded…luckily, it was Nadira who has been a true blessing in helping our logistical problems. We meet her for lunch today and will have the opportunity to understand the “rules” of Kazakh society which we are observing with our eyes. So, let the adventure begin…we’re living large once again in exotic lands where our comfort zones are being challenged by the continual search to understand the wonderful peoples and places that this planet has to offer.