final final

All settled back in at home with my cats, dog and my own bed…always nice to come back to. In past trips, when I’ve returned, it has been difficult to write the last few letters from a trip. It’s as if I get brain freeze as soon as I get home. After our Canada trip last year, I had several messages from friends wanting to know what happened because the letters just stopped abruptly with no indication that we hadn’t been swooped up and carried off to some distant planet in Andromeda. But not so with this trip. Although I’ve been back for two week, visions of people and activities keep coming back with vivid imagery, so I wanted to finish up the letters and tell you that Andromeda is a cool place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there. Writing these letters has been a very different, and often difficult, experience. I usually look forward to writing my impressions of what we see and do, and it is more often than not, they are just casual observations of “things/places/events. But with this trip, I struggled with how to portray the people with whom I interacted so intimately on a daily basis. How to be honest in my observations, yet sensitive to the fact that I was talking about people’s lives who I cared about, and who would read the words and would take them very personally? It caused me some hesitation in my writing. As I’ve stated before, Uzbekistan is an incredible place. Filled with wondrous images of the past and inhabited by people as warm, friendly, and hospitable as any on this earth. And yet, it is a land of deep pockets of corruption, inequality for many of its citizens, and some very thorny human rights issues. The contrast of society is enormous, with some haves and a lot of have nots. I guess because this was so much a “people trip,” I felt very differently about describing some of those experiences and the individuals that are represented in those experiences. I returned home with deep affection for the people I met and an appreciation for the glimpse into their lives that went far beyond what I had ever experienced in past trips. Here are some random and final observations. Safety…. The first reaction we often got when we told people that we were going to Uzbekistan and Kazakstan was “What,” “Where,” and that bewildered look was followed by: “Is it safe.”…Americans think that anything that ends in “Stan,” has to be a dangerous and inhospitable place. But nothing could be further from the truth. With the exceptions of taxi rides, we never felt in any danger at all. Can’t remember a rude incident, a hostile glare, or a time/place where I felt I had to be looking over my shoulder to ensure that we were not in any danger. On our last night in Tashkent, we had dinner with a couple of 20 year old females and at the end of the evening when we said our good byes at the hotel, the girls started to walk to catch their buses. So Carol walked with one, and I with the other. After a while, the bus didn’t come, so she flagged down a taxi..there were two men in the car, and she climbed in. I asked her if she would be okay, and she just laughed and said: “Of course.” I was cautious after the spate of news stories out of India about females being assaulted. That’s not a problem in Uzbekistan. I remember two years ago half expecting somber, withdrawn unfriendly people. Nothing could be further from the truth…Uzbeks are amongst the warmest people you could find anywhere. We were constantly invited to homes, often by people we had just met. When we were able to visit homes we were always presented with a spread of food that would make a gourmand’s mouth water, both in quantity and quality of food. The buildings may look terrible on the outside, Block buildings from the Soviet times which look make you feel that it must be a terrible place to live. , Nine stories high with the doors leading to the outside world bent and nonfunctioning. The stairs may be crumbling and darkly lit, but when you enter the individual flat, the families have created a beautiful and cozy home for themselves. It’s literally like entering a different world. Uzbeks take great pride in their homes, and in the city most live in apartments (flats as they call them) and while small by American standards there is a feeling of warmth and conviviality as you enter into their world. Again, I had to learn to check my preconceived notions at the door. Literally. Bread… Bread is called the staff of life, but you ‘ain’t seen nothin’ until you go to Uzbekistan…they eat bread with every meal, and we’re not taking vapid Rainbow white bread here…we’re talking some industrial strength bread…baked in circles about a foot in diameter, you could run your car for many miles on one of them if you have a flat tire. They sell it on the streets or in the bazaars or alongside of the road where it sits in the hot sun for hours with little damage or further hardening. When our train stopped in Samarkand for 15 minutes, my compatriots in the compartment went tearing off. Not one to be left in the dark, I went with them only to find them buying bread through the fence from women who know when the train comes and that people are going to want their bread. We were told many times that Samarkand bread is the best in the nation..It’s a hard bread and not particularly tasty to my taste buds, but you are never without bread at an Uzbek table. They are a healthy people. The freshness of the food that is prepared is amazing…you don’t run to the freezer and pull out one of the 22 precooked, prepackaged, presugared, salted, chemicaled foods from the Costco line. Rather you go to the bazaar each day and buy the food you need to prepare dinner that night…Carol mentioned that she felt like she was going through a de-tox session and her body felt so much healthier…Tomatoes like we haven’t seen since we left California were a staple of almost all meals. Yes, tomatoes for breakfast. Waiting in line is not an Uzbek attribute…Just as they drive looking for any advantage in traffic for themselves, so do they use the same techniques anytime there is some form of waiting. They are totally oblivious to anyone else other than to see them as obstacles to getting to the front of the “line.” I see it as being of the same national ethos…part of their DNA…Nobody gets upset about it, it just happens that way and everybody understands the rules. The same behavior could easily be attributed to them as well. It can get frustrating for a westerner, but it’s really just something to laugh off and joke about as it’s happening all around you. It’s really very interesting to watch as people maneuver their way to the front. You just have to be vigilant and hold your ground. Family. The bonds and extent of “family” in Uzbekistan is remarkable. Families are forever. I used to get very confused by the terminology that my friends used about their “sisters.” The term is used liberally and can extend to cousins and good friends. Brides take on a new and just as significant family when they marry. Whereas we clarify our familial relationships with specificity, Uzbeks work in generalities. A bride doesn’t have a new sister-in-law, she has a new sister. We had dinner at one house where the table was set for 14-16 people. I expected that we’d all sit down together and eat, but instead with about five people at the table we heard the familiar refrain: “Eat, eat, eat.” During the course of the next hour and a half, aunts, cousins, and various other family members drifted in, others drifted out, and the dinner was this running family congregation where greetings took place every time some entered the room and the conversation groups were an ever-changing mix. One lasting impression by Carol was the lack of female drivers…We only rode with one female in our time in Uzbekistan. Carol noted that she had not seen any on the road prior to that time…We did see more after we were looking to see how valid that was, and there were some, but very few…with a subway system covering the city, the cheapness of taxis, $1 will take you for a long cab ride, and a criss-crossing bus system that seemingly goes everywhere for twenty cents (US), there seems to be little need for that..Kids of all ages travel alone safely and efficiently around all the cities. I left Uzbekistan two years ago with two facebook friends…over the course of the next two years, that number grew to about 70 as people as people sent “friend” requests…I always asked the same two questions: “How did you find me?” and “Why do you want to be friends with some old man on the other side of the world?” Some people never responded and I didn’t confirm, but others had interesting reasons for wanting to be friends, and after confirming we developed real friendships, not just cyber numbers….now with this last trip, those numbers have grown considerably. As my neighbor Kim said: “I see you have added 57 new friends, I can’t even imagine.” It is a fabulous place and I encourage any and all intrepid travelers to visit…food is great, hotels are western quality, sites are incomparable, and then there are the people…the best part of it all. We already have some young friends who are planning visits to “Grandpa and Granny.” We will welcome them with the same open hearts that they accepted us. Happy trails my friends…..looks like New Zealand or Eastern Europe next yea….. Life is good. Carol and Jim