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.
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.
