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I’m in the south of France, in a small town on the Mediterranean, attending a seminar. The village of Golfe Juan is located right on the beach. I can walk 10 minutes from my hotel and be on the shore, walking past the marina packed with yachts and cruisers. A bit further down, I pass the public beach, where bathers of all ages turn crisp in the sun. Many women sunbathed topless and appeared very comfortable in their nudity. This included young woman as well as older women, whose breasts were just one more sagging fold that hung from their chests. Still further was a private beach, where swimmers pay 8 euro to lie on blue and white striped lounge chairs and enjoy a less crowded atmosphere.
I had fun walking down the streets of the small town, smelling the scent of the orange and lemons that hung from trees, from the obscenely sweet and beautiful roses outside a flower shop, the crusty French bread and the soft croissants from the boulangerie, and the homemade sweet delicacies from the chocolate shop. I liked seeing the separate small shops that specialized in meat, in fish, in water sports, or in pharmaceutical goods. I liked the little clinic where people could walk in for laboratory tests, enjoying a free cup of coffee, tea or hot chocolate at the door. I liked the beauty of the fruit and vegetable stands – the fresh, firm green beans, the round baby potatoes, the stiff artichokes, the dewy strawberries.
And of course I like where our seminar is being held, on a hillside villa with an aquamarine pool, a view over the ocean, and endless servings of gourmet food unavailable in Kyrgyzstan – from grilled fresh fish, salmon, pork, lamb chops and spiced lamb sausages, to the Caesar salad, couscous, flan, chocolate mousse, and plate of assorted gourmet cheeses.
Tomorrow I’m planning to take a jog along the shoreline. I’m looking forward to the scenery, and to the ability to run around in shorts without attracting curious stares.
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
Saturday, May 14, 2005
Instability
Yesterday I spoke to my colleague in Jalalabat. She lost one of her five employees to a sudden wedding.
“And another one was almost stolen this weekend,” she said.
I asked her about it and she told me that the young woman had been invited to a picnic by a former boyfriend. He’d asked her to marry him and she’d refused. They went very far away, hours from Jalalabat, and she started to get a bad feeling. When she became very worried, she and her friend ran away to the next village, then got a ride home from a local there.
“Good for her,” I said, that she escaped a possible kidnapping.
“Good for me,” my colleague said, thankful not to lose 40% of her staff in a single week.
Today I heard from our driver, Malan, that a prison full of prisoners were set free in Andijan, a town in Uzbekistan about 25 miles from Osh. Malik is usually my first source of local news. Later in the day, I heard more updates from Malan, followed by concern from our office manager, Gulnara, who’d read the news on the internet. Last of all, I received official warnings forwarded from the U.S. embassy in Tashkent and forwardings of articles in CNN and Russian news.
From what I heard, fifteen vehicles of armed men came to the prison, attacked the guards, and freed all the prisoners. They were upset about the imprisonment of 20 businessmen who were imprisoned on charges of extremism. They then demanded the resignation of the Uzbek president.
When I returned home, Nigora said she’d heard people talking in the market. She heard that prisoners had been freed, but didn’t know any details.
In the evening, I sat with Shavkat and Nigora around the outdoor table. They were both concerned.
“Uzbeks aren’t the type of people to start up protests,” Shavkat said. “There must be some provacateurs behind it.”
“The sickness crossed the border from Kyrgyzstan to Uzbekistan,” Nigora said.
“If there is a revolution in Uzbekistan,” Shavkat said, “it won’t end as quickly or calmly as it did in Kyrgyzstan. There are over 20 million people there. All of Kyrgyzstan is like just Tashkent. And in Kyrgyzstan Akaev decided not to use arms. But I don’t think that Karimov will take such a decision.”
It’s hard to know what the real situation is. On the one hand, Uzbekistan does have a lot of extremists and has a real reason to use strength to control them. On the other hand, I’ve heard that Uzbekistan is very hard on entrepreneurs and it’s possible that there were politically motivated imprisonments.
Nigora and Shavkat agreed that Uzbekistan had a problem with extremists.
“The worst place is Namagan,” Shavkat said, “and it’s only 50 miles from here. After the end of the Soviet Union they wanted to separate and form an Islamic state.”
“They would have been completely isolated from the world,” Nigora said. “They want people to not be able to turn on the TV or the radio, for women to wear full burqas. Even in Soviet times, religion played a very strong role there. My sister lives there and I used to go to visit here. On the street, old men would ask me why I didn’t have on a scarf or a long skirt and they’d hit me with their canes.”
“I would tell them, sorry, sorry, we’re guests and we don’t know your traditions,” Shavkat said.
Nigora said that when she goes there now, she always puts a scarf in her bag and wears a long skirt. “I’m afraid to go alone,” she said. “I always ask Shavkat to come with me.”
“And another one was almost stolen this weekend,” she said.
I asked her about it and she told me that the young woman had been invited to a picnic by a former boyfriend. He’d asked her to marry him and she’d refused. They went very far away, hours from Jalalabat, and she started to get a bad feeling. When she became very worried, she and her friend ran away to the next village, then got a ride home from a local there.
“Good for her,” I said, that she escaped a possible kidnapping.
“Good for me,” my colleague said, thankful not to lose 40% of her staff in a single week.
Today I heard from our driver, Malan, that a prison full of prisoners were set free in Andijan, a town in Uzbekistan about 25 miles from Osh. Malik is usually my first source of local news. Later in the day, I heard more updates from Malan, followed by concern from our office manager, Gulnara, who’d read the news on the internet. Last of all, I received official warnings forwarded from the U.S. embassy in Tashkent and forwardings of articles in CNN and Russian news.
From what I heard, fifteen vehicles of armed men came to the prison, attacked the guards, and freed all the prisoners. They were upset about the imprisonment of 20 businessmen who were imprisoned on charges of extremism. They then demanded the resignation of the Uzbek president.
When I returned home, Nigora said she’d heard people talking in the market. She heard that prisoners had been freed, but didn’t know any details.
In the evening, I sat with Shavkat and Nigora around the outdoor table. They were both concerned.
“Uzbeks aren’t the type of people to start up protests,” Shavkat said. “There must be some provacateurs behind it.”
“The sickness crossed the border from Kyrgyzstan to Uzbekistan,” Nigora said.
“If there is a revolution in Uzbekistan,” Shavkat said, “it won’t end as quickly or calmly as it did in Kyrgyzstan. There are over 20 million people there. All of Kyrgyzstan is like just Tashkent. And in Kyrgyzstan Akaev decided not to use arms. But I don’t think that Karimov will take such a decision.”
It’s hard to know what the real situation is. On the one hand, Uzbekistan does have a lot of extremists and has a real reason to use strength to control them. On the other hand, I’ve heard that Uzbekistan is very hard on entrepreneurs and it’s possible that there were politically motivated imprisonments.
Nigora and Shavkat agreed that Uzbekistan had a problem with extremists.
“The worst place is Namagan,” Shavkat said, “and it’s only 50 miles from here. After the end of the Soviet Union they wanted to separate and form an Islamic state.”
“They would have been completely isolated from the world,” Nigora said. “They want people to not be able to turn on the TV or the radio, for women to wear full burqas. Even in Soviet times, religion played a very strong role there. My sister lives there and I used to go to visit here. On the street, old men would ask me why I didn’t have on a scarf or a long skirt and they’d hit me with their canes.”
“I would tell them, sorry, sorry, we’re guests and we don’t know your traditions,” Shavkat said.
Nigora said that when she goes there now, she always puts a scarf in her bag and wears a long skirt. “I’m afraid to go alone,” she said. “I always ask Shavkat to come with me.”
An evening rain
It’s 11:40 p.m. and I can hear the rain running off the roof through the drainage pipes and into the garden. Thunder roars in the distance.
Shavkat lies outside on the porch, sleeping on mats as usual. He loves the rain and the sound of thunder. But tonight he’s drunk and I wonder if he hears it. Salima is afraid of storms and has only the children to comfort her at home.
Yesterday, earlier in the evening, we had a short but powerful freak storm. The rain came down in droves, running out of the drainage pipes like waterfalls. Nigora had just planted a flower bulb I’d brought her from the Netherlands and I wondered if it would be drowned.
I like the sound of the rain hitting the ground and falling into the rich soil and the thunder’s rumble. The world is dark and quiet and this reminds me of nature’s life and force. The sound also makes me think of cannon fire and reminds me of the problems in Andijan.
I was out in Osh today and didn’t notice anything different until I tried to buy tomatoes. The same tomatoes I bought yesterday for 30 som a kilo were now 50.
“The border is closed,” the vendors said. Those tomatoes had come from Uzbekistan and there may not be more for a while. So I worry about the entrepreneurs who are dependent on Uzbekistan, either for their supplies (especially of produce) or for their buyers (of other goods). In that way, the locals can be hurt by the events in Uzbekistan.
But besides the price of tomatoes, my day was no different than any other Saturday in Osh. It amazes me that there can be violence and bloodshed only 25 miles away, yet I feel nothing but a 50-cent increase in my expenses and a sadness at the sound of falling rain.
Shavkat lies outside on the porch, sleeping on mats as usual. He loves the rain and the sound of thunder. But tonight he’s drunk and I wonder if he hears it. Salima is afraid of storms and has only the children to comfort her at home.
Yesterday, earlier in the evening, we had a short but powerful freak storm. The rain came down in droves, running out of the drainage pipes like waterfalls. Nigora had just planted a flower bulb I’d brought her from the Netherlands and I wondered if it would be drowned.
I like the sound of the rain hitting the ground and falling into the rich soil and the thunder’s rumble. The world is dark and quiet and this reminds me of nature’s life and force. The sound also makes me think of cannon fire and reminds me of the problems in Andijan.
I was out in Osh today and didn’t notice anything different until I tried to buy tomatoes. The same tomatoes I bought yesterday for 30 som a kilo were now 50.
“The border is closed,” the vendors said. Those tomatoes had come from Uzbekistan and there may not be more for a while. So I worry about the entrepreneurs who are dependent on Uzbekistan, either for their supplies (especially of produce) or for their buyers (of other goods). In that way, the locals can be hurt by the events in Uzbekistan.
But besides the price of tomatoes, my day was no different than any other Saturday in Osh. It amazes me that there can be violence and bloodshed only 25 miles away, yet I feel nothing but a 50-cent increase in my expenses and a sadness at the sound of falling rain.
Thursday, May 12, 2005
Rural life
I traveled past Nookat today to a village near Kyzyl-Kia. It has a population of 2,500 and according to the local I was with, most of the able adults moved to Russia to work.
“They all went broke on cotton last year and there is no work here, so everyone left.”
Children lined the streets in small clusters, showing that the one thing there is to do in town is reproduce. The former pre-school was closed due to lack of funds and bought out by a mosque.
“It’s bad,” the local said, “because now the kids just stay home.”
Near the school, children climbed a fence and balanced on tree branches, picking berries. Small red tulips burst into color along the roadsides and the fields were full of workers planting tobacco.
“Tobacco is a lot of work for very little money,” our driver, Malan, told me. “There used to be a company, Daimler, that bought a lot of tobacco, but now they buy very little. When the tobacco is ready, they have to pick it either early in the morning or late in the evening, when there is no sun. If they try to pick it when it’s warm and sunny, they can have problems from the fumes emitted from the plants.
“They bring the tobacco home and all the children in the family thread the leaves through a needle, then hang it up to dry. When it’s dry, the children have to roll each piece.”
Malan has sometimes been driving down the middle of the road lately. When I asked him why he preferred the center to choosing a lane, he pointed out the difference between the dashed and the solid white line.
“The solid line is like a wall,” he said. “That one can’t be crossed. But if it’s dashed, then it can be crossed. I can drive down it.”
Interesting how we can take the same rule and see it in different ways. I agree that a dashed line can be crossed, but I expect it to be crossed in the process of choosing a new lane. He views it as freedom to cross it continually, even to drive right down it.
“They all went broke on cotton last year and there is no work here, so everyone left.”
Children lined the streets in small clusters, showing that the one thing there is to do in town is reproduce. The former pre-school was closed due to lack of funds and bought out by a mosque.
“It’s bad,” the local said, “because now the kids just stay home.”
Near the school, children climbed a fence and balanced on tree branches, picking berries. Small red tulips burst into color along the roadsides and the fields were full of workers planting tobacco.
“Tobacco is a lot of work for very little money,” our driver, Malan, told me. “There used to be a company, Daimler, that bought a lot of tobacco, but now they buy very little. When the tobacco is ready, they have to pick it either early in the morning or late in the evening, when there is no sun. If they try to pick it when it’s warm and sunny, they can have problems from the fumes emitted from the plants.
“They bring the tobacco home and all the children in the family thread the leaves through a needle, then hang it up to dry. When it’s dry, the children have to roll each piece.”
Malan has sometimes been driving down the middle of the road lately. When I asked him why he preferred the center to choosing a lane, he pointed out the difference between the dashed and the solid white line.
“The solid line is like a wall,” he said. “That one can’t be crossed. But if it’s dashed, then it can be crossed. I can drive down it.”
Interesting how we can take the same rule and see it in different ways. I agree that a dashed line can be crossed, but I expect it to be crossed in the process of choosing a new lane. He views it as freedom to cross it continually, even to drive right down it.
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
A trip to the Netherlands
I’m on my way back from a four-day holiday weekend in Holland. I’m becoming an Aeroflot frequent flier, having flown six international legs in just the last month. An extra five hours has been added to my already 18-hour journey by a change in the flight schedule of the local Kyrgyz airline. They must not have had enough passengers on the 8:45 a.m. flight to Osh I was scheduled for. So they put them all on a 12:35 flight to Jalalabat, which will then continue on to Osh.
That forced me to go into Bishkek to get some sleep. And on a positive note, I found a new hotel on the edge of the city where I got a nice nap in a small but clean bed, a hot shower, a fridge and a TV for $7.50.
It’s been several years since I’ve spent any time in the Netherlands and I really enjoyed my time there. As my boyfriend said, “This is what modernity is supposed to be,” – a clean, comfortable life with attention paid to community health and exercise, public space, social welfare and true individual liberty. Although it’s expensive, I think it would a nice place to live. Even from the plane I was impressed by the neat, orderly layout – from manufacturing plants that looked as clean and sleek as toys, to tall and narrow spinning windmills, castles, greenery, water and public spaces.
We spent the first two nights in Deventer, a Hanseatic League small town with a quaint central area, a wonderful collection of shops, and a surprisingly untouristed feel. Our hotel was a cozy and elegant room located in the back of a café and general store. Decorated with dark old furniture and yellow fabrics, it was bathed in the glow of daylight streaming through the third-story windows. The coffeeshop, where we had our breakfast, and in the hallways, antique cookie boxes and coffee grinders lined the walls. There we tried the local specialty and a popular accompaniment to tea – Deventer cake, a dark bread sweetened with honey.
On our first day we strolled the square, watched Liberation Day celebrations, listened to an old-fashioned musical box, walked along the canal, and took take-out Chinese back to our room.
The following day was my favorite of the trip. We took a train to the nearby town of Apledoorn, rented bicycles, and biked to the Hoge Veluwe National Park. It is the largest national park in the Netherlands. In 1914 it was purchased by Anton and Helene Kroller-Muller, a German couple. In 1930 it was given to the state. Racks of free white bicycles that can be used to ride through the premises form a unique aspect of the park.
It lacked the stunning scenery of some of the world’s famous national parks. But it made up for that by the fun of cycling along the paths and through different landscapes, the quaintness of the white bicycles we passed, and the marvelous Kroller-Muller museum, which opened in 1938 to show Helene’s art collection. It was a spectacular collection, including a sculpture garden and an ensemble of Van Gogh’s so powerful that I’ve never before been so struck as to the difference between a reproduction and the real thing. The colors and textures powerful enough to strike me to the core.
We biked all the way across the park, through forests, plains and best of all – an area of desert-like sand dunes that appeared suddenly at the edge of the forest. We then cycled to the town of Arnhem, passing homes, public parks, bicycles, Pannekoeken pancake cafes, and remarkably few stores along the way.
I saw a greater variety of bicycles than I’d ever seen before – singles, doubles, satchels across the back, baskets on the front, a child seat in the rear, a baby seat in front (protected by a windshield), carriages pulled behind, and even what I called a wheelbarrow bike, with a large, open square at the front of the bike, large enough to carry a few seatbelted children, a stroller, a few bunches of fresh roses, and even the groceries. I loved the well-marked bike routes, the bike lane incorporated into every road, the tiny average size of cars, and t he clear priority people put on fuel conversation, public transportation and using bikes and feet as a major mode of transportation, even when there are kids. We saw numerous families, all biking together, the kids on one of the various seats, or from a young age, moving quickly on their own bike.
We spent the next two days in the more touristed area just west of Amsterdam, the home of the infamous tulip fields. During the first day, we wanted through the streets of Haarlem, a 17th century town. We visited the large, old church, with one of the biggest organs in the world, and drank beer in a personable pub, where children drank sodas while their parents imbibed beer and an old man played live jazz on the piano.
The next day we rented bicycles once again and bicycled to the famous Keukenhof Garden, a wonderful 69-acre park full of colorful tulips and other spring flowers born from over six million bulbs planted each autumn. We arrived near the end of the season, which goes until May 20th. So the nearby fields, which a month ago would have been rainbow beams of color, were now largely empty. But we could imagine the scenery in the fields by seeing the specially planted tulips in the park.
The weather was very variable. It was generally chilly and windy, but the sun shone frequently. While we were at the park, we were hit by a heavy hail storm. Five minutes later, the sun had returned. We were just grateful that the storm came while we were within reach of shelter, instead of out in the countryside on our bikes.
What really surprised me was that despite the distances we traveled by bike, we passed very few stores or other commercial outlets. Unlike in America, where there seems to be a Seven Eleven on every corner, in Holland we had to travel quite a ways to find a gas station where we could buy a drink. While I like the convenience of being able to buy what I need, I also appreciated the long stretches of greenery and residential areas, and the lack of gaudy, cheap stores selling junk food.
Before leaving Holland, I stocked up on cheese and flowers, and hoped I’d be able to return someday to explore more of the bicycle paths. One disadvantage of traveling in Europe (versus in developing countries) is that everything is so organized and navigable that it’s hard to meet locals. It is often the struggles in travel that bring me into contact with the local residents. Since we had no difficulties in Holland, we had a nice time, but didn’t have a real conversation with anyone there. I’d like to return someday to see some more of the country, and to learn more about the people who populate it, and who promote the way of life I find so attractive.
That forced me to go into Bishkek to get some sleep. And on a positive note, I found a new hotel on the edge of the city where I got a nice nap in a small but clean bed, a hot shower, a fridge and a TV for $7.50.
It’s been several years since I’ve spent any time in the Netherlands and I really enjoyed my time there. As my boyfriend said, “This is what modernity is supposed to be,” – a clean, comfortable life with attention paid to community health and exercise, public space, social welfare and true individual liberty. Although it’s expensive, I think it would a nice place to live. Even from the plane I was impressed by the neat, orderly layout – from manufacturing plants that looked as clean and sleek as toys, to tall and narrow spinning windmills, castles, greenery, water and public spaces.
We spent the first two nights in Deventer, a Hanseatic League small town with a quaint central area, a wonderful collection of shops, and a surprisingly untouristed feel. Our hotel was a cozy and elegant room located in the back of a café and general store. Decorated with dark old furniture and yellow fabrics, it was bathed in the glow of daylight streaming through the third-story windows. The coffeeshop, where we had our breakfast, and in the hallways, antique cookie boxes and coffee grinders lined the walls. There we tried the local specialty and a popular accompaniment to tea – Deventer cake, a dark bread sweetened with honey.
On our first day we strolled the square, watched Liberation Day celebrations, listened to an old-fashioned musical box, walked along the canal, and took take-out Chinese back to our room.
The following day was my favorite of the trip. We took a train to the nearby town of Apledoorn, rented bicycles, and biked to the Hoge Veluwe National Park. It is the largest national park in the Netherlands. In 1914 it was purchased by Anton and Helene Kroller-Muller, a German couple. In 1930 it was given to the state. Racks of free white bicycles that can be used to ride through the premises form a unique aspect of the park.
It lacked the stunning scenery of some of the world’s famous national parks. But it made up for that by the fun of cycling along the paths and through different landscapes, the quaintness of the white bicycles we passed, and the marvelous Kroller-Muller museum, which opened in 1938 to show Helene’s art collection. It was a spectacular collection, including a sculpture garden and an ensemble of Van Gogh’s so powerful that I’ve never before been so struck as to the difference between a reproduction and the real thing. The colors and textures powerful enough to strike me to the core.
We biked all the way across the park, through forests, plains and best of all – an area of desert-like sand dunes that appeared suddenly at the edge of the forest. We then cycled to the town of Arnhem, passing homes, public parks, bicycles, Pannekoeken pancake cafes, and remarkably few stores along the way.
I saw a greater variety of bicycles than I’d ever seen before – singles, doubles, satchels across the back, baskets on the front, a child seat in the rear, a baby seat in front (protected by a windshield), carriages pulled behind, and even what I called a wheelbarrow bike, with a large, open square at the front of the bike, large enough to carry a few seatbelted children, a stroller, a few bunches of fresh roses, and even the groceries. I loved the well-marked bike routes, the bike lane incorporated into every road, the tiny average size of cars, and t he clear priority people put on fuel conversation, public transportation and using bikes and feet as a major mode of transportation, even when there are kids. We saw numerous families, all biking together, the kids on one of the various seats, or from a young age, moving quickly on their own bike.
We spent the next two days in the more touristed area just west of Amsterdam, the home of the infamous tulip fields. During the first day, we wanted through the streets of Haarlem, a 17th century town. We visited the large, old church, with one of the biggest organs in the world, and drank beer in a personable pub, where children drank sodas while their parents imbibed beer and an old man played live jazz on the piano.
The next day we rented bicycles once again and bicycled to the famous Keukenhof Garden, a wonderful 69-acre park full of colorful tulips and other spring flowers born from over six million bulbs planted each autumn. We arrived near the end of the season, which goes until May 20th. So the nearby fields, which a month ago would have been rainbow beams of color, were now largely empty. But we could imagine the scenery in the fields by seeing the specially planted tulips in the park.
The weather was very variable. It was generally chilly and windy, but the sun shone frequently. While we were at the park, we were hit by a heavy hail storm. Five minutes later, the sun had returned. We were just grateful that the storm came while we were within reach of shelter, instead of out in the countryside on our bikes.
What really surprised me was that despite the distances we traveled by bike, we passed very few stores or other commercial outlets. Unlike in America, where there seems to be a Seven Eleven on every corner, in Holland we had to travel quite a ways to find a gas station where we could buy a drink. While I like the convenience of being able to buy what I need, I also appreciated the long stretches of greenery and residential areas, and the lack of gaudy, cheap stores selling junk food.
Before leaving Holland, I stocked up on cheese and flowers, and hoped I’d be able to return someday to explore more of the bicycle paths. One disadvantage of traveling in Europe (versus in developing countries) is that everything is so organized and navigable that it’s hard to meet locals. It is often the struggles in travel that bring me into contact with the local residents. Since we had no difficulties in Holland, we had a nice time, but didn’t have a real conversation with anyone there. I’d like to return someday to see some more of the country, and to learn more about the people who populate it, and who promote the way of life I find so attractive.
Thursday, May 05, 2005
Holiday number two
Today is Constitution Day in Kyrgyzstan, the second of three holidays in the first week of May. But the real focus is on Victory Day, the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II (here called the Great Patriotic War) which will take place on Monday.
Yesterday I saw two trucks full of soldiers dismounting near the central square.
“Oh no. What’s happening now?” I asked our driver Malik, fearing new unrest.
“They are preparing for the Victory Day parade,” he said.
Many surviving veterans have been invited to Moscow and the red carpet seems to be rolled out for them during the whole journey. On my flight yesterday from Osh to Bishkek, airport staff greeted, seated and catered to two old Kyrgyz men in gold-embroidered kalpaks. I only realized at the end of the flight that they were probably veterans going to Moscow.
On my flight from Bishkek to Moscow, several old men (mostly ethnic Russians) wore jackets filled with dangling metal Soveit pins. As we boarded, they were pulled aside to be reseated in business class.
“I guess we’re flying separately,” one old man joked as a second was pulled out of line.
The intercom at the Moscow Sheremetyevo airport announced that veterans could get free tickets for a bus ride into town.
It’s moving to see these survivors and imagine the horrors they must have been exposed to at an early age. Going thorugh the war should have been enough sacrifice for one lifetime. But some of them must also have been among those sent into Stalinist labor camps upon their return, or must have lost friends or family in Stalin’s purges. I wonder what they think that where their country and people have come since ten and I hope they feel the horror they deserve for their sacrifices.
I’m now on my way to Holland, to meet my boyfriend for the holiday weekend. It was difficult getting the one work day off of work and I’m very glad to be on my way.
I spent yesterday evening with Gulnara and her family. In honor of my visit they prepared manti, steamed dumpling filled with potatoes, greens and fat. Gulnara baked a fresh loaf of bread, as she does every day, and made a salad from tomatoes, radishes and cucumbers. When her sister-in-law, a 10th grade student, opened the mayonnaise to put on the salad, she rubbed off a contest piece and found that she’d won an iron.
Her brother-in-law Ruslan grilled me on history, especially about the U.S. role in World War II and seemed to gloat in my poor knowledge. Though they were all Kyrgyz, none of them seemed to particularly like the south, taking pride in the fact that Bishkek is “more European” and has “more ethnic Russians.” Given the mass exodus of Russians that took place after the revolution, I’m not sure how much longer that will last. “It’s kind of life how it was in America, when there was a war between the north and the south,” Ruslan said. “It could be the same way here.”
It doesn’t help that there is a clear north-south division between the two primary presidential candidates. Bakiyev, the acting President, is from the southern city of Jalalabat and was put in power by protestors from the south. Kulov, an authoritarian figure, has a Russian wife and reputedly has trouble speaking Kyrgyz.
Gulnara sat me on the bed she shares with her husband Shakir and showed me the pregnancy book they read together in the evenings. She told me that she’s found an obstretrician she likes and the hospital where she’ll give birth (maternity ward #4). In Kyrgyzstan, women don’t receive any painkillers unless there is a serious problem.
“They told me that if I got painkillers then I wouldn’t feel anything. And if something happened like the baby pressed against the kidneys, I wouldn’t feel it and they could explode.”
She recently graduated from a local MBA program and her graduation ceremony was on the day of the revolution in Bishkek. I asked if she had any photos.
“Not really. I’m waiting to get some from friends. We were all dressed in our caps and gowns and we planned to spend the whole day together, to go out to a café. But the administration told us that people were gathered and that they’d just taken over the White House. So we needed to get home.”
I’m now seated on an Aeroflot flight from Moscow to Amsterdam. The difference in flights heading west versus east is astonishing. I have a whole row to myself, the seats are spacious and skinny, the cabin is cool and bright and the flight staff nicely attired. The flights to Bishkek have old, crummy seats, in which my knees press into the seat in front of me, the air is heavy and dark and the service poor in the best Russian tradition.
I’m entering a part of the world with higher standards, where fewer people complain about the lack of work and absence of a future for their children.
Yesterday I saw two trucks full of soldiers dismounting near the central square.
“Oh no. What’s happening now?” I asked our driver Malik, fearing new unrest.
“They are preparing for the Victory Day parade,” he said.
Many surviving veterans have been invited to Moscow and the red carpet seems to be rolled out for them during the whole journey. On my flight yesterday from Osh to Bishkek, airport staff greeted, seated and catered to two old Kyrgyz men in gold-embroidered kalpaks. I only realized at the end of the flight that they were probably veterans going to Moscow.
On my flight from Bishkek to Moscow, several old men (mostly ethnic Russians) wore jackets filled with dangling metal Soveit pins. As we boarded, they were pulled aside to be reseated in business class.
“I guess we’re flying separately,” one old man joked as a second was pulled out of line.
The intercom at the Moscow Sheremetyevo airport announced that veterans could get free tickets for a bus ride into town.
It’s moving to see these survivors and imagine the horrors they must have been exposed to at an early age. Going thorugh the war should have been enough sacrifice for one lifetime. But some of them must also have been among those sent into Stalinist labor camps upon their return, or must have lost friends or family in Stalin’s purges. I wonder what they think that where their country and people have come since ten and I hope they feel the horror they deserve for their sacrifices.
I’m now on my way to Holland, to meet my boyfriend for the holiday weekend. It was difficult getting the one work day off of work and I’m very glad to be on my way.
I spent yesterday evening with Gulnara and her family. In honor of my visit they prepared manti, steamed dumpling filled with potatoes, greens and fat. Gulnara baked a fresh loaf of bread, as she does every day, and made a salad from tomatoes, radishes and cucumbers. When her sister-in-law, a 10th grade student, opened the mayonnaise to put on the salad, she rubbed off a contest piece and found that she’d won an iron.
Her brother-in-law Ruslan grilled me on history, especially about the U.S. role in World War II and seemed to gloat in my poor knowledge. Though they were all Kyrgyz, none of them seemed to particularly like the south, taking pride in the fact that Bishkek is “more European” and has “more ethnic Russians.” Given the mass exodus of Russians that took place after the revolution, I’m not sure how much longer that will last. “It’s kind of life how it was in America, when there was a war between the north and the south,” Ruslan said. “It could be the same way here.”
It doesn’t help that there is a clear north-south division between the two primary presidential candidates. Bakiyev, the acting President, is from the southern city of Jalalabat and was put in power by protestors from the south. Kulov, an authoritarian figure, has a Russian wife and reputedly has trouble speaking Kyrgyz.
Gulnara sat me on the bed she shares with her husband Shakir and showed me the pregnancy book they read together in the evenings. She told me that she’s found an obstretrician she likes and the hospital where she’ll give birth (maternity ward #4). In Kyrgyzstan, women don’t receive any painkillers unless there is a serious problem.
“They told me that if I got painkillers then I wouldn’t feel anything. And if something happened like the baby pressed against the kidneys, I wouldn’t feel it and they could explode.”
She recently graduated from a local MBA program and her graduation ceremony was on the day of the revolution in Bishkek. I asked if she had any photos.
“Not really. I’m waiting to get some from friends. We were all dressed in our caps and gowns and we planned to spend the whole day together, to go out to a café. But the administration told us that people were gathered and that they’d just taken over the White House. So we needed to get home.”
I’m now seated on an Aeroflot flight from Moscow to Amsterdam. The difference in flights heading west versus east is astonishing. I have a whole row to myself, the seats are spacious and skinny, the cabin is cool and bright and the flight staff nicely attired. The flights to Bishkek have old, crummy seats, in which my knees press into the seat in front of me, the air is heavy and dark and the service poor in the best Russian tradition.
I’m entering a part of the world with higher standards, where fewer people complain about the lack of work and absence of a future for their children.
Monday, May 02, 2005
A Summer Day Off in May
Today was a day off of work, since yesterday, a Sunday, was a national holiday, something like Labor Day. The first week of May is the most chock-full period of holidays in the year. Both Thursday and next Monday are also holidays.
It’s definitely summertime now and I put away all my winter clothes today. The temperature is in the 80s and 90s, all of the trees have bloomed, and outdoor cafes have sprouted up overnight.
I spent much of the day reading and writing. When I got sick of being in my room, I walked into town and found a spot at an outdoor café table, where I could enjoy the fresh air.
The place where we had our picnic yesterday was beautiful. It was at the end of a remote mountain valley, about two hours from Osh along rough, dirt roads. The mountains were covered with daffodil and crocus stalks. I could imagine the land exploding into color next month. Above us rose white, snowy peaks and a clear river ran white over rocks and through the valley.
We had enough time to enjoy an outdoor picnic with roasted lamb shashlik. Almost as soon as we finished eating, it started to rain and then to hail, little white balls falling from the sky and bouncing up from the ground. A geologist with us said that the mountains caused the rain, by forcing the air up where it was cool.
There were a couple of old rusted wagons in the national park and we were the only visitors that day. One had a large table where we could all gather. Another had eight narrow bunkbeds, for visitors who want to spend the night. There was also a traditional wooden Russian banya, where I was able to sweat while looking out the small window at the falling rain. It was amazing to open the door of the banya when exiting and walk out into a pristine mountain landscape.
While we weren’t able to do much hiking or outdoor activities, it was great to get some fresh air and enjoy the beautiful Kyrgyz mountain scenery. Now that I know where this place is, I’m going to try to organize a weekend trip for some of our staff members. Kyrgyzstan has so much beautiful scenery to offer, but since the roads are bad and many of the nicest sights are remote, it can be hard (or at least expensive) to travel alone. My goal is to plan a couple of group trips this summer.
It’s definitely summertime now and I put away all my winter clothes today. The temperature is in the 80s and 90s, all of the trees have bloomed, and outdoor cafes have sprouted up overnight.
I spent much of the day reading and writing. When I got sick of being in my room, I walked into town and found a spot at an outdoor café table, where I could enjoy the fresh air.
The place where we had our picnic yesterday was beautiful. It was at the end of a remote mountain valley, about two hours from Osh along rough, dirt roads. The mountains were covered with daffodil and crocus stalks. I could imagine the land exploding into color next month. Above us rose white, snowy peaks and a clear river ran white over rocks and through the valley.
We had enough time to enjoy an outdoor picnic with roasted lamb shashlik. Almost as soon as we finished eating, it started to rain and then to hail, little white balls falling from the sky and bouncing up from the ground. A geologist with us said that the mountains caused the rain, by forcing the air up where it was cool.
There were a couple of old rusted wagons in the national park and we were the only visitors that day. One had a large table where we could all gather. Another had eight narrow bunkbeds, for visitors who want to spend the night. There was also a traditional wooden Russian banya, where I was able to sweat while looking out the small window at the falling rain. It was amazing to open the door of the banya when exiting and walk out into a pristine mountain landscape.
While we weren’t able to do much hiking or outdoor activities, it was great to get some fresh air and enjoy the beautiful Kyrgyz mountain scenery. Now that I know where this place is, I’m going to try to organize a weekend trip for some of our staff members. Kyrgyzstan has so much beautiful scenery to offer, but since the roads are bad and many of the nicest sights are remote, it can be hard (or at least expensive) to travel alone. My goal is to plan a couple of group trips this summer.
Sunday, May 01, 2005
A New Life Together
Yesterday I went to my second Kyrgyz wedding, a marriage between two of our employees. It was unusual in several regards – the wife is a few years older, a few inches taller, and held a higher-ranking job than the husband. And there were only eleven people in attendance at the wedding.
The invitation said the celebration would begin at 1 p.m. and urged people not to be late. I went with Gulnara, our office manager, and we arrived around 1:30, afraid we were late and would cause problems. Instead, we were the first people there.
About an hour later, the wedding car pulled up. The bride, Baktigul, had her hair specially done and wore a beautiful white dress and veil. The groom, Kanat, also looked very nice in his black suit. They were accompanied by a few friends and a videographer and a photographer, both Kanat’s friends.
We went into the bar of Osh plaza, where a banquet table had been set for 20. There were four spaces at the head for the bride, groom and witnesses. A second table was perpendicular, forming a T. I kept waiting for more people to show up, but it never happened. When I asked Baktigul where her parents were she said, “They are probably doing errands.” What kind of parents would be doing errands on their daughter’s wedding day, I wondered.
The celebration wasn’t a lot of fun. I had to sit next to a woman who my predecessor fired, the videographer was drunk and kept leaning in for close-ups of things like the salt shaker or the Coke bottle, and the food wasn’t very good. It was clear they were on a tight budget. The pears, oranges and bananas were bruised, the candy baskets were full of cheap, hard candies instead of the usual chocolates, and there was little cheese or sausage.
The most popular time of year for weddings in Kyrgyzstan is between August and November, when the harvests come in, fruits and vegetables are abundant, and cattle have become fattened after a summer in the pastures. The cost of a wedding is significantly lower at that time.
People tend to get married in the spring, when everything is expensive, only if there is a specific reason. Another employee got married when I was in Moscow. He had planned to marry in August. But the parent’s of his fiancée said that if he wanted to marry her, he had to do it immediately. Otherwise they’d give her to someone else.
Baktigul told me that she planned a larger wedding in Kyzyl-Kia, where her new husband comes from. But his grandfather died recently. And according to tradition, it’s not allowed to hold celebrations within a year of the death of a close family member. I found that hard to understand. If his grandfather loved Kanat, would he really want him to postpone his happiness for a year because of his passing? Wouldn’t he rather his offspring find joy in life while they can?
I’d heard rumors several weeks ago that these two were living together, “a civil marriage.” As for why they needed to marry so quickly, and without their families, I don’t understand. I thought maybe Baktigul was pregnant, but she wasn’t visibly so. Nigora thought maybe Kanat stole Baktigul. But I didn’t think so, especially since Baktigul was his supervisor. Then Nigora thought maybe they didn’t have their parents’ permission to marry. Or maybe Baktigul, who at 27 already had reduced chances of finding a spouse, didn’t want to risk letting this opportunity go by.
But whatever the reason, the most important thing is that they are happy together. And they did seem to be happy with each other, smiling knowingly at each other and touching each other in an easy, familiar manner while dancing. It was nice to see a couple that seemed to be attracted to each other and both wanted to get married. In the last wedding I went to, the wife was convinced to marry due to pressure from her parents and the practical arguments that this man would be a supportive and good spouse.
Salima, another employee, sat next to me. She is an Uzbek, who tend to be more traditional and marry their daughters earlier than the Kyrgyz. At 23, she’s already pretty old for an Uzbek. She was supposed to get married this fall to a man she didn’t know or like. She was happy when he went off to Russia. She told me that she now plans to marry another man who her parents have selected. I asked if she’d met him and she said yes, “we’ve started talking.”
She doesn’t seem excited about this man either, but likes him better than the first. He speaks several languages and has been working for Lukoil in Russia. He wants to go back to Russia once more before the wedding and she thinks there is a chance he won’t return.
“If he can find a job with a normal salary he’ll stay here,” she said. “Otherwise he’ll return to Russia.”
If the wedding does happen, she said she’d invite me, promising me that it would be a big, loud, and noisy affair, in the Uzbek tradition.
While we were waiting for the wedding party to arrive, I sat at an outdoor table with Gulnara. She is a 25-year-old Kyrgyz from a village just outside Osh. She also is facing intense pressure from her family to marry, and has so far resisted it.
She told me that just this week she took a taxi while working and the driver asked her to dinner. She refused and he then threatened to steal her. Taxi drivers almost always ask me about my marital status, and they occasionally joke about stealing. But as a foreigner I can take it as a joke. I know it is extremely unlikely that they would try to steal a tall American. But for Gulnara, the threat is real. Someone could actually kidnap her and take her home as his bride.
“What would you do if I were to steal you right now?” he asked her.
“I’d burn down your house and your car,” she told him.
He was shocked.
“Whether someone steals a woman depends on their reaction,” Gulnara told me. “When I told him I’d burn his house, he could tell I was serious. But if someone laughs and seems unsure, then they could steal her.
“In the past, when I was a first and second-year university student, I used to really worry about getting stolen. Even though my parents and grandmother didn’t want me to be stolen, I knew that they’d be subjected to a lot of pressure to agree to the marriage and I think things would have been difficult for me. Also, at that time, I would have had a hard time going against my parents.
“Now I feel more independent of my parents. If I were to be stolen, I would definitely say no and leave. But even if I could leave, I think it would still be a traumatic experience.”
Of course I agreed with her. It would be traumatic for anyone to be kidnapped, to lose their freedom of movement and choice, to be trapped in an environment where they don’t want to be. And the fact that Kyrgyz women have to think seriously and frequently about what they would do if they were kidnapped is really sad.
In other news, the family dog Max is back home for good now, after navigating the streets back home four times. I’m just going to have to get used to him.
The weather is warm – in the 80s and 90s – and the city is beautiful. Green trees line the streets, flowers of future fruits have sprouted, and the purple flowers are sprinkled around the city. Fresh strawberries and cherries from Uzbekistan have appeared in the market and people seem happier during the long, sunny days. Today my family is taking me out to the mountains for a picnic. I can’t wait!
The invitation said the celebration would begin at 1 p.m. and urged people not to be late. I went with Gulnara, our office manager, and we arrived around 1:30, afraid we were late and would cause problems. Instead, we were the first people there.
About an hour later, the wedding car pulled up. The bride, Baktigul, had her hair specially done and wore a beautiful white dress and veil. The groom, Kanat, also looked very nice in his black suit. They were accompanied by a few friends and a videographer and a photographer, both Kanat’s friends.
We went into the bar of Osh plaza, where a banquet table had been set for 20. There were four spaces at the head for the bride, groom and witnesses. A second table was perpendicular, forming a T. I kept waiting for more people to show up, but it never happened. When I asked Baktigul where her parents were she said, “They are probably doing errands.” What kind of parents would be doing errands on their daughter’s wedding day, I wondered.
The celebration wasn’t a lot of fun. I had to sit next to a woman who my predecessor fired, the videographer was drunk and kept leaning in for close-ups of things like the salt shaker or the Coke bottle, and the food wasn’t very good. It was clear they were on a tight budget. The pears, oranges and bananas were bruised, the candy baskets were full of cheap, hard candies instead of the usual chocolates, and there was little cheese or sausage.
The most popular time of year for weddings in Kyrgyzstan is between August and November, when the harvests come in, fruits and vegetables are abundant, and cattle have become fattened after a summer in the pastures. The cost of a wedding is significantly lower at that time.
People tend to get married in the spring, when everything is expensive, only if there is a specific reason. Another employee got married when I was in Moscow. He had planned to marry in August. But the parent’s of his fiancée said that if he wanted to marry her, he had to do it immediately. Otherwise they’d give her to someone else.
Baktigul told me that she planned a larger wedding in Kyzyl-Kia, where her new husband comes from. But his grandfather died recently. And according to tradition, it’s not allowed to hold celebrations within a year of the death of a close family member. I found that hard to understand. If his grandfather loved Kanat, would he really want him to postpone his happiness for a year because of his passing? Wouldn’t he rather his offspring find joy in life while they can?
I’d heard rumors several weeks ago that these two were living together, “a civil marriage.” As for why they needed to marry so quickly, and without their families, I don’t understand. I thought maybe Baktigul was pregnant, but she wasn’t visibly so. Nigora thought maybe Kanat stole Baktigul. But I didn’t think so, especially since Baktigul was his supervisor. Then Nigora thought maybe they didn’t have their parents’ permission to marry. Or maybe Baktigul, who at 27 already had reduced chances of finding a spouse, didn’t want to risk letting this opportunity go by.
But whatever the reason, the most important thing is that they are happy together. And they did seem to be happy with each other, smiling knowingly at each other and touching each other in an easy, familiar manner while dancing. It was nice to see a couple that seemed to be attracted to each other and both wanted to get married. In the last wedding I went to, the wife was convinced to marry due to pressure from her parents and the practical arguments that this man would be a supportive and good spouse.
Salima, another employee, sat next to me. She is an Uzbek, who tend to be more traditional and marry their daughters earlier than the Kyrgyz. At 23, she’s already pretty old for an Uzbek. She was supposed to get married this fall to a man she didn’t know or like. She was happy when he went off to Russia. She told me that she now plans to marry another man who her parents have selected. I asked if she’d met him and she said yes, “we’ve started talking.”
She doesn’t seem excited about this man either, but likes him better than the first. He speaks several languages and has been working for Lukoil in Russia. He wants to go back to Russia once more before the wedding and she thinks there is a chance he won’t return.
“If he can find a job with a normal salary he’ll stay here,” she said. “Otherwise he’ll return to Russia.”
If the wedding does happen, she said she’d invite me, promising me that it would be a big, loud, and noisy affair, in the Uzbek tradition.
While we were waiting for the wedding party to arrive, I sat at an outdoor table with Gulnara. She is a 25-year-old Kyrgyz from a village just outside Osh. She also is facing intense pressure from her family to marry, and has so far resisted it.
She told me that just this week she took a taxi while working and the driver asked her to dinner. She refused and he then threatened to steal her. Taxi drivers almost always ask me about my marital status, and they occasionally joke about stealing. But as a foreigner I can take it as a joke. I know it is extremely unlikely that they would try to steal a tall American. But for Gulnara, the threat is real. Someone could actually kidnap her and take her home as his bride.
“What would you do if I were to steal you right now?” he asked her.
“I’d burn down your house and your car,” she told him.
He was shocked.
“Whether someone steals a woman depends on their reaction,” Gulnara told me. “When I told him I’d burn his house, he could tell I was serious. But if someone laughs and seems unsure, then they could steal her.
“In the past, when I was a first and second-year university student, I used to really worry about getting stolen. Even though my parents and grandmother didn’t want me to be stolen, I knew that they’d be subjected to a lot of pressure to agree to the marriage and I think things would have been difficult for me. Also, at that time, I would have had a hard time going against my parents.
“Now I feel more independent of my parents. If I were to be stolen, I would definitely say no and leave. But even if I could leave, I think it would still be a traumatic experience.”
Of course I agreed with her. It would be traumatic for anyone to be kidnapped, to lose their freedom of movement and choice, to be trapped in an environment where they don’t want to be. And the fact that Kyrgyz women have to think seriously and frequently about what they would do if they were kidnapped is really sad.
In other news, the family dog Max is back home for good now, after navigating the streets back home four times. I’m just going to have to get used to him.
The weather is warm – in the 80s and 90s – and the city is beautiful. Green trees line the streets, flowers of future fruits have sprouted, and the purple flowers are sprinkled around the city. Fresh strawberries and cherries from Uzbekistan have appeared in the market and people seem happier during the long, sunny days. Today my family is taking me out to the mountains for a picnic. I can’t wait!
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
The Death of a Bright, Young Woman
As I live here longer, I think I become inured to some of the outward signs of poverty. But when I see people I’ve come to know suffer and die, I’m brought back to the terrible realities of poverty.
I returned from my vacation to America to find out that one of our employees miscarried while in her seventh month. Some say it was due to stress at work, others say she fell.
Even worse, I returned from Moscow to find out that one of our employees died from kidney problems. I’m going to use her real name, Mairam, to honor and remember her. Her name means “holiday” in Kyrgyz and she was born on the 8th of March (International Women’s Day), one of the most important holidays of the year. Just last month she turned 26.
She was a bright, vivacious and hard-working woman, who was popular among her co-workers. She graduated with honors from the university in 2001, majoring in French and English, yet showed just as much talent in math and finance. I had no idea that she’d been sick. Some of my colleagues knew, but they didn’t know it was so serious.
She died on Monday and was buried the same day. Since I missed the funeral, I went to her parents’ home today to pay my respects and to bring some money, as is the tradition.
With our driver Malan and our office manager Gulnara, I drove out to a rural area just outside of Osh, where her parents had recently built a small house. It was just at the base of an imposing and beautiful mountain, flowering with green spring grasses.
An older man, probably her father, was working in the garden. He came to greet us, his face locked into a grimace of grief. An iron settee was placed outside, covered with colorful woven cushions. A withered old woman, probably her grandmother, sat cross-legged there, staring down at the cushions below her.
We took off our shoes and entered the house. As I was removing my shoes, I could hear the sound of crying inside. We were led into a small room with a window looking out into the front yard. Four women knelt on cushions on the floor, facing a narrow bed covered with a thin, red sheet. All of them wore headscarves and all of them cried and wailed, looking at the bed where Mairam must have taken her last breaths.
Gulnara had told me that the women had been allowed to see Mairam at the funeral and she’d lain on that bed, her face puffy and one eye open. Gulnara said that the sight hit her in the stomach, filling her with intense grief.
Gulnara cried and my eyes teared at the pitiful sight of grief. Gulnara stood up, approaching Mairam’s mother, and hugged her. After a few minutes, the younger women switched from crying to prayer, while the mother continued to cry. I later found out that the three younger women were Mairam’s sisters.
Her older sister faced me. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. Were you the one who called on Thursday?” she asked.
“No,” I said. I’d been in Moscow.
“Someone called from work, but Mairam was lying right there. I couldn’t explain things in front of her. So I just said everything was fine and hung up the phone.”
I wanted to show the family that I cared for and respected their daughter and sister. But I was uncomfortable, not knowing how to handle myself in a Kyrgyz home of morning. When I sensed that we were about to move into another room, I went to hug the mother and handed her the envelope of money.
“I can’t believe she worked with someone like you,” she said, crying anew and refused to take the envelope. I hugged her again and pressed it into her hand. I’m sure her family has become accustomed to her monthly income, and with no life insurance here, it will be hard for them financially, not to mention emotionally.
We were led into the second room, where colorful cushions surrounded a white cloth trimmed with gold embroidery. We leaned on pillows against the wall while Mairam’s sisters brought out round loaves of bread, dried apricots, raisins, candies, tomato sauce, soup and tea.
Gulnara told me that there was a similar spread at the funeral. “Usually people don’t put out a lot of food at funerals,” she said. “Maybe just some bread or something simple. I was surprised that her family had so many expensive things and so much meat. I wondered why they’d go to the expense. But when I asked, someone told me that because Mairam was young, they hoped that feeding people well would make her happy.
I wasn’t in any mood to eat. I took only a tiny piece of bread in order to satisfy the Kyrgyz hospitality rule of needing to offer bread to houseguests. While they brought out the food, Gulnara whispered to me. She told me that Mairam had had a dream in the winter in which she’d married a man who was already dead. Never having been married, she was preparing to marry someone she didn’t love. Twenty six is old for a Kyrgyz woman to marry and her parents felt it was time. Toward the end of her illness, she told her female friends from work that she wanted to have children and she wanted to have a wedding and a pretty dress. “I think those things might not happen,” she said, regretfully.
I asked if the woman cried all day and she said they only cried when visitors came. I asked if they cried again when money was offered and she said no, that wasn’t part of the tradition.
Mairam’s mother looked so much like her that I could almost feel her presence. When she spoke from her place on the sofa (the only piece of furniture), it seemed it was Mairam herself speaking. Her mother pulled out a black and white picture of Mairam and handed it to me.
“This is her in first grade,” she said.
“Third grade,” her sister said.
She had two ponytails on the sides of her head, a questioning expression, and she wore a badge pinned onto her white blouse.
“Yes, she must be in third grade,” Gulnara said. “She’s wearing the Young Pioneers badge.”
“She looks just like she did as an adult,” her mother said. And it was true.
They told me that she’d been sick for the past few months. She had piercing headaches. She used her last vacation to get treatment at the local hospital. But they misdiagnosed her kidney problem as high blood pressure. And it sounds like by treating the high blood pressure, they exacerbated the kidney problem.
By January, she couldn’t keep anything down. Gulnara had told me she was eating only mandarin oranges.
“Anytime she put anything into her mouth, she’d have to go right to the bathroom and throw up,” her mother said. “But she didn’t say anything to anybody at work.”
She recently took another vacation to treat herself again. This time, they went to the regional hospital and got a correct diagnosis. But by this time it was too late. They gave her a blood transfusion and she went downhill from there.
“After the transfusion, she lost all her strength,” her mother said.
“Her coworkers told me that after the transfusion she couldn’t walk and her face got puffy,” Gulnara said. “She joked that she must have gotten the blood of an alcoholic.”
The hospital sent her home to die.
“We tried to get her to Bishkek,” her sister said. “We sent them the test results, but they rejected us, saying it was too late to do anything.”
“Why couldn’t she get a new kidney?” I had asked Gulnara and Malan in the car.
“How?” they asked.
“By donation.” I told them I’m already signed up to donate.
“Muslims think that’s a sin,” they said, looking disgusted.
“But what’s the point of putting a functioning organ in the ground and letting a 26-year-old woman die when she could live? What a waste,” I said, and, surprisingly, they seemed to agree.
“Our medical technology hasn’t developed that far,” Gulnara said.
“But they do it in Russia,” I replied.
“Yeah, there they cut open people before they are even dead and sell their organs,” Malan said. “You just get in a little car accident and you’re killed for your body parts.”
He was referring to a much publicized trial of several doctors in Moscow who are accused of taking the organs from a car accident victim instead of treating him.
Mairam’s family brought out her college diploma and a small photo album to show me. “She didn’t take many pictures,” her mother said. As her younger sister carefully put them away, I felt sad that their physical reminders were so few.
Her mother explained how the regional hospital said Mairam was eligible to be an invalid of the first class, a status that receives some government benefits.
“Mairam refused,” she said. “She wouldn’t even fill out the paperwork. She told me that she wasn’t going to lie around and be an invalid. She said she’d be back at work soon. I told her she was sick and if she needed to, she would lay at home and not work until the fall. She started to cry.”
I don’t know what it is that causes kidney problems, but they seem to be pretty common here. One colleague thinks it’s due to sediment in the tap water. Another thinks it’s due to improper nutrition.
In any case, it’s just tragic that a kind, intelligent, good-hearted young woman had to die. It seems like with a little better healthcare, she could have been treated and lived a full life. And at such times, the inequities in the world loom in front of me like a sharp-tooth tiger, making me feel powerless. I think and worry about two other employees, both young men, who are sick. One has had persistent stomachaches, and can’t get a diagnosis either in Osh or Bishkek. Another regularly receives shots. Both continue to work and to live their lives, hoping for the best.
And while I could use my resources to give the family a little financial help, I’m powerless to do what really counts, to bring this promising young woman back to life and give her the chance to realize her potential.
I returned from my vacation to America to find out that one of our employees miscarried while in her seventh month. Some say it was due to stress at work, others say she fell.
Even worse, I returned from Moscow to find out that one of our employees died from kidney problems. I’m going to use her real name, Mairam, to honor and remember her. Her name means “holiday” in Kyrgyz and she was born on the 8th of March (International Women’s Day), one of the most important holidays of the year. Just last month she turned 26.
She was a bright, vivacious and hard-working woman, who was popular among her co-workers. She graduated with honors from the university in 2001, majoring in French and English, yet showed just as much talent in math and finance. I had no idea that she’d been sick. Some of my colleagues knew, but they didn’t know it was so serious.
She died on Monday and was buried the same day. Since I missed the funeral, I went to her parents’ home today to pay my respects and to bring some money, as is the tradition.
With our driver Malan and our office manager Gulnara, I drove out to a rural area just outside of Osh, where her parents had recently built a small house. It was just at the base of an imposing and beautiful mountain, flowering with green spring grasses.
An older man, probably her father, was working in the garden. He came to greet us, his face locked into a grimace of grief. An iron settee was placed outside, covered with colorful woven cushions. A withered old woman, probably her grandmother, sat cross-legged there, staring down at the cushions below her.
We took off our shoes and entered the house. As I was removing my shoes, I could hear the sound of crying inside. We were led into a small room with a window looking out into the front yard. Four women knelt on cushions on the floor, facing a narrow bed covered with a thin, red sheet. All of them wore headscarves and all of them cried and wailed, looking at the bed where Mairam must have taken her last breaths.
Gulnara had told me that the women had been allowed to see Mairam at the funeral and she’d lain on that bed, her face puffy and one eye open. Gulnara said that the sight hit her in the stomach, filling her with intense grief.
Gulnara cried and my eyes teared at the pitiful sight of grief. Gulnara stood up, approaching Mairam’s mother, and hugged her. After a few minutes, the younger women switched from crying to prayer, while the mother continued to cry. I later found out that the three younger women were Mairam’s sisters.
Her older sister faced me. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. Were you the one who called on Thursday?” she asked.
“No,” I said. I’d been in Moscow.
“Someone called from work, but Mairam was lying right there. I couldn’t explain things in front of her. So I just said everything was fine and hung up the phone.”
I wanted to show the family that I cared for and respected their daughter and sister. But I was uncomfortable, not knowing how to handle myself in a Kyrgyz home of morning. When I sensed that we were about to move into another room, I went to hug the mother and handed her the envelope of money.
“I can’t believe she worked with someone like you,” she said, crying anew and refused to take the envelope. I hugged her again and pressed it into her hand. I’m sure her family has become accustomed to her monthly income, and with no life insurance here, it will be hard for them financially, not to mention emotionally.
We were led into the second room, where colorful cushions surrounded a white cloth trimmed with gold embroidery. We leaned on pillows against the wall while Mairam’s sisters brought out round loaves of bread, dried apricots, raisins, candies, tomato sauce, soup and tea.
Gulnara told me that there was a similar spread at the funeral. “Usually people don’t put out a lot of food at funerals,” she said. “Maybe just some bread or something simple. I was surprised that her family had so many expensive things and so much meat. I wondered why they’d go to the expense. But when I asked, someone told me that because Mairam was young, they hoped that feeding people well would make her happy.
I wasn’t in any mood to eat. I took only a tiny piece of bread in order to satisfy the Kyrgyz hospitality rule of needing to offer bread to houseguests. While they brought out the food, Gulnara whispered to me. She told me that Mairam had had a dream in the winter in which she’d married a man who was already dead. Never having been married, she was preparing to marry someone she didn’t love. Twenty six is old for a Kyrgyz woman to marry and her parents felt it was time. Toward the end of her illness, she told her female friends from work that she wanted to have children and she wanted to have a wedding and a pretty dress. “I think those things might not happen,” she said, regretfully.
I asked if the woman cried all day and she said they only cried when visitors came. I asked if they cried again when money was offered and she said no, that wasn’t part of the tradition.
Mairam’s mother looked so much like her that I could almost feel her presence. When she spoke from her place on the sofa (the only piece of furniture), it seemed it was Mairam herself speaking. Her mother pulled out a black and white picture of Mairam and handed it to me.
“This is her in first grade,” she said.
“Third grade,” her sister said.
She had two ponytails on the sides of her head, a questioning expression, and she wore a badge pinned onto her white blouse.
“Yes, she must be in third grade,” Gulnara said. “She’s wearing the Young Pioneers badge.”
“She looks just like she did as an adult,” her mother said. And it was true.
They told me that she’d been sick for the past few months. She had piercing headaches. She used her last vacation to get treatment at the local hospital. But they misdiagnosed her kidney problem as high blood pressure. And it sounds like by treating the high blood pressure, they exacerbated the kidney problem.
By January, she couldn’t keep anything down. Gulnara had told me she was eating only mandarin oranges.
“Anytime she put anything into her mouth, she’d have to go right to the bathroom and throw up,” her mother said. “But she didn’t say anything to anybody at work.”
She recently took another vacation to treat herself again. This time, they went to the regional hospital and got a correct diagnosis. But by this time it was too late. They gave her a blood transfusion and she went downhill from there.
“After the transfusion, she lost all her strength,” her mother said.
“Her coworkers told me that after the transfusion she couldn’t walk and her face got puffy,” Gulnara said. “She joked that she must have gotten the blood of an alcoholic.”
The hospital sent her home to die.
“We tried to get her to Bishkek,” her sister said. “We sent them the test results, but they rejected us, saying it was too late to do anything.”
“Why couldn’t she get a new kidney?” I had asked Gulnara and Malan in the car.
“How?” they asked.
“By donation.” I told them I’m already signed up to donate.
“Muslims think that’s a sin,” they said, looking disgusted.
“But what’s the point of putting a functioning organ in the ground and letting a 26-year-old woman die when she could live? What a waste,” I said, and, surprisingly, they seemed to agree.
“Our medical technology hasn’t developed that far,” Gulnara said.
“But they do it in Russia,” I replied.
“Yeah, there they cut open people before they are even dead and sell their organs,” Malan said. “You just get in a little car accident and you’re killed for your body parts.”
He was referring to a much publicized trial of several doctors in Moscow who are accused of taking the organs from a car accident victim instead of treating him.
Mairam’s family brought out her college diploma and a small photo album to show me. “She didn’t take many pictures,” her mother said. As her younger sister carefully put them away, I felt sad that their physical reminders were so few.
Her mother explained how the regional hospital said Mairam was eligible to be an invalid of the first class, a status that receives some government benefits.
“Mairam refused,” she said. “She wouldn’t even fill out the paperwork. She told me that she wasn’t going to lie around and be an invalid. She said she’d be back at work soon. I told her she was sick and if she needed to, she would lay at home and not work until the fall. She started to cry.”
I don’t know what it is that causes kidney problems, but they seem to be pretty common here. One colleague thinks it’s due to sediment in the tap water. Another thinks it’s due to improper nutrition.
In any case, it’s just tragic that a kind, intelligent, good-hearted young woman had to die. It seems like with a little better healthcare, she could have been treated and lived a full life. And at such times, the inequities in the world loom in front of me like a sharp-tooth tiger, making me feel powerless. I think and worry about two other employees, both young men, who are sick. One has had persistent stomachaches, and can’t get a diagnosis either in Osh or Bishkek. Another regularly receives shots. Both continue to work and to live their lives, hoping for the best.
And while I could use my resources to give the family a little financial help, I’m powerless to do what really counts, to bring this promising young woman back to life and give her the chance to realize her potential.
Monday, April 25, 2005
A View Over Moscow
I’ve spent the past five days in Moscow, my first visit here in the past couple years.
Sheremetyevo airport gave us the same type of welcome I’ve received in the past – a slow and bureaucratic journey through passport control. In a city where everything else is changing as lightening speed, the only change I noticed at the airport was that the ceiling had been redone, the ugly metallic cylinders replaced by a more soothing white pattern.
I had a room on the 23rd floor of the Ukraine hotel, a 1000-room massive Stalinist structure, located across from the White House. While the food and service are still remniscent of Soviet times, the building has been remodeled into a four-star hotel and I enjoyed the luxury of the comfortable bed, the high-pressure hot shower, and of course, the view.
I’d get up in the morning and look out over the smoggy city, taking in the wide six-lane road passing through endless sand-colored buildings, the Casino boat docked on the dirty Moscow River, luxury high-rise apartment buildings, one shiny gold cupola and the Stalinist spires of Moscow State University in the foggy distance.
I spent most of my time in the hotel at a seminar, but in my free moments I was able to visit a friend and some relatives. It was nice to see people and I also enjoyed taking in a cup of tea at a real café, enjoying an elegant meal of salmon, salad, orange sherbet and chocolate truffles at a friend’s home, and working out at a modern gym.
I went to a Russian musical with a colleague yesterday evening. The theater was on Stari Arbat, a pleasant, narrow old street in the pre-tourist season. The audience was almost all Russian and the production was colorful and well-done, but hard to understand. It started out with a man on top of a giant white plastic ball, surrounded by colorful cows.
By intermission, I had no idea what the story line was, but a woman in the bathroom explained it to me. She told me that it was based on a popular movie of the same time – Happy Children. A simple shepherd meets a rich woman at the beach and they fall in love. But the woman and her mother mistake the shepherd for the son of a famous composer. By the end, it seemed as though the rich (and strange woman) ended up with a real musician, while the shepherd found himself in love with a childhood acquaintance who he didn’t appreciate before.
A few impressions of Moscow that stood out for me were: the bumper to bumper traffic, even in midmorning, the fear and disgust I felt at seeing two young Russian men beat up two other men in the middle of the day on a populated street, a bright purple Volkswagon beetle with a large tooth holding a toothbrush on the roof, the loud and constant traffic on the 6-8 lane roads, that sounded like waves crashing across an ocean and caused me to have to yell at the person walking next to me, the young girl playing beautiful music on a violin in an empty underground walkway, the way the 13th and 21st floors were missing from the hotel elevator, and the general unfriendliness of people.
Sheremetyevo airport gave us the same type of welcome I’ve received in the past – a slow and bureaucratic journey through passport control. In a city where everything else is changing as lightening speed, the only change I noticed at the airport was that the ceiling had been redone, the ugly metallic cylinders replaced by a more soothing white pattern.
I had a room on the 23rd floor of the Ukraine hotel, a 1000-room massive Stalinist structure, located across from the White House. While the food and service are still remniscent of Soviet times, the building has been remodeled into a four-star hotel and I enjoyed the luxury of the comfortable bed, the high-pressure hot shower, and of course, the view.
I’d get up in the morning and look out over the smoggy city, taking in the wide six-lane road passing through endless sand-colored buildings, the Casino boat docked on the dirty Moscow River, luxury high-rise apartment buildings, one shiny gold cupola and the Stalinist spires of Moscow State University in the foggy distance.
I spent most of my time in the hotel at a seminar, but in my free moments I was able to visit a friend and some relatives. It was nice to see people and I also enjoyed taking in a cup of tea at a real café, enjoying an elegant meal of salmon, salad, orange sherbet and chocolate truffles at a friend’s home, and working out at a modern gym.
I went to a Russian musical with a colleague yesterday evening. The theater was on Stari Arbat, a pleasant, narrow old street in the pre-tourist season. The audience was almost all Russian and the production was colorful and well-done, but hard to understand. It started out with a man on top of a giant white plastic ball, surrounded by colorful cows.
By intermission, I had no idea what the story line was, but a woman in the bathroom explained it to me. She told me that it was based on a popular movie of the same time – Happy Children. A simple shepherd meets a rich woman at the beach and they fall in love. But the woman and her mother mistake the shepherd for the son of a famous composer. By the end, it seemed as though the rich (and strange woman) ended up with a real musician, while the shepherd found himself in love with a childhood acquaintance who he didn’t appreciate before.
A few impressions of Moscow that stood out for me were: the bumper to bumper traffic, even in midmorning, the fear and disgust I felt at seeing two young Russian men beat up two other men in the middle of the day on a populated street, a bright purple Volkswagon beetle with a large tooth holding a toothbrush on the roof, the loud and constant traffic on the 6-8 lane roads, that sounded like waves crashing across an ocean and caused me to have to yell at the person walking next to me, the young girl playing beautiful music on a violin in an empty underground walkway, the way the 13th and 21st floors were missing from the hotel elevator, and the general unfriendliness of people.
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Bishkek
I passed through Bishkek on my way to Moscow. The central square was lively and illuminated, the Chinese café where I ate dinner busy with locals, and the ransacked Beta stores (formerly the best supermarket in Bishkek) was blocked off, hopefully in preparation for reconstruction.
On the way to my hotel I stopped to buy an ice cream. It was almost 9 p.m. and was already dark. A skinny little boy with ragged clothes and a dirty face approached me and asked for money. He looked Russian, not a member of the ethnic group common in the south that has women and children beg for a living while the men sit at home living off their earnings. I handed him my ice cream cone before I had a chance to touch it.
He smiled, ran off, then came back without the cone, asking me to buy him a drink.
“Where is the ice cream?” I asked.
“I gave it to my cousin.”
I looked in the direction he pointed and saw an older boy, maybe 10 or 12 holding onto a wheelchair with one hand, looking for change in the telephone with the other. In the wheelchair was a child licking an ice cream cone. She seemed to be missing her legs.
The boy pushed the wheelchair over to me and also asked for ice cream.
“Where are your parents?” I asked, as I bought them each a cone.
“We have only a grandmother.”
As they walked away, I asked the vendor, who sold ice cream and drinks from a small cooler on the corner, if the children were really poor.
“Yes, they are,” she said, then paused. “I don’t like Kyrgyzstan and I don’t like the Kyrgyz. It’s bad here.”
“Aren’t you Kyrgyz?” I asked.
“Yes, but I don’t like it. I only like French and Americans. Here people are not good.”
I had to keep in mind that she was standing almost across the street from the government building that had recently been overrun, and just a few blocks from the visibly scarred Beta Stores. Still. “There must be some good Kyrgyz,” I said and wished her a good night.
On the way to my hotel I stopped to buy an ice cream. It was almost 9 p.m. and was already dark. A skinny little boy with ragged clothes and a dirty face approached me and asked for money. He looked Russian, not a member of the ethnic group common in the south that has women and children beg for a living while the men sit at home living off their earnings. I handed him my ice cream cone before I had a chance to touch it.
He smiled, ran off, then came back without the cone, asking me to buy him a drink.
“Where is the ice cream?” I asked.
“I gave it to my cousin.”
I looked in the direction he pointed and saw an older boy, maybe 10 or 12 holding onto a wheelchair with one hand, looking for change in the telephone with the other. In the wheelchair was a child licking an ice cream cone. She seemed to be missing her legs.
The boy pushed the wheelchair over to me and also asked for ice cream.
“Where are your parents?” I asked, as I bought them each a cone.
“We have only a grandmother.”
As they walked away, I asked the vendor, who sold ice cream and drinks from a small cooler on the corner, if the children were really poor.
“Yes, they are,” she said, then paused. “I don’t like Kyrgyzstan and I don’t like the Kyrgyz. It’s bad here.”
“Aren’t you Kyrgyz?” I asked.
“Yes, but I don’t like it. I only like French and Americans. Here people are not good.”
I had to keep in mind that she was standing almost across the street from the government building that had recently been overrun, and just a few blocks from the visibly scarred Beta Stores. Still. “There must be some good Kyrgyz,” I said and wished her a good night.
Monday, April 11, 2005
A Little Boy Loses His Dog
For the past month or so, our family dog, Max, was allowed to run free during the day and was kept in the chicken cage at night. He cried for several days about this, but soon became used to it and sat quietly in his cage. I could almost forget about his presence.
Yesterday I noticed that the cage was open, but there was no sign of Max. I walked through the yard cautiously, nervous that he would jump out from somewhere and come after me. When I still didn’t see him by evening, I asked Nigora where he was.
“Faruh went to the market today to try to sell him. But he ended up giving up for free to a lonely, old, single Russian woman.”
She told me that Faruh had paid 120 som for the puppy, so he thought he’d try to make a profit. So he returned to the market to find a buyer. But in the end he chose a good home over money.
“I think he felt sorry for her and sorry for himself. Shavkat told him it would be better to find a good owner for free than to send him with a bad owner who was willing to pay.”
Faruh agreed and sent Max home with the Russian woman. But hours later, Max appeared.
“He somehow found the road,” Nigora said. Even though he’d been kept in a cage, he still wanted to return home. They put him in the car and drove him to the Russian woman’s home.
“She was so nervous and upset. She already had her neighbors out looking for him. She told her neighbors that the boy who gave her the dog was a good boy and she thought he’d bring him back. Once Max was returned to her she was so happy. She said that she wouldn’t eat anything herself. She would give everything she has to the dog.”
Nigora said it was Faruh’s decision to get rid of the dog. But since he was the only one who seemed to enjoy it’s presence, I wondered why he would make such a decision.
“I think that he sensed our reactions to Max. He knew that it made us uncomfortable and he had to respond to that. We promised him that we’d buy him a sheep instead. He can feed it for a couple of months.”
“And then what? Eat it?”
“It’s up to him. If he wants to do business and sell it for a profit, he can do that. If he sells it to us, then we’ll eat it.”
I was impressed. An Uzbek couple raised under the Soviet system both send their 13-year-old to Arabic lessons and teach him how to make a profit.
Yesterday I noticed that the cage was open, but there was no sign of Max. I walked through the yard cautiously, nervous that he would jump out from somewhere and come after me. When I still didn’t see him by evening, I asked Nigora where he was.
“Faruh went to the market today to try to sell him. But he ended up giving up for free to a lonely, old, single Russian woman.”
She told me that Faruh had paid 120 som for the puppy, so he thought he’d try to make a profit. So he returned to the market to find a buyer. But in the end he chose a good home over money.
“I think he felt sorry for her and sorry for himself. Shavkat told him it would be better to find a good owner for free than to send him with a bad owner who was willing to pay.”
Faruh agreed and sent Max home with the Russian woman. But hours later, Max appeared.
“He somehow found the road,” Nigora said. Even though he’d been kept in a cage, he still wanted to return home. They put him in the car and drove him to the Russian woman’s home.
“She was so nervous and upset. She already had her neighbors out looking for him. She told her neighbors that the boy who gave her the dog was a good boy and she thought he’d bring him back. Once Max was returned to her she was so happy. She said that she wouldn’t eat anything herself. She would give everything she has to the dog.”
Nigora said it was Faruh’s decision to get rid of the dog. But since he was the only one who seemed to enjoy it’s presence, I wondered why he would make such a decision.
“I think that he sensed our reactions to Max. He knew that it made us uncomfortable and he had to respond to that. We promised him that we’d buy him a sheep instead. He can feed it for a couple of months.”
“And then what? Eat it?”
“It’s up to him. If he wants to do business and sell it for a profit, he can do that. If he sells it to us, then we’ll eat it.”
I was impressed. An Uzbek couple raised under the Soviet system both send their 13-year-old to Arabic lessons and teach him how to make a profit.
Sunday, April 10, 2005
A Day of Remembrance
Last night I came home and found Nigora covered in a headscarf. She’d just returned from her cousin’s. His 64-year-old wife had died unexpectedly the night before.
“Her blood pressure went up and everyone just expected that she’d be treated and then return to normal, but she died.”
She had bags under her eyes and looked tired.
“The close family was supposed to stay the night, but they told me to go home. ‘You don’t have any daughters,’ they told me, ‘and you have small children. There is no one to cook and take care of your house.’
“I didn’t know what small children they were talking about. My sons are big. But even though I’m a grown woman, because I’m the youngest in the family, I’m always seen as the baby.”
This afternoon I attended my first “anniversary,” the traditional event held a year after a close relative’s death. My colleague told me it was “very important” for someone from our office to go, and since I was the only one without plans, it fell to me. Since Kairagul, the employee who was hosting the “anniversary” is one of the locals I knew best, I was happy to be able to attend.
The anniversary marked one year since her mother’s death. Kairagul, an intelligent and ambitious woman, was hit hard by her mother’s death and she fell into a depression. My suggestion that she apply for a graduate school scholarship in the U.S. finally got her out of her funk.
“When you sent me that application, I was suddenly ashamed of myself. Usually I try for everything. And I was embarrassed that somebody else was looking for opportunities for me. I realized that I needed to move on because that is what my mother would have wanted.”
She’s now a finalist and has a one in three chance of receiving a full scholarship to get an MBA in the United States. I can’t imagine a more qualified or worthy candidate and I’m holding my breath in anticipation for her.
I couldn’t remember exactly where she lived, so I took a taxi. My driver was an Uzbek with an old Zhiguli. He wore a white Muslim cap and had stunted fingers on his right hand. We had barely started moving when the car stopped. It seemed we’d run out of gas.
“You’re my first client of the day,” he said. It was already past noon.
“How long have you been waiting for a passenger?” I asked.
“Since morning.”
He got the car going and we drove along streets lined with flowering fruit and nut trees and poplars spreading their first green leaves. The spring colors add a breath of fresh air to the landscape, making me feel bright and hopeful.
Outside of Kairagul’s dingy Soviet apartment building, men dressed in worn suits and fancy kalpaks (tall black and ivory Kyrgyz hats, made of wool) milled around. A group of men were cooking in large pots in the corner of the yard. Another group sat on chairs lining either sat of the entryway to the building, greeting guests as they arrived and left.
I saw Kairagul’s brother in a white kalpak and he led me upstairs. Kairagul was wearing a white scarf around her head, a pale peach dress, and a light blue sweater. About ten of her coworkers were seated on mats in a circle, around an array of round loaves of bread, plov (rice with carrots, lamb and fat), shorpo (a lamb soup), pistachios, raisins, peanuts, candies and cookies.
She offered me a place to sit and I waited a bit nervously. I’d been told by my coworkers that I didn’t have to bring anything. I was just supposed to come sometime around lunch, sit for twenty minutes, and eat. But I didn’t know whether the atmosphere was supposed to be mournful or joyful. She allowed me to take pictures, which led me to think it wasn’t too formal, but people sat rather quietly.
Kairagul gave me a cup of tea and a bowl of shorpo and explained the event to me.
“In the year after a close relatives death, people are supposed to wear only black and dark colors. And I’ve done so for the past year. Today, on the one year anniversary, there was a ceremony this morning, and for the first time in a year, I’m able to wear colors like white and yellow and red.”
She told me that relatives came from the morning until about lunchtime, then coworkers came at lunch.
The talk soon became more jovial, though I felt an underlying formal restraint. The only Russian in the room, an outspoken, heavyset and funny young woman, talked about her experiences seeing pelmeni (local ravioli) being made and how frightening it was to see what was really in it.
She works in Kara-Suu, the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border town, and the sight of a lot of protests leading up to the revolution. I asked her if it was quiet there now.
“Yes, it’s fine there, but these protests have become a fashion. Now anytime people are unhappy, they start getting together and shouting. Just the day before yesterday, at the Osh Government Pedalogical Institute, a whole bunch of people gathered and shouted that the rector needed to leave.”
The others nodded their heads, having seen it on the news. No one knew if he was forced out in the end. They said that he had closed a department of the Institute and transferred all the students to other departments. People were displeased with that and they decided to protest.
“Maybe we can all get together and protest,” one of them said, referring to things they were unhappy about at work.
“It would need to be more than just us,” said Ulan, a young man who works hard and plays hard, spending many evenings at a bar popular with foreigners. “It’s only effective when a large group assembles.”
I was impressed. Even though everyone says that the city residents played little to no role in the revolution, clearly they have learned some lessons.
At the end of the spread was a large object wrapped in colorful clothes. It looked like a baby cradle. I asked Kairagul what it was.
“It’s for you,” she said, and started to unwrap it.
She pulled out a bunch of peach-colored small hand towels and passed them around the circle, asking everyone to take one. She then did the same thing with tea cups.
She then pulled out dark round loaves of bread (evidently from the countryside, because, unfortunately, only poor people use dark flour here) and set them on the mat like plates. She then methodologically piled each one with some of the goods from the baskets: triangular fried donuts, two types of candies and cookies. She passed around new plastic bags with handles to everyone, then passed everyone a loaf of bread piled with goodies. We put our loaf into the plastic bag, then were told to empty whatever was left from the spread into our bags as well – raisins, nuts, candies, cookies. The towel and cup were also for us to keep.
When everyone had full bags, it was clear it was time to go, and people filed out, leaving Kairagul alone with her close relatives.
I saw the mourning and reverence in Kairagul’s eyes, but I think she was also pleased to have so many of her coworkers come and to be able to be the host. She looked thin and fresh and young in her pastel colors, despite her 36 years and the difficulties she’s been through.
We should know by the end of this month whether she has a future in America and I don’t know who is more nervous – she or I.
I walked home past teahouses filled with old men in black on the streetside tables, piles of fresh radishes, spring onions, spinach, and newly arrived fresh cabbage, and car seat cover sewing shops. One bored-looking vendor was able to fit all his wares on a single chair perched on the side of the sidewalk – two half-empty bowls of sunflower seeds and individual cigarettes sold from five open packs. I walked past a brick mosque with Arabic lettering. Three young Muslim boys selling caps out front posed for a picture. Workers shoveled animal feed from streetside storage houses into bags, as people begin to buy animals and prepare to send them to the jailoo (summer pasture).
In my neighborhood, I passed a woman carrying two old white bags full of milk products for sale, her voice hoarse from shouting her wares. Another woman sat on the corner, her hands in a large bag of puffed corn, putting one in her mouth and crunching as she called out what she had to offer.
The streets were crawling with children, like worms in soil, and brightly dressed Uzbek women. I paused to chat with the kids on my street. Most of them are Uzbek. Some can speak Russian, others (who go to the non-Russian schools) can’t. But they all make an effort to communicate with me and welcomed me into their games, showing me how they jump rope. I brought out my jumprope and joined them, losing a contest of who could jump the longest to a little girl with a big, crooked smile.
I returned home, wishing I could share this fresh, colorful springtime world with my friends and family and realizing that I really like Osh.
“Her blood pressure went up and everyone just expected that she’d be treated and then return to normal, but she died.”
She had bags under her eyes and looked tired.
“The close family was supposed to stay the night, but they told me to go home. ‘You don’t have any daughters,’ they told me, ‘and you have small children. There is no one to cook and take care of your house.’
“I didn’t know what small children they were talking about. My sons are big. But even though I’m a grown woman, because I’m the youngest in the family, I’m always seen as the baby.”
This afternoon I attended my first “anniversary,” the traditional event held a year after a close relative’s death. My colleague told me it was “very important” for someone from our office to go, and since I was the only one without plans, it fell to me. Since Kairagul, the employee who was hosting the “anniversary” is one of the locals I knew best, I was happy to be able to attend.
The anniversary marked one year since her mother’s death. Kairagul, an intelligent and ambitious woman, was hit hard by her mother’s death and she fell into a depression. My suggestion that she apply for a graduate school scholarship in the U.S. finally got her out of her funk.
“When you sent me that application, I was suddenly ashamed of myself. Usually I try for everything. And I was embarrassed that somebody else was looking for opportunities for me. I realized that I needed to move on because that is what my mother would have wanted.”
She’s now a finalist and has a one in three chance of receiving a full scholarship to get an MBA in the United States. I can’t imagine a more qualified or worthy candidate and I’m holding my breath in anticipation for her.
I couldn’t remember exactly where she lived, so I took a taxi. My driver was an Uzbek with an old Zhiguli. He wore a white Muslim cap and had stunted fingers on his right hand. We had barely started moving when the car stopped. It seemed we’d run out of gas.
“You’re my first client of the day,” he said. It was already past noon.
“How long have you been waiting for a passenger?” I asked.
“Since morning.”
He got the car going and we drove along streets lined with flowering fruit and nut trees and poplars spreading their first green leaves. The spring colors add a breath of fresh air to the landscape, making me feel bright and hopeful.
Outside of Kairagul’s dingy Soviet apartment building, men dressed in worn suits and fancy kalpaks (tall black and ivory Kyrgyz hats, made of wool) milled around. A group of men were cooking in large pots in the corner of the yard. Another group sat on chairs lining either sat of the entryway to the building, greeting guests as they arrived and left.
I saw Kairagul’s brother in a white kalpak and he led me upstairs. Kairagul was wearing a white scarf around her head, a pale peach dress, and a light blue sweater. About ten of her coworkers were seated on mats in a circle, around an array of round loaves of bread, plov (rice with carrots, lamb and fat), shorpo (a lamb soup), pistachios, raisins, peanuts, candies and cookies.
She offered me a place to sit and I waited a bit nervously. I’d been told by my coworkers that I didn’t have to bring anything. I was just supposed to come sometime around lunch, sit for twenty minutes, and eat. But I didn’t know whether the atmosphere was supposed to be mournful or joyful. She allowed me to take pictures, which led me to think it wasn’t too formal, but people sat rather quietly.
Kairagul gave me a cup of tea and a bowl of shorpo and explained the event to me.
“In the year after a close relatives death, people are supposed to wear only black and dark colors. And I’ve done so for the past year. Today, on the one year anniversary, there was a ceremony this morning, and for the first time in a year, I’m able to wear colors like white and yellow and red.”
She told me that relatives came from the morning until about lunchtime, then coworkers came at lunch.
The talk soon became more jovial, though I felt an underlying formal restraint. The only Russian in the room, an outspoken, heavyset and funny young woman, talked about her experiences seeing pelmeni (local ravioli) being made and how frightening it was to see what was really in it.
She works in Kara-Suu, the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border town, and the sight of a lot of protests leading up to the revolution. I asked her if it was quiet there now.
“Yes, it’s fine there, but these protests have become a fashion. Now anytime people are unhappy, they start getting together and shouting. Just the day before yesterday, at the Osh Government Pedalogical Institute, a whole bunch of people gathered and shouted that the rector needed to leave.”
The others nodded their heads, having seen it on the news. No one knew if he was forced out in the end. They said that he had closed a department of the Institute and transferred all the students to other departments. People were displeased with that and they decided to protest.
“Maybe we can all get together and protest,” one of them said, referring to things they were unhappy about at work.
“It would need to be more than just us,” said Ulan, a young man who works hard and plays hard, spending many evenings at a bar popular with foreigners. “It’s only effective when a large group assembles.”
I was impressed. Even though everyone says that the city residents played little to no role in the revolution, clearly they have learned some lessons.
At the end of the spread was a large object wrapped in colorful clothes. It looked like a baby cradle. I asked Kairagul what it was.
“It’s for you,” she said, and started to unwrap it.
She pulled out a bunch of peach-colored small hand towels and passed them around the circle, asking everyone to take one. She then did the same thing with tea cups.
She then pulled out dark round loaves of bread (evidently from the countryside, because, unfortunately, only poor people use dark flour here) and set them on the mat like plates. She then methodologically piled each one with some of the goods from the baskets: triangular fried donuts, two types of candies and cookies. She passed around new plastic bags with handles to everyone, then passed everyone a loaf of bread piled with goodies. We put our loaf into the plastic bag, then were told to empty whatever was left from the spread into our bags as well – raisins, nuts, candies, cookies. The towel and cup were also for us to keep.
When everyone had full bags, it was clear it was time to go, and people filed out, leaving Kairagul alone with her close relatives.
I saw the mourning and reverence in Kairagul’s eyes, but I think she was also pleased to have so many of her coworkers come and to be able to be the host. She looked thin and fresh and young in her pastel colors, despite her 36 years and the difficulties she’s been through.
We should know by the end of this month whether she has a future in America and I don’t know who is more nervous – she or I.
I walked home past teahouses filled with old men in black on the streetside tables, piles of fresh radishes, spring onions, spinach, and newly arrived fresh cabbage, and car seat cover sewing shops. One bored-looking vendor was able to fit all his wares on a single chair perched on the side of the sidewalk – two half-empty bowls of sunflower seeds and individual cigarettes sold from five open packs. I walked past a brick mosque with Arabic lettering. Three young Muslim boys selling caps out front posed for a picture. Workers shoveled animal feed from streetside storage houses into bags, as people begin to buy animals and prepare to send them to the jailoo (summer pasture).
In my neighborhood, I passed a woman carrying two old white bags full of milk products for sale, her voice hoarse from shouting her wares. Another woman sat on the corner, her hands in a large bag of puffed corn, putting one in her mouth and crunching as she called out what she had to offer.
The streets were crawling with children, like worms in soil, and brightly dressed Uzbek women. I paused to chat with the kids on my street. Most of them are Uzbek. Some can speak Russian, others (who go to the non-Russian schools) can’t. But they all make an effort to communicate with me and welcomed me into their games, showing me how they jump rope. I brought out my jumprope and joined them, losing a contest of who could jump the longest to a little girl with a big, crooked smile.
I returned home, wishing I could share this fresh, colorful springtime world with my friends and family and realizing that I really like Osh.
Friday, April 08, 2005
Barriers to women's employment
Earlier this week, together with my local staff, we hired three new people for a small town a few hours outside Osh. Today, Aisultan, one of the local staff that helped make the hiring decisions approached me.
“You know, I’ve heard something about one of those girls that we hired. I heard that she goes from man to man.” Her face was serious and she looked concerned and nervous. She seemed to think we’d made a mistake.
“OK,” I said. “Is that illegal?”
She looked at me blankly.
When I’d asked this candidate her three main goals in life, goal number three was to find a man. She is separated and the mother of a daughter. I suppose that in order to fulfill this goal, especially being in her late twenties (old in these parts), she needs to date some different people to find who is right for her. “So, do you have male employees who date different people?” I asked Aisultan.
“It’s different for a woman,” Aisultan said. “It’s a small traditional town where everyone knows each other. She could harm our reputation there.”
“If dating other people needs to be prohibited, that’s fine,” I said. “But to allow your male employees to do so and not your female employees is discrimination. Give her two weeks and see how she works.”
I asked her specifically where she heard this information. “How do you know that the person you heard it from doesn’t have something against this woman and is trying to prevent her from getting a good job?” She agreed to check out her reputation with another local organization.
We’d already offered the job and had her sign the contracts. She’s supposed to start on Monday. I couldn’t believe I was being asked to retract the offer because of rumors that she dated various men. And this was among a group of employees in which a male employee forcibly kidnapped a female employee to make her his wife. There was no talk of punishment for him. In fact, he just applied for a promotion. But a woman could lose her job for a reputation of being with more than one man.
I later asked Gulnara, our office manager, what she thought.
“Even I think it’s worse for a woman to date around than it is for a man. For some reason, I see it as natural for a man and somehow bad for a woman. In our culture, a woman is expected to be with one man for the long term.
“I know it’s OK for Americans,” she said. “I’ve read about Madonna’s affairs.”
She thought I should respect the local culture, even if it meant discriminating against a woman. “Women face a lot of discrimination,” she said. That was an understatement.
“You know, I’ve heard something about one of those girls that we hired. I heard that she goes from man to man.” Her face was serious and she looked concerned and nervous. She seemed to think we’d made a mistake.
“OK,” I said. “Is that illegal?”
She looked at me blankly.
When I’d asked this candidate her three main goals in life, goal number three was to find a man. She is separated and the mother of a daughter. I suppose that in order to fulfill this goal, especially being in her late twenties (old in these parts), she needs to date some different people to find who is right for her. “So, do you have male employees who date different people?” I asked Aisultan.
“It’s different for a woman,” Aisultan said. “It’s a small traditional town where everyone knows each other. She could harm our reputation there.”
“If dating other people needs to be prohibited, that’s fine,” I said. “But to allow your male employees to do so and not your female employees is discrimination. Give her two weeks and see how she works.”
I asked her specifically where she heard this information. “How do you know that the person you heard it from doesn’t have something against this woman and is trying to prevent her from getting a good job?” She agreed to check out her reputation with another local organization.
We’d already offered the job and had her sign the contracts. She’s supposed to start on Monday. I couldn’t believe I was being asked to retract the offer because of rumors that she dated various men. And this was among a group of employees in which a male employee forcibly kidnapped a female employee to make her his wife. There was no talk of punishment for him. In fact, he just applied for a promotion. But a woman could lose her job for a reputation of being with more than one man.
I later asked Gulnara, our office manager, what she thought.
“Even I think it’s worse for a woman to date around than it is for a man. For some reason, I see it as natural for a man and somehow bad for a woman. In our culture, a woman is expected to be with one man for the long term.
“I know it’s OK for Americans,” she said. “I’ve read about Madonna’s affairs.”
She thought I should respect the local culture, even if it meant discriminating against a woman. “Women face a lot of discrimination,” she said. That was an understatement.
Thursday, April 07, 2005
Uzgen
I spent the day in Uzgen today, a town about two hours from Osh, and one of the early centers of rioting. The road is still in really awful shape. Our driver, Malan, seemed on the verge of a heart attack as he led his new Opel over the rocky dirt surface, large rocks frequently banging the bottom and sides of his car, for over four hours.
It was a beautiful ride there. The fields glistened with a post-rain intense green. Most of the trees had turned some shade of green. And in the distance, on either side of us, purplish-white snowy peaks rose up to the sky. They had always been there, but they were so much more noticeable when the rest of the land wasn’t snowy as well.
All the billboards of Akaev had been gas bombed. There remained several billboards featuring the face of Adahan Madumarov in front of mountains and next to the Burana Tower, an ancient structure outside of Bishkek. Malan and my coworker Nurzat told me that he is a major opposition leader and is probably in Bishkek. In addition, there was one billboard of a severe, pockmarked, heavyset man, Marat Orozbaev. They said that he was a rich man, but he’d lost the election.
I thought it would be pretty depressing to have one’s image blown up. On the other hand, it’s pretty egocentric of these candidates to think that people want to look at their giant faces on the side of the road.
In Uzgen, the market, which had been closed for a time due to the unrest, was thriving again. I bought a bottle of honey, sold in a used plastic bottle and walked through the stalls selling clothing, candies, bloody meat, and beauty supplies. Water from melting snow dripped from the plastic sheeting covering the stalls, forcing pedestrians to play dodgeball as they tried to avoid the streams of cold water.
On the return trip, fisherman sold my favorite incredibly fresh fish, still live, on the side of the road. Children herded cattle, throw rocks at cars, rode on carts drawn by donkeys or horses and played on rock piles or in the windowframes of abandoned homes. Farmers tilled their fields. Workers at the American Daimler tobacco drying plant filed home at 5:15, lining the center of the road. The teahouse, where crowds had gathered for ‘agitation’ last time I’d come by, was now quiet. Residents of the villages along the way went about their daily lives. And though the revolution was only two weeks ago, and this area had been a hotspot, it now seemed very far away. So far I could almost believe it hadn’t happened, or could at least forget about it.
After aerobics, I took a taxi home. I had gone with this driver before, an Uzbek with a poor command of Russian. Every time he addresses me, he tacks “sister” on to the beginning or end of the sentence. I hadn’t seen him since I returned and I asked how he survived the unrest.
“I worked every day,” he said. He told me that he parked his car off the street and took orders by CB from the taxi company he’s affiliated with, Fortuna.
“Picking up passengers on the street was too dangerous. I had several guys get into my car with clubs. They told me to drive them to the airport and didn’t even pay me.”
“Did they thank you for the free ride?”
“No, they told me I should join them.”
“Did you want to?”
“No, what am I supposed to do? They weren’t even locals. They were from Jalalabat and Alai. The Osh people didn’t participate at all.”
“What do you think about Akaev being gone? Do you think things will get better?”
“No,” he said. “They’ve already started shooting each other. All those who want to be President are all big people and they are using clan politics. They can’t divide up the Presidency between them, so they have already begun to fight for it. The mafia rules here,” he said. “Under Akaev, life was quiet.”
He’s only been a taxi driver for a year, but is already eager to return to something else, his former construction profession, or to find a job as someone’s driver.
“There are too many different kinds of people,” he said. “It’s become too dangerous.”
At home, Nigora brought me a wonderful dinner of chicken, chickpeas, and spinach, but due to jetlag, I still don’t have much of an appetite. She sat with me for our short evening chat.
“I saw Akaev on TV today resigning his presidency,” she said. “He’s scared to come back, because they won’t guarantee his safety. And we’re just simple people, so I don’t know whether to believe him or not. But he says that he doesn’t own even a single store in Bishkek.”
“That’s doubtful,” I said. “If it wasn’t Akaev himself it was his children and relatives. “ His son was reported to have a large stake (if not full ownership) in the chain of stores most seriously affected during the looting, the Narodni stores.
“On TV,” she said, “the deputies are just talking nonstop. One is saying that Akaev needs to formally resign, another says that he should be impeached for abandoning his country. They talk so much and I sit there all day and listen. My head is full and starts to spin.
Personally, I think he worked as well as he could. But I think it was shameful for him to run away. Perhaps he made the right decision. Maybe they would have killed him.”
It was a beautiful ride there. The fields glistened with a post-rain intense green. Most of the trees had turned some shade of green. And in the distance, on either side of us, purplish-white snowy peaks rose up to the sky. They had always been there, but they were so much more noticeable when the rest of the land wasn’t snowy as well.
All the billboards of Akaev had been gas bombed. There remained several billboards featuring the face of Adahan Madumarov in front of mountains and next to the Burana Tower, an ancient structure outside of Bishkek. Malan and my coworker Nurzat told me that he is a major opposition leader and is probably in Bishkek. In addition, there was one billboard of a severe, pockmarked, heavyset man, Marat Orozbaev. They said that he was a rich man, but he’d lost the election.
I thought it would be pretty depressing to have one’s image blown up. On the other hand, it’s pretty egocentric of these candidates to think that people want to look at their giant faces on the side of the road.
In Uzgen, the market, which had been closed for a time due to the unrest, was thriving again. I bought a bottle of honey, sold in a used plastic bottle and walked through the stalls selling clothing, candies, bloody meat, and beauty supplies. Water from melting snow dripped from the plastic sheeting covering the stalls, forcing pedestrians to play dodgeball as they tried to avoid the streams of cold water.
On the return trip, fisherman sold my favorite incredibly fresh fish, still live, on the side of the road. Children herded cattle, throw rocks at cars, rode on carts drawn by donkeys or horses and played on rock piles or in the windowframes of abandoned homes. Farmers tilled their fields. Workers at the American Daimler tobacco drying plant filed home at 5:15, lining the center of the road. The teahouse, where crowds had gathered for ‘agitation’ last time I’d come by, was now quiet. Residents of the villages along the way went about their daily lives. And though the revolution was only two weeks ago, and this area had been a hotspot, it now seemed very far away. So far I could almost believe it hadn’t happened, or could at least forget about it.
After aerobics, I took a taxi home. I had gone with this driver before, an Uzbek with a poor command of Russian. Every time he addresses me, he tacks “sister” on to the beginning or end of the sentence. I hadn’t seen him since I returned and I asked how he survived the unrest.
“I worked every day,” he said. He told me that he parked his car off the street and took orders by CB from the taxi company he’s affiliated with, Fortuna.
“Picking up passengers on the street was too dangerous. I had several guys get into my car with clubs. They told me to drive them to the airport and didn’t even pay me.”
“Did they thank you for the free ride?”
“No, they told me I should join them.”
“Did you want to?”
“No, what am I supposed to do? They weren’t even locals. They were from Jalalabat and Alai. The Osh people didn’t participate at all.”
“What do you think about Akaev being gone? Do you think things will get better?”
“No,” he said. “They’ve already started shooting each other. All those who want to be President are all big people and they are using clan politics. They can’t divide up the Presidency between them, so they have already begun to fight for it. The mafia rules here,” he said. “Under Akaev, life was quiet.”
He’s only been a taxi driver for a year, but is already eager to return to something else, his former construction profession, or to find a job as someone’s driver.
“There are too many different kinds of people,” he said. “It’s become too dangerous.”
At home, Nigora brought me a wonderful dinner of chicken, chickpeas, and spinach, but due to jetlag, I still don’t have much of an appetite. She sat with me for our short evening chat.
“I saw Akaev on TV today resigning his presidency,” she said. “He’s scared to come back, because they won’t guarantee his safety. And we’re just simple people, so I don’t know whether to believe him or not. But he says that he doesn’t own even a single store in Bishkek.”
“That’s doubtful,” I said. “If it wasn’t Akaev himself it was his children and relatives. “ His son was reported to have a large stake (if not full ownership) in the chain of stores most seriously affected during the looting, the Narodni stores.
“On TV,” she said, “the deputies are just talking nonstop. One is saying that Akaev needs to formally resign, another says that he should be impeached for abandoning his country. They talk so much and I sit there all day and listen. My head is full and starts to spin.
Personally, I think he worked as well as he could. But I think it was shameful for him to run away. Perhaps he made the right decision. Maybe they would have killed him.”
Wednesday, April 06, 2005
Osh
This morning I woke up to a cover of snow that had fallen during the night, enclosing the green buds and various flowers in a light white blanket. Locals say that snow in April is very unusual here. And it’s especially unfortunate since it will affect the grape, nut and fruit crops.
“There was also a revolution here in weather,” an employee, Erlist, told me. “In 1990 when there was a revolution in the Republic of Georgia, there was an earthquake right afterwards.”
I made a quick trip to the market today. I especially noticed the cows heads turned upside down on the market floor. Hooves stood nearby, balanced against the wall. Birds twittered in the roof above the dried fruit and nut sellers, adding to the commotion of trade.
I bought raisins from the same person I always do. Sometimes it’s an elderly woman, sometimes her daughter, a second year student of English. Today it was the older woman.
In very poor Russian she told me, “The girl, my daughter, who works here, told me you are a good person,” as she handed me two hard pieces of an unidentified dried fruit (that are supposed to be good for the heart) as a gift.
As I was leaving, I carried my backpack in front of me and saw a man casually, but quickly, opening the zipper of the front pocket.
“Hey!” I yelled loudly at him in the crowd. “Thief!”
He was a sad-looking character, walking with a shuffle and using one hand to cover a wound over his mouth. He didn’t seem to be shamed by the attention.
I had lunch in a roasted chicken café. While I was waiting for the chicken to cook, a woman came in holding a pan full of burning juniper. She walked through the café, blowing smoke, then approached the owner. He scooped smoke with cupped hands over his head, removed his hat, and wiped his hands over his face. He and the café had been purified of bad spirits. He handed her a donation.
I’m struck by the absence of all the billboards featuring the President’s face. Malan told me they were blown up by gas bombs, gas-filled canisters that effectively burned the portraits, leaving the billboards empty. Some have been replaced by ads for cigarettes and tea. Others remain empty.
“We used to not have enough of those billboards,” Malan said.
I remember the giant face of Akaev that used to stare at me when crossing the central bridge across town, and the smaller portraits in the center of town and on the rural roads. The protestors did a better job getting rid of Akaev than they did Lenin, who still stands in the central square.
I find the atmosphere to be fresher and more relaxed without an authority figure looking over me all the time.
“There was also a revolution here in weather,” an employee, Erlist, told me. “In 1990 when there was a revolution in the Republic of Georgia, there was an earthquake right afterwards.”
I made a quick trip to the market today. I especially noticed the cows heads turned upside down on the market floor. Hooves stood nearby, balanced against the wall. Birds twittered in the roof above the dried fruit and nut sellers, adding to the commotion of trade.
I bought raisins from the same person I always do. Sometimes it’s an elderly woman, sometimes her daughter, a second year student of English. Today it was the older woman.
In very poor Russian she told me, “The girl, my daughter, who works here, told me you are a good person,” as she handed me two hard pieces of an unidentified dried fruit (that are supposed to be good for the heart) as a gift.
As I was leaving, I carried my backpack in front of me and saw a man casually, but quickly, opening the zipper of the front pocket.
“Hey!” I yelled loudly at him in the crowd. “Thief!”
He was a sad-looking character, walking with a shuffle and using one hand to cover a wound over his mouth. He didn’t seem to be shamed by the attention.
I had lunch in a roasted chicken café. While I was waiting for the chicken to cook, a woman came in holding a pan full of burning juniper. She walked through the café, blowing smoke, then approached the owner. He scooped smoke with cupped hands over his head, removed his hat, and wiped his hands over his face. He and the café had been purified of bad spirits. He handed her a donation.
I’m struck by the absence of all the billboards featuring the President’s face. Malan told me they were blown up by gas bombs, gas-filled canisters that effectively burned the portraits, leaving the billboards empty. Some have been replaced by ads for cigarettes and tea. Others remain empty.
“We used to not have enough of those billboards,” Malan said.
I remember the giant face of Akaev that used to stare at me when crossing the central bridge across town, and the smaller portraits in the center of town and on the rural roads. The protestors did a better job getting rid of Akaev than they did Lenin, who still stands in the central square.
I find the atmosphere to be fresher and more relaxed without an authority figure looking over me all the time.
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
Nookat
Today I took a trip to Nookat, a primarily Kyrgyz small town about an hour outside of Osh. The drive there was beautiful. A thin layer of green covered the rolling mountains and flowering trees lined the barren landscape – purple pistachio trees and peach apricot trees. When we entered the town, I saw many more of these trees planted in small square individual homesteads.
I asked my companions, our driver Malan, regional manager Damir, and employee Mirlan where the protestors came from. Most of them were rural and I wondered if they came from Nookat.
“Most came from the Uzgen region,” Malan said. “They had a deputy who didn’t win the election.”
“I heard that everyone who protested was paid 500 som a day ($12) by the opposition leaders,” Damir said. That’s 5000 som for 10 days.
Malan ran the figures through his head. That was more than his salary as a driver. “Not bad,” he said. “Maybe I should protest.”
They talked about the new political leaders. Osh region has a new governor and the city has a new mayor. All Nigora knew about the governor was that he was really ugly. I asked if they knew any more.
“He’s my friend’s uncle,” Malan said, “and I’ve been to his house several times. He seems like a nice guy. He also ran for parliament in Kara-Suu and lost.”
“Were the protests in Kara-Suu on his behalf?” I asked.
“No. No one protested for him. Because whenever he met with people he told them upfront, “I’m not going to be able to buy you anything. I don’t have that kind of money.”
They said that the new mayor of Osh is a young and good-looking man. And Damir said that a staff member of his bank in Bishkek had been named to an important economic position.
“Will all these people also change after the presidential elections in June?” I asked.
“Yes, they are all temporary.”
Everyone seems to be holding their breaths until the end of June. If a new president can be peacefully elected, then life can truly go on with an expectation of stability. Until then, everybody waits for June, as interested parties scramble for power and influence and the rest of the population hopes their lives, businesses, and families can continue to operate in peace.
I hired two new people in Nookat. In Nookat it’s hard to find people who speak Russian. One of the people I hired not only spoke fluent Russian, but fluent English. I asked him why he studied English (given that there is almost no use for it in Nookat).
“I wanted to study in the law faculty,” he said. “But my father advised me to study world languages. He had an acquaintance whose son had studied world languages and was able to do well for himself. And I would never go against my father. I don’t regret it. I’ve found that knowing languages doesn’t interfere with any other profession. I can work in any field and I will still know English.”
While he could probably find opportunities in larger cities, as the youngest son of his family, he is committed to the tradition of staying with his parents until death.
“I’m the youngest son and will never leave my parents,” he said. “I will always take care of them.”
For the last year he’s been working for $50 a month. Before that he made less than $20 a month as an English teacher. Given that he is talented and motivated and stuck in this little town, it felt good to be able to offer him more money and more perspective.
The second person has dreams of moving to Bishkek. When I asked the local staff if they thought he’d move to Bishkek soon after being hired they said, “He wants to go to Bishkek because he can’t find a good job here and he thinks he’d have a better chance in the capital. But if he’s able to find stable, good work here, he will probably stay.”
Our employees make between $50 and $250 a month, depending on their position, how long they’ve been working and the quality of their work. From a Western perspective, that seems really low. And it is possible to find higher pay, but usually only with international organizations (which are hard jobs to get) or if someone has the capital to run a successful small business. Almost invariably, I find that these low salaries are more than candidates have been earning in the past and they are also attracted by the fact that the salaries are stable – they are actually paid every month, where in many jobs that’s not the case.
While we were in Nookat, it began to rain, then snow. The snow falling on the flowering pistachios, cherries and apricots may well kill them.
“Fruit will be expensive again this year,” Damir said.
We returned through an entirely different landscape than the one we’d arrived through. Cows, sheep and goats grazed on multilayered mountains, the red and black soil visible through the thin layer of green, all the colors sprinkled with a cover of white.
A policeman stuck out his red baton at us at the exact same place where we’d been stopped on the way to Nookat.
“What, did they forget they just stopped you earlier today?” I asked Malan.
“I don’t know,” he said, sighing.
He returned, shaken. “Something’s happened,” he said. “I asked the officer what he was doing standing out in the rain. Why doesn’t he go home and be warm. He said that the head of a department in the police was shot last night as he was entering his home after work. He said that they’ve been ordered to stay out and try to find out information and he asked if I knew anything.”
“Do you think he’ll find out anything?” I asked. It seemed like a long shot, stopping every car traveling between Osh and Nookat. If the shooters headed of town, they probably would have done so immediately.
“Probably not,” he said. “But who knows.”
That started a discussion about crime, a topic I’m pretty ignorant about since I don’t have access to local news. They told me that during the unrest, some protestors forced a taxi driver out of his car and and took his car for a ride.
“Poor driver,” said Malan, understanding that a taxi driver’s car is their source of income and is usually about all they own.
And Malan said that for the past three days a taxi driver and his car have been missing.
“Sometimes they kill the driver, then take the car,” he said.
I asked my companions, our driver Malan, regional manager Damir, and employee Mirlan where the protestors came from. Most of them were rural and I wondered if they came from Nookat.
“Most came from the Uzgen region,” Malan said. “They had a deputy who didn’t win the election.”
“I heard that everyone who protested was paid 500 som a day ($12) by the opposition leaders,” Damir said. That’s 5000 som for 10 days.
Malan ran the figures through his head. That was more than his salary as a driver. “Not bad,” he said. “Maybe I should protest.”
They talked about the new political leaders. Osh region has a new governor and the city has a new mayor. All Nigora knew about the governor was that he was really ugly. I asked if they knew any more.
“He’s my friend’s uncle,” Malan said, “and I’ve been to his house several times. He seems like a nice guy. He also ran for parliament in Kara-Suu and lost.”
“Were the protests in Kara-Suu on his behalf?” I asked.
“No. No one protested for him. Because whenever he met with people he told them upfront, “I’m not going to be able to buy you anything. I don’t have that kind of money.”
They said that the new mayor of Osh is a young and good-looking man. And Damir said that a staff member of his bank in Bishkek had been named to an important economic position.
“Will all these people also change after the presidential elections in June?” I asked.
“Yes, they are all temporary.”
Everyone seems to be holding their breaths until the end of June. If a new president can be peacefully elected, then life can truly go on with an expectation of stability. Until then, everybody waits for June, as interested parties scramble for power and influence and the rest of the population hopes their lives, businesses, and families can continue to operate in peace.
I hired two new people in Nookat. In Nookat it’s hard to find people who speak Russian. One of the people I hired not only spoke fluent Russian, but fluent English. I asked him why he studied English (given that there is almost no use for it in Nookat).
“I wanted to study in the law faculty,” he said. “But my father advised me to study world languages. He had an acquaintance whose son had studied world languages and was able to do well for himself. And I would never go against my father. I don’t regret it. I’ve found that knowing languages doesn’t interfere with any other profession. I can work in any field and I will still know English.”
While he could probably find opportunities in larger cities, as the youngest son of his family, he is committed to the tradition of staying with his parents until death.
“I’m the youngest son and will never leave my parents,” he said. “I will always take care of them.”
For the last year he’s been working for $50 a month. Before that he made less than $20 a month as an English teacher. Given that he is talented and motivated and stuck in this little town, it felt good to be able to offer him more money and more perspective.
The second person has dreams of moving to Bishkek. When I asked the local staff if they thought he’d move to Bishkek soon after being hired they said, “He wants to go to Bishkek because he can’t find a good job here and he thinks he’d have a better chance in the capital. But if he’s able to find stable, good work here, he will probably stay.”
Our employees make between $50 and $250 a month, depending on their position, how long they’ve been working and the quality of their work. From a Western perspective, that seems really low. And it is possible to find higher pay, but usually only with international organizations (which are hard jobs to get) or if someone has the capital to run a successful small business. Almost invariably, I find that these low salaries are more than candidates have been earning in the past and they are also attracted by the fact that the salaries are stable – they are actually paid every month, where in many jobs that’s not the case.
While we were in Nookat, it began to rain, then snow. The snow falling on the flowering pistachios, cherries and apricots may well kill them.
“Fruit will be expensive again this year,” Damir said.
We returned through an entirely different landscape than the one we’d arrived through. Cows, sheep and goats grazed on multilayered mountains, the red and black soil visible through the thin layer of green, all the colors sprinkled with a cover of white.
A policeman stuck out his red baton at us at the exact same place where we’d been stopped on the way to Nookat.
“What, did they forget they just stopped you earlier today?” I asked Malan.
“I don’t know,” he said, sighing.
He returned, shaken. “Something’s happened,” he said. “I asked the officer what he was doing standing out in the rain. Why doesn’t he go home and be warm. He said that the head of a department in the police was shot last night as he was entering his home after work. He said that they’ve been ordered to stay out and try to find out information and he asked if I knew anything.”
“Do you think he’ll find out anything?” I asked. It seemed like a long shot, stopping every car traveling between Osh and Nookat. If the shooters headed of town, they probably would have done so immediately.
“Probably not,” he said. “But who knows.”
That started a discussion about crime, a topic I’m pretty ignorant about since I don’t have access to local news. They told me that during the unrest, some protestors forced a taxi driver out of his car and and took his car for a ride.
“Poor driver,” said Malan, understanding that a taxi driver’s car is their source of income and is usually about all they own.
And Malan said that for the past three days a taxi driver and his car have been missing.
“Sometimes they kill the driver, then take the car,” he said.
Sunday, April 03, 2005
back in Kyrgyzstan
I'm back in Kyrgyzstan after a two week vacation. Missed the takeover of the Osh airport and government administration building by three days. Bishkek is calm. I head to Osh tomorrow. I'll be updating this blog within the next few days.
Sunday, March 27, 2005
The end of stability
What a surprise it was to open up the St. Paul Pioneer Press while riding the new light-rail train into Minneapolis last Monday. Among the 10 or so stories in the thin edition was a byline from Osh, Kyrgyzstan. Protestors had taken over the local government building and the airport I read.
Wow, was that the same place I'd flown out of three days before, I wondered. The signs of unrest were there, but I hadn't expected it to go so far, nor so quickly.
I recalled going to work on my last day there, Thursday, March 17th. The roads leading to the central square, where the central administration building is located, were blocked off, as they had been for may days already. Cars were lined up across the road, so that no vehicles could pass, and police stood nearby.
"Who would volunteer to put their car in the roadblock?" I asked our driver, Malan. "It would be the first thing to get smashed should anyone try to break through."
"The police officers use their own cars," he said.
Through the road, I could see people gathered near the Lenin statue, across from the central administration, as I had for the past several days. But from the distance, I couldn't see how many there were, or what they were doing. I felt the same feeling that I had all month - that there were underlying tensions, but htey were kept out of sight. So while I knew that some people were upset, the only information I got was from word of mouth. There was no news, no photos, and no debate.
In the meantime, life went on as usual. I went to work. Across the street from the roadblock, children crowded the stops of the drama theater, practicing a dance for the upcoming holiday of Navruz the Muslim new year, on March 21st.
That afternoon we got a phone call from a frightened employee in Kara-Suu. 'Meetings' had been going on daily at the central government building since the first round of elections on February 27th. I had been there and had seen a crowd of people, mostly men, and some in kalpaks (the traditional Kyrgyz hat) sitting peacefully outside the administration. Another group crowded aroudnt eh courtyard. From what I heard, they were demanding a recount or another election. The winning candidate won by a one percent margin and protestors claimed this candidate had paid people to vote for him, making the results unfair. On this day, the meeting had grown large enough to close off the central road. The market vendors were packing up early.
"What if they start fighting?" our employee asked.
We told them that if they felt unsafe, they could go home.
Later in the day, I was riding my bicycle along the willow-lined riverside road, back to the office. Near the office, a group of about 20 men and young boys on horseback congregated, blocking the road. They began to move in my direction and I got off my bike to let them pass, frightened by the powerful legs of the horses. Their riders looked poor, rural and determined.
They must be among the protestors, I thought. I had heard that almost all ofthe protestors came from rural areas. The city dwellers were surprisingly non-responsive.
"Why?" I asked Malan.
"First of all, the people in the city live relatively well. So they don't see a reason to complain. Whereas the rural living conditions are really poor. And second, the rural people are a bit stupid. The schools aren't good, they don't get educations, and it can be easy to convince them of something."
While heading to the airport that afternoon we passed protestors, again appearing rural, marching behind a banner down a central street. It was the first time I'd seen a protest in the open, not blocked off and hidden, and I felt proud of the people who were trying to take a stand, even though Malan thought they were being paid by opposition politicians.
"I heard that in Talas or somewhere in Chui region, protestors were surrounding the government building and the mayor came out and said "I'm with you!", Malan told me. "And he joined the opposition."
Was this mayor truly sympathizing with the people, or were the protests more influential than I believed based on the scant information I had access to?
That evening I had dinner at my friend Gulnara's home. She married in November and was four months pregnant. While Gulnara prepared ragu (a mixture of beef, potatoes, carrots and sauce that tasted a lot like beef stew) for dinner, her husband told me about his dreams for the future.
"I don't need to be rich," he said. "But I figure I need $600-700 a month to provide well for my family. And none of the government jobs pay anywhere near that. So I figure that I need to work for myself. I'll start small, but I build something over time."
He currently helps out a friend with his business and is preparing to start a business on his own. But he didn't want to release many details.
"I have two ideas," he said, "but not enough money to start both. So I'll need to choose one."
We talked about the protests in Osh and he seemed dismissive of them.
"That kind of stuff happens after elections in every democracy," he said.
"There are protests, yes, but what is strange here is the fact that they are hidden. They don't appear in the news and no one really knows what is going on. There are real tensions in Osh."
"So, how did your boyfriend like Kyrgyzstan?" he quickly changed the subject. I'm interested to find out how he is handling the transition.
Wow, was that the same place I'd flown out of three days before, I wondered. The signs of unrest were there, but I hadn't expected it to go so far, nor so quickly.
I recalled going to work on my last day there, Thursday, March 17th. The roads leading to the central square, where the central administration building is located, were blocked off, as they had been for may days already. Cars were lined up across the road, so that no vehicles could pass, and police stood nearby.
"Who would volunteer to put their car in the roadblock?" I asked our driver, Malan. "It would be the first thing to get smashed should anyone try to break through."
"The police officers use their own cars," he said.
Through the road, I could see people gathered near the Lenin statue, across from the central administration, as I had for the past several days. But from the distance, I couldn't see how many there were, or what they were doing. I felt the same feeling that I had all month - that there were underlying tensions, but htey were kept out of sight. So while I knew that some people were upset, the only information I got was from word of mouth. There was no news, no photos, and no debate.
In the meantime, life went on as usual. I went to work. Across the street from the roadblock, children crowded the stops of the drama theater, practicing a dance for the upcoming holiday of Navruz the Muslim new year, on March 21st.
That afternoon we got a phone call from a frightened employee in Kara-Suu. 'Meetings' had been going on daily at the central government building since the first round of elections on February 27th. I had been there and had seen a crowd of people, mostly men, and some in kalpaks (the traditional Kyrgyz hat) sitting peacefully outside the administration. Another group crowded aroudnt eh courtyard. From what I heard, they were demanding a recount or another election. The winning candidate won by a one percent margin and protestors claimed this candidate had paid people to vote for him, making the results unfair. On this day, the meeting had grown large enough to close off the central road. The market vendors were packing up early.
"What if they start fighting?" our employee asked.
We told them that if they felt unsafe, they could go home.
Later in the day, I was riding my bicycle along the willow-lined riverside road, back to the office. Near the office, a group of about 20 men and young boys on horseback congregated, blocking the road. They began to move in my direction and I got off my bike to let them pass, frightened by the powerful legs of the horses. Their riders looked poor, rural and determined.
They must be among the protestors, I thought. I had heard that almost all ofthe protestors came from rural areas. The city dwellers were surprisingly non-responsive.
"Why?" I asked Malan.
"First of all, the people in the city live relatively well. So they don't see a reason to complain. Whereas the rural living conditions are really poor. And second, the rural people are a bit stupid. The schools aren't good, they don't get educations, and it can be easy to convince them of something."
While heading to the airport that afternoon we passed protestors, again appearing rural, marching behind a banner down a central street. It was the first time I'd seen a protest in the open, not blocked off and hidden, and I felt proud of the people who were trying to take a stand, even though Malan thought they were being paid by opposition politicians.
"I heard that in Talas or somewhere in Chui region, protestors were surrounding the government building and the mayor came out and said "I'm with you!", Malan told me. "And he joined the opposition."
Was this mayor truly sympathizing with the people, or were the protests more influential than I believed based on the scant information I had access to?
That evening I had dinner at my friend Gulnara's home. She married in November and was four months pregnant. While Gulnara prepared ragu (a mixture of beef, potatoes, carrots and sauce that tasted a lot like beef stew) for dinner, her husband told me about his dreams for the future.
"I don't need to be rich," he said. "But I figure I need $600-700 a month to provide well for my family. And none of the government jobs pay anywhere near that. So I figure that I need to work for myself. I'll start small, but I build something over time."
He currently helps out a friend with his business and is preparing to start a business on his own. But he didn't want to release many details.
"I have two ideas," he said, "but not enough money to start both. So I'll need to choose one."
We talked about the protests in Osh and he seemed dismissive of them.
"That kind of stuff happens after elections in every democracy," he said.
"There are protests, yes, but what is strange here is the fact that they are hidden. They don't appear in the news and no one really knows what is going on. There are real tensions in Osh."
"So, how did your boyfriend like Kyrgyzstan?" he quickly changed the subject. I'm interested to find out how he is handling the transition.
Monday, March 14, 2005
The elections end
Yesterday the run-off elections were held. Any area in which one candidate failed to get more than 50 percent of the vote held a run-off election. This was the case for 2/3 of all elections.
I can’t really tell how people are feeling because I’m not getting much news. The central square in Osh was blocked off by trucks yet again today. I heard rumors that ongoing protests in Uzgen (a town two hours away) were causing the central market to be closed. Before I went to Bishkek, I heard that people had taken over government building in Jalalabat and Uzgen in protest. And I knew that regular “meetings” were being held in Kara-Suu. I went there and saw one myself – many people sitting peacefully outside of the court and government administration building. Many of them wore traditional Kyrgyz kalpaks.
In KaraSuu, apparently, one candidate won by a one percent margin. And opposition supporters claim that the winning candidate went around at the last minute and offered money and gifts for people to vote for him. So they think it wasn’t fair.
I also heard last week that they’d declared a state of emergency in Jalalabat and were thinking of declaring one in Osh. The five-point instability rating of Kyrgyzstan, set by international organizations, rose from a low of 0 up to 1.
It’s almost indescribable how strange it is to be in a place with clear tensions, but no news about them. It’s as though things are going on, but they are hidden from sight and sound. Even when the locals talk about what’s going on, it’s always what they heard. When I asked if anything was covered on the news or in the papers, they say no. No wonder when I happened through a pre-election protest in Jalalabat, one of the protestors asked me to spread their desire for an independent TV channel where they could speak freely.
Also late last week, I saw the first definite sign that President Akaev is going to try to stay in power. There were posters plastered on the walls of an office building, announcing that he is collecting signatures to stay in office until 2010. His final legal term is up this fall. But suspiciously, billboards of his face started appearing all over the country this past fall, a strange action for a lame duck. Today I saw the freakiest thing of all. I was sitting at an outdoor café having lunch when I saw a man on horseback going down the central market street. Horses definitely appear in Osh, but it’s not that often I see someone trotting down a busy street, so it caught my attention.
It looked as though the man had some type of board attached to his back. At first I wondered if it was for his posture. Then I thought it was a mirror and admired his creative way of transporting it. Only as he went by did I see that it was a square portrait of President Akaev. I wondered how much the President’s supporters needed to pay to get someone to go down the street on a horse with an oil painting of the President on his back. Probably not much. I liked the President even less than before.
The March rains have begun, the grass is already green, and I’m waiting eagerly for the trees to spring to life.
I can’t really tell how people are feeling because I’m not getting much news. The central square in Osh was blocked off by trucks yet again today. I heard rumors that ongoing protests in Uzgen (a town two hours away) were causing the central market to be closed. Before I went to Bishkek, I heard that people had taken over government building in Jalalabat and Uzgen in protest. And I knew that regular “meetings” were being held in Kara-Suu. I went there and saw one myself – many people sitting peacefully outside of the court and government administration building. Many of them wore traditional Kyrgyz kalpaks.
In KaraSuu, apparently, one candidate won by a one percent margin. And opposition supporters claim that the winning candidate went around at the last minute and offered money and gifts for people to vote for him. So they think it wasn’t fair.
I also heard last week that they’d declared a state of emergency in Jalalabat and were thinking of declaring one in Osh. The five-point instability rating of Kyrgyzstan, set by international organizations, rose from a low of 0 up to 1.
It’s almost indescribable how strange it is to be in a place with clear tensions, but no news about them. It’s as though things are going on, but they are hidden from sight and sound. Even when the locals talk about what’s going on, it’s always what they heard. When I asked if anything was covered on the news or in the papers, they say no. No wonder when I happened through a pre-election protest in Jalalabat, one of the protestors asked me to spread their desire for an independent TV channel where they could speak freely.
Also late last week, I saw the first definite sign that President Akaev is going to try to stay in power. There were posters plastered on the walls of an office building, announcing that he is collecting signatures to stay in office until 2010. His final legal term is up this fall. But suspiciously, billboards of his face started appearing all over the country this past fall, a strange action for a lame duck. Today I saw the freakiest thing of all. I was sitting at an outdoor café having lunch when I saw a man on horseback going down the central market street. Horses definitely appear in Osh, but it’s not that often I see someone trotting down a busy street, so it caught my attention.
It looked as though the man had some type of board attached to his back. At first I wondered if it was for his posture. Then I thought it was a mirror and admired his creative way of transporting it. Only as he went by did I see that it was a square portrait of President Akaev. I wondered how much the President’s supporters needed to pay to get someone to go down the street on a horse with an oil painting of the President on his back. Probably not much. I liked the President even less than before.
The March rains have begun, the grass is already green, and I’m waiting eagerly for the trees to spring to life.
Sunday, March 13, 2005
A trip to the city
I just spent the past few days in Bishkek, my first trip to the capital in about three months. Wow, it really felt like a cosmopolitan mecca, and I felt like a bit of a country bumpkin seeing the big lights. I took in the sights and sounds as if I was entering a new world. When we drove from the airport to the city center, I was struck by the smooth road and the rarified colors of the fields, trees and snow-capped mountains under a giant, overpowering sky.
Downtown, I was impressed by what seemed like such orderly traffic. It was only about seven months ago that I first moved to Bishkek and found the traffic frightening. Either it has improved since then, or it’s just so wonderful compared to Osh that now it seems incredibly orderly and civilized. Cars actually stop at lights and I can cross the street without fear. There are lots of shiny, new-looking cars, and similar numbers of shiny, new shops, cafes, and service centers.
I enjoyed all kinds of little treats – from having a TV, to white toilet paper, to a shower with hot water and a toilet both connected to my room. No need for trips outside until I actually wanted to go outside.
We had dinner at the Cowboy Café, where we ate steaks, salads and pizzas and drank milkshakes and cocktails at Western prices, served by waiters in cowboy hats who did line dances throughout the evening.
While the garbage bins are still overflowing, I saw a rat, and I unfortunately saw people walk by a dead man on the street, I saw many more internet cafes. It’s really neat to be in a place where development in a three month period is so clearly seen. And it feels good to know that I’m playing a role in that development, however small it may be.
I was able to visit my friend Zhenya and catch up with her. Her son Algubek was outside rollerblading with the little girl who lives across the hallway. Zhenya recently finished her degree and she got a job as a salesperson at the Dordoi market, a giant wholesale market, where many of the consumer goods sold at markets throughout the country originate.
She stands in an iron container and sells jeans from 8:30 until 3, receiving 100 som ($2.50 per day). She was unhappy about the pay, because after paying 20 som for transportation and 10 for tea and a snack, she only cleared 70 som ($1.75) a day.
She’s currently in a trial period and is hoping that once that ends, the owner will start giving her 10 som per pair of jeans she sells. If he did, she estimates she could earn 200 to 300 som a day, which she’d be satisfied with.
“It’s so cold there,” she complained. I’m surrounded by iron on all sides, the ground is cold, and no sunshine comes through. So I have to wear several layers of clothes. I used to go to the market that way, but it was shameful to get on the marshrutka and have everyone look at me, as though wondering if I’d just come from the far north. So I started leaving my clothes in the container.”
She said that the owner of the container has four others as well, currently valued at about $35,000 a piece. It’s unfortunate, but I’ve noticed a tendency among especially wealthy and successful merchants to pay their workers very low wages, often between 700 and 1500 som a month (about $17-33). Up to 2000 or 2500 is about the maximum they pay. Salaries end up being an extremely small portion of their expenses and it seems that for many of them, paying their workers more would be an almost inconsequential expense. But for some reason, they don’t seem to feel the obligation to do so.
Runoff elections were held today, with about two thirds of the candidates from the primary elections having to run again, not having received over 50% of the vote. The President’s daughter, Bermet Akayeva, was among those going back to the polls. Despite the fact that the government prevented a prominent opposition leader, Roza Ozumbaeva, from running against her, she still didn’t get 50% of the vote. However, in a different region, the President’s son did win a seat in the first round. Bermet’s campaign posters were posted all over Bishkek. She is young, fresh-faced, dressed in a black suit coat and a white blouse, and looks like someone I could have had as a classmate in graduate school. It’s unfortunate to think of her as part of the machinations of power that are seen as corrupt.
I returned to Osh on a very frightening Air Kyrgyzstan flight. We boarded by climbing into the belly of the plane. When we landed, we hit the ground at an angle and I could have sworn we would roll. When my local colleague said he no longer wanted to fly anymore after that, wanting to be like David Beckham, at least I knew my fear wasn’t an overreaction. I think I’m going to try to stick with the better airline from now on, even though the schedules won’t offer as much choice.
It was raining in both Bishkek and Osh today. That means that greenery should soon appear, welcoming in spring with full force.
Shavkat is out of town. He left for a ten-day “vacation” in the mountains.
“He’s tired of us,” Nigora said.
I asked if she ever took a vacation.
“Not more than two days,” she said. Without me, everything here goes to chaos. No one can find a fork, no one can eat. Sometimes I’ve gone away, but after two days, Shavkat always comes and gets me, telling me I have to come back because they can’t manage without me.”
I asked if it was quiet without him.
“No, just the opposite,” she said. “He sometimes scolds the children to be quiet. But when he’s not here, I let them do what they what. So for them it’s also like a vacation.” She laughed.
Downtown, I was impressed by what seemed like such orderly traffic. It was only about seven months ago that I first moved to Bishkek and found the traffic frightening. Either it has improved since then, or it’s just so wonderful compared to Osh that now it seems incredibly orderly and civilized. Cars actually stop at lights and I can cross the street without fear. There are lots of shiny, new-looking cars, and similar numbers of shiny, new shops, cafes, and service centers.
I enjoyed all kinds of little treats – from having a TV, to white toilet paper, to a shower with hot water and a toilet both connected to my room. No need for trips outside until I actually wanted to go outside.
We had dinner at the Cowboy Café, where we ate steaks, salads and pizzas and drank milkshakes and cocktails at Western prices, served by waiters in cowboy hats who did line dances throughout the evening.
While the garbage bins are still overflowing, I saw a rat, and I unfortunately saw people walk by a dead man on the street, I saw many more internet cafes. It’s really neat to be in a place where development in a three month period is so clearly seen. And it feels good to know that I’m playing a role in that development, however small it may be.
I was able to visit my friend Zhenya and catch up with her. Her son Algubek was outside rollerblading with the little girl who lives across the hallway. Zhenya recently finished her degree and she got a job as a salesperson at the Dordoi market, a giant wholesale market, where many of the consumer goods sold at markets throughout the country originate.
She stands in an iron container and sells jeans from 8:30 until 3, receiving 100 som ($2.50 per day). She was unhappy about the pay, because after paying 20 som for transportation and 10 for tea and a snack, she only cleared 70 som ($1.75) a day.
She’s currently in a trial period and is hoping that once that ends, the owner will start giving her 10 som per pair of jeans she sells. If he did, she estimates she could earn 200 to 300 som a day, which she’d be satisfied with.
“It’s so cold there,” she complained. I’m surrounded by iron on all sides, the ground is cold, and no sunshine comes through. So I have to wear several layers of clothes. I used to go to the market that way, but it was shameful to get on the marshrutka and have everyone look at me, as though wondering if I’d just come from the far north. So I started leaving my clothes in the container.”
She said that the owner of the container has four others as well, currently valued at about $35,000 a piece. It’s unfortunate, but I’ve noticed a tendency among especially wealthy and successful merchants to pay their workers very low wages, often between 700 and 1500 som a month (about $17-33). Up to 2000 or 2500 is about the maximum they pay. Salaries end up being an extremely small portion of their expenses and it seems that for many of them, paying their workers more would be an almost inconsequential expense. But for some reason, they don’t seem to feel the obligation to do so.
Runoff elections were held today, with about two thirds of the candidates from the primary elections having to run again, not having received over 50% of the vote. The President’s daughter, Bermet Akayeva, was among those going back to the polls. Despite the fact that the government prevented a prominent opposition leader, Roza Ozumbaeva, from running against her, she still didn’t get 50% of the vote. However, in a different region, the President’s son did win a seat in the first round. Bermet’s campaign posters were posted all over Bishkek. She is young, fresh-faced, dressed in a black suit coat and a white blouse, and looks like someone I could have had as a classmate in graduate school. It’s unfortunate to think of her as part of the machinations of power that are seen as corrupt.
I returned to Osh on a very frightening Air Kyrgyzstan flight. We boarded by climbing into the belly of the plane. When we landed, we hit the ground at an angle and I could have sworn we would roll. When my local colleague said he no longer wanted to fly anymore after that, wanting to be like David Beckham, at least I knew my fear wasn’t an overreaction. I think I’m going to try to stick with the better airline from now on, even though the schedules won’t offer as much choice.
It was raining in both Bishkek and Osh today. That means that greenery should soon appear, welcoming in spring with full force.
Shavkat is out of town. He left for a ten-day “vacation” in the mountains.
“He’s tired of us,” Nigora said.
I asked if she ever took a vacation.
“Not more than two days,” she said. Without me, everything here goes to chaos. No one can find a fork, no one can eat. Sometimes I’ve gone away, but after two days, Shavkat always comes and gets me, telling me I have to come back because they can’t manage without me.”
I asked if it was quiet without him.
“No, just the opposite,” she said. “He sometimes scolds the children to be quiet. But when he’s not here, I let them do what they what. So for them it’s also like a vacation.” She laughed.
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
International Women's Day
Today was an official holiday, so we had the day off of work. Yesterday, people at work congratulated each other. I brought cakes to our employees and I received flowers from my coworkers and some of our partners. All together, I received nine red carnations and three beautiful red roses – more flowers than I’ve ever before received in one day. I could get used to this holiday. Flower vendors could as well. Walking past the flower vendors, I heard a local girl ask, “This flower was 50 som yesterday and today it’s 100?”
I woke up this morning to the sound of the rooster crowing, my dinner calling me to get up and get ready to eat it. Nigora was in the shower room, doing laundry. Dressed in old clothes, she was sweaty and looked tired.
“Shouldn’t Shavkat be doing the laundry today?” I asked.
“I got up early,” she said, “and quietly went to do it while everyone was still asleep. Shavkat might not do it the way I’d want him to. He’s really good about doing things when I ask, but he’s not able to offer to take over something.”
A little while later, Shavkat called me out to kill the rooster. They’d shown me how it was done last time they killed a chicken and I said I’d try it the next time. They dig a small hole in the dirt of their courtyard, tie the chickens legs together, step on the chicken legs and wings, hold the beak, and then slice the neck over the hole so that the blood runs out.
“Nigora also wants to kill a chicken, but I told her she couldn’t,” Shavkat said.
“Why not?”
“Because Muslim women aren’t allowed to. Nor are Muslim children under 13. So Faruh can’t kill either. He has to wait until he gets a bit bigger.”
So he was making an exclusion for me as a non-Muslim woman. This was my chance to show him that women were just as competent as men, to make a statement of equality. And what did I do? Failed.
I had thought they were going to do everything and I was just going to cut the neck. But they first instructed me to step on the feet and wings, which I did.
“Here, now grab the face like this,” Shavkat said.
It was going to be hard enough to stay steady on a squiggling chicken. I was supposed to grab the face as well, where if I got nervous and lost my grip it could bite me and spew blood everywhere? No thanks.
“No way,” I said.
“OK, I’ll do that and you just stand there and cut the neck,” he said. He pulled the neck back and I saw the thick feathered skin, pulsing with life. I couldn’t break into that.
“No, I don’t want to do that either. Maybe next time. I’ll just stand here.”
All three sons were watching and laughing. When the chicken began to flutter, I lost my hold on its wings. At that point, I gave up any semblance of responsibility at all and stepped away, leaving the job to him.
He stepped on the chicken, gripped the head, and sliced the throat. I know that he dislikes doing it himself. And Lutfulo also admits being afraid, refusing to participate.
“See, I grip the head like these and it doesn’t see anything at all.”
Not seeing one’s throat being sliced doesn’t mean that one doesn’t feel it.
“It’s not so bad,” Shavkat said. “You just have to get yourself psychologically ready.”
I have no ideological problems with humans consuming animals and I felt it was an important life skill to be able to kill a chicken should the need ever arise. But I guess I’d had too good of an oatmeal breakfast this morning. I just wasn’t hungry enough to get myself over the psychological barrier of not wanting to kill.
I didn’t stick around to see the life seep out of the chicken.
Shortly afterwards, we all gathered in Shavkat’s Niva to visit Souleymane mountain and the museum there. But when we got there, we found the mountain surrounded by military in fatigues and red berets. The roads were closed and we weren’t allowed access. Shavkat asked a soldier what was going on, but they ignored him. So I approached another one and pulled my stupid foreigner act, which almost always gets an answer. This one only spoke Kyrgyz, but when Shavkat came up, he explained that there was some general in town.
“I hope it’s a female general,” I said.
“No, women don’t get to that level here,” Shavkat said. I thought it was unfortunate if some guy visiting Osh prevented women and their families from enjoying their local landmark on their holiday.
So instead we went to Navoie park, named after an Uzbek poet from the 14th or 15th century. The weather was definitively springlike, with winter seeming to have disappeared suddenly and for good last week. The air was fresh and sunny, cool and comfortable.
The path stretches out along a pathway near the river. We descended from the main street down the hill. When we paused to look at what a bookseller had on display, Shavkat said, “Nigora has lots of free time. She’s able to read books.” As though he doesn’t have any free time.
He works only sporadically in the winter and just took the next month off for vacation.
“What will you do in the next month?” I asked.
“Play sports and get ready for the summer,” he said. “I’ll run at the stadium every day, maybe with Faruh, I’ll train, and maybe I’ll go to the mountains.”
“He’s going to focus on his health to get himself ready for summer,” Nigora said. “He’s going to stop smoking and drinking.”
We walked past the fountain that won’t be turned on until the summer and descended the stairs to the small Aeroflot plane parked there. We descended some more stairs and Shavkat hurried ahead.
“They have a shooting range here,” he said. And it found it quickly, pressing his way to the front of the boys congregated there and buying 50 shots. Nigora wasn’t interested in trying it, but I gave it two shots, aiming at some targets. But with bullet holes all over the place and several people shooting at once, I couldn’t tell where my shots ended up.
We followed the crowd through the park, trying basket throwing games, darts, and table tennis. There was a swing ride, shashlik stands, and ice cream vendors. Unlike Russia, where people eat ice cream year round, ice cream is a seasonal commodity here. This is the first time I’ve really seen people eating ice cream. And its sudden appearance was another sign that it really is spring.
Shavkat told us what a great shooter he was and how he’s an incredible table tennis player. He did win on the basket throw, receiving 5 som for his one som investment. But he lost on the darts. And he also lost when he bet the woman running the table tennis tables that he could beat her. She won 21 to 16 and collected an additional 10 rubles as a result.
As we headed back to get shashlik at a café, Shavkat stopped again at the dart stand. “I’m going to win a prize,” he said, referring to the colorful and cheap stuffed animals, probably made in China. When he handed over five som for five darts, Nigora seemed to become anxious at the waste of money. “We’re going to lose all our change here,” she said. “Let’s come back after you’ve practiced.”
“Yes, I need to practice,” he said, after he lost again. “That woman plays table tennis every day and I haven’t practiced in eight or nine years. She has plenty of weak sides. I’m going to practice between now and the May holidays and I’ll come back and win all the prizes.”
“Let’s spend May first in nature,” Habib suggested.
“No, we should come here and win all the prizes. Then we can spend May 9th in nature,” Shavkat replied.
After all the games, we had grilled meat and samsi at a local café. Then we headed home for the men to prepare dinner. It might not seem like a big deal for the men of the family to prepare a meal one time in 365 days. But from what I heard from local women, plenty of men get out of that task even on Women’s Day. The fact that Shavkat and his sons volunteered was nice in comparison with the typical local man.
Nigora hovered around, helping and instructing them, until they finally forced her to rest for a little bit. They made a nice meal – the rooster with potatoes and cabbage, along with a fruit salad, which I had taught them to make earlier in the year.
During the meal we watched the news, which was more like an essay than a newscast, extolling the success of the Kyrgyzstan elections, their fairness and transparency.
“They are just praising themselves,” Nigora said.
That broadcast was followed by information about women in office. A report compared the number of women in Parliament in Kyrgyzstan (I think it said 11 percent) with women in Europe (much higher), then interviewed people on the streets of Bishkek, most of whom supported having more women in office.
“Women, women, women. All they talk about is women. They don’t understand that women here are stupid,” Shavkat said.
It was such a nasty comment and so heartfelt that I was too shocked to even respond. Only after a long pause was I able to say to Nigora, “We hire our employees based on a logic and analytical test. And at least half of those who pass the test are females. So he’s wrong. Women here are not stupid.”
“He’s just jealous of us,” she said, “and that’s why he says those things.”
The movie Titantic was showing on TV that evening. But I didn’t want to overstay my welcome in the family’s single room, so I returned to my room.
I had failed to demonstrate my ability to kill my dinner and I knew that whatever day it was, Shavkat still believed that women are dumber than men and belong beneath them. I don’t feel as though I’ve done anything special by being a woman. It was just an accident of birth that made me this way. But nevertheless, it’s still nice to receive flowers and to be appreciated once per year, whatever the underlying reason might be.
I woke up this morning to the sound of the rooster crowing, my dinner calling me to get up and get ready to eat it. Nigora was in the shower room, doing laundry. Dressed in old clothes, she was sweaty and looked tired.
“Shouldn’t Shavkat be doing the laundry today?” I asked.
“I got up early,” she said, “and quietly went to do it while everyone was still asleep. Shavkat might not do it the way I’d want him to. He’s really good about doing things when I ask, but he’s not able to offer to take over something.”
A little while later, Shavkat called me out to kill the rooster. They’d shown me how it was done last time they killed a chicken and I said I’d try it the next time. They dig a small hole in the dirt of their courtyard, tie the chickens legs together, step on the chicken legs and wings, hold the beak, and then slice the neck over the hole so that the blood runs out.
“Nigora also wants to kill a chicken, but I told her she couldn’t,” Shavkat said.
“Why not?”
“Because Muslim women aren’t allowed to. Nor are Muslim children under 13. So Faruh can’t kill either. He has to wait until he gets a bit bigger.”
So he was making an exclusion for me as a non-Muslim woman. This was my chance to show him that women were just as competent as men, to make a statement of equality. And what did I do? Failed.
I had thought they were going to do everything and I was just going to cut the neck. But they first instructed me to step on the feet and wings, which I did.
“Here, now grab the face like this,” Shavkat said.
It was going to be hard enough to stay steady on a squiggling chicken. I was supposed to grab the face as well, where if I got nervous and lost my grip it could bite me and spew blood everywhere? No thanks.
“No way,” I said.
“OK, I’ll do that and you just stand there and cut the neck,” he said. He pulled the neck back and I saw the thick feathered skin, pulsing with life. I couldn’t break into that.
“No, I don’t want to do that either. Maybe next time. I’ll just stand here.”
All three sons were watching and laughing. When the chicken began to flutter, I lost my hold on its wings. At that point, I gave up any semblance of responsibility at all and stepped away, leaving the job to him.
He stepped on the chicken, gripped the head, and sliced the throat. I know that he dislikes doing it himself. And Lutfulo also admits being afraid, refusing to participate.
“See, I grip the head like these and it doesn’t see anything at all.”
Not seeing one’s throat being sliced doesn’t mean that one doesn’t feel it.
“It’s not so bad,” Shavkat said. “You just have to get yourself psychologically ready.”
I have no ideological problems with humans consuming animals and I felt it was an important life skill to be able to kill a chicken should the need ever arise. But I guess I’d had too good of an oatmeal breakfast this morning. I just wasn’t hungry enough to get myself over the psychological barrier of not wanting to kill.
I didn’t stick around to see the life seep out of the chicken.
Shortly afterwards, we all gathered in Shavkat’s Niva to visit Souleymane mountain and the museum there. But when we got there, we found the mountain surrounded by military in fatigues and red berets. The roads were closed and we weren’t allowed access. Shavkat asked a soldier what was going on, but they ignored him. So I approached another one and pulled my stupid foreigner act, which almost always gets an answer. This one only spoke Kyrgyz, but when Shavkat came up, he explained that there was some general in town.
“I hope it’s a female general,” I said.
“No, women don’t get to that level here,” Shavkat said. I thought it was unfortunate if some guy visiting Osh prevented women and their families from enjoying their local landmark on their holiday.
So instead we went to Navoie park, named after an Uzbek poet from the 14th or 15th century. The weather was definitively springlike, with winter seeming to have disappeared suddenly and for good last week. The air was fresh and sunny, cool and comfortable.
The path stretches out along a pathway near the river. We descended from the main street down the hill. When we paused to look at what a bookseller had on display, Shavkat said, “Nigora has lots of free time. She’s able to read books.” As though he doesn’t have any free time.
He works only sporadically in the winter and just took the next month off for vacation.
“What will you do in the next month?” I asked.
“Play sports and get ready for the summer,” he said. “I’ll run at the stadium every day, maybe with Faruh, I’ll train, and maybe I’ll go to the mountains.”
“He’s going to focus on his health to get himself ready for summer,” Nigora said. “He’s going to stop smoking and drinking.”
We walked past the fountain that won’t be turned on until the summer and descended the stairs to the small Aeroflot plane parked there. We descended some more stairs and Shavkat hurried ahead.
“They have a shooting range here,” he said. And it found it quickly, pressing his way to the front of the boys congregated there and buying 50 shots. Nigora wasn’t interested in trying it, but I gave it two shots, aiming at some targets. But with bullet holes all over the place and several people shooting at once, I couldn’t tell where my shots ended up.
We followed the crowd through the park, trying basket throwing games, darts, and table tennis. There was a swing ride, shashlik stands, and ice cream vendors. Unlike Russia, where people eat ice cream year round, ice cream is a seasonal commodity here. This is the first time I’ve really seen people eating ice cream. And its sudden appearance was another sign that it really is spring.
Shavkat told us what a great shooter he was and how he’s an incredible table tennis player. He did win on the basket throw, receiving 5 som for his one som investment. But he lost on the darts. And he also lost when he bet the woman running the table tennis tables that he could beat her. She won 21 to 16 and collected an additional 10 rubles as a result.
As we headed back to get shashlik at a café, Shavkat stopped again at the dart stand. “I’m going to win a prize,” he said, referring to the colorful and cheap stuffed animals, probably made in China. When he handed over five som for five darts, Nigora seemed to become anxious at the waste of money. “We’re going to lose all our change here,” she said. “Let’s come back after you’ve practiced.”
“Yes, I need to practice,” he said, after he lost again. “That woman plays table tennis every day and I haven’t practiced in eight or nine years. She has plenty of weak sides. I’m going to practice between now and the May holidays and I’ll come back and win all the prizes.”
“Let’s spend May first in nature,” Habib suggested.
“No, we should come here and win all the prizes. Then we can spend May 9th in nature,” Shavkat replied.
After all the games, we had grilled meat and samsi at a local café. Then we headed home for the men to prepare dinner. It might not seem like a big deal for the men of the family to prepare a meal one time in 365 days. But from what I heard from local women, plenty of men get out of that task even on Women’s Day. The fact that Shavkat and his sons volunteered was nice in comparison with the typical local man.
Nigora hovered around, helping and instructing them, until they finally forced her to rest for a little bit. They made a nice meal – the rooster with potatoes and cabbage, along with a fruit salad, which I had taught them to make earlier in the year.
During the meal we watched the news, which was more like an essay than a newscast, extolling the success of the Kyrgyzstan elections, their fairness and transparency.
“They are just praising themselves,” Nigora said.
That broadcast was followed by information about women in office. A report compared the number of women in Parliament in Kyrgyzstan (I think it said 11 percent) with women in Europe (much higher), then interviewed people on the streets of Bishkek, most of whom supported having more women in office.
“Women, women, women. All they talk about is women. They don’t understand that women here are stupid,” Shavkat said.
It was such a nasty comment and so heartfelt that I was too shocked to even respond. Only after a long pause was I able to say to Nigora, “We hire our employees based on a logic and analytical test. And at least half of those who pass the test are females. So he’s wrong. Women here are not stupid.”
“He’s just jealous of us,” she said, “and that’s why he says those things.”
The movie Titantic was showing on TV that evening. But I didn’t want to overstay my welcome in the family’s single room, so I returned to my room.
I had failed to demonstrate my ability to kill my dinner and I knew that whatever day it was, Shavkat still believed that women are dumber than men and belong beneath them. I don’t feel as though I’ve done anything special by being a woman. It was just an accident of birth that made me this way. But nevertheless, it’s still nice to receive flowers and to be appreciated once per year, whatever the underlying reason might be.
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