A family outing

Yesterday the whole family jumped into Shavkat’s newly refurbished bright red Niva. We drove east toward Nookat through dry, golden hills, all the fresh life of spring and summer already drained out. As we neared Nookat, we passed rows of dried tobacco, brown, shriveled and sagging, hanging in eaves from fences.

“Nigora used to come to Nookat frequently to sell used things,” Shavkat told me from the driver’s seat. “Like children’s clothing.” They’d let me sit in the passenger seat, where there was a seat belt and my long legs would fit. Nigora and the two older boys sat in back and Lutfulo sat on cushions in the rear compartment.

“Why Nookat?” I asked. It was an hour drive. “Why not Osh?”

“Gas was cheap then. And people didn’t buy them as quickly as in Osh. In Nookat, people are poorer. Everyone gathers there – Uzbeks from Ferghana and Margilan, Russians who are preparing to leave the area.”

Habib gave his father an annoyed glance. “Why are you telling J. you used to sell old things?”

“Why not?” Shavkat asked. “Why throw things in the fire when you can sell them?”

“It’s embarrassing. You talk too much.”

“That reminds me,” Nigora said. “We need to sell some furniture.”

“Yes, like the washing machine,” Shavkat said, referring to the horrible old Soviet washing machine Nigora currently uses. It has to be hooked up to a pipe and does an excellent job at wearing out clothes very quickly. “Soon you’ll have a new washing machine.” He’s been promising to bring her one from Bishkek for ages.

“No one is going to take your old washing machine,” Nigora said. “That thing is done with.”

“People in Nookat will,” Shavkat said confidently.

We stopped in Nookat to buy grilled meat and watermelon. I was hungry and made the mistake of buying a samsa, a meat, fat and onion-filled pastry, pulled right from the side of the clay oven. Despite my pulling out all the visible chunks of fat and the “juice” (melted fat), the samsa sat in my stomach like a rock, leaving me unable to eat anything else until the evening. It’s not the first time it’s happened. Every time I eat super fatty food in a rural area I remind myself to never do it again. Then I return, hungry, and give in, only to repeat my mistake.

“You needed to drink hot tea with it,” Nigora said. “Or at least bread.” Locals believe that if you drink hot tea with fat, it reduces its effects. Perhaps it keeps it liquid as it goes through the arteries, reducing the amount that clogs and sticks to the artery walls.

We went to a tourist base called Sahoba. It’s a holy site. A small brick mosque contains a collection of ancient rocks with Arabic writing and people come to pray at the nearby mausoleum, holding the grave of a holy person. When I asked who, Shavkat said he didn’t know history too well.

We tried to walk up the mountains rising behind the park and to check out the caves we could see high up in the rock. But someone had built a house in the park area, blocking off the path with a fence and even blocking off a cave and putting goats inside.

We returned to the tourist area, where we swung on red and blue iron “boats” (two-person standing swings). We had a picnic lunch on a topchan, a wooden bed that we lay mats over and sit in a circle around the food in the center. We sat beneath the shade of a grove of apricot trees and listened to the sounds of a wedding being celebrated nearby and the creaking of the swings.

From there, we drove along a rough road connecting Nookat and Aravan. It is now a sparsely traveled road, but it used to be part of the great Silk Road. I tried to imagine caravans passing along the bumpy path, past poplar-lined residential areas and the rocky passes. They probably saw dusty children sitting in the road, watching them pass by with wide eyes, just as I saw.

We drove past fields of flowering tobacco, corn and sunflower seeds. Red streaks from iron ore glimmered in the mountains. About halfway between the two towns, the mountains met together in a giant V, only the force of a river keeping them apart.

Shavkat told me that the Soviets had planned to close up the narrow gap between the mountains, back up the river and make a water reservoir. This would have flooded all the houses in the area. They didn’t manage to get around to it before the fall of the Soviet Union, and thus, it never happened.

It’s quite a beautiful place now. Water runs out from a 10-foot wide tunnel-like cave, down a moss-covered waterfall and into the quick-moving waters, which race through the gorge and out of sight around the corner. The children threw rocks into the water. The rock fragments glittered with quartz and minerals caught between the stone.

A bit further on, we entered another cave. I wore my trusty headlamp, which I haven’t put on in years, and we went in to see barite and bats. It was a modest cave exploration – no more than a few minutes – but it was my first time in Kyrgyz caves and I was excited. There are supposed to be ancient rock drawings in the area and I’m hoping to find a local guide who can show me them at some point.

In Aravan, we stopped at the market, where Nigora and Shavkat stocked up on what could be found cheaply there – fresh sunflower oil poured from barrels into used bottles using a funnel, rice and watermelon.

Habib waited in the car and tried to turn on the radio. “It picks up the channel from Uzbekistan but doesn’t pick up the channel from Kyrgyzstan,” he said. The watermelon we bought had come from Uzbekistan and Shavkat said that Osh, Uzgen, Nookat and Aravan all used to be almost exclusively Uzbek places.

“The Kyrgyz lived on the outskirts, in the rural areas,” he said.

“I never used to see Kyrgyz,” Nigora said, though she grew up in the city of Osh. “I’d maybe see one or two per week, coming to sell milk. They didn’t start moving into the cities until the 1970s, when they built universities in Osh.”

She told me that she grew up in a home in the very center of Osh. But the Soviets declared eminent domain, cleared out the Uzbek homes, and constructed a multi-level apartment building for Kyrgyz instead.

“Wasn’t your family offended?” I asked.

“Very much so,” she said. “It’s like your parents (who are currently being forced to move due to eminent domain in the U.S.). They were given two plots of land on the outskirts of town and told to build their own house. But my father was too old to build something. So he gave the land to his nephews and bought a house in a village.”

On the way to Osh we could see the fence separating Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

“That’s Uzbekistan,” Shavkat said, pointing to the nearby brown mountains. Their ethnic homeland is so close and yet so far.

a wedding

I ended my weekend with my first wedding of this fall. I received the invitation only the night before. My friend Asel was getting married.

We’d met one evening last fall at a bus stop. She was carrying her belongings wrapped in blankets and there were no buses in sight. I got a taxi for all of us.

After that, we met several times. She showed me the central and holy Osh mountain, Souleymane, and she helped my boyfriend make a turkey for a Thanksgiving celebration.

When she applied for a job with my organization, she made it to the third round, then was rejected by the local interviewers. They were too afraid that she didn’t understand the separation between work and family relations and that she would try to use her position to get services for her family members.

“Kyrgyz have that in them,” Nigora said. “Uzbeks are different. After two generations we are already distant from each other. But Kyrgyz can be nine or ten times removed and still consider themselves relatives. They really retain their clans. And that is why have all these little wars, between Akaev’s clan and Bakiev’s clan, north and south.”

She said that when people ask her for help, they know that she will help if she can. “And if I can’t,” she said, “I say no.”

“And they don’t get offended?” I asked.

“No. Recently a neighbor asked me if you could help them get credit. I told them that you couldn’t help, you just give consultations. And he understood.”

Asel called me after the interview to tell me that she’d been nervous and she was afraid she’d answered the questions wrong.

When she was rejected, she seemed to think that I would have helped her get the job. I explained that I purposely removed myself from participation, since I knew her, and that the locals made the decision.

Since then, several months ago, we hadn’t had any communications, until I suddenly received this last minute wedding invitation.

So I walked to the restaurant near my home where the wedding was being held. She comes from a rural family, makes a tiny salary as a university English teacher, and lived very simply in a student dormitory. So I expected a humble wedding.

I was surprised to walk into the smoky, vast room and see at least a few hundred well-dressed guests. On the far side of the room, I could see her, her bridesmaid, groom and best man standing at the head table. Behind them, multicolored lights flashed, as though they were inside a pinball game. A group of about 25 people stood near me, passing around the microphone and making toasts as they presented their gift.

People come up in groups, by family, coworkers, group of friends and jointly give speeches, toasts and sing songs. They then present their gift (often given as a group and often flowers, money or carpets), walking across the empty central area to the accompaniment of upbeat music. After the presenters kiss and congratulate the bride and groom, they begin dancing. Others join for a song or two, then the next group of speech-givers rises. While speeches are being given the wedding party has to stand. Watching the four of them stand wooden-like during the interminable speech, I wondered if Kyrgyz weddings were much fun at all for those getting married.

I went to greet Asel. She looked beautiful in her white dress, with a low-cut neckline and a pearl necklace. Her husband was tall, slender, and attractive. He wore a black suit and a tall, white Kyrgyz hat (kalpak). He had several gold teeth that glittered when he smiled.

I was hoping I could quietly hand her my gift and not have to stand in front of hundreds of people and make a speech, as is usually done. But one of the first things out of her mouth was, “Could you please say some words in English. I would like everyone to know that there is a foreigner here.”

I couldn’t help but feel as though that was the purpose of my presence, to show off a foreigner at her wedding. But if what she wanted on her wedding day was a speech in English, I’d give it to her.

They sat me a table with her colleagues, mostly English speakers. At least several times they repeated the request – could you please give a speech in English? They assigned one of them to translate it, though I could have translated it myself. But it gave another person a chance to look good.

So when the group of colleagues was called up the microphone, I went with them. First an older women spoke in Kyrgyz. I could understand that she introduced me as an American.

I took the microphone and said in Russian that the bride asked me to speak a few words in English, so I’d do so, and the woman next to me would translate. I then began my little toast, talking about how we’d met and wishing them all the good things people wish each other at weddings. Not long after I began speaking, people began to mutter. They couldn’t understand anything and there was no point in listening. So I spoke faster to get it over with.

After we presented our gifts, we had to dance. The videocameras zoomed in on me. I’m always nervous in front of videocameras, but especially at foreign weddings. I just imagine how people will replay the tape and point out the weird foreigner who was at their wedding.

While we were dancing, a Kyrgyz woman approached me with breath that smelled of mutton. “I’m Asel’s mom,” she said, with evident pride.

I tried to leave as inconspicuously as possible, but a relative of Asel’s followed me and told me that I couldn’t leave without food. It would be offensive to them. So I waited while he went back in and filled a plastic bag with lepushka (the round, local bread), pistachios, candies, grapes, apples and several hunks of meat.

At home, I asked Nigora if it was usual to send people home with meat. It’s considered expensive for local standards. “Yes, for the most honored guests, usually they will include meat,” she said.

search for clean water in a land of water

I think I need to start buying bottled water. I thought that a Brita filter was enough, but recently, even after the water has been filtered it comes out grey. This morning I asked Nigora if the water looked strange to her.

“Yes,” she said. “That’s why I collect water here in this bucket and let it sit for a day. Then the dirt falls to the bottom. You can take some water from here.”

Though I have no idea whether or not it’s true, I can’t help recalling my coworker’s statement that the high degree of kidney problems here come from the water. Does anybody know if there is any validity to that?

We lost a 25-year-old employee to kidney problems a few months ago. Just this month, an employee in her early twenties was off work for two weeks for kidney treatment.

Shavkat Takes Another Aborted Tour

The man who was killed in Kara-Suu was the director of the market and his driver, who was his nephew. He was the one who took over management after the local thug and politician, Bayaman, was kicked out. People think it was Bayaman’s people who killed him. Bayaman himself has been out of sight for weeks.

Yesterday Shavkat returned from a three-day trip to the mountains with two Israeli tourists. He has gone three times with Maxim since the trip on which he went crazy. One time was OK, another time Shavkat did all the guiding work (he’s just supposed to drive), but there was no catastrophe. This time was another problem.

On the night before they were supposed to leave, Maxim was drunk. Shavkat yelled at him. “You have a trip tomorrow. You better make sure you are sober by then.” Maxim said he would be.

The next morning, when Shavkat went to pick up Maxim, then the tourists, Maxim was still drunk. And he’d already spent the $75 the tourists left as a down payment, inviting over his friends to drink.

On the way to the village, Maxim praised himself. “I’m an extreme athlete,” he repeated. “Extreme.”

That night they slept in tents, Shavkat in one, Maxim in another, and the tourists in a third. An hour after Shavkat went to bed, Maxim begin to call out. “Shavkat, help me,” he cried. “Help me.”

He was short of breath and felt sick. Shavkat did what he could. At 4 a.m., he decided to drive Maxim the four hours back to Osh, leaving the tourists in the care of a local Kyrgyz man.

“I don’t think I can do this anymore,” said Maxim, which must have been a depressing realization for a man who has spent his life in the mountains.

Shavkat went back to the village, taking Faruh with him, and succeeded in pleasing the upset tourists by the end of their tour.

This morning he went to have a talk with Maxim. “I’m going to tell him that this is it, he should not be going on these tours anymore. He can keep 10-15 percent, because he has to live, but then he should pass the tourists on to me. I need to scare him, because that is the only way he’ll understand. I’m going to tell him that these tourists threatened to file a court case.

“If he works this way – taking deposits and then not providing services, people could file court cases. I’m going to tell him that he’s ruining his reputation and he’s ruining my reputation. Enough is enough.”


With the imminent approach of Orozo (Ramadan) people are getting married like crazy. Virtually no weddings occur during the Holy Month, since it’s not much fun when people can’t eat and drink. So those who want to marry either have to do it now, or wait until November. Lines of cars file into the House of Happiness, where marriages are registered, even on weekdays. And from home I can frequently hear the honks of wedding parties driving through town.

The flu has been going around (I got hit earlier this week) and the air is very cool in the evenings. Summer is winding down and fall is on its way.

A Murder in Kara-Suu

Yesterday somebody important was murdered in Kara-Suu. A “red father,” I was told.

“Like mafia?” I asked.

“Yes.”

At home over dinner, nobody knew who it was either.

“I heard there was a car accident,” Nigora said. “And I saw a lot of government people on TV.”

“No, it was a director,” Faruh said.

They also told me about the recent murder of a woman at the base of Suleymane mountain.

“She sold gold and bragged about how much money she had,” Nigora said. “It was her own fault for being so open and for going there at night with that guy.”

She was killed for her money by her current boyfriend. According to Nigora, the police traced the killer by cell phone calls. “He was drunk when he did it and wasn’t thinking. He wasn’t sure if she was dead or not, so he called her cell phone three or four times to see if she picked up. That’s how they caught him.”

Once we got on the subject of violence, Habib asked me, “Why are there so many cases of children shooting people in America? We can understand in Russia that people drink too much. But we don’t understand why it happens in America.”

I told him that everyone would like to find the answer, but brought up bad families, poor support networks, psychological problems and examples provided on TV as possible factors. I also explained the strong peer pressure that children in America face and the real cruelties that children can inflict upon each other.

“I know it’s much different here,” I said as I explained how important it was to have a certain kind of jeans in junior high. To them it sounds ridiculous, and rightly so.

“For that reason, we had uniforms,” Nigora said. “And we never excluded students who had problems. We’d always help them. Three or four of us would stay after school and work with the student. We’d pull them along until the ninth grade, when we could say goodbye.”

Even modern youth, the three boys, looked askance at the idea of children separating into groups. It doesn’t make sense to their collective spirit and in this regard, the lack of individualism has its advantages.

“We might be moving toward that,” Nigora said. “As we start to have fee-based and free schools. Children will start to divide.”

“Murders don’t happen very often here,” Habib said. “So when they do, everyone talks about them.” They told me how justice could be purchased from the police. “There was a guy nearby who killed a taxi driver when he was drunk. He’s in jail now and his family is selling the house.”

“Will he go free for that?”

“He probably won’t go free, but his sentence will be reduced.”

“And that money won’t go to the government,” Nigora said. “It will go in the policeman’s pocket.”

The other night I got a ride home with a policeman, who was driving a taxi after hours to make some extra money.

“My salary of $50 a month isn’t enough,” he said. He was very down on Kyrgyzstan, saying that it was a good 50 years behind the development of other countries. He studied in Moscow and loved it there (“it was so clean and orderly”) but he had to come back because he was the youngest son. Here, youngest sons are expected to live with and take care of the parents.

He had just asked me what I thought kept the development behind and I answered a combination of government and culture. The youngest son tradition was an example, I told him, of something that had it’s benefits, by making sure that parents are taken care of in their old age, but also inhibited development by preventing their children from taking advantage of opportunities. He nodded.


Ramadan, locally called Orozo, is coming up next month. I learned that there is a large demand for thermoses during Ramadan and thermos-sellers are now stocking up. I guess it makes sense. When people can’t eat, they want to carry water around with them (though those who strictly fast are also not supposed to drink). But I find it interesting to see the effects of the month-long fast on the market. For food sellers it’s OK, as people tend to eat a lot in the evenings. For cafes, business goes down. And for other vendors, they often do poorly, since almost all weddings stop during Orozo. They are able to make up for it though with the flurry of pre- and post- Orozo weddings.

Reacclimating to Osh

I’m getting back into the Osh lifestyle, spending the weekend at home with my family and finishing my first day of work. I’m still jetlagged, rising at 5 and going to bed at eight or nine daily. But I’m slowly returning to the rhythm of Osh life.

Unlike my last home vacation, when a revolution took place in my absence, these last two weeks have been rather quiet. The President was inaugurated shortly before I left and life seems to be continuing quietly.

The season has progressed and the fall harvests are beginning to come in. It’s now the height of watermelon season, a big treat for me after the pale, tasteless watermelon I found in the U.S. On my way home from the airport, the first thing I did was to buy a giant watermelon for 75 cents. I’ve since reverted to the habit encouraged by my family of slicing up a watermelon for dessert every evening.

Nigora’s new business is still petering along. I had thought we might go on a picnic this weekend. But she had an order for dishes and was going to Andijan on Sunday to fulfill it. But when the rest of the family wanted to go to Kara-Suu (on the Kyrgyz side) to buy back-to-school clothing, she decided that was acceptable, though her profit would be lower. She couldn’t find all the dishes she needed and only made a $5 profit. She plans a real trip to Andijan this weekend and since I’ll soon be getting an Uzbek visa, I hope I can join her one Sunday. I’d love to see firsthand the process of the cross-border dishes trade. I’d also like to see Andijan, the site of the massacre by government troops just a few months ago.

“People forget very quickly,” Shavkat said last night, when Nigora spoke of how normal Andijan is.

“I doubt the people in Andijan have forgotten quickly,” I said.

School started September 1, so all three boys are back in school. Faruh is now in the seventh grade. He got a new teacher, an older Russian woman who used to teach at a sewing institute. She seems to be quite popular. Habib began his university studies. He is studying in the same institute as his older brother, Business and Management, but in the Management of Organizations faculty. And Lutfulo moved on to his second-year of university study in Finance and Credit.

I rarely spend a full day at home, so this weekend gave me a good chance to listen to the rhythm of Construction Street, that helped to carry me back into the rhythm of life in Osh. I usually don’t hear the 5 a.m. call to prayer, except when I’m jetlagged. The first call of the morning comes around 8, the high-pitched wailing voice (almost always female) advertising airan. These women carry two, worn, heavy bags filled with fresh milk, sour cream, cottage cheese, and yogurt from the countryside and they come every morning.

Shavkat and Nigora took turns going to the anniversary of a neighbor’s mother’s death – first the men, then the women. Nigora didn’t invite me to attend, but she brought me back a little meat tucked into a piece of bread and a piece of candy wrapped in golden orange foil.

At 11:15, I heard a young man outside my window. He was yelling in a punchy voice, as if giving instructions to a sports team – tomatoes, watermelon, peaches, and whatever other produce he had in stock. Instead of going to the market, some farmers drive directly into neighborhoods. They shout out what they have, and those interested can come out and buy large quantities without having to lug it home from the market. The prices are about the same as what they would pay in the central market, cheaper than what they’d pay at neighborhood stalls. Nigora often purchases from such vendors during the day.

At lunch time, another airan call came, this time from a younger woman, and the cycle repeated through the afternoon. I went to bed with the sound of the muezzin, completing the song.

The afternoons are still very warm and sunny, but in the evenings, the cool
bite of fall is already apparent. I’m starting to treasure the ability to walk, bike and play outdoors and try to take advantage of it fully during the final months.

Yesterday I played tennis in Osh for the first time. It was great to find the tennis courts hidden away, not far from where I used to work, but difficult to find anyway. They were surrounded by trees that had already shed their goldish-orange leaves and the smell of composting filled the air.

There were two clay courts. We played on a black asphalt court, with a sagging net. The rises, fall and cracks in the asphalt often made the ball take some surprisingly turns. But it felt wonderful, and almost surreal, to be playing tennis in Osh, Kyrgyzstan. A local Peace Corps volunteer had gotten donations of balls and racquets and started providing lessons to children three times a week for 25 cents per lesson. An even nicer concept than me getting to play tennis in Osh is the local children (apparently, mostly girls) having the opportunity to learn and to play.

Back in Osh

I arrived back in Kyrgyzstan yesterday and for the first time, it doesn’t feel like home. My ride to Bishkek from the airport was disturbing as my driver admitted that he hit and killed a man two years ago. The topic came up when he asked me if he could smoke. I noticed a do not smoke sign on the dashboard and asked who put it there.

“I did,” he said. “I didn’t smoke then.”

“Why did you start?”

“I had some problems and I started due to the stress.”

He told me that he was driving two Danish passengers in Bishkek around 11:30 p.m. “I was going about 45-50 kilometers per hour and suddenly this man, this drug addict, just jumped out into the street. I hit him. I took him to the hospital, but he ended up dying there.”

He was silent, then continued. “I didn’t want it to happen. I did everything I could. I spent two weeks searching for his parents. And when I found them, I told them what happened and I paid for everything.”

He said that the coroner found both alcohol and drugs in the victim’s system and my driver wondered if the man might have been trying to commit suicide. “His parents couldn’t accept that though, because if he did that, they’d have to blame him.”

He still owes the parents $1,000 for funeral expenses. “A lot of money went,” he said.

“That’s hard,” I said. I am usually quick to blame the drivers here for any accident involving a pedestrian. As a group, they are reckless and careless of the consequences until something happens. They don’t recognize the impact that their vehicle can have on a person’s ability to walk or live until it’s too late. In Osh, I’ve heard of countless incidents of people hitting pedestrians and bicyclists. Typically, the driver pays for everything, selling his house if needed, in order to avoid criminal charges. In this case, I really couldn’t tell who was to blame. But the driver was clearly distressed, even more than two years after the fact. And he drove rather carefully with me.

“Yes, it’s really hard,” he said.


I flew back to Osh, caught up on the news at work, and crashed early in the evening. My shower suddenly seemed dirty and rather primitive, the call to prayer I heard as I was going to sleep sounded foreign, and I resented the intrusion when Nigora came into my room late at night to turn off the light I accidentally left on.

Two weeks wasn’t long to be home, just barely long enough to catch up with some family and a few friends. But this time, it seemed long enough to change my perception of home.

A New President

On Sunday, Bakiyev was inaugurated as the President of Kyrgyzstan. It all went peacefully and now life can officially return to normal.

When I flew into Bishkek yesterday from Osh, the locals I shared a car to town with complained about the cost of the ceremony.

“They spent $50,000,” one of them complained.

“Yes, it’s a lot, but it was the first time,” another young woman said.

“It’s too much. That’s money from the budget. It’s the people’s money.”

They agreed that the August 31st independence day festivities would probably be modest.

“There isn’t any money left,” they said.


This morning I took off from Bishkek on British Air, heading to the U.S., via London, for vacation. My last four international flights have been on Aeroflot and I’m very quickly approaching Aeroflot silver flier status. I’d almost forgotten what it’s like to not have my knees crammed into the grimy seat ahead of me, to sit in a sparkling interior, to receive good service, and to cross continents without serious fear of crashing. The high risk that my luggage will be lost or delayed is almost acceptable given these benefits.

As we prepared for takeover, the flight captain warned us, “If you haven’t flown from here before, you should know that the runway is pretty bumpy.” I laughed, thinking of my takeoff from Osh the evening before. Although there is a runway there, for some reason we took off from a field. Dust rose in brown clouds below the wheels. From my window I watched three boys who’d somehow gotten onto the runway, jump and wave goodbye.

Enroute to London, we made a stop in Yerevan, Armenia. From the window I saw a landscape that reminded me of Osh – gold, green and brown striated fields, and flat land with mountains rising up spontaneously, singly or as ridges on the horizon. From the air, the Armenian capital looked like a provincial Soviet town – flat, dull and grey. An interesting domed church and red tower stood out among the uniform homes and buildings. The pilot warned us about the “notoriously bumpy” runway as we landed.

Upon arriving in London five hours later, I rode the bus from the airplane to the terminal and I thought I might have mistakenly landed in India. Women in shalwar kamisez, the color of spring flowers, and dark-skinned men in turbans walked along the freeway. On a grassy hillside, a group of protestors, mostly Indian, gathered in support of the catering company employees who were recently fired.

Heathrow is a disorganized and congested airport. But it’s a better place to spend time than the dark and dank Moscow Sheremetyevo, where the only things to buy are perfume, alcohol and reheated fast food. Sitting in the departure lounge, I’m surrounded by light, products brightly illuminated for sale, the hiss of the Starbucks blender making iced coffee drinks, the murmurs of passengers speaking in many foreign languages. I’ve taken seven trips overseas in the last nine months. But each time I’m awed anew by the colors, the modernization, the consumerism and the choice. Knowing that I have two weeks of American consumerism awaiting me, I’m able to hold off on impulse buying.

Sitting in this clean and contained environment, I appreciate its conveniences. But I also think back to this past weekend, which I spent at Kara-Shoro national park. Together with 20 staff members, we took two small buses along four hours of bumpy roads to reach the remote park. We arrived on Friday at 1 a.m. and were greeted by a view of the sky even better than a planetarium – the sparkling stars, planets, constellations, and galactial swirls brilliant in the pure blackness. We slept 10 to a bed and on the floor of basic tents. We ate plov and dumlyma cooked in giant iron vats, as well as startlingly pink watermelons dripping sweet juices. We walked through the mountains to a small lake, where the flowers and trees reflected upon the water like a mirror. And we saw horses, raised for meat, milked for koumiss (fermented mares milk), and ridden in races, roaming across the valley, or jailoos. We sucked in the cool, crisp and fresh air and I remember that every place has its treasures, its aspects of life that can’t compare to any other country. And as cool as it is to look out at a shop full of books in English, to hear people speaking various languages, to see that everyone around me is relatively comfortable, I envy the people currently breathing the Kyrgyz mountain air.

Nigora starts a new business

Shortly before I went to Germany in late July, Nigora went to Andijon, Uzbekistan and came back with a set of dishes. She carried blue and white porcelain teapots, cups, saucers and bowls, painted with pink roses and gilt edges. She left them out on the patio.

“The neighbors keep asking me if they can buy pieces from me,” she told me. The next day, she was at the Osh market, finding out the local selling price.

“I would have some profit left if I sold them,” she said, and began to sell a few individual pieces.

“Some people have told me that these dishes are too expensive,” she told me. “They are placing orders for what they want me to bring next time.”

The next weekend, she and a female neighbor crossed the border again to Uzbekistan, bringing back two boxes of cheaper dishes.

“How is the business going?” she asked.

“I’m not doing any selling at all. I just told three neighbors and they are all telling their friends and relatives.” She often seemed thoughtful as she calculated her profit margin (about $20 per set of dishes) and her future business development.

“Once Habib gets into the university, then I can really focus on my business,” she said. “If I really want to do it, I’ll have to get a place at the market. It’s not going to work to just sell from home.”

During her last trip, she talked to other traders about how to transport goods across the border. “They were surprisingly open and helpful,” she said. “They all said it’s really easy. I just leave the goods in someone’s house, I cross the border myself, and someone will bring me the dishes at home in Kyrgyzstan. I don’t have to transport anything myself.”

The sights in Osh

After just under a week’s absence from Osh, the beauty and unusualness of life here struck me anew again.

While paused at a busy intersection, I saw a man on a horse cross the road, pulling his wife and children behind him in a low metal wheeled cart. A bit further down, a car packed with honeydew melons moved down a busy street. Somehow, one of the car doors opened and several melons tumbled out. Passing traffic cracked open and squished the orange-yellow rinds. A group of taxi drivers across the street stood with open mouths and laughed loudly.

I ate lunch at one of the Kyrgyz cafes that line Kyrgyzstan street. All of them have outdoor tables, where people eat their meals and drink tea throughout the day and well into the night. While sitting there, I watched two young boys – dirty and disheveled, approach the café’s washstand. A mirror was attached to the washstand. As they ran their hands through the running water, they looked intently in the mirror. They washed their faces, then wet their hair and attempted to style it. One boy reached over and helped the other, trying to form spikes above his forehead. I photographed them and showed them the digital image on the screen. They looked in surprise, then in laughter, before heading down the sidewalk together.

A bit later, two Tartar men sat down with me at my table. The man across from me was dark-skinned, with glazed eyes, deep wrinkles and a jaw that seemed to be partially locked, as if from a stroke. The second was light-skinned with clear blue eyes. Both wore round Muslim caps.

The blue-eyed man introduced himself as Farhod. He said he came to Osh from Russia in 1946, when he was in the first grade. His parents moved here after the war.

“It’s warm here, it had bread, and the people aren’t bad,” he said. “Because it’s a Muslim society, there aren’t many drunks or hooligans.”

But life for him, like most people his age, was better in Soviet times. “The minimum wage was 80 rubles. Everything was cheap then. A bag of flour cost 13 rubles, sausage 20, the best meat 80. Now we don’t see much meat.”

He talked about how the laws were strict and more fair than today. “Thieves were caught. People were afraid to build huge houses or to have two or three cars. But now I see these three-story houses being built and I know there is only one place they could have gotten the money – drugs.”

Today he and his friend live on pensions of 1000 som ($25) per month. “The minimum needed to live is 1800,” he said. “We believe in God and just hope for the best. One needs to believe in God.”

He poured another cup of tea for his vision-impaired friend and spilled it in his lap.

“I’m sorry,” he said, as he tried to wipe it up. His voice and actions showed his great regard and concern for his friend. Before I left, I ordered two more pots of tea for the two friends, so they could spend some more time shooting the breeze together.

Melons – watermelon and honeydew – line the roadsides in giant piles. New flowers have grown in Nigora’s garden. I notice progress in the construction of new buildings. And it’s still as hot as ever.

Today is the 25th anniversary of Vladimir Vwisotsky’s death, a famous Russian singer and actor. Farhod told me that a TV program this evening would show how he really died. I watched and if it’s true, it seems he died of a drug overdose. Farhod told me that it was prohibited to sing his songs in Soviet times but that he heard people in Osh singing them.

My family is doing well. Nigora took a trip to Andijon, Uzbekistan, the site of the recent uprising and massacre. She said that she saw the building where it all happened, but didn’t have time to ask people about it. She had gone to the market to look at dishes, just for the heck of it. She came back with a set of dishes that she liked and have been sitting on our porch since I arrived home.

“Some of my neighbors saw them and asked me to sell the dishes to them,” she said. I encouraged her. Perhaps this could be a new business opportunity for her. She is eager to work, but Shavkat is hesitant to invest in a private business. He is averse to investment risk and unfortunately, the family has lost out on a lot of potential due to his unwillingness to let them start something themselves.

Today she went to the market to see how much such dishes sold for. “I realized that if I sell them to my neighbors, a profit will remain,” she said. “I didn’t want to sell them right away because I didn’t know how much they sold for.” Maybe she’ll sell them and maybe she’ll return to Uzbekistan for another set. Maybe she’s beginning a new business stealthily, with a small investment, before Shavkat can notice what she is developing.

Habib didn’t get into the university as a budget (scholarship) student. He’ll have to pay a contract to enter and will find out by the end of the month whether he gets into the university he wants. He’s hoping to study finance and credit with his brother, in the business and management faculty. Students graduating from high school take a test and on the results of that, they are able to enter the university. In theory, those with the highest scores should get the scholarship spots and the first places in the university. But one of their neighbors, who Habib and his mother think is an idiot and has a fraction of Habib’s 124 score (124 is considered average) was accepted long ago with a scholarship. His parents just paid the university administration enough to make sure that he got it.

Nigora and Shavkat are committed to avoiding bribes and hope that Habib will get in without any additional payments, though they will have to pay 7,000 som ($175) annually for his contract.

Aborted flight

I boarded an Abudujuru flight this evening with my colleague Judith, trying to return from Bishkek to Osh.

“I have a feeling this is going to be a bad flight,” Judith said, as we began to crawl up the rickety steps into the small plane’s belly. The sky was cloudy and drizzling rain.

I always have the feeling that the flight will be bad on Abudujuru and I usually try to avoid it in favor of the slightly better Altyn Air. At least it’s a little lighter and airier on the inside and has steps on the side of the plane.

We squeezed into our seats on the packed plane, tightened our seatbelts, and took off. We had a couple of quick drops and some shaking, but not too much more than usual. We did seem to take some turns though.

Just as I was pointing out to Judith that we were traveling quite low, just above the wheat fields, I heard the thunk of dropping wheels. We were landing, but where?

“Maybe this is Jalalabat,” I said.

“No, we haven’t crossed the mountains yet. Maybe it’s Uzbekistan.”

“That can’t be. Maybe Talas?” I laughed at the idea that we were landing somewhere and had no idea where. I asked the Kyrgyz woman next to me.

“I suppose it’s Osh,” she said. We looked at our watches. No, we hadn’t been in the air long enough.

As we came close to landing, I saw the grey US Air Force planes, solid dark grey cylinders.

“This is Bishkek,” I said. We had returned, but the crew hadn’t bothered to tell us anything.

They got us off the plane, telling us that the weather was bad and we’d have to wait for it to improve.

“Couldn’t you tell what the weather would be like before we took off?” Judith asked the flight attendant. Her Kyrgyz boyfriend was waiting for her at the Osh airport and had traveled a few hours to get there.

Once we got into the airport another passenger announced to Judith, “God saved us.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“The windshield in the cockpit was broken. That was why we turned around. They are out there trying to fix it now.”

We turned to the empty waiting lounge. There, a sign banned smoking and threatened a 100 som ($2.50) fine. Just across from it, an airport employee, dressed in black dress pants and a white shirt, casually enjoyed his cigarette.


For the past several days, I was at a seminar on Issyk-Kul, the famous lake and tourist attraction in Kyrgyzstan. It was a surprising modern tourist complex – a gated area with identical cottages and paved sidewalks that reminded me of a trailer park or the apartment complex I lived in during graduate school. The $70 doubles included hot showers and 3 meals a day.

Piers extended out from the beach to the brilliantly blue water. It was cold upon first jumping in, but soon became comfortable. The water is so clear that even far from the shore, the bottom is still visible. Looking at land from the water, or from the piers, large mountains loomed over the resort, misty clouds dancing among them, light disbursing in particle streams, tying the land to the sky. The lake itself extended to the horizon, a giant sapphire, until it reached the hazy snow-capped mountains dancing with white clouds in the distance.

Most of the time was spent working, but we were able to spend a few hours on a boat, enjoying a picnic lunch and sunbathing as we traversed the shore. We docked at the Aurora, the most exclusive resort in Soviet times, and still one of the best sand beaches. There are very few boats on the lake, but the nascent tourist industry has introduced the first few jet-skis, banana boats and even a parasailer.

On the way out of town, we passed countless tiny roadside stalls, selling sweet and sour cherries, buckets of apricots and smoked fish. Muslim cemeteries looked like conglomerations of little fiefdoms – with each grave resembling a castle or mosque. For much of the way, the lake glimmered as a blue line alongside us. When we entered the mountain pass, where mountain rose straight up on either side of us, we began to follow rushing white-turquoise river waters. Despite rain in the mountain area, we passed two whitewater rafting boats preparing to take a trip. I’m going to look into the possibility of doing something similar next month.

preparation for guests and a family friend loses his mind

Tomorrow Nigora is having 13 of her female neighbors over for lunch. They meet once a month and alternate hosting the luncheon. It comes to her home once a year and is a big event. She’s been planning it for weeks and I stayed in town this weekend just to be here for the guests. In her free time, she makes lists of food and costs, puts new pillowcases on pillows, and hangs new white lace curtains around the patio where the guests will gather. Today she spent much of the day killing bees. “Bees might be the only problem we’ll have,” she said. “We’re used to it and just sit here quietly. But if the bees come, the women are all going to go home.”

“Let your neighbors go home early,” Habib said in a typical sarcastic teenager voice and Nigora laughed.

Lutfulo spent two evenings whitewashing all the walls – from the patio to the outdoor kitchen to the interior of the banya and the bathroom.

Shavkat and Faruh had been out of town for the past four days. Shavkat was working as a driver for two Swiss tourists and Faruh was allowed to go along. The guide was Maxim, the aging Russian who we used as a guide last fall.

This afternoon, Nigora called me out of my room. “Shavkat needs some help translating,” she said. I went out onto the porch and saw Shavkat sitting on a stool, two tall, bearded men standing nearby.

“I don’t understand what they are saying,” Shavkat said. “Could you help translate?”

“We are really displeased with our trip,” one of the men said. “We are preparing to climb Peak Lenin (one of the world’s tallest peaks) and wanted to prepare by hiking several high passes. This is what we were promised, but we didn’t get this. The guide didn’t do any guiding at all. Yesterday we went hiking by ourselves. The only good day of trekking we had, the day before yesterday, was done by the driver (Shavkat). We’re happy with the driver. If it hadn’t been for him and his son, the trip would have been a nightmare. The guide showed up drunk on the first day and refused to take us on any long hikes. We originally agreed to a price of $280, but we don’t want to pay that now. We don’t want to pay for yesterday. We gave the guide $160 in the beginning and are willing to pay $80 more.”

I translated and Shavkat accepted. “Yes, Maxim was sick,” he said.

He drove the tourists back to their hotel and I sat at the table with Faruh and Nigora. Faruh began to tell us of their experiences. He said that Maxim had gone crazy. “He talked nonstop all night, so none of us could sleep. He said things like “You won’t get me alive!” And he kept saying that he saw a man. He would point at the air and ask us why we didn’t see him. One night, one of the tourists got up around midnight to go to the bathroom and Maxim grabbed him, asking where he was going. On the drive back, he kept talking and moving his hands nonstop. He yelled at us, asking who turned on the radio. But there is no radio in the car.”

Nigora said that when they arrived home, the tourists, Shavkat and Faruh all calmly got out of the car. Maxim came out yelling, then took off barefoot down the street. “They were already used to it,” Faruh said, referring to the tourists. I was surprised they only complained about the lack of high altitude treks. They had a maniac as a guide.

Shavkat tried to find Maxim on his way home, but didn’t have any luck. He returned and while he was in the shower, Maxim called.

“He’ll be here in a minute,” Nigora said. “He’s in the shower.”

“I’ll come over,” Maxim said and hung up. No one wanted Maxim to come over, so Shavkat went out in the car to try to meet him on the way. Somehow he missed him and Maxim came to the door. Nigora invited him in and to sit on the porch.

“Would you like some watermelon?” she asked in a friendly voice. He refused.

He talked nonstop from the moment he entered the premises. “I want to apologize to you J and to you Nigora, but I’m not going to apologize to those goats (the tourists). They said they were foreigners, but they were whispering to each other all night and they were whispering in Russian. They were really Russians, but wouldn’t admit it. I knew they were going to run away and not pay. All night they were planning against me, then the next day, they acted normal, like nothing had happened. But I knew who they were.”

We all looked at him, trying to keep straight faces, trying to hide our joint shock and laughter at the absurd. I looked at his thin legs, clothed in jeans, his grey beard, and his stiff jaw, like a nutcracker, filled with golden teeth. He was really out of his mind. I felt sorry for him, and even sorrier for the tourists. Not only did they have a crazy guide, but the guide thought the tourists were spies or evil beings. In that sense, they were really in danger.

He continued. “In the car on the way back, we were talking about music, about Deep Purple. And they started saying High Purple and Low Purple and Quiet Purple. Purple, purple, purple. They repeated the word nonstop, for a whole hour. I couldn’t stand it. Those jerks. I don’t ever want to see them again. I couldn’t even sit at the same table with them.”

Much to my dismay, he then turned his attention to me. “And I apologize to you J. You can’t help it that you grew up in America. When you were yelling at me and running after me..”

“J wasn’t there. She didn’t hear anything,” Nigora said.

“You know, I saw a photo from America where 40 people were in the mountains and all of them were smiling. How is that possible? Forty people can’t be happy at once. One person is happy, the other has a hanging face. But in America they are taught to present themselves that way, even if they aren’t happy. Everyone is supposed to smile and look OK. And I realize, J, that you have many good qualities and you are a good person. That is why I respect you and will respect you to my death. I realize that you can’t help it that you were brought up in a culture that taught you to be that way.”

At that point, I was wondering how to get out of there. I have to admit I was curious to see Maxim after what I’d heard. And now I saw it was true.

“He’s speaking in stream of consciousness,” Nigora whispered. Faruh had to turn his back to Maxim and drink his soda to hide his smile at the things Maxim was making up, especially after he said Faruh was a witness to the terrible things the tourists were doing.

Shavkat led Maxim to the car. Maxim returned, popping his head through the porch. “Again, I’m sorry,” he said. “But what would you do if someone kept saying purple nonstop for 15 minutes?”

We nodded in agreement and let Shavkat lead him away, back to his home where his brother and partner in business also has a drinking problem.

Nigora and Shavkat tried to make excuses for him. “He’s never been like this before,” “It’s because he drinks too much, it’s messed up his brain,” “He’ll come to himself in a few days,” “It’s due the stress of his wife leaving him and not letting his son even see him,” etc.

When Shavkat returned home, he slept the entire day. “He didn’t get any sleep for three nights,” Nigora said. “He was trying to calm Maxim down. And he was afraid that Maxim could hurt the tourists. So he sat up all night to make sure that nothing happened.”

It was a good thing that the tourists didn’t know Russian. They probably didn’t know that Maxim saw the tourists themselves as his tormentors.

Nigora asked Shavkat and Faruh about what Maxim said. “They said the tourists didn’t speak a word of Russian,” she said. And about the purple. “The tourists sat silent in the car the entire four-hour ride home.”

Maxim needs an alcohol recovery center and he needs psychiatric help. But it’s unlikely he’ll get quality help in either area. He’s an aging Russian alone in a Kyrgyz society. The world he always knew has been destroyed. Now he’s forming his own universe.

The election passes quietly

Yesterday was election day and all was quiet. Though Nigora says the real results will come in a week, “once the winner has been announced and those who didn’t win try to rally their people and contest the results.”

It seems unlikely to me that there will be a real contestation though. I still haven’t met anyone who voted for somebody other than Bakiev – including Kyrgyz, Uzbeks and Russians.

I accompanied Nigora to the polls, held in the school near our home. Brightly colored flags were draped over the entrance to the peeling school. The voters at that time were mostly women, draped in long Uzbek dresses and headscarves, crowded together at the entrance. Several men relaxed on Uzbek tables out front, and small stands were set up to sell candy and fruit juice, and Shoro, the popular summer drink sold in glasses that tastes like sour sand.

Kyrgyz national opera music emerged from loudspeakers, giving the area a pleasant and festive atmosphere. Nigora cast her vote and emerged from the exit. “In any case, I don’t expect to see big changes,” Nigora said, as we walked down the hill toward the government administration building. She and Faruh had agreed to accompany me to a lake on the city outskirts.

“We’ll still live the same. The Kyrgyz have a strong clan system and they give their relatives the green light to do what they want and they bring them into office around them. Maybe for the first five years it will be OK, but within 10 to 15 years, it will be just like Akaev. Alaev also started out as a good person. We need to get a new person in after five years. A new person always tries hard, while people who have been in office too long just sit.”

She thinks that someone from outside the Kyrgyz clan system would be better, but she and Shavkat agree that an Uzbek could never be President. “If that happened, the Kyrgyz would say, this is Kyrgyzstan. We need a Kyrgyz President,” Shavkat said.

I asked her why she chose Bakiev from the six candidates.

“Among the candidates offered, I think he’s the best,” she said. “I’m sure there are many better than him, but they didn’t place themselves as candidates. When I read his goals in the newspaper, I liked what he had to say. And I like that he’s not on TV all the time, saying that we have to choose him. And when they told him he’d have to leave office to run for President, he said he left for one day and things were a mess. He thought it was more important to maintain stability than to run for President and I liked that.”

She told me that one of the candidates came across as very intelligent, but that he was associated with the events in Andijon and that he wants an Islamic state. “If he wins, it would be bad for stability,” she said. “He is smart, but he would make Kyrgyzstan a friend of Al Qaeda and it would be dangerous. Other than him, the other candidates are OK.”

From there, we walked across town, caught a minivan-bus and rode it to the edge of Osh, where we found a pool filled with fresh river water and a lake with paddleboats. So for me, the images I have of election day are of two small boys taking a break from selling candy, chasing each other with plastic water guns, of families carting watermelons and food to picnic grounds, of browned, half-naked bodies lining river, canal, pool and lake edges and of a woman holding onto a metal wire as she stood on the steep canal bank and held her aluminum bucket into the rushing turquoise water, passing in on to her son on the rebound, who brought it to the nearby field.

In the evening, the family ate an entire watermelon, which seems to be becoming a nightly ritual. We sat out on the porch, overlooking the exploding colors of flowers in the garden. At midnight, Nigora and Shavkat were still there. They had returned from buying tomatoes and green peppers from a neighbor. They sat near each other at the low table enjoying the cool evening air, the darkness, and each other’s company.

Election Eve

The Kyrgyz presidential election will take place tomorrow. And everyone hopes that the country’s residents can breathe a collective sigh of relief on Monday.

In the past week, there have been extensive efforts to promote a show of democracy – free newspapers with information about the six male and one female candidate are available in piles everywhere, TV and newspaper ads repeatedly condemn vote buying and urge voters and candidates not to participate. Yesterday I saw a bank director leading a staff meeting. He suddenly stopped when he received a text message and everyone paused in the uncomfortable silence, while he played with his phone.

“I got a message reminding me of the elections on Sunday and urging everyone to maintain stability,” he said. “I suppose you’ll all receive the message soon.” He closed the meeting, urging everyone to vote and to maintain stability.

“For Bakiev,” an employee said, voicing the common opinion that a vote for the acting President would maintain stability.

“For whoever you want,” the director said. This is a democracy and you should exercise your rights. Americans very much value individual rights and you should take advantage of yours.”

Everyone I’ve spoken to is planning to vote. “Everyone else is voting, so I will too,” our driver Malan said. “Of course I’ll vote, it’s my duty,” someone else said. But I have yet to meet anyone voting for anybody other than Bakiev. All of my coworkers, acquaintances and family members will all vote for him.

“If there was somebody smarter, I’d be glad to vote for them,” Nigora said. “But now I don’t see a choice other than Bakiev.”

“What we really need is a young candidate who has lived in America or Europe,” Shavkat said. “But none of them have. They are all part of the system.”

“Many of them studied or worked in Russia,” Nigora said.

“That doesn’t count. They are still one of us. As soon as they get into office, they will bring in their friends and they are used to stealing. They have to live in the West for a long time in order to really be able to separate themselves from the system and to bring new ideas.”

This evening I got a text message reminding me of the election: “10 July from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. will be the presidential election. Fulfill your obligations as a citizen and vote for the future of the country. Company BITEL.”

The weather in Osh has been incredibly hot – regularly over 100 degrees. Combined with the jetlag, it drains me of all energy, so that I come home from work and plop on the bed until awakening for another day’s work. The heat is so oppressive, I can feel its pressure on my eyes and constantly seek out shade. The blue river rushing through the center of town, carrying melted mountain snow, calls out to me, and I envy the half-naked people playing along its banks.

The fruit and vegetable paradise is in full bloom. At our office alone, we’ve already plucked cherries off trees and raspberries off bushes. My coworker found a giant peach today and there will be more to come. Small, hard grapes hang from the trellis, ripening in the heat. Apples, plums, apricots, tomatoes, cucumbers, watermelon and figs fill the markets and are sold very cheaply.

In a week and a half, I have a seminar at Issyk-Kul, Kyrgyzstan’s largest lake and biggest tourist attraction. We won’t have a lot of free time to enjoy it, but during the sweltering days, I do imagine jumping into the chill waters and basking in the coolness.

Back in Kyrgyzstan (again)

Happy fourth of July to those who are celebrating!

I’ve returned to Kyrgyzstan after a week and a half in Germany. Here, there is no sign of a holiday. Things are mainly the same as before. I saw a man on horseback cross the road as I headed toward the airport, reminding me that I was back in horseback country. Signs of additional security are evident, such as the man in camouflage and a cowboy hat, accompanying us on the bus to the airplane, gripping a giant gun. But the past week has been quiet, with no disturbances. This evening, the first set of presidential debates will be on television.

Our driver Malan met me at the airport and I asked for an update. He said that everyone is getting ready for the election and that he expects they will be peaceful. Bayaman, the Osh “bandit” who was inspiring protests in the week before I left, seems to have disappeared. “No one knows where he is,” Malan said.

As we neared central Osh, I noticed the first political banner. “Bakiev,” I read from the sheet draped above the street.

“They are all over,” Malan said. “Before we used to have Akaev’s face all around us, now we have Bakiev all around us.”

“But Akaev had huge portraits of himself. Maybe Bakiev is being more modest,” I said, looking at the small square of his face on the banner. Just then I noticed a giant billboard on the corner, featuring the face of a heavyset woman.

“Does she want to be president?” I asked.

“Yes. But I don’t think she can. I don’t think anyone other than Bakiev has a chance. And he has some large ads as well. There is a big one with his face just a few blocks down.”

Malan said that Bakiev and his planned prime minister, Kulov, came to Osh last week and gathered a large crowd at the stadium. “I would have liked to have gone and listened to them, but we had to work,” Malan said. I asked if he plans to vote next Sunday. “Of course,” he said. “Everyone else is voting and I will too.”

At home, the garden at burst into a bloom of whites, golds, pinks and reds, including the flower I brought from Holland, which managed to produce five flowers and let them die in the time I was gone. Faruh took photos for my benefit.

At home, the refrigerator broke and Nigora brought a few of my perishables to a neighbor’s fridge. Among them was a small glass jar of feta cheese in olive oil, a little treat I brought from France. “My neighbor asked me what that was,” Nigora said, “and I didn’t know. I said maybe there were some fruits in there.”

Melons have come into season since I left and Nigora placed two plates of melon slices on the table for dessert. I brought out the gummy bears, sour gummy candy, and mini sausages I brought from Germany. Nigora carefully cut open the package of gummy bears and poured half of it onto a plate. She wanted to save the second bag of candy for another table. Holding the sausages up to the light, she said, “We probably won’t eat these for quite some time. We’ll make them last a while.” They ate the gummy bears slowly, one by one.

“Mmm, the different colors have different tastes,” Nigora said. “The green tastes different from the red.” She’d hold up each bear to look at it before popping it into her mouth.

“They are like dried fruits,” Shavkat said.

I love introducing them to new things, but it was strange to watch them eat the gummy bears so carefully, knowing they might never see such a thing again.

I told them about the rent-a-bike system in Germany and I how I enjoying biking through Frankfurt. I told them how the drivers respected bikers, watched out for them, and twice, even reversed in order to let me go easily by.

“Someday, our country will also be like that,” Nigora said.

“Not for a long time,” Shavkat said. I told him that drivers in Germany recognized they could kill a biker if they weren’t careful, and they were conscious of the consequences. “Here, they kill the biker first, then they think about the consequences.”

“Maybe it will take a long time, but someday, our country will also be like that,” Nigora said. “J can come back and see it in her next lifetime.”

The evening TV was full of election commercials promoting a fair and honest election. “Honest elections depend on us.” “Use your vote, don’t sell it.” And along the bottom of the TV scrolled a free hotline to report election violations.

a gathering of old women

The other night, while sitting on the porch with the family, some of Nigora’s relatives came by to invite her to a gathering this afternoon. Nigora’s niece was holding a reception for her mother-in-law, who’d gone to Mecca earlier this year. Because I was sitting there, they invited me too.

I knew the invitation wasn’t sincere, but I thought it would be interesting to see. So I decided to go. And I figured the food would be much better than what I’d find on my own for lunch. So today I spent my lunch break with a gathering of old women.

I picked up Nigora at 2:15 and we went there together. She was wearing a pink-patterned tent-like dress and a head scarf. She carried a covered pot of steamed meat dumplings that she’d run out to the central market to buy.

Her niece greeted us upon our arrival and poured water out of a brass pot over our hands, letting it fall into a golden brass bowl. A towel draped over her arm for us to wipe our hands on.

We were led into the house to a long u-shaped table, piled high with food. Four old women sat at the head of the table. All of them wore long, largely shapeless velvet and silk dresses, and everyone except me wore a headscarf. I felt out of place in my thin-strapped tank top and pink pants.

They welcomed me kindly though, leading me toward a space near Nigora, where we sat on mats near the table. Every time another person arrived, they said a prayer, then wiped their hands over their face, as though they were rinsing their face with invisible water.

Four women sat across from me, with a large carpet hung behind them. They looked like a quartet of queens on miniature thrones. I only had an hour to sample the smorgasbord, but Nigora said she expected to be there until six.

“Can you eat for four hours?” I asked.

“We can eat for six hours,” she said. “That’s probably why everyone here has such a big stomach.”

I ate little strawberries as light and tart as fizzy candies, thick, round cherries, raisins, pistachios, slices of rindless watermelon, plov with meat and tomatoes, chocolates, samsi, and of course, lepushka.

One woman at the head of the table seemed to be taking the lead in the conversation. I asked Nigora what she was saying.

“She’s talking about the Koran, what one needs to do and what one shouldn’t do.” She said that these women had nothing much to do except study the Koran, pray five times a day, and try to live out its requirements. Many of them had been to Mecca.

“Do you want to go to Mecca,” I asked Nigora.

“It’s not my time yet,” she said. “One has to raise their children, educate them, and marry their sons before they can go to Mecca. They have to go with no obligations to themselves or their families. And they also have to live out the Koran, which I don’t do either.”

I asked if it was boring for them to do nothing but pray all day.

“They do other things,” she said, “like looking after their grandchildren. And even the praying is almost like gymnastics. I try doing it during Ramadan and I find that it’s hard. I have to try to get my stomach out of the way.”

After an hour, I left. I didn’t get home from work until 9:30 and Nigora had just returned an hour before me.

“It was kind of boring,” she said. “They were old women and they talked about their things. That one woman who talked about religion never stopped. They tried to interrupt her, handing her tea, and telling her she must be tired. But she’d just set it down and keep talking.

“Those people who know a lot about religion become like fanatics. They have studied a lot and they think people want to hear everything they know. The things she was saying were true, but nobody needed to hear that much. People were stifling back yawns.”

She also said that an old woman at the table lived near us and told Nigora they should go home together. “So I had to wait for her,” she said. “Not only did she stay a long time, but then she walked so slowly. We didn’t have a car and we had to stop several times to rest on the way.”

After coming home, Nigora fixed a quick dinner of eggs, noodles and lepushka for everyone.

“Now I think I’ll go out on the street,” she said. “The women are discussing when to have our next monthly get-together. Everybody has a problem on a certain day.”

“No, you can stay here and drink tea,” Shavkat said. “If you aren’t there, they can decide without you and then tell you the result.”

And Nigora sat down at the table with us. Then Shavkat dominated the conversation, talking about everyone’s concern about his accident, his complete calm, how his blood is full of adrenaline, and how it’s difficult for him to accept all the energy people are sending him with their concern. But as he gradually takes in some of the energy, it’s making him like his coworkers and value his work more than before. His employer has offered to pay for all the car repair and he plans to get it into great shape, then sell it.

A summer evening

I spent Sunday afternoon at home. After a pleasant breakfast on the covered porch, looking out over the garden, I felt the pressure of the increasing heat throughout the day. One by one, family members fell down for a nap as they became victims of the heat and lassitude. I was the last to give in, but finally succumbed.

The evening tried to make up for the discomforts of day. A heavy wind blew through the street, raising dust into the air, covering Souleymane mountain in a beige mist.

At home, the flowers rocked wildly, a sea of purple, white and red on a turbulent sea. Metal clanged as Faruh did flips on the home training equipment and the neighbors iron sheeted roof rose and fell. The tree branches rocked as though they were flailing, the plastic sheet covering the wood pile hung on for life and a reddish glow from the sunset illuminated the bathroom and shower walls.

“A red sunset means that tomorrow will be hot,” Nigora said.

Habib found protection and privacy with his friend sitting in Shavkat’s beat-up car. Nigora ran around sweeping, then sat quietly on the covered porch, her back against the wall. She got up to check on the pelmeni soup cooking on the outdoor stove, then raised her arms to the sky.

“What beautiful colors,” she said, “orange and blue and yellow. And the
rain is starting to fall.”

It’s was though we were in a living museum, a museum of movement, where we had to hang on tight, but could still enjoy the colors, the wind and rain against our skins, and the welcoming warm yellow light from indoors.

Shavkat's accident

Last night I came home and was greeted by strange looks from the three boys in the family.

“She didn’t notice,” Habib said.

“Notice what?” I asked, and went back toward the gate I’d come through. I had ridden by bicycle back home from aerobics and had dared to wear shorts on the street for the first time. I’ve never seen a woman in Osh in shorts. During the ride home, my mind was focusing on analyzing whether I was being stared at more than usual and whether I was making a cultural faux pas, or if my foreigner status or “sportsmenka (athelete)” attire made up for it.

At the gate, I saw that the hood of Shavkat’s little red Niva, nicknamed Butterfly by one of his coworkers, was covered with dust. The car seemed tiny and dirty. I then saw scratches and bends in front, part of the roof caved in.

“What happened?” I asked.

“It got in an accident,” they told me.

The night before, Shavkat had gone to a national park, Kara-Shoro, for his work. He’d taken two of his children, Lutfulo and Faruh with him. Last night Lutfulo and Faruh returned home with one of Shavkat’s coworkers, saying that the rain and the lightening made it too dangerous for them to stay.

“Were you in the car?” I asked the kids.

“No.”

“But you saw the accident?”

“Yes, dad told us to get out of the car and we were standing on the side of the road when it happened,” Lutfulo said.

“And you didn’t tell us last night?” I asked.

“They didn’t want us to worry,” Nigora said.

“Mother would have fainted,” Habib said. But I wonder if she did know something. At one point last evening, she looked like she was wiping tears from her eyes. She told me that Shavkat would be back by lunchtime, but I didn’t understand why the time of his return was so important.

They explained that Shavkat was trying to climb up a mountain, but the car didn’t have the power. It then started rolling backwards, then rolled over once or twice off the side of the mountain.

“That must have been scary to see,” I said.

“Not really,” little Faruh said.

“How could it not have been,” Habib asked.

“Because after it happened, dad came out of the car and said, “Extreme!””

Everyone laughed. Shavkat frequently declares his love of the extreme, from living in rough conditions to traveling poor roads, and taking adventurers on crazy odysseys. That one word reassured his sons that everything was OK.

He had been charged with bringing something to the park. So after the accident he took the equipment from the car and begin walking the several miles that still remained. On the way, some coworkers in car passed by and came to help.

Shavkat claimed that he wasn’t frightened, but he was so spooked at seeing other people’s reactions that he went back to the smoking he’d given up two weeks before. “I had a pact with a friend that we’d give up smoking together on June 1st. But when he saw what happened, he handed me a cigarette and said we should smoke for just two days. Because that was a lot of stress. Then he handed me some cognac and told me I should drink too.”

“Good friend,” I said, and Nigora laughed.

Shavkat had told me that his car needed repair and wasn’t able to go to the mountains. He said he told the same thing to his employer. But they said their car was also broken and they needed him to go urgently. So he agreed. Luckily, they have agreed to pay for the repairs to his car. He plans to fix it, then trade it in for a new car. In the future, he’ll probably use only the company cars for work.

The battered car now sits in the driveway. Shavkat somehow drove it all the way home. Nigora said it approached the house rattling and shaking. It stands as a medal to his adventure and his survival.

This morning I was awoken by a male voice, one of Shavkat’s brothers, exclaiming in Russian, “No way! You are lucky you are alive!”

In all of his years as a driver, this is Shavkat’s first serious accident. He says the good outcome is a result of his meditation and balance in life.

The White House targeted again

Yesterday afternoon I attended a meeting that was opened by the moderator, “I don’t know how many of you know, but 2,000 protestors have broken into the White House in Bishkek and are sitting in the federal offices.”

I later read that the cause of the protest was the rejection of businessman Urmatbek Karyktabasov to appear on the Presidential ballot. Apparently he is a citizen of Kazakhstan, but has lived in Kyrgyzstan for a long time.

The protestors were successfully and peacefully disbursed with the use of tear gas. Nigora, after watching the news, said the protestors were unemployed people. “You can pay them and they’ll stand there, wave pickets, and go into the White House without any clue of what they are doing or why,” she said. She said that the current President, Bakiev, appeared on the news, saying that people are tired of such disturbances, and should they continue, greater force will be used.

I’m definitely getting tired of them, and I don’t have to live with the long-term consequences in the way the locals do.

It’s getting hot in Osh. I walk to walk in cool, morning air, picking raspberries off the bushes on my way out the door. A few hours later, it’s already intensely hot, with the peak coming after lunch. I never really looked at the temperature, and was surprised when Malik told me it was 34 degrees Celcius. I haven’t had much exposure to temperatures over 30.

“34 is nothing,” he said. “Last year it got to 40 and 41. Summer is just beginning.”

Yesterday evening the heat of the day was followed by a rainshower. By the time I walked home, around 9 p.m., the rain had stopped, but the lightening continued, turning the dark sky a grayish-yellow, illuminated by bolts of lightening flashing in the distance, like a picture show without the usual effects.


One of my favorite aspects of life in Osh is the time spent sitting on the porch. I’m given the best place at the table, the mat against the wall. There, when I’m feeling lazy, I can lift my plate or cup of tea up from the low table and rest my back against the wall. I look out at the square garden in the center of the compound. Many people have neat rows of tomatoes, spices and roses. Nigora has a wild mass of flowers. The daffodils and red roses have already flowered and wilted. Nigora will soon cut them so they will flower again and again until winter. The purple and white daisies are now in season. Tall green stalks promise gladiola flowers soon, with chrysanthemums and asters to come. And the flower bulb I brought Nigora from Holland grows visibly every day.

When it’s still light, I can sit on the porch and look out over the flowering land, limited by a fence around its perimeter. While I listen to the neighboring banging on their Kamaz, the next door dog barking, the rural vendor crying out, “Milk, yogurt,” down the street, I can almost imagine myself in a flowering field, far away from everything. I can inhale the rich scent of the earth and petals, the wetness trapped in the ground. At night, I sit in the cool air and look out into blackness. But I can still feel the land, I know that small round knobs are growing on the quince tree, I know that so many petals are waiting for the next days sun, to raise their heads proudly one more time.

Aftermath

In what I was able to find out about the shootings, a crowd of people approached a hotel, where Bayaman has an office, and the guard at the hotel shot at them, injuring five.

Today the streets around the hotel were blocked off, buses, cars and concrete blocks used to prevent traffic from entering, and knots of policeman gathering in the area. I didn’t understand why they felt the need to gather the police force and to the block the area off. Did they really think that the exact same event would reoccur?

“They have to look like they are doing something.” one of my coworkers said.

This evening I went to aerobics. The building and the business are owned by Bayaman. Clearly, they were worried about an attack. An armed guard sat on a chair outside the front door, with a burly man seated next to him. For the first time ever, I was able to wear my shoes up to the aerobics room, instead of taking them off in the lobby and putting them in the smelly cubbyholes. The carpets and the air conditioners had been removed. And the wrestling area, usually full, was spookily void of running, grunting and flopping masses.

Our class was about the half the normal size. Nazgul, one of our employees, was there and I asked her why.

“People are afraid because of what happened yesterday. They think maybe this building could be attacked.”

“Aren’t you afraid?”

“No,” she laughed, widening her pancake shaped face. “If I’m destined to die, I’ll
die. If not, I won’t.”

The mood in town is a bit solemn. For most, life goes on as usual. But people are tired of and worried about the troubles.

While driving past the theater with our driver, Malik, he noticed two fire engines near the entrances.

“What are fire trucks doing there?” he asked, clearly nervous about another problem.

Then we saw a sign commemorating 79 years of the fire department.

“Oh, a celebration,” he said, and took a deep breath. “That’s good. We’re
getting to the point where we see people gather and it hurts our soul. Who needs all this protesting and violence?”

Last night Nigora recalled Soviet times, when people always knew what lie ahead. “Now we don’t know what will come in the future,” she said and fingered her headscarf.

Her son Habib, the most conservative of the three, insisted Soviet times were better, even though he never lived through them himself. “Nobody stole then,” he said. “So now we have freedom to go overseas, but nobody has money to go. So what’s the benefit of the freedom if no one can take advantage of it?”

He’s similar to the new group of conservative young Russians. He praises
Putin and makes derogatory comments about the Kyrgyz, especially from the villages.

Recently a grandson of the First Party Secretary of the Kyrgyz Republic visited our home. He’s a Kyrgyz and an acquaintance of Shavkat. I didn’t stay for the conversation, but Nigora later told me about it.

“Although he’s a Kyrgyz himself, he said he’s become ashamed of the Kyrgyz in the south. He even hates them. He says they are loafers. They come up north, cause a revolution, behave horribly, stealing the things that aren’t theirs, and now they are surrounding the capital and demanding land.”

Nigora places her hopes for the future in her son’s education. “Due to the poor quality of education, many people now say forget it, just let their kids work. But I believe that in four or five years, things will settle down. And those who are able to find jobs will be those with educations. I want all three of my sons to study so they can find a place for themselves.”

Shavkat rejected the family’s ideas for opening a business. But Habib went out and found himself a job, through a classmate, in a furniture factory. He works Monday through Saturday from 9 to 6.

“How much do you make?” I asked.

“They told me not to ask. My friend said that I’m coming on as an apprentice and they don’t like it when people who don’t know anything demand money. But he said if I didn’t say anything, they’d pay me fairly.”

His friend has been working there for seven months. He make $15 a month as an apprentice and now makes $30 a month working half time after school. He’s planning to study at the university by correspondence and continue working full-time.

Habib enjoys the collective. He says they are mostly Russian and joke a lot. He also seems to like having the responsibility and is already planning for August, when he can buy clothes for himself before he starts college. As for his responsibilities, he tells me but is silent to his father.

“My dad keeps asking what I do all day, but I don’t tell him anything,” he said. “All he does is criticize all the time, so there is no point in telling him anything.”


Today I went to Uzgen, in a Volga with windows that didn’t open in back, the car filled with the dust from the bumpy dirt road. A tiny section of the road had been paved, so people are hopeful that progress will be made by fall.

Along the way, we saw people bent over in the cotton fields, the rows of green shimmering in the hot afternoon sun, snow-capped mountains in the distance floating through the sky as if they were clouds.

In Uzgen, I visited the ancient mausoleum and minaret, two relics of a past world standing in a grassy fenced in area. One would never guess that the dusty, bustling little town of Uzgen has existed since at least the second century BC, when it was mentioned in Chinese chronicles as the town of Yu. From 1000 to the 1200s, it was called Mavarannahr and served as a capital of the Karakhanid Dynasty, which ruled the area from 999 until Genghis Khan destroyed it in the 13th century.

The red-brown clay mausoleums were marked by engravings and foliage on terracotta up to three centimeters deep, covering doorways, pillars, and walls. We climbed up the brick minaret to look over the sleepy section of town. The silver Lenin statue and row of markers to Soviet heroes seemed a strange complement to the buildings of ancient rulers. Mountains rose in the distance, ringing the town with earth and stone.

Returning to the central part of town, I went through the imposing blue and turquoise tiled pillars that mark the entrance to the central market. I walked through the narrow aisles, amidst sheets of plastic hung up to protect the goods from the sun and rain. Vendors stood near piles of crab apples, peaches, plums, tomatoes, cucumbers, fresh mountain honey, fat sold in vials as medicine, bags of flour, and sweet, yeasty smelling lepushka.

On the way back, I made my usual stop to buy fish. At one point along the Uzgen-Osh road, fishermen lounge in the shade in summer, or hold up fish in mittened hands in winter. They catch it in a nearby river and bring it right to the roadside to sell to passing travelers. It’s some of the best fish I’ve had in Kyrgyzstan. Several times, I’ve found the fish still alive, even after the two hour trip to Osh.