Where Is Ron?
Central Asia, October - November 2009
Ron and Ellen and Amir Timur (Tamerlane), Tashkent, Uzbekistan, September 2009
Fergana Valley (Uzbekistan) and Osh (Kyrgyzstan), November 2009
To see photos of the visit to the family in the Fergana Valley, Uzbekistan, click on the thumbnail at the left.
9 November 2009
To see photos of Osh, Kyrgyzstan, click on the thumbnail at the left.
Afton, Virginia USADear Family and Friends,
While Ron is experiencing cold in Kyrgyzstan, we've had a run of gorgeous late fall days, sunny and warm. We did have some cold nights at the end of last week, and finally had a hard freeze (23F, -5C) on 4 November, so the flowers that were left in the garden are now dead and gone until next season. I can't complain, since it is at least a month later than our normal first freeze date. And it means I haven't had to have many fires in the wood stove yet, although wood and kindling are at the ready.
Love to all,
Ellen
9 November 2009
Osh, KyrgyzstanHello, my dear -
It is a cold rainy day in Osh and I am spending the afternoon cleaning out my email in-box and writing you about some of my experiences.
While the whole time I have been in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, just over the border from Andijon in the Fergana Valley, it has been raining and cold. Today it felt like weather just before it snows so I pulled my thermometer out of my pocket and let it dangle in the cool air for a while and it then read 40 degrees F, 5 degrees C. Someone told me that the forecast for Almaty was minus 5 C so I am prepared to admit the season has changed after some very beautiful weather in Tashkent.
Osh feels more like Asia than any place I have been on this trip. Not only do a lot of the people look Mongolian/Chinese but the energy level of the people on the street just reminds me more of many places I have been in Asia. There is more of a feeling of the absence of control that I felt in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. The people that I have met so far seem friendly and helpful and I think I will like it here. My instinct to spend more time in Kyrgyzstan was probably correct but I can't figure out how to do so since I only have a week left and the last two days must be in Almaty and I want to go by land through Kazakhstan which only gave me a one-entry visa, and if I return to Bishkek [Kyrgyzstan], I would need to get another Khazakh visa during the weekend when even a transit visa could be problematic. So maybe I will spend a couple of more days here. Even in the cold and rain, I think it will be a good experience and I will enjoy my time. And I have the novel: No Man's Land by Duong Thu Huong which I am enjoying.
I wanted to get to Osh for the Sunday Market, so I was trying to make the trip from Tashkent to Osh in one day since I wanted to spend Friday night in town with Bob. We went to see a movie produced by the Russian division of Disney which was based on a famous Russian folk tale. Quite entertaining and very Russian. I doubt that it will be available in the US.
However, I didn't make it to Osh in one day because I followed another chance for adventure and accepted an invitation to visit and spend the night in the home of two of my taxi-mates from a shared taxi from somewhere on the outskirts of Tashkent to a village about a half an hour taxi ride from Fergana. Difficult choice since the Sunday market in Osh is supposed to be one the biggest in Central Asia. I thought maybe I could do both by leaving early Sunday morning - but things didn't work out and the border was not one to cross quickly. The Monday market is supposed to be very quiet so perhaps I will get to the Tuesday morning market instead.
I was sitting in the front of the taxi and at one of the stops where he took the car to get gas and the passengers sat in a busy restaurant I got to know the three people in the back seat. One woman, in her late 20's, tall, over 6 feet and very striking could speak the best English and drew me out about where I was from, going, had been, etc, and I learned that she was an actress in the Tashkent theater and also worked as a journalist. I am guessing the first was for pleasure and the second for career, but just my guess. She introduced me to her brother was a professional artist and has a web site: http://www.karvon.ru/
Later on the ride she invited me to stay at their home for a visit and then to go on to Osh the next day, which I accepted. When we arrived I was introduced to her very large brother who lives at her parents' home, and to her father and mother. I was invited to leave my pack in a large room over off the courtyard and taken on a tour of the property, shown the shower, privy, outside kilns for baking, and the various fruit trees and plants. I recognized grapes, apples, and something like a pear, and some others that I have no idea what they were.
As I understood the conversation, and please understand there was a lot I did not understand, her father retired about 5 years ago and built this home for his retirement. When we walked around the neighborhood, on the corner were people coming with buckets to carry water to their home; he had run a pipe from the water supply on the corner to his house where it drained into a container, and then an electric pump pushed the water up to a holding tank on the roof above the shower. There was gas to heat the water and a pipe that took the gas to one of the outside furnaces for cooking. I was not invited to see the rest of the quarters which included the kitchen, and where the parents, the one son and his wife and child lived. The outhouse was large and relatively clean, but not as impressive as the one in Kazakhstan which I wrote about in the wedding story.
After the tour I was taken back to the room where my pack was. A small low table was put in the middle of the room and we sat on cushions and beautiful mats and quilts around the table. Sanam, the actress, and her mother brought a large array of food and covered the table with dishes of various items: pistachios, almonds, apricots, raisins, grapes, apples, a nut that I think was like a walnut, several kinds of candy and enough bread (the round ones we found everywhere) for a community meeting. Then individual bowls of what I would call soup or stew arrived, with potatoes, meat (beef I think), greens and other seasonings. There was something else that looked like potatoes but was orange and not like sweet potatoes. Also included in the soup was some cooked fruit, which the closest I can come to is to call it pear. Earlier Dilshod, the artist, sliced one of the gold-colored rough-textured fruit from the tree. The only silverware were large spoons that came with the stew and a knife that was used by the host to slice fruit. And of course the beverage was unsweetened black tea, as well as some bottled water.
The apples, walnuts, apricots, pear, grapes, raisins, and something with a bright orange skin but darker inside were all grown in their courtyard.
On one of the visits by Sanam to bring some of the food, she explained that the custom was for the women to stay separate from the men, so the only people around the table were her two brothers, her father and myself. And without Sanam who could speak the most English, we were limited to what Dilshod could speak (or understand, which was more).
When I went to the toilet the father gave me a pitcher of warm water and a towel to take with me, and when I returned to the outside sink, he poured additional warm water over my hands to wash and rinse them. There was no soap.
I was well taken care of, encouraged to eat more than I wished and impressed by the father's ability to build and maintain such a household with the various utilities included. He reminded me of Homer (our former neighbor who has now passed away), who could do everything.
After dinner we went for a walk in the neighborhood and visited some of the other courtyards and a bakery on the corner. Steve and Nancy [Steven is our son in Oregon, Nancy is our neighbor; both are professional bakers] would have loved to tour the bakery which was in a very old building using equipment and ovens that must be 50 or more years old. The young man, the baker, was kneading a rather large mound of dough that I understood used all of a bag, equivalent to four that were still sitting nearby on the floor, and I am guessing could be 100 pounds of flour. I am hoping that one of the pictures I took will give you an idea of the size and conditions.
Later, rather early, after returning from our neighborhood tour, the table was emptied and the dirty dishes removed by Sanam, the fruit, nuts and candy dishes put on a table in the corner, the small low table removed and beds were made for Dilshod and myself on the floor on mats, quilts and sheets. I read for a while then went to sleep.
In the morning the small low table was set up again, and Sanam and her mother again produced breakfast which included bread, all the original nuts and fruit, and something in a small bowl which was a brown thick sweet liquid to dip the bread into and sip. I have no idea what this was and could not understand any of the explanations. Also, a bowl of what looked like soft cheese arrived and I was told it came from a cow. The only way to take some was with my fingers, and when I tasted it I realized it was butter. Wonderful butter.
After breakfast the father came in with two large plastic bags of dried fruit for me to take home to you. One bag I recognized as dried apricots and the other was similar but darker and still contained a large seed. Tasty but difficult to chew. I may get home with them if there is room and customs doesn't impound them.
Dilshod indicated that if it was ok with me we would go to Fergana about 10 for me to catch a shared taxi from there to Osh. The family arranged a car to take me with the father, Dilshod and Sanam, and would not let me pay for this half hour ride. There was a lot of negotiation with the taxis when we got to Fergana and I was told to pay only 6,000 S ($3) to what I thought was Osh, but instead worked out to be Andijon, where I got another shared taxi to the border. I will save the border crossing story to add to my other border stories [to be sent out after all borders on this trip have been crossed].
It is not possible for me to express all the kindnesses provided by this wonderful Muslim family who invited me for the night and treated me as a guest in their home. But since I have often said that I judge the quality of my trips by the number of people that invite me into their home, I must say that Uzbekistan is high on the list. But I have not told you about my other home visit.
When I returned from Tajikistan I was taken to the outskirts of Samarkand where I had to face the taxi mafia and was surrounded by drivers wanting to take me but with no other passengers. Finally to get away from all the taxi drivers who kept following me I went into one of the stores to buy some water and they didn't follow me into the store. When I came out they must have been mobbing someone else because I was not paid much attention.
As I was wandering around trying to find a shared taxi I met a young woman who said she had engaged a taxi for 80,000 sum and was looking for other passengers. I think I was quoted 60,000 for a private taxi, but the 80,000 one actually took us to the door of where we lived in Tashkent. I joined her, met her aunt, uncle and nephew who had brought her to the station and we waited for two more people.
The young lady and I sat in the back and talked the whole way to Tashkent [about 3.5 hours]. Her English was excellent and I enjoyed the conversation immensely. She was 23 years old, works as a translator, and dreams of going to the US one day. She lives very close to the American Embassy, her boss lives in Bob's compound and she has visited there, and also has used the English-language library in the Embassy. She told me she would like to invite me for dinner the next night and we arranged for me to call her to confirm the time, which I did the next day. At 6 she came to Bob's compound and walked me to her apartment.
She gave me a complete tour of her apartment and invited me to sit at a low table in a small room separated from the largest room by a wall of small nontransparent window panes. The setting felt somewhat Japanese with the low table, small room, and wall of glass windowpanes. She had gone to a lot of trouble to prepare a special dinner for me and now I will see how much of the menu I can remember from several days ago. There were bowls of nuts, raisins, apples, candy all in little bowls set on the table. I took a couple of pictures and they should show the table and the room. She served me a bowl of chicken soup which had potatoes and chicken She cut and gave me fruit and she had baked a special cake for the occasion and she sent me back to Bob's with half of it.
Over dinner I learned a lot about her life and her aspirations and dreams. I don't think she is typical of women in Uzbekistan. She has her own apartment, which her father bought for her when she decided to attend the university in Tashkent. She is still single at 23 and while her parents want her to get married soon, they are not arranging marriage for her - yet. There is a Jewish man, around 45, who would like her to marry him and her parents have met him. But three days after our dinner she is scheduled to leave for Korea for two months where she will teach English in what I think is a kindergarten school. She likes teaching children English.
She would like to visit Paris and learn French, and is also considering returning to get her Masters in English which would qualify her to teach English in the University. However, all depends on her parents permission, who and when to marry, where and when she can travel.
So women from 18 to 28 have invited me to their homes and I look in the mirror and realize that it is not for my good looks and youth, but because I am an American, and perhaps an interesting and open foreigner and too old to be a threat. But I have also discovered a whole new role - adoptive grandparent. Especially here in a country where young women and men give me their seats in buses. They honor and respect age. I share this paragraph with mixed emotions - lost youth and romance for interesting interactions with the younger generation that treats me as a grandparent. But travel at any age is a wonderful experience and I value these transient friendships along the road.
I realize I still owe you a report on Tajikistan, but nothing as exciting happened there so I will write it next.
Now I will go see if I can find something to eat in the cold wet weather of Osh.
When I leave here I will be starting home. Long way and will take a few days, but it will be nice to get home.
Love and miss you,
Ron
Forward to the last visit to Shymkent and Almaty
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Last updated: 14 December 2009
