Wanderlustress: Chodak-Tkent-Nukus-Bukhara-Tkent

Just returned to Andijon from two and a half weeks on the road. Our four days of NGO technical training and Russian lessons were both productive and fun. Celebrated my birthday at the training site in Chodak (mountain-side sanatorium outside of Tashkent) with all but one of UZ17 volunteers. Although the NGO sector in this country continues to face many bureaucratic frustrations and regulatory obstacles, it was good to openly discuss our shared concerns and learn about our individual coping mechanisms. I can now count in Russian and form short sentences, but still mixing with Uzbek where I get stuck on Russian vocabulary, tenses, conjugation, etc. Unfortunately, we were not in the mountains, but at least we could go on long walks where their snowy peaks were in view.

Then after two days and four trips to the aviacassa (air ticket office) and the airport in Tashkent, we were finally able to buy tickets to Nukus. The small Yak-40 was packed. With seats full of passengers and no room for luggage (something else took up all the cargo space), luggage ended up piled in front of the plane behind the cockpit (I kept mine on my lap). Upon take-off, the tentative pile began to fall over onto the passenger in the bulk seat who reluctantly tried to push the pile away from her while looking around as if to demand, “Who’s ever luggage this is, get it off of me!” The owners of the bags were reluctant to get out of their seats with the plane at a 30 degree angle, so my heroic friend ended up helping her and secured the luggage with the belt that ropes off the emergency exit door – no hope of getting out past the bags anyway. During the flight, a few bags would tilt towards the cockpit door, blocking its entrance or exit. But that didn’t seem to bother the pilots nor the stewardess. They just shoved the obstruction aside with their foot and go about their business. Needless to say, there is very little air safety regulation in this country.

Nukus was c c c…cold. The desert and all that open space doesn’t guard against the wind at all, so we mostly stayed indoors to rest up and keep warm. High point was finding tofu in the bazaar, which we promptly turned into a stir-fry with garlic and spinach the first night, and a tangy, spicy, peppery dish the second night. Still didn’t make it to the much acclaimed museum, but there will be future trips out west over the next sixteen months.

On the way to Bukhara for Thanksgiving we picked up three friends in Urgench and managed to hire a van for a fairly good price. While five hours of desert landscape were extremely monotonous, we entertained each other with random trivia questions and dreams of eating turkey upon our arrival. Our anticipation and endurance on the long trip was rewarded with three turkeys, two of which were cooked in a tandor, along with a buffet table crammed with pumpkin soup, stuffing, creamed onions, walnut-pomegranate-spinach salad, cranberry sauce, home-baked breads, broccoli with ranch dressing, no less than six pumpkin pies, nutty date balls, banana bread, bunt cake, apple pie, jello, chocolate cake…a bigger spread than I’ve ever seen in America, never mind in this country. But there it was, and we were all together about 35 people, mostly PCV’s, Uzbek friends, as well as a few other Americans working in Bukhara. I was happy to be with good friends and among the generosity of the Bukhara PCV’s – the way Thanksgiving should be if I can’t be at home with my family. Good times all around. The following day before leaving on the overnight train back to Tashkent, we took a stroll through Bukhara’s historic old city and bought some spice tea from the infamous “spice guy”. The tea is so fragrant that it can be used as pot pourri, and the taste is smooth and soothing. I will wrap little cones of it in origami paper to give to my colleagues back in Andijon.

Taking an overnight train anywhere is romantic, right? Well, at least until two thug-like men board in the middle of the night at who knows which stop and enter our four-bunk coupe. They were so steeped in vodka and cigarettes that we were fumigated to the bone by the time we arrived the following morning in Tashkent. Our clothes, hair, and even clothes packed inside our bags reeked for days afterwards. It took a few showers at the Intercon and professional cleaning of our clothes to rid the stench from our bodies and belongings. In between scrubbing ourselves clean and tending to Peace Corps business in Tashkent, we shopped and luxuriated in the fine dining opportunities the city offers…Indian, Korean, Chinese, Italian, burgers, mmmmmm…. At Mir, a Turkish operation that caters to Western tastes with foreign products, we found new and exciting items on the shelves including Birella pastas and sauces, pesto!!!, olive oil, brie, and Philadelphia cream-cheese. What next…prociutto and freshly grated parmesan? I’m hoping for peanut butter, although there is a “peanut butter” guy here whom PCV’s often order from although I’ve yet to try him.

Our meetings at the American Embassy were productive, and had a side benefit for me in particular. We met with the director of the Public Affairs Section who manages the “American Corner” facilities around Uzbekistan. Andijon and Termez each have one that provides space for holding English clubs, a library of English books and magazines, equipment to watch American movies, and computers to do research. It is a good program and they are interested in expanding into other regions, specifically in Nukus, Namangan and Jizzak. We also met with the coordinator of the Democracy Commission’s Small Grants Program and got some concrete information about funding opportunities for our NGO’s. All of this will be useful when discussing new projects with my director and colleagues. Best of all, I was able to hop a ride with the public affairs guy in an embassy vehicle back to the valley. Cruising through check-points without having to show our passports expedites the trip significantly, never mind the comfort of not squeezing between two people into the back of a Nexia with Uzbek music blaring in my ears for five hours.

Oh, and we also managed to buy tickets to Turkey for the holidays, departing in a little over two weeks. Tickets to SEAsia at this time are impossible to buy, and anyway, the high season there turns me off a bit. We’re hoping to have Turkey mostly to ourselves outside the throng of tourists typical of the summer season. I can’t wait!!!