I’m cooking beef bone soup today. It feels so good to cook in the winter, especially veggies and soups. It’s finally warmed up (44°F) but it’s gray. Just staring at the beautiful deep greens, oranges, reds, and purples toasts me up and puts me in a bit of a trance. The earth, all frozen outside, vibrates in my hands. Yum. I like winter. Especially the light.

After cleaning all the refuse, I stared at the remaining beets and decided to roast them up, since I’m in the kitchen anyway. How lovely to pretend I have time for all this.

And I sort of do. I refuse to do anymore schoolwork today and I’m not in at work until four. There’s plenty I could be doing and this is what I’ve chosen. The beef bone stock will last me probably the rest of winter so it’s time well spent. I can do some yoga before the beets are finished.

Speaking of, this is a brilliant article on food. What should be obvious, but isn’t.

This is the update? This is the update. You want to know where I’ve been? Not out of the country since the last Central Asian trek in ’04. I’ve lived in the same building for 3½ years, the same neighborhood for almost five. Can you believe? I can. It’s nice.

I’ve traveled a bit in the States, but otherwise work, school, and yoga keep me tied to the city. Order of import: yoga, school, and work. Yoga is great fun. I do it every day, I teach it almost everyday. I’ll not wax poetic about it because I’m creating a yoga site for a class, for my students, and for the fun. I didn’t intend to fall in love with yoga, much less teach it, but, well, love is seldom about intent.

School is interesting enough. I was doing a program in south asian studies, but back-burnered that this semester for a health and behavioral studies/health education MA. Both obviously pertain to yoga, but the latter is more applicable to my life. “The ideal to the real,” said the Venerated Coconut. The programs are dramatically different. I like them both. And I still learn best by grabbing some books, taking off, and talking to people along the way.

Coming back to the classroom gave me a great respect for all I learned out there, fiddling about. I am really lucky for all that, hard as it was at times. And I’m lucky to be back here in the city, where I can travel the globe, meet its people, eat their food, and be home at the end of the day. What will I do with the degree/s when finished? I don’t know. I’ve got some ideas. As always, something will come.

Many thanks for checking in on me. It’s quite sweet.

Love,
A

My difficulty processing grief is well established, and Victor’s death poses a unique challenge in that I am far from his friends and family, from the places where we were. But I haven’t seen Vitya in years. We kept our friendship up online, as so many do these days, and that is where I have turned to grieve, to mourn this beautiful man and pay him the respects I owe so deeply.

Though he was a Samarqandi by birth, we worked together in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. I was a tour guide and he was a hotel manager. Vitya taught and supported me in ways I will never repay, and I hope that under my arrogant, obnoxious façade that he knew how much I loved him.

I’d have preferred to—I’d have been honored to—go out and wail with the women, beat my chest and meet the intense, tamasic pain which the “strong” demand the impure live out for them. But I had a Hinduism midterm to prepare for and I was not about to ask out of it. Instead I treaded a middle ground. I studied as much as able, concentrating on the meaning and rituals of death because we’d recently covered it and that is where my mind was rooted. Alas, Yama [Hindu god of death] barely graced the midterm (he can be such a tease!), but I worked in what I’d learned as best I could, and now sit down to write. To wail.

And to acknowledge that it does not feel right to march on in polluted strength when there are tears denied and pains shooting through my rib cage on to my heart because Vitya, and another part of me, is dead. But how to grieve when there are no family and friends around to sit with and remember his warmth and beauty? In that, this electronic connection has bridged a painful separation.

Vitya loved to argue as much as I do and we debated endlessly, in his office, in the Taj restaurant on Chekhovskaya Ulitsa, and after I left, by e-mail. We offended each other daily, but he never gave up or shut me out. Instead, he explained himself, his culture and his way of seeing time and again, and encouraged me, ordered me, to keep interpreting it for those not willing or able to venture to Uzbekistan. And, of course, for the tourists who did. So now it’s time for me to sit and remember, to write the Victor I knew from my way of seeing him, which might be, please understand (as Vitya would have), quite different from your own.

Victor was larger than life, almost mythological. He loved to take care of people and he lived for it, sometimes to his detriment, when he didn’t say no and others took advantage. He knew this and he had started to fight it around the time we met in 2000, perhaps before. But once identified, these habits are still tremendously hard to break. Hell, being a sexy hero has its merits. By the time of his death, Victor had two families to care for and an endless list of friends, lovers and business associates who counted on him in different ways.

In the last year, Victor and I stopped writing as much. Nothing he wrote was really meaty and interesting as our correspondence had been, and as that’s all I really respond to, I didn’t much respond (yeah, you aren’t alone). I’ve been enjoying my inward journey of late, minding my own nonsense, which is interesting to very few and annoying to the rest. I sensed it was annoying to Victor, not because he didn’t appreciate the inner-world, but because he was moving out (as I will too at some point), traveling and working madly, trying to establish the business in Afghanistan. So much for balance. I sigh in pain as it’s unlikely that I have to explain to you my take on workaholics, those who run in bright-fast circles to numb the pain of their existence, full force against a second’s rest to simply breathe the depth of life, its torments, and its fertile joys. What’s hell is that Victor knew it but fell anyway. For the year, with small exception, most of his emails looked like this:

My life here more and more become gypsy style. I stay in Kabul for not more than 3 nights a week and my knowledge of geography of Afghanistan is getting better and better. I’ve seen nice places on the north, east and south – on the way visits to Kandahar, Helman and Herat. Than Badahshan. As you see not enough time for something more than a couple of words to write. I’d like to write down some impressions, but I’m afraid I won’t. Anyway – good to know that you’ve been safely landed at home. And I’d like to see your central asian diaries published and signed for me.

and:

Sorry for being silent for too long. Just owervhelmed with business issues and absolotely have not time due to the very tough travelling schedule. I’ve made around 2 thousand miles in the last couple of weeks(also on SUV, but just 14 years old Toyota Surf). I’ve been in Jalalabad, Wardak, Kunduz, Takhar, Saripul, Wardak and few more less prominent places. Tomorrow I’m leaving again to Shibirgan, day after I have to be in Kunduz, than one night in KAbul, then Jalalabad (to pick up my team) and then to Ghazni. After Ghazni I’d probaly have to go to Herat and Kandahar and somewhere in the meantime to visit Badahshan and Fayzabad. Few pictures were made, of course no comparison with your professional ones, but anyway reflecting unimaginable wonderful scenery of this country. I would like to get a bit more time to learn Dari finally. I’d like to get a bit more time to write down some of my road impressions. May be later.

Belinda, a New Yorker to whom Vitya introduced me in Tashkent, who’s helped me immensely in this grief, had the same complaint. “He’d made a choice about where he wanted to put his time.” Belinda expressed her annoyance to him but I let go. He sent me boring emails (with some beautiful photos) and I didn’t reply. I just waited for this stage to pass.

Victor was forever pressing me about writing my stories down, which he knew all too well doesn’t happen much when you are trying to get the big life done. But the reason I stopped writing about him, and about much in Central Asia, was because I got too close and it got sticky. I cared about the people too much to write them simply, and didn’t feel I had it in me to explain my friends’ different decisions and different ways of life to folks back home.

In one of our last great debates, which always included a great misunderstanding, Victor showed me his vulnerability in a way he seldom did. He told me I’d hurt him, that I flattened him, made him two dimensional and poked easy fun at him in my comments about his life decisions. I don’t recall now what I’d said (I’m still unable to look back at those emails), but I can still feel the shock of pain in my heart when I read it. I immediately emailed him, “No no no, Victor, dorogoi! Please, no, that’s not what I meant, not how I feel!” I didn’t say that often, and certainly not enough. I’ve never felt that about anyone I’ve lost and it feels, it feels like my heart muscle has been stretched out like a rubber band and ZING snapped free, left to find it’s form somewhere new, somewhere again. We took for granted that “May be later.”

A little more than a year after I left Uzbekistan, Victor moved to Moscow because life in Tashkent is abysmal (much thanks to Karimov) and he eventually wanted to get his family out. He didn’t bring his family though, because it took awhile to find a job and set up. Ethnically Russian or not, being Uzbekistani did not make life in the big city easy for Victor and he didn’t like it there. Nevertheless, he fell for his landlady and married her. They had a daughter, Anastasia, in May of 2003. (Given the nature of time, I thought she was 18 months now, but she’s already two and a half.)

This involved leaving his Uzbek wife, which never totally happened as he was ever-dedicated to supporting his family. And now families. Victor thought that I judged this brand of heroic masculinity, and, yes, I did. Most Americans would, which is why I never told the story. I didn’t know how to do it without flattening him. Though it looked all the while like Vitya was building himself a heavy cage, one he simultaneously yearned and plotted to escape, he knew it and fought it. Beneath his heroic, manly mask there was poetry aching to break free. This made him human. And loveable.

I never told him that though, and he thought I looked down on him. I didn’t. How could I? When in Uzbekistan, I benefited from his generosity like any other. He watched my back, taught me without letting me know it, and never, ever once made me feel like he wanted something from me, physical or otherwise. We talked about relationships and sex, and he certainly had all sorts of lovers, but he never once let me feel that irksome pressure of fanciful expectation that most hetero friendships have now and again. Nor did he presume it of me. He was an excellent friend.

Yes, I was frustrated that he chose to work himself to the end—he must have had so much to say about his life there!—but we both thought it was just a stage. At least I did. I really did expect him in New York, my borderless city, one day. I’d take him about to my favorite Indian places, as I did in Tashkent. Yes, that’s what I thought.

I encouraged him to go to Afghanistan, because though he was working like mad and escaping his families, justified by trying to support them (a man’s man), he was also having the adventures he always wanted to have. Of course I understood his wanting to be somewhere else and we related heavily on that note. He loved my bulks and encouraged me to do more with them. I didn’t. But now, with Victor gone and so much left unsaid, this memorial is the very least I can do for him. The photos capture his beauty, at once his heroic, manly stance and his sad, searching eyes. Oh, beautiful Vitya, may you be happy and free. You are loved.

Photos in this post are by Victor and his friends and family.

guka won a greencard! guka won a greencard! guka won a greencard! guka won a greencard! guka won a greencard! guka won a greencard! guka won a greencard! guka won a greencard! guka won a greencard! guka won a greencard!!!

Certainly, I haven’t gotten that far in my story, but some of the responses have been so contrary to my point that I want to clear a few things up first.

Spouses and children can be amazing delights and by my observation certainly the greatest teachers available. Because I am still learning more basic lessons, I’ve yet to enroll, but I certainly don’t begrudge anyone their choice to do so. In explaining my single & free framework of the last message, I wanted to convey that on previous trips abroad, I didn’t realize that almost no one understood my reasons for being single and childless no matter how passionately I explained. Nor did I realize just how squarely I was judged for it. I didn’t understand this for the very reason I was not understood—because I didn’t truly understand their culture. I understood theoretically, but not fundamentally, not in full blood. Their judgments of me were no more in error than my expectation that they comprehend my situation. The fabric of our cultures are just too different. We did have one common ground that fed our judgments: That our way was better. So much better, in fact, that we need not step out of its grasp long enough to consider openly the basis for other ways.

The Uzbeks are not Islamic radicals, at least not 98% of them, and certainly not the people I wrote about. They are Muslim like most of us are religious—they celebrate holidays. The response that Americans are fighting to keep our freedom because of views like those of the Kazakhs and Uzbeks is absurd. The war on Iraq is making Americans and the world less safe and making Uzbek radicals out of young men and women who previously never even went to mosque. How?

The president of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov, runs a repressive, abusive and corrupt government. He has persecuted and tortured Uzbeks for practicing Islam. Most everyone is tired of his rule, tired of the poverty and the repression that has gotten palpably worse since American’s so-called war on terror began. Of course, the Bush administration overlooks Karimov’s disgusting human rights violations because we have a base in his country, conveniently located on the northern border of Afghanistan. This doesn’t impress the Uzbek people and out of desperation, some have begun to take up arms with the IMU. Hence, America is creating Islamic radicals rather than stamping them out. To read more about this, check out EurasiaNet.

Frankly speaking, Americans’ freedoms are in more endangered by Christian fundamentalists than Muslim. If Bush and his party are honestly concerned about women’s (and human) rights, they would begin by passing pro-women (pro-people) legislation here, rather than incurring billions in debt by mucking about abroad.

But I digress.

“I wouldn’t judge you for that. I judge you because you don’t have kids, but not for that.” he informed.

“You what?” I laughed, “What?”

“Yes, I think that you are selfish with your freedom and travels and that you are really just afraid that you can’t afford to pay someone to take care of your kids.”

I am long used to the ubiquitous questions “Are you married? Do you have children?” In Central Asia, women are wives and mothers. Even if they work outside the home, motherhood is how they achieve status and respect. This marriage question is no different from our ubiquitous: “And tell us what you do.” We hear the occupation, and we label accordingly.

Yet we understand the marriage question because this is the case in most of the world. It wasn’t so long ago that our world was like this. Our own parents and grandparents probably still harbor this sentiment in some form or another.

Yet we urbanites tend to look down on this. Some think it’s selfish to have children, generally when we judge the parents as unfit or unready. Like everyone else, we assume our way is better and assume that at the very least we will be understood when we properly explain. I always explained to the shopkeeper, the taxi driver, the housemother, the rug seller, that I wasn’t married, I was too young, and I wanted my freedom. I saw that some women understood, and understood deeply. What I didn’t thoroughly understand was that other women, and most of the men, judged me harshly and most likely labeled me as the wanton hussy they’d seen so frequently and unabashedly in American films and TV. The equivalent in their culture is a prostitute.

Too young? I was a decade past nubile in their eyes. Freedom? My call for freedom isn’t something Central Asians have a working grasp of, especially not the women. Tradition is almost the only thing they have that provides a sense of order in their lives, and that tradition is all about family. My American-bred need for independence is still contradictory to the human instinct for survival in this part of the world and I would slowly begin to understand that, and Ulug’s judgment of me, this trip around.

“Ah, okay, Ulug.” I answered, his youth the only thing keeping me from offense.

more to come.

I’m settling back into New York and not sure what to make of myself. A good trip does that, I suppose. I’m not sure what to make of the images and thoughts from the trip, either. Anything? I’ve a strong desire to let it all go. What do I do this for?

Something else pushes me toward working with the Kalon girls material. I’ve been drawn toward them since July. I’m not inspired to write out, day by day, the highlights and events of the trip as I’d attempted and intended to along the way. In some ways, the trip can be boiled down to three points. The first: I no longer want to be a full-time photographer. I knew this. Now I know better. Now I know and I don’t mind, don’t think I’m giving up something I shouldn’t.

I set up shoots with NGOs because I wanted a connection and purpose in Central Asia, especially in Almaty, because I intended to scout it out as a place to live. I wanted to insure that I’d do something other than visit Guka and depend on her for the connection. Well, that took an interesting turn when I learned that Guka, who works for an NGO, knew someone at every organization I’d planned to work with. What happened with Guka in Almaty was, if not complicated, than too long a story and unrelated to my point (I don’t want to be a photographer) to go into here.

There were a few places I ended up working with in Kazakhstan, and the work is decent but not brilliant. I realized that if I don’t really get to know a subject and click, I’m not really interested and can’t be bothered to carry the lenses, the flashes, the heavy stuff. My external flash broke anyway, which meant a lot of slow sync indoors (the intentionally blurry indoor photos you’ve seen. The alternative, basic full on flash, is just miserable). Oddly enough, I didn’t much care. I was emotionally invested with a project in Bukhara and wanted to work on it, but couldn’t cancel the rest of the trip and go back. What if something wonderful and new awaited? What kind of traveler would call off the places she hadn’t been for a place she had, many times? So, I walked through the rest of my planned itinerary, making the shoots that came through (many didn’t, thanks to the scratchy NGO world and their August vacations). In the end, I did leave Almaty a bit early to go back to Bukhara.

If I am not emotionally invested in a project, I don’t want to shoot it.

This is no way to make a living. Not in photography anyway, as I am not emotionally invested in auto adverts or underfed girls with fake boobs.

The second: I’ve a new understanding of human connection and can now feel cultural difference, rather than simply understand the theoretical concept of it. This was quite a revelation, which made me happy I didn’t pursue anthropology. Culture, on some level, must be FELT (the big signifiers of culture—language, foods, many customs, etc.—are, after all, usually the responsibility of the women to pass down. Forgive, please, my suggestion that women feel more than men) and this doesn’t translate well, if at all, to academics. However much I enjoy theories, I now don’t believe culture can honestly or accurately be jammed into them. I’m not saying they shouldn’t be, it’s just not for me.

This clicked for me in the mountains outside Almaty, after I’d been a few weeks staying with three, very different, Central Asian families. This I will write about.

I’ve yet to mention the Kalyan Girls because I want to introduce them properly. Three hours before I leave Bukhara for Tashkent is probably not the best time, but I want. They are ten or so girls who sell souvenirs on the street by the Kalyan Minaret, a structure so grand Ghengis Khan decided to spare it (though little if anything else in Central Asia). By talking to tourists they have learned to speak English remarkably well, as well as some French, German, Italian and Japanese. They speak with an ease that book-learners can’t manage and attack Australian tourists with, “Goood’ay Mate!” Americans with “What’s up?” and so on. Years back, we initally met common ground with our need for making fun of the tourists.

The photo of me on my info page from 2000 is with the baby cousin of one of the girls, with the Kalyan complex in the background.

My first night back in Bukhara, I planted myself on the curb near the minaret and tried to catch up on the past years. We settled in and they braided my hair and asked personal questions. I answered and asked some of them. This pastime of just sitting, relaxing and watching at their sidewalk shops in the shade of the madrassa, is one of my favorites in Bukhara. They fill me up and I feel connected.

My last night, I went to shoot some last photos, collect birthdays, and to buy something from everyone’s shop. Yes, shopping again. I loath it, but they helped. Of course, the original twelve kids became thirteen, then brothers with shops popped up, and mothers and fathers. I cut it off at sixteen, said goodbye and carried my loot (your souvenir presents) back to the hotel with me. I didn’t bring enough cash but they made me take and come back with the money in the morning. When I left to meet Maryam for dinner, tears welled up and I stared through them at beautiful, dusty old Bukhara at sunset. I’ve no idea what God is, but it is positively, definitely present to me in this city.

Their slideshow is better viewed after reading the bulk, I suppose. (Kalyan is transliterated a number of ways. I’ve used both Kalyan & Kalon to help searchers.)

I left Kazakhstan on the 14th for Kyrgyzstan, and spent a few days at Issyk-kul, the second largest mountain lake in the world (after Titicaca in Peru). The fresh air was quite a treat. I went from night bus (not my choice of travel, but I took it for Guka. A mistake that snapped our friendship, strained from communicating poorly and being together too much. A painful lesson learned, is being learned, here) to soviet four-person bunk room with Guka, Nadilya, and her two kids. Then I met up with Jamilya at a lovely guesthouse in the next town, unfortunately overrun by an obnoxiously loud family, replete with drunken, obstreperous, egotistical father and screaming, miserable child. They left the dining area and bathrooms an obscene mess. The family was so uncouth that I’d no idea they were of the new rich. Only when we walked back to the guesthouse and Jamilya pointed out the obnoxious father’s giant black Mitsubishi SUV did I realize that this unbearable family is of the new wealthy class—and also Kazakh. There seems to be some animosity from the Kyrgyz toward the wealthier Kazakhs. Jamilya said of the man and the new rich, “Yes, of course he is! They are all loud and intolerable and terribly full of themselves. It’s unbearable”

It is understood in the ’Stans that if someone is wealthy, he is wildly unscrupulous. Especially if he joins the ranks of his impudent, SUV-driving comrades. Unfortunately, this is usually true. The resort town of Cholpon-Ata was overrun by such people and the vibe was unpleasant.

Like beach towns in the West, Soviet resort towns all have a similar feel. Open-air cafes line the streets, each crowded with plastic tables and chairs shaded by umbrellas emblazoned with cigarette ads. TVs for Karaoke blast head-splitting pop music. People stroll along in beachwear drinking beer, eating ice cream and relaxing. From Baltic and Black Sea beaches to the shores of Issyk-kul, on to the Pacific coasts of the Russian Far East, it is more or less the same scene. Generally people are quite easygoing, but here in Cholpon-Ata, everyone had something to prove, or show off.

Those with new money strut about in tight, gaudy bright-colored clothing (this isn’t fashionable Moscow) and sport a scowl that screams of their boredom and superiority. It seems a thin veneer over a wretched, lonely misery of never, ever enough. Of “Do they have more than me and if so can I hide it ’til I get it too? How do I get it too? Am I enough? What is wrong?” It won’t be long until Prozac arrives here, if it hasn’t already.

After a night at the guesthouse, Jamilya, her mother, sister, and I left for their aunt’s flat a few towns east. Quiet! No hot water, but clean and quiet, and a kitchen to cook in. Much better for the yoga retreat: morning and afternoon sessions on the beach. Tuesday, a giant rainbow passed over the lake as we practiced. Wednesday, I moved again for a photo project at elderly centers in Balykchi, and then onto Bishkek, where I stayed at Jamilya’s house with her father, who was alone for the week while the family vacationed at the lake.

While I hugely appreciate Guka and Jamilya’s hospitality, it overwhelms me. I was relieved to be on my own for a bit.

kazan of plov

For over two weeks I’ve been back in Central Asia
and still yet to eat p’lov, the national dish of the ‘Stans. Though the Kazakh national dish is bishparmak, which means ‘five fingers’ and is made usually of horse meat and noodles, no one seems to like it much, so they too celebrate p’lov. The Kazakhs I’ve met, anyway.

I’ve not had manti, samsa, or shashlik, either. I usually don’t order for myself, and everyone keeps feeding me chicken. Or lamb. Had lamb’s head yesterday, in fact, and they placed the head smack in front of me such that I kept glancing at the nose, which looked quite like it was still capable of smelling the feast. Yes, again veggie thoughts. And though the fat-streaked meat looked a gruesome color that suggested it hadn’t met with refrigeration, I admit it tasted quite good.

Today, at long last, I ate p’lov. Uyghur p’lov, at that. I went to the Sundet Toy of Gulnara’s friend’s son. It was just what I needed, as Kazakhs in Almaty aren’t traditional in the least, and I’ve been missing the cultural charm of Uzbekistan. Yeah, who’d guess? So, Gulnara, Nadilya and I took a taxi to Issyk, about an hour east of Almaty, to celebrate the circumcision of Rasul, the son of Gulistan, Guka’s Uyghur friend. Uyghurs are a Muslim, Turkic-language speaking Central Asian people from Xinjiang, now a province of western China. The Chinese government is not traditionally kind, and in the last hundred and some years about half a million Uyghurs have left their homes in Xinjiang for the ’Stans. Guka loves Uyghurs. She claims they are more open, happier, have better food, and are all-around more fun than the other Central Asians. Well, what better way to find out than a circumcision party?

Nadilya, the Kazakh Susan Sarandon, & Guka. The matching scarves are circumcision party gifts

We got a late start because Nadilya ran a snag behind. Nadilya has an organization called the Chi Center where I teach yoga. She looks like a Kazakh Susan Sarandon, and I spent the night we met trying to remember the name of the film, Thelma and Louise, which no one had seen anyway.

Nadilya, the Kazakh Susan Sarandon, & Guka. The matching scarves are circumcision party gifts

Once we made it to Issyk, the driver took us to the proper street and let us off. We couldn’t find the street number 119A (it was an urban planning disaster of the ‘street ends for a field and begins again on the other side’ ilk) and spent the next forty minutes searching it out. I was delighted to have my camera because between plucking apples, plums and nectarines off trees and sucking them down, and odd things that popped up on Sadovaya Street, it was a photogenic 40 minutes: view a slide show (click F11 if the verticals aren’t fully viewable). And because without it to entertain me, I would have been really annoyed.

Unfortunately, we arrived after the mullah gave the blessing. The men were sitting outside at a table in the courtyard somberly awaiting dinner, and the women sat at a table inside. Apparently Uyghur women and men sit separately at such events. Gulistan kissed and hugged me hello (we’d never met), and took us in to meet her newly circumcised son. ‘Last night, it happened last night,’ she explained.

The first question I asked Guka when she invited me to the event was how old is the boy? I’ve been to a briss or two, and it’s quite low key as the baby is so new. But I had a Muslim boyfriend from Malaysia who was circumcised at 13 and, well, it seemed a traumatic endeavor for him. Was Rasul 13? Would I be feeling his pain?

Rasul is seven

He was lying in bed playing a video game with a bunch of other Uyghur boys who sat on the floor. A bag full of money was next to him on the bed. Each of us put about 200 tenge (about USD $1.50) in it. Gulistan introduced us, and then raised her eyebrows and asked if I’d like to see. “Does it interest you?” she asked.

“Well, yes, it does,” I answered, always interested in a new cultural experience. With that, Gulistan removed the white sheet and a scarf that covered her son and pointed to his bloody, bandaged member.

“Oh good god that’s, that’s not just the tip,” I thought. The blood was thick and scabbing about mid-penis and a not-very-modern bandage of sorts was wrapped just below that, allowing his nipped head to peek out from the bottom.

Ouch.

No one else seemed to be concerned about infection, and Gulistan explained that the doctor was the best (‘it’s always nice to have the mullah do it, but weren’t sure of his expertise, so went for the doctor’), so I let my worries subside. We Westerners are much too bacteria-phobic anyway.

I refrained from snapping pictures, though his cousin was next to the wall videotaping the Amerikanka gawking at her cousin’s genitals. That’ll be some nice footage.

Days later, when Kuki’s (Guka’s brother) fiancé told me that at their wedding, tradition mandates that everyone will pay her to lift her veil so they may view her face, I wondered if that bag of tenge I dropped a bill in before seeing Rasul was not simply a gift but the fee to view his circumcision. I asked Guka for clarification and indeed, the 200 tenge was a viewer’s fee. At long last, I’ve found some tradition in Kazakhstan.

We went to the Topchan (a bench-table, like an Uzbek homtakhta) in the next room for dinner, starting with flat, Uyghur lepyoshka and tasty soup.

I asked Guka why we weren’t sitting with the rest of the women and she explained that we asked to sit separately.

“Oh. Why did we ask to do that?” I wondered.

“Because they are old. All babushki,” she explained.

This meant because we’d have to behave, which meant something different to the babushki than to the otherwise overly well-behaved Almaty girls.

Gulistan and her sisters ran around preparing and serving the food all day. One sister, Gulmira, stood washing dishes and laughing the entire four hours we were there.

Each sister individually pulled me aside and told me that she was interested in the moment after the cleric and peripheral guests left when they would set out more desserts, tea and bread, and finally…she flicked her neck twice with her thumb and forefinger. In the land of the once-Soviet Union, this means to get drunk. It seemed that Guka was right. These Uyghurs are a joyous bunch. They gave the impression that they were up to something, and I liked it.

After the soup I was directed into the room with the babushki to take photos of the recording of gifts. In the custom of the Sundet Toy, there are gifts of two sorts; gifts for Gulistan and Rasul (mother and son), which are recorded and paid back, and gifts to Gulistan’s mother, the hostess, which are not paid back.

Most of the gifts to the mother and son are sweets which are divvied up, packaged in plastic bags and sent home with the guests, though there are also gifts of clothes and money, which are also recorded. Most of the gifts to the grandmother are cash.

Someone plopped a hundred dollar bill down on the grandmother’s lap, which is quite a sum in these parts. The average salary is Issyk is about nine hundred and sixty USD per year (source: Guka).

Back to the topchan, where Gulistan served us chicken, cold cuts and salads. She asked us if we wanted to drink. Guka and Nadilka said ‘no no no.’ Soon after, Gulistan’s sister, Makhrinur, came by and asked us if we wanted to drink. Again, a resolute no.

Back into the room of babushki: P’lov had been served.

When I came back to the topchan, Makinur had brought out a bottle of cognac after our p’lov and was pouring heartily, to the chagrin of Guka and Nadilya. She’d caught a gleam in my eye on her last offer and brought the bottle despite the resistance. Gulistan grabbed me and took me outside to introduce me about and photograph the p’lov festivities. First we walked down the street,

p’lov in hand.

and delivered some to her neighbor (another tradition).

She then took me back into the courtyard to the vat (properly called a kazan) where the p’lov is cooked (see first pic of post) and on to the giant samovar, which keeps tea eveready

By the time the watermelon had come out

the older guys had loosened up and wanted to be photographed.

Back inside on the topchan, the Almaty girls were finally relaxing into the festivities.
on the topchan, left to right: Uzbyetchka, Nadilka, Anna, Guka, Gulistan

Finally the sisters’ moment came. Makinur (the sister who introduced the cognac) insisted it was time to dance.

Everyone agreed

Almost everyone.

After dancing (slide show: hit F11 if verticles not fully visable) we sat a bit for with the family, ate more sweets and refused more alcohol, then readied to leave. We said our goodbyes to Rasul. It was obviously a sensitive subject but because he was already on his cousin’s film, for the sake of documentation I made myself ask Gulistan if I could photograph Rasul. Specifically, Rasul’s sundet toy. ‘Of course, why not?’ she said, but Rasul wasn’t into it.

No way: Rasul and his money bag.

Slightly relieved, I quickly interjected that it wasn’t necessary. Gulistan kept on.

“If she gives you money will you let her?” she pried on, Uygur tradition in mind.

He looked horrified, and I insisted I didn’t want to bother him. I couldn’t help but recall a bit I’d read in a guidebook about how one shouldn’t pay people to take their photo. How would this situation fly? It’s tradition! Oy.

We finished our goodbyes and Gulistan took us to the Issyk bus station.

Gulistan said she’ll be distraught without us

Guka assured, “no, no, we’ll go dancing next week in Almaty.”

And we do.

Guka in her remodeled Soviet flat, Almaty

I backdate as I post, so that everything will in chronological order. Peek at the July-dated blogs to see if they are new to you as I added a bunch.

I sit and write at the other side of the table. This was taken with my point & shoot, rather than the fantastic SLR. This blog format doesn’t allow me to dictate resolution or size (hence the huge photo of the feet below), so the fabulous image quality isn’t coming across on the web. I can’t post these to my site instead of a blog, as I will get lost in the fun of it and get nothing done.

afterthought:  Guka’s Columbia t-shirt wasn’t a gift from me. I know her from NYC. She got her masters at Columbia on a Soros fellowship. We studied together at Butler Library. A lot.

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