I'm not Tajik

I decided not to accompany my group up the steep steps to the ancient stone fortress, instead I sat comfortably in the shade of the ticket sellers stand and chatted it up with them.

I was very glad for my decision when the engine sound of two large buses meet our ears.  These buses were filled with tourist from the eastern part of the country seeking adventure in the ‘wild west’.  This adventure for them included, matching hats, a tour guide with a flag and megaphone to instruct their every step.  As they waited for their tour guide to buy the tickets two of them spotted me.

“Look at that one” she said pointing directly at me (not so rude in their culture, but very rude to the Uyghur side of me).  “I have never seen a Tajik girl wearing glasses”.  She lifted her million dollar camera with the three meter long fancy lens on it and started to gesture at me for permission to take my photo.  I couldn’t help but sigh a little as I nodded my ascent and sat up a little straighter.

As she fettled with her camera, focusing the lens and attempting to capture my big nose in all its glory ( a physical trait I do happen to have in common with Tajik people) I could help but ask:

“You do know I am not Tajik right?”

Her friend recovered first from the shock of the fact I spoke their language.  “What minority are you?”

“I’m not, I’m a foreigner from Canada.” I answered, wishing I had kept my mouth shut.

Soon she was motioning for five of her other friends to come and jump in the picture with me, and the poor Tajik girl I had been sitting talking too, whose culture they had travelled al this way to learn about, sat ignored on a bench in the back.

Buying Jade

There is rive famous for its jade.  Everyday people wade out knee deep in the water searching the stony riverbed for jade and other precious stones.  The men then set up stalls after stall along the road bartering with tourists and selling their most recent find.  These men are known for working together day in and day out standing shoulder to shoulder arguing on each other’s behalf about how authentic the necklaces are with the untrained eye of the shopper.

My latest tour group and I stopped to admire the stones, without any real intention of buying anything.  In fact some of the group hadn’t even brought their money with them since shopping wasn’t on our agenda.  One of the women picked up a dark emerald green bracelet and with ease slipped it on her wrist.  After admiring it for a time she was disturbed to discover it took a little more work to get it off.  She pulled and tugged and twisted before their piece of jewelry finally popped off.  However, it did so with such force that it slipped through her fingers, bounced off the table and went crashing to the ground.  He husband retrieved it quickly, but there was a small scratch on the surface.

Seeing the damage done the husband bravely admitted that now they had to buy it.  I asked if they had found out the price before trying it one, which sadly they hadn’t… I don’t really know the price of Jade nor how to judge its quality.  Since the damage was already done the seller could name any price and I would have no idea how exaggerated it really was. 

He seemed to know it too.  “I would never sell that bracelet for less than $500 USD,” he said. 

I laughed.  There was no way we were paying that price.  I asked the cope how much money they had on them.  When all pockets were turned inside out the totally only added up to about 7 bucks.  I knew that was way too little to come with as a counter offer, so I checked my own wallet.  I had about $75.  (While to be honest I had a lot more.  In the front part of my wallet I had $75, hidden in the zippered pocket behind I had another couple of hundred that was already ear marked to buy our bus tickets home that night). 

 I showed him the seventy five in my hand “This is all I have, big brother” I said with a pitifully forced quiver in my voice.

He scoffed and complained that he could have sold it to some unsuspecting tourist for $700 dollars and that I was just out to cause troubles.  

At this point I had a decision to make.  I could match him angry word for angry word, letting my voice join his in rising to an emotional frenzy.  I often call this getting my fight face on.  Arguing with vengeance for what I see as my right.  If I had one this all his buddies would have taken his side and it would have escalated into an intense me verses them situation.  Or, I realized, I could become vulnerable and try to win him over.

Those of you who know me well know I am not much of a crier, I also don’t often resort to tears as a means to get my way.   But desperate times call for desperate measures.  I held out the $75 dollars a little further in my shaky hands and with a weak voice I entreated him again.  “This is as much as I can give you.  I don’t know what else to do.”

Other men started gathering around us to see what all the fuss was about.  They looked from my pale face and moist eyes to his stone cold stance.  Lying between us was the offending bracelet.  Some of them picked it up to examine the damage… I heard them muster under their breath that it was a good quality one.  “Oh dear,” I thought “now comes the time when they all gang up on me.”  My tears were getting to be a little more real by the minuet.  

The seller nodded that the damage and reported for all his friends in disgust that I was trying to pay $75 dollars for something he could easily sell for almost $1 000.

“There is nothing I can do”  I stated again weakly “I have no solution.”  To my surprise many of the on looking Uyghur men sided with me.  Some of them even put their fight faces on and jumped over the table so they could stare down the seller more intently.  Since I now knew that it was high quality jade I asked some of the others how in our group how much money they had.  Between all of us we collected $160USD, way more than I would ever spend on jewelry from a road side stand, but by this time I looked at it more as stopping a riot and avoiding being dragged to the police station. 

 The crowed had grown to over 50 men by this time.  They were taking sides against each other.  Thankfully the majority of them seemed sympathetic to my plight. They yelled at the seller:

“Look at her, you are making her cry”

“She is a good girl; she wears a head scarf and everything”

“She’s learned out language”

“She says that is more money that she makes at her job in a month”

“Have pity”

“And you call yourself a good Muslim; you ought to be ashamed of yourself”

They grabbed the money out of my hand and started forcing it into his.

“No,” he said, weakening slightly.  “I would have tried to sell it for $1 500.”

The next thing I knew men all around the circle started digging into their own wallets and pockets and adding money to the pile.

The hard hearted seller lost face in light of his coworker’s generosity to me.  I have no idea how large the total pay off sum was, but the seller was forced to accept the offering and reluctantly shake hands with my biggest advocate.  

One of the men laid the slightly damaged bracelet in the palm of my hand with a brotherly “Don’t cry, it’s all okay now.  You guys can go” 

As I backed away I put my hand over my heart and repeated again and agian " Thank you.  Thank you all.  Thank you big brother. Thank you God.  Thank you.  Thank you."

If Allah Wills...

“Where you from?” the bus driver asked.  It was almost midnight and our bus was stopped at some obscure spot along the desert highway.

I gave a curt reply as I continued to exercise the pent up kinks and knots out of my weary arms and legs.  

“Canada, huh…Do you have buses like this with beds on them?” He asked as he almost lovingly patted the beast of a vehicle in his care.

“Not that I know of” I said “I’ve certainly never been on a sleeper bus in Canada”

At this point you could almost see the wheels in his head spinning and turning and contriving a plan. 

 

“Are there roads longer than 500km in Canada?”

“Of course, land wise it is the second largest country in the world”  The second I said it I regretted my hasty words.  I could tell they had only fueled his wild dreams.  He was in full on scheming mode, making plans faster than the old plodding bus he drove could every dream of travelling.

“Someday, if Allah wills, I will open my own sleeper bus company in Canada and be rich”  This village man declared with resolve.

I translated from my travel companions as we climbed on the bus. “Ugh” we all struggled to keep a straight face and not scrunch up our noses in distant at the strong stench that greeted us upon embarking.  The smell came from to many people, stuffed in too small of a space, for way too many hours. “There is a few things he should improve before introducing this transportation to the west, like ventelation”.  The group had been joking for the last few hours that the only thing worse than B.O is ten people’s B.O. and the only thing worse than ten peoples B.O. was the twenty smelling feet that came with them.

 We ran into our next forward thinker a few days later at the museum.  The older security guard guy who was responsible for unlocking the doors and turning on and off the lights quickly learned I could speak his language.  He followed me around from one display to another peppering me with questions and distracting me form admiring the old coins, cloth and tools.  His line of questioning felt very familiar.  “Where are you from?” Is that a rich country? Is it easy to get there? Are there lots of jobs” He started pointing to traditional Uyghur elements around the museum.  “Do you have this or that in Canada?” 

He was literally taken aback when he learned that we didn’t have nan in Canada.  It seemed impossible for him to believe that a society could survive much less advance without a nan stand on every second street corner selling hot fresh bread.  That’s when he made his declaration “If Allah wills, I will open a nan stand in Canada and become rich!”

Later that day we stopped outside the bazaar for a refreshing cup of freshly squeezed pomegranate juice.  The man operating the booth stood proudly beside his juicer.  Drops of the bright red liquid liberally sprinkled all over his face and clothes, the whole effect made him look like he had been in a fight with blood stains on his clothes.  We all picked up our sticky glasses to toast our great day, when the mad started the familiar line of questioning.  He seemed pleased to learn that his particular line of work was unique in the west.  Before he could declare his intention of moving and getting rich I slammed the empty cup on the table and motioned for my guest to keep moving.  Turning around slightly I watched hi straighten up our used cups on the table and pour fresh juice into them, never even pausing to wash or rinse them between uses.  “No wonder they were so sticky” I thought to myself trying hard not to guess how many people had likely drank out of it before me.  Instead I laughed to myself  “If Allah wills he should move to Canada and learn how to wash dishes.” 

Give Me My Pants Back

My friend’s parents came for a visit a few weeks ago and he took them traveling all around the southern part of the province.  As I have written several times in the past, traveling in this province always leads to some sort of adventure or other.  I have to admit my friend’s mom went through more than most and she kindly offered to write up the story and let me post it. 

  

Recently I had the opportunity to travel through one of this province’s smaller airports.  It is my hope that the treatment I received leaned heavily on events (a small squermish in a nearby town) that transpired shortly before my visit there, rather than my threatening appearance (I am under 5 feet tall).  We were greeted by security at the entrance of the airport parking lot with the question "Where are you from?" 

After answering that to their satisfaction, we were allowed to pass through, park and enter the airport.  We secured our boarding passes and entered the security check line (line is used loosely in this country-it usually involves people pushing, shoving, stepping in front of you, at any point in the line).  I placed my backpack, watch, shoes, etc. on the conveyor belt and proceeded to the "pat-down" area.  I stepped onto the platform where I was groped, not once, not twice, but three times.  My companions passed the pat-down and "wand" test and were on their way to the end of the line.  At this point, I failed the wand test because something in the waistband of my jeans was causing the wand to beep.  Through gestures (none of the airport employees spoke English), they wanted to know what was in the waistband.  I gesture "don't know" and am instructed to follow the employee. 

 I enter a room where the wand procedure is applied over and over with the same question and answer.  Then I am instructed to remove my pants.   Now I am wondering how long it will be before this goes viral.  There are two female employees in the room and the question now is "Where you from?"  I answer "United States", she shrugs.  I say "America", and she shrugs again,  as if to say she doesn't understand my answer.  I desperately want to be released, with my pants, so I gesture a cutting motion on the waistband.  They shake their heads.   When they see me actively looking for a pair of scissors in the room, more discussion, and I get my pants back.  Back to security where I am re-groped.  

My two companions are still at the end of the line having a discussion about the flammability of their liquids.  They also want to know where I've been.  I probably shouldn't have answered that question until we landed because that only exacerbated the frustration.  Their liquids are determined to be flammable, and confiscated.  We discussed amongst ourselves that our clothes were also flammable, but we were permitted to keep them!  We were then released to walk to the runway where another "line" is formed for another security check to get on the plane.  We finally board, are trying to de-stress, when a flight attendant appears before us, holding some of our bag of liquids, and asks "Are these yours?"  I was relieved to get some of our belongings returned to us and counted that as a win.  I really wanted to put the whole experience behind me.  The place definitely have a way of making travel exciting!

Hiking in a Dress

The yurt we were staying in was located in the valley at the bottom of a beautiful mountain rang. Sleeping three nights in a row in a yurt may not be the best for me (I am too much of the 'princess and the pea' to be sleeping on cold hard uneven ground), but it was so peaceful to just get away and rest with good friends for a few days.  So many of my trips are hectic tours with visitors jumping on bus after bus trying to see all that this province has to offer in one short week.  It was my end of the summer opportunity to say goodbye to the crowded city, goodbye to the car horns blearing in my ear, goodbye to the push of people on the bus, good bye to the squishing to find a place in the nonexistent lines, and instead say hello to the peaceful valley, hello the tall snow capped mountains, the goats running on the hill side, hello to the simple life.  We had time to hike or just sit back and read a good book.

 

 

The sounds were peaceful… the baaaing of sheep as the shepherd herded his  goats through an old grave yard, the sound of waterfalls splashing down from high mountain peaks, a Kirgiz famer still using the old ways of swinging his sickles through the air by hand and cutting the long field grass, the techno sound of a loud ringing cell phone going off in the middle of nowhere( hey wait... that doesn't fit in the peaceful picture).  This same Kirgiz famer, who relies of the traditional means of harvesting the field, reached into his pocket and pulled out a fancy app phone with all the latest gadgets ( My eight year old cell phone just couldn’t compare).

 

 

I really didn’t know what to make of this guy,and he certainly didn't know what to make of me.  He was the same Kirgiz man who had greeted our gang as we got off the van with  “Look, she is a foreign women and she is wearing a skirt”.  This man lives at the foot the “the Father of Ice Mountians”, he is use to seeing adventure seeking man and women come from all over the world with all their fancy hiking gear and take on the over 7500 meter trek.  He is not use to white women who study local culture, speak and local language and have time to stand around and chat with him and his wife.  True my outfit choice wasn’t the best for hiking, but it did leave a lasting impression on them.