My Favorite Phenomenon

Winter is officially here! Today the sky has been dishing forth a generous helping of rain, sleet, and snow. All of which have spent the better part of the day vying for their opportunity to fall on the heads of ill prepared pedestrians. My grade three teacher would have labeled it : A dark, damp, drizzly, dreary, depressing, dismal day. The chilliness in the air, and the ensuing soggy clothing would normally sever to put a damper on my mood – but not today. Today on my way home I was greeted repeatedly by one of my all time favorite sights. It is a phenomenon that really only comes out on wet days.

I know I have blogged about this before, but I just can’t help myself. As I left my office building I had to avert my eyes, choke back a laugh, and try to hide my silly stupid grin as I passed a well dressed older Uyghur man. He was in his suit and appeared to be heading to some sort of important meeting. Most of him looked rather distinguished and dignified, until you got to the top of his head that is. There preached for the entire world to see was a plastic shopping bag, the name of a local store printed in bright red letters leading the way. He was a man without an umbrella , caught outside on a bad day, trying to do the best he could with what he had.

But he wasn’t the only one. As the first few drops of snowy sludge plummeted downward, all the men seemed to instantly transform into bag heads. They were protecting their dearly loved doppas ( a Uyghur man’s traditional hat - staple part of their wardrobe). I was so thankful this summer while we were traveling my friend was brave enough to snap a picture of this man rainy-day ready. I hope it makes you smile too.

Snow a Blessing and a Curse

Over the last two days the city has once again been blanketed in a thick covering of snow. Every snow fall really is a mixture of good and bad, both a curse and a blessing.

The days leading up to a snowfall are often bitterly cold and gloomy. The air is heavy with pollution that sticks to the inside of your lungs, and is so thick you can't see across the street.

The only thing that can solve this problem is falling snow to clear the air. And when it does it is a welcome break......

But then the roads are slick and icy, the bus lanes are slippery, and getting around town seems so much more dangerous.

A "Snow" Cone

The day we have all been waiting for with baited breath and great anticipation has finally arrived. The Ice Mountain Creamery has finally opened it doors. This is a fully foreign run and operated ice cream shop here in town. It is sooooo good.

Ice cream has never really been anything to write home about, until now that is. Here in town we really only had two options; bad local ice cream that is a lot more ice and a lot less cream, and Uzbek ice cream which is wonderfully creamy and rich and sweet, but the only problem is it only comes in one flavour. Now I grew up use to the idea of a ice cream shop offering 31 flavours... and I have to admit that after five years, this one sort of caramel, sort of vanilla, sort of like those flavours you just can't seem to put your finger on what it really is, has gotten a little monotonous.

We did have one other option, a small container of Hogindos, which cost a small fortune ( since the price was high, they weren't selling, and you just knew they were sitting in the stores collecting freezer burn) and no one ever bought.

Until today. When I went by the Ice Mountain Creamery they had five flavours for sale (strawberry, banana, Walnut crunch, Cream, and Winter Snow). I bought a waffle cone of Winter Snow. The name itself is ingenious. It is a traditional cookies and cream, with oreo's crumbled up in the ice cream. But the combination of the dark on the white, made the owners think of the coal dust that covers the snow in the winter here. It is a joke that any ex-pat would think was hilarious. I normally can't find much to laugh about in the dark, bleak winter, but give me a nice summer day and a scoop of ice cream and the whole thing seems like a big joke.

Appealing to Local Logic

I have mentioned several times how the older ladies in my neighborhood are always after me for not wearing weather appropriate clothing. I have grown accustom to just smiling and letting the comments roll off me, but for my friends with children it is even worse.

Every time they go out they are accosted by neighbours who comment on how little the child is wearing, and how they are going to get sick. The kid could be wearing a wool sweater in the middle of the summer and some caring neighbour would feel obliged to tell them the child will get a cold. It really is all said out of love, but it really does get annoying after a while.

An American couple brought their two kids to this baby party the other day. The child being honoured was dressed in thick corduroy overalls, and a flannel shirt (under which I am sure he was wearing a layer of long johns). The western family had taken advantage of the bright sunny summerish day and dressed their baby in a cute flowery summer suit (sleeveless with matching shorts). You could almost hear the mutual shocked intake of breath from around the room as they entered.

But the father was prepared. He used their own local logic to explain how he was best caring for his child. He said "You know American babies are different. If they wear too many clothes they sweat a lot. If they are then out in the breeze that sweat and wetness can lead to a cold. So if I keep her in such a way as to prevent sweating she will actually stay healthier." The poor old lady who had instigated the conversation had no idea how to answer this... you could tell she had paused to consider it. And it even seemed to make some sense to her. But in the end she retorted with the good old tried and true come back "Our babies aren't like that, and you need to put more clothes on your baby, or she will get sick".

Oh well, nice try. At least the kids I'm playing with don't seem that cold in their summer outfits.

Cold

April 15th is the magic day when the heat all over the city is turned off. It is a sign to all that spring has sprung, and that we have finally turned the corner out of our dismally dark winter. The air quickly clears out the remaining coal dust, and the mountains can be seen once again highlighting the bright blue skies.

That is until the temperatures drop and my first floor apartment gets so cold. When it is damp and cold outside there is no way to heat our apartments, it is like I go around with popcicles as figures for the last two weeks of April. I have to wear three layers in the house, but some days can strip down to short sleeves when I go outside. I miss the days when every house has its own thermostat and temperature control. Oh to be warm again.

Rainy Days

It is normally really dry around here since we are close to a desert, but rainy days bring out one of my all time favourite sights. I wish I had a picture to help demonstrate how funny it is, but rainy days force everyone to be on the run and no one feels very much like stopping to pose for a picture, much less me taking the time to pull out the camera, and get drenched while trying to focus it and get a good shot.

Men around here are known for wearing hats, called doppa's. They say you can tell where a man is from based on his hat, since each oasis town around the desert has a different pattern for the men's hats. The hats are all hand embroidered and are a piece of work to be protected.
Since these hats are such a big part of the culture the men would never think of not wearing their hats, even on rainy days. Instead they take a cheap plastic bag like you would get at the grocery store and they put their hats in the bag, tucking the rest of the plastic inside, before fitting the whole thing back on their head. They go from showing off beautiful stitch work, to having local labels and logos bouncing on their heads. It is quite the sight to see dignified older men walking around town wearing plastic bags on their heads.

Not Over Yet

I was going to write a post the other day about the coming of spring and the melting of the snow... but considering this is what I woke up to this morning, I think it is a good thing I waited.
The weight of last night's snow fall even caused tree limbs to break off. I guess winter is going to be here for a little longer.

In Like a Lamb

For all of you who care about the weather and the fact that it is the first of March, I am pleased to announce that we started the month with a beautiful day. Our temperatures actually got as high as -3 (almost spring jacket time).

You could feel the sense of excitement in the air… the anticipation that our long dark winter might soon be drawing to a close. It is still a little early to expect a full onset of spring, but the sense of hope has begun. Everyone has started to peek their heads out of their homes again. The streets were busier with pedestrians, while the buses seemed to have a little more room (I wasn’t standing in some man’s arm pit with a woman’s purse pushing into my bottom). Not only did the weather seem more open, so did the general population’s mood.

This lightness of heart is really absent here over the winter. I feel like we all live under the same dark cloud of gloom. I remember the first time I heard some one talk about seasonal depression. I thought it was just a hoax, made up by people who were to scared to handle a real Canadian Winter. I need to publically apologise to all of you, for so drastically underestimating the seriousness of this condition. Since living here and suffering through the dark winter, when the sun can’t shine through the pollution ( a Canadian paper recently list the city I live in as one of the top most polluted in the world), when temperatures of -15 seem like a fairly nice day, or when all of our friends would just rather stay inside than endure the elements to come and visit you (mind you I only offered them to come over, so that I didn’t have to get bundled up in my winter gear to go to their place), I have had to face the reality of seasonal depression. It has never gotten to the point I can’t get out of bed, or function through daily activities, but everything I do in the winter feels like it is being done in slow motion, under a black cloud. And it is not just me, it is the whole city, we have a population of between 3-5 million people and we almost all collectively spend the winter struggling with feeling down.

But some how the darkness of those long winter days, make a day like today, days when March comes in like a gentle lamb, seem even more refreshing and reviving.

Snowball Fight

Well winter really is here now. Today the snow not only fell, it stuck and actually accumulated a few centimetres. It is funny because in class this past week our teacher had been explaining the Uyghur tradition of throwing snow balls. These are not the wet cold ones that we envision picking up from the ground… they can be paper, or even phone call snow balls. On the first REAL snow fall it is tradition to challenge your friends. When you “throw the snow ball” you are literally asking them to give you something. It’s like saying “I threw the first snow ball so now you have to bring me candy…or give me chocolate”. I can’t say I totally understand the connection, but they all seem to love the game.

Today when my friend was over she must have had five different people call her to ‘throw snowballs” and celebrate the start of the winter season. She thought it was so much fun that she suggested I try calling my friends. I did call the teacher that mentioned it in class the other day…I will have to wait until I see her on Wednesday to know if she will actually bring the chocolate I asked for.

While phone calls and slips of paper were passed with furry I did notice a few young kids out side enjoy a traditional revel in the winter wonderland. I even took a walk in the winter whiteness and had a little fun along the way.

Not Yet!

Today we had our first snow of the year. It seems so early considering it is not even November yet. I really hate snow and ice, thankfully todays snow melted as soon as it hit the ground, but the temperature did drop considerably. The good news is that last week, on October 15th, the heat finally came on. So at least it is nice and warm inside.

Forced into Footwear

Fall is quickly descending upon us, and the warm weather is disappearing before my eyes. I like to hold on to the feeling of summer as long as I can. One easy way to do that is wearing sandals as long as possible. I like to keep them on right into November if I can… Although this year I have already had to put on socks and stuff my feet into shoes, not by choice obviously.

As many of you know most of my friends out here are older Uyghur woman, who are all terrified of the cold. At the slightest breeze they start to bundle up. They are convinced that cold temperatures will negatively affect their joints. Sometimes in the winter people go around with three and four layers of clothing.

I, however hate being hot. I would prefer to get a little chilly running to class for ten minutes, but able to sit comfortable for the four hours in the classroom, than ward off the cold outside but sweat to death inside. Everyday my teachers and friends tell me to wear more layers or thicker clothing.

I have still been running around in my summer sandals even though the temperature is starting to dip. One of my friends Patigule (72) would shake her head in disgust at me every time I went to her house. It got that I felt bad going to visit her because I knew she would disapprove of my footwear choice. She then got all of our neighbours on my case when we were sitting outside talking the other day. One lady even suggested that is why I have arthritis and why I needed to have my knees replaced.

So in order to keep my whole neighbourhood from knocking down my door and forcefully stuffing my feet into wool socks, I have had to rush the seasons myself. My feet are not happy. I have blisters on both ankles to prove their contempt for their early confinement, but at least my neighbours are happy ( they all think I have finally wised up). Peer pressure, ugh.

Snowball Fight in July

On our trip we took a bus up to a small city in the mountains. We were at about 15 000 feet with mountains stretching another 10 000 feet above us. The view was breath taking. I was also a little cold. It had rained all day on our way up, when we came down the mountain we saw many places that were covered in snow. We stopped to enjoy the view and take a few pictures. As I was talking to an older Tajik farmer, who was out with his 200 grazing sheep, one of my friends threw the first fist full of snow. This meant war. Both the Tajik farmer and our driver thought we had gone a little crazy, but really how often do you get to have a snow ball fight 14km from the Tajikistan border with a Tajik farmer, a Uyghur driver, five Americans and one Canadian in the middle of July at the base of one of the world's tallest mountains. Let's just say it was a first for me. What started out as a fair fight quickly digressed to all against one guy.

I commented to our farmer friend how fortunate he was to live in the mountains and be able to go walking with his sheep everyday amongst such magnificent peeks. He responded by saying "All of you foreigners think it is so pretty here, but really I think your home town is lovely" Lovely really? A clear sight of downtown Detroit has nothing on these snow caped heights.

Goodbye Mountains, see you in Spring

Our annual pilgrimage into darkness has begun. The mountains and backdrop of the city is fading into the haze. The city I live in is surrounded by large mountains that can be seen from all over town, or at least in the spring. I was walking down the street today and realised I could no longer see any of them. The coal haze has gotten too thick. It is time for them to make it snow and clean out the air.

Cleaning the snow

I know I have written on this topic in the past in my emails and letters, and I am sure I will mentioned it again in the future, but every year when the snow first arrives I am always amazed at what a great equalizer it is.

The day after the snow stops falling the pounding, scraping and shouting begins. Every business is responsible for clearing the snow from in front of their shop, not only the side walk but also the road. You will see ladies from fancy dress shops out in their high heeled shoes with a pick axe in their hands, working next to the butcher who still has blood on his apron and a shovel in his hand. Every business sends all but one of its workers outside. The whole street becomes alive with the sites and sounds of snow removal. It is like a street party with a purpose. The buses stop running and everyone joins in. Even on our campus each class (except of the foreign students, thankfully) is assigned a portion of side walk or road that they have to clean off).

It is funny because in Uyghur the verb for shovelling is actually cleaning the snow. And it sometimes seems like that is what they are doing. Today when I was out for a walk I saw a guy trying to shovel off the snow using a big over sized broom. I really can’t say how successful he was with his tool, but he was cleaning the snow.



The first day after it snows is also special for other reasons, it is one of the few days in the winter that we are blessed with clear skies and white snow. The falling snow does a lot to clean the pollution out of the air. The snow is white for all of a few days before it is covered with a light layer of coal dust that make it look black. I better enjoy it while I can.

If it never snows than what do you call the white stuff falling from the sky?

As some of you might already know I am looking into the possibility of moving next semester and teaching English. My friends I left on Wednesday night to make a trip down to the school to check it out and talk with officials. Thankfully we where able to take the train instead of the dreaded sleeper bus.

On Wednesday we where overwhelmed with our first snow fall of the year. Instead of just a few flurries… it dropped buckets. I was excited to be headed south to the edge of the dessert and escaping the winter furry that had been unleashed. When the guy meet us at the train station on Thursday morning ( it is a 13hour train trip) we where pleased to see that the sky was clear, the trees still had some of their fall leaves hanging on, and there was no slipper white stuff covering the ground. We asked our host from the school how often in snows in this part of the country, and he assured us it didn’t. Buy the time we left the meeting at about 6pm it had started raining, and after a little supper, the rain drops where starting to look a little fluffier and a little whiter.

The next morning when we woke up the ground was covered with the slushy type of slipper snow. Our host blamed us for bringing it with us from the capital city, but in reality winter is just here. We took the bus back this morning and found out that it has now been snowing for four days straight. Everything is covered in the white winter wonder land.

Wet Blanket

About this time of year many different indicators of the cold weather start to appear. Today, for instance was the hanging of the blankets. For some reason, that is still unknown to me, almost every building hangs these heavy green blankets in their door ways. These green blankets often get wet from the snow and rain, and in the dead of winter they freeze solid.

Since I am not the strongest person in the world I don’t always push them hard enough out of my way, and then the wet blanket swings back and hits me in the face, trust me once they freeze over, it kind of hurts. The other weird thing is that you can’t see through them, so you never know if someone else is coming or going in or out of the door. This often leads to collisions. I know they hang the blankets to keep the cold out, but if they would just close the existing doors (that only swing one way, and have windows so that you can see on coming traffic) a lot of pain and inconvenience could be avoided.




Okay so this is not the most interesting post in the world. But after just one day of having the blankets back in the doorways I have already crashed into two people who were exiting the building I was trying to enter.