Poking Around in Central Asia: July 2014

Poking Around in Central Asia: July 2014
Trip 1 - Part3
Merke to Morgantown
(via Shymkent, Lenger, Zhigergen, Almaty)
by Craig Mains

Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Merke to Chu, and then by train to Shymkent, Kazakhstan
We met with the Kazakh delegation of the Aspara River Small Basin Council in the morning. Sergei and Anna were both in bad moods because neither slept well because of the karaoke noise last night. I didn't sleep much either but I hadn't had much sleep during the entire trip so it wasn't really that much different than any other night. Jerry said he slept well.

The Kazakh Aspara group had an interest in dam safety, which none of the other groups had mentioned. They said that Kazakhstan has no design standards for dams, which occasionally fail with loss of life. They were also interested in improving drinking water quality, irrigation water conservation techniques, and in improvement of canals since at least 30 percent of their irrigation water is lost during transportation.

Above is the lunch that was served, along with soup, salad, and bread, after the meeting. I thought the food was fine. Anna thought it was terrible but I think she was still upset with the hotel about not getting any sleep last night so she would have disliked whatever they served. The dish is garnished with dill, which seems to be common here, likely a Russian influence. ===

There were about 18 people at the meeting. Again, they were almost all older men. The one woman who attended is the person on the left, Elena, an ethnic Russian. She is an environmental reporter for a Kazakh newspaper in the city of Taraz, so not really a member of the basin council.

After the meeting and lunch, the rest of the day was free. Our itinerary had us driving to the city of Chu where we would catch a train to Shymkent for our final meeting. However, our train was not scheduled to be at Chu until sometime well after midnight so there was nothing to do for the rest of the day.

Anna and Sergei went back to their rooms to try to get some sleep. Anna told us that the hotel had a natural area along the stream behind the hotel that was pleasant so Jerry and I went there to relax for a while.

A view of the mountain stream that flowed out of the canyon. I picked up some rocks to see what kinds of macro-invertebrates lived in the stream. It appeared to be a quite healthy stream. A variety of mayflies, stoneflies, and caddisflies were all present.

There were some big maple trees growing alongside the stream. I found a website about Central Asian trees but I didn't see any that had leaves that resembled these. The Russians seemed to appreciate trees and planted many kinds of trees, including North American species, in the Soviet Republics so it is possible that this tree isn't native to Central Asia.

Compared to West Virginia there seemed to be less diversity of trees. I'm sure I overlooked a lot but it seemed as if I saw the same several types of trees over and over. I read later that Asia is similar to Europe in that many species of trees went extinct during the glacial periods because the mountains in Eurasia tend to run east and west. This created a wall that prevented many plants from spreading south as the glaciers slowly expanded southward--the trees were caught between a rock and a cold place. Since mountains tend to run more north and south in North America, plants were able to slowly move south more freely ahead of the glaciers and fewer species were lost to extinction.

Photo: Jerry

Above is the waiting area at the Chu railway station. We left for the station around midnight in two cars. The city of Chu is northeast of Merke so were heading away from Shymkent but Chu was the closest train station.

On the way to Chu we were stopped at a highway checkpoint. Kazakhstan operates random checkpoints where an authority may motion you to the side of the road and ask to see passports and ask where people are coming from, going to, and for what purpose. The checkpoints are moved from location to location so they are unavoidable. Anna said the stops were often opportunities for the authorities to charge people with some minor infraction that could then be taken care of with a small bribe. She said it was good that we were seeing the bad as well as the good side of Kazakhstan.

I've seen Chu written as Chu, Chuy, and Shu and heard it pronounced as "chew," "chewy," and "shoe," and it seems that all pronunciations are OK

Photo: Jerry

Above is a photo of the toilets in the men's restroom of the Chu railway station. The lack of privacy in public restrooms was typical. If you needed toilet paper you were expected to buy it from a vendor first. When you were finished you were expected to deposit the used toilet paper in one of the baskets. The toilets couldn't handle the toilet paper, which was often thicker and coarser than typical toilet paper in the US.

Sign by the toilets in the men's restroom of the Chu railway station. It reads, "Please!!! Do not wash feet. Fine 500 tenges!!!" 500 tenges at the time was about $2.70.

People boarding a train at the Chu railway station. This was not our train, but our's was of similar style and vintage.

We finally boarded our train around 2:00 am or maybe later. This is a view of the hallway in our car. There were passenger compartment along the left and windows on the right. There was a restroom at each end of the car--the toilets were the squatter type.

A view of the passenger compartment that Jerry and I shared. Sergei and Sasha shared another compartment and Anna had her own. The seat could be made up into a passable bed. I probably slept for about three hours at most. As soon as the sun came up I was awake.

Wednesday, July 23, 2014
By train to Shymkent and on to Lenger, Kazakhstan
The scenery that greeted us in the morning was somewhat similar to that along the M-39 highway, steppes spreading to the horizon on one side and mountains and foothills on the other. This is looking north from the window of our compartment.

The view to the south from the window in the corridor.

Most of the photos I took from the train were from the windows of our compartment, which weren't quite as dirty as those in the hallway. I still had to restrict myself to taking photos from the cleanest section of the window.

Electric power lines. The train was powered by electricity so at least some of this may have been connected to the train line.

One thing I like about train travel is you see fewer of the commercial buildings that you see traveling by car. However, some roads dead end at the railroad tracks, creating convenient places to dump and/or burn garbage. I noticed several places like this. Sometimes the garbage was still burning.

Our train made only two stops between Chu and Shymkent. This was the train station at Taraz, which was the first stop. The name of the city used to be Jambyl and the sign on the station still says that. It's not totally incorrect though because the name of the oblast that Taraz is in is still called Jambyl.

At both of the stops, vendors came around and sold a variety of items such as apples, plums, and other fruit, kumiss, flatbread, and pastries. Jerry was interested in buying some apples but Sergei told him that you had to buy one full bucket miminum. The vendors refused to break up the contents of a bucket or to sell fruit by the piece.

It looked like the vendors sold different types of goods so no one was competing with someone else to sell the same item.

A security guard at the Taraz train station. The big upswept hats were standard for all types of authority figures including security guards, border guards, customs officials, police, military officers, and people manning checkpoints.

Between trains the vendors got to sit around and socialize.

The structure at the foot of the hills is an aqueduct. We would sometimes see these in very poor condition, occasionally with whole sections missing; so, you knew they were no longer usable.

A view of the head of our train on a curve.

A Kazakh settlement that looked to be fairly recent.

Another view to the north. As we got further west it was no longer uniformly flat looking in that direction.

It was often hazy, which surpised me because I associated haziness with high humidity and it was definitely not humid. I asked the CAREC people why it was hazy but they did not know. I suspected that it might be air-borne dust from some of the deserts in the area.

This was probably the steepest climb the train needed to make.

The outskirts of Shymkent.

Soviet era apartment buildings in various states of delapidation were common. The corrugated roofing material is not metal, I was told, but some kind of an asbestos impregnated material. There is some acknowledgment that all of the deteriorating asbestos material constitutes a public health hazard but cleaning it up does not appear to be a priority. The rooster hasn't pecked anyone in the ass yet.

Almost all Soviet style apartment buildings were built with balconies. We saw a lot of apartments where the balconies looked to be of dubious structural integrity although it was obvious they were still being used.

The exterior of the Shymkent train station. That is our local host Ali Khan, who picked us up in Shymkent and drove us to his and his wife Kalympyr's home in Lenger City, which was probably about 25 miles southeast of Shymkent. The K in Ali Khan's last name is not pronounced so it sounds like Ollie Hahn. The CAREC people seemed to always refer to him using both names.

Shymkent (also transliterated as Chimkent) is the third largest city in Kazakhstan, with a population of about 640,000 people. The local people sometimes refer to the city as "Little Texas" or "the Wild, Wild West." However, Shymkent isn't in western Kazakhstan. It isn't even half way across the country from east to west. It is only western relative to their rival city Almaty.

On the way from Shymkent to Lenger we stopped to buy some melons. This melon stand seemed to be run entirely by young boys.

Our CAREC companions on the veranda of Ali Khan's and Kalympyr's home. This would be the only place on this trip where we stayed in someone's home.

It was not fancy but it did have some nice features and Ali Khan and Kalympyr made us feel at home.

Kalympyr recommended that if we needed a shower that the men could wash off using a hose in the side yard. I think the hose was connected to a different well than the rest of the house and she did not want to draw down the house well too much. The water from the hose was very cold but it felt great. The air temperature was not quite as hot as it was in Isfara and Batken but it was probably close to 100 degrees F. Anna was allowed to use the indoor shower.

Photo: Jerry

Me with Ali Khan's wife Kalympyr. Kalympyr was one of the CAREC group who visited the US in April and had already endeared herself to us. Ali Khan, although he was the local expert, was not allowed to visit the US--he was denied a visa because he was an ex-Soviet fighter pilot. So Kalympyr came in his place.

Upon our arrival Kalympyr was visibly disappointed that one of my co-workers, Sandra, was not present. They had become friends during the April visit to the US and apparently no one from CAREC had told Kalympyr that Sandra wasn't going to be part of this visit. Then so I wouldn't take it personally (that I was there instead of Sandra) she said something that Sergei translated as, "a woman looks for a woman."

I look tired in practically every picture I am in. I had only occasionally gotten sufficient sleep. I had dozed only briefly during the day on the train.

One of the first things that Kalympyr did when we arrived was to show us where we would be sleeping. The next thing she did was to show us the medals that Ali Khan was awarded for being a Soviet fighter pilot. She did it in such a perfunctory way that I got the impression that she was assigned to show the medals every time they had first-time visitors. I know that Ali Khan was quite proud of being a fighter pilot but probably felt it looked better if Kalympyr showed them to us rather than him. This was only part of his collection of medals.

Photo: Jerry

Ali Khan and Kalympyr had an outdoor privy with a urine-separating toilet. The toilet has a lateral partition that separates the front section from the back. When using the toilet, people are expected to position themselves so urine goes into the front section and feces go into the back section.

Urine from the front section of the toilet and from the urinal goes to a urine holding tank. The urine, which contains about 90 percent of the nitrogen and 60 percent of the phosphorus in human waste is reused as a fertilizer. Compared to feces, there are many fewer bacteria in urine so there are less public health concerns for using urine for fertilizer compared to feces or mixed urine and feces.

Since the other section of the toilet contains only feces and some sawdust (paper goes into a container to be burned), it composts much better than the malodorous sludge that is the mixture of feces and urine.

Ali Khan and Kalympyr also had an indoor bathroom but I preferred the outdoor one because it had a nice view.

The instructions for the urine-separating toilet--in Kazakh. I had learned a little Russian for the trip. Once I learned to decipher the Russian Cyrillic alphabet I was pleasantly surprised to find out that many Russian words are English cognates and I could figure out many signs, menus, etc. even if I didn't know all the words.

The Kazakh alphabet looks similar to the Cyrillic alphabet but I couldn't read any of this. I think I could read some of it phonetically but I don't think there were many English/Kazakh cognates.

This is the view from the path that led to the privy. Below is the outskirts of Lenger City, which has a population of about 25,000.

The piles in the distance are some type of unidentified mining waste. One of the environmental problems in certain areas of the former Soviet Union is that mine tailings were deposited with no thought of stabilizing them. Some of the materials have a high heavy metal content or are radioactive. Because the piles are not reclaimed the wind is able to blow dust over a wide area. No one seemed to know what the piles here were composed of.

The area around Shymkent was known for metal ore mining and refining of lead, zinc, copper, and cadmium. Some nearby areas are known to be heavily polluted. I don't know if that includes Lenger.

Anna loves tomatoes and was happy to find a ripe one in Kalympyr's wild garden.

Kalympyr had promised us last April that if we ever came to Kazkhstan that she would make us the Kazakh national dish called Beshbarmak.

On the right is Ali Khan's and Kalypyr's daughter Sho-pan rolling out the wide flat sheet noodles for the dish. Sho-pan had very recently gotten married and was now living with her husband in Shymkent. I think she had been conscripted to come back home for the day to practice her Beshbarmak-making skills. The woman on the left supervising is a family friend whose name is Arjen.

Beshbarmak. The meat, which was mostly mutton, was boiled. The circular slices of meat around the edge of the platter are horse meat. The flat noodles are cooked in the same water the meat was boiled in to give them more flavor. There is a sauce of tomatoes, peppers, and onions. Like many Kazakh and Kyrgyz dishes, it is rather heavy on meat. Ali Khan said that the only animals that eat more meat than Kazakhs are wolves.

Beshbarmak means 'five fingers' in Kazakh and traditionally it was meant to be eaten with the fingers from a shared platter.

Ali Khan cutting the large chunks of meat into smaller chunks. Jerry was given the seat of honor, which is furthest from the doorway. Like many of our meals, we sat on pillows on the floor around a low table.

Ali Khan told us that beshbarmak was a food for special occasions. In the old days there were a lot of rituals involved with a meal featuring beshbarmak. The guest of honor or the eldest male was in charge of cutting and distributing different parts of whatever animal had been killed for the feast, including the head. He might cut off certain parts of the head and give them to certain family members to make a point, Ali Khan told us. For example, he might cut off the ears of the animal and put them on a child's plate to remind them to listen to their parents better. Our meal, however, did not feature the head of an animal. There were more obligatory vodka toasts.

After dinner Ali Khan and Kalympyr took us in two vehicles to see some of the countryside. Our destination was a friend's farm. It appeared to be a quite traditional farm--the closest thing I saw to a modern convenience was a wheel barrow.

One of Ali Khan's projects is the development of a network of eco-tourist lodging facilites, some of which are along the lines of hostels and some of which are just people who open their homes up to visitors. The owner of the farm we visited was part of the emerging network and people could stay at their home.

At the farm we were invited to have a small "snack" at this outdoor eating area. Here is Sasha making himself comfortable shortly after we arrived. A stream ran beyond the trees that are just behind Sasha. I was never entirely sure what Sasha's role was with CAREC. Anna said he was very good at working in the field with the different basin councils, but she wasn't very specific. We learned that he had been in the military, had worked as a policeman and a chef, had been married three times, and did not like to fly.

Arjen cutting one of the yellow melons. She had a very slick way of quickly deseeding, peeling, slicing, and arranging the pieces on a plate. There was more vodka, Kazakh cognac, and kumiss.

Arjen and Sho-pan. I have no idea if this is how their names should be transliterated to English but that is what they sounded like.

Kalympyr, Ali Khan, and their daughter Sho-pan.

A friend of Ali Khan's and Kalympyr's is a student and practitioner of traditional Kazakh music. The instrument is a two-stringed dombra, one of the traditional Central Asian insturments. Kalympyr joined him in singing some of the traditional songs.

Shown above is the stream that ran through the farm we visited. I looked at some rocks in this stream and, although it was a beautiful looking stream, my rather cursory sampling indicated it was not in as good as condition as the stream behind the Aisulu hotel. Caddisflies were present, but mayflies and stoneflies were absent and aquatic leeches (not a good sign) were present in their place.

On our return trip to Lenger we were treated to a gorgeous sunset.

I think everyone was totally exhausted by the time we made it back to Lenger. Unfortunately, the room that was assigned to Jerry and me was very hot and stuffy. Even though it was hot during the day, one of the nice things was how well the air cooled off during the evening. However, the windows in our room did not open. I was so tired and half-drunk from toasting that I fell asleep despite the heat and stuffiness.

Click here for a larger image of the above map.

Map by Viktor Novikov and Philippe Rekacewicz,
United Nations Development Program, 2005

Thursday, July 24, 2014
Lenger City to Zhigergen to Almaty Airport
Our final small basin council meeting was scheduled for this morning. The Ugam River Small Basin Council was different than the other two. Unlike the Isfara and Aspara Basin Councils, the Ugam council only had one national delegation. Although the river flows from Kazakhstan into Uzbekistan, Uzbekistan had in the end chosen not to participate, leaving only the Kazakhs--sort of.

The Ugam River (pronounced oo gahm') flows into the Chirchik River from Kazakhstan just below the Chatkal Reservoir. It is shown (very faintly) on the map above, although it is unlabeled. Because much of the Chirchik River watershed and all of the Ugam River were reserved during the Soviet era for source water to supply the downstream city of Tashkent, Uzbekistan, there were tight restrictions on water withdrawals. Because the former Soviet republics in Central Asia agreed to extend the water treaties that had been in place, those restrictions are still in effect today. So, the Kazakh people of the Ugam basin had no interest in irrigation technologies because they were not permitted to irrigate. They were only allowed to withdraw enough water for domestic use, including household drinking water and limited water for livestock.

The basin is remote, rugged, and sparsely populated. The only village in the basin, also called Ugam, is so remote and mountainous that it is cut off in the winter from the outside for about four months. The road in and out is so bad that we were scheduled to meet in a small town called Zhigergen, which was outside of the Ugam basin but was the closest town with a meeting place.

A scene on the way from Lenger to Zhigergen. A village we drove through had a community well, where this father and son were filling water containers.

Some of the wide-open scenery on the way to the meeting. I continued to ponder the haziness in an arid area. I believe it was due to air-borne dust affecting visibility. There are three major deserts in the area that could potentially be sources of dust--the Kara Kum (or Garagum), which means Black Sand to the west and southwest; the Kyzyl Kum (or Qizilqum), which means Red Sand, to the north and northwest; and the Moyynqum to the northeast. Winds blowing from any of those directions could transport dust. The dark streak in the middle of the photo is a cluster of cattle.

A view of a house on the way to Zhigergen. There were many homes such as this one that appeared to be made of poured concrete. Most were smaller than this one.

The pipe in the front is a natural gas line. Where gas was used, it seemed standard to have the lines above ground. The line turns up at the right to provide enough clearance for vehicles to enter the driveway. The lines were usually painted yellow so people knew they were gas lines. I asked whether having gas lines above ground along roadways was considered a safety hazard and no one knew of any accidents involving gas lines.

A view of Mt. Qazyqurt (or Kazykurt). According to Ali Khan, Mt. Qazyqurt is where, according to Islamic belief, Noah's ark came to rest after the big flood. Ali Khan thinks this area would be a good site for pilgrimages except there is no place for people to stay. He said three pilgrimages to Mt. Qazyqurt are considered to be equal to one pilgrimage to Mecca. Mt. Qazyqurt is actually a fairly long ridge of multiple peaks and it wasn't clear if there was a particular point on the ridge where the ark is believed to have come to rest.

A view of the outside of the governmental building in Zhigergen where the meeting was to be held. Besides being very remote, and having restrictions on water usage, the Ugam basin was different because it was also part of a national park, the Sayram-Ugam National Park. The park didn't appear to be similar to US national parks--it seemed more like a designated area where development was restricted. There didn't appear to be any facilities for visitors, although that may be planned for the future.

The park status made for some strange local politics. The CAREC people referred to the person to Ali Khan's right in the above photo as either the "local akeem" or the "big guy." He was the local administrator for an area that included the national park and the village of Ugam. He held a lot of power over what people could or could not do with their homes and property. If, for example, someone wanted to build a new house or add a new wing to their house, they had to apply to him for permission. As a result, the local people tended to defer to him about everything since to get on his bad side could have consequences in the future. The CAREC people felt like the local akeem wasn't supportive of the CAREC project and because he wasn't, none of the local people were either.

Some of the attendees at the Ugam basin meeting. Only a handful of the attendees spoke Russian, so many of the comments had to be translated twice--from English to Russian to Kazakh and back. Arjen provided much of the Kazakh/Russian translation since Sergei didn't speak Kazakh.

As in some of the other meetings, the local people were much more interested in getting aid that did not involve training. The road into the village of Ugam is in terrible condition so they asked for a new road instead of training. Anna tried to explain that this project could only provide training. They seemed to accept that momentarily but then someone mentioned that during the winter when the village was cut off from the outside world that it was a major problem whenever there was a medical emgergency. So, they asked if we could please forget about the training and bring a sno-mobile with us when we came the next time.

Ali Khan and Sasha spoke about different economic activities that could be promoted in the basin to help improve people's livelihoods such as drying fruit (there are forests of wild fruit trees in this area) for sale outside the basin, bee-keeping, and gathering wild plants for medicinal use. Ali Khan had some ideas about installing small water turbines in local streams to generate electricity for households in remote areas. For each of these suggestions, it appeared that the local attendees had some initial interest until the local akeem presented some reason why they would not work in the area (e.g. bee-keeping is not a traditional activity in this area). It seemed to me as if as soon as he offered a reason why something wouldn't work, the local people then nodded in agreement with him. One by one the big guy shot down every idea that was presented. I had to wonder why we were there--the Uzbekistan part of the basin wasn't participating and the Kazakh side was resistant.

This is the view I could see from where I was sitting in the meeting room. The playground is part of an elementary school that was next door. I think 10 days of poor sleep had caught up with me. I remember looking out the window at Mt. Qazyqurt and fighting not to fall asleep during the meeting. Even looking at this picture years later makes me sleepy.

I came to the conclusion that the local akeem was not opposed to the project because of the merits or lack of merits but because he perceived it as a threat to his personal power. To him the project was being proposed by outsiders and anything good that might come of it would be associated with them and not him. CAREC considered Ali Khan to be the local expert, but I suspect the local akeem did not consider someone from Lenger to be local.

I think the local akeem might have been more supportive if CAREC had negotiated with him more in the beginning so he could have claimed some credit for it. As it was, it looked like, if the project had any long-term success, it would be mainly credited to CAREC and especially Ali Khan. I wasn't sure if the project could be salvaged at this point.

So, even though it seemed like the meeting had gone terribly, the local akeem then graciously invited us to a lunch in the country. This is a view of the road on the way to lunch. The lunch location seemed at least 10 or 12 miles down this road, but we were still not even close to the actual village of Ugam, which I was told was beyond the ridge in the distance. The local akeem and some of the attendees jumped into a little green Lada (that seemed way to small to accomodate them) and told us to follow them to where a lunch had already been prepared for us.

The lunch place, according to the local akeem, was a property that the local government was developing as something of a summer camp for disadvantaged children and orphans. Anna and Sasha had a somewhat different view. They believed it was a property that had been seized for non-payment of taxes and was being used as a retreat by the local akeem and his cronies. They didn't think he had any intention of using it for children in any more than a token manner. I wasn't sure to what extent their frustration with how the project was going influenced their opinion.

This is not a photo of the Lada we were following but it is this exact color and model. It must have been quite cramped as the five guys who got into the car were all big guys.

We were probably only half way to the lunch location when Sasha asked Ali Khan to pull over because he needed a smoke. The little green Lada we were following just kept going and I watched it disappear over the horizon on the tire tracks in the distance. I don't know if they even noticed that we were no longer behind them.

Sergei and Anna took advantage of the opportunity to also have a smoke. Sergei had already finished his. I think Anna was working on her second. Yes, I was supplying my traveling companions' bad habits with the cigarettes I brought. Anna only smoked her own though--I think she may have preferred menthols.

Some of the non-smokers patiently waiting for the smokers to finish. The young girl on the left is Arjen's daughter, who was along for the day, although not willingly. Arjen, I was told, was a very strict mother and was actively working on squashing her daughter's rebellious spirit. Arjen's daughter wanted to stay home while her mother was gone for the day, but Arjen was afraid she would get into trouble on her own and insisted she come with us, which explains their body language.

Even though we lost track of our guide car, we were able to locate the lunch place because we eventually spotted the green Lada parked next to a building. This photo shows the outdoor eating area, which was a wonderful place for a lunch. They had built a wooden platform over a stream that was shaded by the riparian vegetation. Even though it was a hot day it was cool and shady around the table. As elsewhere, it was a low table and we sat around it on cushions.

The local akeem is on the right. The other men in the photo were some local people, some of who were not at the meeting in Zhigergen. Some of them were introduced as school teachers. The woman in the back is serving kumiss. This was the only place we had real kumiss made from mare's milk. It was served from a wooden container, the insides of which had been smoked with some kind of herb. It had a much different taste than the commercial kumiss, with some noticeable smoky flavor.

The white balls at the bottom of the picture are qurt. One of the local people told me that the Soviets located many of their gulags in Kazakhstan in the old days and the Kazakhs would sometimes throw qurt to the prisoners if they were outside and the guards weren't looking. Otherwise, they thought the prisoners might starve.

Photo: Jerry

A typical meat-centric Kazakh main dish. In this case, it was mutton.

The hospitality that was extended to us at lunch was amazing and confusing after what seemed like a stubborn refusal to participate in the CAREC project earlier.

There was a lot of vodka toasting going on at this lunch. I think practically every person at the table gave at least one toast at one point or another. I was more inebriated than I had been during the whole trip. I tried cheating--that is, not fully draining my glass but I was sitting across from the fellow in the white cap and he was keeping me honest. If I didn't completely finish my glass he would (good-naturedly) call me out.

At some point I was asked to give a toast. Whatever I said the local people appeared to be genuinely touched by it. Some of them put their hands over their hearts and bowed their heads a little. Later, Jerry said that he would just appoint me to be the designated toast giver from then on. I have no recollection of what I said. I had already joked with Sergei that his job was not just to translate what Jerry and I said, but to improve it. Maybe something was gained in translation.

Photo: Sergei

This group photo was taken after lunch. I almost missed it. I was in the privy when they started congregating for the photo so, when I came back out, they made me run to get in the picture and put me up front. Notice the local akeem has his hand on my shoulder.

The local people invited Jerry and me to come back. The next time, they said, we had to actually visit Ugam village. It would require three days, one day to travel in from Lenger, one day to visit the village, and one day to return. I would have loved that but I knew it would never happen.

We returned to Ali Khan's and Kalypyr's home in Lenger after the lunch, but we would not stay long. We had an evening flight scheduled from Shymkent back to Almaty to complete the circuit in Central Asia.

This is a zoom shot of the mine tailing piles that are visible in the distance from their home. Even though they are industrial waste deposits, I thought the texture of their weathered surfaces had a certain beauty. Once I was back home, the tailing piles were useful to get a better idea of exactly where I had been in Lenger using Google Earth. They showed up quite clearly.

Here is a late afternoon shot of the view from the privy with the tailing piles in the distance as viewed without the zoom. Shortly aftewards, Ali Khan drove us to Shymkent to catch our flight back to Almaty.

When we were in the country Ali Khan's driving seemed almost leisurely. Once we got into Shymkent though he seemed to switch to fighter pilot mode and was whipping in and out of traffic. There were a couple close calls, including one with a pedestrian. I thought I had gotten used to a different style of driving over the past several days but Ali Khan took it to a new level. I was relieved when we arrived at the airport.

Anna, Sergei, Jerry, and I took a flight back to Almaty. Sasha elected to take the train since he was no longer on an organized schedule and didn't like to fly. We were back in Almaty probably around 10:00 pm. Jerry's and my return flight from Almaty to the US was scheduled to depart around 2:00 am, so there was little point in leaving the airport. We said our goodbyes to Anna and Sergei and settled in for a four-hour wait at the terminal.

Friday, July 25, 2014
Almaty to Paris to Morgantown
Our layover on our return to Morgantown was in Paris. The photo above is of a French village during the approach to Paris. From Paris we flew directly to Pittsburgh. Because of the time zone changes it was only about 3:00 pm when we arrived in Pittsburgh. We were both missing luggage. Our luggage had been randomly chosen for removal to make the plane lighter, something we were told in Pittsburgh that the Paris Charles de Gaulle airport was notorious for. We were back in Morgantown by 5:00 pm. My luggage was delivered around midnight.

September 2017

Next: Morgantown to Almaty to Isfara

 

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