Even a blind pig can find an acorn sometimes

Today I wandered to a residential part of the city about 30 minutes from my apartment in order to eat at what people have been telling me is the best noodle restaurant in the city.  The restaurant is named Faiza and it's in a location far from the city center where the restaurants with English language menus and English-speaking waitstaff are located.  I am embarrassed to admit that I haven't really been studying my Russian--busyness, laziness, working in an English environment, a tired old brain, excessive reliance on plenty of willing, English-speaking Kyrgyz, and the dyslexic feeling I get when trying to decipher the Cyrillic alphabet have been the primary obstacles. Nevertheless, I decided to give it a shot and visit Faiza by myself and put the feeble and pathetic Russian that I have managed to acquire to the test.  First, I encountered the menu.

I decided to order the "Boso Lagman," sixth item from the top of the menu.  I also had to explain I wanted the large size with beef, rather than lamb.  And I wanted a bottle of water with gas.  The wait person seemed to understand what I was saying, but with my linguistic skill I wouldn't have been surprised if I had been served a yak steak paired with a cheese omelette.  After a few minutes, I found out the result:

Exactly what I thought I had ordered.   I was served Boso Lagman with beef and a bottle of mineral water with gas.  As I began to eat, before I got too proud of myself, I thought of the old expression that I figured really applied to me today, "Even a blind pig can find an acorn sometimes."  Well, this blind pig enjoyed his meal and one rare moment of overcoming language barriers.

Interior of Faiza Restaurant 

Gaining a Global Perspective: Reading the World

Sometimes I become a bit discouraged as I watch the news and see Donald Trump speaking as the Presidential nominee for one of the major parties.  It is sad to a see a great nation look to someone so non-empathetic, medieval, tribal, and parochial as its potential leader--and that's putting it kindly.  It is easy to feel hopeless while watching this spectacle.  That's why I try to occasionally post a positive antidote to narrow Trumpian thought and ignorance by highlighting joyful ways we can embrace global perspectives in our lives.

Earlier I posted about the importance of becoming a global citizen and featured a couple of links that looked at how we can take action to improve our planet.  This post focuses on a wonderful TED talk I saw recently.  It was a presentation by Ann Morgan.  A voracious reader, Ms. Morgan realized a few years ago that all her reading was very much focused on books coming out of the U.S. and U.K. It suddenly dawned on her that she was oblivious about stories from the rest of the planet.  She came up with the crazy idea to read one book from every country in the world during the course of one year.  The TED talk linked below tells her story and how she accomplished this amazing feat.

https://go.ted.com/CjMW

If you're like me, there is a better chance that we will become the next ruler of England than there is that we will be able to read one book from each country of the world in the next year.  However, I do think all of us are capable of reading one book from another country before the end of this year.  There's an English translation of Kyrgyzstan's most-famous writer that I am hunting down and, in the next couple of months, I promise to read it and present a review on this blog.

Why not visit Ms. Morgan's list at the link below?  Find a country you know nothing about and pick one of the books from her list and read it before the end of the year.  Ms. Morgan has chosen fiction, which is a wonderful vehicle for exploring issues and ideas and truths from other cultures.  If nothing else, it will be an escape from the toxic, Trumpian monologues the media will be broadcasting the next few months.  And, possibly, both you and I, through our reading, will experience a slight uptick in our global perspective and understanding of the world.  Because I can't think of anything more anti-Trumpian than the act of reading and gaining insight, let's stand up proudly and proclaim ourselves anti-Trumpians one book at a time.

ayearofreadingtheworld.com

The Sacred Mountain of Sulaiman-Too

Rising above the ancient city of Osh is the sacred mountain of Sulaiman-Too.  Sulaiman is a reference to King Solomon--considered a prophet in the Quran--who legend has it, made a pilgrimage to the mountain, or, as some believe, was buried in one of the mountain's caves. The mountain has been the primary landmark in the great Fergana Valley for millennia and marks the exact midpoint of the Silk Road.

The mountain was a sacred site for the ancient, pre-Islamic cults who believed that the caves on the mountain had healing properties.  Additionally, many of the caves are adorned with ancient petroglyphs and the caves also served as places of worship.  After the rise of Islam, Sulaiman-Too became an important holy site in the Muslim world.  Because of its extraordinary historical significance, Sulaiman-Too is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

On our first day in Osh, we completed our duties to UCA in the early afternoon and, after eating a meal, proceeded to Sulaiman-Too.  We climbed the highest peak and then walked across the mountain to the museum and then took the gentle walk to the bottom of Sulaiman-Too just as pilgrims and worshippers have been doing for at least 30 centuries.

Entrance Arch to Sulaiman-Too

View from Sulaiman-Too with Uzbekistan in the distance

The small mosque at the top of Sulaiman-Too--It was built in 1510 by Babur, founder of the Mughal Dynasty in India.

A group of Kyrgyz soldiers taking a rest after marching to the top of the mountain

A view of one of many of the sacred caves of Sulaiman-Too

Leave it to the Soviets to blast a gigantic hole in the sacred mountain so they could build this outlandish museum.  Unfortunately, it was closed for the day by the time we arrived.

The view from our hotel:  Sulaiman-Too in the distance

More evidence against the "Islamic people hate us" theory

This past weekend I visited the city of Osh for work.  Osh is in the south of Kyrgyzstan and is a city that has been settled in one form or another for about 3000 years, or for approximately 1000 years before Christ made an appearance on planet Earth.  It borders Uzbekistan and has a large Uzbek population, in a nation of Kyrgyz.  It is more traditional and less secular than Bishkek of the north, with an even stronger emphasis on Islam.

When I was picked up at the airport, the driver from the hotel wanted to know where I was from and, as he was driving, proudly pointed out all the sights and landmarks of the city to share with his American passenger.  The people at the Aga Khan Academy (a secular institution funded by the leader of the Ismaili branch of Islam), where I was proctoring a UCA examination, were very gracious and kind.  The students were very excited to meet someone from America and welcomed me to their school with great enthusiasm.

In the first afternoon of my stay, my work colleague and I ate at a local restaurant.  All the wait staff wanted to know where I was from and were pleased to learn that an American was eating in their restaurant.  You see, Osh is somewhat isolated and I don't think many Americans come wandering by.   But what most amazed me was what the manager of the restaurant did for us.  As we were about to leave the restaurant, we asked the staff of the restaurant to call us a taxi.  When the manager heard this, she wondered where we were going.  We told her we were headed for Sulaiman-Too, the sacred mountain of Osh.  She told us to come with her, as she would take us on the three-kilometer trip to the entrance of Sulaiman-Too in her car.

The restaurant manager driving us to Sulaiman-Too

On our drive, with my work colleague acting as translator, she told me how it was an honor to have me eat in her restaurant and how much she was pleased that I wanted to learn about the cultural heritage of Osh.  As she dropped us off at the entrance, she told us she wished she could guide us on our tour, but, unfortunately she had to return to work.

I never did learn the name of the restaurant manger, my Russian being non-existent and her English rather limited. But after we were dropped off and said our farewells, I thought of people in the United States and considered the fiery, heated, anti-Islamic rhetoric being shouted loudly in my home country, especially the Trumpian theory of how hateful Islam is. My experience, however, has been exactly the opposite of what a Trumpian would predict I would encounter deep in the heart of Islam.  Perhaps the kindness and hospitality I have experienced comes from the fact that Kyrgyzstan has not had American armed forces interfering in its internal affairs and, therefore, the population hasn't formed the opinions one might form when your people have had the opportunity to face the wrong end of a barrel of a gun or had the privilege of experiencing drone strikes or "shock and awe" treatment.  I think the extraordinary hospitality I have experienced in all three countries of Central Asia proves a very essential point: it is not Islam that causes people to hate and become extremists, as I have not encountered any sort of anti-American sentiment in these Islamic countries.  Could the explanation of this phenomenon possibly be that when your military becomes entangled in the lives of other nations and large numbers of people end up dying, combatants and innocents alike, then that is when hatred and extremism are produced?


(A postscript: Please accept my recommendation of the book, Overthrow, by Stephen Kinzer.  It is a wonderful history of U.S. military interventions around the globe and might provide a better explanation of why people in other nations sometimes don't exhibit a fondness for the U.S. than the ones offered up by Donald Trump. It's a very readable, meticulously researched, and fascinating study.)

Faith and Dental Art

It started as a very small pain in my lower right molar, but over the past few days it has gradually intensified.  Still nothing too severe, but the trend line was not encouraging.  I had to do something I have managed to avoid in all the time I've lived abroad:  go to the dentist in a foreign land.

"Oh no," exclaimed one of my co-workers.  "Can't it wait until the next time you go to the States?"

My expatriate co-workers, to a person, do whatever it takes to avoid visiting Kyrgyz healthcare and dental providers.  In fact, one of my co-workers packed his wife and son to their home in Singapore two months ago in preparation for the birth of their second child, rather than risk giving birth in Bishkek.  He left for Singapore a few days ago to join them for the event. 

When I asked about dentists, no one I knew could provide me with any suggestions of where to go as it became abundantly clear that none of my co-workers had ever been so daring and reckless as to even step foot inside a dentist's office in Kyrgyzstan.

"At the very least, I'm overdue to have my teeth cleaned," I replied.  "And I don't think I can wait long enough to return to North America to see a dentist."

"Good luck to you," one of them whispered in the hushed, mournful tone one would use when wishing a soldier Godspeed on the way to a hopeless battle where the odds of survival were uncertain at best.

Going to a new dentist, I think, is an act of faith--especially in a foreign country where one doesn't know the implements or the methods used by the dentist.  Even more difficult, in my case, is the faith one must summon to visit a dentist with whom one will most likely not be able to communicate. For many it might be easier and more certain to have faith in God than in a Kyrgyz dentist, because at least the prospect of a merciful God, would seem infinitely more likely than the prospect of a skillful and painless dentist in Kyrgyzstan, if the stories I had heard were to be believed.  

With absolutely no knowledge at my disposal, I selected a dentist.  I used a brilliant method:  I chose the dentist's office I had seen closest to my apartment.  In defense of my method, in the three months I have lived in the neighborhood, I had also noticed a multitude of affluent-looking young women with bright, shiny teeth departing from that particular dentist's office, which seemed to me like the ultimate in unspoken recommendations.

My dental clinic: Dental Art

The name of the dentist's practice is "Dental Art."  I would have preferred "Dental Science" as a name, but so be it.  Luckily the dentist's assistant spoke excellent English and, amazingly enough, I was able to be scheduled for an immediate exam, unlike my most-recent dentist in the U.S. who had a five-month waiting list and was as easy to schedule as an audience with the Pope.  Also, reassuring was the fact that there were no copies of "Guns and Ammo" or "Field and Stream" in the waiting room, unlike in my dentist's office in Arkansas.

My dentist was a pleasant and soft-spoken person.  Unlike my dentist in Kentucky, he hadn't practiced for several years as a U.S. Army dentist and did not wear a camouflage-print dental jacket in the examination room to honor his past assignment.  Using his assistant as a translator, without taking any X-rays, he confirmed I did have a cavity in my sore tooth.  Either he had X-ray eyes like Superman or my tooth was in the kind of condition that required no X-rays to make a diagnosis. Because I had arrived just before closing time, he didn't have time to put a filling in my bad tooth, but he said he would be willing to give my teeth a full cleaning.  Unlike any dentist I've visited in the past couple decades, he actually did the full cleaning himself, instead of assigning the dirty work to his hygienist.  Unlike my previous hygienist in the U.S., he didn't chisel away at the tartar; instead he had a very modern, ultrasonic device to do the trick. He was, however, like every other dentist on the planet when he made certain to have his assistant deliver the customary sermon about the necessity of flossing.

When it was over, the cost was 1500 soms or slightly more than $20.  Of course, the real test of faith will be next week when I am scheduled to get my filling.  Somehow, though, I don't think it will require an abundance of faith or courage to get the first filling of my life while in Kyrgyzstan.  Faith is belief in something where evidence might not be present.  After today, I now know that I must use whatever reserves of faith I have left for issues of the metaphysical as the evidence I now possess suggests this particular Kyrgyz dentist seems to have dental art covered.

Shops near my apartment II

The name Dodo Pizza suggests a couple of possibilities: either you have to be really dumb to eat there or you need to go there as soon as possible to order a pizza before all the franchises become extinct.

Finding myself in hot water

I had a conversation a few days ago with my landlord about the problems I was having in my apartment with internet service.  Our conversation ended with her asking me a peculiar question, "Do you still have water?"

The fact that I couldn't see a linkage between water and internet service and because I automatically assume that all peculiar questions and statements that occur in my conversations with Kyrgyz folks are a function of linguistic issues, I didn't pay the proper attention to my landlord's question it deserved.

The day after our conversation, I began my morning routine by hopping into the shower, only to find that I had absolutely no hot water.  "It seems my landlord is clairvoyant," I muttered to myself as I washed my hair in the freezing water pouring out my bathtub faucet.

When I arrived at work, I discovered that a few of my co-workers were also without hot water. "That's odd," one of them said.

"No, it isn't," said another of my co-workers who has lived in Bishkek for a time.  She explained that all the hot water for the entire city of Bishkek is heated in a central, Soviet-era, coal-fired plant that closes for a full month each and every year for maintenance and to clean the pipes.  Furthermore, she told us, this process always commences the day after Great Patriotic War Against Fascism Victory Day. "That's some way to celebrate victory," I mused.

Despite everyone's apprehension, our knowledgable co-worker remained ebullient. Don't worry, she assured us, all you have to do is plug in the little water heater above your toilet and that will switch you over to your internal system.

"I don't remember seeing a little water heater above my toilet," I remarked, somewhat anxiously.

"Oh, don't worry, I'm sure you have one," she said cheerfully.

"I think I would remember seeing a water heater above my toilet," I grumbled, certain that no such device existed in my apartment.

When I returned home that evening I discovered that I was not completely oblivious to what items were in my apartment as I stared wistfully at the empty space above my toilet.  I decided to send my not-as-clairvoyant-as-I-had-originally-thought landlord a text. It shouldn't be angry in tone, I thought to myself, instead, as I have learned in my years living abroad, presenting a pleasantly confused persona when problem solving as an alien in another land is usually a far more effective approach than being a pissed-off American.

"My friends at work said there wouldn't be any hot water for a month.  Is this really true?" I texted.

"Yes.  No hot water for a month," was the return text.

It appeared I would have to present a pleasantly confused AND pathetic persona.  "Thank you for letting me know,"  I texted.  "Could you please tell me the best place to go in the mornings to get a hot shower in Bishkek?"

About 30 minutes later I received my landlord's reply.  "I will send someone to install a water heater in your apartment in the next couple days."  Sometimes, though not always, some people do have pity on sadly pathetic Americans.

So, today was the day the hot water heater was installed above the toilet.  Only one problem: it doesn't seem to generate hot water.  It hisses and makes a range of assertive noises as if it is heating enough liquid to bathe half the Kyrgyz Army.  Except it isn't heating anything.  Not one drop.  It seems the installation crew didn't take the time to verify that the water heater was configured in such a way that it would actually heat water.  And now I am left with two water heating systems taking a post-Great Patriotic War Against Fascism Victory Day sabbatical.

This leaves me wondering what to do next.  I don't think it is possible for me to sink to lower depths of pleasantly confused and pathetic...and 26 more days of cold sponge baths isn't an appealing prospect.  Nor I am enthused about doing what my Tajik co-worker is doing to survive the hot-water drought:  he's been heating pots of water on his stove and filling his bathtub with them.  For bizarre architectural reasons too complicated to explain now, we actually have a bathroom with a shower in my four-person office, but I am not eager to bathe within two meters of my co-workers' desks while they compose memos and write reports.  I suppose all I can do is text "I'm sorry, the new hot water heater is not working" to my landlord and prepare for the next series of mishaps to occur as I dream of steamy baths and contemplate the many things in life we take for granted.

My new hot water heater, blissfully and uselessly hissing away above my toilet

Commemorating "Great Patriotic War Against Fascism Victory Day"

Today marks the 71st anniversary of Allied victory in the war against Nazi Germany.  It's a day that receives little notice in the United States as our war against fascism ended a few months later after the surrender of the Japanese.  For those, however, raised in the old Soviet Union this day carries important significance because over 25,000,000 Soviet citizens and soldiers were killed in the war against Germany.  It would be the equivalent today of having 35 million Americans killed in a war on home soil during a four-year period.  I think that kind of loss would resonate, even 71 years after the fact.

Great Patriotic War Against Fascism Victory Day is celebrated by a parade in downtown Bishkek where relatives of those who served in the war, or lost their lives in the war, march down the main street holding signs with photographs of the heroic and the fallen.

Poster in a storefront window announcing the parade

Participants lining up to march

Participants of all ages

Marching down the main street of Bishkek

Extremists lurk everywhere in the world, including this group honoring the generally-hated Stalin

Picnic at Seyil Park

On Sunday, our department had a picnic at Seyil Park, a spot about 30 minutes south of Bishkek.  We rode on the Marshrutka, heading toward the mountains.  It was a spot with no facilities or amenities, just Kyrgyz people--and a few wayward UCA employees--picnicking on a warm May afternoon.

Seyil Park

The sight next to our picnic area.

Kyrgyz group picnicking and playing backgammon

UCA Picknickers 

The rise of Donald Trump explained in one news story

For all intents and purposes, Donald Trump clinched the Republican presidential nomination this past week with his victory in the Indiana primary. I share an office with three young Canadians. They were very perplexed by this development.  "How can this be?" they asked  "What's wrong with the United States?"  Embarrassed and dismayed, I really didn't have much of an answer for them except, "If you ever lived in Arkansas for two years and were forced once every month to sit and listen to my Arkansan barber explain the evils of the world while he cut your hair, maybe you'd understand," was the best response I could come up with.

Today, however, I stumbled across an astonishing news story that really explains the rise of Donald Trump in one concise tale.  It's the story of Guido Menzio, math professor at the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania.  (Google "Guido Menzio" and you can get the full version of the story.)  Dr. Menzio was sitting on an American Airlines flight, waiting to depart the Philadelphia airport for Syracuse.  A woman took her seat next to him and saw him scribbling on his notepad.  Because he had curly hair and was olive-skinned, the indecipherable scribbles on his pad really alarmed her.  These scribbles looked like they were Arabic.  Add to that the fact, that he wouldn't strike up a conversation with her when she tried caused her to become highly suspicious that she was sitting next to a terrorist.  The woman slipped a note to the flight attendant to alert the attendant of her fears. The flight crew first removed the woman so she could be interviewed, then they asked Dr. Menzio to leave the plane. After two hours of interrogation, security realized that Dr. Menzio was not calculating how to detonate an explosive charge on the aircraft, but instead he was only trying to solve a mathematical problem on his notepad as he prepared for the academic presentation he was scheduled to deliver in Toronto the next day.  The woman was allowed to take a different flight of her choosing and Dr. Menzio was allowed to re-take his seat as the original flight proceeded to Syracuse after all the passengers suffered a two-hour delay.

I need to forward this story to my Canadian colleagues as it perfectly explains the rise of Donald Trump.  The fear and paranoia that has been cultivated in the U.S., especially since 9-11, has affected a sizable percentage of Americans to such a degree that they are unable to distinguish between real threats and mathematics.  The constant warnings we are bombarded by, especially at airports, that threats are all around us and must be reported have put some people on complete edge and Donald Trump is doing a masterful job of stoking these same people's fears with his rhetoric. Add to this the Trumpian and Republican scapegoating of Muslims and Mexicans and other brown-skinned people, and it's no wonder that poor, olive-skinned, Italian Dr. Menzio was mistaken for the "enemy."

The United States is also a country that has become so tuned in to social media, online fun, video games, reality television, and other forms of entertainment that many of us can't even recognize mathematics when we see it.  The woman on the airplane, perhaps prompted by watching too much Jack Bauer or other espionage programming, saw secret code or Arabic messages, where there was only math.  A person like Donald Trump, a reality TV star himself, thrives in an environment where a sizable percentage of the population has difficulty sorting through the blizzard of images and figuring out where reality and fiction diverge.  Instead of cultivating a thoughtful society of rational, critical thinkers, we are creating an army of consumers whose minds travel wherever their whims take them.

Finally, the woman faced no sanction or consequence for her idiocy and paranoia.  She was not even forced to sit next to Dr. Menzio on the flight to Syracuse or to apologize to him and all the other inconvenienced passengers for her madness.  Instead, she was rewarded with a different flight of her choosing. Similarly, what consequences have those who stir up fear and paranoia received for their actions?  Almost none at all.  Those in the media who stoke the flames and politicians who scapegoat and antagonize have received almost no censure.  Even Donald Trump has escaped, until very recently, the intense scrutiny and critical examination from the press that he has deserved.  Instead, media organizations like Fox, CNN, and MSNBC, have given him free publicity by broadcasting virtually every one of his speeches, interviews, and utterances, even admitting they broadcast Wall-to-Wall Trump because it has helped their ratings and bottom lines. No consequences for spouting paranoia, ignorance, and madness; instead, if your lunacy is entertaining enough and can capture viewers, you get a free forum.

Yes, Dr. Menzio was using, OMG, Arabic numerals.  Yes, he was also utilizing Al-Gebra in his calculations. And, in preparation for his conference he was certainly constructing methods of math instruction.  Nevertheless, Dr. Menzio was doing absolutely nothing that warranted removal from a flight to Syracuse.  But the ignorant, paranoid woman, in full Donald Trump mode, thought otherwise and her ignorance was given power that was totally unwarranted.  In a nation filled with millions and millions of people infected with this ignorance and fear, inhabited by battalions of citizens as oblivious as the woman on the flight to Syracuse, when people like this use their power of the ballot, my Canadian friends, this is how you get Donald Trump standing only one election day away from the White House.

I must look like I know where I'm going

              There’s a very perplexing phenomenon that I encounter whenever I live abroad.  Frequently, as I am walking down the street minding my own business, people stop me to ask me for directions.  Yesterday alone, two different Kyrgyz came up to me as I was wandering to lunch to ask me where something was.  Both times, all I was able to do was shrug my shoulders and mutter in broken Russian:  “Я не Знаю,” which means, “I don’t know.” 

It was amusing to see the looks on both of their faces when they encountered what they must have thought was the one ethnic Russian Kyrgyz in Bishkek who clearly hadn’t been able to pass the first grade.  After their initial horror, they would scamper past me quickly to find someone else who might be a bit more knowledgeable and significantly less inarticulate.

This happens to me at least once or twice a week in Kyrgyzstan and has caused me to wonder why it is I must look like I know where I'm going.  And this isn’t a phenomenon limited to Kyrgyzstan.  When I lived in the Netherlands and would be strolling the streets of Amsterdam, I always had tourists inquiring as to where the Anne Frank House or Rijksmuseum might be.  They would come up to me and ask, “Do you speak English?”  “Why, of course I do,” I would reply.  Then they would complement me on my excellent English and I would tell them that, despite the fact I was raised in distressingly close proximity to the state of Idaho, I had somehow managed to master the English language.  Then they would apologize and say they hadn’t realized I was an American.  "Not to worry," I would assure them before directing them to the tourist attraction they couldn’t locate on their own. 

Living in Florence provided me a similar experience as tourists, and even Italians, were constantly asking me where museums, hotels, and banks were located.  Even when I was a tourist myself, on Walton Scholar recruiting trips in Central America, I have had people come up to me in the old Guatemalan colonial city of Antigua, in rollicking Panama City, and in all points between, searching for directions.  Only when I lived in Japan, was I completely free from the questions of where things were.  Not only did one glance at me convince the average Japanese citizen that I would be of no use in communicating anything at all, but the sight of me could sometimes even cause them to hurriedly rush to the other side of the street to avoid me altogether.  Perhaps it was a blessing in disguise that I could not blend in while in Japan as I actually didn’t know where I was going half the time I lived there.

So, I am left to wonder why it is people seek me out so frequently to find out where it is they are going.  Maybe it is because everyone’s frequency of not knowing where they are in the world is so high that we can’t help but encounter lost souls along our way.  Or, perhaps, if I become weary of strangers seeking my counsel, I should simply start walking more quickly with my head down.

Visiting Taraz, Kazakhstan

I had a trip to Kazakhstan cancelled in February, but over the weekend I finally made it to the big country north of Kyrgyzstan.  I went to the mid-sized city of Taraz, about a five-hour drive from Bishkek.  We were there to proctor the UCA admissions exam we were giving to applicants.

The trip was so brief, and we had so little free time that I was not able to form many impressions of Taraz or Kazakhstan.  The geography is a bit different as, while there are pockets of mountainous areas, the country is generally flat and reminiscent of Oklahoma (at least the part I drove through).  One can also sense that Kazakhstan has greater wealth (due to Petrodollars and other natural resources at its disposal) than Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.  The city of Taraz looks more like a North American community with its wider roads and evidence of urban planning that isn't apparent in places like Bishkek.  Hope to have the chance to explore Kazakhstan in greater detail at some point in the future.

The view from my motel room

The eye-catching carpet in my motel room

The Russian Theater in the center of Taraz

Entrance to the main city park:  I've noticed that Central Asia has far more public statuary and monuments than the United States.  When was the last time your community built a public monument or unveiled a major public statue?  The U.S. has all but abandoned the construction of monuments dedicated to the civic good or to those who have contributed mightily to the community.  What does that say about the level of value our nation currently places on community life and the civic good or on our nation's ability to reach a common definition of what constitutes the civic good?

The public sculpture garden in Taraz

A floral sculpture at the sculpture garden:  pitchers of water transforming into greenery

A mosque adjacent to the city park