Tash Rabat

I sometimes am cooped up on campus for days at a time, so I don't get to see very much of the extraordinary country in which I am living. Today I traveled with J Soms and The Barista to one of the most amazing sites in Kyrgyzstan: Tash Rabat.

Situated at an altitude of about 3200 meters and about 30 kilometers from China, Tash Rabat was a "caravanserai" (or a roadside inn) where travelers could rest in ancient times. The remaining structure at Tash Rabat was built in the 15th Century and was thought to have been originally constructed as a Nestorian Monastery. Some scholars speculate that parts of it date back as far as the 10th Century. The design is extraordinary as the entire complex, especially the dome, would have required intricate engineering knowledge.

Over time the complex served not only as an inn, but also as a place where prisoners were held and our driver said that, in Soviet times, it was used as a slaughter house.
 
Equally as spectacular is the dramatic Kyrgyz mountainscape one finds along the way. It is a distinctively Kyrgyz journey as one encounters herds of sheep and horses, communities of yurts, and a pastoral life reminiscent of nomadic times.

What made the trip most enjoyable is that we were able to spend time together with J. in the precious few days he has remaining in our company.

Yurt Camp at Tash Rabat

Entrance to main structure at Tash Rabat

On top of the structure

The domed ceiling inside Tash Rabat

Kyrgyz Mountainscape near Tash Rabat

With J. and The Barista on the Tash Rabat Structure

 

Sometimes there is nothing left to say

Today really was the end of the school year. Our last group of students departed this morning.

There are a few students who are still here, but they are on campus because they are participating in summer camp, a program that's not part of the academic year events. So the end of the school year is here. Really.

I usually have something interesting, even mildly profound, to say on days like these, to sum up the year's events. But today, I have nothing left to say.

Perhaps it is because I know from past experience that the last day of the academic year is also the first day of the next academic year. Already my to-do list is full, so it seems pointless to sum things up, when there is no time for summation. Accumulation, not summation, is the general course of life, especially in the type of universe I inhabit.

Or maybe I have nothing left to say, because I have already used up every word I have. How many speeches, scolding talks, friendly chats, greetings of campus guests, words of reassurance, rounds of customary silly banter, bouts of irate grumbling, lame repetitive jokes, general explanations, exasperated expressions in committees, exhortations to be quiet while I am sleeping, and ten thousand other types of communication have I unleashed upon the world this past year? All I know is that the number is much too great, especially, I am sure, for the recipients of it all.

Or maybe it is just fatigue. Or the altitude.

I am not completely sure why I have nothing left to say. Certainly the reader must be commenting by now that there are far too many words in this post for someone who claims to have none. So then there is nothing left to say except that it is often the words that have been left unspoken that are the most important words of all and I hope that in the coming year, after I replenish my supply of words, that I am able to express the feelings of gratitude and hopefulness and reassurance and appreciation and apology and love and forgiveness that too often never reach the ears of anyone.

Trivia Night

Last week we held the final Trivia Night of the year: MEGA TRIVIA. It was the end of the year grand championship where teams of students, faculty and staff had to answer the 100 questions on 100 topics that I had written over the past few weeks.

It was the fourth Trivia Night of the year. I can remember the first one I conducted last August with my two phenomenally extraordinary colleagues (J Soms and S) who helped me make the questions and run the entire show. Back then our Central Asian students could hardly comprehend the joys of nights of trivia. Now, though, students and staff alike relish the competition over obscure facts and miscellany.

How could a boy five years of age, that eccentric little child I was, enjoy trivia even at that age? I remember sitting and watching the American trivia game show Jeopardy with my mother as she ironed clothes. It was the original TV version of the game hosted by Art Fleming. What causes people to develop such peculiar fascinations? This fascination has endured, not dulled by time or circumstance.

In high school, I competed on a local TV show with my high school Knowledge Team (trivia wrapped up in an academic package). It was High School Bowl, aired every week on KHQ TV in Spokane. We lost to arch rivals Central Valley High School. It was a bitter pill for a competitive teenager like me, but I carried on undaunted.

Finally, several years ago, I reached the pinnacle of trivia. My 20-year quest to make it onto the current version of Jeopardy finally was realized. As was the case with High School Bowl, I lost again, this time in front of a national audience of millions. But for me the simple act of competing on Jeopardy, under the pompous countenance of Alex Trebek, was the equivalent of finding the Holy Grail: to be one of the 350 people to make it on the show of the 750,000 who try each year was ample compensation and is the biggest bucket list check-off a Trivia Maniac like me can ever have in one's lifetime.

And so MEGA TRIVIA was conducted last week. It was a particularly amazing competition in that J Soms, The Barista, and Lordian were playing via Skype from Bishkek too. The Dean's team won, but we won't say that they were aided by a ringer, a young campus visitor armed with a brainful of trivia that would have proven formidable in any competition.

Another of year of Trivia Nights has concluded. I particularly enjoyed these nights because Dean and teacher and staff and student and Kyrgyz and Pakistani and Tajik and man and woman could all work together at one table trying to achieve a common goal, every person able to add a piece of their random knowledge to the mix. I wonder if it will become a tradition at our campuses in future years. Who knows? I am just contented that, at least for one year, I could share one of my deeply-held passions with people I've come to love.

Forest Fires

Originally Written on June 8

I have witnessed two forest fires in my life.  One was in Yellowstone Park. I was among the last people to leave the Park in my car on the day that the largest forest fire in Yellowstone's modern history came roaring out of the mountains.

The fire moved with such swiftness that I almost had to drive my car as fast as it could go to escape the onrushing flames.  I had never seen destruction move with such speed.

The other fire started on the mountain near my parents' house.  It was a windy day and the flames hurtled down the mountain consuming all homes in its path.  You could hear the pine trees exploding in the distance their sap superheated and combustable.

My family and I rushed quickly to throw our most valuable possessions into our car--photo albums, the jewelry box, important documents, some clothes, whatever we could carry quickly.

As we drove off, abandoning our house to the flames, the wind shifted direction quickly, carrying the fire in another direction and all was saved.  Except for those homes that found themselves suddenly in the middle of the new path.  Fire is unforgiving and fate seems often nothing more than random luck or misfortune.

Another fire crossed my path today.  But it wasn't flame that I was trying to outrun, but rather this conflagration was of human making in the form of an angry mob.  Anger.  What I experienced today was far more dangerous and frightening than any fire I have ever witnessed. And this fire fills me with greater sorrow, because unlike nature, it is something we humans should be able to control, if only we would try.  Or maybe it is the same as nature, this fire of anger, in that once ablaze it is beyond the power of human forces to control, though I wish this conclusion won't be the one stays with me past tonight.

As with the two forest fires in my earlier life, this one today we did barely manage to escape.  And as I survey the scorched earth around me, I wonder where any unburned land can possibly be found.  But still we must try to find it.