I must create a system or be enslaved by another man's. I
will not reason and compare.. my business is to create.
::: William Blake :::

winter

the winter chill
set in
and told us
hyper people
to go slower
warmth had to come
from the inside
and preserved by
down and wool
we walked
like fluffed, plump
birds
across streets
and over bright fallen leaves
like a young death
the leaves are still vivacious
on the concrete

we crawl into heavy blankets
and sense morning light
outside our eyelids
our bodies synchronized
with the turn of
nature
resist
the routines of man
and stubbornly protest
the clock
we are slowed
by the winter
into morning contemplation

the youthful act of summer
the speed of fall
halted
and matured
by the cocoon
of winter

6 people

Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is. -William James, psychologist and philosopher (1842-1910)

Embryonic Light

thought
pushed me awake
for the seventh morning
in the embryonic
light
of 5 AM
I laid like a new born
batting my eyelashes
looking around
solving problems
that wouldn't get solved
the twilight
shined in blue over
the couch
and living room
giving the impression
that it was off-limits
this time of day
was for the light
not for the human
I was intruding
in the silence
and gentle opening
of the day
my steps were loud
my movement too rapid

go fast looking in and out of a million doors, or walk through one slowly

The lame man who keeps the right road outstrips the runner who takes a wrong one. The more active and swift the latter is, the further he will go astray. -Francis Bacon, essayist, philosopher, and statesman (1561-1626)

Mount Ararat

It was time to leave the odyssey.Walking through corridor leading to the plane I looked outside and there it was. Unbelievable, it stood there humongous, gargantuan but somehow hidden if you weren't looking for it, if you were looking down somehow distracted by your own mountains to climb or towards the next activity, the plane.

I just stood there. It was something you couldn't avoid. Even if you had seen them before, climbed them before, no matter how many you had seen before, this was remarkable. This always happens when I think I have seen it all.

I boarded the plane and lost the view. Then I forgot about it and focused on the smelly guy sitting next to me. As the plane started its way down the runway, it made a ninety degree turn and suddenly I had the view of a lifetime. I decided not to take a picture but just to watch. It was something words or a photo would fail to capture. As we increased our speed it stayed with us, or at least with me, and as we rose it only became more impressive.

You see, it floated. It was a floating mountain, Mount Ararat floated that day. You couldn't see the base, all you saw was a string, a line of clouds cutting the sky in two pieces and then a mountain top so huge and so perfect grew from that line of clouds. And as we rose it stayed floating, the bottom never revealed, no base to see, it was like god, or mother earth with her hair draped around her looking at us.

Istanbul

I feel I have come back to civilization. Poor Central Asia, I don't know why I am being so harsh this time. Last time I was there it was so magical, this time it was a hindrance. Maybe its age. Or because I miss my life, people, my friends, my world, a good sign actually...it seems I have become more stable, less of a nomad, and definitely less curious. I like my internal life maybe even more than the external one...

I finally took a shower in the stink bathroom. I just held my nose and went fast. I was afraid the steam from the shower would just accentuate the smell if I stayed in there too long.

I asked the receptionist for a wake up call but that meant she had to wake herself up first to wake me up which didn't feel very reliable. Six months ago I had a similar situation in Dushanbe and the guy overslept and I was given five minutes to get into a van full of people waiting on me to go to the airport. So last night I kept on waking up every two hours just to make sure.

Of course I also woke up exactly at 4:20, the subconscious is a powerful tool. She called as well, five minutes later. The cab pulled up as I came outside. I put the keys on the reception desk and walked to the cab. We started to drive off and I wondered had they paid him for the transfer that I paid for the night before? Suddenly the receptionist appeared, in a sleepy daze, with cash in her hand for the taxi driver.

We drove in darkness, back on that long Soviet street to the airport, the one that goes forever. Taxis zoomed passed us and I watched my driver's eyes through the rear view mirror to make sure he doesn't sleep. I pictured myself hitting his back to wake him up. We made it. There was one door the airport, like the top of the funnel everything poured in a tight spout and spilled out into the airport.

The waiting room for the Istanbul flight was mainly Europeans, swiss, brits, and a french couple. A huge American family too. I always wonder about those large American families a wholesome wife in a long skirt and hiking boots and minimum three kids...undeniably missionaries. I guess.

At the drinking hut in the waiting room we all got some tea, way overpriced at about a dollar fifty. Some Kyrgyz men in uniform took shots of some alcohol, ostensibly to wake up.

The flight had some of the most beautiful mountains I have seen. At one point midflight, we must have been over 20,000 feet in the air, snow capped mountain snuck over the clouds. At another point the sea met a desert and forming the top of a heart at the shore.

Bishkek Day Two

My bathroom smelled worse today than yesterday, which is pretty impressive. So I just ran away from it to eat the free breakfast of the hotel/lodge. The breakfast entailed beet salad, salad olvie (potato salad- the same one Russians and Iranians make), rice, yellow and white, and hard boiled eggs. I just couldn't stomach the spread after the bathroom smell so I had a bit of beet salad and ran away into the city. It felt good to be outside, there was some sunshine and the air was crisp, though the smell of things burning was ever present. Like everywhere, here people get rid of trash by burning it.

I sat in an internet cafe to look for a new hotel, at which I was unsuccessful but during that time I heard something familiar. Iranian farsi...I looked around. A girl at the cafe was speaking on her mobile. "They are everywhere" I thought to myself. I considered speaking to her but didn't. I imagined the conversation "hi you are iranian?
"yup"
"me too"
"cool."
"cool."
"bye."
"bye."

I left in search of the National History Museum, my colleague told me there was a whole floor on Lenin. As I walked I asked a man for the street I was looking for "Chui?"
"Yes Chui"
I was excited, he knew how to speak english. I asked for the museum and a cafe I was looking for. He walked with and showed me where to go. I sort of wanted to bring him with me, to translate, to explain, to guide. We said goodbye. He was kind.

The museum was a big block in the sky. It was huge with nothing around it, no trees, no stairs, just a immense square building with a little door. Lenin was not just on the second floor, Lenin was everywhere. They must have had 200 pictures of him and many of his letters in his handwriting. There were pictures of him with his politburo officials. Then there were these huge bronze murals. The murals either portrayed women, old men, children and strong young men, Russians and Kyrgyz standing unified looking out on to the horizon. Then there were murals of men and women working hard labor, things like welding, building, farming, industrial things.

Then there were war murals some lied dead while others looked like they were trudging on to victory always looking out above the observer. The emotion and detail was very propagandist, I felt like I was supposed to be believing a story but I couldn't really buy it, maybe because it was over and it was now just part of this museum. I guess it had the same immensity in meaning as maybe an Obama statue would have today...

Alongside the murals were maps showing the gradual increase of territory of the Soviet Union. And of course more Lenin. The pictures of him and his advisers looked more like a bunch of eccentric intellectuals and academics rather than scary Russian Soviets ideologues like in the pictures of Stalin's time.

I had lunch at Fatboy cafe the only english language menu I could find. Sitting behind me was an old English man and a Kyrgyz woman who barely spoke english and an Australian man and a Kyrgyz woman who didn't speak.

I then walked to the big shopping center. At one of the crafts stores a Kyrgyz woman that spoke English well asked me if I was happy about Obama. I said yes. She said "Bush kill people. Will Obama kill people?" Man that was a blunt way to talk about it.

I asked her how she felt about the US president. She said she didn't care because they have peace in Kyrgyzstan. Wow.

Then she started to explain that life was much better under the Soviet Union, because, well people had food, shelter and employment. I said what about freedom. She said we don't need freedom, freedom just talking. We don't care because we are used to not having it. We want food and job.

Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

I am now in Bishkek and I am not in a good mood. I am tired of meetings, tired of thinking, tired of having dinners, walks, flights, drives with male colleagues. My hotel smells like someone took a big shit and turned on the heater to make sure it stays in the room extra long.

But on a more grateful note Bishkek is a bit more manageable than Tajikistan, more developed, more accessible, taxis and cars are less stinky. I don't know when my nose became so sensitive. I used to smell shit all day and it didn't bother me. It must be myoverly sterilized American life.

Bishkek looks like every Soviet movie you ever saw. Dark, cold, gray sky, gray buildings and tall skinny trees. Mountains are everywhere and thats nice to see.

I have no more pages in my passport, something I just realized coming into Tajikistan. I think I have two half pages and I have no more full page visas to get, so I should be ok.

Elections in Dushanbe

We went to the US embassy yesterday morning to watch the returns. The embassy was majority and unofficially pro-Obama although apparently they can't really campaign or be partisan on the issue. There were some real elections geeks there which I was thankful for, because its impossible for me to spend the last year watching EVERY single primary and election debate and not care about county voting results (thank you new york times). So there were two televisions, one with the Russian news coverage and one with the CNN coverage via satellite. A third screen was set up with the New York time interactive map which showed us how many votes had come per state and per county and what they were voting. Indiana and North Carolina were nail biters, and Tennessee was pathetic.

When Obama finally got it, and came up for his speech the satellite television had decided it was done, and he speech was largely unintelligible. Everyone went over to the Russian translation and I was the only remaining person in front of CNN. I made out a lot of what he said but definitely will download it once I get back to high speed internet, which means until Washington.

I was so excited just to see him up there and the change phenonemon finally touched me and as I looked around at the lack of similar outward emotion on people's faces, I resigned to enjoy the moment alone. The thought of working under a democrat, pro-choice, pro-social policy, pro-diplomacy president gives me shivers...

My whole professional life has been under the republicans. I can't imagine what this will be like.

Elections

My driver this morning asked me in Tajik about the US elections. Considering how far away I feel from the US and from the West, this question surprised me. Okay maybe Spaniards, the French, or even Georgians are writing op-eds and thinking about these elections closely, but my Tajik driver?
The world really feels like it should have a vote in the American elections.

He said he likes Obama because he is young. Considering how racist this part of the world can be, I was surprised.

Dushanbe First Day

Dushanbe first day
Its quiet, still quiet, lucky and strange for a city center. Washington has quiet streets, but here, perhaps because there is only one other person staying at the guesthouse, there is a quiet of stillness, like nothing but my fingers are moving in the whole house, whole compound, whole city of Dushanbe.
The quiet can be shocking; can make one wonder if anyone else existed in the world, especially any one in the western world, because this is so far away from that. And that’s it feels. There are different rules, here, different influence, there is no American television, no European neighborhood policy, this is east, this is asia, and isolated asia too.
Last night after arriving at 4AM and waiting in a small office with 30 other internationals for my visa, I asked the driver if the time on his car clock was right, he said yes. It said 5:40. I walked into the quiet guesthouse following the groundskeeper as he lugged my bags up the stairs. I opened my freezing cold bedroom, brushed my teeth and got under the covers with all of my clothes on. As I went to sleep, I felt completed isolated. I felt that not a soul in the world knew where I was except for the driver and the groundskeeper. I laid in the silence under the covers like I was sleeping on the top of a mountain or on stranded beach in complete solitude. It could have been frightening. But I felt calm. I knew somehow, I had all I needed.
And I closed my eyes.
At exactly 12:30, I awoke, as I thought I would. Six hours is all I am allowed, or I won’t be able to sleep that night. Though my body had grown accustomed to being 9 hours different, now I add two more hours, now I am really on the other end of the earth. I can’t help but feel it, but now I am really away, whereas the south Caucasus feels very Europe like, now I am away from all of that. Unlike Tbilisi and even Yerevan, no one has bothered to learn English here although maybe in ten years the new generation will have it. In Yerevan I had internet DSL in my fancy hotel room, here, I have very slow internet and only from the main computer in the guesthouse. I am far away.
I sat today in a staff meeting of our partner office. It’s a completely Tajik managed and run office. It’s the best example of development I have seen. Young tajiks and their director, a Turkmen, are creating ideas, are developing projects, questioning management decisions, offering solutions, coming up with great ideas. As the world changes, as development money shrinks and priorities change, I am disheartened that the future development of these 10 smart people is threatened, that perhaps they can go to other organizations but at this organization they have a bit more space to create and try.
After a full day of work we go to dinner at an Indian restaurant. I walk in and the smell of oil heaters takes over my nose and I am nostalgic. Nostalgic for a whole time and place that doesn’t exist, at least for me, anymore. I smell and feel Afghanistan the most in Dushanbe.
After dinner my colleagues and I share a cab and we accidentally drop them off first at their hotels. They leave me with the cab driver. Its not the smartest decision on any of our parts, but somehow I am unworried. Some magic, the magic that always happens here, will happen again. So in Persian and Tajik my cab driver and I try to find our way to my guesthouse. I have a landmark that is unhelpful, the Telephone company building. We get close and I am trying to go on memory from when I was here in March. Nothing looks familiar, and I am worried, maybe this was as stupid as it seemed, especially since I don’t have any phone number for anyone in Dushanbe, not my colleagues, not my friends, not even the guesthouse. I have nothing.
He tells me not to worry because he hears me sighing. The streets are all dark and all the same. Then I see a park and it seems like it is on the wrong side of the road. We drive a bit and I finally understand. I know where I am. We turn around and I see the gate. I have no idea how, but we found it. I am safe. It feels like a miracle.


Being Iranian is much more helpful than being western here.

Saturday in Tbilisi

Saturday in Tbilisi
Today I followed light, or rather it eluded me, always not where I am, always shining somewhere impermanently and not on me. I walked outside and it was a nice day, the trees in Tbilisi, the trees that are everywhere, that are big and that are varied, they gave me a smile. As I walked down Rustaveli I would look up and the great pine trees made it seem like I was in some mountain forest, only to hear the loud cars and look around to see the huge cafes and shops alongside the road. Tbilisi is tricky like that, you look to your right and you see a mountain, it seems like you are on some mountain ridge, but then you realize you are in a hectic city center.
I walked down the winding huge busy street, stopping in shops we don’t have in the US, French shoppes, with a more alternative style. I walked passed couples and young people, Georgians seem to have a bit of European style, lots of black clothes, and a little bit of punk mixed in. I went up side streets when I got tired of the noise and generic feeling of the big street. Up those steep streets were the oldest buildings, and inside them people lived. Many buildings were dirty, like someone needed to come clean out the dirt in between the corners, at the joints connecting the buildings, in the entrances, around the windows, all of the places where dirt can sit, and perhaps has sat for a long time. Everything needed a high pressure wash.
I turned right onto one street chasing the elusive sun that shined on the trees at the top of the street. It looked so old and beautiful up there. But I never made it so high, I got curious and turned left right before. Walking back to Rusteveli I saw the sun in a rectangle shape on one of the dirty walls. I couldn’t stand tall enough to feel some of the sun on my face, and therefore missed it again.
Back on Rusteveli and after an hour I reached a big intersection marked by an old building that stood alone, almost separating the street high above with Parisian style architecture. Perhaps at one point it was a fancy café or restaurant, of course now it inhabits a McDonalds.
Somehow stopping at the McDonalds for a coke sounded ideal. I never eat at a McDonalds in the States, well, except for desperate situations, usually during traveling. But somehow I craved French fries and a coke. I wanted simplicity, self sufficiency, I didn’t want a waiter, or a wait. I just wanted a snack to eat wherever I wanted. And it worked. I sat outside the McDonalds in the shade and watched the light over on the other side of the city, across the bridge, where the light shined softly over a landscape of houses, and churches.
I drank my coke, poured with no ice, without me having to ask and starting walking again. I walked through the book sellers on the street and the gallery of stores on the sidewalk until I reached a large building with fountains. There a gypsy woman asked me for money and I gave her a five. As I walked on I suddenly was bombarded with begging of another girl who got on her knees and grabbed my leg unless I paid her. I tried to walk away, but her grip was too tight. I gave her my last bill of one lari and she walked away.
I went to dinner that night with a Georgian friend from grad school. It was a French restaurant, one of the three restaurants established by a Georgian chef who studied in New York. I had the best chocolate soufflé I have had in years. The center just poured onto the plate.
I liked Tbilisi because it wasn’t failing in its attempt to be modern and stylish. Maybe it is imitating trends, but they move with these trends with ease and with their own style. They own it with confidence. They are not self-conscience. It is their world and it makes me want to be in it.

Monastery outside of Yerevan

We stood at the ledge of the valley, in silence, we had agreed, that each would enjoy the view casually, individually, yet in proximity to each other. The light of the afternoon was like a lazy summerset, an innocent yellow, like the color of newborn baby’s blanket, it shined over the valley, making the changing tree leaves fluorescent against the brown hillside. Along the ridge of the mountain, the sound of water would start and stop depending on which angle of the bend we walked on.
The monastery stood at the tip of the mountain, where down below, two rivers met. It stood like a model in a perfect photograph, almost unbelievable and definitely unattainable.