June 16, 2012

I slept until 7:30am in spite of the noise from the street and the clanging of the elevator right outside our door. I made coffee, took a look at the photos I had taken so far, and set out to write a memo to Sandy which outlined my accomplishments in the past eight months so she could write a letter of recommendation for me. It started to rain shortly after I got up and the mountains were barely visible through the clouds. I cooked the muesli while still waiting for Valerie to wake up and felt frustrated at not being able to find any spices to add to it, so I had to be satisfied with just milk and sugar.

When she did get up, I informed her of my plans to set out on my own to find the market and other sights nearby and to meet her at the American Corner around 1:00pm. She thought that perhaps we could take the cable car in the evening to see the Kok-Tobe Tower . The rain had stopped but the skies remained dark and ominous.  I paused to take pictures of the convenience stores that here are located inside the bus stops to facilitate the purchase of snacks by the riders, and the kiosks that still sell newspapers, magazines and tobacco products as they used to the in States ages ago.

The monuments to both World War One and Two are impressive structures located in the same urban park as the cathedral and are intended to leave the visitor in awe. I had no trouble locating the public market beyond that and found it to a much more sanitized version of the one in Dushanbe with stall neatly arranged and few people circulating about. I started to snap pictures, with the necessary permission of the stall owners, only to be stopped later on by an administrator who gently pointed at the image of a camera with a cross on top informing me that photos were prohibited. I saw only one couple speaking English, but couldn’t tell whether they were Americans or British. Two things were new to me, the array of Korean salad vendors offering samples of their products, which I didn’t the stomach to taste at that time of the morning, and the stalls selling sheep heads which are intended to be offered to the guest of honor at Kazak celebrations.

I saw a sign for a second hand shop and out of curiosity, for I certainly didn’t need any more clothing,  walked in to sample the merchandise only to be faced with signs indicating that most items were being sold in the price range of 3500-5000.00 tenge or $23.00-33.00. No wonder Valerie had said clothing was extremely expensive here even at the second hand shop. It might also explain how poorly people seemed to be dressed here, not in rags, but in style. The clothes just seemed to be ill-fitting, in odd colors such as orange and somewhat mismatched. For all their boasting about having access to such stores as the Gap, Dolce & Gabbana, and Tiffany’s, people here, and especially the women, seemed to have thrown together outfits without regard to any style conventions and simply looked frumpy .

I stopped at the Interfood supermarket Valerie had mentioned, a German chain, and found everything to be very expensive while the array of packaged goods was beyond impressive. On my way back through the park, I found the requisite wedding parties getting ready to be photographed in front of the war monuments, something still inexplicable to me. It started to rain as the one brides got out of her Hummer limousine and fussed with the crinoline hoop that kept her dress all puffed up. I retraced my steps and found the right intersection to take the bus to the American Corner where I needed to use the Internet while waiting for Valerie to finish her participation in the conversation and games club they offer there. It was raining heavily when I got there and it never let up.

I was impressed to see two young girls conduct the conversation club on the topic of vegetarianism with Valerie only chiming in at certain points. They had even prepared a PowerPoint outlining the advantages of becoming a vegetarian, some famous people who were vegetarians and quotes from them as to the advantages of being one. Attendance was somewhat high taking into account the dreadful weather outside and when the attendees broke into smaller groups, their talk was quite lively and passionate, whatever camp they happened to be on. I wondered whether the conversation club in Dushanbe was run along the same lines. When this activity was over, Valerie played a game of “Taboo” with the topic of famous personalities whereby the attendees had to describe the person without mentioning the name and had one minute to do so. I liked the game and hope to incorporate it into the list of activities I’m considering for the Access program summer camp.

It was thundering and raining heavily when we took the bus to the Coffeedelia restaurant where I ordered a cup of tomato soup only as my stomach seemed to have been upset all day. Smoking was allowed outside, but the smell filtered back into the restaurant every time someone came in or left, and seemed worse than in Dushanbe since here both men and women smoke in public. We made our way through flooded streets back to the apartment where I had a mug of hot milk, talked to Valerie for a bit and went to sleep early. I had no idea what I’d do the following day and felt somewhat out of sorts.