July 2, 2012

It seems predestined that I must be sleep deprived while finishing my assignment here. The reason this time was the match between Spain and Italy which took place between 12:00 and 2:00am and which had to be watched in Ryan’s bedroom while I tried my darndest to sleep. Every time someone scored a goal, the room would erupt in cheers and others would pipe in with comments and predictions. When my alarm went off at five, I felt as I had just fallen asleep a few minutes before. I made my coffee, finished packing the clothes that had been drying, and collected all of my cables to be able to plug everything I might need at camp. Fernando got up at half past five and was ready at six when Farid called confirming he had secured a taxi for us and would be coming by shortly to take us to the station where the taxis for Khorog departed.

This station is relatively close to the airport and had the look of an open air market. Farid took us to meet the young driver of a Toyota Land Cruiser claiming it was the best car in the lot to take us on the arduous trip to Khorog. Farid had forgotten that Fernando was with me, and being quite tall, needed to ride behind me and not in the third row of seats as the driver wanted him to do. We were fortunate to have Zack, from Oregon and working in the Khorog area for the last three years, come up at that time and discuss the issue with the driver in Pamiri as he didn’t speak Tajik at all. I had met Zack at Operation Mercy last January when I was doing the series of presentations on Washington, D. C. for their Access program. We left at 7:00am and had only driven for two hours, at what I thought was a rather slow pace, when the driver pulled over indicating something was wrong with the left front wheel and he had phoned his buddy, who was coming behind him, to help him figure out what was wrong. We stood under the scorching sun, six adults and two toddlers, some of us taking advantage of the desolate location to relieve our bladders, until Zack suggested that the driver move the car to a shaded area.

We pulled across a roadside restaurant where I ordered a bowl of dalda with plenty of hot sauce while Fernando only drank water having had plenty of biscuits and chocolate in the car already. Zack had stayed behind with the driver and returned to tell us we ready to roll as he had diagnosed the problem as being a lose wheel missing a bolt and having the other three just about to come lose.  I immediately lost all confidence in the driver and his vehicle and wondered what else could be wrong with it. I could see other vehicles overtaking us all the time until the driver confirmed his car was fueled by diesel, which was a cheaper fuel, and overheated easily, so he had to drive slowly. The sun was beating on my side of the car the entire time and I could find no relief by just fanning myself. There was no need to ask the driver if his A/C worked as even when it does, as in the one from Istaravshan that was brand new, people here believe it would make you sick.

We stopped for lunch at a truck stop where we were served something called “Bishkek”: a ground beef patty, buckwheat, mashed potato and shell pasta under something that looked like gravy. Fruit juice and flat bread rounded out the meal and we shared the table with the two sisters who had each a toddler with them. These children were the best behaved children I’ve seen for they rarely cried or complained even though they were riding at the back of the SUV and it must have been like a furnace back there. Their mothers had them strip down to their disposable diapers, but it must have been quite uncomfortable after so many hours. Zack had indicated we should have been able to make it to Khorog in about 11 hours in a good car, but our driver had to stop several times to cool the engine and add water to the radiator.

When we stopped for dinner at 6:00pm, plov and salad for me, Zack told me we still had six more hours to go and I thought he was pulling my leg, but it was the saddest truth. Although Fernando and I had been enjoying the views of the Afghanistan side of the border all afternoon, once the sun went down, there was nothing but the light of the moon reflecting on the Panj River and I was really concerned about our driver who must have been up since who knew when. In fact, Zack had remarked that he had come to the station with the idea of asking which driver had not seen the match the night before to insure he found someone who had gotten enough sleep. I had been fighting the urge to sleep all day, but once night fell the car was completely silent and I dozed off along with the others only waking up when the driver made a sudden stop or took a curve too sharply.

Tamriz had been in touch with the driver , and Zack told me I’d be getting off at a village one hour before Khorog. At 11:20pm, almost sixteen and half hour after leaving Dushanbe, the car stopped on the side of the road and two guys with flashlights came to help the driver unload my bags. I said goodbye to Fernando and Zack glad that the latter had offered to host Fernando for the night until he could locate a  hotel the next day. I followed the guys to a house where a separate room had been arranged for me furnished entirely with korpachas. I simply placed everything on the floor, brushed my teeth outside, was shown where to use the pit toilet, clarified where I could make my coffee in the morning  and promptly went to sleep without even bothering to change into my nightgown.