Bekzhan's corner

It was a year with a hole in the middle: in December the Americans left, and the country (the new country?) is learning to say its own name. At the table tonight nobody talked about it. My grandmother made her usual toast: "that everyone at this table is here next year too."

My three wishes for 2007: a laptop, a job at a place with air conditioning, and quiet. I will take any two.

I said I will not write about politics, so this is not politics. Yesterday the Americans finished their withdrawal. On TV they showed the flag at the old High Commissioner's office. My uncle works at the base as a cook and they told him the base stays and his job stays, so in our family nobody knows what to think.

Father says: "In 1992 nothing changed for one month, and then everything changed." Mother says go to sleep. I go to sleep.