Notes from Cottonwood

Day 21 of Iradi. Here is what I have so far:

• Salam (hello). Everyone answers with something longer and I just smile.
• Rahmat (thank you). Said it forty times at the bazaar.
• Kancha? (how much?). Don't ask this without knowing the answer in advance, or you'll laugh.
• Jakshy (good). Sam says it to everything, even broccoli.

At the bazaar nobody minds if you mix English and Iradi and hand signals. A man selling honey said in English "Very sweet, very good, my sister live in Chicago." Half the country has a sister in Chicago!

You asked what Cottonwood Estates is. It's about two hundred wood-frame houses built in 1997 for the contractors, with lawns, a little pool, a playground and a gate with a guard (a very polite man called Marat who waves at the kids). All the houses look alike, so Lily came home to the wrong one twice.

The funny part is that the wood-frame houses are the only ones like that in the whole country. Everything else around here is brick or concrete. There's a lumber yard at the edge of the neighborhood that sells boards in feet and inches, and the sign has both. Mark says the owner is a proud man.

Our street at 7 a.m. The mountains are behind the clouds.

Our neighbor Linda took me to the big bazaar on Saturday. It's called Bazar-i Kalan, "the great bazaar" I think, and it is the loudest, brightest, smelliest place I have ever been. Mountains of melons. Whole sheep hung up. Spices in bags the size of pillows. A man selling only alarm clocks, fifty alarm clocks, all ringing at different times.

Bazar-i Kalan on a Saturday. The man with the clocks is just out of the picture.

I bought a round flat bread (nan) for 2 som. That's 40 cents. It was still hot and I ate half of it in the car. Linda says everybody does.

Everyone smiled at us. Nobody was rude. A lady at a spice stall gave Lily a piece of dried apricot for free and wouldn't take money. I didn't know where to look.

Well, we're here! Three weeks now, and it's the first time I've sat down long enough to type more than an e-mail.

The flight was 31 hours with the layovers and Lily threw up over Germany. The base people met us at the airport with a van and a very nice sergeant who carried the heavy bag and refused a tip. Our house is a two-story wood-frame with a front lawn, a porch and a real garage. It could be in Ohio except for the mountains at the end of the street. Giant white mountains, in September! Sam says they're fake. They are not fake.

More soon. Boxes everywhere.