Notes from Cottonwood

We drove up the Trans-Talas Highway to the reservoir at Kyzyl-Adyr this weekend with the Parkers. About fifteen minutes out of town there's a roadside cross, with a small stone beside it, and some withered flowers. Mark slowed down and asked what it was. The Iradi man in the back seat (Parker's driver) didn't say anything for a while. Then he said, "Two years ago. A wedding bus." Five names on the stone.

I didn't know. I had read about it, in the way you read about something that happened to other people. The driver crossed himself and so did Mark. Sam asked why the flowers were fresh. Nobody answered him.

I don't know what to write. We're guests here, and some of the people who gave us soup are the same people who stood on that road with candles. I think that's the whole thing.

The reservoir at Kyzyl-Adyr, an hour later. It was very quiet.

I have a regular fruit man. His name is Rahim ata (ata = father, a polite word for older men). On Sundays after church I stop at his stall and he pretends to compete with the others by lowering his price a little and raising his voice a lot. Apricots are 6 som a kilo, apples 1.8, and he gives Lily one extra "for the road".

Today he asked where I'm from and I said Ohio. He thought for a while and said, "Ohio is a state, like Texas? Texas is good, I know cowboys." I said we have a few. He seemed satisfied.

Saturday we took the kids to the Old City. Narrow lanes, mud walls, carved doors with brass knockers shaped like hands. Our guide (Chynara's cousin) showed us the Temir-Kapka gate and the museum on the citadel mound, and told Sam that the mound used to be a fort where "bad people shot arrows at good people". Sam wants to know who was who.

A lane in the Old City. The door on the right is four hundred years old.

We ended at a small teahouse. The owner brought us cups half full, and I learned why: a full cup means "go home." So I drank fast and held out the cup so he could pour more. That earned a smile.

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.