One of my favorite activities is daydreaming how I would change the world if I had the power to do so. Maybe not the entire world; that might be too ambitious. Perhaps only one country. Obviously, it would have to be a place that I know to some degree. There are several such spots in the world, Uzbekistan being the most recent one. The encounter that I am so fond of visualizing would be with someone in power, probably the current Uzbek President. It would go like this. The President leans confidentially towards me. We are seated on a huge sofa in one of those preposterously overdecorated rooms that I imagine presidents are fond of. “So, Ms. Zora. You have been in our country for a while now. You know our people, our culture. What would be one recommendation that you could make, to speed up the development of our country?” And I would ponder the question as if I had never given it any thought but was doing my best to answer it now. After a suitable pause I would lean back to him. “Mr. President. As an educator, I would introduce a new course. It would preferably start in Grade One and should carry throughout the entire schooling until the students graduate. It would really change your country’s mindset.” “Oh, and what would be such a course?” he seems genuinely intrigued, gazing at me intently, stroking his chin thoughtfully. “It would be on Long-Term Planning and Time Management.” At this point my dream can go either way, depending on my mood. The President could either act surprised or nod sagely, acknowledging how aware he is of the issue.
Sometimes it seems to me that Uzbeks always do things on the spur of the moment, even big activities that one would expect to be thoroughly thought through in advance. I was reminded of this Uzbek characteristic recently. It was Wednesday during our exam week, with everyone already stressed out, when the Admin finally shared with us the dates of the Nowruz holiday. The National holiday fell on Tuesday and Wednesday and, since we had already worked the previous Saturday, we were finally officially told that we would have five days off. This is the biggest holiday in Uzbekistan, celebrating the Vernal Equinox and the advent of Spring. All air and rail seats were already sold out, so there was no way to extend our mini vacation in Tashkent, something that Dave and I had planned a month earlier. But our tickets were for the weekend only because we had had no advance knowledge of the extended Nowruz days off. And then another drama began … starting with a message from our VP informing us that we should not remain in our rooms that weekend because the school was going to be disinfected. Dave and I just sighed with relief, as we were going to be in Tashkent, so we would not be affected. Several of our colleagues were not so lucky. “Does anyone know how much the Jipek Joli (aka ‘Silk Road’) Hotel is?” was the first question my neighbor across the hall asked. She and her husband were stuck in Nukus and had to find somewhere … anywhere to stay. And they had to find it fast because Nowruz is not the best time to make travel arrangements on the spur of the moment. But that is exactly what we were forced to do. “I would just love to know when they got this idea that they would spray the school with poison this weekend. Was it today, or yesterday evening?” I asked the rhetorical question as several of us were commiserating about the situation.
Our colleagues were already booked into their hotel when a text message came to all of us that the day of the spraying had now been changed from Saturday to Sunday. Our smugness vanished. Dave and I were returning to Nukus from Tashkent on Sunday night. “Fantastic,” I turned to Dave, “how timely!” my words dripping with sarcasm. The news caught us in Tashkent, where we were having a very pleasant time, at least until this message arrived. The temperature was balmy, the trees were blossoming, and the cappuccino in the café where we were sitting was excellent. “So now we need to figure out where we are going to sleep from Sunday to Monday. They really are unbelievable sometimes.” I was referring to the Admin that seems to be either clueless or utterly uninterested how these decisions affect our well-being. A further message, that arrived several hours later, caught us walking through one of the many lovely parks Tashkent offers. This park is dotted with Uzbek cultural giants, from the 15th Century poet Bobur to more recent ones. The statues oversee carefully planted beds of spring flowers, with the tulips most prominent. It would have been a perfect atmosphere but for the message. The new text informed us that the spraying date had changed again, this time to Monday. I responded directly to Oybek, our maintenance manager, skipping our VP, who only passes on the messages from Oybek anyway. I was afraid some important details might get lost in the translation therefore I was very clear in my phrasing. “Can I sleep in my room on Sunday night? What time will the spray happen on Monday?” In his typical enigmatic manner, Oybek answered with one word. “Yes.” I took it as ‘Yes, we can sleep at school,’ and so we did.
On Monday morning I went to the security guys, who occupy a small room by the school entrance, with questions that I carefully doublechecked in Google Translate. “Do you know that someone will disinfect today?” There were two of them and they looked at each other and conversed in Uzbek. “Maybe.” That was not reassuring. “Who knows the details?”
“Oybek.” Great, I thought to myself. All poison sprinkled roads lead to Oybek. One of them started to dial and then passed me his phone.
“Mr. Oybek. How are you? Will they spray today?” “Yes.” “What time?”
“Maybe ten or eleven. But only the dormitory.”
“Not our rooms?”
“No.” In his deep voice, using mixture of Russian and English he told me, that the hotel wing, as they call the part of the building housing teachers, would be spared. “So, I don’t have to leave the room? I can stay in my room?” I was rephrasing to be absolutely sure that we understood each other. I didn’t fancy being exposed to the same chemicals they planned to use on the unwanted critters. “Yes. Don’t go to the dormitory.”
“Ok, thank you for telling me. And have a nice Nowruz.”
Our colleagues who spent the weekend at a hotel in Nukus quite un-necessarily, told us that they thought the spraying had been done on Sunday. “Well, if that is the case, it only added to my good night sleep. And I thought I was just tired from our Tashkent trip.” I laughed, secretly wondering if it really was possible that I had slept in a freshly sprayed room. I guess I will never know, I concluded.
Despite all the aggravations connected to the spray date changes, our Tashkent visit was wonderful. The weather in Tashkent is always warmer than in Nukus, and the colourful signs of spring were everywhere. The warm, sunny Saturday was like a promissory note of things to come in Nukus. During our visit to the Alisher Navoi park, with its many statues of venerated Uzbeks, we could feel the festive mood of Nowruz all around. While walking through the park, we saw several groups of families and friends picnicking on the new grass, kids playing ball, even popcorn sellers having a field day raking in a small fortune.
Dave had just finished taking a picture of me sharing a moment with a vastly oversized Alisher Navoi, another 15th Century poet and writer, and we began looking around to find the way out of the park to our next destination – the Tashkent Expo Grounds. A few steps from us I noticed a group of elderly people, the archetypical old generation Uzbeks, mostly women with their colourful scarfs wrapped around their heads and their teeth shining with gold. Normally, when someone wants to take a picture with me, which is not uncommon here, they ask. Unexpectedly, one lady separated from her group, covered the few steps separating us quite briskly for her age and, unprompted, put her arm around my shoulder and beckoned to her friends to take a pic.
“Quick Dave, I want a pic too,” was all I could say. “If she can take a picture without asking, so can you.” After the impromptu photo session, we all wished each other wonderful Nowruz and Dave and I left. Our plan was to see another exhibition at the Expo – the same place where we had enjoyed the wonderful multimedia show featuring Van Gogh a couple of months earlier. This time the focus was on nine impressionists, including my favorite dreamy Monet, using the same multimedia format as the VG show.
It was another incredible experience, a wonderfully designed multimedia show making you feel a bit trippy after entering the dark room with changing projections making it a challenge to decide where the floor ends and the walls begin. When resting on one of the bean bag cushions, the feeling continued while watching the colours of various paintings merge and the faces on the paintings morph. It was breathtaking and, when I got out of the room and the university-aged girl who had provided us with the translator earphones earlier asked me how I liked it, all I could say was, “It was amazing. I loved it.” She smiled, took the earphones from me and said something to her phone screen. That’s when I realized that she was chatting with someone on Skype. “Here,” she took her phone and pushed the screen in front of me. From it a young woman peered back at me.
“Hi,” she said in English.
“Hi,” I responded politely, not really knowing what was expected from me. “She is my friend,” said the girl behind the counter as if that explained everything.
“Where are you?” was my next question to the girl on the phone since I could not think of anything else.
“In Ukraine,” she answered breezily.
“Ahh, ok. I hope all is well there?” I asked stupidly.
“Yes, don’t worry.” The counter girl took her phone back and I asked, “So how do you know each other?” thinking perhaps she was a distant relative or an unlucky classmate who had moved to Ukraine before the war started. “We met on Instagram.” We live in a Brave New World, was my reaction. Maybe I really should put away my clay tablets and join it.
Our Tashkent visit was packed with activities, and it went too fast as usual. Before we knew it, we were back on the plane, this time heading the opposite way. You gotta be kidding me, went through my mind as I watched a big man crowding the isle, assessing the available overhead bins and looking down at his hugely oversized carry-on. “There is no way he can fit that in, Dave commented calmly. However, he lost his cool the moment the man decided, against all odds, to try anyway. He started by attempting to squish our luggage already safely stoved in the overhead compartment. “No! Stop!” Dave got up from his seat. For a good reason too. Our fresh croissants from the French bakery, which we were planning to freeze, were at risk of becoming pancakes. The man ignored Dave. “Stop it!” Dave put his hand protectively over the bag that held croissants. Luckily, we did not have to get into a fist fight over the limited space as the attendant quickly approached, conversed with the man and then took his cow of a luggage to the front of the plane. “Wow, see this is why children should play with blocks. It helps them develop spatial awareness.” I whispered to Dave and laughed, trying to lighten up the mood. “As a kid, this guy was obviously deprived of his blocks. How could he possibly think that he could fit that monster in?” Dave nodded but did not say anything. Mission accomplished, I can’t have him arguing with a local person, I thought. One never knows who is travelling on this plane. For all we know the crazy guy could be a parent of one of our students.
At the arrival, while waiting for our luggage, I noticed one familiar face. “Hello Ms. Najwa. Did you have a nice weekend?”
“Yes, very nice. And you? By the way, Happy Nowruz.” Our VP of Spiritual Wellbeing’s face beamed back at me before giving me a big Nowruz hug. Small world indeed!