Uprising in Kyrgyzstan - 7 April 2010

Jed actually has an apartment in Bishkek, but is staying on the airbase until things settle down... who knows when that might be. Please keep him and al the service boys there in your prayers.

===============================================

Heavy shooting breaks out in Kyrgyz Capitol - Yahoo News

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap20100408/ap_on_re_as/as_kyrgyzstan_protest


===============================================

Easter Morning

It’s a cold, rainy Easter morning in Bishkek. If not for the clouds it probably would have been light when I left my apartment this morning, but it was still dark.

I’m a little wary when I leave the apartment these days. A few nights ago I was trying to fall asleep when I heard a loud argument out in the entry, next to the elevator. The argument was accompanied by loud banging and thuds so I cautiously opened the peep hole in the door and looked out to see what could be going on. A man in black underwear was standing in the entry next to his girlfriend and both of them were arguing with another man who was just outside the steel fence that separates the apartments from the stairways and elevator. The man in the underwear was swinging a large stick and banging on the fence as he screamed at the man outside. The woman kept screaming “Oo-xha-DEE! Oo-xha-DEE!” “Go away! Go away!” I unlocked my door and opened it wide enough to get my head out and I growled in English, “Hey! Knock it off! I’m trying to get some sleep in here!” All three of them seemed shocked that I had yelled at them in English and I closed and locked my door again. The argument stopped. I watched through my peep hole as the man outside went down the stairs and the couple returned to their apartment.

This morning I pushed the elevator button and waited while the car travelled the six floors to my level. I kicked a box of matches out of the corner of the elevator into the entry way as the door was closing. On the main floor I looked at the wall to see the words “Don’t litter” written in Cyrillic letters, my confirmation that this was, indeed, the main floor. Someone had thrown a beer bottle into the corner of the hall, breaking the green glass and sending it all over the floor. The odor of urine was stronger than normal. Some of the local drunks use the hall as a bathroom at night because some of the building residents leave the heavy steel door cracked for convenience. I pushed the large, green, steel door open without pulling the latch back and stepped out onto the porch. I listened to the sound of rain on the tin roof for a moment as I looked down the long, black alley toward the road.

Slava was already waiting on the street as I walked down the steps. “Unusual,” I thought. “Slava’s never early. Am I running late today?” I walked down the dark alley toward the glowing tail lights and I unzipped the pocket of my jacket and took out my flashlight. I wanted to check my watch to see if I’d left later than normal and I needed the small light to see my watch in the early morning darkness. I turned on the flashlight and then began to pull my sleeve up over my watch, but it was a struggle since I was wearing a long-sleeved shirt, a sweat shirt, a fleece jacket and my parka shell. It was just too many layers to move easily and so I struggled with it, the flashlight shining on my wrist and glaring in the dark.

I didn’t see it. I knew it was there, but I didn’t see it. A 500 pound block of concrete to keep cars out of the alley blocks the entrance. I was paying too much attention to my struggle and the glare of the flashlight. My left foot stopped. My body continued to move forward. My right foot was just planted too hard to move. My body continued on its way, only now it was going down toward the dark muddy alley path. I caught my fall on the knuckles of my right hand, jolting my elbow hard. The palm of my left hand was next, catching the ground in an effort to keep my head from smacking hard into the heavy mud. My left leg had rolled onto the top of the heavy concrete block and there I was, looking like I’d just finished a pushup in the dark drizzle. A man walked past just at that moment and he laughed as I recovered and stood up. I limped to the shuttle and opened the door. “DO-bray OO-truh,” Slava said with a half smile. “Good morning, Slava.” I sat on a double seat and stretched my left leg out and nursed the pain in my right elbow.

When the shuttle arrived at the gate I got out and looked down at myself in the light of the morning to see what the damage was. My trousers were covered with dark mud. The palm of my left hand was caked with mud and the knuckles of my right hand were bleeding through the mud that was caked over the scrapes.

I paused to pick up a few cigarette butts and a large pile of candy wrappers in the parking lot outside of Liberando’s before I pulled the heavy door open and walked in. “Man, what happened to you! You look like you fell down!” Ruben was just stating the obvious as he pulled on his jacket. “Nothing big happened last night,” he added as he hurried out the door. I looked around the room and whimpered to myself as my elbow throbbed.

4 April 2010, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

On March 30^th we rode from Bishkek and headed down the road to our gate at the base. Each morning we pass villages and towns along the way, places like Pregorodnoye, Lesnoye, Ak-Zhol, Uchkun, Manas and Kamyshanovka. Each town has its own flavor, its own personality, and I can almost feel the oil paint dripping from my brush as my mouth literally waters at all of the sights. That morning I watched a full moon set over Ak-Zhol just as the sun rose behind us. It evoked emotions reminiscent of Ansel Adams’ famous photograph called “Moonrise, Hernandez” and I ached for a camera and a few minutes to capture that instant forever. But the photographer’s first rule was the one I broke, “f8 and be there.”

The farmers are burning their old stubble during the day and it fills the air with layers of bluish smoke that settle through the night. The layers of smoke weave themselves in among the homes with corrugated steel roofs, some painted in peeling, fading red or blue hues mixed with the rusty red that creeps down each valley in the corrugations. Each roof is steep to help the snow slide off in the severe Kyrgyz winters.

Each evening I watch countless people walking along the well-worn path at the side of the road. Some carry burlap bags, half-filled with vegetables for their evening meals while others walk alongside their cows or their sheep. A few of the fortunate ride their stocky, round-nosed horses or drive small, horse-drawn wooden carts. Once I watched two horses playing at the side of the road, jumping up at each other and butting heads in a way that you might expect to see two young dogs playing. Two evenings ago I watched a man leading his cow across the freeway. As they reached the opposite side they faced a raised concrete channel for irrigation water and an obvious difficulty for the cow. The man slapped her on the hind quarter and she jumped the channel. It surprised me to see a cow jump that high, but the channel turned out to be no more than a bump in the road to her and it was much more of an obstacle to the man who followed.

Everyone wears black in this country, long black wool overcoats or short black wool jackets. Men wear black leather hats or dark baseball caps. A few men wear tall, white, traditional Kyrgyz hats with white embroidered designs. The women wear thick black leather boots that make me think of Eskimo muck-lucks, and the women always amaze me with their bright, colorful silk scarves, carefully wrapped around the front of their hair and tied carefully in the back. Their scarves provide most of the color in the rural environment and they save the rest of the countryside population from a total monotone form of depression.

Kyrgyzstan is filled with the extremes created by their near-sighted system and by the corruption that comes with power. Choices are limited in everything. At the same time that I gaze at the endless masses on the side of the road, a few fast BMW’s and Mercedes Benz cars glide easily past us in the inside lane. The police here are powerless to enforce speed limits because they don’t ride in patrol cars, but stand helplessly at the side of the road with flashing red signal lights in their hands and whistles to attract attention. I watched one policeman hold out his signal light and blow his whistle at a speeding BMW, but the car kept speeding down the road as the policeman waved the impotent flashing light angrily above his head and continued to blast away on the tiny tin whistle. His frustration was painfully evident.

There’s a hot water system that runs through the city of Bishkek. The water is heated in a plant on the outskirts of the city and then piped underground to every city block. At the beginning of the month of May each year the system is shut down for cleaning and repairs. For that entire month residents are subjected to cold showers and cold water washes of their clothing and dishes. The temperature inside apartment buildings is also controlled by government edict. On April first all steam heat is turned off and left off until the first of October. Residents continue to pay their monthly utility bills, though, just as if the services were still available.