24 March 2010, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

It's the anniversary today. Everyone here is talking about it and some remember with horror as they tell the story. Rysbek told me about his own experience this morning. "It started at about four o'clock in the afternoon and went until midnight. There were gangs of people everywhere. I watched maybe a thousand people walking up the street in a big crowd and they were throwing fire bombs into the businesses as they walked. It was a very bad time." It was only six years ago when the government in Kyrgyzstan was rocked by violent upheavals in the streets. Police and military pulled out their big guns and fired into the crazed and rampant crowds, but the people were only angered more by the reaction and the president finally stepped down in disgrace and turned the country over to his "popular" successor.

Today the people are even more angered by their successor and his blatant disregard for their will. President Bakiev isn't very popular any more. He's drained the country's coffers and taken over all of the businesses in the country that make any profit at all. Roads have fallen into disrepair and criminal elements have moved into the downtown area of the capital city. Water and electricity rates have jumped 500% since his takeover and now he's looking to put a tax on cell phone minutes that will cause rates to grow my more than 1000% in one blow. Bakiev has filled the regulatory offices with family members and friends and corruption careens uncontrolled throughout the government.

Yesterday afternoon all of the civilian employees on the base were called into a meeting and told that the Base Commander has decided to keep us safe from what appears to be impending violence in the streets by locking us down inside the Transit Center until the atmosphere changes on the outside.

Knowing the trial that we'd be facing under a lock-down condition, we were told to go to our apartments and gather a few things to get us through for a few days. We were also sternly warned to be back on the base by sundown. The meeting was short, but we didn't have much time. Bert, one of my friends here and a neighbor in the city, asked me if I would like to go with him to gather our things. I asked him, "Do you mean that we can share a taxi into town?" He laughed. "No. We're not going to ride a taxi. It's too expensive. We'll take the bus from the airport!" We went through the security steps to get through the airport gate and put our military identification out of sight into our pockets. As we walked across the big parking lot toward the terminal a man came toward us. He was dressed in a dark suit, neatly pressed and wildly iridescent in the sunshine.

"You want taxi?"

"No, thank you."

"Express taxi to Bishkek."

"No, thank you."

"You need taxi. I drive you."

"No, thank you."

"Very nice taxi. I show you. Here." He pointed to a black BMW with dark tinted windows and nothing to indicate that it was a taxi.

"No, thank you." He finally faded behind us as we kept walking.

"I don't like these guys who have faux taxis and want to collect 450 Som for a ride into the city," Bert explained. "You never know if you'll end up where you really want to go." A van came into the parking lot with a large number in the windshield. "380. That's our bus," Bert added. He opened the door and stepped up, handing the driver 60 Som. "Dvyeh," he said. "Two." I thanked him as we sat down. We rode down the long street next to the airport, a road lined with tall, white-trunked Birch trees. The leaves were starting to bud and they had the distinctive yellow-green color of Spring. We stopped at the village of Manas to pick up a woman and her two beautiful children. All three were dressed as if they were going to spend the evening at the ballet, but it was just a short ride for them to the crowded Bishkek Bazaar. Along the way we passed a Kyrgyz man on his horse, riding alongside his small herd of brown, hairy A'la Too cattle. A shepherd stood in the middle of his little flock as they grazed in the center of the entrance of the freeway to Almaty and Tashkent. Two white goats hugged his legs and nibbled the grass at his feet. We stopped in Pregorodnoye and picked up a woman who had just finished her shopping. She carried a small plastic bag with four fat, dirty carrots in it that looked like they'd just been pulled up from the soil.

The bus took us through a whirling, colorful marketplace in the busy daytime city. People were crowded around the small wooden stands and improvised roadside displays of everything from tomatoes to cell phones. The tiny shops each had a few soft drinks--Fanta, Coca Cola, Sprite and Pepsi to sell. The bus filled up until the aisle was crowded with standing passengers and I stood to give my seat to a woman who carried a baby in her arms. I smiled as she sat down and said, "ah-NAH krah-SOHT-ka." "She's a beauty." The woman smiled back and when the baby saw me, so did she.

"This is our stop," Bert told me and we pushed through the crowd to the door. "So, how did you like your bus ride?" he asked me.

"That was fun! A whole new adventure! I saw things on that ride that I'll never forget!" And the bill? 66 Som apiece. Eighty two American cents! The slick taxi driver would have charged us ten dollars each.

I walked up the stairs to my apartment building in the light. Three young boys sat in a small patch of dirt near the stoop, pushing their toy cars along tiny dirt roads, just the way I did so many years ago. It was strange to see things in the light of day for a change. When I arrived at the green steel door an old woman came out, hobbling with a cane and carrying a plastic shopping bag. She spoke to me in Russian and I missed the entire sentence. She held the bag out toward me and I took it. Then she smiled and started to struggle slowly down the stairs. I took her arm to help as she struggled with each step until we reached the bottom. She smiled as she took her bag back and spoke again. All I caught was the thank you from this lovely little "babushka." "Pa-ZHAH-lu-stah." "You're welcome." I live in a nine-story building and I hardly ever meet my neighbors. This was only the second, but it gave me pleasure to know that someone else in this huge city is no longer a stranger.