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.

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Heavy shooting breaks out in Kyrgyz Capitol - Yahoo News

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


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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.

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.

13 March 2010, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

I stood on the street this morning, waiting for my ride to work, when a man across the street emerged from a dark alley next to a gambling club and called to me in Russian. “Did you see another man go this way?” “Nyet. Ya ee-VOH nye VEE-dill.” “No. I didn’t see him.” He was dressed in a black overcoat and he started walking toward me, crossing Muscovskaya Street in the dark quiet of the morning. In the distance the Mu’azzin began the early morning call to prayers from the city’s central mosque. “Allah, hoo-AKH-bar!” “God, he is greatest.” This slowly approaching stranger was suspicious and he changed his language. “Do you speak English?” I was immediately wary of the unusually large man and I prayed, “Please, God, let Oleg come around the corner. I think I need him now.” And then I answered the man. “Yes, of course I speak English.” He spoke as he walked, “What you wait for here?” I watched his eyes as they checked me over. “My ride.” I wasn’t going to give him any more information. “Where you going?” He was a little too close for comfort. “Work.” It was my last word to him. I knew that there would be no more conversation. Just then the white van came around the corner and the man stepped back. I boarded the van with, “DOH-bree OO-truh.” “Good morning,” and shut the door behind me. “Thank you, God.”

We sat waiting for Jeff again this morning and I spent the time observing the hard lives of the Kyrgyz people. Two of the “dvorniks” (street sweepers) worked their way toward our van and I watched them for a few moments. The brooms that they use are about as long as a broom that we use in America, but the straws are about the same length as the handle is. They carry the brooms at their waist, turning the entire upper body to sweep the bristles from side to side along the road. This morning, after one woman had accumulated a large pile of dirt and papers, she set the broom down and bent to scoop the dirt pile up with her bare hands. She worked for about a minute with her hands, scooping the debris and pouring it carefully into a small plastic trash bag. Then she picked up the broom and began sweeping the road again. It was cold out. It snowed yesterday, and though the clouds had cleared away, the wind was icy and biting.

Another man came around the corner where we sat. He shuffled, bent over, obviously in pain. He was thin. He was much thinner than he should have been and he made me think of Sanjeev Kumar in Iraq. He wore what looked like plastic boots on his oddly twisted feet and his thin jacket didn’t look like it was keeping the bitter cold away from his frail looking, tiny body. He clutched at his jacket at the neck, trying to keep the wind out and shuffled away down Toktogula Street. Rita commented at his appearance, “That looks like a hard life.” I thought the same thing.

17 March 2010, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

On Thursday, March 11th, we at Liberando’s Lair hosted a visit by General David Petraeus, Commander of the Middle East Theater of Operations. I can honestly say that by the time he actually arrived at our little building I was completely worn out. For the twenty four hour period leading up to his visit here, I had Colonels, Lt. Colonels, Majors, Chief Master Sergeants, Master Sergeants and Tech Sergeants looking, probing and searching for anything that might be out of place during the visit. By Thursday morning I was expecting someone to ask me to drop my drawers for an internal exam, but, thankfully, it never came.

When the hour drew near for his arrival, Chief Liles walked in and announced the visit to the troops who were enjoying the peace and quiet, watching TV or playing a game of Pool. After the Chief’s announcement, though, the atmosphere was changed. It was no longer a peaceful place, but one filled with tension. A few of the soldiers slipped out the back door when the Chief wasn’t watching.

Suddenly, the Chief tensed and called out to everyone in the building, “Troops! Get ready!” That was followed by a gruff, “Atten-HUH!” The troops who were left in the room all snapped to attention as the General strode in. “As you were!” he called out. He shook my hand and turned immediately to the Sergeant Major who stood by the door. They greeted each other like old friends and the General glanced around the room and then disappeared into the empty room that’s about to be converted into a barber shop. A hand-selected group of soldiers and Marines had been taken into the room earlier to meet with General Petraeus. The door closed behind him and the room was silent. It was still tense.
Forty minutes later the door flew opened and the General strode out, looked around again briefly and then left the building.

On Sunday afternoon Staff Sergeant Greer walked in and announced that he was about to do a surprise cash count. I was just getting ready to leave for church, but that was pre-empted by the Finance Department. The count was off by $2.00, so we had to search the inventory until we found out that someone had rung up an extra Red Bull without giving it to anyone. I missed church because of a Red Bull.

My landlady called Salamat the other day to ask him to deliver a message to me. “Sir, when you paid your rent you gave the landlady 300 American dollars. She said that they were wrinkled and would like you, the next time you pay rent, to give her newer money.” I just rolled my eyes at the request. “You’ll have to tell the landlady for me that I don’t have the luxury of choosing new money or wrinkled money. I just take the dollars that they give me. If she wants me to pay her in “Som” then I will pay her each month in Som. But I’m not going to worry about whether or not the money has a few wrinkles in it. Tell her that I can always find another apartment.” Salamat smiled as he said, “I think your landlady is a little crazy. I know my people and she’s a little bit crazy.”

On Monday night I turned on the light in my apartment living room and it popped with a bright blue flash. The room stayed dark. I used my flashlight and a kitchen chair to get to the bulb and when I unscrewed it from the fixture I learned that it had a small, non-standard base. I put my jacket on and went out into the night to find a light bulb, but without any luck. Lots of places had “LAM-poch-kee” but they all had the large bases. I asked one man where I could find a smaller bulb and he told me to go around the corner to a “construction” store called “Comfort.” “But you must go before three in the afternoon,” he added. Great! I don’t get home before eight, and sometimes it’s even later. My apartment remains dark, illuminated only by the small television set that plays one of three Russian channels.

On Tuesday night I tried going in a different direction to find a store where I might find a lampochka, but still I had no luck. As I started back to the apartment I was met by a man who crossed the sidewalk to shake my hand. “Miseur Mamadu Kande from Senegal,” he announced.

I shook his hand and answered “Zdrastye,” in my best Russian accent.

He suddenly looked disappointed, but continued in Russian, “I thought you were an American. I was going to speak to you in English for practice. I’m sorry. I’m Mister Mamadu Kande from Senegal.”

This time I answered in English, “Jed Clark from Houston, Texas.” His face brightened again and he spoke to me again in English. “I am a professor of the French language at the University here. French is my native tongue. I am from Senegal. I have been here for more than twelve years, teaching French language and computer science at the University. I understand that the United States Air Force is in Bishkek.” I could tell where this was headed.

“Yes, they are.”

“Do you have contact with them?” he asked me.

“Yes, I do.” I’d just closed my side of whatever conversation he wanted to have.

“I would like to work for the United States as a translator. I speak several languages well and could do a good job. I would like to help Obama out.” He really didn’t understand how much he had just closed the conversation with me.

“Do you have an email address,” I asked him. “I can give your name to someone I know and have them email you.”

His eyes brightened again. “Yes! Yes! That would be wonderful!”

I took Mr. Kande’s email address and he shook my hand again. I’ll give his name to someone, but the rest is going to be up to the U.S. military. The whole encounter was so symbolic of how the rest of the world feels about the United States. They all want to be a part of our country. They all want to be Americans, or at least be associated with the Americans. They all want something from us. But, of course, mostly they all want a better life for themselves.

9 March 2010, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

Tuesday morning, the day after International Women’s Day. It was a big holiday in Bishkek, with businesses closed and people walking up and down the streets all night long. They were still out as I left for work in the morning. There was a soft rain falling in the early darkness on Muscovskaya Street and I dropped the Styrofoam container from last night’s dinner into the MOO-sar-ka, the garbage bin. The white van came around the corner just as I arrived at the street and I took my usual seat, second one back on the right side, closed my eyes and propped my head against the window to get just another half hour’s sleep.

My eyes shot open a few minutes later at a commotion in the shuttle and I searched outside as we approached a car that was stopped in the road ahead of us. Orange flames leapt ten feet into the air from the engine box and we pulled up just as an old fire truck raced in from the other direction. Police and firemen scrambled to discover the depth of the situation. One fireman pulled the hose from the rear of the truck and began spraying down the flames, causing white billows of smoke where the flames had just been. Another fireman snatched a long pike from the truck and began jabbing the door on the driver’s side, trying to get it open. It was then that I noticed the shadow through the rear window. There was someone inside! He was moving from side to side, bumping up against the door, desperately trying to get out. “I wish I had a camera!” Sharon exclaimed at the sights. “Me too,” I thought.

The van didn’t linger very long, but was soon making a U-turn across Toktogula Street to take an alternative route to our last two passengers of the morning. Slava was our driver and I’ve never been impressed with his driving skills. He gets us to the gate ten minutes late just because he likes to take the back streets through the city. Oleg takes the main roads and we move through the city much more quickly. The back roads are bumpy and dark, but we’re able to get a view of Bishkek that we don’t get on the other days. The old homes look like photos that I’ve seen of towns in the U.S. that were taken during the early part of the 20th century. The homes are built from rough brown bricks, not crafted at all. Each home has a corrugated metal roof and the window coverings look like simple panels of cloth that are printed with colorful patterns from the 1950’s. The doors are mostly hand made from rough planks, likely collected from construction projects.

Our last two passengers are always picked up at the same corner on Toktogula. John is the manager of the dining facility on the flight line, recently married to a local Muslim woman who walks him to the corner every morning. They never kiss goodbye because public displays of affection are frowned on in the local culture, but they always have a “look” for each other as they separate for the day.

Jeff is the other passenger. He doesn’t tell anyone when he plans to ride the van or when he’s going to take a cab to work, so we spend a lot of time waiting at the corner. Finally, if he doesn’t show up by 6:28 a.m. the van leaves without him. It was like that this morning.

Jeff is an unusual guy. He’s in his thirties and is manager of all of the MWR facilities on the base. MWR stands for Morale, Welfare and Recreation. Anyway, Jeff has to fill in when people go on R&R or when they decide to quit altogether. He had a rough week last week. The daytime manager of Pete’s Place left to go on R&R, the night time manager decided to take an emergency leave and probably isn’t coming back, the night time manager at Shooter’s has decided to leave, the daytime manager of the DFAC has taken a better-paying job and will be leaving in another week and the Deputy Site Manager just turned into an Administrative Assistant.

Jeff poked his head into the chapel on Sunday, possibly looking for some solace in the midst of the storm, and found me standing up front preparing the sacrament for our little church meeting. I don’t think he noticed the other men in the chapel because they blend with everything in their camouflage, but my blue shirt stood out.

“What’s going on?” he asked with a slight tone of rudeness in his voice.

“Come on in, Jeff. We’re just in the middle of our LDS service.”

He suddenly realized that there were other men in the room, one a full-bird Air Force Colonel, and they were all looking back at him. He quickly backed outside and closed the door.

Yesterday, after learning of the latest company demotion, Jeff walked into Liberando’s and came over to where I was sitting at my desk. He just stood and looked around, almost as if he were lost. I asked him what was going on and he had a hard time talking.

“We’re losing people everywhere and the Deputy Site Manager was just demoted. I’m just wondering when my turn is going to be?” I could tell that his heart was sinking in a sea of despair.

“You know, Jeff, it will get better. That’s the thing about life. It gets really bad sometimes and then it gets better. Everything is going to be fine.” He didn’t respond but he turned and walked out again.

Last night as we boarded the van to go home Jeff climbed on behind me. For the first time since I’ve been here he tapped me on the shoulder as he walked up the narrow aisle and said a simple, “Hey, Jed.”