Kyrgystan

Here I am in the very landlocked capital of Bishkek, Kyrgastan. As mentioned before, my ticket allows me 6 stops around the globe, the first three all being Africa, and now a quick introduction to Asia before I arrive home (October 19th, for inquiring minds). This stop was done by spinning a globe with my eyes closed, and it landed here in Kyrgystan. So glad it did! So the posts will continue here for the Asian Invasion. Quick notes: My mom mentioned that in a past blog posting I used the term "pink" bodies, and that not all bodies are this color. Really strikes home as I read one of Obama's books (the only one I could find in English on the Ethiopian sidewalks!). I was referring to the interiors of these bodies and not the epidermis. Sorry for any confusion there. Also thank-you to Marianne Romeo for posting the blogs in Ethiopia. The government there has strict control over which websites can be accessed, and blogger.com is not one of them. So the flight here from Adis Ababa was a long one. I flew out on New Years Eve from Ethiopia, so the timing was not great one my behalf. Happy 2002 everybody! Get to relive it all over again! The plane ride was packed with young European couples and their brand new adopted Ethiopian babies. They were so cute, and remarkably well behaved for having to leave on New Years Eve. All except one baby who made up for the rest with cries that were on the verge of hysteria. I felt bad for it, because it was certainly due to the pressure of taking off and landing. Rather than fighting the sound, I tried to turn it into an Arabic song with all of the subtle pitches and that it was just singing. It kind of worked. After the flight landed in Amsterdam, I had a few hours till a connection to Moscow, and figured this would be my last chance to buy some more quality colored pencils, as my black and brown ones were worn thin from drawing so many Africans. I am going to begin sketching everyone with their skin pulled off so that I will use up that slow going pink pencil! The Dutch being so efficient had that public transport so well set up, I made it to the art supply store, and back with enough time to have my first Starbucks coffee in 5 years, and all 50 oz. of it were quite disappointing after Ethiopia. Onto Moscow, where I performed another concert in the airport. Many people were curious and shyly (word??) gathered around, always pretending they were doing something else though...scroll through the cellphone, look at watch...hey listening is not a crime! Even after a few cold beers my throat sounds better than the airport paging machine. Now the sport is hockey, and everyone gathers around the TV with drink in hand. The Russian men seemed to all be stocking up on the Vodka from the duty free stores. Enough to kill an army. Many of them ordered Cokes on board the plane and made themselves little cocktails. No free drinks on Aeroloft...no one would ever leave the plane. The meals are always the same too! Salmon pate, rice, and cabbage mix. Not too bad, except a bit much at 7 a.m., and two more of these meals to go. So interesting to see where all the connecting flights are to after Kenya's African cities: Kiev, Tashkent, Budapest, Siberia. While waiting to pass customs, people just kept cutting till finally, I became fed up and said "Hey" to this big Russian guy, and nodged my bony rump between him and the clerk. It worked. You just got to fight your way around with a little more muscle in Moscow. One man was dressed in a polyester gold suit! He was the first one to cut me, and later I saw him pacing back and forth at the gate to Bishkek, Kyrgystan. I loved the way he would slide around on his penny loafers! Bishkek is a funny little capital. Quite modern looking, but in that "Soviets were here" look. The people could not be nicer. Sometimes people will walk up to you and shake your hand with a slight bow, not saying a word, and then carry on walking. They look so unique: a blend of Chinese, Mongolian, Russian, Middle East...and every other silk road wanderer. I took a bus on Monday up to lake Issy-Kol at the base of the Tian Sian mountains. Absolutely gorgeous mountains with brown foothills all around, and snow capped peaks in the background. I stayed the first night with a family in a town called Karakol. Kind of like a Colorado mountain town with long bearded Kirghiz men in strange hats. The family was incredible. The father's name was Timor, and he built the house himself. Also the pool table inside, the furniture and virtually everything insight. The mother was also an artist. They painted together, made rugs together, all in the stillness of their little house. The son and daughter, both in their late 20's, lived in the house and also made art, and helped run a section of the house as a guest house. The son was the only one who really could speak English (he was also a lawyer!). Timor was just so cool. I enjoyed so much being in his presence. He would always say in his soft patient voice "John, John, John", and smile as if he were reading my future and it looked good! I showed him my sketch book, and he took me upstairs to a library of books on mainly Russian artists. There I spent many hours drinking some red wine and thumbing through prints in the big silience. In the morning, the daughter had prepared a breakfast the size of the landscape...Omlettes, pancakes, coffee, tea, cheese, bread, juice, honey, candy, cucmber, tomatoe, and more. Ludicrious, even for my appetite! I then hiked about 16 km. up one of the mountain valleys to a place called Altyn Asharan, where there were oodles of hotsprings and concrete tubs. Big pine trees, glaciers, and a fast moving river. Every now and then, a yert would appear. And maybe a few guys doing some work outside. The nomads just kind of spend their life camping...like a Grateful dead tour. When things get stale, they pack up their horses, trucks, and house and find another spot. I stayed in a little old cabin run by two alpine-plump Russian immigrants. There I ate soup in a quiet room with two old Kirghiz men as a thunderstorm rolled in high above the snowy peaks. All I could here was the occaisonal thunder roar and the slurping of th esoup and tea. Too good to speak! After pretending I was a boiling potatoe in the hot spring (very meditative by the way! Just curl ina ball and feel starchy and rootlike), I went in side for what I thought would be a peaceful night sleep. Two Russian guys in the next room were shouting at each other. Not because they were fghting, but just because they felt that this is the way to communicate with each other only one meter apart in a serene mountain setting. I could almost smell the vodka underneath the door and down the hallway. I woke up in the middle of the night quite thirsty. I walked with my bottle down to the river underneath a now brilliantly clear sky. Countless stars. I stopped on one rock, and bent down to look at a small frog. I wondered if it was cold. When I put my hand in the water to fill the bottle up, I could feel the blood slow down in my hand. My bones bean to ache the water was so cold. It tasted so delicious. In the morning I sketched and then talked with a nomad grandpa and his grandson. I tried to teach him how to yo-yo with m friend Tom's handmade yo-yo gift (If anyone passes by my shop, please alert Tom to check the clip out here on the website. I think he would enjoy this...). After eating more of those littel Russian candies, I set of back down the mountain with a lighter head (and belly). Matt, Dustin, Alex- please make sure the Russian shops are well stocked with these treats upon my next San Francisco visit. I collected trash on the way back down the hill, and managd to fill up three bags! There really is not that much around, but it all added up quickly. Mostly cigarette butss and.....uh oh....candy wrappers. When I returned to Karakol, it seemed like the autumn had arrived with that small storm. Apples for sale everywhere, and a cool golden sun. I walked through a field to an old Muslim cemetry, and it seemd like you could hear the grass moving for miles around. Grasshoppers everywhere. I took a bus ride half way around the south end of the lake, and from there took a taxi (a nice Audi) another 2 hours to a city calley Balyckyk. The cab driver, Turkenbek, was really a great man. He just kept speaking Russian to me as if I understood (sometimes I did!), and I just kepy speaking English to him. We got dinner, and then he found me a hotel room in this depressingly grey city. He picked me up at 7:45 (EXACTLY when he said he would) and drove me to the mini-bus station. When I offered him money he refused. I took his picture, and then he carried my bags to the bus and sat with me in silence for a while as we waited for more passengers. When He left, he hugged me as if I was one of his 3 sons with his big military arms. I think he started to weep a little bit, and left the bus waving periodically. I played a concert for he and the woman and her daughters who ran the ramshackle guesthouse, and they all sat around and listened with the most precise attention. Always clapping just at the right time. Off to Nepal tomorrow a.m. With Love, jg

Picture Description:

1. Nomad grandpa, son, and other

2. Mountain High

3. The moustached woman I bought handmade wool socks from for $1.00 a pair.

4. School requirement in Kyrgystan: Girls wear puffy white bows.

Video:

1. I rock Bishkek

2. Nomad Yo Yo

The end of Africa....for a while

It has been been almost 5 monthes here on the mother continent. Boy time is a trickster! Tomorrow I fly out of Ethiopia after visiting 10 of the 54 countries here. I was able to travel up through the north of Ethiopia last week, and it was quite wild. I first took a long and windy bus ride (they seem to all be this way) to the city of Bahr Dar on Lake Tana. The lake has many islands that have old Orthodox Christina monestaries on them, which have been in operation since as early as the 10th century...and nothing has chanegd. Old bearded monks sit in the shade and read old scriptures written in Geez (the older more religious language of Amheric) that are printed on goat skin paper. I was able to visit some of the islands by boat, and play tourist for a day. One afternoon, I walked to the Muslim part of town around the large mosque. Of course I got many stares, as there are few white people in the town, and even those that do do not meander into that part of town. Two boys (about 12 -ish) broke out in a fight in the street. They were swinging punches like there life depended on it. A few of the Muslim woman ran over and tried to pull them apart. My reaction was also to get between these two little shits and cool it off. I shouted one of the only Amheric words I know "Salom" which is a greeting, but literally means "peace be with you". They had this intensity to fight that is quite strange to see someone so young having. Like those Chineese fighting fish, they would have fought till the death I think. As I walked away, I looked back to see all of the men laughing. Then I did a big psuedo-Hunch Back of Notre Dame laugh too in kind of a childish mimick. Then dumb expressions on their faces! I took another LONG and tiring ride towards the city of Lalibela. This tiny town in the remote mountains of northern Ethiopia is kwown for its 11 monolithic churches that are carved into the ground. So imagine rather than building a building up, you dig out an entire building in the subterranean rock, with the roof at ground level. The builder in me was fascinated, and so mystical being in these dark stone churches, with beams of light shooting through cross windows. I had to stop in the town of Gashina, where I waited hours for another truck to pass to take me to Lalibela. Usually only one or two buses run a day to towns in Ethiopia early in the mornings. This means ride all day, stay over night in a room, and continue in the morning. Anyways, I gave another African concert in the town, and everyone stared with confusing looks! They really enjoyed it, and so did I. So mind-boggling to watch these shepards herding their donkies or goats in from the BRIGHT green mountains. The children stare at you in bewilderment, and usually the only game they know is chase the lamb or donkey around. Sometimes you pass an old naked man laying on the side of the road. Sick with something, but I don't know. One guy I passed had testicals the size of a basketball between his legs, basking them in the afternoon sun of Adis....ouch! I have been sketching 3 or 4 drawings a day, and the people are also bewildered at this. They whisper to each other as they watch me, "oh, now he is drawing the persons shoes!" and then laugh with excitement. I believe Ethiopia is the safest country I have ever been to in the world. In fact, I do not think crime exists, with the exception of maybe an occasional pick pocket in Adis. The most difficult thing to deal with is the over load of greetings. About 100 times a day you will hear: "Hey YOu!", "Hey Mister!", "Where you from?", "Where you go?", "You want guide?", "Money!". Especially the children. They all want money, and I like to ask them why. They very well here, despite its fictious reputation from the 1980's famine. Often times if they ask me where I am from for the hundreth time I will reply "Mars" or start speaking Portuguese or Spanish to them. There is always the occasional exception. A child that glows. While walking through the mountains one day, I came across a very young girl with the most beautiful face you could imagine (Ethiopians are shockingly beautiful people with rich features). She had an enormous load of grass on her back, and was sweating in the afternoon sun. I asked her to stop and rest for a bit on the rock, and she epalined that she lived with her grandmother and that she had to work, because the grandma was too old to do so. She was saving some to get supplies and books for school. I have heard this all over the world before, and many children just take the money and buy candy (which can sometimes be rewarding itself!). This girl was special, and I gave her a few Birr and reminded her that all things are possible. The ride back to Adis was again long and windy, and the guy next to me puked from motion sickness the whole time. I was very entertained watching the men tie lambs to the roof of the bus with all of the luggage, and often thought about what they thought about up there driving through the majestic mountains. Ethiopia does have desert in the east near Somali, and in the west near Sudan, but most of it is high mounatains contrary to popular conception.

A-Dis A-Dat

I had been fighting a flu all week in Adis. Sleeping marathon sessions, that I would wake up so tired from sleeping, I’d take a nap. Very fatigued, but I thought it was so incredible that the women who run the hotel brought me tea and juice, and all of my newly acquired awesome friends called to ask if everything is okay. I am still deciding if it is not directly related to the air quality here. Adis is above 7,000 ft., and coming from sea level, that is a lot less oxygen. In addition, the exhaust here is just overwhelming for me. I can almost taste this sweet sickening diesel exhaust, which makes me gag and almost vomit. I do not remember being so hyper-sensative to it, but it is a day to day reality here now. Then there are the smells of strange goat/sheep cooking, goat/sheep living, foreign spices, garbage, and that occasional feces (lets hope that it is just animal!). I just hit a breaking point as far as automobile/transportation is concerned: Humans have got to do better. We are destroying these little pink tender bodies, with hidious pollution. We might be trying to do that back in the States, but it makes no difference if it is not a global effort. Air does not use passports or stop at imaginary boundries. It is not just the automobiles either, the city has massive electricity cuts sometimes for an entire day. Therefore, almost every building and shop has a generator kicking out more fumes. Strange to imagine 5 million people with no electricity, and it is handled so casual. Can you imagine if all of Los Angeles had no electricity for a few days??? Anyways, I did get tested for malaria Saturday morning at the hospital just to be on the safe side, and thank-goodness it was a "No”. I am now back to operating speed and eating my normal “John intake”, which for many of you know that is quite a bit for a skinny guy!

Time in Ethiopia is a strange thing. First, they operate on a true Julian calendar, meaning 30 days in every month. This leaves 5 extra days at the end of the year, because the five months we assign to have 31 days. Instead, they make this a 13th month called Poaguma, only five days long. It comes just after Ethiopian New Years, which is Sept.11, which means I'll be here for it! Apparently, the business world just kind of relaxes during this time as some stores close, and people celebrate with meals and visits. They also have a different clock. 6:00 p.m. is actually midnight, so it is shifted back 6 hours. The country has such a fascinating history as well. The Ethiopian history states that the powerful and wealthy Queen of Sheba paid King Solomon a visit in Israel. King Solomon invited the Queen of Sheba to a banquet, serving spicy food to induce her thirst, and inviting her to stay in his palace overnight. The Queen asked him to swear that he would not take her by force. He accepted upon the condition that she, in turn, would not take anything from his house by force. The Queen assured that she would not, slightly offended by the implication that she, a rich and powerful monarch, would engage in stealing. However, as she woke up in the middle of the night, she was very thirsty. Just as she reached for a jar of water placed close to her bed, King Solomon appeared, warning her that she was breaking her oath, water being the most valuable of all material possessions. Thus, while quenching her thirst, she set the king free from his promise and they spent the night together. The Hebrew Bible does not acknowledge this account. It is said that their son Melenik I, was the first in a long line of Ethiopian emperors who trace their origins to King Solomon. The last being Emporer Haile Selassie, who was deposed in 1974. It is also said that many early Christian artifacts were brought to Ethiopia. Half of Jesus's cross is hidden in the northern Ethiopian city of Axum, near the border with Eritrea.
Aklilu is one of my new frineds here. He is a 42-year old shoe-shiner, welder, poet, businessman. He has a little bench that is his office on one of the Adis city streets. People stop to get their shoes shined or drop off shoes clothes for repair that he takes to people who fix them. The young kids come, and he teaches them business. In the evenings, he retreats home and diligently writes his poetry. He does not publish as he does not want recognition. This is partly because he was very active in writing critical literature against the government some years back. I was shocked that he read the entire James Michner book "Hawaii", among thousands and thousands of other books. I explained that I had good reason to read it while I was to deliver a boat to Hawaii last year, but still could not tackle that monster. I delivered him some of my friend Barry Spack's poems that Barry had just emailed me. Aklilu, sat down and so carefully read these words, and processed them all. Quite amazing. Barry- if you are reading the only word he could not quite understand was dimwit...I struggled for a good analogy. We walked through the giant Merkato, said to be Africa's largest market. So fascinating seeing and smelling all of the colors. He was one of seven children from a very poor , but shockingly intelligent family.

Another new friend is Ady. Ady is from Eritrea, the country to the north of Ethiopia, which for most of history was part of Ethiopia. It was in a brutal war with Ethiopia that finally ended in 2000. Ady is also extremely bright and gifted. Both of his parents were school teachers in Asmara (the capital) and he went to the mandatory military service after high school. Here many young Eritreans get stuck, because the government decides what you do upon your completion of service. Many times, there are no work options anyway. You just stay in the military. Last night, he told me some of his fascinating stories. He was a communication officer/ radio transmitter (the guy who carried the radio on his back for the commander). He told me about one battle his troop ended up in, in which both the Eritreans and Ethiopians ended up mixed up on a giant hot desert plain. There was so much confusion that everyone just started shooting each other. Their uniforms were similar colors, the language is virtually the same, and they look the same. Pretty chaotic I imagine. He was standing behind one of his best friends who was carrying one of those plastic backpack jugs full of water ( a very important job in the summer time in those latitudes). A bullet went right through his friend’s heart, and exploded the tanks of water on Ady behind him. He said he was so spun out he thought that all of the water on him was blood for a while, and began to feel around his body for where the “Blood” was coming from. A year later or so, he was crouched behind a trench on the frontlines of a battle. It was June 11^th, and at 7:00 that morning the two countries signed a peace accord. However, the news was a few hours late in arriving to the frontlines of the battles. His commander was trying to make a radio contact (which probably would have alerted him of the ceasefire), but could not get reception so he stood up. Ady, who was holding the pack just a meter or so away, felt a mortar land just above his head on the trench wall. The next thing he knew his commander was blown far away, and there was metal from the mortar in his hands and stomach. A devout Orthodox Christian, he feels God had other plans for him, as it is quite bizarre to be that close to a mortar, and be able to live to tell about it. I believe so too. And if you knew how gentle, soft-spoken, and generous he is, you would too. His current job is editing video, but like many of us survivors, he can do(and is good) a quite a number of things. “Always learning!” we cheer. He lives with his longtime friend/sister, Feven, who works for the US ambassador here. Family in Ethiopia can extend beyond blood, to those friends close to the family, who are involved in all of the family affairs. Once again, I believe I have found some of the best jewels that Adis has to offer as friends.

Some cheery thoughts: Coffee! Yep, it’s the best in the world. In traditional coffee ceremonies, which is pretty much just sitting around with friends, roasting the beans, boiling them in a little ceramic kettle, and talking, there is a name for each number of cup of coffee up to for:

1.Awel

2.Kal-Ay

3.Bereka

4.Dereja

5. I invented a name for this- “Bathroom!”

The blue and white converted pick-up taxi trucks that take you around town are called “Wiyiyit” which in Amheric means “Conversation”. This is because there are two benches that you cram into, and so you begin to have a conversation with everybody, since the 10 of you or so, are facing each other. So delightful. I got a real kick out of this one little shoe shine boy the other day (so many of them!!!!). He said “Shine Shoe???” in this funny accent that they have. I said “No, thank you”. He said “Yes, please.” With this serious face, without even knowing what this means in English….my shoes look great!