A Day in the Life-Bukhara

Oct. 19, 2023-A Day in the Life-Bukhara David refuses to deal with bad weather when traveling. So far, we’ve had occasional drizzle during breakfast and nothing else. The temperature in Bukhara has been in the low to mid-70s. I think things will change soon. We traveled 45 minutes to the village of Nayman named for an ancient nomadic tribe that settled there 1500 years ago. There are over 120 ethnic groups in Uzbekistan. This one is Turcic. Nothing to do with Turkey. The tiny mayor of the 8,000 people in five surrounding villages welcomed us. He’s not small in stature. Tiny refers to his position as elected leader of a small amount of people. He’s low man on the totem pole, and reports to town, city, district, regional, and federal leaders. His biggest problem is lack of good drinking water and access to natural gas. Cooking is done with wood and propane while water is bottled. Plans are in place for improvement by 2030. There is a central school and health clinic for the villages as well as two policemen. Since 2022, the only crime he’s had to deal with was a fight between neighbors and one between a mother in law and daughter in law. There is more Russian spoken than I imagined, but in this area, the language is Uzbek. Remember, in the city of Bukhara it’s Farsi. They’re separated by only 20 miles. The host family on a day such as this asks the visitors to “help” them with a chore. Today we picked cotton. It was very strange for Americans. There was talk about our slave history and how this experience couldn’t compare to the barbaric conditions of the Old South. We couldn’t even find a song to sing as we picked that didn’t glorify pre-Civil War days. Of course, we had fun shleeping and filling flimsy cotton bags tied to us like aprons. The ruts between rows made footing unstable, spiky plants scratched us, and the sun beat down. We only worked 15 minutes, picked an average of 1 kilo each, and set off for lunch. Nope, no comparison to the slave experience. Yura told us a former guest who was African American refused to pick. The family was eagerly awaiting us at their house. Three generations live in a compound surrounding a large garden in the courtyard. The mother is a retired teacher and her husband worked in government. She, her daughter, and granddaughter instructed us on how to work dough they’d prepared and fill it with potatoes, spinach, and meat. We watched plov being made in an enormous “wok” then sat down to eat. We dozed on the ride back to the hotel then were free to nap or continue shopping. We did both. Tonight’s independent dinner was “meh” burgers and ice cream. We met up with folks from the group and enjoyed chatting until a violinist and bongo drummer set up next to us. Actually, the music was pleasant enough with a Middle Eastern beat. During our walk back to the hotel, we heard them play Shalom Aleichem and Hava Nagilah. There is a sizable Israeli tourism industry. The lack of them now is conspicuous and regretable to the locals. It’s later than we wanted for bedtime, so I’m sending this without David’s review. Any additions or errors will be addressed tomorrow. We face a long ride to Khiva tomorrow broken up by sightseeing. Toby