A Desert is a Desert

A desert is a desert, right? Wrong. There are hot deserts, temperate deserts and cold deserts. Theodore National Park in North Dakota is a temperate desert area. Antarctica is the largest cold desert. The Sahara is the world's largest hot desert with its miles and miles of sand. My home, Phoenix, is right on the edge of the Sonoran desert but, from what I saw, has more dirt and cacti than sand (the dunes are in Yuma). It is scorching and dangerously hot in the summer, dehydratingly dry, not too cold in the winter and it has little changing blue skies that offer rare rain. Yet even though all that lives in the desert is so abused and denied, life thrives.

In Phoenix I'd lay in bed in the morning and hear the cooing and gurgling of doves in the rafters of our house. Here in Tashkent there is a bird that likes to sit on the bars just inches from our bedroom window and blast out its morning calls. It's not too unlike the infuriated parent trying to get a teenager awake and out of bed, but it has a lot more character.

In the afternoons in Phoenix I'd hear the regular rounds of the ice cream trucks playing four bars of either "The Entertainer", "Jingle Bells" (even in July), or "Fur Elise" incessantly for hours. Interspersed between that carnival-like sound is the ding of the tortilla wagon gently proclaiming "fresh tortillas".

In Tashkent the sounds of traffic dominate your senses. People drive with their horns. They honk when they are approaching you (whether you're on foot or in a vehicle), they honk when they pass you. They honk if you're in their way or not going fast enough. In Amerca while traffic lights flash green-yellow-red-green-yellow-red, etc.; in Tashkent they flash green-yellow-red-yellow-green-yellow-red-yellow etc. so the drivers honk whenever the light is yellow and you're not moving forward. They honk if you are approaching a street and look as though you just may walk/drive into it. They also honk for no apparent reason. And these cars have horns that can stop time. They are shrill and LOUD. When Doug's poor Hyundai arrives and we drive I fear it (we)will be ridiculed when we honk or lame little horn.

I dreaded mall-shopping in the states because of the vendors who had kiosks and carts instead of shops. they assault every passer-by interrupting conversation and thoughts with their physical obstacles and desperate sales pleas. In the Tashkent bazaars its the old vendors I notice. They sit until thy have to get up. When I pass I hear them solftly speak of and gently gesture to their fine produce. It makes me want to buy. It makes me want to bring them back a share of the soup I made with their produce.

In the states our currency is paper and coin with many denominations. In Uzbekistan they also have coins and paper. I have yet to see any coins. With inflation where it is I have only seen paper bills in denominations of 100 cym (pronounced "soom"), 200 cym, 500 cym and 1,000 cym. One dollar equals apx 1,600 cym. I think the least expensive item I've bought is an onion for about 800 cym. Uzbekistan is a cash-only society. One must carry a wad whenever going out. Bye-bye "Barbie purse" as my friend Julie lovingly refers to my bag. It's joked in the Embassy that we all look like drug dealers with our stacks and stacks of bills rubber-banded in groups of 100,000 cym and further subdivided into groups of 10 for easy counting at the point of payment. It's not unusual to hear Can you loan me 100,000?" "Sure. " The picture you see is a little over $500 in cym. And, yes (look closely, please) I DO have clothes on!