Shopping in Tashkent
by John Davis
Ever wonder what it would be like to be one of those tech-reps
that wander the world, living on a government funded expense accounts,
but under a civilian contract, you know the type, Indiana Jones’
next door neighbor. Well, here is a day in the life of . . .
John Davis worked for Kellogg Brown & Root - oh, never heard of them? How
about a former project management subcontractor for Halliburton? They are
one of the largest subcontract management companies in the world, some 50,000
employees, moving around in projects all over the world. This story takes
place in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. You’re gonna need a map of central
Asia. This is raw footage that has not been edited for CNN. Enjoy.
- John Wolf
In about February of 2005, I had been sent back from Bagram AFB, Afghanistan to Tashkent, Uzbekistan. I had suffered some kind of health attack which a young US Army Major and M.D. thought was congestive heart failure. Much later back in San Diego, my VA heart specialist asked me how young the Major was. I told her they all looked like kids to me. What I didn’t tell her was he rubbed his hard on on my arm while he examined me. Kids will be kids.
So it happened that here I was back in Tashkent. Instructions followed that I was to wait until an M.D. arrived to accompany me back to the United States. This really seemed like overkill to both me and the male medic who was there to accompany me until the M.D. arrived. "Steve," I said to the medic, "this hotel has a great swimming pool but I’ve got no suit with me. Let’s go somewhere so I can buy a swimsuit."
The next morning a driver took us to the shopping bazaar for Tashkent. Uzbekistan’s K-Mart, I guess you could say. Steve had been there before. The driver, Steve, and I all entered the bazaar together with a pact to stay together and keep moving.
The people in the bazaar were a microcosm of Uzbek society. There was a large portion of Mongoloid people, then a group who were round-eyed and olive skinned. Those groups I guess you’d say were like Turks. Finally, a smaller but welcome complement of fair skinned people. This last group was the Ruski’s, or residual from the days of the Soviet Union. Uzbekistan today is still ruled by a Russian dictator who took over right after the fall of the Soviet Union.
This, then, was who we were mingling with in the bazaar. The bazaar was crowded. I think it was a week day, a regular day. But the bazaar was an event. Despite the fact that there were lots of commercial shops around Tashkent, the bazaar was a special experience. I would liken it to one of our shopping malls.
We only had one problem with this purchase. That was that I was a little big around the waist then as, unfortunately, I remain now. So stall after stall, we are having trouble. As we stopped at one stall, the medic gasps and says, "Look behind you." There are two gays kissing in public! I can’t believe this. I casually turned around and sure enough, there stood two young round-eyed Turk-like guys in fast embrace. Steve said, "I’ve never seen this, never in Uzbekistan." Steve, remember, was terminally straight. In fact I never did extricate him from the 3 whores at our table in the nightclub the night before.
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All I can say about that was they were good looking youngsters. No one in the crowd reacted at all. No policemen with sticks arrived to drag them off, no men or women shrieked in shock. So if this was unusual or usual, I really don’t know. I only know that in the company hosted hotel, I was one of the higher ranking men. Most people knew that sooner or later. The Soviet matre ‘d in the café there was very friendly in a classy European way, but we always smiled good night to each other as I left after a couple of drinks. I knew no more about the goings on at the hotel than I did at the bazaar.
Finally we found a swimsuit. It cost about $20.00 and Steve said I was really getting ripped off. This was after a couple of hours and we both knew we were in a bind of some extent. Besides, it was getting to be lunch time. I folded, paid my $20.00 and went gratefully home to the hotel after Steve and I stopped for a delightful lunch at a restaurant in the Embassy section of town.
I ended up swimming about three times a day for the next 5 days or so, until the Russian M.D. arrived to accompany me back to the United States first class on a British Airways plane. The nurse and owner of the American Health Center in Tashkent agreed with Steve and I and also eventually with the Russian M.D., that this was a lot of overkill. What that lady was doing in Tashkent I never discovered. She was an M.D. from North Dakota. She wasn’t much help, but pleasant. There was an opera in town, but it was sold out. The opera was being sung in Russian. She didn’t have any clout at the box office.
Five or six days later, at about 3 a.m. the doctor, a uniformed R.N., and an ambulance driver arrived to accompany me to the Tashkent airport. It’s the only first class transcontinental flight I have taken to date, and the M.D. spotted gold caviar in the first class lounger while we waited.
One thing I took from this experience was that in the morning at the hotel, we had a live harpist at breakfast. How much more pleasant it was to listen to harp music at breakfast than to have the Today show in the background giving us the latest details on the triple ax murder in Hokenboken. I made a comittement to get a nice CD player and some harp music, but haven’t yet. I’ll do that this week.
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John has had many lives: Former President, San Diego Writers and Editors Guild; Adjunct Professor, San Diego State University; published book "Paperless Contracting: The EDI Revolution", 1994 Holbrook & Kellogg, Vienna, VA; published essays and articles over a 26 year period. Currently lives in San Diego, but is on the road mostly. |
John Davis |
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Thanks John for the story... John Wolf
