Author: billkralovec

Tashkent received its first major snow of the winter on Monday evening! I was awake at 5:00 AM on Tuesday checking road conditions to make a call regarding school closure. We kept school open and I am glad we did. The students enjoyed playing in the snow and everyone made it to and from school safely. It is always interesting to hear from students experiencing snow for the first time in their lives. Snow brings out the kid in all of us and less snow on the planet is one of the sad consequences of global warming. Snow and cold always remind me of growing up in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Combined with Christmas music, it brings back memories of my childhood in Caspian and my parents. I always miss them at this time of year. Temperatures stayed well below freezing all week and the local Amirsoy Ski Resort is opening on Saturday. Winter is in full swing!

Yesterday I got a tooth pulled. I discovered a large crack in the tooth and after x-rays, the dentist needed to take it out as the root was infected. He drilled the implant base into my jaw and sewed the incision. My mouth is swollen on the left side and I have a headache today. While he was taking out the tooth, the neighboring tooth cap fell out so I am missing two teeth this weekend. I go back Tuesday to put the cap back on and take out the stitches. I always think about what people did before anesthesia and modern dental tools. Pain, pain, pain…

I had a relaxing long weekend before we headed into the final week of school before Winter Break. Uzbekistan celebrated Constitution Day. On Saturday Ocean and I attended a beading workshop at school. A classmate of Ocean led a workshop on bracelet making for her Personal Project. Of course, Ocean’s bracelet was perfect and beautiful and mine was not so perfect and not so beautiful. It was fun to spend time with her and I was proud of my sense of accomplishment in making a bracelet for my wife Nadia. We all had a lot of laughs over it! I chose turquoise and orange, Miami Dolphin colors, which Nadia did not have any matching outfits for. She wore it anyway to be nice to me.

Tashkent received its first snow of the year on Friday night (December 8) the latest since I’ve lived here in 5 years. The snow hung on through the weekend but was only around in patches by Sunday evening. I hope we get more this week as it makes it feel more like Christmas.

Nadia hosted a Christmas Cookie Swap on Sunday evening. My highlight was going with my son Oliver and his girlfriend Nicole to buy Kirkland sharp cheddar cheese at Alay Bazaar. I took Obi out for several long walks over the three days to get outside and enjoy the city views. (above)

I had a quintessential Central Asian experience Thursday evening, courtesy of my friend Oybek. He took a group of us to a Kazakh restaurant to celebrate the start of the long weekend.

Beshbarmak is the national dish of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan and is a traditional meal of the Central Asian nomadic steppe tribes. It is called “five fingers” because it was traditionally eaten without utensils. The dish is a combination of beef, horse and/or lamb meat wrapped in flat pasta noodles in a broth. I recently read a Genghis Khan biography and this was a meal of the Mongol armies. They were reliant on their animals while traveling and their diet was rich in meat and dairy products. Both the meat and dough are boiled. It is a heavy meal but delicious. The Kazakh nomadic tribes were probably similar to the Mongols. You can see Mongolian DNA in Kazakhs with their Asian eyes which differ from the Uzbek eyes, which are rounder and more Turkic.

To make the experience even better, the restaurant (Shilpildoq) was in a village about an hour out of Tashkent halfway between the villages of Parkent and Chirchiq. We also were served the traditional shorpo (mutton broth) and kumis, fermented mare’s milk. We reserved one of the yurts. It was a cold night and the wood stove made it cozy inside.

I was really curious about the fermented horse milk. It tasted better than I expected, slightly sour, and carbonated, but not an overwhelmingly bad taste as I was expecting. It is served cold and has an alcohol content of about 2% so it would take you quite a few drinks to become intoxicated. One of the guys Rashid said that it was a different kind of buzz, instead of vodka that goes to your head, getting drunk on kumis is more of a body buzz with a clear mind. I had two cups so I didn’t feel anything. Horse’s milk is high in lactose, closer to human milk than a cow’s. I remember drinking a bottle of Nadia’s milk when she was nursing and it was surprisingly sweet. The sugar is a good medium for fermentation to occur. I would drink it again, especially in the summer.

I was quite gassy Thursday night as my body is not used to so much meat. The pasta in broth was tasty and the meat was OK. Horse sausage was served with the meal and it was salty. It was a special evening for me. I love the friendship and camaraderie and felt honored that Oybek shared his ancestral culture with us.

It finally feels like winter is here after an unusually warm autumn. Temperatures are dipping down to 4C (39F) at night. Temperatures in the afternoon peak between 10-18 (50F-64F). The months of October and November in 2023 were fantastic and probably some of the warmest months experienced here. Below you can see temperatures were well above average for both highs and lows for the month of November in Tashkent. Tashkent has a Mediterranean climate with rain/snow falling mostly November to March. I am turning into my father, very interested in the weather…

Nadia and I attended a Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony hosted by the German Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Tilo Klinner. He has a beautiful residence and upon arrival, a full choir was singing in the atrium. His wife lit candle lights on the tree and he treated everyone to a delicious, Christmas dinner. I devoured the ham and scalloped potatoes. That is one of the perks of being a director of an international school is invitations to social events of the diplomatic community. Thank you Ambassador Klinner!

We had dinner at a colleaugue’s home last night which is the second of the New Year’s parties we attended. There are many more to come. Now all we need is snow. I hope to decorate our home this weekend.

We annually host a big Thanksgiving dinner for people in the school community. We invite people new to the Thanksgiving traditions and single people who don’t have a family to celebrate with. Thanksgiving is not a holiday in Uzbekistan and at school, we only got a half day in the afternoon. Nadia is the star here with her arrangements, cooking and co-hosting responsibilities. She is a natural when it comes to social events and interacting with people.

Of course I had to jinx the Detroit Lions with my Thanksgiving dinner speech. I was telling everyone how thankful I was that the Lions started the season 8-2, their best start since 1962, and how finally, after all these years, we have a championship-caliber team. The Green Bay Packers defeated the Lions later that evening (time difference)!

It is nice to have a big house and domestic help to host a large dinner party (39 people). I am thankful for the opportunity to live and work in Uzbekistan. Ocean and Oliver ate a lot, and this is Ocean’s favorite meal.

Watch Us Dance is the middle novel of a trilogy based on the author’s family roots in revolutionary Morocco. Slimani had a French grandmother and a Morrocan grandfather. Her parents lived in Morroco and Leila herself, was born in Rabat and her family was progressive and French-speaking. She left for Paris for university and married a French banker. As a journalist and writer, she splits her time between France and Portugal today. The trilogy is based on her family and their mix of French and Morrocan culture.

I love it when books take me away to a time and place I am not familiar with. I did not read the first novel that details how the patriarch, Amine Belhaj, an interpreter in the French army, meets Mathilde immediately after World War II in France. They settled on a farm in interior Morocco and he became rich by exporting mandarins and other fruits to France. This second installment of the trilogy focuses on their daughter Aïcha Belhaj who becomes an OB-GYN doctor and son Selim, who runs away to the USA. It is a family saga so there big sections of the book devoted to Amine’s brother and sister and their families as well.

Families of mixed cultures and expatriate stories always interest me. My family is not a straightforward mix of cultures like Slimani’s story of Morroco and France, but I can relate to the tensions and benefits this mix can bring to family life. My family has a mix of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Australia, and Bolivia. You can also throw in our mix of ancestry (Spanish, Polish, German, indigenous South American) and our global nomad lifestyle (Venezuela, Serbia, Japan, Uzbekistan) that complicates things. I learned a lot about the history of Morroco from the book. The novel is set in 1950 – 1970 in Morrocco and the dictator/King Hassan II is an influential figure in the book. The book also features the hippie movement. North Africa became part of the “hippie trail” and Jimi Hendrix makes a cameo in the story. It is interesting that the free love and drug use of the hippie movement chose an Islamic country to visit.

The book was thoroughly readable as I finished it in a week. I didn’t need to have read the first novel to enjoy it. I don’t think I will read the third novel, although I am curious to see how the lives of Aïcha and Selim’s children turn out. I guess part of it as I have now lived through a couple of generations as a child and now parent, is the succession of generations, and what they do and where they live fascinates me. I don’t think my grandparents would have imagined their grandson living in Uzbekistan.

Leila Slimani came to international fame through her French language novel, Lullaby. It was published in English as “The Perfect Nanny” and is based on the real-life story of the Krim family’s nanny in New York.

We are often so busy that we don’t take time to recognize the simple moments in life that give us great pleasure. On Tuesday during my daily work leading the school, I ran into my son Oliver four times. He is in his final year of high school and I am savoring time with him. It is such a treat to get these glimpses into his school day that parents in most professions never get to see. I love knowing that my wife and children are always with me at school.

Yesterday I received a phone call from Nadia saying that Ocean injured her eye in design class. My first thought was she was cutting something with a power tool and was not wearing safety goggles which really injured her eye. Thankfully, it was only that she got a piece of sawdust caught in her eye while carrying wood planks. As a precautionary measure, I took her to an eye doctor downtown, accompanied by a nurse from our clinic. It was wonderful to comfort her and spend time with her for a couple of hours. The doctor turned her eyelid up and removed the debris and she is fine with 100% vision.

Last night Nadia, Oliver and I attended the United States Marine Corps Ball. The Marine Corps was founded on November 10, 1775 by order of the Second Continental Congress at the Tun Tavern in Philadelphia. 248 years later, the US Marine Corps is an elite military fighting force that has literally seen action all over the world. Battalions of Marines are assigned by the State Department to protect US embassies and the associated diplomatic mission.

The event was at the new InterContinental Hotel in Tashkent. I didn’t know from the history of the company that Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Pan Am President Juan Trippe to start a luxury hotel chain to help boost Latin America’s economy after World War II. With loans from the US government, InterContinental became a successful chain and today they have 208 hotels worldwide.

US Ambassador Hennick gave a good speech, reflecting on his father who served in Vietnam with the Marines Corp. I like that in America, civil servants ultimately control our military forces. The close relationship between the federal government and the military was on full display last night. The marines were in full uniform and performed the traditional cake-cutting ceremony. The night was special for Nadia and me because we could share it with Oliver who attended with his girlfriend. I loved watching Nadia dance with Oliver and his friends.

Nadia and I loved supporting the kids at the annual Tashkent International School Cross Country Running meet yesterday. Over 400 students ran in races for elementary students up to grade 12 and there was even an adults/parents race. Both Oliver and Ocean played varsity soccer this year and didn’t participate in the cross-country running teams during their regular season. However, this meet was open to all students and the varsity teams needed more runners.

I am improving my Adobe Premier Pro video editing skills and put together the video below of the Under-19 Race.

We were delighted and surprised when Oliver came in third place. After the first 1-kilometer inside loop, he was in 11th place but steadily he passed runners on the 2 longer outer loops. He does not have a distance runner’s build, but he does have a lot of strength and stamina and ground out a medal.

Ocean was a bit nervous before the race and we had to bribe her with Chinese takeout for her to run. She takes after her mother with her athleticism and is naturally strong and coordinated. Girls are smart and all competitors were pacing themselves. Ocean stayed in second place for about half the race, but then a girl from the French school overtook her with the second of two long loops to go. Ocean easily finished in third place. Both the boys and girls varsity teams won the meet! There were many competitors from other international schools in the city (French School, Diplomat School, Canadian International School, British School, etc.) and it was a lively atmosphere.

I ran the adult 3.3-kilometer race and finished in 6th place overall. My Strava time was 15:30 with a pace of 4:48 per kilometer. My fastest split was probably the first kilometer which I ran in 4:30. There were no age categories and the medalists were much younger than me. I felt good but really exerted myself and needed some time to recover my composure. My lungs were burning and it was probably good for my heart to do this once in a while. I am stronger in the longer races, but am enjoying the shorter runs because it is less damage to my knees. I think the longest I would run is 10 kilometers. I am just happy to be able to run at age 56 and give a decent performance!