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I don’t understand why solstices are not a bigger deal and acknowledged more in our society. We seem to celebrate artificial holidays such as Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day or Father’s Day, which are fine, but the day of the shortest amount of sunlight should be celebrated as well. I always make it a point to talk about the solstices and equinoxes to my family and friends. I always thought we should have rituals around them. Perhaps some type of sunrise/sunset ceremony where people make a toast or sing a song or just gather in a nice spot to watch it.

The beautiful weather held out all week. It is so nice to walk Obi in different parts of the city during the day. He loves exploring Tashkent as much as I do. I am so glad we got a dog, it has made our family closer and gotten all of us out of the house more to walk the little guy. He absolutely loves getting out and is irresistible when he gives you those (cliche coming) puppy dog eyes. I can almost hear him say, “Let’s go dad” in the photo below. Once I pick up his bag with the harness and leash in, Obi is all in! He gets so excited.

Finally, it is so nice to have Owen with his brothers and sisters. The other night we were having dinner at a friend’s home and I snapped the photo below. We are a family of five again! I am secretly hoping his university goes Virtual so he can stay here for a bit longer…

Owen and I continue to play as much tennis as possible. As you can see below, I can’t compete with Owen’s youth and athleticism. He hits the ball harder, runs faster and is much more agile in approach shots to the net. We shot a video of our serves (Owen / Bill) and you can see the impact of coaching with Owen. He is also much more fundamentally sound. After losing 4-6, 5-7, 2-6 earlier this week, I beat him in a tie-breaker yesterday! My secret is to schedule court times early in the morning after a night that he went out with his friends.

The weather this week in the lead-up to Christmas has been really nice. The air quality is especially good with deep blue skies and clear views to the mountains. We will be heading up to the mountains for a couple of nights early next week. Nadia and I did shopping to prepare for Christmas dinner by stopping at the Mirabad Bazori It is the big market of our suburb and my favorite. The vendors are spread out, ample parking, close to our house and a wide variety of products As you can see in the photos below, products range from fruits and vegetables, to chicken heads/feet to the famous winter melons of Uzbekistan.

I want to compliment the Uzbekistan Health Care infrastructure. It is convenient to get PCR Covid tests and the results back in less than 24 hours. Of course, the demand for testing right now in Tashkent is not like in the US and other places. This is partly due to the highly contagious Omicrom variant has not reached Tashkent yet and also most Uzbeks can’t afford regular testing at private clinics. Intermed, one of the best private clinics in the city has been stellar in providing quick, accurate PCR testing on demand. I noticed they even have temporary clinics set up in the city. The clinic below is in the parking lot of the Alay Bazaar near the city center.

We were told that there were no English movies in Tashkent since our arrival in 2019. However, we discovered that the Compass Cinema in the Compass Mall is a 26-seat, VIP theatre that can be rented for under $150. The kids wanted to watch Spider-man: No Way Home that was recently released so we booked the theatre yesterday morning for last night. They had a blast in our own private theatre with reclining seats and a private lobby and bathrooms. In my opinion, the movie was not very good, but then again, 50-year olds are not the target demographic. As usual, I fell asleep for part of it, but just seeing the pleasure Owen, Oliver, Ocean and their friends got from watching the latest superhero movie made it a delightful evening. I’ll investigate the movie scene here more to see what other English language films are played. For the most popular films, this is a good option and we could watch this Spider-man immediately upon international release.

It was my first time at the Compass Mall and I was impressed. It is your typical American-style mall with a food court and shops on three floors. It is much more spacious than the most popular Samarkand Darvoza mall. I spotted a Christmas gift for Ocean that I will need to go back for.

We spent much of the mid-morning and afternoon playing sport. I opened the school gymnasium for the junior varsity, varsity and alumni who wanted to play. In the afternoon, Owen and I played a set of tennis at NBU (National Bank of Uzbekistan) Stadium and Sports Complex. I absolutely love tennis and am looking forward to playing more this holiday and watching the start of the ATP season next month in Australia. My game has improved over the past 20 years, especially here in Tashkent playing with coach Igor.

It was such a nice start to Winter Break yesterday. In the morning, we made a big pancake breakfast for Oliver and his friends who slept over the house. I love a house full of young people and seeing my children developing strong friendships. In the afternoon, Owen and I went for a bike ride along the canal. It was an extremely clear, blue-sky sunny day with comfortable temperatures. We could bike without gloves and a jacket which is unusual for late December. It became cloudy in the late afternoon. Today I see the forecast is for temps in the high 40s with rain coming in the afternoon. 😦

Nadia hosted a gingerbread cookie-making afternoon and I ate too many cookies. Ocean loves doing crafts and baking and decorating the cookies was right up her alley. She, unfortunately, fell today on the steps of the clinic while getting her booster shot. She injured her knee and was limping around yesterday.. I hope it is not too serious.

I think at international school educators and leaders were looking forward to Friday, December 17. International schools have a longer Christmas/New Year’s break than national schools and December 17 was the day for many international schools that marked the last day of school. This is so families have enough time to return to their home countries which involve international travel. COVID has complicated travel with border closures, quarantines, fewer scheduled flights and the possibility always of not passing a PCR test and being stuck abroad. For some countries like China, international school educators basically have been stuck in the country for two years now. They can leave, but they are not sure if they can return. We’ve been fortunate in Uzbekistan with mostly open borders and light or no quarantine measures. Many friends have successfully gone home and back. However, sometimes it depends on the situation in their home countries. We have 24 days of Winter Break starting from today, December 18, until we come back on Monday, January 10. I will be working throughout the break, but with flexible hours scheduled around family time.

The big news this week was the arrival of our eldest son Owen. He flew from Marquette, Michigan, transiting through Chicago and Istanbul to land in Tashkent early Tuesday (3:00 AM). It was a milestone for Nadia and me as parents, the first time one of our children returns from university. The advent of the internet has changed communication since I left my home for university. We were able to talk to Owen almost every day or at least text with him over our family Telegram group. He has been recovering over jet lag this week and enjoying being spoiled by mom.

My biggest joy in life right now is spending time with my family. It is such a perk to work in education and have your children attend the same school. We are forming a varsity “B” team to develop some of the grade 10 players and it gives me the opportunity to coach Oliver. I am working on his fundamentals. He has a pretty good instinct for the game having played a lot of soccer and he is fast, aggressive and strong which makes him a pretty good player. He needs to add the basic fundamentals of basketball (shooting form, footwork, boxing out, pivoting, etc.) to really make a difference on the varsity team over the next two years.

I also got to chaperone the grade 10 students on their first field trip in 2 years! We took the kids to Joy Bowling Club and everyone had a good time. Tashkent is really inexpensive and we had to laugh to rent about 10 lanes for an hour and shoes, it only cost $60. Bowling is a fun winter family activity and I’ll be taking the family a couple of times during this break. Oliver scored 126 and that was your high score ever! He finished third overall, only being defeated by two teacher-chaperones. Hugo claims it is a “fluke” but we’ll see when we hold the Christmas Tournament.

To end this blog post, I am always looking for those small moments in life that often get overlooked. Earlier this week I was working in the spare bedroom and it was getting late and I laid down for a bit. I was joined by my daughter Ocean who came in to say good night and our dog Obi was nestled at our feet. It gave me a feeling of comfort and completeness, listening to my daughter’s breathing and have Obi sitting on my feet.

The highlight of the weekend was my daughter starting her basketball season. At our school, there are teams for middle school (grades 6-7), junior varsity (grades 8-9) and varsity (grades 10-12). Ocean is one of the top players on her junior varsity team. They opened the season with a pair of exhibition games against local schools They lost both games but in the second game, Ocean scored 2 baskets and a free throw. Oliver didn’t make the Varsity A team, but we are having a developmental squad Varsity B and hope to get some games this season as well.

Friday night I had a board dinner at the chair’s home which was really nice. On Saturday we had the big New Years’ party for all faculty. We rented Retro Milly restaurant for ourselves. Everyone had a good time with an entertainer MC and two singers. We found time to walk Obi in the afternoon. Nadia is shown in front of the Sacred Heart Cathedral (Polish church) and we took a selfie at the party.

Wednesday December 8 was a national holiday in Uzbekistan. Uzbeks recognize the anniversary of the completion of the constitution. The mid-week break was nice and I took advantage of the day to spend some much-needed time reconnecting with my wife and getting started on our Christmas shopping. We were impressed with the development of Shevchenko Street near the city center. There are loads of new restaurants, cafes, shops and businesses that make it quite a pleasant experience. We ate lunch as Socials, stopped for coffee at Tim’s and did some shopping at a variety of stores on the street and around the city. The Samarkand Darvoza, a large mall, was starting to put up the giant New Year’s tree (Uzbeks don’t use the word Christmas and call it New Year) even though they have all of the symbols of the secular aspects of Christmas.

One of the challenges of living in Tashkent is the poor and unsafe driving of the majority of drivers. I made a little hobby of photographing the traffic accidents, most occurring in the large, disorganized intersections. It seems like almost every day I encounter accidents when I am driving around.

We all had a laugh on Wednesday night. We sold our basketball hoop to friends because students at the nearby school are hanging out in front of our house and there is too much litter and noise. For the first couple of years here, the hoop was used by the mahalla kids and much appreciated. But lately, students from School 175 which is close by to our house, come over and play after school and during breaks. Anyway, we removed the hoop and stand from our front verge and were trying to figure out how to move it to our friend’s house. I then remembered Yandex (the Uber of Uzbekistan) has cargo trucks that you can call at a moments notice. So as you can see, within a few minutes, a truck came to our home and we were able to load it and take it away. The service cost $12, which is quite the reasonable cost. I wonder if Uber has cargo service.

I love having a dog, especially one as active and cariñoso as Obi. One of the big benefits of having a dog is that it gets me out walking every day. It doesn’t matter what the weather, Obi always wants to go out and when he gives me those eyes and posters me enough, even though I might not feel like it, I end up taking him out. I wonder how many extra kilometers I’ve put in over a year. It also gives me the chance to explore the city and see things that I normally would not.

One of my favorite buildings in Tashkent is the former Lenin Museum which is today called the State History Museum of Uzbekistan. I have never gone inside, which I have to do, but the architecture is fabulous. It has elements of the classic Soviet Brutalist style, lots of concrete and geometric shapes. The architect did pay homage to the culture of Central Asia and included pandzharas which are lattice works traditionally put on mosques and other buildings to regulate heat by providing shade and openings for breezes and including beautiful decorative patterns. I like how city officials are highlighting this with the night lighting. I noticed on one side they have an art gallery which was open. I loved finding these old postcards of the building when it was part of the USSR on this website. I also learned that there was an Uzbek SSR flag. The red represents the “revolutionary struggle of the working masses” and the white stripes cotton and the blue stripe the Amu Dayra and irrigation.

I often run or walk along the Ankhor Canal and see a group playing badminton. The weather has been so warm lately that people are still playing in the evenings in December.

Nadia hosted a Christmas Cookie exchange last night at our house. I was running around the city on Friday and Saturday picking up supplies for the event including spices and honey for the mulled wine. The Mirabod Bazaar always has a wide selection of these things and I think to myself the many years markets were set up in Uzbekistan selling to travelers on the Silk Road. The Uzbeks love Christmas and of course, there was a big tree at the entrance to the bazaar.

The Tashkent International School Cross Country Team finished the season yesterday at the Tashkent Botanical Gardens. We invited two local public schools and two international schools to compete. It was our first in-person meet in 24 months due to the pandemic. I really enjoyed coaching the team this year as I needed to get back into distance running. So for me personally, it forced me to run three times per week. It was also satisfying to see the growth of the students as they pushed themselves. Oliver and Ocean came to the competitions and some of the practices and I hope to get both of them to run more next year. Ocean placed second in the middle school girls’ race and Oliver finished in the middle of the pack of the high school boys.

It was a nice Sunday as I tried to spend as much time with the family as possible. Oliver, Ocean and I visited the recently opened Depo Mall in the south western part of Tashkent. It is the largest mall yet in the city and from the outside, looked like America which pleased Oliver. Most of the stores have not opened yet and many looked like they were looking for occupants. We splurged in the evening and ordered a Sushi Time meal. Nadia’s back is bothering her again and we were trying to cheer her up.

We talked with Owen this morning. He is visiting my Uncle Jack in Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving and will go to NYC to visit friends. We are looking forward to Thanksgiving this week! I put together this video of the race featuring highlights of Oliver and Ocean.

The weeks are flying by as we are heading towards December and Winter Break. Nadia caught a bad cold/flu this week and combined with hurting her back, she was in rough shape. Our dog Obi also had some stomach trouble which warranted a trip to the vet. Dr. Ksenija’s office is always busy as she is an excellent doctor. Obi received some medicine and an IV to replace fluids. Ocean was so patient with the little guy…

The bonus of the snowfall on Wednesday is that it cleared the air from the dust storm earlier in the month. I snapped the photo below from our balcony and it was good to see clear skies again. Mornings have been between -5 and -8 C but it warms up during the day. It is -3 as I write this at 7:00 AM.