Bill's Blog

We had a great day on the slopes of Amirsoy and an entertaining evening in the chalet to celebrate Christmas as a family. The resort just opened some of the ski runs on Sunday so we were fortunate to get some of the first skiing of the winter season. There is still not enough snow at the top for all of the courses to be open and the ones that are, have rocky and icy patches. I went down a couple of times, but decided not to tempt fate on my 57-year old body. I spent most of the time working on my technique on the lower parts of the mountain where they have snow machines. Watching Instagram Reels and YouTube videos, I am improving my skiing. I have been an intermediate skier for a long time, and my goal this year is to become better. My big learning for these two days of skiing are to lean into the turns, which is counterintuitive. I always leaned towards the mountain, but it is better balance to dip one’s shoulder away from the mountain and into the turn. This gives better balance to the outside ski. It is amazing how much better I looked by the end of the day. We will ski this morning again before heading back to Tashkent.

The chalets are awesome. We had a fire going, there is a market in the village where we bought a bottle of wine, and we played music on Spotify through the television. We had a lot of laughs and it was fun to spend time with the kids and the Wakefields!

We are staying in a chalet at the Amirsoy Resort for the next few days. It is nice to get out of the city and despite being only 76 kilometers away from our house, it feels like a world away. The slopes opened yesterday so our timing is fortuitous. We arrived this afternoon and tried to rent equipment for tomorrow, but of course, they do not have a system for renting a day in advance. Same for the lift tickets. Uzbekistan is still developing a tourist culture and modernizing and that is the way it goes. We’ll go up tomorrow morning and go through the rental process. Hopefully there will not be a lot of people because the Western Christmas is not celebrated and it is a normal work day.

The resort is guarded by military and police, I am not sure why. I guess it might be close enough to the border? Anyway, they act like military or police, not resort security. I was walking my dog around the resort and was told twice that I was out of bounds, although there are no signs indicated this. I wanted to get a photo at sunset from the helicopter pad, but was not allowed to stand on the flat area.

I love to celebrate solstices and equinoxes. I feel the entire Northern Hemisphere should celebrate these four days the same way as other big holidays. It is amazing to think that yesterday, December 21, (the Winter Solstice), was the day with the shortest amount of daylight: 9 hours, 11 minutes, and 26 seconds. This is 5 hours and 58 minutes shorter than June 21, the Summer Solstice. It is fascinating that the number of daylight hours varies by almost 6 hours at 41 degrees north latitude. Starting today, December 22, the daylight hours lengthen gradually, getting that additional six hours back! Today’s daylight is 2 seconds longer than yesterday, with a 7:45 AM sunrise and 4:57 PM sunset. I photographed the sunrise view from one of our spare bedrooms and the sunset from the bridge over the Ankhor Canal.

The highlight of the day was walking along the Ankhor Canal with our guests, Sarah, Emma, and Beau. Temperatures were pretty much below-freezing the entire day so it was a brisk walk. It is one of my favorite things to do in Tashkent and it was nice to share it with visitors. I love snow and ice! We warmed up by stopping at Bon Cafe for hot chocolates and later on the Tashkent Food Mall. In between taking care of work stuff, I watched the College Football Playoffs, did some yoga and just hung out and talked with my family. A great day!

It was a special day yesterday when my son Owen and some of his TIS alumni friends returned for the holiday break to Tashkent to play against our current boys varsity basketball team. It felt like old times watching him play in the TIS gymnasium. He missed his senior year basketball season because of COVID. Owen plays a lot of basketball at NMU and it showed. The alumni won 63 – 51 and both teams played well. Boys take longer to mature and there is a big difference between men in their early 20s and teenagers.

Due to Christmas falling on a Wednesday this year, we decided to hold classes until Friday, December 20, which is much later than usual. We all pushed through, but definitely it was a long haul since Fall Break and we are all grateful that we are now on holiday for the next three weeks! It is always a hectic finish near the end of the calendar year at school for administrators. I am looking forward to the break to recharge my batteries and spend time with my family and friends.

We missed Owen’s 22nd birthday (December 13), so we took him out for dinner at the Tom Yum Bar last night. We love Asian/Thai food and it is one of our favorite restaurants in Tashkent. It felt like old times with the two boys back with us. Owen is in his senior year at Northern Michigan University in Marquette, Michigan. Oliver is in his first year at St. Norbert College in Depere, Wisconsin.

On Monday I took Ocean to visit a doctor to look at her quadriceps. Her right leg muscle becomes inflamed with exercise. The doctor recommended anti-inflammatory cream and a knee brace when exercising to promote healing in the thigh.

We had our first big snowfall of the winter with around 3 inches falling during the day on Sunday. The snow makes everything look more beautiful and brings back memories of my childhood growing up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The snow also means I lose sleep because I need to check road conditions, utilities at school, etc. when making an announcement regarding possible school closure. We decided today to delay school for an hour to allow everyone extra time on a Monday morning and this being the first snow, time to get to school safely. It was a good decision.

It was fun driving around last night. I spotted a worker in the back of a truck, spreading salt/sand on the roads. In Michigan, we have automatic spreaders on the snow plow trucks. I don’t think it was a coincidence that the truck was close to the highway leading to where an important government official lives. 🙂

I spent a lot of time outdoors last night waiting for my sons to leave the airport. Owen and Oliver arrived safe and sound and I’ll be blogging more about having the Kralovec Five together again. My heart is filled with joy!

The highlight of the week was attending the production of Underground Girls at the famous Ilkhom Theatre here in Tashkent. The Ilkhom was founded in 1976 by Mark Weil and was the first independent theatre troupe in the former USSR. It is thriving today and our school hosted a private screening of the play loosely based on the book, the Underground Girls of Kabul. It highlighted the plight of women and girls in the Taliban-governed Afghanistan. It also touched on the subjugation of women in more traditional and religious societies. A powerful performance and I was pleased that our students were able to experience the performance.

The weather stayed cold this week until yesterday. It was a busy week of school and the countdown is on until the holidays, which start next Saturday. We hosted a Business Mixer for the American Chamber of Commerce last Friday at school. I am coming down with a cold and hope that the symptoms will be mild and go away quickly, but the virus going around the school community seems to last a long time.

We had a long weekend due to the Constitution Day holiday here in Uzbekistan. A much-needed respite from the grind of school, and we still have 9 more days of classes until December 20. Nadia hosted her annual Christmas Cookie Swap party on Sunday evening. I helped by trimming the tree and setting up all of our Christmas decorations in the house. I escaped the party and went out with Mohammed and Aaron to the spa. It was so nice to take a sauna, steam bath and go for a swim. Aaron and I went out for dinner afterwards. I will make a point to spend more time with male friends!

We had our first snow of the year on Friday evening! It was nice to wake up on Saturday to snow on the ground. I went for a run at the canal in the fresh winter air. The snow makes for better photos and I love the first snowfall of the year. The snow is mostly staying put with temperatures all this week below O Celcius.

Patricia Evangelista tells her story as a reporter in the Philippines during President Rodrigo Duterte’s term in office from 2016 to 2022. She worked as a “trauma” reporter for a small, independent news agency that documented the Extra Judicial Killings (EJK) ordered and sanctioned by Duterte, which took the lives of between 10,000 and 30,000 people. “Some People Need Killing: A Memoir of Murder in My Country” was an interesting read although it could have been shorter and I wanted more context and analysis instead of documenting murder after murder. It must have been tough to every evening go out and see the aftermath of executions. Often victims were hog-tied and had signs attached to them, like “drug abuser”, etc. Vigilante groups, police and probably general poor thugs, paid by the government were asked to execute lists of individuals.

I wanted to know how big the drug problem was to make it OK for people to vote for someone pledging to kill drug users, dealers, and producers. What kind of society would vote for someone who says they will kill so many people? Was the problem so serious that the only solution was extermination? How many innocent people died along with the actual drug dealers, producers, and abusers that cause harm to others? Was murdering them the only way to solve the problem? She devotes a chapter or two to the history of the Philippines and the awful dictators/presidents who led up to Duterte’s election. I wanted to know more about how the government and police defined who should be killed. Were neighbors using it as revenge? How many mistakes were made?

Things I learned

• Spanish conquistador Ruy Lopez de Villalobos named the islands in 1544 after the future king, Philip the Second of Spain.
• “Philippines problems include a high birthrate, land shortage, absentee owners, prostitution and gambling rackets, corrupt police and military.