Bill's Blog

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.

The cold weather has arrived with the start of December. The daylight hours are getting shorter and it is easier to stay in bed rather than get up and exercise in the morning. Nadia and I went shopping on Black Friday last week, although the “holiday” has not reached Uzbekistan yet. Nadia discovered Oysho, the Spanish sporting and leisure clothes store in the Tashkent City Mall. The clothes are fashionable, comfortable, and most importantly for me, look great on her!

I got to school early twice last week to work out with the fitness group. Frost was covering the ground and it was just below freezing. We put in a new fitness center in the school and they offer cross-fit workouts for teachers, parents, and students. I also enjoyed walking Obi in the evenings. The other night it was extremely foggy. The ground clouds make the mahalla look spooky.

As you may know, the economies of Tashkent and Uzbekistan are growing at a phenomenal 5-8% annually. One aspect of this is the influx of BYD cars, the Chinese electric car company. They make cheaper electric and hybrid cars that are not available in the USA. The Chinese government made a deal with the Uzbek government to produce cars in the city of Jizzakh. . The government has also responded by putting more charging stations around the city. I see more BYD (Build Your Dreams) cars every week, although General Motors still leads the market here. I don’t like taking Yandex rides in electric cars because I get motion sick from the acceleration. It feels like I am on a roller coaster at times. BYD is making progress here and I expect to see more in 2025, especially with Uzbekistan joining the World Trade Organization. The government is producing spare parts locally that will reduce the cost of the vehicles.

We had a beautiful month of November autumn weather with lots of sunny skies and cool but not cold temperatures. November in Tashkent sometimes can feel more like winter than autumn, but this year, it felt like we got an extra month of good weather with the Indian Summer days. I am now bracing for (and embracing) the cold weather of winter from December through to March. March is similar to November and it can either be full of rain and snow or spring weather can come early. I photographed the last outside elementary school assembly until further notice. Nadia leads the birthday celebrations each month during the assemblies.

We also hosted our traditional Thanksgiving Dinner, although this year we had to do it on Sunday, December 1 due to a professional development conference we had on Thursday and Friday. I have lots to be thankful for and we had an entire week delicious leftovers, one of the best characteristics of Thanksgiving. And, the Detroit Lions defeated the Chicago Bears 23-20!

The sad part of Thanksgiving was not have our two sons with us. I felt better that Owen and Oliver were in Chicago, hosted by my brother Andy and his wife Chantal.

Isabel Cañas wrote an excellent historical fiction thriller (Vampires of El Norte) set on the border of Texas and Mexico in the 1840s. This was a time when the Americans were pushing south in the beginning stages of the Mexican-American War, which started in 1846. Mexico lost, in its estimation, 55% of its territory in the Treaty of Hidalgo, which ended the war three years later.

At the center of the novel is Los Ojuelos Ranch, owned by an upper-class Mexican family. The daughter, Magdelena (Nena) is the main character. She is a tough, independent woman who is trying to save her ranch from “Los Rinches” a derogatory term the Mexicans called the Texas Rangers at the time. Cañas did her research and the book really puts the reader in the dry, mesquite deserts of the time and place. It was inevitable that the much larger, more organized, and richer Americans were going to win the war. It is a good reminder of why much of Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas is Hispanic today. It used to be Mexico! The novel puts into perspective the loss of property and lives suffered by the Mexicans in the fighting. It reminds me of Russia’s incursion into Ukraine, but since it happened almost 200 years ago, it is forgotten.

The book is a thriller because the Americans have trained, blood-sucking, beasts of burdens, referred to as “Vampires”. They either kill their victims through mauling, sucking their blood, or poisoning them with “susto” (fear in Spanish). The book does not explain how the American army found or was able to use the vampires to attack the Mexicans. Nena and her love interest Nestor, a peon vaquero (cowboy) are heroic in fighting against the vampires and the Americans. Besides the Americans and Vampires, Nena needs to fight against her conservative family that wants to marry her off to a neighboring ranch to help protect their ranch, while she wants to marry the love of her life, Nestor.

Items that I highlighted in the book:

• “never surprise anyone from sleep, for Abuela said doing so risked the wandering, dreaming soul being separated from the waking body.”
• poultice – a soft, moist, mass, applied to the skin to treat a wound, inflammation, or infection (Nadia’s Aunt Silvia treated a bruise I had one time from falling off my bicycle.)

Nadia played in her first tennis tournament on Sunday. Mother’s Day Store sponsored a women’s tennis tourney at NBU (National Bank of Uzbekistan) Sports Complex on Sunday night. Eight women were divided into two groups for round-robin matches of one set each. Although Nadia lost her two matches before retiring due to her knee soreness. She played well, winning 5 games in the first set and four games in the second set. She hadn’t played much tennis lately and it was her first tourney. She was definitely more athletic (stronger, faster) but lacked consistent strokes in the key points in the set. I was proud of her and found it to be a very entertaining evening! Thanks to our friend Noah for his moral support.

I am savoring having my daughter Ocean living at home with us for the next 18 months. On Tuesday we walked to school together. It is so nice to live close to school, from our front door to the front door of my office is about 800 meters. I love being able to go home during the school day to change into my coaching clothes, grab a bit to eat, or just pick up something I forgot. It also helps with night events, which I have a lot of, so I can go home after school and come back quickly. Ocean said one of the highlights of her day is walking to and from school and I see the appeal of it. There are always lots of people and interesting things to look at and it is a quiet time or time to listen to music and for her to wind down after school or wake up in the mornings. I usually drive because Nadia and I have a lot to carry. I might look at finding ways to walk more often with her.

We had a free morning on Friday so a couple of us visited the ancient Agora (public space) of Smyrna, an archaeological site in the center of Izmir. The Greeks first built the site in the fourth century BC and legend has it that Alexander the Great founded the site after a dream. The city was destroyed by an earthquake in 178 AD. The Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius ordered it to be rebuilt and later the Ottomans occupied the site. The Agora site probably about 1 kilometer inland from the sea, but the ancient shoreline was much closer. The site was during the Romans as outdoor shopping mall and commercial center with structures to provide shade and stalls for vendors. It was excavated starting in 1933 with a long pause for World War 2. It is still being worked on and is currently under consideration to be named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

It is awesome to think that I was walking through the streets and pathways of a site thousands of years old. To think that the ancient Greeks and Romans built the site, carved the inscriptions in the walls, erected the columns, etc. and an American from Michigan thousands of years later is admiring their work. Truly an awe-inspiring experience.Humans have not changed in many ways. The site preserves evidence of water trenches for a spring, graffiti on the walls of market stalls, tombstones, etc. Loved being in the same place as Alexander the Great, Roman soldiers, Ottoman officials, etc.

I was impressed with Izmir. It felt like a more established, older city than Tashkent (more densely packed with buildings) and definitely more secular and forward-thinking. I didn’t like the traffic, which was not as bad as other places I’ve visited, but still would be a hassle. The kordon in Konak was delightful and refreshing and I enjoyed the sea breeze walks in the evenings. Turkiye is much richer and more developed than Uzbekistan. I see why Turkish companies are doing well in Uzbekistan. I would definitely like to come back and explore more of the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts of Turkey. The Turks are friendly and welcoming and my female companions on the trip felt very safe, evening walking alone in the evenings. It is nice to have a city that prides itself on being relaxed and enjoying life.

I finish this blog post with a photo of sunset over the Aegean Sea. Accreditation visits are an intense experience and working closely with fellow educators creates strong bonds. I really enjoyed my week and made some new friends, both on the team and at the school. Farewell Beautiful Izmir and the Aegean! I hope a laid-back, secular Türkiye wins out against the more conservative and religious elements of Türkiye.

It was cool to be in Türkiye on November 10, the anniversary of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s death, the founder of the Republic of Türkiye. There were ceremonies all over the nation including in a plaza a few blocks from our hotel in Izmir. Atatürk was born in Salonika, the sister city of Izmir, and is a stronghold in the country for his legacy of secularism, independence, and freedom. At 9:05 AM on this day, sirens and horns sound for two minutes to commemorate his legacy. I do not know much about him, but he really set Türkiye up for success in the future. He was way ahead of his time with his ideas of equal rights for women, social justice, and a government that focused on economic growth and cultural modernization. You can still feel this spirit in Izmir. It was rare to see a woman with a head scarf during my week in the city.

Attürk is famous for the slogan “Peace at Home, Peace in the World and “Unless a country’s future is in danger, war is murder.” He became known for leading the Turks to victory in World War I in the Battle of Gallipoli in 1915. ANZAC Day in Australia commemorates that day and it is interesting for me to see it from the victorious side this time. The Ottoman Empire ended after World War I and Atatürk stopped the winning Allies side from carving up Turkey. He defeated them and formed the Turkish state with the capital in Ankara, abolishing the Sultanate of the Ottomans and forming a secular state.

He was amazing with the huge number of reforms he brought to the new nation. Women were allowed to vote, minorities could speak their languages at home, free and compulsory school for all, changing Turkish to the Latin alphabet, etc. He died young, at my current age of 57. What a life he lived and he certainly is not forgotten in Turkiye, especially Izmir. Banners, posters, and memorials to him are everywhere. I would like to read a bit more about him. I wonder how he would have dealt with the current president Erdogan and his conservative, religious movement in Türkiye.

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In between working at school and report writing at night, we have a couple of hours to unwind. Our hotel is in the historical district of Konak, the original part of the city before it expanded into the metropolis it is today. “Konak” means governor’s house and refers to the residence of the governors of the province. Living in one of the only two double landlocked countries in the world, I immediately head to the promenade along the Aegean Sea to soak in the smells and sights of the sea. There are lots of people enjoying the sunset but it is not crowded. One day I ran east to the port, which was quite busy. There are over 60,000 businesses registered in Konak exporting billions of dollars of products and materials. There are always lots of container ships in the bay.

Izmir is known for its laid-back atmosphere and like many cities on the Mediterranean, it is easy to relax after work with the beautiful views of the water. As a Turkish colleague at the school said, when I get home from work, I look out at the sea and forget the work day. Yesterday I walked west along the shore and the trail goes on for a long time. I passed the Konak Pier, a building that used to be the customs house and was designed by Gustav Eifel, the same guy who built the famous tower in Paris. Today it is full of restaurants and shops and is popular with the locals. The bike and walking trails kept going and I wonder how far one can go along the bay.

The school is south and inland from the bay. The bus takes about 40 minutes from the hotel to the school’s gates. There is a lot of traffic and stoplights, but it is not too crazy. I liked the idea of the strip of lights on the intersection poles (below). It makes for better visibility, and I think more cities should consider doing it.

We have a bit more time today so I hope to do a little bit of shopping and sightseeing before I leave on Friday.