Inner Turmoil

Written:  14 July 2012

This morning over a Werther’s Original, some fruit, stale bread and stale-strange instant coffee, I cried.  Tears streaming down my face, I ran to get my laptop and purge some of what had been boiling under the surface.  Outward emotion does not come easily to me – aside from passionate discourse and obvious argumentativeness – but since I began this journey into the world I have found the core of my emotion. 

This morning it is pain, suffering and the insurmountability of the harm that we, as a human race, cause.  


A pile, so high that it might be mistaken for a natural mountain, of uranium mining waste.  Standing atop the mass, taking measurements; it was exhilarating, and anxiety producing to realize that I was standing on a substance emitting between 0.140 and 0.240 microroentgen per hour.  This number alone didn’t mean much to me either until I was told that 0.020 is about the normal level. 

Courtesy of OSCE and http://nuclear-news.net/information/wastes/

Children play on this mound.  When it rains the water washes away vast sections and carries the radioactivity like silt into the neighboring town.  Children are sick.  People die, and I cry with such great heaves and sobs that I can no longer type, because I think the words “and for what?”  Mutually assured destruction. 

My father and I discussed this one in great length before I left.  Mutually assured destruction, assuring that destruction could be rendered and is therefore completely unnecessary.  That seems like such a harmless and peaceful means of waging war.  Whoever thought of such a thing must be so unimaginably proud of the fruits of his labor.  But what of the fallout?  Millions unable to feed themselves due to the “necessary” cost of that armament.  Whole populations exposed for generations to the toxicity required for the manufacture of war.  Perhaps it is not wholesale slaughter, but is slow and silent death really any better than quick and heroic sacrifices paraded through war? 

I do not mean to in any way make a case for future policy or hot war vs. cold war.  They are both deplorable manifestations of a very dark evil that lives and sometimes thrives within the human psyche.  I wish only to mourn the affects of such a hideous side of us that we often pretend does not exist. 

I will admit that I am at times fixated upon or fascinated with the worst of our actions.  In undergrad I studied conservative politics of Central Europe, mostly focusing on WWII, visiting concentration camps and I wrote my thesis on xenophobia in right wing politics, with a particular focus on a politician named Jorg Haider, then quite popular in Austria.  It was both interesting, marginally comical, and appalling that someone with the same populist appeal as Hitler, stemming from the same region, with similar outspoken xenophobia could gain such traction. 

In 2007, after having lived in Turkmenistan for about 9 months, I took a vacation and ended up in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.  My friend Emily and I went to S-21 and the killing fields.  A piece of history.  Although S-21 was no more graphic than Dachau or Mauthausen, I was different.  I was so overwhelmed by the reality of what had happened in that school and what human beings had done to one another – and in fact continue to do to one another – that I had to leave.  I had to stand outside and practice breathing as though I had forgotten how, and focus desperately trying not to be sick.  A bullet is more valuable than a life.  It is acceptable to bludgeon another human being to death with a tire iron, in order to preserve a little gun powder and metal.  I forced myself to make it to the end.  I will never recover from that experience and others like it, but perhaps that is a necessary evil.  The stories of hate, torture and destruction are no longer just ghost stories and tales of the Brothers Grimm.  They are real, and to be guarded against at all costs. 

That is why, although I am afraid, although it breaks my heart and makes me want to never leave my apartment, I venture out into the world.  Perhaps I cannot stop the next genocide, but maybe I can be a voice raised to rally against it. Perhaps I can be the one to open my doors to Anne Franke, or help a lost child across a boarder.  Perhaps I cannot cleanup an abandoned mine, but I can draw some attention to that pile of poison decimating a town that human beings call home.

* For those who are concerned, I have researched this article thoroughly.  There are not any facts herein that could not otherwise be learned via a simple search of the internet.  I have and continue to protect information that is considered to be confidential and/or classified.

A few of my resources:

http://www.wise-uranium.org/udasi.html#TJ

http://news.tj/en/news/taboshar-residents-fence-tailing-dump
http://journals2005.pasteur.ac.ir/Science2005/307(5707).pdf
http://www.rferl.org/content/Tajikistans_Former_Soviet_Nuclear_Sites_Pose_Threat_To_Nearby_Villages/1604737.html
http://journals2005.pasteur.ac.ir/Science2005/307(5707).pdf

Wait Wait ...

So I wouldn’t say that I’m someone who listens to NPR.  On a really long car ride I will tune-in to the occasional NPR/talk radio channel as the music becomes monotonous and I just need something to change it up.  Periodically, through these instances I get to listen to shows like Click and Clack’s Car Talk, or Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, and I do thoroughly enjoy them.  In fact, once I’ve found that they’re on, I will often scan through the public radio channels trying to find the beginning of the show so that I can listen in entirety.  As much as I enjoy it, I am not someone who, sitting around on a Saturday morning, is likely to turn on the radio in the hopes of hearing a particular show.

Except for today.  It’s more than the show, it’s more than hearing English.  There is something very comforting about hearing what would be on the radio at home. 

Not being someone who requires music all the time, indeed I think I need more quiet/silent time than most, when I left for Turkmenistan I didn’t think it was important to bring any music with me.  I will never make that mistake again.  After about 10 months, my mom spent over $50 in shipping and god knows how many hours copying CDs to send to me with a little portable CD player and headphones.  My Birthday present in June.  The first CD that I listened to was either Nora Jones or Sarah Mclachlan.  I was so overcome that I laydown on the floor listening while tears streamed down my face.  It’s the first time I remember ever crying tears of joy and I felt ridiculous.  What was a very hard tenure, in a strange and wonderful country was suddenly a lot more bearable.  Another year was possible, and brought to you by the Carpenters and whatever other CDs my step-father happened to have that my mom could copy for me.

I know now how important these things are, and have never been in a situation with that little contact with the outside world since.  So when I downloaded two episodes (?) of Wait Wait this morning, there were no tears.  I was not overcome, however I am still extremely grateful to have access to a little piece of home. 

So thank you Claire!  Your enthusiasm for the show, a bit of a suggestion, led to a little enjoyment here in Tajikistan.

A completely unrelated moment of zen: I did a search using Google's handy little keyword finder app to see if I could do a better job drawing in new people to the site. The final suggestion for my blog "writing a will" both highly sought after and with low competition. I couldn't stop laughing. How morbidly appropriate.

A Chinese Construction Site - and other oddities

So we’ve covered the 60% of the trip with good roads, the 5km of the “tunnel of death” as another blogger dubbed it, now there is still one more mountain range to cross.  If you’re interested in seeing the actual route the road’s labeled M34 on this map.

View Larger Map

I tried to re-route the gmap directions onto that road, but google apparently doesn’t think that it’s an acceptable way to travel and won’t give directions.

(Hint: If you want to be able to manipulate the map, click on the link "View Larger Map" in blue under this picture) 

Anywho, as I was getting to the point where I was so nervous from speeding around hairpin turns at 60 km/hr (it feels faster than I’m sure it converts) that I was giggling uncontrollably and my eyes had started to water enough that  I had a tear running down my face, we were mercifully stuck behind a very large truck.  This was not unusual.  The unusual thing was that we weren’t trying to pass on a road barely wide enough for two cars with extremely limited visibility. In no time we had crossed onto a dirt road.  In fact, the road looked less like a road and more like an abandoned construction site from an old mafia movie.  As we crawled further and further up the mountain, we hit several forks in the “road” at which we weren’t certain which route was the road and which part was the construction entrance.  While I was initially skeptical of our policy of “well, we’ll just follow the big truck” since we were in a construction site after all, it seemed to work out.  We were carried through a chinese work site and camp where I’m told they are building another tunnel.  This one is supposed to be much better than the Iranian tunnel, and judging by the avalanche shelters which the Chinese built along the earlier section of the road, I tend to believe them. 

The downside of this construction (my private upside) was that the road was really quite rough.  We climbed several mountains on glorified dirt paths.  This is perhaps not fair.  They were well enough engineered that a steady stream of trucks and cars passed along it all day long without much issue.  Russian dirt roads perhaps? …

After more than an hour  of climbing, possibly even two,  my colleagues triumphantly announced that we had crested the top of the range and would begin our decent!  To celebrate we stopped at a slightly wider section of the road to take a picture or two and breathe before beginning the harrowing decent back down.  Mistake?  Maybe.  I personally think it was our saving grace:

Here is a picture of the head doctor in our group pouring water directly into the radiator.  I don’t know if you had this class is driver’s education, but we were very clearly instructed to NEVER EVER remove the radiator cap when the engine is hot.  Well, despite lots of advice and three other people pleading with him not to do it, our brave Dr. Professor gingerly removed the radiator cap.  Luckily, no one was injured (that time).  The car did spout out some angry looking black smoke when we poured water in, but the engine did not crack.  It was a success!  After much trying and 4.5 liters of water, the car was finally cool enough to start again, and down the road we went.  Ever grateful to be on a dirt road which required a more leisurely pace. 

This is from our return trip.  At the top of the mountain, before we began our decent, we were apparently not the only car with road damage.  Some of those stopped are merely taking a break, but several cars were being worked on, or smoking, or both.  All in all we had the muffler welded twice, the entire undercarriage disassembled and reassembled, the petrol pump replaced, and we were told that the thermostat for the car was completely blown.  I was told that it was much more economical to drive, but with the cost of all those repairs, food, petrol, and liquid gas, maybe a $150 plane ticket would have been worth it.

Iran 1, China 0 … which is perhaps why China is ahead

When last we left the trip from Dushanbe to Khujand, the roads were smooth and travel was fast – whether it should have been or not.  Much to my relief, not all of the roads here are perfectly paved and dangled over a 13,000ft cliff.  Some of them were poorly marked, tunneled underground (whether they should be or not), filled with water or kicking up clouds of dust, and fun as hell. 

We start this tale with a little political history … or at least my opinion of a few points.  Say what you will about the Russians and soviet times, but they had a few engineers who knew what they were doing.  The things they built last … like a turn of the century, hand-made hydropower dam, fully abandoned for 20 years and functioning perfectly.  That kind of lasts.  Although not always the most aesthetically pleasing architecture in the world (says this western girl), it has true sticking power.  This would seem to be because of a very real understanding of both technical function, and the limits inherent therein. 

When the Russians were in control here in Tajikistan they decided not to build a 5 km tunnel through the mountains to make travel between Dushanbe and Khujand a little easier.  True, it may have been because it wasn’t as necessary.  The republics were united, so crossing the border from Tajikistan and going through either Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan in order to arrive in a city that is in Tajikistan, was perhaps not as big of a problem.  Additionally, lacking well built roads kept people where they were, made people easier to track, and since politically dis-favorable people were sent this far south in the union, it would make sense that public infrastructure to improve travel times from one area to another down here might not have been high on the USSR’s “to do” list.  That said, they did fight a war down here and moving troops quickly toward Afghanistan may have had its advantage at one time or another.  So that is the situation surrounding Russia’s failure to build/dig the tunnel.  Ohhhh, and because when they surveyed the same sight, they found that there was too much water to safely build such a tunnel without it crumbling and falling to pieces, or collapsing altogether. 

Apologies, the tunnel was too bumpy for a good picture

Well lucky for current-day travelers, the Iranian government has no such qualms.  Thanks to a joint effort between Iran and Tajikistan the Anzob Tunnel was built in 2006.  I am told that it greatly reduces the time it takes to go from Dushanbe to the north.  I believe them.  I am also impressed to see the canals that they have built to channel the water away from the road and through outside passageways.  Did I say canals?  Yes, I guess that’s the word … but it doesn’t quite have the magnitude that perhaps it should.  These are pathways for TORRENTS of water, and unfortunately they are not enough. 

The water has done some serious damage.  To be fair though, it has been 6 years.  You should expect that in 6 years there would be wear and tear on any infrastructure.  Nothing a few small repairs can’t fix … oh right, I’m also told that the Chinese have offered to fix the tunnel, and indeed have replaced the southern entrance entirely. The Iranian government has refused the offer though.  Apparently somehow they were able to get control over future repairs and construction on the tunnel .  So instead of being a vital part of the “new silk road” – Iran’s dream for increasing commerce between its own country and all of the countries formerly along the old silk road – the tunnel has become something of a hazard and  an amusing point of tourism.  Okay, so there aren’t busloads of westerners lining up to go through the thing (thank god, cause it could put a real strain on the tunnel), but it was particularly amusing for this one traveler.  In some places the water was at least 12-18 inches, and the “ventilation system" consisted of 2 industrial size fans which took up the entire southbound lane.

Much of the tunnel only has a single lane of travel open, requiring one direction or the other to wait their turn before leapfrogging one obstacle or another, and in some places, even in our SUV, the holes and ditches are so great that we didn’t have enough clearance.  There was serious concern when we left the tunnel that we had damaged some part of the undercarriage.  Luckily, someone had the forethought to build a little pull off with a toilet (for men only) and space to check your car before traveling on. 

Oh, and maybe you noticed,  the first half of it is completely unlit.  I find this tunnel so amusing!

The Way the Warm Wind Blows

Any one of those words on its own sound quite pleasant, but together it is oppressive, and surprisingly so. 

Sitting in a warm office, it’s quiet and the lights are off.  Peacefully the two occupants slowly click away at their keyboards, happy and productive.  Then it happens.  It isn’t violent.  It isn’t even shocking.  It’s just a wind so warm as to be disconcerting.  Breezes, the movements of air, are supposed to be refreshing.  A change of directionality can feel like a sigh of relief on even the hottest day.  So when the breeze blows and you’re caught in the channel of a wind that is warmer than ambient air, when there is no heater to act as source or even something like an air conditioner that is creating some great contrast:  The movement is offensive.  It. Is. Hot.

Happy and Healthful Ramadan Everyone

The Road from Dushanbe

First and foremost:  Thanks for reading!!  When I sign on, I can see how many people have checked the posts and there’s even a map so I can see where people are signing on from.  There have been readers from the United States, the UK, Kenya, France, Romania, Iran, Russia, Turkey, Germany, Latvia, Australia, Belgium, Spain, Ireland, and South Korea (If I’m missed anyone, sorry, perhaps your internet is being rerouted through another country).  I hope you like what you’re reading, comment often, and continue to tune in.  Thanks for checking this out, and feel free to let me know if you have questions or if there’s something I can investigate for you.

On to the post!

There have been times when I have struggled to find something to write about.  It’s not that there aren’t things that you might find interesting, it’s just that I find it difficult to be passionate about things that I see everyday or that inherently make sense to me.  Many of these things only inherently make sense because I’ve been here or somewhere comparable, but none the less it’s hard to find a topic that I can force to be compelling enough. 

This is not one of those times.  I spent the day traveling from Dushanbe to Khujand.  What was quoted as a 5-6, probably 5, hour car ride turned into a 300km, 9 hour epic journey.  There are so many things that I want to write.  The difficulty is more likely to be that I will have trouble narrowing it down.  In an effort to get all my thoughts down and convey what I think you will find most interesting I’ve decided to break this up into sections.  The result with be that I will just keep writing without posting.  I’ve actually learned a new feature on this blog-o-vel which could come in handy.  I can apparently write posts, publish them, but schedule them for some time in the future.  This benefits you because it means that I will not try to put 4 posts worth of information in a single post.  It also means that I can include more pictures like this one:

I am particularly amused by the contrast of a "Stop/Control" sign in the middle of the wild.

Perhaps the best part is that even while I’m on a plane or away from internet, or perhaps even after I’ve returned from this trip, you will continue to receive new posts.  All of this is of course only beneficial to you if you actually like what you’re reading, but since you’re here and you’re reading, I’m going to go ahead and take that leap of faith.  Big of me, eh?

Transportation:

***There once was a girl, who had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead.  When she was good, she was very very good.  When she was bad, she was horrid!!***

Perhaps we will begin with the very very good, and later move on to the horrid.

The roads of Tajikistan, from my experience, are much like the girl in the nursery rhyme.  For the most part they are remarkably well cared for and many are quite new.  The main road from Dushanbe to Khujand is a toll road and it seems that these fees/tariffs/taxes, as they are interchangeably referred, are actually put to good use.  This, however, can be a bit of a problem.  While the road is in good condition and relatively free of livestock, it still climbs through a 4,000 meter elevation mountain range.  The condition of the road is so good that there doesn’t seem to be any reason to slow down … until you’re already on top of a hairpin turn, with oncoming traffic, about to barrel off the side of a cliff. 

This was a wreck that had clearly been there for a long time.  This not only made me more scared, but also highlighted the point that if you do go off the side of the road, unless you make it very clear that you’re still in the car and need assistance, there’s no real guarantee that anyone’s coming to help you.

Side note:  On our return trip, we did see an accident.  A tractor trailer truck carrying liquid gas was unsuccessful in navigating one of the turns.  The truck rolled down the hill, past the next road, further down the hill and across the subsequent road to land on the shoulder/river bank.  Thank god it was a single car accident and none of the gas ignited.  I should also note that the accident was pretty recent and the police were there in force.  To their credit they were investigating almost immediately. 

I would say that Americans in general are a bit squeamish when it comes to road safety.  We like everything to be clean, without debris, at slow speeds, with no distractions.  Likewise, everyone travelling in a row, with extra wide lanes and a wide shoulder is appreciated.  This does, of course, set us up to be horrified by driving conditions in most other parts of the world.

When the trip began, I rather prided myself on my calm composed demeanor despite the high speeds and lack of attention to what was technically “on the road” and what was maybe not quite as much within its boundaries.   Afterall, I have been on roads where you travel at 60+ miles per hour despite potholes and herds of sheep.  I have even had the opportunity of being borderline kidnapped and raced up and down the Amalfi coast in Italy on roads that had similar cliffs that fell straight into the water by an old man who most probably was not sober.  This should be a piece of cake. 

However, I think this is the first time I’ve been in a situation like this and I’ve screamed.  I screamed more than once.  In my defense, the two other Tajik men in the car with us also became upset and were quite adamant that the driver should perhaps slow down and be careful or at least I assumed that's what it meant as we approached each turn they began to chant "стой!  стой! стой! стой!".  On more than once occassion we were going so fast the car slid sideways around the curve, wheels screaching.  In my experience, when the locals – the ones who are supposed to be accustomed to the way things are here – when they are also making comments like, “I’m still young.  There are so many things I want to do and see in my life, perhaps we should get there alive” then I think it is reasonable to be outwardly concerned.  And this is why perhaps nice smooth roads are not always the best situation.

** This post was written and is being published after both the outbound and return trip.  I will not make the same trip, or have anymore long drives with the same driver.**

The White Ninja rides again!!!

Seriously, do I need to write anything more than that?!  Happy Friday the 13th!