I left my house shortly after Christmas celebrations with a few other volunteers in the Issyk-Kul area. I left a note for myself with the heading: “Back,” it has a list of the months remaining in Kyrgyzstan. Jan-2wks, Feb/March-projects, April: Devin’s visit, May: Mom’s visit, close of service conference, June/July/August-summer. Beside the months, I listed: GMAT, Russian, website projects, camp resources/development, and Talas/Naryn trips. I left the list on the living room table for my return, hoping it would ease coming back and remind me what I can do here and things to look forward to.
I walked the few blocks to the bus station and took one to Bishkek; 6 hours later I transferred to another mini-bus bound for Almaty. After a blizzardy walk across the Kyrgyz-Kazakh border, and a 3-hour drive I was freezing in the financial center of Kazakhstan and its previous capital city. I clearly packed more for Morocco than the trip to the airport…
I spent some time at a marketing firm waiting for a friend to finish work. He then gave me a tour of Almaty by car. Beautiful parks, wide streets, tall buildings, a dozen western hotels, clear foreign investment, and plowed, well-paved roads—I was shocked I had only traveled several hours across the border, and that all this exists in Central Asia. We went to a glitzy American style mall complete with Baskin Robins, Espirit, Sbarro, and tons of other international brands. There was a huge supermarket with everything. Oil wealth goes a long, long way…
In the middle of the night, I was driven to the airport. From the outside it was hilariously characteristic of style in Central Asia: bedazzled and sparkling. The building had thousands of flashing white lights and a special space for “VIP” travelers. I was convinced I was being taken to a Vegas casino. My 4 AM Lufthansa flight (Frankfurt bound) awaited—final destination: Madrid.
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