Uzbekistan Blues
Saturday, July 15, 2006
 
Parts of Your Neighborhood You've Never Seen

I was always told that men don't wear shorts in Uzbekistan and that it was probably best if I only wore them in the house or for sports, but never out on the street. I was given no explanation for this. I simply assumed before arriving in the country that it was because of the religion or the conservative culture. But actually, what I much later found out was that it was what gay men wore. Boys could get away with it, but not grown men. So naturally, fearing that I should be discovered as a detested shorts-wearer, I did not wear shorts outside of my house.

It was finally coming to the end of the 40 days that are the hottest days of summer. Still, the heat was barely tolerable. And even in the heat, shorts were nowhere to be seen on men.

This Sunday, I had decided to make an exception. It was too hot to do otherwise. Besides, it wasn't like I was going to be walking in public in them -- I would only wear them to the street to get a taxi to the hotel, an enclave frequented primarily by expatriates, where I would sit by the pool all day. The shorts were not particularly tight, not particularly short, not particularly gay. They were short khakis that were about three inches above the knee.

I caught a taxi out in front of my door. These weren’t real taxis; they were just people driving around, doing their own business and willing to pick up a fare. Again, this was the reality of the Uzbek economy -- doctors, teachers, government workers behind the wheel were looking to make an extra buck. And I never felt that there was any danger in getting into a car with a stranger; everybody did it. I’d even been in cars that were used for transporting livestock, a Kamaz truck that was for transporting soldiers, and even once in an ambulance that supposedly was off-duty.

As usual, the driver detecting my accent, seeing my attire, pegged me as a foreigner. It was likely because of my foreignness that I could be excused for wearing shorts or maybe not. He asked me where I came from. They always asked where you came from. Some American friends I knew would play with this – they would say Canada or New Zealand, places it was likely an Uzbek didn’t know, because being an American meant you were rich and it was then assumed that you would pay a higher fare for your ride. Other Americans got irritated with all the questions. I sometimes got annoyed when they began asking my age and about my marital status and then proceeded to lecture me, or when they asked about how much my salary was, which, was actually quite a common question, rude enough, but common. But, I always tried to not let it get to me, to be respectful, and to answer everything honestly or to say when I felt uncomfortable answering certain questions and why. You never knew who your driver could be. Rarely they were just drivers. They could turn out to be your friend’s father or relative, or brother. They could be someone you may have dealings with at work. They likely could be someone you might run into again. Tashkent, for it's 2-3 million people felt small like a village and everyone was connected or related in some way. Also, the driver was the person behind the wheel -- they had some control, and my rule of thumb was to not piss them off.

I would ask the drivers questions too. I found that that was the most interesting way to avoid having to talk about yourself. Often, you found that they were just happy that someone was ready to listen to them, listen to their problems, listen to them talk about their families or talk about common interests -- music, sports, literature, politics. Some of the drivers I had met were fascinating. One had been a leader of an opposition movement that had long been driven underground. Another had been a published poet. One told me about how his entire family had been killed in a disaster. At the end of each ride, the driver shook my hand as though we had become friends and sometimes they even refused to take my taxi fare.

This driver was quiet and pleasant. He asked me how I was managing with the Tashkent heat. He told me that he thought it was a good idea to wear shorts in the heat. “I would wear shorts too…But...” Without negotiating the fare at the end of the ride -- as it is usually a process of bargaining -- I simply gave him a generous fare in gratitude for the quiet ride.

I spent the day at the pool, which offered a little respite from the reality of Tashkent. There, I would see the other Americans, who, like me, would have food served to them by the pool, while they escaped from the heat and read The Herald Tribune. The lawns were manicured. The pool water well treated. There never were many people there. Who else could afford it but foreigners and a few wealthy Uzbeks? The rest had the dirty public pools or the fountains in the parks.

The other Americans there included families with children; they sat by the kiddie pool. The rest, single expatriates would usually sit together and the conversation frequently gravitated to topics of work...Mostly, because the expatriates had little else going on in their lives besides work, and very little in common to discuss. I thought it was tragic that I shared a common language with these people, and there were so few people to speak with in English, and yet there was so little to speak about with each other. I tended to shy away from these conversations, perhaps because I was in denial that I was just like these people -- that they were omens to me of what I might become in a few years.

Some of the men lead completely debauched lifestyles. They drank, whored with the local women, who were easier than Western women and extremely tolerant of misbehaving men, as the region had a long history of its women taking care of their men, especially if they were wealthy foreigners. Western women were generally alone. The American men seemed to go after the young, gorgeous and easy local girls.

Many of the expats weren't much fun, didn't go out, didn't drink, and though they lived in this exotic land and some had lived in several interesting places in the world, many seemed to do everything they could in their power to make their environment and surroundings like a little replica of their own private Idaho or Ohio or Kentucky, or Virginia. They didn't bother to learn the language, were not terribly adventureous, save for shopping for the local crafts, biding their time, eagerly awaiting the end of their contracts. What united all kinds of expatriate was their love of complaining about the hardship, their dislike of the culture, the people. Their talk of their countdowns of days until their contracts ended raised an interesting question for me -- how long did I intend to stay in this country?

I didn't think much about the future. I didn't count away the days. I had a pleasure that I almost felt was wrong, immoral, unambitious, of being engaged so much in the here and now, of these sweet, quiet days, that I was content.

I was lucky today to find Henrietta, my close confidante and best friend without her Uzbek husband. His presence with us sometimes put a damper on the conversation. But I didn’t want to tell her about my latest escapades, or not just yet. Others joined us and somehow the subject came up of the most depraved sexual thing we’d ever done. The worst Henrietta could come up with was dating two men at the same time. Straight women are no competition for gay men in games like those and so, I decided that maybe for now, it was best for me to keep my recent escapades secret. I was, however, impressed by one straight guy admitted to having put his entire fist up a woman’s vagina and almost thought of sharing something from my own past experiences.

At the end of this lazy day, as the sun went down, I left the hotel, out to the street to hail a taxi. The street was empty save for a few prostitutes out already, also flagging down cars nearby, as hotels were generally a point (a “tochka” as they called it in Russian) where prostitutes peddled their wares and johns came looking for them. There was a “tochka” by this hotel known for being the deaf hooker district. Apparently there was such a “tochka” in every former Soviet city. One evening a few weeks earlier, I visited a friend who lived in one of the apartment blocks nearby and we heard a fight that had ensued between two prostitutes. The sounds were eerie; in the silence of the night we heard the echoes of slaps and beatings and then the garbled, wordless shrieks of the deaf. But that was just part of the neighborhood.

A car stopped for me. The car was nicer than the usual beat up old Russian Volga sedans or Ladas or Zhigulis, or the domestically produced Daewoo models. It was an old, yellow 1980’s Mercedes. The driver was an ordinary, paunchy middle aged Uzbek who flashed me a smile of gold teeth. As always, I sat down in the front seat, anxious to get home, breaking out in a profuse sweat from the heat. None of these cars ever had air conditioning. As usual, the driver asked where I was from. I said America.

He responded in a thickly accented Russian that was difficult for me to understand. He said something about Americans...Americans like to X ,and I didn't understand exactly what X meant, as my Russian wasn't that good. So I just nodded as though I understood and murmured "uh-huh." I didn't feel like making small talk and looked away out the window, watching the empty streets, the occasional made-up, mini-skirted girl standing in the street.

The lesson that I learned is that under no circumstances should one ever pretend to understand something when they really don't.

I then felt a hand on my bare leg. And prayed that I was imagining it. It's moments like these that you don't even feel like you are there, but like you are watching someone else's life happening. I shook the hand off my leg and looked his way. His pants were open and his very large penis out.

“Wouldn’t you like to X this?” he asked, and I had a much better idea of what X could mean.

"Put that away!" I said, disgusted.

“What? Too big? That’s what they all say…Just try to X a little,” he pleaded. "Don't be afraid." When he should have turned to the right, in the direction of my home, he turned to the left, to the street that lead to the Uzbek Parliament.

“Where are you going? I know my neighborhood well and this isn't the way to my house.”

“Don't worry," he said. "I know a nice, quiet spot. I can show you parts of your own neighborhood that you probably don’t even know about.”

I thought, what a charmer this guy is and tried to unlock the door. "Look," I said, "I think you somehow got the wrong idea here." The lock snapped back down -- he shut it with the remote.

"For the love of god, let me out." I shouted, I banged on the door, I opened the window, even though no one was out on the street, I pulled out my phone.“I’m calling someone and they'll come and fuck you up.”

“Okay, okay. Pipe down.” He turned the car around and we drove in silence to my house. I pointed at a spot to stop a few doors down from my house. I pulled out some money from my pocket and he pushed it away.

“Stupid boy, walking on the “tochka” in shorts, showing off his legs,” he muttered aloud. I wanted to respond -- but everywhere in Tashkent is a “tochka.” Where isn’t there a “tochka?” But I said nothing as he went on, “you’re just a tease.” And he called me a word that I hadn’t ever heard before, "dinamo," which is what they call someone who doesn’t put out.

I waited until the car left and ran down the street to my apartment block and upstairs to my apartment out of breath until I locked the door.

I put away the shorts, vowing never to wear them again on the street, even in the most extreme heat. I had forgotten that I had read in a book that until the 20th century in Uzbekistan, there had always been a tradition of pederasty; Uzbek parents wouldn’t even let their boys out alone on the streets for fear of them getting raped. And, on this day, I learned the hard way two new words in Russian -- the word for suck and the word for cock-tease.
 
Comments: Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]





<< Home
Dispatches from Tashkent

Name:
Location: Uzbekistan

all are welcome to the blog. however, be forewarned that it will only make sense if read from the very first posting, June 2006, and then backwards.

Archives
7/9/06 - 7/16/06 / 7/16/06 - 7/23/06 / 7/23/06 - 7/30/06 / 7/30/06 - 8/6/06 / 8/6/06 - 8/13/06 / 8/13/06 - 8/20/06 / 8/20/06 - 8/27/06 / 8/27/06 - 9/3/06 / 9/3/06 - 9/10/06 / 9/10/06 - 9/17/06 / 9/24/06 - 10/1/06 / 11/12/06 - 11/19/06 / 8/12/07 - 8/19/07 / 8/19/07 - 8/26/07 / 9/2/07 - 9/9/07 / 1/13/08 - 1/20/08 / 3/16/08 - 3/23/08 / 3/23/08 - 3/30/08 / 3/30/08 - 4/6/08 / 4/6/08 - 4/13/08 / 4/13/08 - 4/20/08 / 5/18/08 - 5/25/08 / 6/8/08 - 6/15/08 / 6/15/08 - 6/22/08 / 6/22/08 - 6/29/08 / 7/6/08 - 7/13/08 / 7/27/08 - 8/3/08 / 8/31/08 - 9/7/08 / 11/23/08 - 11/30/08 / 11/30/08 - 12/7/08 / 12/7/08 - 12/14/08 / 1/25/09 - 2/1/09 / 2/1/09 - 2/8/09 / 4/12/09 - 4/19/09 / 4/19/09 - 4/26/09 / 10/25/09 - 11/1/09 / 11/29/09 - 12/6/09 / 9/5/10 - 9/12/10 /


Powered by Blogger

Subscribe to
Posts [Atom]