--Thursday, 09 March 00--
I walked, really I meandered, up Mother Theresa street to the Government Building and gave Margaret hard and "soft copies" (computer files) of the materials for the Treasury training program. My ulterior motive was to go for a walk on an exquisite day. The temperature was about 25 C (78 F), the sun was shining, and there was a light breeze that didn't stir much dust. It felt so good to be out in the polluted air instead of cooped up indoors in the polluted air. Progress!

Margaret Pearson at her desk doing things.

I chatted with Margaret for a while quite pleasantly. In her brusque style she told me that I was very low on her list of people she had to take care of. I showed amazement and said that I had made a point of taking the time to stroke her ego so that my place on her list would rise a lot higher. She was mildly amused.

As I exited the Government Building a dust devil suddenly appeared to my right. The very light, omnipresent dust rose in a tornado-like funnel. There really wasn't much of a breeze so the dust devil was all the more surprising. It suggested to me the hate that lays over everything here and is so easily stirred to action. Dust in motion blinds the eyes, like hate blinds the soul. And there is so much hate in this region of the world.

John told me that the address of our building is Mother Theresa Street and Lenin (since changed to Bill Clinton) Streets. What a combination of opposites -- any which way you want to look at it! One devoted to caring for people, another to totally controlling them -- for their own good, of course. And the other . . . . Come to think of it, it really is a little like government finance.

Bernd told me that when East Germany collapsed, there where a lot of signs around with the picture of Karl Marx and under it the phrase, "Sorry guys, it was just an idea."

I met Ishmail at 8 pm and we went for a walk in the mild night air. We wandered up Mother Theresa street past the Government building talking American. I asked if his friend was working at the cafe we had visited before and he said that he thought so. We walked there and had two beers while we discussed various words. I learned that the sound "chin" in Albanian is the "F" word so one should be very careful about using it. Oh, the care we must show abroad!

Eventually we came back to the Grand for some in-depth language training. I am impressed that Ishmail is a committed today to learning American as he was the first night I met him. He is indefatigable (not a word I used with him) in his desire to learn and seems to like me as a teacher more and more. He is fun to teach because he is so interested. He really gets into it.

He invited me to his house for dinner on Saturday. I squirmed at the fact that I would be putting his wife through another major -- and expensive -- production meal so I told him that it was my turn to invite him and Kimeta out to dinner with me at my expense. Locals here don't eat out because it is much too expensive, even for Ishmail and Kimeta who earn more than average. Ishmail protested repeatedly about the cost but I insisted that it was not expensive for me. It took a while to convince him that he could do this. Now he has to convince his wife.

When we were back in my room for the intensive part of the language training, he noticed my laundry drying on the radiator. Now, I believe in spending money whenever the benefit is proportionate to the cost but hotel laundry services are among the last officially sanctioned acts of highway robbery. When I was in Montenegro, one of our team had some laundry done in the hotel and was appalled to discover that socks were charged one DM *for each sock*. That's about 50 cents a sock or a dollar a pair. I can afford such charges but I cannot countenance them. So my undershirts were drying on the radiator. Not pretty but better than a financial rape.

Ishmail surveyed the situation and told me for the second time that I was not to do laundry, that he would see to it. I said that I wanted to pay for such a service. "No, no, no! You are my friend!" He went on to say emphatically that, if he came to my room again and found laundry drying, "you no friend of mine". The problem for me in all of this is that the burden falls on his wife and not on him. How to deal? I guess I will do laundry on the nights he doesn't have an American lesson.


--Friday, 10 March 00--
Somebody commented on the large number of recent model cars here, especially Mercedes and BMWs. Someone else suggested that they had mostly been stolen in Western Europe, mainly Germany. George said that he believed that more than fifty percent of the late model cars in Uzbekistan had been "abstracted" from Europe. It is a pleasant thought that the US is too far away for our cars to fuel this market. We only have to worry about joy riders and chop shops.

Above left, Ramadan, and to the right, Rob.

George told me that we had to be at the BPK at 10 am and that we would go to the airport for a noon flight. This interested me because near the airport were the Serb Army barracks that were "taken out" by some Cruise missiles. Perhaps I should write a something titled "Cruise Missiles and Urban Redevelopment" and a subsection on "Collateral Damage."

George signed to me to leave the meeting we were attending and we walked toward the BPK. He went on to check for an email while I waited at the BPK. Ramadan arrived and took me in and we got waived past all security because they recognized him. They didn't know me from Adam. So much for security. We went to the cafeteria and had some coffee.

The plane with the heavy cargo taxis to a stop.

We went to the airport in a convoy conducted by the police who did a very professional job. They really dressed us up in bright blue jackets and drove us in fancy armored jeeps, driving up the wrong lane, closing streets, the whole nine yards. I was feeling really good about being a fancy consultant until I found out what it was all about. They didn't want a strong mind, they wanted a strong back attached to a weak mind! I ended up lifting and carrying 71 bags weighing 18 kilograms each. And we had to do the same thing all over again at the other end. This was no fun at all. Few people understand how difficult it is to be a consultant over here.

Joe