Time flows differently here in Uzbekistan.

The day started with language then K and I went to eat at our caf̩ Рthe older woman came out with a list of food and prices. I am pretty sure I ordered an apple pie for $3.00.

Flowed to P’s where she wasn’t and picked up K’s cake from the sweet older brother. Back to the taxi hub to find Deshir and Yorkin lounging in a car… Machmut! A ride for Katherine, I walk camera in bag.

To the maktab, more earth is tilled. Sounds of singing from somewhere inside, round the corner, the keystone boys with shovels working earnestly… Machmut! Good Morning! Odil? In the other building, go there, no, in the gym.

Out and in, small group, mostly boys, Odil and I talk, they crowd around though they don’t understand a thing we say. Some basketball – me, two other big kids (50 cent dude included) vs. 6 or 7 little kids. The little ones are slick but the big boys win. Class to teach tomorrow! Come join director we’ve never seen for festivus on Monday.

Be at the monument at twelve… we’ll be waiting for you.

The boys shoveling look over – out comes the digital and suddenly two rows of smiling boys… Machmut! A picture of me by them – Odil walks with us to the main road, one more photo – NO SMILING! 50 cent kid goes with me till his street… Left, Right, right?

Walk past the cotton fields waiting, past the old bus, into C’s turf. I see the father from afar. Assalamu Alaykum. Choi? Keling! We sit and talk a little, watch TV – one delightful cup of coffee them I’m up to leave. But first to the cellar – Vino. Motions for the water bottle, I hand it over, out goes the water, in goes the wine… I taste, not bad, not good. Yashi Boring!

…and to Chinobod and the coolness of the room (it’s hot out) and to the Zen touch in my ears singing aloud Catching the Deluge in the Paper Cup…. Genres, lifetimes, movements meaning profundity frivolity in the doses of RANDOM, SKIP, SKIP….

BACK out into the sun to photograph the family agreed upon last week. To Anvar in the Magazine wrapping presents for Tuesday when for one day the women don’t have to cater entirely to the men. He says we’ll go but keeps wrapping. The previous generation’s baby brother tends to the store, kids and patrons come and go – Qualysis, Yashi Misis? Hugs, touching on the arms, playful fronting at unwashed boys.

I squat outside, the late afternoon sun straight ahead. People pass, some stare, some hellos and some good mornings. The man with lame legs crawls slowly up the street, smoking, stopping every few feet to view the town from an entirely new perspective. One Damas stops and he’s handed money, I think, white beard driver…. but most ignore him. I stoop and he slowly comes closer. We eye each other now and then – both freaks and we know it, but what to say, anything?

Back into the store – cool – I become the tape dispenser for Katta A. Indispensable. Carefully but without rhyme or reason glasses, perfume, and knick knacks get wrapped in Happy Birthday! and labeled 4200. In and out, gimpy is around the corner now and the sun lower, a chill through the ACLU T shirt. We set off to take the photo…

on time Uzbek time, but they’re not home.

Back back to center but not before being summoned to push an old van out of someone’s courtyard onto the street – no thank you – me and Katta A stop back by the store – there’s nothing for us there anymore. Furkat’s machina out front, the small man walking up the street with a bottle of oil in one hand. To the store with the telephone past the men,

Qandaysis? Yashi Misis? inside to the women, appropriate greeting unclear…

no phone today – KAPUT – a term Machmut understands.

Back out and Furkat has turned the car around and is headed in the direction of home. I enter, back seat, but Katta A does not. We drive and pick up a new Man… Machmut…. Quandaisis? Down a new road past unknown faces. Some smile and wave – stop for one man, conversation through ½ rolled down window. A girl, oh 15, 18 sits on the stoop by the door smiling and waiving at me…

on to the house with cows, “mechmon Amerika” Furkat asks if one of them is any good… I don’t pretend to know. Back down to the main road. I’m given the oil, now somehow ½ empty and 400 sum for non. Walk back with new man. Car swerves at me door opens to two playful men… Machmut… gestures of the mumkin emas.

And then I’m back to the homestead. Oyi cooks osh under flickering lights and I go scan the dial for a familiar language, ending up, after Swedish top 10 pop singles, at the tail end of BBC World music program. Lament of a land familiar but now so far away. WAL*MART everywhere – where are this generations’ Dillans. Is it a real lament or have the Dillans moved into new mediums? Hard to know.

Greasy rice and meat chunks for dinner. Late night walk to M’s – Tractor lumbers up the street breathing sparks above. Back back for a photo orgy and unveiling of the A-75’s kino technology. Family laughs together as they star on my small small screen. The lights flicker again….

time flows differently here in Uzbekistan.