I was advised by a few people before I left for Uzbekistan. Most of the advice was false advice. To me it was great time to have self reflection which I had forgotten while living in America, and after the trip realized I Americans almost always have strange ideas about other people and cultures. Maybe we are very strange to others instead. Here is my experience.
When I arrived Tashkent airport from Istanbul, I was already tired out and very hungry. After 17 hours flying to Tashkent, changing airlines three times, and not enough sleeping and eating, I also needed to deal with frustration at customs where I was asked to wait a minute. An hour later when I asked an officer if something was going on, he told me again “one minute.” Approximately a half hour later I asked him again, then he took my passport and disappeared. When he returned I was finally able to go, but by the time I was released I was the last person in customs. There was no communication with the outside while I was waiting for customs to clear. I did not feel very positive about what would happen when I visited Russia five days later.
It was 12:05am when I met other delegates outside the airport. They told me that no one could help us and no guides were waiting for us, and we could not communicate with people around us because of language. I could only hear taxi drivers asking us, taxi? We could not call or text to anyone anywhere. Just waiting and waiting. I didn’t know how long I had been waiting when finally we got a few guides who took us to the Tashkent hotel right next to Amir Temur Square. Of course the hotel restaurant was not open yet and grocery stores were not open that early. We were asked to sleep on a chair or couch in the lobby because soon we would take the train to Fergana. We had plenty of bottled water but no food. I wasn’t able to sleep so decided to spend the time texting to family and friends while WiFi was available.
In the morning we arrived at Tashkent train station, and before going through the security check, I looked around to see if any store was open and couldn’t find one. My last hope was if I could find a restaurant on the train. I settled in my room with three other delegates. I looked outside of the train to see peaceful rocky mountain and very few trees in the valley. When too much dust came in I asked another delegate to close the window, and then when inside got hot I asked them to open the window. We did not have air conditioning so we handled the inside temperature by opening and closing the window and door.
I hoped to find a restaurant on the train for breakfast and coffee. While I was walking around the train from car to car, I tried to explain through my body language that I did not have dinner or breakfast. They tilted their heads to the side and looked at me, talking to each other and telling me something could not understand at first, then listening to me more, and it seemed like they understood and waved their hands meaning NO. I decided to sleep in my room but again was not able to sleep because of jet lag. While I was tossing and turning, two middle age men knocked at my bedroom door even though it was opened. One man asked me to join them for breakfast. He held an aluminum bowl in one hand and the other hand held a spoon, and he mimicked eating something out of the bowl. I followed them to the entry of a train car where there was a cooking place with charcoal. I could smell cooked potatoes. It was a great small and it made me feel even more hungry, but I couldn’t eat because the bowl and spoon were not clean. I told them it’s okay and went back to my room.
Then I soon had another visitor; she said she could speak English if I needed help. I explained to her our people did not have dinner or breakfast and we must travel five more hours to Fergana so I am worried. She left but later came back with a plastic bag with something inside. She opened it up and pulled out a large piece of bread, boiled eggs and some apples to the table. It was totally unexpected. I asked the other delegates to join the breakfast.
I remember when Professor Jong Kim visited Champaign from Khazakhstan and told me one of his favorite foods is bread because of the excellent taste and great smell. They have very rich soils in Central Asia. While thinking of his comments, I removed a piece of bread and I took in the smells, a pleasant aroma. I had a little bite. It was sweet, nutty and sour. I did not know it was great because I was hungry. All the others told me it smells so good and we all had a great breakfast. It was a large enough to share with four people and I kept some of it in my bag to eat whenever I needed it.
In my conversation, I found out this woman was Muslim. She did not wear a hijab and freely communicated with other men. Two men who were asking me to have the potato breakfast were also Muslim. In fact, 80% of the population there is Muslim. It reminded me of my birth town, a very small community in the valley which shared food with all neighbors in the 1960’s. Sharing food is very normal every weekend in the Jicarilla Apache reservation in northern New Mexico too. We are strongly educating Americans to be individuals, be alone and independent, not contingent or depending on something else. But we are all interdependent too—for example fish comes from seamen, grains come from farmers, etc. We are sharing and they, the people in Uzbekistan, are sharing in a different way. One evening in the hotel I had asked questions to a few translators about this country and compared their economics and way of living, and I understood more about them. They make 36 times less income than Americans per capita, but they are very happy people and know how to share not only food but also their family story and many others. Here in the USA nobody would be handing out food and sharing their family stories to strangers or visitors.
My train trip was to the World Martial Arts Festival in Fergana, where I met so many college students who were translators from Fergana University. My translator, Aisha Sultankhnova, was majoring the English Philology. She took me to the traditional market where I changed US dollars to Uzbeckstan money called Sum. I changed $100.00 and they gave me 7800,00 Sum. I purchased one t-shirt, an iphone charger and sleeper and most of my money was gone. While I was walking around the traditional market, I met many men and women business people who wanted to take a pictures with me and other visitors. They were not able to speak English but surprisingly some of them spoke Korean. After shopping, Aisha and I went to a local cafe and I heard about her study, family and Uzbekistan. 
The festival was very successful. We had 15,000 spectators for the opening ceremony in the stadium. Our team performed two times during the opening ceremony and one in the theater. At the end I received a beautiful Uzbeck traditional man's robe. It is a quilted robe worn outside of clothes. The neckline has colorful strips braided, believed to protect from the evil power. They also gave me an Uzbek cap but it is too small so I just display it in my home. The most important gift was that I met several people during the Festival who were incredibly kind to all visitors. If I go back to this country, I hope I can meet them again. My trip started with tiredness, hunger and frustration, and because of people in Fergana I was able to end my trip with pleasure.
