1.

FLIGHT RISK

          Blood on the floor. The smell of dead animal. The blur of a large-bladed axe as a butcher made quick work of a side of mutton. Ribs, steaks, loins, chops, long ropes of intestines, spongy stomachs, and tongues pierced onto meat hooks.

      Another hall smelled delicious, just like bacon. Three skinless, earless, bloody pigs’ heads, their eyes like marbles, were arranged on a counter in front of a red wall, like a Francis Bacon painting.

      An elderly man with knives accosted me. He jabbed an irate finger at my camera. Was I not allowed to photograph the butchers? “Ya nye panimayo,” (I don’t understand) I said, the only Russian phrase I had memorized. He jabbed the camera again. “Photo, photo,” he barked, then pointed to himself. I duly snapped his picture.

  Carts moved goods up and down the narrow, people-crammed aisles. Get out of the way or you’ll be run over. Wide, round-faced women and men argued volubly with wide, round-faced vendors over the prices of eggplants, peppers, and cabbage. Heaping piles of carrots and potatoes. Glasses filled with blazing orange paprika. Flies and wasps crawled on pyramids of rock sugar that gleamed like crystals. A gypsy ensured, for a price, a profitable day with a pass of a censer redolent of burning mountain grasses. A young woman, sad eyed, gently frowning mouth, hair hidden by a seafoam scarf pinned under her chin, delicately stacked up brown eggs. Men dusted white from hauling flour rested on the sacks and took long drags on pungent Russian cigarettes. A girl used a slowdown in trade to take a quick nap, resting her head on the metal table set up in front of an antiquated turquoise machine that served pear and apple flavored gas-water. Bright pinks, purples, reds, blues, the myriad colors of the women’s dresses and scarves, dazzled the eye in the grey light of the overcast sky. Young, old, rich, poor, Kyrgyz, Russian, Korean and Uzbek all were there. A marvel of sights, smells, humanity and goods   

  I was at Osh Bazaar, not the famous bazaar in Osh, but the bazaar in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan named for the city in the south of the country. It was Saturday and the place was abuzz with activity.

      Sitting on a flight of steps recording my observations, I was interrupted by young men asking me questions and reading uncomprehendingly over my shoulder. One of them ran off with my sunglasses. He eventually returned them saying that he and I, with our blue eyes, were going to ride off into the sunset together.

      Abandon my plans and avoid their possible failure by disappearing into the mountains of Kyrgyzstan never to be heard from again. Run away from the upheavals in my life to be a shepherd’s wife with a hard but simple life dictated by the seasons and the needs of the flock. They were strong temptations. I had been traveling for just two weeks though, a bit early to give up.