Journal of a Sabbatical

July 14, 2001

voices from central asia

Today's Reading: A Conscious Stillness by Ann Zwinger and Edwin Way Teale

Today's Starting Pitcher:
Rolando Arrojo

The Lists

2001 Book List

2001 Plum Island Bird List

Plum Island Life List

The Russian Speaking Dog's barking woke me up in the wee hours this morning. I had trouble going back to sleep so I turned on the radio. WBUR was broadcasting some kind of BBC World Service in depth report on Georgia. Uh, that would be the former Soviet republic not the US state with the same name. Naturally I had to stay awake and listen to it, especially when they got to the part about Abkhazia.

I never heard of Abkhazia until I met Sergei, who has become a recurring theme. One morning at breakfast I discovered that Mr. & Mrs. Entomologist, with whom I was staying in Budapest, are friends of Sergei. They know him through the Hungarian Abkhazian Friendship Society. That explained everything. Well some things. The major thing it explains is why the entomologist started asking me if I was going to Abkhazia to see pine trees. Well that and the fact that they offered to put up the visiting American computer geek (that would be me) when they didn't seem to know István and Zsolt. Who needs to know István and Zsolt when you know Sergei?

Anyway, according to this radio show I heard in the wee hours, Abkhazia still thinks it's an independent country and Georgia still thinks it's not. Nice to have an update considering that Abkhazia only gets mentioned in the news about once every 3 or 4 years.

Moving farther east, to Central Asia, now that Nancy and I have rented all the Kyrgyz movies that Acme Video has - we are definitely the only people who have ever asked for more movies from Kyrgyzstan - we are reduced to watching a nature documentary - uh that would be Nature - about Mongolia on the local PBS station. Nature has this odd approach. They plop a celebrity in an exotic location and film said celebrity's reaction. I remember watching Richard Dreyfus in the Galapagos and vowing never to watch another one of these bizarre things. However, we are starved for views of Central Asia and Wild Horses of Mongolia with Julia Roberts at least has horses and Mongolia going for it. The tahki is the coolest horse in the whole wide world. I would have liked more horses and less Julia Roberts. However, the music was excellent. So was the music on the radio show about Georgia for that matter. And the broadcast of the Dar Williams concert after the Wild Horses of Mongolia with Julia Roberts. Gotta get Acme Video to find more Kyrgyz movies.