You gotta love it.
You gotta love it.
The heavy smell of burnt tires, the hot air smoldering on the slowly cooling evening asphalt, and a bunch of three fat strange men in a car I just hitched a ride in. It’s just getting dark and I’m driving out of the Turkmenistan border. I’m on the road again.
*
I cried. At the border. Touched that I was home again (and by home I mean Turkmenistan, of course). And sadness that I was going away from home. But here it is, all the beautiful things in life just have an end sometimes.
**
Leave everything behind and be, here and now. Turkmenistan, the Akhaltekins, the Turkmen horse boys, the tanned hands of the uaz driver, the best day of my life, the Turkmen soil, the air that heals when you breathe it in to your full lungs and finally feel life… it’s all the past that won’t be repeated. Here and now. Here and now, breathe deeply the nasty burnt smell of a thousand chimneys and exhausts, driving somewhere with strangers and live. Enjoy to the fullest the filth, the stench and the dirt of the fucked up Uzbek asphalt road leading through the wasteland into the distance.
The smell of tires, exhausts and asphalt in the car is so thick you could almost bite it (as Jiřinka would say, behind a fog so thick you could cut it…). Probably a pressure low.
***
Just over the line.
The taxi drivers are arguing over whose tourist she’ll be, only to see my lone backpack behind the fence.
“The tourist is mine.”
“No, she’s coming with me.”
“I told you I’m driving now, so the tourist is coming with me!”
Well, no, you guys, you’ve gone too far. I’m not a piece of beef to be shared around like in a butcher shop – but I’m not out of the butcher shop yet.
My fluent Uzbek speech about not going with either of them, that I´ll hitchhike, however, didn’t garner a deep ovation (as I expected, applause, a bow, ooh miss, your Uzbek is great, I’ll take you for free and clean your shoes while I’m at it), but it did garner a lot of cursing, a few disgusted spits and some physical nudging. Come on guys, I’m 22.5 km away from the nearest civilization, and even if I have to walk all the way in the dark, I’m not going to go with one of such motherfuckers spitting and poking me. Poke your own granny.
****
Ha. Oh, that’s a ride. That’s me again.
The driver’s got about two Czech big ones in his briefcase.
They said clearly, “don’t look,” so I’m honestly not looking and tapping this text into my phone.
I just hear, “We took a tourist from Spain, but don’t worry, she doesn’t understand a word, we can talk.” Spain. Lol. They couldn’t have come up with anything better, it’s a good thing the average Uzbek has no idea what the average Spanish girl looks like.
That’s how you make money.
On the other hand, they’re pretty brave, taking a hitchhiker with them, going out to dinner with her, drinking a third of a bottle of vodka each, then letting the hitchhiker sleep in their living room, and then kicking her out on the exit road in the morning – all while carrying a suitcase full of money, that takes a lot of nerve. He´s bragging about it. “Here’s $5,000. And here’s $7,000. That’s the job I have. It’s a good job. I only work three days a month.” I don’t know the nature of the job and I don’t want to know. I haven’t looked honestly.
*****
“You can’t steal from people,” the driver tells me with conviction. “It’ll come back to you in life, you know. One time a colleague of mine, and now I don’t know if it’s true or just a rumor, said he was hauling $7,000. He figured if the money got lost, it would pay off. So he pulled over on a deserted turn-off, poured gasoline on his car and let it burn. He had it all figured out, he was gonna use the seven grand to buy a new car. So he told them the car was burnt and he has nothing. And they just laughed. They said, “It’s okay, these were just papers, we just wanted to test you.” And there he was, car burnt and a suitcase full of colored papers.”
Yeah, karma. It’s in all religions. It’s just called something else in Islam.
*****
“Let’s drop her off at the hotel.” one of the men protests my invitation to the evening’s soiree. “Okay,” the others agree, “we’d better go to a hotel.” Oh, there’s no hotel here. “So you know what, you’re staying with us, you’re going to stay in the guestroom. I just hope you’re free. You have time, right? We’re gonna drive around town for a few more hours.”
“Well, okay.” I agree, like I have so many options to choose from.
And then we drive the goods back and forth to different cities until one in the morning. We pick up a chair here, moldings here, tires here, building materials…and then by some mysterious system we unload them again in different cities. It’s another busy night. But I did learn a lot of techniques for putting random things on the roof of the car.
And then we’re going to dinner. But not just any dinner. The guys order plates of meat and they’re fighting with it under pressure. They spill a whole bottle of vodka. Only, we’re still not at their house.
Oh, my goodness, that’s another no-go.
I hope they drive home in this condition. They’re all glassy-eyed and the guy next to us is chowing down on the last bites of food so hard I’d like to call an ambulance.
“Well, what, Lucius? So how are we? We’re great. We’re great people.” say the little red eyes, and they’re kniťťiňg theiř toňgueš.
Yeah, you guys, don’t fuck it up too much after the vodka.
******
I cried a little bit at the border. And I’d cry again. But I can’t, alone in a pub full of drunken Uzbek gentlemen. I want to go back to Turkmenistan.
But that’s part of travelling.
Letting go of what should be let go.
And accept what is to come.
I’m on my way again.
You can’t teach an old donkey new tricks.
*******
I’m showing the drunken pub videos of the carriage rides. A packed pub somewhere near Bukhara is filled with a real Moravian brass band from last year’s feast in Kohoutovice. Guys are passing around a video and watching Moravian feasts like we watch the exotic rituals of native African tribes. Totally bizarre situation. And my favourite Hutsul horse looks like a donkey. “Donkey!” “Hey, donkey!” “Oh shit horse, it’s a donkey!” I can’t hide my outrage at their visual assessment of the world’s best horse and the whole pub laughs. “Ahhh, look, shit, donkey! It’s a donkey!” they deliberately shout as loud as they can. They’re great.
“Lucie, you’re so good, just a little more and you could be a man”, the drunk driver in the pub pats me on the shoulder approvingly and I’m so glad I’m still a little short of Uzbek man perfection. One more bit of selfishness, one more bit of self-centeredness and I’d be there. But otherwise, compared to their wives, I have too much selfishness and self-centeredness. I’m not going to practice chidam va bardosh. They’ve spotted that correctly.
