24.07.2009: hello, goodbye …

Hello, people!

I just realised that I’ve been writing this journal - or blog, or whatever you want to call it - for four years now. Gosh ... that's quite a long time, no?

That random thought was inspired by another: namely, that there are basically two ways in which these entries tend to be written. The first way takes very little effort – most of the words are already in my head, so I just sort of open a document and let them tumble out onto the page. Then there's the other way, which is more like this: something has happened in my life which I know I want to write about, but I have no idea of exactly what to say. Then it gets into drafting and re-drafting, writing lots of stuff that I later decide to dump, and playing around with details for weeks ... all those things which I’m sure real writers do on a regular basis.

Of course I wanted to put something onto The Manor about my final week in Almaty, because I’d spent two years of my life there and it’s a significant place for me. And so I tried. Actually I wrote lots and lots ... about our return journey from Kyrgyzstan and the heady thrill I experienced when we arrived back in ‘my’ city; about my growing appreciation for Soviet architecture (mainly the tower blocks and the Krushchevki*); about the sad farewells that came so soon after I got back, and so on blah-de-blah. But it was all a pretty aimless, wandering literary exercise, and it didn’t get to the point of what I wanted to say. That’s probably because I didn’t know – and I still don’t.

Here are the bare bones, though: I left, and in doing so said "goodbye" to a lot of cool people and a really engaging – though often frustrating and dysfunctional – city. And I don’t really know why.

I mean that in general terms, btw, rather than specifically about Almaty. What I'm saying is that I don’t know why I feel the need to keep leaving whatever place I’m in. If we were talking more specifically about Central Asia, I could certainly give you a couple of good reasons to leave. For a start, the food was doing its best to kill me! My digestive ‘bugs’ never adjusted and I had frequent stomach cramps, which became almost permanent during my last couple of months in Kazakhstan. So, y’know, it was physically painful to be there. That seems a good reason to go. But it doesn't say much about the larger issue of wanderlust versus the desire to settle and be part of a stable community &/or social circle. Still working through that one in my head, and probably will be for some time to come.

Actually the farewell process (and it is inevitably a process) went pretty well. We had the big party almost a week before actually leaving, but three of my favourite people in Almaty – Natalya, Katya and Sasha, all former students – couldn’t be there. As it turned out that was cool, because they all subsequently wanted to see me during my final week, so I got to spend an evening with each of them separately. Part of my last night in Almaty was therefore spent with Crazy Diamond Sasha, who I’ve mentioned before in Ranting Manor. We wandered around the centre and took some extremely silly photos next to fountains, flower beds and other random stuff, while I just soaked up the wonderful weirdness of 'The Queen'. (That's what her t-shirt says: "Sorry, but I'm THE QUEEN".) I really couldn't have asked for a better send-off :-)

Also, I'd said goodbye to my favourite class a long time beforehand - their lessons had finished on May 24th. That was probably the most difficult day of the year for me, because I absolutely loved that class and they were one of the best things about being in Almaty. But there was an upside: by the time I had to farewell everyone else, I'd already survived the toughest "goodbye". That made all the others seem a bit easier :-)

Of course, my final farewell was to the mountains which lend so much grandeur to Almaty's skyline, and which continue right on out to the airport and beyond. This one took place through a pressurised perspex window, as I sat on the plane wondering how the Hell my life had reached this point and what would happen next. I'll tell you about that soon :-)

In the meantime ... er, goodbye!

(*Less notorious than the tower blocks, but just as common. They're four- or five-storey apartment buildings put up in Krushchev’s time to affordably satisfy an urgent need for more housing. Quite elegant in their own way, with a style that faintly recalls earlier periods in Russian history, and HUGELY successful - they spread across large areas of Europe and Central Asia, so that nowadays you can spot them in places as far apart as Berlin and Bishkek. A lot of people dislike the Krushchevki, but not me; I lived in one up until today, and all in all I was rather fond of it.)