At the Natural Dyes training this week, the women seem as interested in me as they do in learning to dye. I got applause after I introduced the training, and the women have been trying to marry me off ever since.
It is really a funny thing, these marriage jokes. First, they insisted on knowing what kind of girl I wanted to marry. “She must have a mouth like a thimble,” I said. This, requirement, stolen from an old children’s story I read early on out here, inevitably ensures a laugh. Usually, in fact, it steers the conversation away from a potential bride, and towards the novelty of my request. Not today, however.
Today, instead, the women in the room, mostly mothers in their 40’s and 50’s, guffawed, saying their big mouths helped them laugh louder. One women, even, was less specific, and in other ways, much more so. She just looked at me with a grin and said, “mouths that are big are just better,” and the room erupted in laughter.
Our driver, this time around, is a quiet, laid back man, the husband of one of our trainers. He enjoyed talking with me, slowly, about food, and America.
“In China,” he said, “they eat everything. They raise everything, and they eat 
everything. For example,” he said to one of the son’s of the house, “you raise chickens, for eating, right? Right? The Chinese raise frogs and turtles and insects. They do it all.”
“I ate scorpions in China,” I chimed in.
“See, everything.”
“In America, do you eat dogs?”
“No,” I said, “no dogs, no cats, not even horses.”
“Really, why not horses?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Why don’t you eat dogs?”
Somehow, magically, he didn’t even have to think about this one. “Because they eat poop.”
When evening time came, I went ten kilometers down the road to the Ak-Tala rayon center of Baiotov. My friend Travis lives out there.
He showed me around town. I was amazed by how impressive the place was. It was a town of 5 thousand or so, and in Soviet times, had clearly been designed to impress. There were parks and museums, restaurants and billiards. The roads were wide and provincial.
“Sometimes, I think, in some other universe, this town went the other way. Here, in our universe, it got worse, and in some other universe, it just got nicer.” Travis was full of this really deep, very local thinking.
“I’m gonna’ be serious about winter this year.” He said, a sentiment I’ve heard more than once from village volunteers lately. “I’m paying my neighbor to make me juice in 3 liter jars. I want twenty of them. She’s also gonna’ help me make salads, I hope to get 50 jars. I’m not gonna’ be hungry this winter.”
Travis is also going to buy chickens. “I like eggs, you know? I can get young chickens in the bazaar for 50 som (about a dollar). I want ten,” he said, “I’ve already bought the feed.”
I left his house that morning, raving about his family’s jarma, and when I got to training, there was a new attendee, a girl, about my age. “Look Carl,” women said, “she’s skinny, like you, and she has a mouth like a thimble.”
