One of my favorite things about traveling is how any mundane or every day task can be flipped on its head and turned into an adventure that spirals out of control. Its fantastic, not only do these every day tasks function quite differently in foreign countries, for the most part they go from mundane to down right laborious, but wrap that up with a heavy language barrier and oh boy do you have a fun day ahead. It’s a favorite past time to imagine just exactly what is going on in front of your face as you get shuttled around and indecipherable conversations occur between locals to determine your fate.
This happened while getting a ride from the small mining town of Kazarman to Osh in Kyrgyzstan. First, turning up to a station to buy a ticket for transportation is structured in the typical third world fashion. There is no set price and the bus leaves when it is full. The no set price is frustrating and requires paying a foreigner premium though often still nothing more than a couple dollars. While the leave-when-full-approach can turn any journey into twice its length simply by having to wait around for occupants, especially in small towns. Although typical of many countries, it is always a test of my very limited patience. Then there is a large language barrier. They speak Kyrygz and Russian. My one month of Doulingo preparation left something to be desired in my Russian so suffice it to say traditional verbal forms of communication were out the window. Lastly, I got into a questionable car…
Being in a small town of about one thousand spread out over a substantial valley I was suspecting it might take a couple hours to fill up the shared taxi to Jalal Abad, where I would connect to Osh. I got up early which I often do regardless of the days agenda and asked the guesthouse hostess for directions to the station for my transport. I had unwisely declined her assistance in booking the transport the night before in fear of paying an added convenience fee. I was told to turn right on the main road to the station. I gathered my things, threw on my two backpacks, left the guesthouse and turned right on the main road. After ten minutes of walking I asked a passerby where I could find “Taxi Jalal Abad”, to which I was looked at crookedly and then told to go directly the other direction. A left on the main road would have been the correct directions according to the pedestrian. So I turned around and started walking the other way as it seemed to have more action in the form of a streetlight a mile or so away. I asked a few others as I walked to gather a consensus, one told me to walk up the hill and that I should run (he was a lying mother fucker), another told me to keep walking so I obliged. I walked for another twenty minutes until stoping in my tracks and thought wherever I was headed was wrong but didn’t know what to do. A guy pulled up in his 1980s Audi and asked “Jalal aBad?” and boy did the heavens send me an angel as I quickly responded “Yessir” and hopped in his car. Too good to be true, maybe…
After about five minutes of hand signals and some Russ-lish (Russian and English) The Driver and I were on the same page. He told me he was a taxi headed to Jalal Abad. I was headed to Jalal Abad as well but wanted to fill up the car with other passengers as I wasn’t footing the full bill myself. It got interesting when he called a friend and seemed to ask how much to charge me for the taxi. After the call he told me it would be one thousand som once the car was full and asked for me to pay now. Its not my first rodeo, I pay when I reach my destination. The one thousand som was exactly what I had been told prior but very curious he had to make a phone call to determine the rate…the taxi rate, for his “taxi service”, to which is ostensibly his every day job. So I thought maybe he isn’t actually a taxi but he is functioning as a taxi today because he has to drive to Jalal Abad anyway.
The Driver took us to the station of shared taxi’s where travelers such as myself show up to find rides to adjacent cities form the taxi venders. From a business point of view, it is typically good to conserve gas and stay at the station while the car fills up with passengers thus limiting expenses and maximizing revenues… This seems pretty obvious, only this driver didn’t seem to like this strategy. Let the nefarious activities begin.
The Driver pulls into a mostly empty station (to which I am still not sure if this was where the shared taxi’s were, since it was neither left nor right on the main road) and converses with his mates. He is handed three items. One larger package, maybe the size of a new dvd player wrapped tight in plastic opaque wrapping. One small package the size of a large matchbook also wrapped in opaque plastic. Lastly a large ziplock filled with what looked like marked up gridded paper. The first two were placed in the trunk covertly and seemed to be kept below waist level for the entirety of the transaction. The paper filled ziplock bag was placed on the center console with a blanket on top. The two men with The Driver seemed to object. The ziplock bag was moved to the top of the dashboard but again the blanket was kept over it, hiding it from view. The whole interaction seemed similar to a drug deal (to which I’ve never ever been apart) or at least something all together not legal. Frequent looks over the shoulder, stern facial expressions, and hushed yet commanding voices all added to the suspense. It was like suspicious teenagers passing around their first bag of weed undecided who would the responsibility of holding on to it. Then we left and started our crawl around town. Again, normally the shared taxi waits in the station so it can fill up on passengers but this was no normal shared taxi. We leave the station behind and drive a short distance to a large white house that seems to function as some sort of restaurant but no signage is up. I can see an all female staff wiping down tables and cleaning dishes through the windows. He goes around the back and smokes a cigarette with some dodgy looking fellas. I start to get out of the car and unpack my stuff, obviously The Driver has no intention of driving me and is up to other business. He probably just enjoys my witty company. Once he sees me stand up he rushes over gesturing for me to get back in. After another five minutes of air-traffic style hand signals he seems to get the point that we need to fill up the car. But after I get back in we start driving around town where he takes multiple phone calls. They are all similar: answer by yelling into the phone, yells emit from the cellphone, yells overlap from The Driver and his phone, then one final yell while simultaneously hanging up. We pull up to what looks to be a house. Sitting outside the gate The Driver does the international sign for ‘I am outside waiting’ and mercilessly honks the horn. Very reminiscent how I use to pick up my buddies in high school. A women comes out and yells at him. He gets out smokes a cigarette, gets back in and we leave. This time we drive to the outskirts of town all the while The Driver taking phone calls. We approach a large bend in the road with a man standing on the corner with an aluminum shed behind him. The Driver gets out gives the man a cigarette and lights his after lighting his own. Someone pokes their head out from the door on the shed for a split second, takes in the surroundings then shuts the door quickly. The man now smoking a cigarette with The Driver takes out a large wad of cash and counts out 5000 som, approximately 70 USD. A sizable amount to locals in this country, probably enough for one months rent. I witness the whole thing which neither seem too concerned about, but to which I am very concerned about. What am I witnessing? Is this a drug traffic ring, maybe a bookie or something more troubling I dont want to think about. The Driver comes back and drives us to a large, dilapidated soviet style apartment complex all the while taking more phone calls and burning heaters. He walks in the big piece of shit and disappears up the stairs for several minutes. I am left in the car trying to piece together what the fuck is going on, not scared really as he seems nice enough to me but very confused none-the-less. A police officer walks by and The Driver runs out to greet the lawman. They exchange pleasantries while I divert my eyes, I decide ignorance is bliss. Turning my gaze does not turn off my brain as I wonder, is he greasing palms maybe? Everything has been within earshot of me, if it were not for this massive language barrier it would be obvious. Instead I am left to interpret the events with the aid of movies like Goodfellas and The Departed. It very well could be innocent errands, legitimate business dealings or just random encounters but far more interesting to imagine The Driver is a transporter collecting payments, bribing the police, and handling the affairs of the Kyrgyz mob. Is it possible he opportunistically jumped at the chance to collect some side cash driving a foreigner on his weekly run to Jalal Abad where he drops off the bosses cut? Kazarman is a mining town, it wouldn’t be unheard of. Either way The Driver doesn’t seem keen on filling up the car. Perhaps he knows it is a hopeless errand as there are not many kazarmanian’s traveling to Jalal Abad and I will be the only occupant this day. We drive around for another thirty minutes taking phone calls, sporadically stopping to honk outside homes and of course everything punctuated with a cigarette.
However, I am not the sole passenger, we finally pick up one older gentleman who seemed to be waiting awhile on one the steps of another shit-hole soviet era apartment building. We greet each other with ‘salaam walekum’s and alas we are on our way to Jalal Abad. Once the journey begins The Driver seemed to be in a rush. Speeding up mountain gravel roads, often reaching up to the dash to check on the covered ziplock bag. Despite the haste, The Drive offered to pull over often for picture breaks and I accepted as the amazingly beautiful landscape was too good to pass up. One time, we pulled off for a break near an apple orchard. The gentleman riding in the back grabbed a couple apples from the trees and passed them around between the three of us. Eating some tiny green apples they inquiring where my travels would take me in Central Asia. The most entertaining piece seemed to be that I would be flying from Almaty, where The Driver would put his arms out like wings and make a “VROOOOMMM” noise imitating an airplane. We chuckled, crammed a couple more apples in our mouths, and got back in for the final stretch.
Finally arriving in Jalal Abad, The Driver dropped off the gentleman in the back and then drove me to the bus station for my connection to Osh. As I stepped out he typed into his phone a price 50% higher than we agreed upon. To which I said “Hell no” and he nodded as if to say “At least I tried”. I grabbed my backpack from the trunk, paid the man, and we parted ways with a friendly handshake. Was this the Tony Soprano of Kyrgyzstan or perhaps an aspiring mafiosa trying to climb the ranks, or maybe this is just Hollywood directing my interpretation of harmless and inconsequential events. I choose to believe the former.
At the bus station in Jalal Abad the driver waited for the car to fill up as one would expect and drove uneventfully to Osh once full.
Culture Capital 