homestay karakul

[a bonus add...]

we descend into a place without beginning or end. dust rises in clouds from the roads as taxis and donkey driven carts barrel through. in a rush to get somewhere, though where isn't exactly clear in a place where business is slow, and any exit from the city leads you to the middle of flat desert for miles and miles. the young women in veils look like they could be my sisters. hapa children the product of other empires clashing. but we break bread together, and in their language and in mine we have nothing to say. we huddle in a small brick and adobe room around a small round metal stove, sitting on colorful woven blankets, covered in dust. the river freezes at night where they live, there's hardly radio, hardly tv. aside from the scarves on their heads, an outfit out of an earlier century-- a burgundy 1920s jacket and skirt suit with layers of long thick nylons browned from the dirt and closed toed shoes with a strap and a slight heel. they are mothers and wives first and foremost, no confusion of roles. their husbands and uncles make their business by inviting people like us, tourists, into their homes, to eat bread, play with and take pictures of their children. give us a good price for a motorbike ride around a lake that reflects turquoise crystal against the dusted mountains, capped in snow. do we also in america drink milk tea for breakfast? the grandfather asks. he means the kind that they do, salty from yak's milk, sipped out of soup bowls and accompanied by hard bread. do we answer by saying we drink coffee? and in a friendly gesture omit the running water, the dsl, the $80,000 education that grants jobs that let us land in any part of the world we want, with cash ready to burn in the palms of our hands...?