yet later on Monday

Life moves at a glacial pace here in the desert.

More guests arrived as the day went on, first a group of four Koreans who are teaching in Tashkent, with their taxi driver, and then a group from France and a group from the Netherlands.  The Dutch were chatty and cheerful, and the French kept entirely to themselves other than one woman who said "bon appetit" or "au revoir" as she passed at meals.

At about 4:30 I went on a short camel ride with Tian, who teaches Korean, led by the camel handler. It was a lot like riding a horse, but a delight all the same. I was giddy as a child. Then while some of the others went on the camels, the Korean group asked me to go with them. But where? I climbed in the car and as we drove away, someone in the back seat came up with the English word for our destination-lake, they were going to see Aiderkol. Kol means lake in Uzbek. It was further down the asphalt lane, and then off on a narrow sandy track. I wondered if the car would get stuck, but it did not. Mostly we took photos there. I would have liked to walk along it and look for birds, but I was a tag along, and didn't want to impose. And this group's favorite thing to do seemed to be to take selfies while making the peace sign. As it grew dark, we drove back to camp, stopping to let some cattle and sheep move off the one lane road in front of us.

The Korean group invited me to eat with them, and it seemed churlish to refuse. I think it was at the instigation of the driver, who seems to have taken a liking to me. "Irin" he says and then tries to serve me more food, or vodka, or include me in whatever is happening.  When a bottle of vodka appeared on the table, I did wonder about how the evening would develop. We sometimes talked together and sometimes the four just spoke in Korean to each other. It was good even though I knew none of what they said, they were kind to me and having fun themselves. When I asked the driver a question, it would be translated in Korean by Tian, who spoke some English, to the male of their group, who spoke better Uzbek than the others. He in turn would translate to Uzbek for the driver. The driver's answers often did not require translation. We all laughed frequently.

In the night the rain came.

Rett, I heard that singing yesterday! An old man, sitting outside the Amir-i-Zinda, was making those multi-tonal sounds like the Mongolians in the movie, what was the name?  "--- Blues", I think?