i occurred to me today that i am 8 days away from uzbekistan and i that have never been here before. the magic day was yesterday.
i have waited 2 years to cross the divide from 9 days before to 8. in 2001, i was already to go. i had my plane tickets, visa, and guidebook. i was scheduled to leave on october 5, 2001. on 9/11, concerned friends and family kept asking me if i was still going to uzbekistan. despite their implied suggestion that i stay home, i told them i was going. in fact, when the planes hit the trade center towers, it seemed to have nothing to do with the far-flung country in central asia.
but within a few days focus shifted to afghanistan, a country that borders uzbekistan to the south. the u.s. demanded the taliban hand over bin laden "or else." at first, i thought they would. but bin laden was not produced right away and i began to have my doubts.
every morning when i arrived at work, i checked the state department travelers advisory web site. no warning about uzbekistan appeared as the taliban debated what to do; they seemed to be stalling. i told my wife if the state department issued a warning that said uzbekistan was off-limits to tourists, i would not go.
meanwhile, the news was filled with experts who explained that in central asia (and in many other muslim societies) there is a strong cultural ethic of hospitality. in those countries it is expected that a guests be treated with the utmost hospitality, and protected from danger if necessary. the experts were talking about why the taliban were hesitating to turn over bin laden. but i used their comments to reassure family members. after all, i would be a guest in uzbekistan, so i would be protected. i had no idea if that was true, but i really wanted to go and i needed something to tell them in response to their concerns.
then the taliban decided. they would not give up bin laden. there were still hints that some compromise was possible, but bush and the american public was not in the mood for compromises. the taliban got more belligerent announcing that it would not only fight off the americans, but also attack anyone who aided the americans. within 24 hours uzbekistan offered its airbases to the u.s. military, despite the threat. a series of state department warnings went up the next day telling americans to stay out of pakistan, tajikistan, turkmenistan, and iran--i.e. every country bordering afghanistan except china and uzbekistan. the state department did post a warning about uzbekistan, but it merely "strongly advised" against going. it did not rule out travel there altogether. i took that to be a good sign. my friends and relatives did not.
meanwhile, i had been corresponding with a few people living in uzbekistan. one was a friend of a friend of this woman who my brother met at a party in san francisco and whose email address was passed down the line to me. when you tell people you are going to an usual place, distant contacts like that come out of the woodwork.
anyway, the day after the state department warning, my resolve was starting to crumble. it was becoming obvious that my wife would spend the whole time i was away worrying that i would be killed there. as my departure date got closer and closer, it got harder and harder to imagine putting her through that. the straw that broke the camel's back was an email i got from the friend of a friend of the woman my brother met. in the weeks after 9/11. when everyone else was trying to get me not to go, he had encouraging me to come, reassuring me that it was okay there. he was the uzbek, so i figured he knew the situation better than friends and family who couldn't find the country on a map.
then suddenly one day, he wrote me and told me not to come. he wasn't that specific, but he said that military check points had gone up on some of the roads and so traveling between cities would be difficult. because of these road blocks, it wasn't a good time to come if i travel around the country.
i read his message the morning of september 26, 2001, 9 days before my departure date. it also was the anniversary of my first date with my wife. i decided not to go to uzbekistan.
by september 28th, i had a new plane ticket and a new visa in my passport for mali, a country in west africa which was my second choice before i decided to go to uz. i left on october 5th on the same flight to london that was supposed to be the first leg of my uzbekistan trip. i got on a different plane in heathrow--going south rather than east. i had a great time in mali and barely thought about uzbekistan the whole time i was there.
it was only in retrospect that i regretted not going to uzbekistan. the stories of military checkpoints turned out to be somewhat misleading--it turned out to be more of a fear that they might block the roads of the country than reality. it was safe in central asia. it just was hard to see through the uncertain fearful lense of our just-post-9/11 world.
