for weeks after kurmanbek bakiyev fled kyrgyzstan and despite promises to open it soon, the government of kazakhstan kept the border with kyrgyzstan closed. kyrgyzstan, a mountainous landlocked country with few resources other than water (the source of a lot of central asian rivers are within kyrgyzstan), was not happy to be cut off from one of its biggest trading partners. so they diverted the talas river, the river that otherwise flows through taraz.
they didn't even divert the river long enough for my tap to stop working before the kazakhs caved and opened the border. if only they had thought of that sooner, mrs. noz might have been saved a ticket to london. (okay, probably not)
