Rohit
PS. Yes, she *is* wholesome enough for breakfast...
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http://www.hotwired.com/road/95/30/pb.html
The situation changed little with the demise of the Soviet Union.
Uzbekistan's president Islam Karimov is still a notorious hard-liner, and
freedom of speech exists only in the shaded choyhonas, or traditional tea
rooms nestled between restored mosques and bleak Soviet-era monoliths.
There, beneath the shade of huge plane trees, bearded men lean intently
over chess boards and whisper - very softly - about the political
machinations and wholesale corruption of the present regime.
This being the case, I was surprised to run into a Peace Corps volunteer
named Philip Desautels. Both Desautels and his wife, Michele, are Americans
who have abandoned lucrative careers in the United States to pursue, for a
year or two, more or less idealistic pursuits in developing nations.
For Desautels (who was a corporate consultant in the mainframe division of
IBM before a stroll in the mountains inspired him to take an extended
hiatus), this meant bringing the ways and means of high-tech information to
the Central Asian Republic of Uzbekistan.
I ask why he didn't chose a more lively and accessible location - someplace
like, say, Nepal.
"Uzbekistan's an ancient part of the world," he replies, "but completely
new to most westerners. Katmandu's like fucking New York City; it's
swarming with Americans. Down in Namangan, in the Fergana Valley - where
Michele and I live - there are a total of three other Westerners. All the
locals know about us is what they've seen from movies."
"Meaning?"
"That all American men are Rambo, and all the women are tawdry sluts."
One glance at the Desautels would be enough to disavow any Uzbek of that
notion. He's slight, wiry, and bearded, whereas Michele looks wholesome
enough to spread on toast. When I first ran into them - on the shimmering
Tarmac of the Bukhara airport - they'd just arrived in town to meet Raisa
Gareeva, a local tour agent and entrepreneur who (with Desautels's help) is
about to become the first Bukharan plugged in to the Internet. It'll be a
2400 baud, text-only connection, but Gareeva doesn't exactly need to view
the latest Tori Amos video clips.
What she does need to do is communicate with tour operators and private
clients in the United States and Europe. But she's a special case, says
Desautels. "News servers are the biggest thing. Just to be able to tap in
and see what's going on in the rest of the world is an incredible coup.
That's why people who have a good Internet connection - and know how to use
it - are like gods here."
The comment passes, but I wonder if that Rambo stuff has gone to his head
after all.
"What surprises me," I say, "is that the government lets people get away
with it. The Internet represents a kind of ultimate freedom of speech; it
seems fundamentally at odds with Karimov's schemes."
Desautels laughs. "Let me put it this way," he says. "We have four or five
lines in Namangan. We use them one at a time. After a couple of days, the
current line will 'magically' develop some kind of interference or
something. Sometimes we can actually hear someone breathing into the phone.
They're listening in - so we switch numbers constantly. By keeping the
pattern random we manage to stay ahead of the game."
The situation changed little with the demise of the Soviet Union.
Uzbekistan's president Islam Karimov is still a notorious hard-liner, and
freedom of speech exists only in the shaded choyhonas, or traditional tea
rooms nestled between restored mosques and bleak Soviet-era monoliths.
There, beneath the shade of huge plane trees, bearded men lean intently
over chess boards and whisper - very softly - about the political
machinations and wholesale corruption of the present regime.
This being the case, I was surprised to run into a Peace Corps volunteer
named Philip Desautels. Both Desautels and his wife, Michele, are Americans
who have abandoned lucrative careers in the United States to pursue, for a
year or two, more or less idealistic pursuits in developing nations.
For Desautels (who was a corporate consultant in the mainframe division of
IBM before a stroll in the mountains inspired him to take an extended
hiatus), this meant bringing the ways and means of high-tech information to
the Central Asian Republic of Uzbekistan.
I ask why he didn't chose a more lively and accessible location - someplace
like, say, Nepal.
"Uzbekistan's an ancient part of the world," he replies, "but completely
new to most westerners. Katmandu's like fucking New York City; it's
swarming with Americans. Down in Namangan, in the Fergana Valley - where
Michele and I live - there are a total of three other Westerners. All the
locals know about us is what they've seen from movies."
"Meaning?"
"That all American men are Rambo, and all the women are tawdry sluts."
One glance at the Desautels would be enough to disavow any Uzbek of that
notion. He's slight, wiry, and bearded, whereas Michele looks wholesome
enough to spread on toast. When I first ran into them - on the shimmering
Tarmac of the Bukhara airport - they'd just arrived in town to meet Raisa
Gareeva, a local tour agent and entrepreneur who (with Desautels's help) is
about to become the first Bukharan plugged in to the Internet. It'll be a
2400 baud, text-only connection, but Gareeva doesn't exactly need to view
the latest Tori Amos video clips.
What she does need to do is communicate with tour operators and private
clients in the United States and Europe. But she's a special case, says
Desautels. "News servers are the biggest thing. Just to be able to tap in
and see what's going on in the rest of the world is an incredible coup.
That's why people who have a good Internet connection - and know how to use
it - are like gods here."
The comment passes, but I wonder if that Rambo stuff has gone to his head
after all.
"What surprises me," I say, "is that the government lets people get away
with it. The Internet represents a kind of ultimate freedom of speech; it
seems fundamentally at odds with Karimov's schemes."
Desautels laughs. "Let me put it this way," he says. "We have four or five
lines in Namangan. We use them one at a time. After a couple of days, the
current line will 'magically' develop some kind of interference or
something. Sometimes we can actually hear someone breathing into the phone.
They're listening in - so we switch numbers constantly. By keeping the
pattern random we manage to stay ahead of the game."