Students and Teachers

A fabulous four hour drive in one of the Embassy's Chevy Suburbans brought us from Tashkent to Namangan. I may get around to posting pictures from the drive through the mountains, but they were mostly shot out the window. I haven't looked to see if they are interesting. In Tajikistan we were often in an armored Toyota Highlander and the windows didn't roll down. The Suburban was an improvement even though it was the biggest non-truck on the road. We only stopped for herds of livestock, loaves of bread and baskets of apricots.

We bought one or two of these baskets of apricots from the girl below. After she sold them to us she ran back into the orchard and filled them up again.

I was thinking about the first 150 years of photography and how peasants and farmers were a major theme right from the beginning. In the 1860s Lady Hawarden and Julia Margaret Cameron would have their friends and family dress up in costumes to recreate "the olden days" of country life for their own amusement. The Allen Sisters made a living setting up picturesque "genre" scenes of Deerfield farmers and children in the 1890s. They sold prints to city folk. Photographers continue to do the same for stock photo agencies. Now, I'll nip the lecture on photography in the bud (to use a farming analogy), and say enough is enough. (more to come)

We had this wierdo "luxe" suite in the hotel in Namangan.

Yes, that's Vivian on the left entering our suite. This is the third floor staircase. I took pictures inside our rooms, too, but this gives you the idea.
Anyway, we had a balcony with a breathtaking view of cotton fields spreading out like we were in California or something. At about 5:30 Vivian wakes me up to get me to take pictures of the farmers in the fields illuminated by this perfect sweeping dawn light. I took one look at a potential cover shot for a John Deere Annual Report (except there was no machinery) and went back to bed. She took the pictures herself. Again, for me, "enough is enough." These kinds of pictures are tolerable when I see them in calendars on the walls of hardware stores, but they are not for me. I'm having enough trouble making pictures that are fresh and interesting, I don't need all these scenic farmers running around at dawn in their infinite fields.

Let's take a break with this picture at the Namangan restaurant where we ate three times in two days. Now that's an effort to stay healthy.

Note: Stay away from Russian beer. Tuborg seems to be decent, but it's not delicious. If you want a good beer, go to the biggest city you can find, Moscow will do, and search out an Irish Pub (yes, they are all over the world) and order a Guinness (period).

OK, now back to my elusive point about pictures, farming and the world as it is.

Before I took this picture of these girls, who are sitting in a school cafe preparing for their final exam in Uzbek, they were telling me that the cotton company delays the beginning of school until late October because young people are needed in the fields for harvesting cotton. Well, I did a little research and it appears that the state owns the cotton company and that the school children do not get paid for their labor. OK, I'm getting into the same territory that has probably led Uzbekistan to block Wordpress blogs from access in their country. I don't want to have to find yet another blogging site so I'll simply stress that this is an opportunity for foreign aid to step in and donate some damn harvesting machines. I'll also mention that the youngsters I talked to did not complain about this, ie, please don't harass them. In fact, I'm not complaining about it:-)

Now's the time to get to what the blog is about--students and teachers.
I love these guys. They're smart and good looking, and they know how to dress.
Look at this great posture.
These boys are all out of uniform because they took their ties off.All these girls had to do was stand there. They nailed it.Here are some teachers flanked by security and possibly a student or two.More to come...