Thoughts from Kokshetau

Once your eyes adjust to the retina-numbing whiteness of the steppe, you realize that Kokshetau is a city of colors. The trash cans are parrot green. Iron gating appears in all shades of aqua and lime and yellow. The hundred year old mosque in the center of town is as blue as the Kazakhstani flag. The windows on the white dakas are framed in saphire blue. The little girl walking home from school has a light pink puff on the top of her white knit cap. The woman at the market smiles with the glint of three gold teeth. In the midst of the snow and slush so thick and whitegreybrown that the spattered cars are drained of their tint from waistlevel down, these little shreds of color stand out bold and brave in the whiteness. Like the notes of a song finding their way through the static, you strain to hear more.

The babyhouse caregivers have pasted strips of thin cotton cloth to the seams around all the windows in an attempt to keep the heat in and the cold out. The cloth is a blue floral and was probably crib bedding before it got too worn for that purpose. It is beautiful and resourceful and sad.

The babyhouse smells like stewed cabbage and watery potatoes but it is very bright and clean. All of the babies are fat and dressed in a wild assortment of pink and yellow and blue cotton layers

Being here reminds me a little of being a child. I can't understand a word spoken between the driver and the interpretor, so for the hour-long car trip to and from the babyhouse I listen loosely to the conversation between the two, letting the rythmn of the words wash around me. I'm like a bouy in the ocean. I find myself repeating sounds which have no meaning: diavichka. diavitchka. diavitchkee. I remember doing the same thing on trips with my parents as a small girl. Also, I'm tired so early that I am going to bed at dusk,while most Kazakhstanis are still getting home from work. Now, just as when I was a girl, I love the sensation of sleeping while the world is still in motion.