Turkmenistan, part deux

So we left off Turkmenistan with Q and me passing through the final checkpoint before entering Ashgabat. I wasn't sure what to expect of the city before I arrived there... what I had read about it talked about Turkmenbashi's obsession with city planning, and how he had poured lots of money into really bizarre projects, changing his mind about which neighborhood was going to be his latest pet.

Really, after seeing the way the rest of the country looked, I wasn't expecting too much. But nothing could have prepared me for the truly outlandish spectacle that was Ashgabat. I'm not much of a wordsmith, but I'll do my best to describe how it made me feel. I guess I could sum it up by saying it looked something like a second rate imitation of a hybrid of Vienna and what I imagine Dubai is like. Of course I hadn't seen Vienna yet, so I didn't think of that part of the description at that point. The first quarter of the city we rode through seemed to have the old European style, with stone walls and narrow streets. Then we drove through what looked like government buildings, all made of gaudy bright white marble, covered by white floodlights. I won't say I wasn't impressed, but along with my amazement, the place seemed... weird... something just didn't feel quite right. It was beautiful, but it felt fake somehow. After seeing the drabness, the poverty, the emptiness of the country, and then seeing the garish glitter of the capital city, it seemed like there was no way there could be anything behind the surface of these massive monuments.

Speaking of monuments, after all that stuff, we got to drive under and through the most famous structure in all of Turkmenistan, that powerful testament to everyone's favorite state policy, The Arch Of Neutrality! It's a tower propped up on top of a three-legged base, looking like it could be a massive destruction robot tool of the Dark Side, like the enormous fulfillment of the ultimate Erector Set project. The piece de resistance of the Arch of Neutrality, of course, is the gigantic gold statue of Sapurmyrat Niyazov Turkmenbashi which, as has been widely reported, turns to face the sun at all hours of the day. Or perhaps, it is the sun that shifts its position at all times in order to face Turkmenbashi... who knows?

As we drove around, we saw a number of high rises, off in the distance. They were constructed in bunches of 4 or 5 identical towers. Incongruous is the word, again. Out of place. It was nighttime, so the only photo I got is a bit blurry, but I think you still get the idea.



Our stoic driver took us to a huge park a couple of miles from the big marble buildings. It was pretty cold, and we didn't really have much in the way of warm coats, but we were dazzled by the thousands upon thousands of electric lamps along the long mall leading up to the majestic fountain, above whose aqueous center rose the powerful figure of His Excellency. You can see the picture of this fountain in a previous post from December, I think. Beyond the fountain was a tall tower, which I think commemorated the 110,000 who died in the horrendous earthquake of 1948, out of a total population of 190,000. Included among the dead were Turkmenbashi's mother and siblings. His father was killed in the Second World War, and he was raised in an orphanage from a young age. His resulting lack of family and clan connections was in large part what made him so attractive to the Politburo of the USSR and led to his meteoric rise to power. Anyway, surrounding the tower were a number of statues of what I think were either mythical/historical characters in Turkmen folklore, or general representations of the different clans that make up Turkmen society. It was quite a sight.

By the way, a little side comment about our driver. Every story about how awful Turkmenbashi was mentions that car stereos were strictly forbidden in Turkmenistan. In that case I guess our driver was quite the maverick, because almost the whole way from Mary to Ashgabat, he entertained us with exceptionally dreadful Russian pop music, along with what I'm guessing might be modern Turkmen pop. Whatever it was, he was playing it at pretty much full blast. Right on, brother, right on.

Our driver took us for a little bite to eat in an outdoor cafe - Q, do you remember what we ate? It was something interesting, I think... Then he dropped us off at the airport. It was 9:00, and our flight to Istanbul wasn't going to leave until 4:45 the next morning, but what else were we going to do? We lugged all our stuff into the airport, put it through the X-ray machine at the entrance, and then found a spot to sit down. It was a cavernous and mostly empty building. It was quite a shock, though, to realize that even though Turkmenistan has something like the fourth highest proven gas reserves in the world, and they are able to finance billions of dollars worth of extravagant monstrosities, along with an enormous park with tens of thousands of lamps, they couldn't manage to spare a single gas canister to heat their airport. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I tell you the temperature inside the airport was hovering around 45 or 50 F (5-7 C). I knew right then that we were in for a long night.

I left Q to look after the bags while I scouted out the airport for a bit. There was a big waiting room that looked like it would eventually be where we would line up to go through security, but at that point it was totally empty. I decided to take a little peek, but I guess I wasn't supposed to, because a cop came by to ask me what I was doing and to examine my passport and everything. He took quite a while to ponder me before he let me go with a warning. I walked around some more and eventually found a dark cafe of sorts on the second level where a bunch of guards or cops on break were watching rhythmic gymnastics (you know, with all the ribbons and balls and hula hoops?). So Q and I sat there for a while, just trying to pass the time and not freeze to death. I was getting pretty tired, so I took the sleeping bag I was borrowing from Dr. B. (thanks again, man!) and stretched out on a few chairs for a couple hours of shuteye. I woke up to hear a young female voice making rather lively (I should say rather one-sided) conversatino with Q. What the heck? OK, add this to the Signs You're Not In Alabama Anymore. This girl was overwhelmingly forward with him. She was there with her mother and younger sister, and she was, well, super friendly. I don't think Q was really in the mood for talking, but he's also a really nice fellow. I can't remember everything they talked about, but there was one particularly memorable exchange:

Girl: "You should give me a gift."
Q: "OK, what would you like?"
Girl: "Give me your watch."
Q: "This is YOUR watch!" (Note: this is what one would say in Alabama anytime anyone would compliment you on something you owned. I always forgot this rule and felt foolish whenever I would tell my friend that I liked his shirt, and then had to plead with him not to give it to me, that I just meant he looked nice.)
Girl: "OK! Thank you!" And she took the watch from his outstretched hand (Note: Oops. Sign You're Not In Alabama Anymore).
Me (smiling, but a bit alarmed): "Ha ha. OK, now you should give ME a gift. How about the watch?"
Girl (a bit sheepish): "Ahhh... ha. OK, here. Sorry."

Anyway, in the end I ended up giving them a couple pairs of flamboyantly colored gloves that someone in Chicago had given me. These things were amazing - blinding shades of fluorescent green, magenta, cyan, and much, much more. Q gave them a bracelet that another friend had given him. I'm not sure if they gave us anything...

Not much else happened of note in the airport. I was quite anxious about how long security was going to take, and wondering if we'd have to go through the same rigamarole as when we entered, but it was no big deal. The Turkish Airlines people were pretty nice and didn't give us any hassle with Q's snowboard or our overweight luggage, so kudos to them. I didn't let out my breath, though, until we were safely on board the airplane and the wheels were off the ground. We had gotten through the riskiest part of the journey, achieving something that a lot of people thought was more than a bit crazy, and in the process getting the chance to witness some really amazing things that few in our homeland could imagine.

A year ago

Naoroz-e-tabrik to one and all, albeit a week late. March 21st is the Alabamian New Year. I felt a bit sad on the actual day, having fond memories of last year, but not being there to celebrate it. I called up Q and we chatted for a bit, and I called Justin, but I got his voice mail. I just talked to him yesterday, and it turns out he was in Barcelona. Lucky dog. Anyway, celebrating over the phone with Q was great… I got to thinking about what we did for Naoroz last year. The day before Naoroz, Dr. B and Troy were visiting us up in Chicago, and we took a visit to Friend of the Government to begin our plans to start working there – it was my first time there. It was a great trip, but my main memory now is riding back in the car with Khalife Naqib, the brilliant driver who managed to find the only sliver of not-pothole on the wicked road… and I remember him so vividly because it was only a few months later that Mr. Chicken Water’s friends bravely mowed him down for whatever sick reason. Enough of those morbid thoughts… on the 23rd, Q and I went up to the beautiful idyllic village of G--, where we took in the unparalleled scene of buzkashi against a backdrop of steep mountainsides. Now that I’m back in these parts, I’ve got a wicked fast internet connection, and thus I now have the opportunity to share just a taste of this intense experience with you, my faithful readers, as a reward for being either so committed or so bored that you are still checking my blog even though I’ve updated it once in three months.



When I talked to Justin last night, he mentioned that until a week ago, if anyone said, “So you must really be missing Alabama,” he would say, “Actually, I haven’t really given more than 10 minutes of thought to it.” Which is really interesting, because I was feeling exactly the same way. It’s not that I was shaking the dust from my feet as I passed the pigs in Turkmenistan – I felt pretty neutral, mostly. But both Justin and I have been missing Alabama really bad since the New Year. I think for me it hit me hardest when I thought about what I was doing a year ago and realizing that there is a strong possibility that I may never have a chance to see and do the things I had the privilege of doing... and remembering that almost every day, even if I nothing happened and I felt bored for most of the day, I would have this one moment where I would step outside, take a look at the brown upon brown, the mountains, the river, the dirty snotty nosed kids playing with two sticks on the ripped-up dirt road, in front of the dirt walls, hiding the dirt houses from view... and I would take a deep breath and say, "Wow. I can't believe I'm really here."

Just for old times, here's a picture of me with the boys a year and 5 days ago:

One Day in Turkmenistan

I began this post a couple of months ago, and only now am I getting around to actually finishing it. Some of the memories have begun to fade, but the entire experience of this journey of epic proportions was so profound that I doubt I will ever forget it.

My day in Turkmenistan remains vivid in my memory. It began early in the morning of Friday, the 24th of November. At 6:00 AM, Q and I loaded all of our stuff into the office pickup truck, picked up a couple of friends who wanted to see us off, and headed to the border. My final experience of Alabama was priceless, truly the quintessence of Alabama. We went to the main building, knocked on a few doors, and found the guards bundled up, sitting on the floor, drinking tea. The main guy took us to his office, and then informed us we had to pay $11 for the exit tax to leave the country. He was right about that, but he was being really defensive even though we weren't arguing with him. But we couldn't just pay this guy, we had to go across to another building and pay another guy. So we looked through two different little buildings before we found a few guys in a room sitting on the floor, drinking tea. They sent us to another room, where the money guy was. But Farid, the guy that drove us to the border, was chatting with the guy, and in the end he said, "You know what? Just fuhgetaboutit. Tell them Abdul says you don't have to pay the tax." So we went back and got our passports stamped, and off we went.

So we drove through the first gate. Holly, who came along to say goodbye, said, "We're now on Turkmen soil." "Hey, it's green!" I said. It was amazing - there was some sparse but noticeable grass growing next to the road. It was something that amazed Q and me throughout the day - geographically it looked exactly like Alabama, but it was green, or at least green-ish, relatively speaking.

I started keeping a mental list of "Signs You're Not in Alabama Anymore." After saying our goodbyes, we walked through the next real official gate, where our passports were briefly checked by two guards wearing uniforms. And when I say uniforms, I mean they were actually wearing exactly the same thing, not just army fatigues donated by a bunch of different countries.

Then we had a real shock. We were walking through the half-mile long corridor of no man's land between the first gate and the border post when I looked over to the right and saw something truly mind-boggling - it was a little barn with five or six pigs wandering and slobbing around in front. I was stunned. It appeared that their were border guards or soldiers taking care of the pigs. I wonder if it was a statement to people entering from Alabama, like giving them the finger.

It took us a bit more than two hours to get through the border. And I was pretty pleased with that. I can't even remember all the people we had to show our passports to and what all they did there. The majority of that time was spent with some officials carefully examining every last item in all of our luggage. Every once in a while the guard would hold something up and say, "Narcotics?". The funniest thing was when he found my Argentinian mate and bombilla (the gourd and straw used for drinking the special tea that's very popular there), and he was SURE he had found something. "Narcotics!!" he said. "No, no, it's for tea!" I responded. He shook his head and said, "Narcotics!" "Tea, tea!" I replied. "Chai!" Q chimed in helpfully. He looked at me suspiciously, and then reluctantly moved on.

Finally we went through the last gate, and we were really, definitely inside the borders of Turkmenistan, fulfilling a lifelong dream, or at least a dream I've had ever since I heard about Turkmenbashi for the first time a few years ago.

We found one fellow with a car waiting outside the gate. We had been fortunate to meet a guy coming back from Turkmenistan a few days before who told us that he paid somewhere around $30-$35 to go from Ashgabad to Gushgy - our trip in reverse. But he speaks Russian and we don't, so I was pretty much prepared to pay about $50. It was very entertaining bargaining with this guy. He started off at $100, and he was very dramatic with his shock and dismay when we offered him $30. "Nnnnooooooooooooooooooooo...." he said, ruffling his forehead and scrunching up his puffy cheeks. He was quite a jolly fellow, so it was fun going back and forth with him, but after 20 minutes and getting him down to $50, I was happy to take the deal and go, but Q was having too much fun. He kept writing numbers on the ground or on my hand or on the dust on the car trunk, and he kept trying to confuse the guy. "$40!" Q said. "Nnnnnnnooooooooooooo... $60!" the driver responded. "Hmmm... $35!" said Q. "Huh? Nnnnooooooo..." said the driver with a quizzical look. Anyway, this went on for far too long, before we finally agreed on $45.

Which leads to the next Sign You Are Not in Alabama Anymore: traveling in a vehicle that manages to break the 30 mph barrier. In Houston, there were a few decent roads where you could go like 40, or even 50 for brief stretches of the road to the airport, but at that point you're gripping the steering wheel and seeing your life flash before your eyes repeatedly, fully expecting that tipsy bicycle with the passenger precariously balanced on the back wheel to veer right in front of you and lead to a great deal of heartache. In Chicago, you reach white knuckle status around 20. So here we are in Turkmenistan, and before we've even gotten out of the lovely little border town of Gushgy, our friendly pudgy driver is doing about 70, and his right foot is becoming increasingly leaden. My mouth drops further and further agape as the needle crosses 75, then 80, then settles down around 85 with gusts to 90 mph. Of course it was all actually in kilometers, but I'm going ahead and converting it for the comfort of my gringo audience.

Now that we were safely across the border and the biggest test of my crazy plan was past, I took the time to observe the surroundings. Like I said before, basically it looked exactly like Alabama except greener. It was hard to figure out exactly why. The green places didn't appear to be irrigated - it was hills and everything... my only guess was that perhaps Turkmenistan has not faced deforestation to the same level as Alabama. Due to the massive abundance of natural gas resources in Turkmenistan, they don't have to rip up every brush or plant that could possibly be consumed in the furnace like they do in Alabama. Or else Alabama is just cursed. I don't know.

There were also electricity wires, somewhat modern-looking buildings, and a big pipeline paralleling the road. The road itself was not too bad - two lanes, a few potholes here and there and some rough patches, but nothing drastic.The driver struck up a conversation, and I beheld yet another Sign You're Not In Alabama Anymore.

"Indie?" he said, pointing to me.

At first I thought that perhaps he thought I looked like an Indie Rocker, like he had me confused with Jeff Tweedy or Ben Gibbard, or that maybe he has heard of my awesome band, Masticated Yucca... but then I figured out that he was asking me if I was from India. Knowing how well it worked for me in Alabama, I smiled real big and said, "Yes!"

"Oh," he replied, unenthusiastically.

I pointed to Q in the back and said, "American."

"AH! American!!! Yes! American! Very good! American!" The pudgy driver gave a big smile and motioned dramaticaly to show his approval of Q's nationality. I felt a deep sense of loss at that moment, the sadness of no longer having that automatic comraderie and admiration for being at least partly Indian. But I got over it pretty quick.

I figured at the rate we were going, we'd be in Ashgabat by like 5:00, which would be fantastic. I had felt a bit worried when I crossed the border and found out that I had to turn my watch forward half an hour, even though we were going west. I have no idea why this is the case, but I'll conveniently blame it on Turkmenbashi. So by the time Q finished playing his numbers in the dust game with our friendly driver, it was pushing 11:30. Anyway, my hopes of reaching Ashgabat in 5 hours were soon cast into doubt, and then later dashed by the realities of the Turkmen police state. We had traveled not more than 40 miles when we encoutered our first police checkpoint. Our pudgy friend parked the car, took our passports, strolled over to the booth, chatted with the guards, maybe had a cup of tea, and 10 or 15 minutes later, we were screaming down the highway again. Then, 40 miles later, another checkpoint, then another, then another, and so forth. At each point, the driver took care of business, had a little chat with the other guards while waiting for the passport checkers to do whatever they did, and off we went again. A little side note here - one interesting thing I noticed about Turkmen is that they ALWAYS shake hands with anyone they talk to, even if he's a stranger. Like all the army guys at the checkpoints, they would always shake our driver's hand whenever he got out of the car. It was kinda cool.

About halfway into the journey we reached the bustling metropolis of Mary. I'm not sure what Mary has to say for itself, but it was a decent enough town. Huge, wide boulevards with almost no cars on them, but Soviet-style cookie cutter apartment buildings and such, and a big ugly hotel with an enormous portrait of Turkmenbashi on the side. I should mention at this point that the cult of Turkmenbashi was perhaps not as intensely conspicuous as I was expecting. I saw no gold statues of him, other than a couplehttp://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif in Ashgabat, and only 6 or 7 big portraits like the on the side of the hotel in Mary. Two things, however were constantly appearing wherever we went. One, signs and other references to the Ruhnama, a really wacky book that Turkmenbashi wrote, basically his version of Mao's little red book, except way crazier. See for yourself: www.ruhnama.com. According to the media, Turkmenistan's entire education program was centered around the reading of this book. I think we had gotten into Turkmenistan just after the month set aside to celebrate

The other ubiquitous reminder of Mr. Niyazov's greatness were signs everywhere that read "Halk, Watan, Beyik Turkmenbashi", which means "People, Nation, The Great Turkmenbashi", or as the Lonely Planet smarmily but humorously translates it, "People, Nation, THe Great Me".

Once we reached Mary, we parked not too far away from that big hotel, and our friendly driver ran off, telling us to wait in the car. Five minutes later, another car pulled up next to us, our driver got out, and introduced us to his brother. The new guy looked nothing like our buddy - he was skinny, a bit darker, and was a bit less cheery, but he was OK enough. The first driver told us to pay him all of the $45 there and not to give any money to his little brother. That seemed awfully sketchy, but I didn't feel like we had much of a choice, and besides, I really liked the guy. After transferring our stuff and saying our teary goodbyes, we were on our way straight west to Ashgabat. It didn't take too long before I realized we had gotten ourselves a good deal with the new guy. The speedometer crept upwards and upwards, past 75, past 85, past 90, settling somewhere around 95 with significant and sustained gusts of 100 mph! I was so giddy. I should mention one other Sign You're Not In Alabama Anymore at this point - paradoxically, even though people drive at Ludicrous Speed, they're simultaneously amazingly patient. For example, when we came up behind a truck doing only 60, the driver would check the passing lane for oncoming traffic. If he saw another vehicle even quite a ways of in the distance, he would slow down and just hang out behind the truck, and not even riding his tail. In Alabama (or India, for that matter), one doesn't even check for oncoming traffic, one just GOES! Not being particularly endowed with great resources of patience, I was impressed with our driver.

The rest of the trip to Ashgabat was uneventful. Towards sunset, some impressive mountain peaks became visible to the south, maybe in Iranian territory. We saw lots of trucks carrying cotton, and once while we stopped for a potty break, I picked up a little chunk that had fallen off a truck and brought it all the way back home with me... it now sits on my dresser, my little souvenir of that lovely day hurtling through the Turkmen countryside. After one last really massive checkpoint, we were in the outskirts of Ashgabat... the City of Love awaited...

...to be continued...

The Blog O' Loooooove

Well, it's up and running. Bethany and I have started a little blog to discuss our upcoming nuptials and life together and such... here's the link: mikelovesbj.blogspot.com. I'm going to go ahead and let you know right now that you should not have great expectations for the new blog, but then again that will be nothing new for both of my regular readers who cry themselves to sleep every night when once again they see that I haven't posted anything new.

Big News

Hi everybody.

Apologies for not posting in a long time. As you'll soon see, I had a good reason.

Apologies also for those of you who are hearing about this news through my blog rather than through a personal call or email or something...

Anyway, I asked a certain young lady to marry me last Thursday and she said YES! (Or as they would say in Alabama, she was agree.)

There's a new blog coming up soon that will tell the whole story and give lots mroe information... I've already written the first post, but it needs to be reviewed and revised first before it can be made public. For now, here's a picture of Bethany and me with her engagement rug (and her engagement ring too):

pictures of turkmenbashi

I just wanted to point out that the BBC has a picture from almost exactly the same vantage point as a picture I took of a statue of The Great Turkmenbashi. Here's the BBC picture:

And here are a couple photos I took:



Obviously the BBC shots are way better, since it's usually a good idea to take photos in the daytime rather than at night.

Oh, I know I was urging moderation in the snideness about Turkmenbashi, but this is pretty funny. According to the BBC, Turkmenbashi's last public act was to preside over the opening of the new Turkmen Disneyland, called "The World of Turkmenbashi Tales."

Turkmenbashi the Beautiful is Dead, is Dead!

I have been back in these great United States lo, four days now, and have been intending to post each day, but for one reason or another I was prevented from achieving this goal. But today, I find myself at a complete loss for words in writing my first post about my journey of epic proportions which has now come to an end. It was to be about my perceptions and experiences of Turkmenistan, my first taste of the world outside Alabama, and a world unto itself in many ways. But now I have been stunned, shaken to the core by the news I read today, that His Excellency President Saparmurat Atayevich Niyazov, Turkmenbashi the Great, Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers, Father and Leader of All Turkmen, is dead, dead. He passed away today at the age of 66 in Ashgabat, capital of Turkmenistan and the city which sprung into its current shape from the seed of his vivid imagination.

I can't even begin to tell you how this makes me feel. Turkmenbashi has been a character unlike any other I have heard of in my lifetime, with perhaps the exception of Kim Jong Il. But I've never seen North Korea. So this is very different.

You can read all about the man on the various obituaries available on news sites. They will all talk about the bizarre cult of personality and he built up after the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991 and he was left holding the reins in Turkmenistan. The BBC says, "Statues and portraits of the self-styled Turkmenbashi, Father of the Turkmen, were erected everywhere. Cities, airports and even a meteorite were named after him... Even the months and days of the week were named after himself and his family." Here's CNN: "He once ordered doctors to stop taking the Hippocratic Oath and swear allegiance to him instead." The New York Times published an article a few years ago with the headline, "When a Kleptocratic, Megalomaniacal Dictator Goes Bad."

The media will also mention the many idiosyncratic laws he passed, his mind-boggling pronouncements, and his crazy plans. Again, BBC: "President Niyazov was accused of spending more money on his grandiose projects - such as a huge man-made lake in the Kara Kum desert, and an ice palace in the capital Ashgabat - than on social welfare." And CNN says, "Among Niyazov's decrees were bans on lip-synching, car radios and the playing of recorded music at weddings." One more quote from the New York Times: "He banned video games, gold teeth, opera and ballet, and once encouraged his people to chew on bones — good, he said, for their teeth."

Before I went to Turkmenistan, I used to spout the same sort of cynical snide snickers about Turkmenbashi. I think I even blogged about a funny conversation with a guy in Houston who was defending him (Here's the link to that post, with the germane paragraph at the end). But having passed from Alabama to Turkmenistan and traveled half the length of the country, I came to a simple conclusion - despotic, tyrannical, egomaniacal government is still better than no government, which is what Alabama has for all intensive purposes. I know, I know, I have no right to come to such a conclusion after spending 8 hours of daylight in a car zooming through the countryside at breakneck speed, 1.5 hours of nighttime ghuming the city, and 7 hours waiting, watching gymnastics, and sleeping in the airport. But I'll still say my opinion, which is that maybe, just maybe, Hafez in Houston was right, a lot of people in Turkmenistan actually admire the guy, and although the media are under a vice grip of control and the people are completely cut off from the outside world, it's a wee bit condescending to say that they're just blind sheep that don't realize they could have it so much better if they had MTV and American politics.

I'm working on the story of my day in Turkmenistan, but I might not have time to finish it tonight, and today's momentous events dictate that I must publish some semblance of the whirlwind of thoughts currently running through my mind. The stories are coming soon, though, I promise.

By the way, I'll also add that I am rapturously reunited with a certain young lady here in Madison, which also helps to explain my delay in posting since my return to this fair land.

hello world

Hi everybody.

I just wanted to write a brief note to everyone to say that everything is hunky dory with me. I'm in London as I write this. It has been a wild and wooly adventure out of Alabama, through Turkmenistan and Turkey and England, and the adventures are just beginning. If things keep going the way they are going now, we're going to be exhilerated but exhausted at the end of this crazy gallavant.

There are so many stories to tell about the last two days and my last days in Alabama as well, but that will have to wait until another time. Stay tuned.

Guess what?

General Chicken Water joined the government. That's right, my favorite guy in the whole wild world is now considered a good guy. Well, I'm not sure how true that really is, but as far as I know, by handing over some of his guns and telling everyone that he now supports the government, he has managed to maintain his grip on power in his miserable little hovel, and he has gotten away with no consequences for all the murders and robberies (including our office) that he has ordered, known about, or benefited from. That also includes the brutal slaying of my friend Khalife Naqib and Dr. Zahir back in late July. Well, I should say no consequences for the time being. Here in Alabama, even if the government is weak, justice tends to take care of itself. A couple weeks ago, another district governor (or ex-governor) in Georgia, who was a former warlord who had killed lots of people, got mowed down by one of his countless enemies. That makes three district governors, I think, since I've been here this year. I don't mean to be vengeful or spiteful. I don't want these guys to get murdered, I just want peace in this place, and I don't want wicked people to get rewarded. What can I say, politics is just so far beyond me...

Here are some photos of the man himself, at a secial ceremony in his honor.

I've never actually seen him, and I got these photos from someone else, but I'm pretty darn sure that he's the guy giving the speech here. Our governor is the distinguished looking fellow sitting next to him, and next to the governor is the chief of police:

Here they all are looking at all the weapons the General handed over:




Here's a couple photos of the stash he turned over. I'm betting there's plenty more where that came from: