Oasis in the rubble

"We were just standing here saying, 'if only someone would come to hear our stories. I've been praying God would send someone to us.'"

These were the words of the spry 'Robiya,' in her 60s, right after we (Sue and Elaine) approached her and her two friends on the street late one afternoon. As we spoke to them in their mother tongue, tears began to flow. "You know our language!" Immediately, 'Robiya' began stuffing bread and cookies into our bag, despite our protests.

For more than a week, every single Uzbek home we've entered has been an eyeful of misery; charred beams, twisted iron roofing, melted jars and tea kettles, broken plates and piyolas, and everywhere, rubble. But today was going to be different.

We couldn't say no to Robiya's invitation to come to her hovli and when we did, it was as though we had entered paradise. The yard was swept clean and blooming flowers in pots greeted us. Curtains fluttered in windows. They invited us to sit down around the low table on their supa and as always, we removed our shoes and then seated ourselves at the indicated spots on the tushaks.

Within minutes, her grandchildren and kelin (daughter-in-law) began filling the table with plates of nuts, candies and raisins and a pot of steaming green tea and piyolas were brought and filled.

Yet, all this lovely mehmondostlik (hospitality) was laced with fear. Here was a family who had escaped much harm (only one son arrested and ransomed for $2000, now sent off to Russia) yet lived with the thought of 'I wonder if we will be next?' Yet, we also saw the typical forgiving nature of the Uzbek people who amazingly carry little animosity for the persons who perpetrated the violence of June 10-14, 2010.

"There are good Kyrgyz and bad Kyrgyz, just as there are good Uzbeks and bad Uzbeks. We don't want you to think all Kyrgyz are bad, even though this happened." And they proceeded to tell a story about how another son's life (the one who sat at the table with us; whose wife and children were serving us) was saved by Kyrgyz nomads living in yurts on the mountains where he had gone to gather honey from his hives on June 10th, the day the violence began. Those Kyrgyz even lied to authorities, saying they weren't hiding anyone.

It is so encouraging to hear stories like this amidst the police brutality that continues as we write. It is a whisper of hope amongst so much despair.