Today I took a different route for my sunny morning walk and discovered a new way with lots of wildflowers. The fresh, new day invited a cheery “Dobra utra” to the other 6:00 a.m. morning walkers and they responded in kind. One imposing, Kazakh gentleman in athletic garb was walking very slowly said something else and laughed. I must have fooled him with my very fluent greeting. Or maybe he saw that I had picked up the pink rosebud from the path and made a joke about it. Another older woman walking on the newly lad path looked like she could have been a sportswoman from many years back but now she walked with a limp. The third disciplined early riser had a swifter gait and she responded “Good Morning” in Russian to me too. But the trick thereafter was to pick paths that I wouldn’t have to say “hello” again to these same three walkers. My vocabulary doesn’t extend beyond saying, “Yes, I know these are NOT flowers, just weeds.” “Oh, you say it is illegal to pick them anyway?” “That’s fine, because I think I’m allergic to one of them.”
What I gathered in my little bouquet was some pink clover, a mum that looked at first glance like common fleabane, some kind of hot pink lupine or sweet pea looking vine and a blue kind of aster. The one that is probably allergy ridden is the one I’ve never seen before, it is a tall stalk with both purple and blue little flowers and spikey kind of pods. Painful to pick so I won’t do THAT again. I had to show off my new tray that I just bought from some friends who are leaving Almaty. I can’t wait to get my new little Casio electronic piano once they depart in mid-June. Such is the start of my new day!
Kazakhnomad's Blog: A Westerner's View of Kazakhstan 