Kazakhstan On My Mind

(Transit Lounge, Dubai International Airport, circa 2007) He answered that he was from far Kazakhstan, “Exotic place,” he added, which I know but could not pinpoint on my mental map. She smiled and said, “I am from India somewhere farther to the northeast bordering China.” “Hence her fairer skin,” I thought. And she piped in, “From Ethiopia,” and I could not but think of just how much she paid to have her curly hair straightened. From the counter of their air-conditioned, compact caravanserai, they all chorused the suggestion that I opt for king prawn salad which, indeed, was so delicious to the hungry eyes but just so rich for my already travel-thinned billfold. Thus I settled for some salmon sandwich and a bowl of curly noodles that the Chinese had perfected long ago in those steaming kitchens of their fabled silk road inns. “Fragrant tea from out the hot and humid hills of southern India,” the Ethiopian said with flourish, bringing me my mug to wash away the fishy taste still lingering along the silk roads of my taste buds, as I vainly tried to pinpoint far Kazakhstan on my travel-weary mental map while waiting, sleepy, for the call to put me, once more, on my way.