The boat in the mud

The bus was going slowly on the uneven road that led to khiva, I felt like I was in the boat and my stomach was going down and up between holes and small bumps.

“ …but, who made me do it …” I thought to myself.

Yet my traveling heart had won’t that time too and when they proposed to me to visit Uzbekistan, I accepted without reservation.

A journey from South to North, to discover the Silk Road, the incredible minarets, the cities still in time but above all a laughing population.

But at that moment I felt so bad that I couldn’t think at the motivation that led me to be in that sea of mud and I just wanted to get the goal. I advanced from place and found myself at the driver’s side, who attempted a dialogue in English, and if in other circumstances I would have liked, at that time I could only concentrate on looking at the horizon.

I was so focused that I started seeing puppets sprouting from the fields…or better, coloured things that were shaped like little puppets, but… they were moving, in fact, they were coming towards our bus and I was so caught up in what was coming to me as an exceptional event that I no longer thought of my stomach ache.

” Look! There are children coming through us..” the driver told.

This is what they were, Uzbek children who, at the sight of foreigners, run to greet them.

Now I saw them too ( from the record, from that day I decided to visit the eyes doctor ) all lined up along the way, with one hand on the heart and the other that they waved with enthusiasm.

Big eyes, careful to grasp every details of the strange boat with wheels that crossed their land, and at each glance crossed a smile given away, with the joy of those who see the unknown as a great discovery.

Well, every time I’m afraid of everything I don’t know, I think at that trip, about those kids…then I start running towards the unknown, with the movements of a puppet and a pair of eyeglasses in the pockets, because I wouldn’t get lost for anything in the world the new show.