The Old Man and His Bear

No sooner did I post my last blog update, than a friend called to tell me that the old man and his bear were down by the statue of Ismoili Somoni. I first saw the man with the bear in Washington. It was part of the briefing folder for Dushanbe. Many of my A-100 classmates were intrigued. Since arriving, I had heard of a couple of sightings but alas, had not seen it for myself.

Sensing a golden photo op, I threw on my shoes and start to run downtown with my camera. Of course, the duty phone chose that moment to ring, so I had to walk, panting, and take care of a small issue before resuming my dash.

I'll be honest, it was impressive. But also a little sad to see the bear with a muzzle on. The old man said he raised her from a cub, so I guess it's the only life she's ever known and wouldn't be able to survive in the wild anyway. So I paid the guy 10 somoni to take some pictures, figuring that if this is his livelihood, I should try to make sure he has enough money to feed the bear.

She does seem rather tame, but I kept glancing at those enormous claws...

The bear's name is Maria and she is 20 years old and does tricks. The old man even invited me to pose with Maria. I hesitated, but figure, when am I going to have the chance to do this again?

No, I didn't actually put my weight on her. And Maria didn't seem to mind. Another mission fulfilled for my time in Dushanbe.

Now another week is already blowing by - literally. Today high winds kicked up a small dust storm. Many of the locals think this is from the volcano in island, despite reassurances to the contrary. The volcano is my biggest headache now as we are getting closer to our R&R and there is no sign of it letting up. I'm looking into alternate travel plans just in case. We may be able to get as far as Croatia by air and then take a train to Venice. We would lose a half day in Venice, but that's not much in the scheme of things. Fingers crossed big time!