Welcome to Eganistan

This journey begins at the end of 2019. I was unexpectedly laid off from a job teaching in New York halfway through the year. I wouldn’t be able to find a new university job before the start of the next academic year so I decided to make lemonade from the lemon of unemployment and spend the first two thirds of 2020 doing a couple things that wouldn’t be possible if I did have a job.

The first of those plans—to spend some time in a remote location meditating and writing—ended up lasting the best part of a year and a half thanks to the Covid pandemic. The second plan was to spend the summer of 2020 travelling overland from Turkey to China. I’d spent the winter researching routes and refreshing my Russian in anticipation of the trip. 2020 turned out to be a happy year for me in my splendid isolation but I did regret not making the trip and held out hope that I’d find another occasion.

 

This summer seemed to offer that opportunity. I have a new job that offers me security and an income. I’m early enough on the tenure clock that it won’t be a catastrophe for me if I’m less than superlatively productive this summer. Life has taken enough unexpected turns that I’ve learned that, if a window opens to do something you’d be sorry not to have done, you should make the most of it while you can.

 

The plan for this summer is a little different from my 2020 plan. I have less time and more work to do while I’m on the road. I’ve chosen to skip the Turkey leg of the trip since I now live in Turkey and can explore it at greater leisure. And geopolitical circumstances have forced me to cut Iran out of my itinerary. So the plan is roughly this: July in the Caucasus and August in Central Asia. We’ll see how it plays out in practice.

 

I realize I may be jinxing myself by calling this blog Eganistan when Central Asia is still nearly a month away. But, in case it appeases the imps of fate, I’m writing this first post in Armenia, which (I recently learned) is called Hayastan in the Armenian language. So one more Stan than I first imagined.

 

The trip actually started in Tbilisi and I’ve been on the road for a week and a half. I hadn’t originally planned to keep a blog. I have enough “work” writing to do that I didn’t want to add to the load. But I’ve found that impressions and reflections are piling up and I’d like some way to keep a record of them. And why keep a private diary when I can share the impressions and reflections with others?

So apologies if this is all a bit long-winded and self-indulgent. Thanks for reading if you’re doing that. And if you’d just like to skip the words and see the pretty pictures, I’ll share those periodically on Instagram and Facebook.