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| Version 1 | Version 2 |
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| Letter from Kyrgyzstan: oh nuts! | Letter from Kyrgyzstan: oh nuts! |
| (30 days later) | |
| Jolting along rutted dust paths, I wonder how old Otkirbek's Soviet jeep is. I ask his Dad. 1941. We're heading through the world's largest wild walnut wood in Arslanbob, and I'm planning to help Otkirbek harvest the family patch. He's bunking off school, but we pass one of his teachers, also gathering nuts. | Jolting along rutted dust paths, I wonder how old Otkirbek's Soviet jeep is. I ask his Dad. 1941. We're heading through the world's largest wild walnut wood in Arslanbob, and I'm planning to help Otkirbek harvest the family patch. He's bunking off school, but we pass one of his teachers, also gathering nuts. |
| There are bivouacs everywhere and whole families collecting nuts. We arrive at ours, a stick skeleton that is soon covered with a blanket and plastic sheeting, with fresh straw laid down inside. Outside, there's a mud stove that fits our cooking pot, and even a mud oven for baking bread, all surrounded by a fence to keep cows out. | There are bivouacs everywhere and whole families collecting nuts. We arrive at ours, a stick skeleton that is soon covered with a blanket and plastic sheeting, with fresh straw laid down inside. Outside, there's a mud stove that fits our cooking pot, and even a mud oven for baking bread, all surrounded by a fence to keep cows out. |
| The walnut trees vary enormously. There are younger trees planted in rows that have grown upright to dizzying heights, but it's the old trees that I like best. Pot-bellied, gnarled, twisted, bloated, bulbous and scarred, these are trees you suspect of sentience: trees more akin to Narnia or Middle-earth, and the kind that with your back turned might open an eye or move a limb. I wonder how they'll be tonight if I need to leave the bivouac for a midnight pee. | The walnut trees vary enormously. There are younger trees planted in rows that have grown upright to dizzying heights, but it's the old trees that I like best. Pot-bellied, gnarled, twisted, bloated, bulbous and scarred, these are trees you suspect of sentience: trees more akin to Narnia or Middle-earth, and the kind that with your back turned might open an eye or move a limb. I wonder how they'll be tonight if I need to leave the bivouac for a midnight pee. |
| There's the peaceful rustle of foraging cows and horses, interrupted by the vigorous shaking of branches by one of our neighbours. Each shake is accompanied by the clatter of falling nuts and the occasional squeal as his 10-year-old sister is hit. I watch with my heart in my mouth as Otkirbek shimmies effortlessly up a tree to the topmost branches 30 metres above, with no harness or protection. His brother fell three years ago and broke a leg. I dodge raining nuts below, most of them still in their husks, and have collected a bagful in no time. | There's the peaceful rustle of foraging cows and horses, interrupted by the vigorous shaking of branches by one of our neighbours. Each shake is accompanied by the clatter of falling nuts and the occasional squeal as his 10-year-old sister is hit. I watch with my heart in my mouth as Otkirbek shimmies effortlessly up a tree to the topmost branches 30 metres above, with no harness or protection. His brother fell three years ago and broke a leg. I dodge raining nuts below, most of them still in their husks, and have collected a bagful in no time. |
| We drag our sacks back to camp and start de-husking their contents. My hands are soon stained a murky green and, as we continue, my hands turn brown and then black. Alexander the Great's armies had discovered Arslanbob and their wounded soldiers had convalesced, enjoying plenty of rich game and these exotic new nuts. They brought nuts back home with them, introducing the walnut to Europe. | We drag our sacks back to camp and start de-husking their contents. My hands are soon stained a murky green and, as we continue, my hands turn brown and then black. Alexander the Great's armies had discovered Arslanbob and their wounded soldiers had convalesced, enjoying plenty of rich game and these exotic new nuts. They brought nuts back home with them, introducing the walnut to Europe. |
| Otkirbek will stay in the woods for another two weeks and his brother will come to keep him company, but I have to get back to work and cadge a lift on top of an even older jeep laden with wood. Otkirbek gives me a bag of walnuts as a gift, so I leave well laden, like Alexander's soldiers. | Otkirbek will stay in the woods for another two weeks and his brother will come to keep him company, but I have to get back to work and cadge a lift on top of an even older jeep laden with wood. Otkirbek gives me a bag of walnuts as a gift, so I leave well laden, like Alexander's soldiers. |
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