Taxi to Tashkent: Two Years with the
Peace Corps in Uzbekistan by Tom
Fleming
A Fascinating Journey
This is a police state This is a democracy This is rot-gut vodka This is $2
prostitutes This is Peace Corps This is good intentions This is Ramadan
This is loyalty This is power outages This is corruption This is the Silk
Route This is the former USSR This is Uzbekistan
Tom Fleming went to Uzbekistan as a forty year old Peace Corps
volunteer. He was a fish out of water, an infidel in a Muslim land, teaching
AIDS prevention and sex education in the most conservative region of
Central Asia.
With humor and poignancy Taxi to Tashkent portrays a land little known
in the West. Instead of a nation rife with Islamic extremists as portrayed in
the Western media, Fleming discovers a land of Korean discos, where blue

eyed Muslims listen to Shania Twain, and where shop owners break into
applause at the mention of America.
Fleming travels throughout Uzbekistan, from the ecological disaster site
of the Aral Sea, to the ancient Silk Route cities of Bukhara and
Samarkand. Taxi to Tashkent describes a little-known corner of the world
where nothing appears as it seems.
Personal Review: Taxi to Tashkent: Two Years with the Peace
Corps in Uzbekistan by Tom Fleming
"Taxi to Tashkent" dovetails over two growing genres of writing: Central
Asian studies and Peace Corps memoirs. Harboring vast potential for
interest, both genres are fast becoming cliche, even while not yet reaching
greater audiences. Such is the fate of niche writing. But here, Fleming
offers hope.
In general, books coming out of Central Asia are either chock-full of the
same regurgitated travelogues (Silk Road, Great Game, KGB, Taliban)
with which one quickly grows familiar. Or, they offer contemporary
observations of a troubled region with much to tempt the foreign investor
into dreaming and much to dissuade the international corporation from
acting. In other words, everyone wills himself a TH Lawrence. Fleming
doesn't waste our time with any such pontification.
Equally monotonous is the ever-expanding library of the returned volunteer
memoir, in which we witness as a young idealist slowly learns what 'dirty'
means while playing catch with village children. These are just modern
spins on "Innocents Abroad". Fleming also spares us from such repetition.
In "Taxi", we meet a volunteer who finds much to report around him, while
resisting the temptation to evaluate his observations for us. Fleming
doesn't feel the need to explain it all; he's comfortable with the ambiguity of
the surroundings. The reader will feel the same humorous, depressing
and frustrating reactions to life-as-fish-out-of-water as do many individuals
who have experienced life as an outsider. Further, Fleming doesn't fit in
with the average age demographics of volunteers (fresh out of college or
retired), so he's somewhat isolated even among his familiars.
Don't worry; you'll still gaze at Tamurlane's crumbling azure domes and the
shrunken Aral Sea. But your usual choice of arrogant or naive company
will have been replaced by a Toastmaster. It's like riding around with
Stephen Colbert out of character. If you want a shelf reference, keep
buying Central Asian studies. If you want neo-Victorian missionary diaries,
check out yet another returned volunteer memoir. However, if you want
hilarious and thoughtful reportage brought raw and unfiltered from two
years of awkward situations (a much more honest account of life since
globalization), grab "Taxi to Tashkent".

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